Dead Body Removal

Can we go from the sacred business of writing to the profane business of living? The past two days, the folks at my house have been taken up with dead body removal. Yep, it is exactly what it sounds like.

We’ve had my sister visiting us for the week around the launch. During her stay, we introduced her to the phenomenon of British mysteries. The first night, she said, “I’ve seen more murders in the past two hours than I have in the last seven years.” By the time she left, that number had quintupled.

Then we decided we had a dead body under the porch.

We made the discovery on Good Friday. A dead body, on Good Friday—exactly. The timing meant no one could come to investigate what the dead body might be. “You don’t think it’s a person, do you?” my sister asked. I shrugged. Isn’t that the way every episode of the shows starts? A body! (Yes, I had a house guest and a dead body under the porch AT THE SAME TIME.)

Easter Monday, the Critter Control sent out the management guy. He squatted, but he wasn’t going under the house. Pen in hand, he wrote up an estimate. He left. Today, the real worker came. He shimmied under the house. He emerged. The carcass was tiny, he said. And, though every life is sacred, I was relieved when he reported it was a small varmint, not a large one. Definitely not human.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about that!