Real Murders

I disliked him, of course. He’d asked me out three times, and every time, feeling deeply ashamed of myself, I’d told him no. Even as desperate for a date as I was, I couldn’t stomach the thought of going out with Benjamin.

He’d tried a fundamentalist church, he’d tried coaching Little League, and now he was trying Real Murders.

I smiled at him falsely and damned the hamburger meat that had led me into his sight.

He hurried through the swinging door to the right of the meat. I steeled myself to be nice.

“The police came to my apartment last night,” he said breathlessly. “They wanted to know why I hadn’t come to the meeting.”

“What did you say?” I asked bluntly. The bloodstained apron was making me feel unwell. Suddenly hamburger seemed quite distasteful.

“Oh, I hated to miss your presentation,” he assured me, as if I’d been worried, “but I had something else I had to do.” Put that in your pipe and smoke it, his expression said. Benjamin’s words were as mild and apologetic and his voice was as abased as usual, but his face was another matter.

I looked inquiring and waited. Definitely not the hamburger. Maybe no red meat at all.

“I’m in politics,” Benjamin told me, his voice modest but his face triumphant.

“The mayoral race?” I guessed.

“Right. I’m helping out Morrison Pettigrue. I’m his campaign manager.” And Benjamin’s voice quivered with pride.

Whoever Morrison Pettigrue was, he was sure to lose. The name rang a faint bell, but I wasn’t willing to stand there waiting to recall what I knew.

“I wish you luck,” I said with as good a smile as I could scrape together.

“Would you like to go to a rally with me next week?”

My God, he wanted me to kick him in the face. That was the only explanation. I looked at him and thought, You pathetic person. Then I felt ashamed, of course, and that made me angry at myself, and him.

“No, Benjamin,” I said with finality. I could not offer an excuse. I did not want this to happen again.

“Okay,” he said, with martyrdom in his voice. “Well… I’ll be seeing you.” The hurt quivered dramatically just under his brave smile.

The old reply came to the tip of my tongue, and I bit it back. But as I wheeled my cart away, I whispered, “Not if I see you first.” As I slowed down to stare at the dog food bags, just so he wouldn’t look out the window and see me speeding away as fast as I could move, I realized there were a couple of funny things about our conversation.

He hadn’t asked any questions about last night. He hadn’t asked who had been at the meeting, he hadn’t said how strange it was that the only night he’d missed was the night something extraordinary happened. He hadn’t even asked how it felt to discover Mamie’s body, something everyone I’d seen today had been trying to ask me in roundabout ways.

I puzzled over it while I selected shampoo, and then decided not to worry about Benjamin Greer. Instead, I would get mad at the shelf stockers. Naturally, every kind of heavily sugared cereal based on a cartoon show was at my eye level, while cereal bought by grown-ups was stacked way above my head. I could reach them, but then the stockers had laid other boxes down on top of the row of upright boxes. If I pulled out the one I could reach, the others on top of it would come toppling down, making lots of noise and attracting lots of attention. You can tell I know from experience.

I turned sideways to maximize my stretch and stood on my tiptoes. No go. I was just going to have to switch brands or start eating cereal that tasted like bubble gum. That horrible thought galvanized me into another attempt.

“Here, young lady, let me get that for you,” said an unbearably patronizing voice from somewhere above me. A huge hand reached over my head, grasped the box easily, and like a crane lowered the box into my cart.

I gripped the cart handle as if it were my temper. I breathed out once deeply, and then in again. I slowly turned to face my benefactor. I looked up-and up-into a comically dismayed face topped by a thatch of longish red hair.

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,” said Robin Crusoe. Hazel eyes blinked at me anxiously from behind his wire-rims. “I thought-from the back, you know, you look about twelve. But certainly not from the front.”

He realized what he’d just said, and his eyes closed in horror.

I was beginning to enjoy this.

A fleeting image crossed my mind of us in an intimate situation, and I wondered if it would work at all. I couldn’t help it; I began to smile.

He smiled back, relieved, and I saw his charm instantly. He had a crooked smile, a little shy.

“I don’t think we should talk like this,” he said, indicating the difference in our heights. “Why don’t I come over after I get my groceries put up? You live right by me, I think you said last night? You make me want to pick you up so I can see you better.”

That so closely matched a certain image crossing my mind that I could feel my face turning red. “Please do come over. I’m sure you have a lot of questions after last night,” I said.

“That would be great. My place is in such a mess that I need a break from looking at boxes.”

“Okay, then. About an hour?”

“Sure, see you then-your name’s really Roe?”

“Short for Aurora,” I explained. “Aurora Teagarden.” He didn’t seem to think my name was unusual at all.

“Coffee? Soft drink? Orange juice?” I offered.

“Beer?” he countered.

“Wine.”

“Okay. I don’t usually drink at this hour, but if anything will drive you to drink, it’s moving.” Feeling naughty at having a drink before five in the afternoon, I filled two glasses and joined him in the living room. I sat in the same chair I’d taken that morning when Arthur had been there, and felt incredibly female and powerful at entertaining two men in my home on the same day.

Robin, like Arthur, was impressed with the room. “I hope mine looks half this good when I’ve finished unpacking. I have no talent at all for making things look nice.”

My friend Amina would have said I didn’t either. “Are you settled in?” I asked politely.

“I got my bed put together while the moving men were unloading the rest of the van, and I’ve hung my clothes in the closet. At least I had a chair for the detective to sit in this morning. They carried it in right as he walked to the door.”

“Arthur Smith?” I was surprised. He hadn’t told me he was going to interview Robin after he left my place. I’d shut the door assuming he’d get in his car and drive off. He must have left Robin’s apartment before I started spying out the front upstairs window.

“Yes, he was checking up on the way I happened to come to the club meeting-”

“How did you know about it?” I interrupted with intense curiosity.

“Well,” he said with reddening face, “when I went to the utility company, I got to talking with Lizanne, and when she found out I write mysteries, she remembered the club. Evidently you told her about it one time.” I hadn’t imagined Lizanne was listening. She’d looked, as usual, bored. “So Lizanne called John Queensland, who said Real Murders was meeting that very night and visitors could come, so I asked her…”

“Just wondered,” I said neutrally.

“That Sergeant Burns, he’s a grim kind of man,” Robin said thoughtfully. “And Detective Smith is no lightweight.”

“You didn’t even know Mamie, it’s out of the question you could be suspected.”

“Well, I guess I could have known her before. But I didn’t, and I think Smith believes that. But I bet he’ll check. That’s a guy I wouldn’t like to have on my trail.”

“Mamie wouldn’t have gotten there before 7:00,” I said thoughtfully. “And I have no alibi for 7:00 to 7:30. She had to meet the VFW president at the VFW Hall to get the key. And I think after every meeting she had to run by his house to return the key.”