Mary Leonard

There Ain't No Body in the Orchard Mary Leonard

One fine spring morning, Jessie, a well respected member of the peach growning community in Palisade, Colorado, goes out to check one of her orchards. To her horror, she finds the dead body of a young woman lying face down in the dirt. Forgetting her cell phone at home, Jessie had to race back to the house to call 911. When Fat Pat, the town constable. so called because of the spare tire around his middle, arrived, Jessie took him out to the spot in the orchard where she had found the body earlier. But when they got to the orchard, the body had vanished. Throughly puzzled, Fat Pat returned to his normal duties, while Jessie returned to her house, and called her best friend, Gabby, well known mystery writer and local berry framer. Gabby grew raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries rhubarb and mint, as well as raising some sheep for her workaholic Border Collie, Bess. Once she heard Jessie's news, Gabby stopped work on the gate she was fixing because Bess, had chewed it open so she could herd the sheep and raced over to Jessie's house to comfort her friend. When, later, the body once again appeared and just as quickly, disappeared, Gabby teased Jessie that the body was a zombie and would resurface again in another part of the orchard. Jessie, having had a rather trying day, snapped at her best friend, telling her there is no such thing as a zombie and there ain't no body in the orchard. As things turned out, it was up to Jessie and Gabby, aided by Bess, to solve the puzzle of why there ain't no body in the orchard.