Just Over The Mountain by Robyn Carr

Author:Robyn Carr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2002-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

Twelve

The first blow came in the form of a headline. Bones Found on Novelist’s Property Likely Those of Long-Missing Husband. The newspaper was from San Jose and the byline belonged to one Paul Faraday. The word likely was true license; the number of years the bones had lain under the flower bush had not yet been determined.

But the article was a potentially damaging account of how Myrna Claypool’s husband, a man whose very roots appeared untraceable, disappeared without a trace and that Myrna never bothered to go looking for him. The article alleged that she killed him and buried him in pieces around her garden. And proceeded to spend years killing him off in her books.

The newspaper article had been faxed to Tom who had walked down to the clinic with it. From there, June spotted Elmer’s truck parked outside the café and they went immediately to Myrna’s.

Myrna wasn’t quite ready to be receiving. She was still in her dressing gown, her white hair flat on one side and springy on the other, a pencil behind one ear, a pen behind the other, her glasses dangling around her neck and her face all crepelike wrinkles from sleep. When she opened the door to find them standing there, she said, “Oh no, not again. Now what?”

“It’s those bones, Myrna,” Elmer said. “Let’s put on the teakettle.”

“Mercy, this is becoming very annoying,” she said, but she let them in. “It’s a good thing I’m a spontaneous person or I don’t think I’d have the humor for this. I’m barely awake and I haven’t read my paper or done my crossword or eaten my bran.”

“I’m afraid this might get worse before it gets better, Auntie,” June said. “This could be blown out of all proportion.”

In the time it took Myrna to read the faxed article, the kettle whistled and June had found muffins to warm and add to their breakfast tea.

Myrna sipped her tea daintily. “June, I don’t know who those bones belong to, but I can assure you, they do not belong to Morton.”

In total frustration and impatience, Elmer demanded, “And I would like to know once and for all how you are so certain of that!”

She inhaled sharply and pursed her lips. “If you speak to me in that tone again, I’ll simply ask you to leave. I’ve had about enough rudeness for one morning.”

Pleadingly then, “Myrna, how?”

“Very simple, Elmer. I’ve been digging in that garden for forty years and I have yet to come across a skeleton of any sort, and certainly not Morton’s.”

June reached across the breakfast table, took one of Myrna’s skinny hands in hers and said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but if any of this article is true, if Morton’s disappearance, past life or whereabouts can’t be traced, I imagine there will be an investigation. And with all the times you’ve killed off the philandering husband…”

“Now, June, I’m a writer. It’s what I do. I once wrote of a murdering doctor, but you and Elmer haven’t been under suspicion.

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