Blessed Is the Busybody by Emilie Richards Read Free Book Online

bathroom. There was another smaller room off of it with no hallway entry, which might well have been intended as a nursery or, perhaps, a study. The smaller room was lined with windows overlooking the spacious backyard. When the larger room revealed nothing extraordinary, I strolled into the smaller one.
    The windows were filmed by grime, except for one which looked as if it had been recently washed. Very recently. The room smelled like Windex. “Lucy?”
    Lucy was testing the plumbing in the bathroom. I heard the toilet flush. I strolled closer to the window, searching every inch of floor as I moved. The floor slanted just enough that an office chair would not be a good idea here. Gravity would always win.
    The floor seemed cleaner beneath the window. I stooped and ran my finger along floorboards. My fingertip came up clean. Not so a few feet away where a fine dust coated it immediately.
    I backed away, trying to judge how large an area had been washed. The wall might be cleaner under the windows, too, although I wasn’t sure. The institutional green paint was old and faded.
    “Lucy?”
    This time she joined me. “Find something?”
    I showed her. She frowned, studying the area. “What, maybe four feet by four feet of the floor? A window. And I think you’re right about the wall under the window, too.”
    “Why would anybody clean this one area only, unless they were trying to erase signs of something?”
    I knelt, then carefully and thoroughly I began to sweep my palms over the floor. Inch by inch. I saved fingertips for the cracks between boards. One crack that was larger than the others was still damp where water had pooled and hadn’t yet evaporated. We hadn’t been wrong.
    “And the listing agent claimed that no one was here this morning?” I said.
    “Aggie, Sarah would have an orgasm if she could get a cleaning crew in here. She’d still be bragging about her powers of persuasion.”
    I scooted back on my haunches and felt the next section. “Well, someone cleaned up for free. It’s still damp.” I continued my search, moving slowly toward the window. I could feel the slant of the floor as I moved closer. I pitched forward slightly. Another sweep and I was nearly at the wall.
    I’m not sure I would have seen the glint of gold if I hadn’t been so close. I know I wouldn’t have felt anything out of the ordinary. But summer sunshine flooded the floor just in front of me, and caught the object wedged low between the wall and floorboards. It was so tiny I could see why our mysterious Mr. Clean had missed it.
    “Look.” I knelt and leaned forward. “Do you have a tissue?”
    Lucy rummaged through the purse of all purses and handed me one that was still neatly folded.
    I used it to dig for the object. When I was finished, I held it out to her.
    “An earring?” I was disappointed. I had hoped for something more exciting. The object was shaped like a crescent moon, with a large gold ball on one end. The other end appeared to be threaded and the wire was thicker than I’d expected.
    Lucy leaned closer. “That never saw an earlobe. Haven’t you ever thought about piercing some more interesting part of your anatomy?”
    I looked up. “Like?”
    “Nipples? Belly button? Something only Ed would see?”
    I had witnessed the hole in Jennifer Marina’s nose and the multiple holes in the cartilage of her ear. I had missed the tattoo and body piercing craze by a number of years, and for this I have always been grateful. We had been about the same age, the poor dead woman and I, but Jennifer hadn’t let age stop her from pursuit of fashion.
    “It’s called a barbell,” Lucy explained. “My little sister has one in her right nostril, only hers is straight. This is the kind that goes in other places. Maybe just an eyebrow if the wearer isn’t too daring, or maybe genitals. They pierce things now that our mothers didn’t even have names for.”
    I got to my feet, still holding the barbell on Lucy’s