Having a Great Crime- Wish You Were Here

by Marja McGraw

“You don’t know my wife. This is the best honeymoon she could ask for. Once she gets something in her head, she can’t let go of it.”

  I snapped my fingers. “That reminds me. I want to send my mother a postcard. I’ll be back in a minute. They’re in our room upstairs.”

  “I’ll put lunch together while you take care of your postcard.” Bea headed for the kitchen.

  I found the card and grabbed a pen from my purse. There was a small desk in our room so I sat down and wrote my mother a message.

  Descending the stairs, I headed to the kitchen.

  “Bea, can I buy a stamp from you?”

  “It’s on me,” she said. “Give me the card and I’ll put it out for the mailman.”

  “Thanks!”

  I was about to sit down at the table when I heard Bea laughing. She laughed even harder when she walked out of the kitchen and looked at me.

  “What’s up?” Sasha asked.

  Bea handed her my postcard and Sasha started to laugh.

  Pete took the card out of her hands and read my message aloud.

  “Dear Mother, Having a great crime – Wish you were here.”

  He looked me in the eyes. “Count your blessings that your mother is too busy with her own B&B to make the trip.”

  “There’s a method to my madness,” I said.

  Chapter Eight

  “That postcard will drive your mother nuts.” Pete and my mother have a special relationship. She gets on his nerves, or maybe I should say she unnerves him, and yet they get along like old friends – except when she’s having hot flashes. Or mood swings.

  I shuddered, not wanting to think about my mother’s menopausal moments. At least she was taking something and her lapses were better than… I didn’t want to think about it.

  Pete turned to Sam. “Since this is supposed to be a honeymoon, can we pick this up where we left off tomorrow? Or would that be a problem?”

  “Not an issue,” Sam said. “You and Sandi should be enjoying yourselves. Sasha and I can work again tomorrow. In fact, maybe we’ll do a little more this afternoon while you and your wife do whatever you feel like. Right Sasha?”

  “Yes.” She sounded hesitant. “Honestly? I’d rather help my aunt and my sister while they research old bank robberies. Why don’t you help us, Sam?”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  I smiled. Sam was agreeable to just about anything Sasha suggested, or at least it seemed that way.

  Pete and I had a similar relationship, most of the time.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “I want to see more of the area. Let’s drive around for a while and enjoy the ambiance of the town.”

  “Ambiance? That’s not a word that comes out of your mouth very often.”

  “Well, Battle Ground makes me feel comfortable. I like it here. I know we have to leave next week, but…” He stopped talking and looked me in the eyes. “I want to check out some of the real estate around here.”

  “Oh.” I hoped he didn’t want to leave Los Angeles. That’s where all of our clients were located; insurance companies, lawyers, individuals and anyone else who might need our services, not to mention our friends. “You’re not thinking of moving here, are you?”

  “No, no. Not now. But someday…”

  “I can live with someday,” I said. “We haven’t seen that much of the town yet, you know. Maybe you’ll change your mind.” I wasn’t truly hoping he’d change his mind. I’d traveled to a lot of areas, and this was the first time I fell in love with a town at first sight.

  Pete had obviously already given the small place a lot of thought. “We need to bring Stan and Felicity up here. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’d like it as much as we do. When things get too intense, this would be a good place to regroup.”

  I nodded and let the conversation die a natural death.

  We drove around, taking back streets and looking at old and new houses. The scenery was awe-inspiring. Besides trees too numerous to count, people had planted bushes and plants that contrasted with the green all around us. Bright yellows, sharp reds and purple seemed to dominate.

  On a whim, uh huh, Pete stopped and talked to a Realtor who had ‘amazing’ properties he wanted to show us. My husband put him off, telling him that at the moment we wanted general information but that he’d see us again when the time was right.

  We walked away with brochures and flyers and a healthy handshake.

  Pete drove to the Old Town Battle Grounds Coffee & Deli from the Realtor’s office and we discussed what we’d seen so far.

  “My mother wouldn’t be too happy if we moved this far away from her. I mean, she’s in Arizona. This is a whole different world up here.”

  Pete sat back in his seat and dropped a brochure on the table. “What? Are you tied to your mother’s apron strings? You’re a married woman now and you have to create your own life.”

  “I agree completely, but you know my mother. She’s all about family. She lived in Chicago for so long that I think she’s afraid to have me too far away now. There was too much distance between us.”

  “Well, she’s got Frank and the bed and breakfast. She’ll be too busy to give this a lot of thought. Besides, like we talked about, this would be a second home for us, at least for now.” He sounded hopeful. “Our house here could be a getaway for us, your mother and step-father, and Stan and Felicity.”

  I smiled. “I know Stanley and Felicity would love it up here. I wish they could come up and meet us, but who’d take care of the business?”

  Pete snapped his fingers and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

  I raised my eyebrows, but he held up his index finger to silence me before dialing a number. He left me sitting at the table and walked outside before I could ask who he was calling, as if I didn’t know.

  He was back after what felt like half an hour, but which was probably five or ten minutes.

  “We’ll pick Stan and Felicity up at the airport in Portland tomorrow night.” If he was a rooster, I think he would have crowed with delight and some kind of unfound victory.

  “Now, why am I not surprised?” Yeah, I knew who he was calling. “But what about the office?”

  “Got it covered. Things are slow right now and Felicity has a friend who’ll come in and cover the phones. If we’re needed, she’ll call us. End of story.”

  “Not quite. Where are they going to stay? Bea said she’s got people coming in this weekend.”

  “Let’s go talk to her right now. Maybe she has an extra room.” Pete stood and scooped up the brochures and flyers.

  “Sit down and finish your drink, sweetie. Why don’t we drive around a little more before we head back? I’d like to see more of the town. I want to be sure we’re being realistic before we make any decisions. We’ve only been here for a day or so.”

  Every once in a while Pete would make a rash decision without thinking it through. Of course, I never did that. Right. It was my own propensity for making snap decisions that made me think about where Pete was headed with this.

  We drove around to the point where I was lost. Pete seemed to know just where we were, thankfully. We found back roads, forest, and we drove down to the lake. Up streets, down streets and to the far reaches of the town.

  I was hooked. “You know what I’d love?”

  “What’s that?” Pete took a quick look at me before turning back to the road.

  “I’d love to find an old farmhouse on about an acre of land. Maybe a house we’d need to fix up a little, but not too much. Bubba would love it out here.”

  “That mangy mutt? He’d love it anywhere you took him.” Pete smiled. He knew how I felt, and he knew how close I was to my – our – dog. Bubba had come with the territory when we were married.

  “Don’t call him a mangy mutt. Big lug is okay, but not mangy mutt.” I was being picky, and I knew Pete had been joking, but sometimes I couldn’t stop the things that came out of my mouth.

  I
thought for a moment. “Okay. You know I’ve got a job to do here. I need to stop fooling around and do some research. I need to learn more about the thirties in this town and who was here. And I need to learn more about what happened to Bonnie Singleton.”

  “Let’s head back to the B&B. I’ll ask Bea about an extra room and you can start looking through the books you checked out at the library. You’ll want to start reading the newspaper articles, too. I’m sure Stan and Felicity will want to help. Speaking of newspaper articles, I’ll bet the library has the local newspaper on microfilm.”

  Pete patted the small stack of flyers he’d placed on the console. “I want to take a closer look at these while you’re reading.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “You know, a farmhouse isn’t a bad idea. Didn’t Bea say this whole area used to be nothing but farms?”

  “Now that you mention it, I think she did.”

  Pete knew how to push my buttons. He’d just pushed a big one.

  We relaxed with each other and talked about farmhouses while we drove back to the B&B. The more we talked, the more enthused I became.

  We pulled up to the Mossy Glen Inn and saw what looked like Bea having some kind of fit. Or tantrum. It was weird, whatever it was.

  She was standing on the porch with a small tennis racket, swinging it from side to side and up and down, and from side to side again. She lifted the racket, jumped in the air and swung down with all her might.

  “We’d better see what’s wrong,” I said, opening the car door.

  “Maybe she’s some kind of nut case and we just didn’t see it.” Pete opened his door and climbed out of the car, taking his time. “Look at her face. She’s concentrating on something we can’t see.”

  I slowly walked toward the porch. “Bea? Are you okay?”

  She didn’t seem to hear me.

  “Uh, Bea?” I spoke louder. “Are you alright?”

  She stopped mid-swing and turned to me. “Damn bugs! Oh, excuse me. Darn bugs!”

  Pete and I stopped in our tracks and waited to see what would happen next.

  She swung the racket again and I heard a crackling noise.

  Chapter Nine

  “Uh, what was that sound?” I tried to keep my distance from the crazy racket lady. “Are you okay?”

  Bea lowered the racket and glanced from Pete’s face to mine. Slowly, her gaze lowered to the thing in her hand.

  She started laughing. “Oh, my goodness! You must think I’ve gone off the deep end.”

  She lifted the racket, watched something invisible, and swung it again. There was another crackling sound.

  “It’s a bug zapper. Someone gave it to me as a joke, and I’m glad they did. These little flying black bugs are driving me crazy.”

  “What little black flying things?” Pete didn’t look convinced.

  She motioned to him with her other hand. “Come here.”

  He climbed the porch steps and I followed. There were about half a dozen bugs buzzing around the porch. They were bigger than gnats, but smaller than flies, and they were dive bombing us.

  Pete studied them for a moment before reaching for the zapper. “You two go inside and let me give this a try.”

  I turned to Bea. “It doesn’t take much to entertain him.”

  We headed inside and left him to the bugs.

  Zap.

  “That kind of thing used to work with my husband, too, bless his soul. If he saw me trying to fix something, he’d take over. I once bought everything I needed to build a bookcase. Within ten minutes he took over and built me a beautiful piece of furniture. Try it some time. It really works.” She looked sheepish. “Oh. I didn’t mean I was trying to get your husband to take over as the local bug killer.”

  I smiled at her. “I know that.”

  Zap. Zap. Zap.

  “Very good,” she said. “He got three at once.”

  “Did Sam and the women find anything out about the bank robbery?”

  “Not much, but they’re still looking.”

  I nodded. “By the way, do you have a phone book I can use? I want to make a few calls while I research what happened to Bonnie Singleton.”

  She held up her index finger and left me standing in the living room while she walked to the kitchen.

  I could hear drawers opening and closing, and before long she returned with a phone book about half in inch thick. It was definitely different than any book you’d find in Los Angeles. Somehow it made me appreciate the small town even more.

  “What do you need to look up?”

  “I want to call the Record’s Division at the County Sheriff’s Office, the Historical Society, the local newspaper and a few other places. This is going to take a lot of research. I need as much background as I can get to even have a chance of solving this murder.”

  “I see. Those old newspaper clippings I have should help. Since Bonnie’s death happened locally, I’ll bet the newspaper here has more details than the bigger papers.”

  “I hope you’re right. Now I’m going to start reading those articles and the books I brought home from the library.”

  Bea handed me the phone book. “While you’re doing that, I’ll start dinner.”

  I sat down on the couch and got comfy before opening the first book. It was interesting, but it was pictorial and most of it was about history in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. The only reference I found to the thirties was a photo of Bonnie with a caption commenting that hers was an unsolved murder.

  On to the second book which was also pictorial, and mostly about happy events in the state over the past hundred years or so.

  I did learn that, as Bea had said, the area was mostly farms during the era I was interested in. Main Street was the hubbub of the area, but there wasn’t much hub. It had been a quaint town with hard-working farmers, for the most part.

  I picked up the third book which had to do with law enforcement in the area. It was quite fascinating and gave me a few clues. Everett A. Eaton had been a Marshal in the city beginning in 1952. That led me to believe that earlier, in the thirties, there had probably been a Marshal instead of a police department in Battle Ground. However, I didn’t find a name. From what I knew of law enforcement, chances were that the Marshal would have called the Clark County Sheriff in for the Bonnie Singleton investigation.

  I was guessing. I needed to look at old records, which meant I needed to contact the County Sheriff. Since the murder was unsolved, any records might still be in their archives.

  I set the books down when Pete walked inside.

  “How am I going to explain that I have tennis-elbow from swinging a racket at bugs?”

  I laughed. “Sometimes you’re so funny, Pete.”

  “You, too.” He plopped down on the couch next to me, grinning.

  “Don’t forget, you need to ask Bea about a room for Felicity and Stanley. And what time do we pick them up tomorrow night?”

  “I’ll go talk to her right now. Where is she?” He picked up the tennis racket from the floor where he’d dropped it. “Oh, and Stan will call to let me know about the time. He hasn’t bought their tickets yet.”

  “Oh, yeah. Tickets would be helpful. Bea’s in the kitchen, as usual.” I’d forgotten about one of the more important tasks at hand – travel arrangements.

  Pete headed for the kitchen. I could hear their voices, and Bea’s tone sounded pleased.

  I picked up the third book again and began to read. It was interesting reading and I learned how things were done in days gone by.

  Pete returned, still carrying the racket. “Bea said a couple cancelled yesterday because of a family emergency. Stan and Felicity can have their room. She sounded relieved. I think she needs a full house in order to get things up and running.”

  “I’m sure she does.” I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Some honeymoon this is turning out to be. Murder, bank robberies, and now friends coming to join us. Oh, well… It’s not like we’re
on the trail of a current crime. I hope we can figure this out before we leave, though.”

  “We’ve done it before. We can do it again.” My husband sounded confident, and that made me smile.

  “At least we’re having a good time. It seems like there’s been a lot of smiling and laughing, which is the way a honeymoon should be.” I reached over and touched Pete’s hand.

  He was spinning the racket in his other hand, apparently thinking about going after more bugs.

  I studied him for a brief moment. My husband is close to six feet tall and has dark brown, almost black, slightly curly hair with a touch of silver at his temples. His dark eyes could be very penetrating when he was too serious about something, and a small scar at the corner of his mouth would jiggle when he laughed and when he was upset. He isn’t your typical handsome man, but he’s what I’d call ruggedly handsome. He has a man’s man appearance.

  When I first met him it seemed like so many women flirted with him. He has a charisma that oozes out of his pores once in a while, but thankfully that isn’t purposeful.

  He sometimes called me Shorty because I’m five feet and three inches, and he often referred to my eyes as “those baby blues”.

  We were a mismatched pair in a way, and yet we seemed to complement each other.

  Due to circumstances, I hadn’t met his parents yet, although I’d spoken to them on the phone several times. They live in New York. One of these days we’d correct that situation.

  “Okay, Shorty, I’m gonna kill me a few more bugs.”

  “Uh huh. I’ll go talk to Bea while you hunt down those varmints.”

  He walked out the front door and I immediately heard, zap, zap.

  I shook my head and walked to the kitchen. “Can I do anything to help?”

  Bea rolled her eyes. “You’re a paying guest here. No, you can’t help. However, you can sit down at the table and talk to me.”

  I sat and watched her work. A pinch of this, a dollop of that, and dinner smelled wonderful. She seemed to be one of those people who can cook without a recipe, unlike me. Whenever I could, I’d stop at an In-N-Out and buy one of my favorite burgers. It was much easier than cooking, and it tasted like comfort food – well, that and chocolate.