Enter Green Eyes
A mysterious woman has started visiting Mr. Dubuque. The married Mr. Dubuque, I should note disapprovingly. The mystery babe has raven-dark hair, wickedly sparkling green eyes and – the ultimate villainess giveaway – wears a fur coat over her slim frame.
Mrs. Dubuque wasn't like that at all. Mrs. Dubuque was comfortably plump, with wispy gray hair that she didn't bother brushing. Mrs. Dubuque shuffled around in worn slippers and an old, faded pink housedress. Not the glam-villainess type at all.
You'll notice I refer to Mrs. Dubuque in the past tense.
“Because of course Mr. Dubuque killed his wife to make room for this new dame,” I explained at dinner last night. We were having one of my favorites, spicy garlic roast chicken. I waved a drummette around for emphasis. “My theory is, he buried her in the garden. I wouldn't be surprised if Green Eyes helped him.
"This explains why Mr. D. dug up his flowerbed a couple of months back and then replanted the whole thing. He replanted it over his late wife.” Having made my point, I chomped into the delicious, sauce-covered meat.
Strangely, Mother and Madge set down the pieces of chicken they’d been eating. “I hope you don’t share your grisly theories about our neighbor with anyone else,” Mother frowned. “Your over-active imagination could get us into a lot of trouble, Dinah.”
Jack, also at the table, erupted in something that sounded like a laugh. He transformed it into a hoarse-sounding cough, and reached for some potato salad.
“You know quite well that Mrs. Dubuque is on an extended trip,” Madge reproved me. She pushed her own plate of chicken away; Jack and I helped ourselves.
“I know that Mr. D. mutters and hurries away when I question him about that trip,” I retorted. I leaned over the table confidentially. “If you ask me, she went on a permanent trip, as in, the one-way kind.
“And … ” I held up my now efficiently gnawed-to-the-bone drummette for silence. “I now have proof that Mrs. D.’s sleeping with the worms.”
“Really, Dinah!” Madge stood up, threw her napkin on the table, and marched out of the room.
Jack licked the last of the potato salad off his fork. “And what proof, pray tell,” he inquired, “is that?”
I smiled triumphantly. “A corner of Mrs. D's old pink housedress is sticking out of the flowerbed.”
