Eine Kleine Murder by Kaye George

mention of a court battle brought my nausea back full force. I longed for Gram’s homemade chicken soup, and her gentle touch to accompany it. Foul tasting bile rose in my throat. Those rotten boys! Would they ever be done tormenting me? One thing I knew, they would not get the cabin. It was mine.
    Al Harmon’s boat had gone around the bend ahead of me, out of sight.
    I considered, again, who could have killed the women. Mo was my prime suspect. But what did I know about the rest of the Toombses, really? Only what the Harmons, Eve, and Sheila had related. Gram had said little about the Toombses. Al Harmon was harassed by him and Sheila Weldon also felt he didn’t treat her right.
    I jumped and my hand knocked an oar into the water when, just as I was thinking about him, Toombs’s nasal tones came ringing across the water in a loud, clear whine. How creepy.
    â€œAnd who do you think is in charge around here? This place is run on a schedule, damn it! And I make the schedule.”
    His voice sounded like an oboe played by a drunken beginner. Also a little like Mo, when he had yelled at Rachel and Rebecca. At a higher pitch, but with the same anger.
    I recovered the oar, still in its oarlock, and peered at the shore, looking for Toombs. My gaze traveled to the top of the rise.
    Toombs and Sheila Weldon stood in the road by the Weldons’ trailer. It was quite a distance, but from their elevation, and with no growth of trees in the way, the sound carried across the water. They were two tiny silhouetted figures from where I sat, but I easily identified them both. The voice of the one was unmistakably Toombs’s, and the rotund shape of the other was just as decidedly Sheila’s. I probably imagined I could smell her little brown cigar.
    Poor woman. Was everyone here a victim of this imbecile? I clenched my eyes to shut out an unbidden vision of Len’s fist just before it smashed into my face.
    â€œYou women are all, are all ruled by hormones, or, or the phrases of the moon, or something. You can’t unnerstan a simple sss, schedule.” He was still shouting, and slurring his words. Phrases of the moon? More self-education. I wanted to belt him one, like I hadn’t been able to hit back at Len.
    Sheila spoke in lower tones and I couldn’t make out her words. I saw him stagger and heard his answer, though.
    â€œI don’t care how wet it is! That hill gets mowed today! You’re not gonna get your feet wet sittin’ on the tractor. Just… Just mow the, the damn grass!”
    He wheeled, lurched, then stalked away. Sheila’s stout figure slumped a bit, then she slowly lumbered over the crest of the hill, out of sight.

Chapter 16
    Subito: Suddenly, without pause (Ital.)
    It was time to resume rowing, to get as far away from these people as I could. I pulled and clanked until the boat bumped the other shore. In spite of my haste to cross the lake I had drifted toward the dam, almost right onto it, so I turned my craft and headed away, hugging the northern shore. Turning awakened more queasiness, but I wanted to make sure Al Harmon wouldn’t see me from his boat. There was no sense in digging at his wound unless it became necessary.
    When I rounded the bend, he was no longer on the lake. His boat was moored across the water, beyond the beach. I nosed into the shore on my side of the lake, grabbed a protruding tree root, and pulled myself onto the mud bank in the shade of a tremendous old oak. An exposed series of rough tree roots made a crude but useable stairway. I looped the boat’s rope around one of the roots and straightened up. A cold tremolo ran up my spine. This was, as near as I could tell, the spot where I had found the two bodies. I didn’t want to be here, but I had to see if there were any signs left by a killer.
    It was too cool a morning for swimming. Not surprisingly, no one was on the beach across the lake, giving me total privacy. It