The Complete Honey Huckleberry Box Set

by Margaret Moseley

  THIRTY–TWO

  Harry was waiting for me in the gazebo. I had seen him when I’d looked out of the upstairs window of the war room. He was sitting and staring at the roses in my garden, mesmerized just like he’d get when he was watching the waves back home.

  I thought of Aunt Eddie as I went down to greet him. How she never got to look out her window to see a man who loved her waiting for her in a flower garden, and so when I got to him, I had a little half smile on my lips. “Harry,” I said softly.

  And when I went into his arms, I felt safe and secure just like a ship docking at its home berth.

  “I love you,” he said into the top of my hair, and this time I heard him.

  I don’t cry often—in fact, can’t remember the last time—but I cried when Harry whispered his love into my hair.

  “Hush, hush,” he crooned as he cradled me in his arms and rocked us both in a swaying motion. “It’s all over now.”

  When I pulled back and looked at him, I saw the sea. Saw it in his eyes. Saw the shoreline and the waves coming in like I was standing on the last existing sand dune on South Padre Island. Saw the wave and felt its spray. Smelled its tangy fragrance and tasted its salty flavor. And once again, I recognized the sanctuary it offered.

  But when I looked up to gaze at the Gulf clouds, my eyes left his and all I saw was the house watching us there in the garden.

  I shivered.

  “Come back with me now,” he said, his first words reflecting the withdrawal he sensed in me.

  “Harry, what are you doing here?” Those were the words I should have asked him last night.

  “I came to get down on my knees, to beg you to marry me.” He grinned. “Lord, luv, I didn’t know …” His head indicated the house. “I never knew.” He added another half sentence, “No wonder …”

  “And now? Now, do you still love me? Still want me?”

  “More than ever, Honey. I have to have you now. It’s my duty and my pleasure to take you away from all this now.”

  And Harry got down on his knees on that spring morning whose soft breezes were blowing right up from the southern coast that gave him his life’s breath. “Honey,” he said, “every time you came to the island, I loved you a little more. And then … finally, this last time, I knew I couldn’t let you go, but I did. When I got home—back from Brownsville—I knew I’d made a mistake not settling anything between us.”

  His red head bent over my hand. “I had to come. Had to say it out loud and hear your answer. I hope it’s yes, Honey. Honey, will you marry me? I love you so.”

  What a pretty portrait we must have made there in the garden. I don’t believe in ghosts—never have—but wouldn’t Aunt Eddie have loved it. What would Aunt Eddie have done? I glanced up from Harry’s red hair and glanced up at the window of the war room. What did we look like from there? Then I turned my head and looked at the steel, weatherproofed windows of the clinic. Catching a movement from one of the windows. Ralph’s? I pulled away from Harry.

  “Honey?” Harry stood up.

  “That’s the most wonderful thing anyone has ever said to me,” I told him. “And, Harry, I love you, too.”

  “But …?”

  “But, I don’t know.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “So much has happened. I have such responsibilities.”

  He reached out and pulled me back into his arms and his kiss was like a silent echo of his words, like he could convince me with passion. And it might have worked if the house hadn’t still been watching us.

  “Maybe” was all I could give him, and we walked back to the house to get his bag from where he’d left it when he’d spent the night with Steven Hyatt.

  Steven was leaving, too.

  “Made a call to New York, and I’ve got a lead on how to get out from under this mess.” His thin face beamed and then clouded over. “At least, I think I do.”

  It was decided that Steven would drive Harry to the airport in Steven’s rental car. “I like him, Honey,” Steven Hyatt whispered to me. “Don’t let him get away.”

  We were going down the outside steps to the car when I had a sudden thought. “Wait. Wait. Both of you. I’ll be right back.”

  I ran into the house and straight to the kitchen, where I scrounged around in the trash and came up with one of the discarded Laura Ashley bags. Opening the pantry door, I kicked the plywood off the money hidden underneath and scooped up the hastily counted bundles into the sack. When the floor was cleared, I covered the currency with layers of pale pink tissue paper.

  I dashed back to the car. “Here,” I said to Steven Hyatt. “I want you to have this.”

  “You bought me something at Laura Ashley?” he asked, his eyes showing amusement.

  “No, I just used their bag, that’s all.”

  “Well, what is it, Honey?” And he made like he was going to open it.

  I grabbed his arm. “No! I mean, no, don’t open it here.” Inspiration hit me. “It’s something of my father’s that I want you to have. Something that he would have wanted you to have, if he’d thought of it. Promise me, Steven Hyatt, that you won’t let it out of your sight on the plane and that you won’t open it until you get in New York.”

  New York! Was I crazy?

  “No, not New York. Well, yes, I mean New York, but not in the airport. In your hotel room. Yes, promise me you won’t open it until you are alone in your hotel room in New York City.” In my imagination, I could visualize what would happen if Steven Hyatt began pulling hundred-dollar bills, the equivalent of about twenty Plymouth Voyagers, out of a shopping bag in the middle of Kennedy Airport in New York.

  “Calm down, Honey,” he soothed. “I promise.” He took the bag. “It’s heavy.”

  “No, not really,” I answered as he shifted the bag’s strings to his left hand while his right gathered me into a quick embrace.

  And they were gone.

  As I walked through the silent house, even the familiar creaks in the carpet-covered hardwood floors reverberated louder than I remembered. I cleared my throat and the sound from my own mouth sounded eerie. I shivered as I had earlier in the gazebo. Only Harry wasn’t there to take away the cold chill. I had sent him away, and now I was wondering just how big a mistake that had been.

  Used to being alone, I was surprised that I felt lonely.

  I ran my fingers along the polished surface of the dining room table. Now my memories were not of how my father had looked, his face dead upon the table, but of the scene the table had reflected from the sparkling light of the high chandelier when we had all gathered around it to have coffee and kolaches the morning before.

  We had laughed and … Who had been there?

  Janie, I knew. Steven Hyatt and, oh yes … Silas.

  That’s what I would do. I’d call Silas and ask … ask about Steven Bondesky.

  That’s what I would do.

  THIRTY–THREE

  I didn’t know him.

  I had seen him just yesterday at Steven Miller’s funeral, and today I didn’t know him.

  Steven Bondesky looked gray and old and less substantial than I remembered. Even though he had seemed out of place at the funeral, he had still looked like himself: big, blustery, and slightly rude.

  The old man the guard led into the spare interrogation room at the city jail wasn’t anyone I knew.

  Until he spoke.

  The audacious, raspy voice was the same.

  “So, Huckleberry. You wanted to see me?” His eyes didn’t quite meet mine.

  “How are you, Bondesky?”

  “So, how’s there to be? I’m in jail. And I hear that you’re the one that fingered me. The one who put me here.” He raised his brown eyes to mine, and there was disbelief in them. “Is it true?”

  “That I told them you and my father must have been partners? That the telephone number on the envelope was your old business number? That I wondered if you had been the one to kill Jimmy?” I returned his stare. “Yes, I’m the one.”


  “Ahhh!” and his exclamation startled me. It sounded like a wounded animal.

  “Bondesky, was I wrong? I’ll do anything in the world for you. Help you any way I can, if you tell me I was wrong.”

  He wiped one of his beefsteak-sized hands across his eyes and said, “Nah, you were right.” Then he hurried to add, “About your father and me; not Jimmy though. No, not about my Jimmy.”

  “Tell me about it. Please, tell me all about it … and the money. Don’t forget about the money.”

  He looked more like the old Bondesky when he shifted his eyes around the narrow room where Silas had arranged for us to meet and whispered in a croaking voice, “Shh, Huckleberry. Don’t mention that stuff. That’s not a part of this.”

  “Then what is, Bondesky?”

  Louder, he said, “Your father and I pulled off a good one. Back then. I set it all up, of course. Your father didn’t know how, wouldn’t have even known to do it, much less how. I convinced him that it was for you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you know how crazy he was about you.” It was a statement, not a question. “Always coming in and telling me about you … and then that kid … that Steven Hyatt.”

  “All the money Joseph had put aside for you didn’t amount to much.” He amended his statement. “Well, some, I guess. That’s what you’ve been living on up to now. He had enough money to send you to college, and then there was the house—free and clear. He was proud of leaving that for you.”

  “I know. I know about that part. But what about the other?” I gazed about the room as suspicious of hidden ears as Bondesky.

  “He came to me. Excited like … because he had found this crazy invention that could maybe rock the world. After he explained it to me, I got to figuring the angles. Convinced him that he could sell it to one of the oil companies for more money than he’d ever get from trying to make it work himself.” He paused to remind me, “You know, Huckleberry, your father with all his smarts wasn’t much good at some things. He would never have made it on his own, no matter how good the thing was. He didn’t have that cutthroat edge it takes to make some things happen.”

  I nodded my agreement and, satisfied that I understood, he went on. “It worked like a charm. I made a few calls, and then the ball started rolling. All kinds of characters began coming out of the woodwork. It scared your father, and so that’s when we come up with the idea of the code. It was my idea to use the poem,” he said proudly. “The ‘How Far Is It Called from the Grave’ one. I knew it was your favorite.”

  “How … how?”

  “From your father. Told you that Joseph used to talk a lot to me about you. Even know what your secret name is.”

  “Lydia,” I whispered.

  That’s when I found out that the Steven Bondesky I had imagined in my youth was the real one after all. The brute with the heart of gold that I visualized when Father and I had visited him in his garagelike office over on the west side.

  Unbelievably, his voice softened. “Yeah, me and Jimmy always called you that when we talked about you.”

  I was incredulous. “Jimmy?” I asked faintly.

  “Jimmy was like my son. I’ve taken care of him ever since he came back from Nam. He was all right, just a little upset ever since then. You can’t blame him,” he added defensively. “He came back not right, and there was no one else to help him. Just me. And we both loved you.” The big man’s eyes filled, and I turned away. I didn’t have the courage to watch Steven Bondesky cry.

  “Aw, Huckleberry, why did they have to go and kill my Jimmy? He wasn’t bad. He never hurt nobody. He just watched out for you and the house. He was always watching the house for you.”

  “His ear?” I asked.

  “Wasn’t anything wrong with his ear. He wore that bandage or one like it, whenever I could get him to change it, ever since he came back to the States. It was part of his war troubles. The part that was all in his head.”

  I had more questions. “Stephen? No, I mean Roselli? How did he fit in this?”

  “It had been on the news. About his fuel breakthrough. And I remembered what your father and I did before with the first invention. So, I thought I could make a little more money for you. It worried me that you hadn’t ever found the other money, and I thought maybe it had been stolen. But I couldn’t ask you about it because I had promised your father. Where was it, anyway? Where’d you finally find it?”

  “Under the stairs,” I said, and told him about the pantry.

  “But what about this new invention, or rather, formula? What did you do, Bondesky?”

  “I made a few phone calls. To some of the old numbers I had from before. And everything seemed to be going okay, but then everything went wrong. They wanted to destroy the invention this time, not just buy it from the inventor. Well, okay, I said. I’ll set it up. Honest, Huckleberry, I was the one who was scared this time. These new guys don’t play by the same rules.”

  Bondesky went on to tell me how he’d insisted they use the old code—the poem—to keep in contact. Had even given them the original envelope to make sure they remembered it. And he’d insisted that no one get hurt.

  “But they weren’t like the old contacts,” he repeated. “I think maybe they’re big boys.” He looked around carefully now, mindful of more than police bugs. “I think they were Mafia.”

  “No,” I exclaimed.

  “By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late. That’s why I sent Jimmy to watch out for you. And I’m sorry about the van, Huckleberry. I’ll send a new one out to you tomorrow.”

  “What are you talking about, Bondesky? You’re in jail. You might not have actually killed anyone, but you’re still in trouble about the explosion in Florence. I mean, you didn’t do it, but you knew about it. Oh, not the explosion, but about the … the … the deal. I’m sure they won’t let you get away with that. And … how can you get me another van? You’re in jail,” I repeated.

  For the first time, I thought I saw a spark of the crafty old accountant I knew and now understood was all right to love. He motioned me forward and we bent our heads over the scarred table between us. “Remember the cops that always hung out at my shop? Well, it ain’t really so bad in here. I know most of the guards, and they’ve said they’d help me out with anything I needed. Short of getting me out, of course. They know by now that I didn’t kill Jimmy, but they think they might have me on some business angles. I’ll be out soon.” I think he laughed, but since I’d never heard him do so, I couldn’t be sure.

  “You better go now, Huckleberry.” And then, like he had to say it at least once, he added in a very un-Bondesky-like voice, “Lydia.”

  Tears suddenly stung the insides of my eyes, and I stood and clutched my purse. I turned blindly toward the door but stopped suddenly as I remembered one more thing I wanted to ask him.

  “Steven Miller. How can you be so sure that Jimmy didn’t kill Steven Miller?”

  They were true Bondesky eyes again as they narrowed in the broad face wet with a fine sheen of angry sweat. “Trust me. I know. What I don’t know is who did kill Miller. I don’t know. I don’t know—yet. But I will.” He stood up, filling the tiny room with his bulk. “I’ll tell you this, Huckleberry, I think Jimmy knew. I think Jimmy knew who killed Steven Miller.”

  THIRTY–FOUR

  I drove down by the front of my house before circling to put the Malibu in the clinic’s garage. What I saw on my front porch surprised me. Leaning against the white column by the top step, looking for all the world like the packages delivered the night before, was Joaquin.

  As I hurried around from the back, I remembered that I couldn’t call him that anymore. He was Stephen … no, not Stephen … oh, what was his name? Roselli. Arthur. “Arthur, Arthur,” I muttered under my breath as I hurried up the steps, but, “Joaquin!” was what I said when I saw his tired body slumped against the post.

  “Joaquin! What on earth has happened to you?”

  He must have been
half asleep, because he raised heavy eyelids to look at me, and he didn’t seem to be able to focus. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and his normally tanned complexion looked like old clay smudged with dirt along his jawline.

  “Honey, I’ve been waiting for you.” It seemed to take all his effort to talk.

  “I’ve been at the jail,” I said.

  “Me, too. All night.”

  I felt guilty. I should have asked Silas or somebody about Joaquin. I could have given him a ride home. Home? Was this home anymore?

  “I need your help,” he said.

  “What? What can I do?”

  “Do you have a key to the clinic?” he asked.

  “A key to the …? Of course, this is Wednesday. They close at noon on Wednesday. Don’t you have a key? Didn’t Ralph give you one?”

  “Yes, but I must have put it in another pocket. My sweater maybe. Anyway, it’s locked up inside, and there’s no one there.”

  He looked so exhausted as if even talking to me was wearing him out.

  “No, I don’t have one. No reason for me to. But Joaquin, you’ve got to rest. You’re about to fall over here on my porch. I know. You can sleep upstairs. Steven Hyatt and Harry are gone, and there’ll be plenty of peace and quiet.” I guided his unprotesting body down the steps and around to the side of the house.

  “There’s a shower upstairs—a small one, but if you can wait to take one before you fall down dead, you’ll feel better. I’ll get you some fresh towels from the house.”

  “Don’t bother, Honey. I’m too tired.”

  I assured him that it was no bother, and after discovering that he hadn’t eaten anything but donuts since he’d left with the police last night, I scurried around the kitchen whipping up my specialty, tuna fish on toast.

  Having heard the water running as I stirred in the mayo, I knew that he’d followed my advice, and so I wasn’t surprised when he opened the door at the top of the stairs dressed in one of Steven Hyatt’s old terry robes. His thick, black hair was still wet, and drops of water glistened in his mustache. He gratefully took the dry towels I offered him.