Page 33 of X-Ray in the Xanth (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #3)

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D oreen stared at the married couple, Meghan standing quietly just off to the side. Doreen added, “If you had something to do with this, we need to know.” She was hoping to solve a case that was easy for a change.

“No, you don’t,” the old man snapped, glaring at her. “We didn’t have anything to do with any of this. How could you even think that?” he cried out.

She sighed. Nope, this one didn’t appear to be headed toward easy at the moment.

The older couple stared at the grave and shook their heads. The wife said, “This wasn’t us. We don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t us.”

Doreen groaned. “If it wasn’t you guys, how come you know about it?”

“We didn’t know about it, but, as soon as you opened it, we worried that we might know,” the wife admitted. “Particularly when you mentioned he was so tall.”

“If it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t you,” she noted, looking at all three of them, “how come you all seem to know something?”

“No,” replied Meghan, despite telling Doreen that she wanted to talk now. “We don’t know. That’s the problem. You’re looking for answers, and we can’t help you.”

Doreen stared at her in frustration. “So why did you call me out here?”

“Because I wanted you to talk with us but not make accusations.”

“I’m not accusing anybody,” Doreen stated, trying hard to suppress a scream. “But you’re darn frustrating.”

“That’s because you’re trying to fit the crime to us, and we didn’t do it,” Meghan pointed out.

Doreen groaned because that was exactly what Mack would say she was doing. “Fine,” she muttered. “Who do you think did this?” When they all shook their heads in silence, she stared at them. “Not one of you is willing to give up a name?”

“That’s because we don’t know,” the wife said.

Doreen sighed. “You wouldn’t tell me even if you do know.”

“We don’t know,” Mr. Woodstock snapped.

Doreen nodded. “Fine,” she muttered, raising both hands. “But, if you do know, and I find out afterward that you knew, it won’t be helpful, and it will lead to obstruction of justice charges.”

“It was so long ago,” wailed the wife, trembling in the cold. “It could have been anything.”

“But it wasn’t anything,” Doreen declared, staring at her, “and you and I both know that.”

She nodded and shrugged. “Sure, but we didn’t know what was going on either.”

“So, why are you all walking around here as if you did something wrong then?”

They looked at each other and groaned. The wife added, “Because we did do something wrong, but it wasn’t to harm another person.”

“What do you mean?” Doreen asked, glaring at them. “What did you do wrong?”

The old man grumped, “We don’t need to tell you nothing.”

“No, you don’t,” Doreen agreed, “but this is a murder investigation. So, if you’re trying to withhold something from us, that’s a whole different story.”

“Are you acting in an official capacity?” the old man asked, glaring at her.

“Officially, no,” she stated, “but I’ve been called in to report to the captain this morning. Do you want me to tell him to tear apart your life in order to figure out why and what you’re hiding?”

Meghan looked at the older couple and suggested, “It can’t be that bad, so you should just tell her.”

Doreen snorted. “Oh, I don’t know how bad anything is because nobody is talking. So, for all I know, it is that bad.” She frowned at them. “But I can tell you this—it’ll be a whole lot worse if we don’t find out the truth from you three first.”

“You don’t know what the truth is. The truth is, nobody ever knows what the truth is,” the old guy replied cryptically.

Meghan spoke up. “Look. We all worked at the same home.”

Doreen nodded. “Ah, Sky Manor, where Eli was.”

The old man nodded. “Yes, way back when, different years, different generations even,” he noted, pointing at Meghan.

“There was nothing terribly wrong with Eli,” he shared. “I mean, obviously he had some issues with the brain tumor, but he wasn’t mentally incapacitated from birth. Still, obviously he’d had a lot of challenges.”

Meghan added, “He was a really nice young man.”

“Okay, so keep talking,” Doreen urged.

The wife interjected, “We don’t know what happened to him. He just up and disappeared one day.”

“And you didn’t report it?” Doreen asked.

The wife shrugged. “We heard that his father came and took him, and he went to the coast.”

Doreen frowned. “And yet you don’t seem to think that was the truth.”

The wife moaned. “We don’t know if it was the truth or not. We’re worried that it wasn’t the truth, particularly now that you found a body here.”

She nodded. “And I’m looking for Eli’s family. The Woodstocks, I believe.”

“We don’t know anything much of the family,” the old guy grumbled. “His mother came all the time, but I don’t know what happened to her either.”

“Right, but you do know that we just found a second body, right?”

He paled and started to shake. “No, no, no,” he yelled, throwing his hands around, flailing. “That wasn’t us.”

Doreen continued. “So far, we have two bodies, and we’re not exactly sure who is involved. What we do know is people are not talking.”

The old guy snapped, “Of course they are not talking. Not when you come in here and start accusing people.”

She stared at him. “I haven’t accused anybody. But if you want me to start, I’m happy to.”

He snorted. “Your type is all the same.”

“Hardly,” she declared. “I’m at least talking to you. You do know that, when the police come, they’ll step into your house with a warrant, and they’ll tear the house apart and then tear apart your life. And they’ll do the same with you.” Doreen pointed at his wife.

At that, Mrs. Woodstock cried out, “No, please, please, we don’t have much.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Doreen said, “but obviously you know something that you’re keeping secret.”

Mrs. Woodstock looked over at her husband, then back at Doreen and shared, “Look. What we did was wrong, but it wasn’t killing wrong.”

“Wrong, but not killing wrong?” Doreen repeated, as she assessed the three of them. “What did you do?”

Meghan said, “It probably doesn’t even mean anything, but chances are it would lead to this.”

“Yes, it would,” Doreen replied, getting frustrated. The animals wandered around, sniffing all around the old man. She looked down at Mugs and muttered, “Mugs, you’re not being terribly nice. Come over here.”

But Mugs wasn’t moving. He kept sniffing at the old man’s legs.

The old man glared at him. “Get that dog away from me,” he cried out. “Get him away.” And he started kicking at Mugs.

Mugs backed up so that he was at least out of kicking range, and then he sat and looked up at him.

The old man yelled, “I’m not staying here another minute. You tell her. I’m going home.” And, with that, he turned and stomped off. The trouble was, he was old and his stomping-off level was pretty anticlimactic.

Doreen watched him go, then turned back to the two women. “You want to explain that?”

“It’s your dog for one thing,” the wife pointed out. “He has a catheter bag, so the dog can probably smell it.”

“Of course,” Doreen said, looking down at Mugs regretfully. “That might not have been well done on your part,” she muttered to Mugs.

He just sat and looked up at Doreen.

The wife continued. “He is just a dog, but Welford is on his last legs. I know something’s been bothering him, but he won’t talk to me about it,” she complained. “So he just keeps getting more and more upset about this grave here.”

“I’m sure he is upset,” Doreen conceded, “but somebody needs to open up. You say that these dead bodies have nothing to do with you.”

“No, they don’t,” Mrs. Woodstock stated, “but I think he’s afraid he might know who it is.”

“Can you get him to talk to me about it, because Welford certainly won’t like it when the police come.”

“No, he won’t like that at all.” The wife sighed. “Can you give me an extra day, just to see if I can get him to open up?”

Doreen shook her head. “The police want answers today. Tomorrow is not likely.” Doreen turned to Meghan. “What about you? Do you know any more about this mess that’s going on?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

“So, what is it you were going to tell me about today?”

Meghan winced, nodded at the older woman, and replied, “I would point out that they might have had something to do with it.” When the old woman stared at her in shock, Meghan shrugged. “You’re always out here. You’re always haunting this place, as if it’s got the answers to some secret.”

The older woman flushed and admitted, “I told him that we shouldn’t be quite so obvious, but he wouldn’t listen, and he’s desperate.”

“Desperate for what?” Doreen asked.

Mrs. Woodstock groaned. “Supposedly somebody left a tin can out here, full of diamonds and jewels.”

Meghan stared at her. “That’s what you’re after?” she asked. “That’s just an old wives’ tale.”

Doreen looked from one to the other. “Hang on a minute. So you’re out here trying to find coins and jewels, and you had nothing to do with the murders?”

“No, we didn’t,” Mrs. Woodstock replied.

“So, why are you thinking you’re in trouble now?” Doreen asked.

The wife winced. “Because Welford thought a body could be here. He had a dog years ago, an old police dog. It kept signaling here, and Welford didn’t want to get involved. So we just didn’t do anything about it. So now that you’ve found the body, Welford’s afraid that he’ll get blamed.”

“Good God,” Doreen muttered, shaking her head at them. “So, you had nothing to do with any of this?”

“No,” Mrs. Woodstock cried out. “Honest. We didn’t.”

“Did you actually think treasure was buried here?” Doreen asked, incredulous.

“There was talk of treasure, and we’re broke,” Mrs. Woodstock shared. “Like, really broke. If we don’t come up with some funds soon, we’ll lose our home,” she explained. “It’s tearing my husband apart. He doesn’t have long to live, but he’s worried about me.”