Excerpt: Death Retires
Sunday morning, late August
“Hello!” The feminine voice was attached to an even more womanly figure approaching from across the street.
My new four-foot, rose-draped fence seemed woefully inadequate as I crouched behind it.
“Mr. Todd!”
I lowered my head and busied myself removing the dried petals of the dead flower. Pinching away, I tried to remember the name as my curvy neighbor approached. Red cascade. The realtor had said when I’d viewed the house.
The previous owners had trained the stems upward and the bloom-filled vines now flowed down the square-mesh fencing. But they didn’t flow quite enough, because she, the woman of the curves, kept calling.
“Yoo-hoo! Mr. Todd!”
A flash of bright pink peeked through the vines. My thorny wall had too many holes.
“Mr
