Grave Robber for Hire by Cassandra L. Shaw

neroli scented gel wash then did it all over again. I dried my hair, smelt it and my arm. Good, now I reeked of orange blossoms, much sexier than mix-species feces. I dashed naked into my room and found flared sixties jeans, a green camisole and a white crochet top.
    I walked to the kitchen, found a frozen ice brick and stuck it on my head. “You didn’t see me near naked the other night and nor did you see my boob this afternoon.” I took the mug of coffee he passed me and ignored his smirk.
    “I could tell myself that, but then I’d be forgetting the best thing I’ve seen in years.” He sipped his coffee, stared at my bust and breathed in deep and closed his eyes. “Roses, you always smell of roses.”
    “My soap and shampoo are orange blossom scent not rose.”
    He leaned in close and sniffed, “Nope, rose.”
    I sniffed my arm and scowled. I did smell of roses. How does one strong and very different scent molecularly change to smell of another? “That’s weird.” I sipped the coffee and sighed. My life always bordering the line between normal and odd seemed to be tipping odd side down.
    “Thanks for the coffee, why are you here?”
    “Came for the mud wrestling, I’ve been told the chicks are hot.”
    I glared, flared my nostrils, and imagined kicking his shin.
    “Okay grumpy. I found out something about Clyde’s past in England and thought I’d drive over and share. Tell me, no more dead birds or flowers?”
    “No. Hopefully the pigeon was the last.” I pulled out the red chair and sat.
    Tyreal selected the navy blue one. “None of these chairs match in color or style.”
    “Or era. As my aunt found one she liked at a yard sale, she’d bring it home and paint it a new color. Under the paint of the one you’re sitting on is English Oak and its three hundred years old. The one I’m in is Cedar. My great-great grandfather felled the tree and made the chair for his wife. The yellow chair is cane and about a hundred and fifty years old, etc. etc.”
    I tapped the eight seat table. “Walnut under the hippy turquoise paint. Three hundred years old, estimated value twelve grand even though she painted over the walnut. The lilac chair she found at the dump, its pine worth five dollars, was her favorite.”
    Tyreal stared at the table. “She painted over an antique table?”
    “Nothing held monetary value to her. She said color made her feel alive, and there was nobody more alive than Aunty Glynnis.” She’d tipped the scales into eccentric insanity long before I knew her, but insane or not, she certainly lived. “So what’s the news from old mother England?”
    “Mixed bag. Ten months before Clyde Jones and wife left for Australia, Amelia’s father died a brutal death. A week later her brother hung himself which left Amelia the sole beneficiary of both estates.”
    “Was the brother heartbroken over his father’s murder?”
    “Doubtful. Ton gossip news sheets said they’d been estranged for five years. Suddenly Amelia’s a very wealthy heiress and Clyde puts everything on the market. The twelve months the Jones’ were married before they immigrated to our great land, they lived at her deceased grandmother’s estate. In that year, three prostitutes in the local market town were murdered. Two stabbed in the back multiple times, one had her neck slashed.”
    My chest felt like was had been stuffed with cotton balls. “Jesus. It has to be him. I wonder how many he killed over the years?”
    “Gossip linked him to fancying boys as much as women. And when frequenting clubs, he played rough. Sicko-rough. The prostitutes often needed a couple of weeks or more for recovery.”
    I pulled my horrified face while my inner over the fence gossiper wanted details. “Who had this info?”
    “Amelia’s second cousin, a barrister, had a thing for detective work. I can’t get his journals for you to read, but the guy who has them is willing to scan all references of Clyde Owen Jones and Amelia. Her