by Harper Lin
Granny Gets Fancy
A Secret Agent Granny Mystery Book 6
Harper Lin
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
GRANNY GETS FANCY
Copyright © 2019 by Harper Lin.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
www.harperlin.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
About the Author
A Note From Harper
One
It was a terrible waste of a lovely knife.
The knife was sterling silver, with one of those highly ornate handles that was all elaborate scrollwork and fluting and floral designs, making it resemble some Baroque masterpiece. It would have graced even the most elegant table.
It did not look lovely stuck in the back of a paunchy old drunk.
I’m Barbara Gold. Age: seventy. Height: five foot five. Eyes: blue. Hair: gray. Weight: none of your business. Specialties: Undercover surveillance, small arms, chemical weapons, Middle Eastern and Latin American politics. Current status: Retired CIA agent, widow, and grandmother.
Addendum to current status: Relapsing into boredom after one of the high points of my life.
At least until that knife got ruined.
Perhaps I should back up.
It was a couple of days before, the paunchy drunk was still alive, the silver steak knife was cutting into the flesh of creatures further down the food chain, and I was having lunch with my boyfriend, Octavian.
We were at the Tic Toc Café, one of Cheerville’s more popular, and annoying, lunch spots. Popular because they made crepes to die for, annoying because every wall was covered with clocks of all descriptions—grandfather clocks, antique cast iron clocks taken from old railway stations, cuckoo clocks, you name it. They all ticked and tocked while we had to raise our voices to be heard. If it weren’t for those crepes—and a cheesecake I would never tell my doctor I ordered—I would never come here.
Octavian was an added incentive, of course. A dashing gentleman of my age, with dapper style—jacket and tie almost every day, usually in summer colors no matter what the season—a friendly demeanor, and better teeth than many a man half his age, he had been my boyfriend for several months now.
Yes, a pair of seventy-year-olds were dating. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. We had both lost our beloved spouses, both gone through a dark period of mourning and loneliness and despair, both pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps, and both started living life again. Doing that was essential. The worst thing you could do when you got to the wrong side of retirement age was give up. Through my CIA training, I had learned not to give up. Octavian had learned it through more peaceful means, but he had learned it. The man had quite a bit of inner strength.
“Lovely crepes,” Octavian said, taking another bite of his lunch. “As sweet as you are, my dear.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said, giggling like a schoolgirl. He had that effect on me.
“What are you doing Friday night?” he asked.
“I have no plans at the moment.”
“Would you like to go to a formal dinner? It’s a charity function for the Cheerville Hospital’s children’s wing. I go every year.”
“Well, that sounds like a good cause.”
“It is,” he said, nodding, “and it’s quite the extravaganza. Formal wear, fine dining, fashion show, charity auction. The works. I’ll treat you.”
“If it’s for charity, you don’t have to treat me.”
“It’s five hundred dollars a plate.”
I blinked then shrugged. I had just received a ridiculous amount of money for playing a small part in a movie. Saving the star from several murder attempts had perhaps added to my pay scale. “I don’t mind,” I said.
He pointed his fork at me. “Oh yes, Little Miss Moneybags. I haven’t forgiven you for getting to act beside Cliff Armstrong.”
I couldn’t help letting out a lovelorn sigh. Not a polite thing to do in front of your boyfriend. Every woman in the country swooned over that action hero, as did every gay man. Every straight man—that would include Octavian, by the way—looked up to him as the epitome of manly prowess.
“Humph,” Octavian added.
“Dreamy” was all I said. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“All right, we can go Dutch.”
That was the only time a crush on a movie star had cost me five hundred dollars.
So on Friday, I picked out a lovely red dress—a color I didn’t realize would become all too appropriate for the occasion—a pair of matching shoes, some pearls, and a gold watch. I rarely dressed up so much. When I was younger, I was more of a T-shirt-and-jeans girl or a combat-boots-and-camouflage girl when I was on duty. But I could smarten up when I needed to.
Octavian beat me, though. He showed up at my house in a spotless tuxedo.
That tuxedo became slightly less spotless as soon as I opened the door for him.
Dandelion, my tortoiseshell kitten, shot out from her hiding place under the couch and whooshed like a furry little meteor across the living room to attach herself to Octavian’s leg.
I pried her off claw by claw, leaving little marks and a fair amount of fur on his pants leg.
“Oh dear,” I said.
“Don’t worry. It’s a rental.”
“That’s worse! That means you won’t get your security deposit back.”
“Oh dear,” Octavian said. He hadn’t thought of that.
Dandelion scrabbled in my hands, trying to claw at my dress. The red seemed to attract her. Perhaps she thought she was a bull in Spain. She obviously didn’t know the fate of most Spanish bulls.
We escaped my house before Dandelion could do any more damage, and we drove in Octavian’s car over to the Cheerville Country Club.
I’d never been inside, and Octavian wasn’t a member either. He had done quite well in the stock market in his younger years and would certainly have been welcome, but he said he didn’t like the crowd.
“Too snooty,” he said as we pulled up a long, arching driveway to what looked like a plantation from some Civil War movie. “I like to spend my time with real people. They’re more interesting.”
“Careful what you wish for,” I said.
We laughed. Octavian was the only person in town besides the police chief who knew that I had worked for the CIA. I hadn’t intended to tell him, but my getting kidnapped by gangsters and spirited away in a miniature submarine had clued him in that I was a little more than a sweet old lady who doted on her cat and grandson.
I also learned that he was a bit more than a kindly retired businessman who retained a spark of life. He had held up remarkably well during all the gunplay and had even helped get us saved by the police.
We pulled up in front, behind a line of cars that were far more expensive than Octavian’s. Soon a young man in a white sports coat with the country club’s crest on it welcomed us, ushered us out, and parked the car for Octavian.
Octavian hooked an
arm around mine, and we ascended the stone steps then passed between the columns and through the broad front door along with the flow of the crowd. Everyone was smartly dressed—tuxedos or tailored business suits for the men, evening dresses for the ladies. I smelled expensive perfume, high-end cologne, and a mixture of old and new money.
We passed over a plush red carpet and into a huge dining hall with a vaulted ceiling and columns decorated with gold leaf. We checked our tickets to see where we were seated and found ourselves near the back.
“Oh well,” Octavian said with a shrug. “It’s because we only paid five hundred dollars each.”
“Only?”
“If you pay more, you get better seats.”
We sat. Each place had a program. Reading through it, I found we were going to be entertained by a children’s chorus, a local comedian, the firefighters’ chorus—be still my heart—and a fashion show. The menu had a meat option and a vegetarian option. Five hundred bucks and I didn’t even get to choose from a full menu?
Octavian leaned over to me.
“When I lived in the city, I used to donate to the Metropolitan Children’s Hospital. Their fundraisers were even bigger, as you can imagine. We also took the kids on outings, at least the ones who could go. The zoo, the movies, that sort of thing. For those too sick to move, we paid for magicians and clowns to come into the ward.”
“You seem very dedicated to this cause.”
A shadow passed over Octavian’s face.
“Yeah. I have been all my life. There was a kid in my class at school, Charley Rains. He got leukemia and died.”
“Oh dear. How old was he?”
“Fourteen.”
I put a hand on his. It was obvious that it had really affected him when he was young, and the memory affected him still. My career had made me see a lot of death, but it was always ugly. A child’s death was even uglier.
Before I could say anything, another couple sat at our table. He wore a yellow plaid suit that was far too loud and cheap for the occasion. She wore an equally loud and cheap dress and far too much makeup. They were of middle age, and both had on flashy jewelry that looked expensive but lacked taste.
After a moment, I recognized them.
“Hello,” I said. “You’re—”
Both shot out their hands to shake mine.
“Peter and Penny Price, the used-car king and queen!” they said in unison.
They had cheesy local commercials on late-night television. I’d never been to their used-car lot, but I had seen it several times—a huge expanse near the freeway that must have had hundreds of vehicles. Apparently, the used-car business had been kind to them, judging from the emeralds and rubies that grated against my fingers as I shook their hands.
They withdrew their hands then extended them again, this time holding business cards. I hadn’t seen them get the cards out of their pocket or purse. They had just appeared. A nice sleight of hand. Peter offered me a card while Penny offered one to Octavian. We glanced at each other and took them, not knowing what else to do.
“Remember,” Peter said, “the price is always perfect …”
“…when you deal with a Price!” Penny finished.
It was the punchline from their commercials. They flashed two sets of perfect teeth at us. Instinctively, Octavian flashed back his own teeth. His teeth were not perfect but were surprisingly white and straight for his age. Even better, they were real.
Octavian: one. Used-car salesmen: zero.
We were saved from further conversation by another couple sitting down at our table, who immediately got subjected to the same treatment. The man, who had the meticulously clean hands of someone in the medical profession, made the mistake of mentioning he liked their commercials. That got him targeted with a hard-line sales pitch.
They, in turn, were saved by our emcee for the evening, standing up at a lectern on the stage at the front of the room and welcoming us all there. The lights went down, and waiters began to serve drinks and take our orders.
There followed a boring and seemingly endless speech by the emcee, who was also the president of the country club. While I was sure this fellow was quite successful in whatever career he’d had before spending his retirement running a country club, he was not an engaging speaker. After five minutes of telling us how we needed to help sick children, as if we hadn’t already figured that out, he moved on to golf jokes.
Golf jokes.
Apologies to anyone out there who likes golf, but if there was anything that bored me more than golf, it was men talking about golf. I would rather watch my grandson play video games. I would rather wash the dishes. I would rather go to the bathroom.
The bathroom! Ah, that sanctuary for women who wanted to get away from dull male conversation. That was what I needed to do. I needed to go to the bathroom. I could hide in there until the golf jokes were over. Women could spend ages in the bathroom and guys never questioned what we did in there. We called it female privilege.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I whispered to Octavian.
“Lucky girl,” he grumbled. “These golf jokes are going to go on forever.”
I stood. So did Penny Price.
“I have to go to the bathroom too,” she whispered.
Oh well. I guessed I couldn’t save myself from boring female conversation. At least she hated golf as much as I did.
We tiptoed to the back of the room, as much as one could tiptoe in heels. One of the waiters gestured down a hallway, guessing our intent. A small crowd of women was already heading down there. I looked back and saw several more women following.
I doubted the speaker cared, assuming he’d noticed. The golf jokes weren’t for us, anyway.
The ladies’ room was at the end of a long hallway, past the coat check and the men’s room.
“We’re in luck,” Penny said. “There’s already a line.”
Indeed there was. That meant we got a longer reprieve from the speech. Maybe by the time I got back, the children’s chorus would be warbling through a song and there would be some food on the table.
Penny started glad-handing all the people in line, doing her sleight of hand to produce her business cards and talking about how she and her husband offered discounts to anyone who was at the fundraiser, as if anyone who put down five hundred dollars for a meal at a charity dinner would buy a used car.
Penny was wearing a sleeveless gown, so the magic trick was doubly impressive. I had to watch her do it several times before I caught how she managed. She would shake hands, which brought the eye of the other person either level to make eye contact or down to look at the hand, then she would lean back, saying something while gesturing with her hand over her head. That brought the eye up. Then she would lean forward, which automatically got the person to make eye contact.
That was when her hand would go down, slip a card out of an unobtrusive side pocket in her purse, turn to hide the card, then reveal it with a flourish. The last time her target had been looking at her hand, it had been open and over her head, so they got a jolt, thinking the card had appeared out of nowhere.
Pretty impressive. There was more to Peter and Penny Price than flashy jewelry and eager sales pitches.
There was more than met the eye in the men’s room too. It was a pity I wasn’t paying more attention to that door than to my companion’s hand.
Because just as Penny was about to do her little trick on yet another unwilling subject, a man came running out of the men’s bathroom, his belt unbuckled, his shirt half in and half out, and a trail of toilet paper sticking out of the back of his pants, undulating in the air behind him like a long white tail.
“Help!” he shouted. “A man’s been killed!”
“Here we go again,” I muttered. “Five hundred bucks for a meal, and I don’t even get to eat it.”
Two
Of course, the first thing I did was enter the men’s room.
This was the first time I had entered a men’s bathr
oom since sixth grade, when Amanda Prager and Dolores Samson had dared me to go into the boys’ room at our school. I was a sucker for dares. There hadn’t been any boys in the bathroom that time, but our principal had been waiting for me in the hall when I came out.
There was no danger of Saturday-morning detention this time, but there was a boy in the bathroom.
Well, a grown man with a silver knife stuck in his back.
Thankfully, he lay facedown in front of the urinals, his hands still down near his waist.
I say “thankfully” because he had obviously been using the urinal when he had been stabbed in the back. I knew this because there were two puddles around him, one of blood and the other of, well, you know.
This was exactly what I was afraid I would see back in sixth grade, minus the knife and blood and everything.
My first reaction was to duck down, knees protesting, and look under the stalls. I didn’t see anyone in there.
I stood, both knees popping, and moved down the row of stalls. All were open. At the end was an open area with the urinals along one wall and a row of sinks on the other. I saw nothing on the floor.
I hurried back to the stalls, knowing I had only moments before I got interrupted.
I didn’t go to the victim, but I saw that the knife had been planted up to the hilt in his back, just to the left of the spine. I suspected it had hit the heart, judging from how much the blood had spread. An initial spray, powered by one of the last heartbeats this poor fellow ever had, had shot out and bathed the wall in a livid streak.
A second heartbeat had squirted more blood from around the knife, but it hadn’t reached as far and was visible only as a line extending on the floor a few inches beyond the pool of blood.
If there had been a third heartbeat, it had been a weak one and hadn’t projected any blood farther than the pool had reached. From that point on, he was dead, the blood slowly leaking out of the wound.