Fetch a Pail of Murder

By Constance Barker

A Reading of a Will, A Decades Old Murder, and Ladies on a Mission

Clara and her friends, Ida May and Hazel, are no spring chickens, but that doesn't stop these gals from entering a world of deception, secrets and lies to find a killer. While the hunt has twists and turns, the girls never lose sight of their goal...to outwit the local Police Department and form their own sleuthing group...The We're Not Dead Yet Club.

Join the fun as this mismatched group of friends and their men cohorts search for clues and almost end up in the hoosegow and the local cemetery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Constance Barker
• Release date: Nov 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201361136

Constance Barker

Constance Barker lives in the Midwest with her husband and two Akitas where she can look out from her screened porch onto a wooded area brimming with activity. Since she was a young girl she read mysteries, often given to her by her grandmother. She loved figuring out who the culprit was and sometimes she was right and other times startled at who the author picked as the assailant. Now she enjoys writing mysteries herself. When she isn't writing stories, she can be found in her favorite vacation spot, Las Vegas or shopping for bargains.

Book preview

Chapter One – Magic in the Garden

W hy purple?

Hmmm?

Ida May blinked twice and slowly turned her head towards Hazel, flashing that coy smile that only Ida May knew how to create.

Why dye your hair purple? Hazel replied, staring down at a deck of cards in her hands. What’s it supposed to be anyway?

Ida May instinctively reached up to her hair and gently pushed up the tips, feeling the hair bounce as she released it.

"They call it the Waterfall Pixie look."

I don’t care what they call it. I still don’t think it’s an appropriate style for a funeral.

Ida May watched as Hazel’s fingers pawed ineffectively at the top card as she tried to pick it up. She tried three times to remove it from the top of the deck, but each time her elderly, frail hands failed to grasp hold of it.

Ida May smiled.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to be practicing your poker, either.

Hazel looked genuinely put out. In fact, her concentration was so stunted that she almost dropped the pack right there.

I am not practicing poker, she replied in that matter-of-fact way that was usually reserved for her weakest denials. If you must know I’m practicing my new hobby.

Building a card house?

There was that irritated look again.

No, she replied, trying again to remove the top card. I’m learning how to do card tricks.

I thought, for a moment, that Ida May might collapse and die right there. She stopped in the middle of the pathway, clutched at her chest and stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at Hazel. She even managed to make the wrinkles on her chin and cheeks disappear before she finally gave in and burst out into a great cackle of laughter.

Hazel lowered her round glasses until they perched awkwardly on the end of her nose and peered over the top of them at her friend. She didn’t look particularly amused, despite the best efforts of her garishly red-and-orange colored, badly knitted, homemade sweater.

And why is that funny?

Ida May paused for a moment, glanced back down at the deck of cards, and resumed her laughter.

The best card tricks are done by sleight of hand, careful card manipulation...

So?

Well, I hate to break it to you, Hazel, but you have about as much dexterity and nimbleness as a block of cement on a warm day.

Hazel’s eyes narrowed slightly. What’s Dexter got to do with it?

Ida May laughed again. In a quick movement, she reached forward and snatched the pack of cards out of Hazel’s hands.

Hey. I was...

She stopped and stared as Ida May cut the deck in half and skillfully flickered them back together. With the ease of a casino croupier, she fluttered the cards back and forth, occasionally allowing us a brief flash of the red and black faces on the other side. With her effortless demonstration completed, she flicked through the cards and snapped them back into Hazel’s hand.

Hazel stared down at the lifeless deck, almost as though she was attempting to fathom out some complex process, before slowly looking back up at Ida May.

I was in the middle of a trick, she muttered, a hint of disappointment lingering in her voice.

Never mind, Ida May shrugged. I don’t think we have that many years left in us to have waited for you to finish at any rate.

Hazel glanced back down at the deck. I wouldn’t have taken that long.

Oh? How long had that one taken you so far?

Hazel made to answer, but a glance at Ida May’s mischievous eyes warned her off. She turned her face away, pushed back her glasses and stared up towards a nearby spruce tree.

I’m not saying, she replied.

Ida May turned to me.

Clara?

I don’t usually get involved in Ida May’s little digs, but you have to admit she had a point. That being said, I did often feel sorry for Hazel and her attempts at keeping herself amused. Only last month, her brief attempt at mastering the art of chocolate making had resulted in her becoming the lucky owner of no less than fifteen molds, all of which contained chocolate caramels that so far seemed destined to spend the rest of their lives encased in molten plastic. That doesn’t even take account of the time when she tried her hand at gardening and successfully managed to topple Richard Wroxley’s prize-winning apple tree.

At least this hobby didn’t have the potential to damage anything, or lead her to a premature death.

I shrugged. A little while I guess.

Hazel span around and glared hard at me. You liar.

You asked me to pick a card two hours ago, I fired back. You haven’t managed to find it yet.

Yes. Well.

She struggled to find her words for a good few seconds before she finally decided better of arguing. In a slow – and rather deliberate – movement, she turned her back to me, folded her arms and let out a loud, "Humpf."

I tried not to make eye contact with Ida May, but I could feel her laughing all the same. With a sharp nudge of my elbow in her ribs, I announced:

But that’s all right because it’s only your first attempt.

Yeah, piped in Ida May. It takes practice, that’s all. The tip for a great trick is to know your target audience. For example, Hazel, say the name of a card – any card.

I never really know if Ida May is just a very good judge of character or whether she’s just naturally adept at peaking people’s curiosity. Either way, it only took a second or two before Hazel turned her head towards her and clearly announced:

‘Four of diamonds."

Four of diamonds, Ida May repeated. Are you sure of that?

Of course, I’m sure...

Alright, I just want you to be sure you’ve made a free choice.

Hazel’s curiosity had peaked.

Why?

Because the card at the top of your deck is the four of diamonds.

Get out of town.

I’m serious.

Hazel looked down at the deck, back up at Ida May and then back down to the cards again.

I don’t believe you.

Ida May shrugged:

Take the top card and find out.

Without another word, she turned her back and moved off down the path. I waited with Hazel, who stared curiously down at the cards, but when she didn’t move off again, I decided to join my other companion. When I caught up with Ida May, she had a wicked smile on her face:

That should keep her busy for the next two hours.

We wandered for a good half an hour. Hazel meandered back and forth across the width of the path as she struggled to remove the top card of the deck. Every so often Ida May would pause and look back at her, staring at her companion with small glint in her eye that told me that she’d never want to be accompanied by anyone else.

They’d known each other for a long while – so I gathered at least. They’d always come as a pair for as long as I’d known them – a good nine or ten years now. The first time I met them, they were sat in the corner of a coffee house playing draughts. Well, Ida May was playing draughts. God knows what Hazel was playing. She kept trying to jump the counters and scoot all across the board like she was playing chess and yet every so often she would pull off such a spectacular move that I was almost certain that she really knew what she was playing.

Ida May had gotten so angry with her, but Hazel never really seemed to care. That’s our Hazel – always lost in her own little world.

Ida May stopped and stared up at the house at the far end of the garden. With the sun behind it, Aunt Ruby’s old home looked almost gothic compared to the quaintness of her garden – almost like someone had plucked it right out an Alfred Hitchcock movie. The clear blue sky was reflected so vividly in the large windows that it looked to me almost like it was alive.

And yet it couldn’t be. It was as dead as Aunt Ruby.

Was she rich? Ida May asked, turning a coy eye towards me.

She wasn’t poor, I replied. Her first husband left her a reasonable amount in his will.

Ida May whistled. Very reasonable, from the look of it.

I laughed. Not really. It was only enough to last her a year or so. She made her money on the slots.

You’re kidding.

I shook my head. She spent three days in Vegas. Came back with something of a small fortune. She made the trip there every year since.

Clever woman.

Mad as a bike.

Just like someone else we know then.

I heard that.

Ida May chuckled as Hazel marched over towards us, her fingers still fiddling with the card deck. Ida May took a moment to look her up and down, her eyes lingering on the shabby knitted sweater. Dressed in her slim fitting black trousers and checkered velvet jacket, Ida May looked like something out of Vogue or such like – certainly more stylish that Hazel in her home-made attire. She reached into her Prada handbag and pulled out a small