Page 54 of The Body in the Backyard

“And I was doing my facial exercises so I don’t get wrinkles,” Bella added, demonstrating by scrunching her face like a prune.

“Okaaaaay,” Mabel said.

“Here we are again. You, me, and another dead body. I’m starting to think we’re cursed,” Riley whispered to Nick as he helped himself to a cup of coffee.

“Are you kidding? Thorn, if that DB turns out to be who I think it is, we just scored. Big time.”

She frowned. “Who is it?”

“I can’t be sure, but the back of his head looks a hell of a lot like Gentry.”

Riley instinctively looked out the window toward the fence. “Lyle Larstein?”

“Looks to me like the neighborhood sleep-deprived weirdo was cutting the power and managed to electrocute himself.”

“Hence the block of wood and the bolt cutter thingies,” Riley said.

“Exactly. He was at the top of our list of suspects, and he just did us the favor of taking himself out. This is what we call an open-and-shut case. You and I are gonna celebrate by hooking up that TV tonight, installing a dead bolt on our bedroom door, having sex, and then watching movies.”

“That sounds perfect. Maybe we could add paying some bills in there somewhere?” Riley suggested.

Weber stepped inside from the backyard, his no-nonsense footsteps echoing on the tile. He removed his latex gloves and pointed at them. “You two, with me,” he ordered.

“You two, with me,” Nick mimicked under his breath.

“Play nice,” Riley hissed.

“I don’t know how.”

They followed the detective out the glass doors and onto the patio.

“Why do I keep finding you at my crime scenes, Santiago?” Weber demanded, gesturing for them to sit down at the slate-topped table.

“If you were better at your job, maybe I wouldn’t get there first every time,” Nick shot back, pulling out a chair for Riley.

“Hey, maybe we could save the habitual pissing contest for later,” she suggested as she sat.

Nick took the chair next to her.

Weber took a look around them at the manicured lawn, the stone patio, and the unmissable twelve-foot-tall Griffin. Someone had taken the initiative to drape a blue tarp over the statue’s nether regions. He shook his head and pulled out a third chair.

“All right, you two. How do you just so happen to be on the scene of another unattended death?”

“Just lucky I guess,” Nick said.

“Do you want me to haul you down to an interrogation room?”

“Mrs. Penny was here with Griffin. She called us,” Riley said.

“What was an eighty-year-old troublemaker doing here, and why did she call you?”

“Don’t blame us for doing our jobs,” Nick snarled. “Gentry went to the cops first, and your boys in blue dismissed the threats.”

“The threat at the time was”—Weber paused to consult his notes—“a ‘mean note’ in his bedroom and a chest-waxing accident.”

“Well, maybe if you had taken it seriously, we wouldn’t be standing over a dead fucking body,” Nick said.

“Ididn’t take the report. I’m homicide.”