Funerals Can Be Murder (A Baby Boomer Mystery Book 5) Page 2

  I immediately regretted my harsh tone. I was lucky I wasn’t a widow like one of my best friends, Mary Alice. Or have a cheating husband like my very best friend, Nancy. Or married to a crashing bore, like my dear friend Claire.

  Lucy, who was snoozing in a corner of the master bedroom with her pal Ethel, raised her head and gave me a stare of her own. Which telegraphed loud and clear that I was being extra crabby and should give my poor husband a break. It wasn’t Jim’s fault if he thought he was at death’s door every time he caught a cold.

  After all, he was a man.

  I wanted to take my words back, but Jim didn’t give me a chance.

  “Fine, Carol. I won’t ask you for a thing. If I need anything, I’ll drag myself out of bed and get it for myself. I hope that’s all right with you.”

  He sniffed and coughed for extra emphasis, just in case I didn’t get his point.

  “I’m sorry for what I said, Jim. I really didn’t mean…”

  “I think it’s perfectly clear what you meant,” Jim snapped.

  “You’re overreacting,” I said, “which is something you often accuse me of doing.”

  Jim sneezed again and I handed him a tissue, then moved the waste basket closer to the bed so he wouldn’t litter our bedroom floor with used ones.

  I tried again to apologize. “You know how often I speak before I think,” I said.

  Silence.

  “I said I was sorry.”

  Then I had a brilliant idea. To change the subject.

  “What did you have planned today, honey? Anything I can help you with?”

  Jim gave a bark of laughter which ended in still another coughing fit. “Not likely, Carol. The lawn is looking pretty high. I was going to give it one more mow before the end of October, and then re-seed any bare spots I found. I can hardly see you doing that.”

  I stiffened. “Why not, Jim? You do some of the indoor chores”—which I never asked you to—”so it seems logical that I take over one of your outdoor chores while you’re sick. I only want to be helpful, the way you are to me.”

  Not.

  “There is no way I’m letting you lay one hand on my ride-around mower,” Jim said. “It’s very powerful, and you’ll probably end up crashing it into the picket fence.”

  Boy, did that make me mad!

  “Are you implying that I’m not a good driver, dear?” I asked as sweetly as I could manage under the circumstances. “As I recall, I’m not the Andrews family member who has enough traffic tickets to wallpaper the entire guest bathroom.”

  Jim closed his eyes. “End of discussion, Carol. I’m going to take a nap.”

  He opened one eye as I was about to leave him in some semblance of peace. “But I meant what I said. Don’t you dare touch my lawnmower!”

  Chapter 2

  I don’t know what’s wrong, but I’m positive it’s your fault.

  I don’t know about any of you, but one sure way to get me to do something is to order me not to do it. I can’t help myself. I guess it goes back to being raised as an only child by a widowed mother, who constantly peppered her vocabulary with verbs ending in “n’t” where I was concerned. You know the ones I mean, right? Don’t. Can’t. Shouldn’t. Couldn’t. Won’t. Wouldn’t. And on and on.

  By the time I married Jim, I’d broken out of my “n’t” phase and was deep into my rebellious phase. Which I’m still in, if I’m being honest.

  So I marched myself into the kitchen, muttering under my breath, and poured myself a cup of leftover breakfast coffee. Which was stale, and I ended up tossing it in the sink.

  Lucy and Ethel followed me into the kitchen and were now sitting, looking hopeful, by their respective food bowls.

  “Not now, kids,” I told them. “You just had breakfast a little while ago.”

  Ethel sighed deeply and padded across the kitchen to catch a snooze in her crate. She always listens to me.

  “Who does he think he is?” I demanded of Lucy, who continued to sit by her empty bowl. She does not give up easily where food is concerned. “Forbidding me to touch his precious lawnmower like I’m an infant.”

  Lucy gave me a hard stare. Maybe that’s because you’re acting like one. Swear to God, that’s what she told me.

  “Everybody’s a critic,” I said. “I bet you’d be on my side if I gave you a few Milk Bones.”

  “I’ll be on your side even without the Milk Bones,” came a familiar voice from the open kitchen window.

  Lucy ran to the door, stubby tail wagging, to greet another of her favorite humans, my BFF Nancy Green.

  “How long have you been eavesdropping outside my house?” I demanded, giving her a perfunctory hug. Even though Nancy and I have been best friends since our pre-puberty days, she has no idea how often I talk to Lucy and Ethel. And I planned to keep it that way.

  “Not long,” said Nancy. “I just stopped in between real estate open houses to check on you. We haven’t talked in one whole day, which is a record for us.”

  She settled herself in a kitchen chair and raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “So, what’s up? Why are you carrying on about a lawnmower, for heaven’s sake. I thought those chores were one of the main reasons why you’re still married to Jim.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say,” I said, pulling out a kitchen chair for myself. “Just because you and Bob are separated doesn’t mean you can pick on my husband.”

  See how I can change sides in an argument in the blink of an eye? It’s a gift. It’s fine for me to criticize Jim but nobody else—even the woman who was the maid of honor in our long-ago wedding—was allowed to do the same thing.

  Nancy looked embarrassed. “If anyone else but you said that to me, I’d probably smack her. But you’re right. I do have a jaundiced view of marriage these days. Even though Bob and I are currently dating. Which, I have to say, is working out very well.”

  Her face flushed, and since we’re both way past the hot-flash phase, I figured she was referring to an intimate part of her life that I really didn’t want to know about.

  I needn’t have worried about Nancy sharing intimate bedroom secrets, however. Before I had a chance to tell her about the forbidden lawnmower, she had her perfectly made-up face in my refrigerator, rummaging around to see what she could snack on.

  “Is this all you’ve got to eat?” Nancy asked, waving an apple that had seen better days in my direction.

  “Honestly, Nancy,” I said, grabbing the apple and steering her back toward the table. “You are becoming a snack-a-holic. I don’t know how you stay so slim.”

  I scouted around in the back of the freezer and came up with a half gallon of mocha chip ice cream. Which probably had freezer burn, but what the heck. I spooned a single teaspoon into a cereal bowl and offered it to Nancy. “Here. This is the best I can do on such short notice. Since I didn’t know you were coming. And that you’d be hungry and demanding a snack.”

  Nancy pushed the bowl toward me. “Just looking at the ice cream did the trick. I’m not hungry any more. You eat it.”

  “Boy, are you weird,” I said, grabbing the bowl and heading toward the sink. “I don’t want it. It’s only nine o’clock in the morning. Even I can’t eat ice cream this early.”

  Then, I paused. “Maybe Jim has a sore throat. This might help him feel a little better.” I looked at the dish of ice cream again and realized it was way past its prime. Kind of like me. So I dumped it.

  “Is Jim sick?” Nancy asked. “Is that what you were talking to Lucy and Ethel about? And what’s that got to do with mowing the lawn?”

  “I suppose I’m overreacting,” I said.

  “To Jim being sick? I’m not following you.”

  “Jim has a cold,” I explained. “Although, to listen to him, you’d think he had a terminal disease.

  “Not that I want him to hav
e a terminal disease,” I hastened to explain. “It’s just that, when he’s sick, he’s a real baby. And I wasn’t sympathetic. In fact, I snapped at him.”

  Nancy patted my hand. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you, sweetie,” she said. “Jim is no different than most other men. If they were the ones to bear the children, human procreation would grind to a complete halt.”

  I laughed. “Perish the thought. But I was mean, and then I felt terrible about it. So I volunteered to mow the lawn today, to make him feel better. And he jumped down my throat. He actually forbade me to touch his precious riding mower. Can you imagine? And this from a man who’s spent most of his post-retirement life micromanaging all the jobs I’ve been doing around the house for years.”

  I was fuming, remembering the conversation. “He treated me like I was a child instead of his wife. And I was only trying to help. The big jerk.”

  “It’s a riding mower?” Nancy asked. “One of those super big jobs?”

  “Well, it’s not a farm tractor,” I said. “But it is big.”

  “Maybe Jim is right,” Nancy said. “Your driving skills aren’t always the greatest. After all, you did have to take the road test three times when we were seniors in high school before you passed it.”

  Now, this really frosted me. Nancy has never met a speed limit that she didn’t feel was merely a “suggestion” and genuflects at stop signs instead of stopping. Plus, her parallel parking skills are nonexistent.

  However, magnanimous person that I am, I chose to ignore her. Instead, I made a show of looking at my watch, then said, “Do you have any more open houses to go to, Nancy?”

  “Oops,” she squealed, “I must fly. Promise me you won’t get into any trouble today!”

  “Bye, Nancy,” I said, propelling her toward the door. “Happy Open Houses.” And I resisted slamming the door after her.

  I can act like a mature adult when I put my mind to it.

  Chapter 3

  Home is where the dogs are.

  “Don’t get into any trouble! Is that an appropriate way for my very best friend in the whole world to talk to me? Nancy’s as bad as Jim,” I fumed to Lucy.

  My canine housemate gave me a soulful look, making it clear once again—in case I had forgotten—that she and Ethel were my Very Best Friends.

  I leaned down and gave her a quick scratch under her chin. “Sorry, Lucy. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I meant that Nancy is my very best human friend.”

  I always stay on Lucy and Ethel’s good side. The dogs are in the car with me a lot, and have witnessed a few of my driving “adventures.” I didn’t need any criticism from them, too.

  “I am a good driver,” I insisted aloud. “And I’m positive I can handle the riding mower, no matter what Jim and Nancy say. But first, I have to figure out how to turn the darn thing on. I wonder if it came with an instruction book.”

  We have a drawer in our kitchen for instruction manuals belonging to every appliance we’ve bought since we’ve been married. I’ve tried to throw out the manuals that are for stuff we’ve gotten rid of—old dishwashers, stoves, microwaves—but Jim insists on keeping them all. “You never know when we might need that, Carol,” he’ll say, grabbing the instruction book and stuffing it back into the drawer.

  Beats me why he’s so insistent, but I try to pick my marital battles. This is one I’m willing to let him think he’s won.

  Of course, there was no helpful how-to guide for the riding mower in the kitchen drawer. And I didn’t even know what brand it was.

  Rats. It might be time for me to make the trek to Jim’s garage—one of his sacred spaces—and check out the mower for myself.

  But first, I snuck a peek in the bedroom to check on My Beloved. He was snoring like a chain saw.

  Excellent.

  As I turned to tiptoe out of the bedroom, I tripped over some manila folders, piled haphazardly near the bed. That’s Jim filing system. So to speak. And when the pile is high enough, he stuffs them into a drawer in the office. He’s fanatical about saving receipts and bank statements. I think he has one for the very first car we ever bought, back in the 1970s.

  Hmm.

  In a flash of brilliance that impressed even me, I realized that Jim must have saved the receipt for his precious riding mower. And it could be buried somewhere in what I laughingly call the family filing cabinet.

  Tripping over that folder was a sign from above. I was sure of it. I would find the receipt, which must have the brand of the mower on it. Once I had the manufacturer’s name, I was betting I could find an online crash course on how to operate the machine.

  As things turned out, that was a prophetic choice of words.

  Humming one of my all-time favorite songs, “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” from Annie Get Your Gun—a Broadway musical from the 1950s in case you didn’t know that—I logged onto the cyber superhighway and Googled Husqvarna riding mower. Honest to goodness, I’d never seen a “q” that wasn’t followed by a “u.” Those lawnmower manufacturers knew nothing about proper spelling.

  In a flash, I had the user manual on the screen. Which, as far as I was concerned, resembled reading the Odyssey in the original Greek. Not that I ever did that, understand. I’m making a point here, so don’t take me literally.

  Here are a few of the highlights, along with some additional comments from me:

  MOWER OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS

  * Read, understand, and follow all instructions on the machine and in the manual before starting. Okay, I’ll give it my best shot.

  * Do not put hands or feet near rotating parts or under the machine. Keep clear of the discharge opening at all times. Unfortunately, I have no idea where the discharge opening is, but this sounds like a good idea.

  * Only allow responsible adults, who are familiar with the instructions, to operate the machine. This could be a problem. I’ve never been accused of being a responsible adult.

  * Be sure the area is clear of bystanders before operating. Stop machine if anyone enters the area. So I guess mowing for an audience of adoring fans is out of the question. Too bad. I love applause.

  * Never carry passengers. This means you, Lucy and Ethel! So no trying to jump on my lap.

  * Do not mow in reverse unless absolutely necessary. Trust me, this will never become absolutely necessary.

  * Always look down and behind you before and while backing up. See previous comment.

  * Material may ricochet back toward the operator. Oh no!

  * Stop the blades when crossing gravel surfaces. How does a person stop the blades? More information would be very helpful here! Perhaps I should e-mail the manufacturer and suggest that.

  SAFETY RULES

  Safe Operation Practices for Ride-On Mowers

  DANGER: THIS CUTTING MACHINE IS CAPABLE OF AMPUTATING HANDS AND FEET AND THROWING OBJECTS. FAILURE TO OBSERVE THE FOLLOWING SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS COULD RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH. Good gracious. Am I sure I want to do this???

  WARNING: In order to prevent accidental starting when setting up, transporting, adjusting or making repairs, always disconnect spark plug wire and place wire where it cannot contact spark plug. I have no idea where this is. Or what it is.

  WARNING: Do not coast down a hill in neutral; you may lose control of the mower. This is a joke, right? I’m now terrified I’ll lose control of the mower on level ground.

  WARNING: Engine exhaust, some of its constituents, and certain vehicle components contain or emit chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. Fortunately, I am way past childbearing years and I live in Connecticut, so this one doesn’t freak me out like some of the other warnings do. Or maybe the State of California is smarter than the State of Connecticut. Hmm. I wonder what other things California knows that Connecticut doesn’t.

 
* Slow down before turning. This is assuming I have the courage to turn the mower on in the first place.

  * Never leave a running machine unattended. Always turn off blades, set parking brake, stop engine, and remove keys before dismounting. See previous comment.

  * Operate machine only in daylight or good artificial light. This makes sense to me. I don’t see that well in the dark, anyway.

  * Do not operate the machine while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Too bad. I was thinking of having a small glass of chardonnay before I started this little adventure. I guess that’s out.

  * Watch for traffic when operating near or crossing roadways. I have no intention of driving the mower in traffic, so I’m going to ignore this one.

  * Data indicates that operators, age sixty years and above, are involved in a large percentage of riding mower-related injuries. These operators should evaluate their ability to operate the riding mower safely enough to protect themselves and others from serious injury. I wonder if AARP has an online course in this. Could this be age discrimination?

  * Do not try to stabilize the machine by putting your foot on the ground. I never even considered this!

  Well, I’m not going to lie to you. After reading through the riding mower operating manual, I was ready to chicken out.

  This was a lot harder than separating the whites from the colored laundry, a steep learning curve for Jim that he has yet to ace to my complete satisfaction. And more dangerous, too.

  No way was I going to take my life in my hands to prove a point. I did want to live long enough to see and hold my grandchildren—which I was planning on having someday in the (near) future. Not that I ever put pressure on my recently married daughter Jenny and her husband Mark, or my possibly married son Mike. And I did want to have two arms/hands to cuddle said grandchildren, and two legs/feet to walk the floor with them whenever they were fussy.