by Tracey Quinn
He was speaking so fast that I think he said all that with one breath. He had turned over the paper place mat and had drawn a diagram of the patio while he was talking. The sheriff and I just looked at each other in astonishment.
“That's a terrific idea, Brian,” I said truthfully. “Seating for 20 more customers would bring in a tremendous profit. But wouldn't it cost a lot?”
“Not with the right contractor,” Brian replied. “If a contractor knows how to source the materials cheaply and keep his crew on schedule to minimize labor costs, they can do these jobs at a very reasonable price.”
“Sounds like you'd know how to do that, Brian,” Sheriff Wilkerson said.
“I did work in my dad's construction business through high school and college, so I do know the ins and outs of the business, but of course I couldn't do it myself. Police work comes first, after all.”
Sheriff Wilkerson sighed and rolled his eyes, but I said, “Well, if that ever changes, stop by and give me an estimate.”
“Sorry, but as long as the department needs me, I won't be available. Hey, the special looks good; Italian sausage sub with fries and a Greek side salad. I'll take that.”
“Make it two,” said Sheriff Wilkerson.
I went and put in the order and returned to the counter to find the sheriff sitting alone.
“Brian went outside to 'stretch his legs' on the grass while the food cooks,” he grinned.
“I get the feeling that an estimate might be coming soon after all,” I said. “To be honest, I really like his idea for the patio. It would be really handy on busy days.”
“That's good,” Sheriff Wilkerson replied. “That patio could make both of our lives a lot easier!”
Chapter 7
It was almost two o'clock. In about 10 minutes Brendan and I could let Linda and Don take over for the rest of this crazy day. The Needlework Club was meeting again today even though it was not their usual day, for the gossip from the Rafe Duval incident was too good to put off to another day. Tom Jordan came up to the counter for a refill of his peach iced tea. When he handed me his cup, he leaned over and whispered, “Jenny and I are just good friends, Dani. I mean, whatever some spiteful people might say, we only sit together because she helps me with my crocheting. That popcorn stitch isn't all that easy. And sometimes we may have sat together at the movie theater but only when, quite by chance, we happen to show up at the same time. Just a friendly kind of thing, you know?”
Forget the new patio; if I wanted to rake in the cash, I'd set up a confessional booth in a corner of the diner! I could charge a fee for reassuring my customers that Rafe Duval wasn't going to spill the beans about them. I'd be rich before the day was out.
“Well, Tom,” I said, “if you're talking about old Rafe, he never sets foot inside The Breezy Spoon and he never goes to the movies. I wouldn't worry about him; everyone knows that if his mouth is moving, he's lying.”
Tom looked relieved as he turned to go back to the group. “Yes, that's true, that's very true, isn't it? Thanks, Dani.”
I had just finished wiping down the tables in a front booths when Mark walked in.
“Hey, Dani, I'm going to pick up some stuff at McGee's Market, do you need anything?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Milk, butter, eggs and mayo for sure. And let's see, I could use some M&M's and a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips. I'll grab you a twenty out of the cash register to cover it.”
“Better grab something for me to write on, too,” he said as he sat down. “By the way, I hear this place was like a goat rodeo this morning.”
“You know it; Rafe Duval threatened to expose everyone's dark secrets from the past and although we all know that he's full of you know what, minor panic has set in. I've been dealing with the aftershocks all day. I don't suppose you have a sordid, hidden past that you want to share with me, too?”
“I might possibly have done a few dirty deeds in the past but if old Rafe plans to blackmail me he'd better do it before the mortgage company cashes my check tomorrow. How many n's in mayonnaise?”
“Haven't a clue. Put in as many as you want. Oops, Dora Crenshaw just came in and she's heading this way. You'd better escape while you can,” I warned.
Mark started to slide out of the booth, but he was too late. Dora hurried over and said, “Hey, don't leave, good-looking, I haven't been properly introduced to you.”
She squeezed into the booth next to Mark, blocking him in. “I'm Theodora Crenshaw, but you can call me Dora; most folks do. Just between you and me they might as well call me Teddy because I wear one most nights,” she informed him as she giggled and elbowed him in the ribs.
My head started to hurt. I guess severe cringing can do that to a person. Dora was in her late fifties and she was one of the Hotter's Lounge “girls” that Sammy Brown hired to lure in customers. Dora was by no means thin, she wore a bright orange wig that she brushed into a ponytail, a lot of thick make-up including really long false eyelashes and, of course, the short, short skirt and low cut blouse. Add in fish net stockings over support hose along with some really strangely shaped “comfort” shoes, and you had Dora's Hotter's Lounge look.
I had decided to abandon Mark to his fate and leave, but Dora caught me first. “I wanted to talk to you about that body in your dumpster,” she said. “I recognized his boots, on account of them being real nice gator skins, and I got an eye for that sort of thing. Some guy who had been dusting up in Sammy's the day before was wearing a pair just like them.”
“You saw a body in my dumpster?!”
“Not yours. It was in the dumpster behind Sammy's. I had just got to work when Bildad came and got me to come out and look at it. Like I say, we think he was this guy who got real drunk and raised hell in the lounge the day before. That fella was a real surly old cuss, and Bildad had to throw him out. I expect he must have gone across to the Emporium and teed off Albert Sholes, so Al shot him and made Joey put him in Sammy's dumpster out of spite. You know that Sammy and Al have always hated each other, and they been feuding something fierce lately, so we knew it couldn't have been no one else.”
“Who's Joey?” Mark interrupted.
“Oh, he works for Al at the Emporium. Does janitor work, sprays paint over the bed bug stains on the used mattresses, covers the rust spots on appliances with contact paper, that kind of thing. Him and Bildad get along okay but Bildad decided to shift the body over to the Emporium's dumpster anyway, 'cause he thought it was a dirty trick for Al to shoot someone and put him in Sammy's dumpster. Plus it was especially lowdown of Al to put the chocolate pie over the guy's face to make Sammy look guilty; everyone knows Sammy likes pie.”
“Wait, the body had a chocolate pie on his face?”
“Well, of course! And you should have heard the noise that the bubble wrap made when Bildad heaved the fella into Al's dumpster! It sounded like firecrackers going off! Anyhow I thought you should know about it because that nasty Millie Farnsworth is going around with her investigating trying to say you shot someone.”
Mark and I looked at each other as if we couldn't believe what we were hearing.
“Uh, did anyone call the sheriff and report that there was a body in the dumpster?” asked Mark.
“Certainly not,” Dora replied matter-of-factly. “Bildad said there's no reason to get Joey in hot water with the sheriff when it was Al that was to blame. This way the trash collectors will come and take care of it, and nobody will get in trouble.”
“Well, thanks for giving me the heads up, Dora,” I said.
“Well, that Millie is a snake and I don't hold what you father did against you. You know, I was told that I was supposed to have the leading role in East Lynne at the Spoon, but Millie's father supports the little theater and they gave her the part instead, the little sneak! She can't act a lick and everyone says that I'm a natural and would have been perfect for the part! Still, I did go to a performance and popped bubble gum real loud during her so-called dramat
ic scenes. Her face got so red!”
“You said something about my father? Did you have some problem with him?” I asked.
“Oh, he ruined my life when I was in high school, but it's no big deal,” Dora replied.
It was hard to imagine my mild-mannered father ruining anyone's life, and it seemed as if ruining someone's life might be a big deal. “What happened?” I asked.
“Well, your father was so young to be a high school principal and I'm sure he didn't mean for it to happen,” she replied. “You see when I was 14 years old we had a new music teacher come to the high school. His name was Mr. Ryland and he taught the girls' glee club; As you both may have heard if you've been to Hotters, I've been blessed with a magnificent singing voice. No one at the high school was talented enough to realize this until Mr. Ryland came along. He took a shine to me right away.
“One day Mr. Ryland kept me after practice and said that he wanted to develop my talent because he could see a great future for me in the entertainment industry. He said that if I wanted to come to his office after school that he would give me individual voice lessons. I was so excited about it that I thanked him over and over again. He told me not to let anyone else know, even my parents, because if word got out about it the other girls would be jealous. And that turned out to be true. Somehow Priscilla Henley heard about it and after school she went right to the principal's office and complained to your dad about Mr. Ryland's favoritism, 'cause she was always jealous of me and my voice, and thought she should be the one getting the secret lessons even though she weren't half the singer I was.
“Now Mr. Ryland had taken off his coat, and had me unbutton a couple of buttons on my blouse to get air to my vocal cords and had just started massaging my shoulders to relax the muscles when we heard your dad running down the hallway. He didn't knock or anything, just burst open the door and started yelling to Mr. Ryland to get out! Mr. Ryland tried to explain but your dad wouldn't listen, just kept shouting like a crazy man, “Get out before I have you arrested!” Miss Allen, the gym teacher, must have heard him and she came in and said, “Oh, my God!” I guess she was probably upset with your father for all that shouting.
“Anyhow, Mr. Ryland left and the sheriff actually escorted him out of town that very day. I would guess that's because your father had gotten so violent that the sheriff was concerned about Mr. Ryland's safety. Miss Allen stayed with me and when I picked up the glass of special lemonade that poor Mr. Ryland had fixed for me, she asked what it was. And even though I explained that it was a special drink that Mr. Ryland had put some throat soothing powder into, she grabbed it out of my hands and poured it out the window. She was that shook up by what your father had done, she didn't even realize what she was doing! I was so depressed. I often wonder what would have happened if Mr. Ryland had been able to have his way with me. Broadway, the silver screen, who knows?”
No one said anything for a moment. I think we were speechless.
Finally Mark spoke up, “But look at it this way, Miss Crenshaw, you still have your singing career and a lot of fans here in town and that other girl doesn't.”
“Well, Priscilla does work at Hotters too, but when she sings she just does that old time stuff like 'Danny Boy'. I admit it does make some of the more mature gentlemen cry, but most of the audience prefers my lively music like 'When The Saints Come Marching In' and 'Alexander's Rag Time Band'; something more modern, you know.” She reached over and patted Mark's hand. “You ought to stop by some time, big boy. I'll sing a special song for you. You're a fireman so you won't mind if it's hot!” She winked mischievously as she got up to leave.
“Well, I have to be going now. It takes some time to get ready for my performances. Dani, I suppose Charlene already let you know that the red-eyed monster in the lake is most likely the Beaman or the Flatwoods Monster. She looked it up on the Internet. Now, be sure to tell tell your dad that I forgive him and that he should just let bygones be bygones like I do. Ta-ta.”
After she had gone I said to Mark, “You know what this means, don't you?”
“Which thing?” he asked. “The fact that I'm going to have to use a whole bottle of hand sanitizer on my hand? Or that she still isn't smart enough to realize that your dad kept some pervert from molesting her? Or do you mean that there really is a corpse covered in pie and bubble wrap sitting in a dumpster somewhere? Or is Dora certifiably insane and making the whole thing up?”
“Well, I think I can answer the last one. I don't think Dora's smart enough to make something like that up. The body is in the dumpster behind Al's Emporium all right.”
Mark shook his head. “Well, you'd better call Bob and see what the Sheriff wants him to do about it. She said that the guy came into Sammy's the day before, and he looked familiar to her. Wouldn't there be some talk if someone in town went missing at the same time that the traveling corpse shows up in the local dumpsters?”
“I suppose that's true. I haven't heard anything about anyone disappearing from town; well, other than Sheila Hamsky and Justin McElroy, and that was five months ago.”
“I thought they ran off together.”
“Yes, that's what everyone thought,” I said, “but I've been talking with Ham, and from what he's found out, there's seems to be a lot of reason to doubt that.” I recounted the story Ham had told me and I asked him if his brother would be able to look up Justin McElroy's record in the Rockford police department and see if he could find any information that might be useful.
“Sure, I'll give Dave a call,” he replied. “If there's anything to be found out in McElroy's police records, he'll find it.”
Don Williams came over to the booth with two plates of food in his hands.
“Greetings, my fellow food testers,” he said. “I'm trying out a new crab cake recipe and I need to know if it's better than my old one. And Linda wants to know if you like the coleslaw with apples and raisins or if she should add pineapple chunks. I personally think that if she adds anything else to the coleslaw it's going to turn into fruit salad, but I could use back up on that. And do you like these new sweet potato waffle fries or should we stick with the old ones?”
“Everything you make is fantastic, Don, and I'm smart enough to know better than to give Linda advice on cooking,” I said.
“This looks great to me,” said Mark. “Hey, Don, guess what? We just learned that the Dessert Corpse is real.” He told Don what we had heard from Dora.
“You've got to be kidding,” Don laughed. “For a guy with a pie in the face he sure gets around. Does Bob know about this?”
“Dani's just about to call him,” Mark said.
“Let's call him from Al's Emporium,” I said. “I want to see this 'Dessert Corpse' for myself!”
Chapter 8
A bronze plaque beside the door of Al's Emporium stated that it had been declared an Historic Site of Great National Importance, but in truth Al had made up the sign himself. Even the spray paint used to make it look like bronze had come from the shelves of the Emporium. The building was not so much historic as it was just plain old, and Al had done little to keep it from showing its age.
The back of the building where the dumpster sat was even more run down and creepy, and when Mark and I got out of his truck I was hit by a strong odor that smelled something like a cross between wet dog and rotting fish.
“Phew! The body's getting pretty ripe by now, huh?” Mark gasped, fanning the air in front of his face.
“We haven't even opened the dumpster yet!” I said.
“I'll give you a month's rent for free if you do it.”
“No deal.”
“I'll even pay for my milkshakes from here on; some of them, anyway.”
“Can we get this over with before we suffocate?”
“Fine, but this was your idea!”
Standing as far away from the dumpster as he could manage and still reach it, Mark flipped open the lid and jumped back. A small army of flies burst out and dispersed around the alleyway.
“Oh, terrific!” Mark groaned, swatting at them with both hands.
“Let's have a look before they decide to return home,” I said.
My stomach was tying itself in knots as I stepped toward the dumpster, and not just from the stench; I had seen dead bodies in the army, but I had thought that I had left that sort of thing behind when I came back to East Spoon Creek City. I craned my neck to peek over the rim and down into the bottom of the dumpster, and saw... nothing. Aside from the mildewed remnants of old food and junk that crusted the inside of the bin, there was nothing in the dumpster but a few flattened boxes stained with blue paint. No body.
“What the hell?” Mark cried. “For a dead guy, he sure doesn't hang around anywhere for long!”
“Someone must have moved him again.”
“Maybe the trash company just emptied the dumpster. There could be a trash truck driving around town with a corpse wrapped in bubble wrap rattling around in the back.”
“No, Al uses the same trash service that we use at The Breezy Spoon, and they won't come to empty the dumpsters until tonight.”
“What then? Do you think maybe Dora really did make it all up?”
“No.... but maybe Al found out that Bildad dumped the body in his dumpster. Maybe he had Joey do something about it.”
“In other words, we need to have a look behind Sammy's Lounge. Great, a fun day of dumpster diving!”
“Let's go. It can't be any worse than this one,” I said.
The alley behind Sammy's Lounge was not worse than the one behind Al's Emporium, but it wasn't better either. The smell was more gym socks and less wet dog, but just as strong.
“Would you be breaking any firefighter rules if you sprayed down a building that wasn't on fire with a fire hose?” I asked.
“I'm willing to risk it,” Mark said. “Besides, who would complain?”