I held onto my door handle tight, waiting for the adrenaline from our encounter with Sissy to subside. “Where you going now, Miss May?”
Miss May took a wide left turn down an old country road. “I have no idea. Just trying to get away from Sissy and calm my nerves. We need to be more careful in the future.”
“I really am sorry,” said Teeny. “Maybe I’m getting a little too lax about my breaking and entering. That was our second close call on this investigation.”
“We’re a team,” said Miss May. “We share responsibility for everything.”
“OK,” said Teeny. “Then let’s put our noggins together and decide what we’re going to do next. We need to figure out the identity of the body from the orchard. But I don’t know how.”
I thought for a moment. Then I remembered a pretty big clue and looked back at Teeny with a little grin. “I think I noticed something that will help us figure out whether or not the body belonged to a Thornton.”
Miss May looked over at me. “You did?”
I nodded. It felt good whenever I could out-detective Teeny or Miss May, and I was proud for observing something the two of them missed. “That’s right. There was a big clue back at the house. I almost yelped when I spotted it but I didn’t want Sissy to figure anything out.”
“So tell us what you found,” said Miss May.
I pointed to a wide spot on the shoulder ahead. “Pull over up there. I need to show you something.”
Miss May guided the van onto the shoulder and parked. I grabbed my phone and pulled up the photo that Wayne had rescued from the shredder. I held it out so both Miss May and Teeny could see. “OK. Tell me if you see anything suspicious or noteworthy here.”
Miss May shrugged. “It looks like Coach Thornton standing under a tree. The photo’s clearly from a long time ago. But I’m confused. What does this have to do with our conversation with Sissy?”
I zoomed in on the wrist of the man in the photo. “Look at that tattoo. Look familiar?”
“Yeah. That’s Ron’s tattoo. So what?” said Miss May.
“Sissy has the same tattoo,” I said. “I noticed it just now. The body at the orchard had a matching tat. And so did Ron’s body, in the closet.”
“So you think it’s a Thornton family tattoo,” Miss May said. “A family crest or something.”
“That’s exactly what I think,” I said.
“You must be right,” said Miss May. “Great job, Chelsea!”
“So now we’ve confirmed that the body from the orchard was a Thornton?” said Teeny.
“I think so,” I said.
“What do we do with that information?” Teeny asked.
I closed my phone and put it back in my bag. “The way I see things, what we need to do now is figure out which Thornton was buried at the orchard. A hunch tells me that every Thornton family member in the tri-state area has the same tattoo. So we need to narrow things down further.”
“Can you use the Internet to find the phone numbers for every other Thornton that lives around here?” said Miss May. “Maybe we should call around and see if anyone’s been missing for a while.”
“We might be able to do that,” I said. “But the Thornton’s don’t seem like the most helpful family. Besides, we already know we’re looking for a family member who was male and roughly the same age as Ron. So the list of potential victims can’t be too long. The way I see it, all we need to do is find out the names and birthdays of all the Thorntons we can. Once we do that, something tells me we might just have the identity of our first victim.”
Teeny shook her head into the front seat. “I know who has that information.”
Miss May looked over at Teeny. “Who?”
“I’ll tell you,” Teeny said. “But there’s no way I’m coming with.”
40
Turn Me Right ‘Round, Teeny, Right ‘Round
The Pine Grove Library was housed in a charming old colonial with a giant porch and big, white columns. The place had gorgeous bay windows and there was a rooster weathervane on the roof.
Teeny claimed the library had birth records for everyone born in the area in the last hundred years. But she refused to join us at the library because, as she put it, “that place is a haunted dust museum.” So Miss May and I went to the library without her.
As we walked the path toward the entrance, a wave of nostalgia swept over me. When I was a kid, I’d gone to the library with regularity for story time with my parents or Miss May. The place had a warm, loving energy, inside and out. And a smile snuck across my lips as Miss May and I approached.
The place was far from haunted. It was small-town charm incarnate.
Miss May stopped a few feet short of the entrance and looked up. “I used to take you here all the time for story hour.”
“I remember,” I said. “My parents used to take me too, didn’t they?”
“Every time you came up to visit me, they made sure to stop at this library. Your mom would sit in a big chair with a serious novel on her lap. And your dad would settle into a chair of his own. But he was always too busy watching the other people at the library to get any reading done.”
“And I went to story time while they read?”
“Sometimes one of us went with you, but mostly you liked to be with the other kids. No grown-ups allowed. I think it made you feel independent.”
I laughed. “And what did you do during that time?”
“I stayed at the front desk for the duration of our visit, gossiping with Granny Smith and the other old ladies who worked there.”
“Too bad about Granny Smith,” I said. “She was a good librarian. Boy was she mean, though.”
“She was terrible,” said Miss May in a quiet and loving voice. “And she was old even then. She was born old, I think.”
Miss May held the door open for me and we entered the library. I walked in and felt like I was returning to a long-lost home. Pine Grove often gave me that feeling. My smile widened further when I saw who was behind the welcome desk. It was my younger cousin, Maggie. Maggie had been caught up in our investigations before and I was happy to see that she was working a relaxing job at library.
“Chelsea! Aunt May!” She waved. “Let me guess. You guys are here to do some top-secret research.”
“We wanted to check out the town records, yeah,” I said. “They store those in the library, right?”
“Of course, of course,” Maggie said. “Well, at least they think they do. I’m not a hundred percent sure. Hold on, I’ll look.”
“Wait a second!” I said. “Let’s catch up! I didn’t know you worked here.”
“Neither did I,” said Miss May. “But the job looks good on you.”
Maggie beamed. “This is my first day. So far I’ve only made a couple tiny mistakes. I think I’m doing well!”
Miss May smiled. “I’m sure you’re doing great. Come to think of it, I think DeeDee mentioned you were thinking about taking a job here. I’m glad it worked out. You’ve got the perfect disposition to be a librarian.”
Maggie pouted. “You mean grumpy and mean and telling people to quiet down all the time?”
“That’s the old stereotype of a librarian,” I said, emphasizing the word ‘old.’ “New librarians are like you. They’re fun and helpful and they love learning.”
“Thank you so much.” Maggie put her hands over her heart. “So far I’m really loving it. I think this is going to be a good job for me. Although, I will say, it’s been a little tough getting everything organized. Granny Smith had a reputation as a serious and buttoned-up lady. But she was a bit of a hoarder at work. She kept her files in big piles. Wow. That rhymes. Anyway everything is pretty much a mess. I’m sure Granny Smith knew her way around the chaos, but I have no idea what her system was. They put me in charge of making sense of it all but I don’t know how I’m going to do that.”
“I have a hunch Granny Smith didn’t need to use those piles often.” Miss May tapped her skull. “
She kept all her records up here. And I’m sure, in her brain, they were very organized.”
“One day maybe I’ll be Pine Grove’s walking encyclopedia,” said Maggie. “But as of right now I need to figure out those piles.” Maggie grabbed a bag of chips, cracked it open and held it out toward us. “Pickle chip?”
I laughed. “I’m sorry. Did you say pickle?”
“Yes! These are my favorite. I bought them online. They taste just like pickles but they’re less healthy, so more delicious. And I like that they’re not wet.”
“That’s too adventurous for me,” said Miss May.
I shrugged. “I’ll try anything with pickle in the name.”
I popped a chip in my mouth and crunched it down. A smile crossed my face. “Wow. You’re right. They taste like pickles. So good. So salty.”
“Right?” said Maggie. “Have another.”
“I’m OK, thanks,” I said. “I need to avoid carbohydrate overload in order to keep my mind sharp for this investigation. I mean, sometimes I need to indulge in carbohydrate overload, but right now I feel like one pickle chip is enough. I’m trying to listen to my body, ya know?”
Maggie chuckled. “Right. You need to investigate the records room. What kind of records? Birth? Personal? Death?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But speaking of records…what’s your personal record for how many bags of pickle chips you’ve had in a single day?”
Maggie’s face got serious. “You don’t want to know.”
Miss May chuckled. “Birth records, please.”
Maggie let us down a long hallway. At first, she seemed confident in her knowledge of where the records room was. But she needed to open four doors before she found the right one. “Got it. Finally.” Maggie stepped aside and gestured for us to enter the room.
We entered. And I couldn’t believe the mess.
41
Needle in a Paper Stack
Miss May and I stood in shocked silence for a moment. Lop-sided boxes packed the room. Loose papers were everywhere. And there wasn’t more than a foot of floor space available.
One of the boxes toppled over of its own volition, and more papers scattered on the floor. But it didn’t mattered. The place was a disaster.
“Maggie wasn’t kidding around about Granny Smith’s record-keeping habits.” Miss May grabbed the folder off the top of a pile. She sifted through the papers. “Every birth record in this pile is from a different year. How are we ever going to sift through all this?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “We need to figure out if Ron had a relative close enough in age to have doubled for his dead body. But it’s going to take us forty days and forty nights to sort through these boxes by hand.”
“There must have been some method to Granny Smith’s madness.” Miss May rubbed her chin. “I think if we can crack her code, we’ll be able to sort through these records quickly. Can you make any sense of this?”
Miss May handed me the folder she had found on the ground. I sifted through the pages. They were crumpled, stained and kind of gross. I pulled a paper from the middle and looked close. “I can’t make sense of it at all! This birth record is from the 1800’s. And it’s mixed in with a pile from just a few years ago.”
Miss May stepped toward me. “Are they organized alphabetically? Perhaps by first or last name?”
I sifted through more papers. “James Montgomery. Sarah Beckwith. No. These names aren’t alphabetical in any way. Maybe they’re organized by birth months instead of birth year?”
“Nope,” said Miss May, sorting through a new pile. “I’ve got April, I’ve got December, I’ve got August.”
I scanned for the dates on a few pages in my hand. The same was true in my pile. No order whatsoever. “OK. So Granny Smith did not organize Pine Grove birth records alphabetically. Nor did she organize them by date. Maybe we need to think about this with more specificity. Put yourself in Granny Smith’s shoes. You knew her. You spent a lot of time talking to her. How did she think?”
“She didn’t talk about much,” said Miss May. “None of us did, really. We gossiped, of course. We talked about what new recipes we had tried or what new day trips we had discovered in the area. We certainly never discussed how we might organize files. Although… Granny Smith was always obsessed with the homes of Pine Grove. She loved all the old houses in town, remember?”
I nodded. “She led the historical house tours.”
“Right,” said Miss May. “Granny Smith didn’t delight in much. But she adored those homes. Take a look at your files. You said you had a Montgomery and a Beckwith? Is the home address listed for both of them?”
I scanned the pages. My eyes widened. “Both families lived on Hickory Street.”
“Those homes are mostly old Cape Cods from the turn-of-the-century. Charming street.”
“So you think the files are organized based on the addresses associated with them?” I asked.
“I think so, yes. I remember being on a few of those old house tours. Granny Smith didn’t merely know the architectural history of each home, she knew the history of its inhabitants. She loved to trace the residents of Pine Grove all the way back to the town’s inception around the time of the Revolutionary War. She liked nothing more than telling people about the history of the home in which they lived.”
“What street is Thornton’s house on? Didn’t Sissy say every Thornton in the area used to live on that property back in the day?”
Miss May nodded. “She did say that. Birch Street, I think, isn’t it?”
“Thornton’s house was probably built sometime in the 1800s,” I said. “It has two chimneys. And there’s that nice decorative crown above the front door. It’s a classic colonial.”
Miss May smiled. “They taught you about architecture in interior design school?”
“Of course.” I stood tall, enjoying the reminder of my design expertise. “The outside of a house always informs the inside.”
Miss May chuckled. “I’ll have to look for the ‘decorative crown’ next time we’re over there.”
“So do you think we cracked the code?” I said. “Did Granny Smith organize these birth records by neighborhood?”
“I think she did,” said Miss May. “So let’s get back to work.”
Miss May started on the left side of the room and I started on the right. We both desperately sought a box of birth records for children who had grown up on Birch Street. But the more we looked, the more challenging the process became. The room got messier and messier with each new box we opened. And the whole task felt hopeless. We were about to give up on our search when I grabbed one last box. When I spotted the first address I smiled big. “Birch Street! I’ve got it.”
Miss May hurried over and patted me on the back. “Thank goodness you finally found it! I was about to have an asthma attack from all this dust. Are the records complete?”
I sorted through one birth record after another until I found a huge cross-section of birth records that belonged to Thornton babies. There had to be fifty or sixty. “Wow. Mrs. Wimple wasn’t kidding. There are tons of Thorntons.”
Miss May peered into the box. “Any boys who were born within a couple of years of Ron?”
I pulled Ron’s birth record from the pile. “Coach was born March 30, 1953. Let’s see if we can find anything close to that date.”
I flipped through a few more records. Then I found the baby boy for whom we had been looking.
“Got it,” I said. “Jared Thornton. April 19, 1955. Only two years younger than Ron.”
“Great job, Chelsea.” Miss May wiped sweat off her forehead. “Incredible!”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Miss May let out a long, deep sigh. “First we find Jared’s killer. Once that’s settled, we come back here and explain Granny Smith’s crazy system to Maggie.”
42
Winner Winner
Grandma’s was packed when we got there. Still, Teeny had left our
booth open with a little ‘reserved’ sign on top.
“This place is hopping,” she said.
“People are eager to get out in the world after being cooped up in the blizzard,” I said.
Miss May nodded. “I love to see the restaurant like this. Filled with happy families, making memories.” She gestured across the room. “Just look at that little boy!”
I looked. There, a little boy, no more than four years old, was drinking a huge milkshake, holding the cup with both hands. When the kid lowered the milkshake he had ice cream all over his nose. His mother wiped the ice cream off with a smile. Then the boy grabbed the cup and took another sip.
“So cute,” I said. Then I spotted another notable patron across the restaurant. It was Mr. Wentworth, Miss May’s not-so-secret admirer, eating all by himself. I grinned. “Looks like Mr. Wentworth is lonely over there. Maybe you should go and say hi.”
“I don’t want to hear any of that,” said Miss May.
I laughed. “That man has a huge crush on you! It was so cute when he wanted to give the money back.”
“I’m single,” Miss May said. “And I am not ready to mingle. Mingling is my least favorite activity, in fact.”
Wentworth spotted us and waved. Miss May blushed and looked away. “Come on. Our booth is reserved.”
As soon as we sat, Petey brought a huge plate of French fries with mozzarella cheese and a side of marinara sauce. “Hey, ladies. Welcome to Grandma’s. I’ve got fresh disco fries for you.”
“Petey,” said Miss May. “We just got here. We didn’t order these fries.”
“I know,” said Petey. “Mr. Wentworth ordered the fries. But when he saw you and Chelsea take a seat he asked me to send them over to you instead. He also wanted me to recite a poem but I told him that wasn’t part of my job description.”
I put on my best puppy-dog eyes. “Petey. Come on. Recite the poem.”
“Do not recite it,” said Miss May. “And please send the fries back.”
Dropping Like Pies (Apple Orchard Cozy Mystery Book 11) Page 19