Discovering the Body: A Novel

by Mary Howard

Overview

Discovering the Body is a gripping novel filled with psychological suspense, sensitivity, and emotional complexity. With this stunning debut, Mary Howard has crafted an electrifying and hauntingly evocative novel of truth and perception, of the ties we tell others-and the lies we tell ourselves.

Two years ago Linda Garbo left her graphic design job in Minneapolis to open a printmaking studio in a small town in Iowa with the encouragement of Luci Cole, a weaver and an old friend from art school. Arriving in Linden Grove for good, Linda agrees to stay with Luci and her boyfriend, Charlie, in their old farmhouse outside of town until the renovations to her new studio space are completed. But the following afternoon as she is driving down the long winding road toward Luci's house, Linda sees Luci's neighbor, Peter Garvey, walking out the front door-and when Linda enters the house a few minutes later, she discovers her friend's lifeless body on the kitchen floor.

Now, two years later, Peter Garvey has been convicted of Luci's murder. Linda is married to Charlie and living in the very house where Luci died. And she is convinced someone is following her. As she begins to confront her fears-approaching the man she believes is spying on her, visiting Peter Garvey in prison-she finally faces the cause for her frequent panic attacks: she was too traumatized by her discovery of Luci's body to be a reliable witness. And if she's identified the wrong man, the killer may still be close by, ready to react if she admits she might have made a mistake. Compelled to unravel the mystery surrounding Luci's final days, Linda finds that Luci was a master at weaving her true colors into a complex tapestry, preferring involvements that required secrecy.

A beautifully crafted tour de force of significant depth, passion, and power, Discovering the Body is a completely beguiling meditation on perception, loss, memory, and redemption whose conclusion proves to be as significantly haunting as it is satisfying.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062013385
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/17/2010
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Mary Howard's short fiction has been published in the Ontario Review and The Georgia Review. Discovering the Body is her first novel. Howard was born and raised in Ames, Iowa, where she currently resides with her husband, Robert Bataille; they are the parents of two sons.

Read an Excerpt

Usually Charlie and I wake up together, but not this morning. When I open my eyes, I hear the shower and smell coffee. I find him standing at the kitchen sink, dark brown hair and beard, usually wild and bushy, still wet and close to his head. Two streaks mark the back of his shirt where he hurried drying himself Parting the yellow curtains, he says, "I couldn't sleep. I dreamed the horses were back."

I join him to look where he's looking, toward the fence line and the weedy pasture beyond and the empty house next door. When I murmur something about how he doesn't often remember dreams, the curtain drops. "Sometimes I do," he says, turning to meet my good-morning kiss. My arms encircle him, a hand caressing the broad muscles of his back. "But I can't ever seem to tell you before they vanish. I'm jealous of yours. All that color and plot." He smiles, then grows sober again. "This was so real I woke up to the trumpeting sound horses make when they're spooked. I still think I heard something out there."

"Freud had a theory about horses in dreams."

"Not these horses," he says.

"We should call the realtor—"

"And certainly not today."

"—see if they can't mow the lawn over there." I insert two slices of bread into the toaster. The sign's gone again, but as far as I know, the place is still for sale. I open the refrigerator. As I reach over things for the marmalade, a bottle of tomato juice falls forward and strikes the floor at my feet, the bright liquid exploding outward. For a split second a gaudy Rorschach of red lies suspended across the gray-and-white grid of ceramic tile, then resumes its flow, thick as pigment. It drips down the front ofthe white refrigerator, down the table legs.

Miraculously unbroken, the container has spun out and come to rest against the wall, and I think 1 should pick it up. But I don't. I'm swallowing instead of breathing. Flecks of light dart across my vision as Charlie turns me gently away by the shoulders, toward the hallway. "Come on, Linda," he says. "Take a deep breath."

I cross the hall and the living room to pull open the front door, admitting a morning breeze full of dust and starch from the field across the road. This early a mist hangs above the corn, the mature plants streaked ivory in the muted light, the surface of the sky lightly scrubbed in, the color of smoke. I'm gasping for air. Dread mingles with relief and a vague third feeling I push away—the fear I've been fighting for months now, that there's someone out there, watching for me to make an appearance. This is the closest I've come to letting my panic show in front of Charlie.

"All done," he says from the doorway, a twisted, wrung-out rag in his hand. But the rapid thickening of his features, the look of repulsion with which he untwists the cloth, and the way he turns to fasten that same look of distaste upon me all give lie to his "Everything's good as new." There have been other moments lately when I've caught a flash of his anguish like this, as if there are two Charlies, one behind the scrim of the other. My mind slows, sees past him to the floor in front of the refrigerator. "Let it go," he says. I let the finality of his tone end the matter and do the easy thing, go back to buttering the toast, cold by now. And the day goes back to starting like one that can't end soon enough.

Charlie loves to speculate about weather, crops, and insects, but when it comes to people, he's so matter-of-fact that talking about feelings can make him anxious and secretive. The sign on the side of his van says CHARLIE CARPENTER, BEEKEEPER-THE HONEY BARN, LINDEN GROVE, IOWA. My appreciation of what he does for a living has been fairly romantic, like the way I'm apt to gloss over the dollar value of pollination to American agriculture while remembering how he marks the backs of queens with dabs of bright paint, to keep track of them. Work stories he keeps to himself, as a rule, along with his worries. Like many Midwesterners he's proud of his self-reliance, something we have in common. Then along comes something like a dream about horses, and the fact that he remembered it long enough to tell me.

Breakfast over, dishes in the sink, I catch him shifting his stare to the light pooled at the base of the refrigerator, where the tile's still streaked with water from the cleanup. just for a moment he studies the floor, then returns his gaze to my face. His mouth is soft. A quick kiss. "About the horses," I say. "What do you think?"

"I haven't thought of her for a while. There's no way out today." He runs his open palm over his forehead, combs his fingers through his damp hair. "You okay?"

I nod. But I'm not.

Two years ago I was staying here with Luci Cole and Charlie until the kitchen plumbing was installed in the loft of the warehouse I'd bought in town, the space that's still my studio. Luci and I were old friends from art school. It was August 1, 1995. I'd been here three days, and I came home about five-fifteen that afternoon to help her start supper. It was Charlie's habit to arrive about six. It was a hot day, as this one promises to be, and I rushed into this room thinking only about my thirst.

Editorial Reviews

Don't expect the unexpected from this soap operatic suspense novel about a smalltown Iowa murder witness who marries the victim's bereaved lover. From the first page, when a puddle of spilled tomato juice reminds Linda Garbo of the day she discovered Luci Cole's slashed body, heavy foreshadowing and familiar themes choke this sultry drama. When Linda, a printmaker and graphic designer, first moves to Linden Grove, she stays with her old art school friend Luci and Luci's lover, beekeeper Charlie Carpenter. Luci's brutal murder soon after throws Linda and Charlie together, and a year later they marry. Two years after the trial, in which their neighbor Peter Garvey was convicted, Linda and Charlie are struggling to forget the horrible crime (difficult since they live in the house where the murder occurred). John Bender, a local reporter who believes in Garvey's innocence, persuades Linda to meet Garvey. The prisoner, who has previously admitted that he was Luci's spurned lover, tells Linda that Luci kept a secret journal. Although Charlie assures Linda that no diary exists, Linda finds her friend's writings in the margins of an art book. They detail Luci's self-destructive flirtations, including one with a religious counselor aroused by her confessions. Linda also uncovers the secrets of a troubled teenager, local drug traffickers, a blackmailer and, of course, her own husband. First-time novelist Howard nicely captures the essence of rural Iowa, the work of beekeeping and the art of etching. Dialogue between Linda and the reporter has an understated Midwestern charm. Unfortunately, Howard's evident determination to create a bestseller by cramming her novel full of daytime television concerns--deep sexual psychology, childhood trauma, male villains and triumphant heroines--proves as fatal and obvious as Luci's misguided affairs. Regional author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A placid little town in Iowa would seem to be the last place to harbor violence and intrigue, but a year after relocating her freelance graphic studio to Linden Grove, Linda Garbo is caught up in a maelstrom of intense events. Soon after she arrives, her best friend, Luci, is brutally murdered, and Linda provides the key testimony that convicts one of Luci's neighbors. Linda then marries Luci's former boyfriend. On the anniversary of Luci's death, however, she begins to wonder if the right person is in prison. Howard has written a psychological thriller that contrasts the elements of mounting suspense and paranoia with the mundane activities of small-town life. Although the plot is a retread, the voice is fresh, the characters are interesting, and Linda's investigation into the year-old murder is compelling enough to keep the reader turning pages. This first novel is a good book to take to the beach if you enjoy Mary Higgins Clark, Tami Hoag, or Iris Johansen. Recommended for public libraries.--Mary A. Stout, Pima Community Coll. Lib., Tucson Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal

The suspense builds from the first pages of Mary Howard's debut novel -- a book so sure-handed and graceful that you might forget it's a murder mystery...
—New York Times Book Review

Sonnenberg

Two years after her testimony helped convict her friend's killer, an Iowa graphic designer faces the possibility that she may have made a mistake.

Kirkus Reviews