This will be a rather longish tale. It’s one I started back in October 2014. For various reasons, I laid it aside and forgot it. I hope you’ll finally enjoy the conclusion. Happy reading!

Flies swarmed lazily around the crumpled body lying on the kitchen floor. Shards of a broken mug and the stains of dried coffee were scattered about on the otherwise immaculately clean white tiles. A fair-sized pool of coagulated blood surrounded his head like a hellish halo, and his green eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

Marie Dawson cleaned Arville Rainwater’s house every Friday. She let herself in the front door with the key Arville had given her nearly sixteen years earlier and set about tidying the living room before heading upstairs to do the bedroom and bathroom and get the laundry started.

Marie always suspected Arville kept her on because he was well aware of her financial circumstances. Things were tight since her husband died in Vietnam, and the pittance of a pension she received as his widow wasn’t enough to keep body and soul together. She had taken the job of housekeeper a few months after Arville’s wife was killed in a tragic accident at Knighten’s Crossroads. Arville was naturally neat and needed a housekeeper like a pig needs lipstick, but he kept her on nonetheless. He used the excuse that he just didn’t want to be bothered with all the stuff and nonsense of running a house. He had a hardware store on Ladiga Street that kept him busy, and when he threw his hat in the ring for the mayor’s job and won it, he was left with even less time than ever.

With the wash going and the upstairs rooms finished, Marie trundled herself down the stairs, humming some song she couldn’t remember the title of and thinking ahead of the other houses she would clean today. She hoped she would be home early tonight. Her grandson had promised to come by with his friend and take her out to dinner. She wanted to look extra special when she was out with them.

Marie is not a screamer. Never has been. That fact didn’t prevent a low moan in her throat as she gazed on the unexpected vision of Arville lying in a pool of his own blood. Her meaty hand grasped the door jamb in an effort to maintain her balance. She instinctively started toward the body but stopped short. She watched enough CSI to know she shouldn’t contaminate a crime scene.

“911, what is your emergency?” answered the flat voice that sounded as lifeless as Arville looked. “This is Marie Dawson. I’m at Arville Rainwater’s house, and he’s dead as a hammer on his kitchen floor. Get someone over here right away!” Knowing there would be a rain of questions, Marie went out to the front porch and sat on the swing, wishing she had a glass of iced tea to calm herself. After about 5 endless minutes, she heard the first siren coming from the direction of the Huddle House café a few blocks away. The sound gave her a sense of calmness, knowing help was on the way.

Officer Pat Minshew was the first on the scene. She leapt from the car and ran toward Marie. “Where’s the mayor?” “Are you sure he’s dead?”

“He’s in the kitchen; I reckon I’ve seen enough death in my time to know he’s gone on to his reward, Pat.” Marie worked part-time as a Nurses Aide at the hospital before they closed it down. She had, in fact, seen much death on her weekend shifts.

More officers arrived, and yellow “Crime Scene” tape was strung around Arville’s house and yards. The place was abuzz with activity. Marie couldn’t help getting the feeling that, although all the police officers were busily running around and looking self-important, that none of them really knew what they were doing. It wasn’t like CSI. None of these people seemed to know about DNA and trace evidence and such-like. The coroner, Sam O’Brien, came to pronounce him dead and allowed the death was probably from natural causes. The blood pooled on the floor was caused by a blow to the table edge on his way down. “Probably a heart attack,” Sam allowed.

As she made her way down the two blocks to her house, Marie was certain the coroner and police had missed something. Arville was healthy as a horse and took good care of himself. His last physical exam, not more than 4 months earlier, had shown him to be in peak condition. She sure hoped that critical evidence wasn’t about to be dropped into a hole in Highland Cemetery…

*****

The coroner’s verdict of “natural causes” sat in Marie’s gut like a spoilt deviled egg. She watched from her own tidy front porch as the flurry of activity at Arville’s house gradually subsided, replaced by a quiet that felt wrong. Sam O’Brien, who doubled as the town’s only funeral director, had a vested interest in things being neat and simple. A heart attack was neat. A blow from a table edge on the way down was simple.

But Arville Rainwater was a man of routine. He was neat. He wouldn’t have left a broken mug on his floor. He would have cleaned it up, even with his dying breath. That mess was… un-Arville.

Her grandson, Jimmy, and his friend Ben arrived just after six, their faces full of youthful concern. The news was already all over town.

“Mawmaw, are you okay?” Jimmy asked, enveloping her in a hug. “Mama said you found him.”

“I’m fine, baby. Just a little shook up,” Marie said, patting his back. Over his shoulder, she saw Ben, a sharp, quiet young man who was studying forensic science at Jacksonville State, looking thoughtfully toward the mayor’s house.

At dinner, Marie picked at her catfish platter. “They’re saying it was a heart attack,” Jimmy said, trying to fill the silence.

Ben wiped his mouth. “Did they say that, Ms. Marie? Or is that just what everyone’s assuming?”

Marie looked at him, a spark of recognition in her eyes. Here was someone who thought like she did. “The coroner said it was ‘probable.’ Sam O’Brien wouldn’t know a murder weapon if it bit him on the behind. He’s too busy measuring Arville for a casket.”

“What did you see?” Ben asked, his voice low and serious.

Marie closed her eyes, picturing the scene. “He was on his back. Blood under his head, a fair amount. But…” She trailed off, frowning. “There was coffee spilled. A broken mug. White ceramic, I think. Arville drank his coffee black, first thing in the morning. But I got there at 10:30. That coffee would have been stone cold, but the pot… I don’t remember if the pot was on the warmer.”

Ben leaned forward. “The broken mug. Where were the pieces?”

Marie’s eyes snapped open. “That’s it. They were… they were scattered between the table and the sink. Like it had been dropped, or knocked out of someone’s hand.”

“A struggle,” Ben said quietly.

“But Pat Minshew and the rest, they just saw an old man on the floor and assumed,” Marie sighed. “They’re about to bury the truth in that hole right next to his wife.”

Ben was silent for a moment. “Ms. Marie, do you have a computer?”

The next few hours were spent in Marie’s small, orderly living room. Ben, with Jimmy looking over his shoulder, pulled up articles on blunt force trauma, blood spatter patterns, and time of death. None of it was conclusive, but it all pointed to one thing: the official story was too clean.

The following morning, Marie Dawson did something she’d never done before: she went to the hardware store on Ladiga Street. Arville’s store. His nephew, a weasel of a man named Leo, was now behind the counter, already acting like he owned the place.

“Morning, Marie,” Leo said, not sounding particularly sad. “Terrible business, huh?”

“Just terrible,” Marie agreed, her voice dripping with a sweetness she didn’t feel. “I’m just here to collect my last week’s pay. Arville always kept the petty cash in this old metal box.”

Leo shrugged, gesturing toward the back office. “Help yourself. It’s all a mess in there now.”

It was a mess. Drawers were pulled out; papers were strewn about. It looked less like grief and more like someone had been searching for something. Marie found the metal box, empty, under a pile of invoices. She sighed, playing her part. But her eyes were scanning the room. On the floor, half-under the desk, was a crumpled invoice from a locksmith in Anniston, dated two days ago.

Why would Arville need a locksmith? He was a hardware store owner; he had a thousand keys and the tools to make a thousand more.

Her heart started to beat a little faster. She thought of the broken white mug. She thought of Arville’s wife, dead at Knighten’s Crossroads all those years ago. A tragic accident, everyone said. Just like this was a tragic heart attack.

As she left the store, a new, chilling thought settled over her. What if Arville hadn’t kept her on all these years out of pity? What if he’d kept her because she was quiet, dependable, and utterly invisible to the powerful people in this town? What if he’d felt something dark closing in on him?

Marie walked home, her mind racing faster than her feet. They might be ready to drop Arville Rainwater into a hole in the ground, but they weren’t going to drop the truth with him. Not if she had anything to say about it. She had a locksmith in Anniston to call, and a feeling in her bones that this was only the beginning.

The locksmith in Anniston, a man named Dale with a voice like grinding gravel, was surprisingly helpful once Marie invoked Arville’s name.

“Yeah, I remember Mr. Rainwater,” Dale said. “Came in here hisself, middle of the day. Didn’t want a new lock, though. Wanted a specific key copied. Said it was an old one, tricky. Had to do it by hand.”

Marie’s grip tightened on her kitchen phone cord. “Did he say what it was for?”

“Nope. But he was antsy. Looked over his shoulder a couple of times. Paid in cash. Funny, for a mayor.”

“Do you remember what the key looked like?”

“Lady, I see a hundred keys a day. But this one… it was small. Old-fashioned. Like for a padlock or a diary. Had three distinctive little grooves on the bow. Told him it was a peculiar one. He just said, ‘It opens something I’ve forgotten about.’ Seemed sad.”

***

Something he’d forgotten about. The phrase echoed in Marie’s mind long after she’d hung up. She thought of Arville’s house, so neat and orderly. There was no forgotten anything in that house. She’d have found it.

That evening, Ben and Jimmy came over, bearing a pizza and a shared look of determination. Marie told them about the key.

“A diary?” Jimmy suggested, already looking bored with the lack of action.

“Or a safety deposit box,” Ben countered. “But if he was mayor, why not just go to the bank?”

“Because he didn’t trust the bank,” Marie said, the realization dawning on her. “His store was his bank. That petty cash box… it was always full. But it was empty when I saw it.” She described the ransacked office. “Leo was looking for something.”

“The key?” Ben asked.

“Or what it opened,” Marie replied.

The next day was Saturday. Marie woke with a mission. She bypassed the police station—Pat Minshew would just pat her hand and tell her to leave it be—and went straight to the one person in town who knew everything: Brenda Kinzalow, her fence-leaning neighbor.

“Brenda,” Marie said, cutting off the woman’s preamble about the shocking price of tomatoes. “Arville’s wife, Eleanor. The accident at Knighten’s Crossroads. What do you remember?”

Brenda’s eyes lit up with the gleam of a seasoned gossip. “Oh, it was awful, just awful. Late at night. Her car went right off the road into the creek. They said she must have been tired, missed the turn.”

“But?” Marie prompted, sensing there was always a ‘but’.

Brenda lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Well, Arville was just devastated. But there was talk. Eleanor and Arville… they’d been having words at the Gateway Restaurant that very evenin’. She left in a huff. And that nephew of his, Leo… he was there, too. Always was a strange boy, hanging around Eleanor a bit too much for my liking.”

A cold knot tightened in Marie’s stomach. She remembered Leo, younger, sullen, lurking around the edges of the Rainwater family. She thought of the ‘natural causes’ verdict, the ransacked office, the key for a forgotten thing.

It wasn’t proof. It was a pattern.

Back at home, she called Ben. “I need you to do something for me,” she said. “Something that might be against the rules.”

Ben arrived within the hour. While Marie kept watch from her porch, pretending to water her petunias, Ben—wearing a pair of gardening gloves Marie used for pruning her roses—slipped into Arville’s now-sealed backyard. The police had taken the tape down; their investigation concluded. The house was empty, waiting for Leo to claim it.

Marie watched, her heart thumping, as Ben peered through the kitchen window. He came back a few minutes later, his face pale.

“The blood,” he whispered, pulling out his phone. He showed her a photo he’d taken through the glass. “Ms. Marie, you said the blood was pooled under his head.”

“It was.”

“Look.” He zoomed in. The faint, brownish stain on the white tiles was mostly visible, but now, with the angle from the window, they could see a faint, almost imperceptible spray pattern, a fine mist of tiny droplets, on the lower cabinets next to the sink.

“That’s a cast-off pattern,” Ben said, his voice tight with excitement. “If he just fell and hit his head, the blood would just pool. This means something—or someone—was swung through the blood, flinging it. There was a struggle. He was hit more than once.”

Marie stared at the photo. It was there. The truth was right there, baked into the tiles of Arville Rainwater’s immaculate kitchen.

The pieces clicked into place with the finality of a deadbolt. The argument at the Gateway Restaurant years ago. Leo’s unhealthy interest in Eleanor. Arville, recently, growing suspicious, digging up the past, and having a strange key copied. Leo, discovering his uncle’s suspicions, ransacking the office for the key or the evidence it unlocked.

It wasn’t a heart attack. It was a cover-up that had started sixteen years ago with a car in a creek and ended last week with a broken coffee mug on a kitchen floor.

Marie Dawson looked from the damning photo on the phone to Arville’s quiet house. The police had their theory. The coroner had his verdict. But she had the evidence, and she had a righteous anger that was starting to burn away her shock.

She handed the phone back to Ben. “Well,” she said, her voice steady and calm. “It seems we have a few more calls to make. Starting with the State Police. And ending,” she added, her gaze hardening, “with a certain hardware store nephew.”

***

Marie Dawson, a widow who’d once faced down bill collectors and an empty larder with the same stoic resolve, was not about to be cowed by a weaselly nephew and a lazy coroner. Her next moves were executed with the quiet precision of a general planning a campaign.

The call to the State Police was a masterclass in small-town subtlety. She didn’t demand or accuse. She simply said, “This is Marie Dawson, over in Piedmont. I clean—cleaned—for Mayor Rainwater. I was just talking to my grandson’s friend, who’s studying forensics up at Jacksonville State, and he showed me a picture of the kitchen… well, it might be nothing, but there’s a little spray of something on the cabinets that Sam O’Brien must’ve missed. Looks just like the pictures in his textbook. I’d hate for there to be any… embarrassment for the town, if this got out later.”

The implication—that the state boys could swoop in and show up the local yokels—was a lure they couldn’t resist. A Lieutenant Hayes was dispatched within the hour.

Meanwhile, Marie turned her attention to Leo. She didn’t confront him. Instead, she used her greatest weapon: her invisibility. She became the harmless, grieving old housekeeper.

She went back to the hardware store, this time with a freshly baked peach cobbler. “Leo, honey,” she said, her voice dripping with maternal concern, “I know you’re just buried with all this. I brought you something to eat.”

Leo, looking harried and suspicious, grunted a thanks.

“I was just over at the house, gettin’ my cleaning bucket,” she continued, wiping a fictional tear. “It just breaks my heart. I remember when Eleanor had me help her clear out that old hidey-hole in the cellar. She said it was the only place Arville wouldn’t think to look for her secret chocolate stash.” She gave a watery chuckle. “Silly, the things you remember.”

Leo’s head snapped up. “Hidey-hole? What hidey-hole?”

“Oh, just a loose brick behind the old water heater. Probably nothing in it but dust and memories now.” She patted his arm. “You eat that cobbler while it’s warm.”

She left, feeling his eyes on her back. The trap was set. The “hidey-hole” was a complete fiction, but Leo, greedy and guilty, wouldn’t be able to resist.

That evening, under the cover of a gathering thunderstorm, Marie, Ben, and Jimmy sat in Ben’s car parked a discreet distance from Arville’s house. Lieutenant Hayes and a state forensics team were staged nearby, having found Marie’s photo of the blood spatter “compelling.”

Right on cue, a furtive figure slipped into the Rainwater backyard. Leo. He used a key to open the back door and disappeared inside.

“He’s taking the bait,” Ben whispered.

Minutes later, the back door burst open, and Leo emerged, not with a fictional strongbox but with the broken pieces of the white coffee mug, stuffed into a plastic bag. He’d come back to sanitize the scene.

That was all the confirmation Lieutenant Hayes needed. Floodlights lit up the yard, pinning Leo in their stark glare.

“Leo Rainwater,” Hayes’ voice boomed over a loudspeaker. “State Police. Put your hands where I can see them. And drop the bag.”

Leo froze, the bag of ceramic shards dangling from his hand like a guilty confession.

From the car, Marie watched it all unfold. She felt a grim satisfaction, but no joy. It was just a sad, sordid end to a story that began years ago with a ‘tragic accident.’

Later, at the police station, Leo, faced with the state’s forensic team and the overwhelming chain of evidence Marie had helped uncover, cracked. The story tumbled out: his obsession with Eleanor, her rejection, the ‘accident’ at Knighten’s Crossroads he’d engineered. All these years, Arville had never suspected. Not until recently, when he’d found an old diary of Eleanor’s tucked inside a hollowed-out book, a diary that mentioned Leo’s unsettling attentions. Arville had the key to the diary’s small lock copied, planning to confront his nephew. Leo had gotten to him first, staging the scene after a violent struggle that started over a morning cup of coffee.

The following week, the town was abuzz with the real story. Marie Dawson, in her best church dress, accepted a quiet word of thanks from Lieutenant Hayes. As she walked home, she passed the hardware store, now closed and dark.

Her grandson was waiting for her on the porch swing. “Mawmaw, you’re a hero. You solved a murder!”

Marie sat down beside him, the swing creaking a comfortable rhythm. “I didn’t solve nothin’, baby. I just did a little extra cleanin’.” She looked across the two neat lawns at Arville’s quiet house. “Some messes,” she said softly, “you just can’t leave.”

*****

And, you know I would never leave you while neglecting the obligatory shameless self-promotion. New Yesterdays is available through the following links: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.