peonies

Meredith opened her purse. It didn’t look like it usually did—everything was jumbled up—but her money and cards seemed to be there. Even a Kleenex with lipstick on it was there. Embarrassing. Thank God she was too old to have anything more embarrassing in there. She looked out the window to the sea. The boat was turning around to back into the slip. She looked at the peony bed, too. Points of red were just beginning to appear. Well, it wasn’t going to weed itself.  “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” her father used to say.

      Lately she’d come to doubt that pearl of wisdom. Some things could be close enough with no need to get all OCD about it. You could get a lot more done.

     The wheelbarrow must have transported the body. It had her and Bobby’s prints on it as well, of course. Any idiot murderer these days knew enough to wear gloves. But transported from where? And why to her yard? She considered the neighboring properties. Those new people with the appalling driveway. The spec house Greg was putting up. The Bakers, where Bobby had been shingling. Young Earl.

    And she thought about the bygone grievances and island grudges and wondered who would be angry enough with her to do something like this.