The Complete Honey Huckleberry Box Set

by Margaret Moseley

  “It was so sudden. I’m sure he never knew what hit him.”

  And so on.

  At the end of my interview, I sighed. That wasn’t so bad. No mention of Steven Miller or Jimmy the Geek. Just the usual I was there when he fell over dead stuff. I eased back into my chair to watch the roundup on the story. A police official came on and said how the woman doctor had accompanied the body to the hospital and pronounced Twyman dead of natural causes. No foul play suspected.

  So, it had been totally unnecessary for me to call Silas Sampson to inform him of the death. Especially since Silas had been the police official who spoke so professionally about the author’s death, his blond good looks vying for space on my television screen with Ms. Gardenia’s dark, sultry shape. They made a good-looking couple. Gardenia must have thought so, too. There were ten Arlington cops standing around, but it was Silas, the Fort Worth police detective, she had chosen to interview.

  SEVEN

  Steven Hyatt and I had been best friends since high school. He was a nice kid who had impressed my father so they had made a deal whereby Steven profited from driving me home every day from school and my father could stay with my ailing mother. We wound up becoming chums, insulating ourselves from others as we studied and made up games in the third floor of my south side house. Always under the watchful eyes of my father who read his newspaper while Steven and I obliviously reworked the world.

  One of our games had been the “saving” of unknown poets who seemed to us like spirits who had offered up their immortal words only to have their names forgotten, though their work lived on through countless anthologies. As it was our duty to save these poor lost souls, we had memorized their lines and used them as code words to communicate.

  In the sometimes cruel, good old school days, the game provided us with a belonging that was denied by our social status. Steven was an orphaned intellectual who lived with a maiden aunt, and I was the skinny misfit who had the very elderly parents. Neither one of us was considered cool, except by each other.

  Mother Goose was not on our list of unknowns, but when I called Steven back in New York following the news, “Georgie Porgie” was the only poem that seemed appropriate for the situation.

  “Georgie Porgie, Puddin’ and Pie …” I said into the telephone.

  “Kissed the girls and made them cry,” Steven Hyatt responded. “But when the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away.”

  “Well, not this one, Steven. He just died.”

  “So, I saw on NBC. Want to tell me about it?”

  So, I told Steven Hyatt about my very strange day.

  As an independent producer and director of a few noteworthy films, Steven relished the bizarre and unexpected. I was sure he was curling his toes and running his big bony hands through his frazzled hair as he listened to my pitiful tale of a day gone wrong. At the end, he sighed, but I couldn’t tell if it was from rapture or exasperation.

  He said unexpectedly, “Honey, maybe it’s time for you to settle down and have babies.”

  “Accck, Steven!”

  “No, wait; I mean it. Look, your life has been smooth and safe until this summer when you found murdered men at your house and money in your walls. Thank you for sharing, by the way. The new project is going well. But, well, here you are.”

  “Not for long. I’m hanging up.”

  “No, wait. I’m saying this wrong. What I mean is, your life is changing, and if you don’t get a handle on it soon, it will be just one catastrophic event after another. Aimless drifting. You need a rock, a base. A husband and a real house and … yes, babies.”

  “Excuse me? I’m the one who has an address, not a hotel room. I’m the one with the regular job. I’m the one who lives by a schedule. You’re the one who needs an anchor. Preferably around your neck this minute.”

  He sighed that long-suffering sigh again. “Honey, I worry about you.”

  “Steven, you are not my father. You’re not even my brother. I don’t know what you are, except the last person in the world to be telling me I need a normal life. So what if I sit down by a dead man at lunch? I ate my vegetables first.”

  I hung up on him.

  The very idea.

  The indignation I felt toward Steven Hyatt spilled over to my conversation with Silas, who was the next immediate caller. Without preamble, recognizing the source from the caller wizard attached to my phone, I answered with, “Go marry that daffodil flower woman and raise daisies.”

  When he called back, I apologized.

  One more call from Janie, and I went to bed. I dearly hate telephones.

  I was totally and utterly exhausted. For the first time in my life, I didn’t brush my teeth or wash my face.

  After such a day, I should have slept the sleep of the dead, but I tussled with my nest of pillows, wishing Steven Hyatt had been acting more like himself. If he had been doing so, I could have told him about the very real fear I had seen in Twyman Towerie’s eyes when he had asked me, “Can you tell me how one goes about finding out if someone is trying to kill them?”

  EIGHT

  It was almost noon when I entered Haltom’s. I’d had two cups of French roasted coffee and a jelly-laden croissant from La Madeleine’s next door before I could gather the nerve to visit the jewelers.

  I won’t say I was intimidated, but I will admit I’m more of a Joe Daiches’s type of diamond shopper. Or would have been if I had ever shopped for one. Lower Main Street would have suited me better than the exclusive west side store I entered. I felt like a criminal casing the joint, sentiments shared by the honey blond salesperson whose silk blouse whispered warnings as she approached me.

  “Good morning. May I help you?”

  It was the old Neiman-Marcus be nice to the customer even if she is wearing a bathrobe ’cause she may have millions tucked in her pockets approach. Which, theoretically, I did. Although I was dressed in shorts and a blue 1996 Olympic T-shirt.

  “Just looking.”

  “A gift perhaps? Or something personal?”

  I had decided over the croissant that I would act like a customer. Hey, it was time I spent a little on a bauble. I could afford it. “A ring?”

  “Engagement? Wedding? Evening?”

  For a minute I thought she was asking me if I was getting married that night, then realized she was asking the type of ring I wanted.

  I held up my finger. “Which is this?”

  She held my hand still in her cool, tapered fingers for a long minute. “Maybe you would like to see our manager?” And she smiled and disappeared beyond the counter.

  I stood, waiting amid the heavy air emitted by the equally heavy silver trays and tea sets. Soft music played in the air. My new friend “Pathétique.” I would like to say I recognized the tune, but knew of its arrival from the same dulcet-toned voice I had heard at Bondesky’s. I wandered around, trying to make the music my own and reached down to smell a fantastic arrangement of giant magnolias. Amazing what they can do with silk these days.

  “Excuse me. May I help you?”

  I straightened, rubbing imaginary magnolia pollen from my nose, to find an older version of the first helper. I held out my hand again. “Yes, I just wanted to know what this ring is worth.”

  She looked at it for a long time, exchanged a look with the original salesperson, and asked, “May I have it, please?”

  I jerked my hand back. No way.

  She smiled. Sorta. Identified herself as Winona Octavia, the manager of Haltom’s Camp Bowie store. “I’d like our jeweler to look at the ring, Mrs. Towerie.”

  “Mrs. Towerie,” I repeated.

  “Yes,” she replied pleasantly. “I would like for our Mr. Bagget to see the ring to confirm its identification. As you must know, we are the ones who sold the ring to your ex-husband.” Winona stopped to sigh. “I am so sorry about his shocking death. He was so excited about giving the ring to you.”

  I didn’t say a word.

  Winona took me by the hand and l
ed me to a back counter where a pleasant-faced gentleman stood with a loupe in his eye. She didn’t ask me for the ring again but simply placed my whole hand on a black velvet square on the counter. The man swooped forward to examine the ring. I felt like I was having my teeth X-rayed at the dentist and should stop the examination for a lead apron. Instead, I smiled at Winona, who smiled at me. “Pathétique” played on.

  Then the man smiled and nodded to Winona, who smiled at him and then turned to bestow another on me. “Yes, of course, it’s the very same ring,” she declared. “I knew it, but I wanted you to be reassured. Do you want to see the original receipt?”

  I smiled yes.

  Winona continued to chat in such a pleasant manner as she searched a back counter that I wondered if she doubled as a Muzak disc jockey on the side. “Again, we were so shocked to hear about Mr. Towerie’s death. Such a delightful man. And so thrilled to have found the perfect ring for you. I imagine you’re having it appraised for the estate? You don’t have to do that, you know. As a gift, the ring belongs to you now. But I’m sure you want it for your insurance company. Ah, here it is.” And she returned with a yellow sheet of paper. “I can make a copy for you if you like.”

  I liked.

  I breathed deep into the sultry Texas sunshine when I shut the jewelry store door behind me. The eleven o’clock humid air jarred me awake from the sleepwalker me who had actually impersonated another and walked away with falsified papers. I pursed my lips to break the permanent smile pasted there since Winona had first called me Mrs. Towerie and I hadn’t done one thing to clarify the situation.

  “It’s not a falsified piece of paper. Just falsely acquired,” Janie cheerfully reassured me when I called her from the cell phone in my van. “Don’t worry about it. Now, tell me. What does it say? How much is that ring worth?”

  “Well, for starters, you and Bondesky were right. It’s the real thing, all right. Three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of real thing. This thing is an oval cut champagne diamond.”

  “Of course, that’s where it gets its pinkish color. I should have known,” she interrupted. “Oh, Honey, I am so proud of you. Your very first ever undercover work.”

  “I didn’t intend to go undercover,” I protested. “I meant to be above the covers. I meant to be honest, but I just didn’t say I wasn’t who she thought I was. Mrs. Towerie, I mean.”

  “Yes, yes. Undercover.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “You know what I would do. Just enjoy the ring. But, knowing you, I’d say you would be trying to give the ring back, right?”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “She called Twyman your ex? That means the ring was intended for one of his ex-wives. Dear me, where to start?”

  “I know,” I said slowly.

  “You know one of his ex-wives?”

  “No, but I know someone who does.”

  NINE

  I am an avid map-reader and Triple A knows me well.

  Every time I get a new bookstore assignment from company headquarters, I rush to AAA and have them carefully show me the best route, which I immediately place in my big red plastic notebook titled: How to get there. If I don’t do the above, I wind up wandering country roads, gazing up at the sun trying to remember if the sun sets in the east or the west. I’ve come a long way in remembering it’s not north or south.

  I’ve come to the conclusion that directions are a guy thing.

  Since I had to get back on the road on Monday, I resorted to asking Bondesky the way to Clover Medlock’s farm when I called him to ask for an introduction to the lady rancher. Knowing my proclivity for getting it wrong, I set out early Friday morning, and sure enough, the sun was high overhead by the time I navigated the back roads. Which did me no good at all. High sun just means noon to me.

  Yep, there was the silver bridge.

  Yep, there was the dead-end road.

  It was great seeing them, an affirmation of the crisscrossed roads I had maneuvered, but the question remained: where was Clover’s ranch?

  Surely that rusty-red collection of pipes and gates that leaned against each other down the left side of the road was not part of it? Oops, make that the right side of the road. East and west are not the only directions with which I have problems.

  Since there was a large black flatbed truck parked near the side of the road, I opted for at least asking directions. Again.

  When I got out of the van, I was struck once more by the unrelenting heat of a Texas summer. The only thing worse than Fort Worth in the summer is Houston in the summer, which didn’t make me smile. Houston was my Monday’s destination.

  Thinking ahead, I had worn my heavy tennis shoes on the trip, which really wasn’t all that far from Fort Worth. Across the flat land weighted down by a cloudless blue sky, I could still see the outlines of the city off to the west. East?

  Even with wearing denim shorts and a light blue denim sleeveless shirt, I was soaked by the time I reached the cowhand distributing some kind of food from a shoulder hanging bag to the assorted livestock gathered around him. I wiped my hand across my brow and up into the curly mass of hair that was sweat-soaked and springy to my touch. “Pardon me, but I need some directions.”

  “You’re late.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “If you’re a Honey Huckleberry, you’re late.”

  “Yes, I am, and I am so sorry.” With my apology, the tall cowhand turned around to reveal a woman of conflicting features. Maybe it was because Bondesky had pulled an old black and white photo out of his desk, showing me the young Clover Medlock, but as I stared at the lined, weathered woman before me, I found it hard to recognize the same features I had seen in the photograph.

  “Ms. Medlock?”

  “That’s my name. And yours is Honey. Together we make quite a breakfast treat, huh?”

  I laughed in spite of myself. I hadn’t put the two names together. Clover honey with huckleberry jam.

  The lines in Clover Medlock’s face could have been intimidating or cynical, but when she crinkled them into a hoarse laugh, they lent a pleasant frame to her wide-set hazel eyes. “Steven says you’re good people.”

  “Steven? Oh, you mean Bondesky? Thank you. It was kind of him to call you for me. And for you to see me.”

  “So, what’s so urgent, Honey Huckleberry?” Her honest eyes stared into mine from beneath her crisp felt Stetson. It was either new or Clover wasn’t feeling the heat as I was. My SOS pad of frizzy wet hair would have taken the style out of the hat as soon as I stepped out of the van.

  “I’m sure Bondesky told you. It’s about Twyman Towerie.”

  With that, the woman closed her eyes. Not her lids, just the inside-looking-out eyes. Like a screen door protecting a porch. She swerved and continued to throw pellets out to the herd that had continued to gather around us. Her words belied her self-protection as she resumed talking. “Yes, this is a Twyman morning, all right. He loved to eat these, you know.”

  “The cows?”

  Another laugh. “Oh, yes, the cows. Twyman did love to eat. But I meant these,” and she held out a sun-browned hand to show me three pellets. “Here, take one.”

  It looked like a nugget of pressed wood.

  “Eat it?” I asked.

  “Sure, it’s just compressed veggie stuff. Good for you. Like shredded wheat or oatmeal.”

  I tentatively scraped my lower teeth over the two-inch pellet. A dry taste with an aftertaste of some kind of lettuce. I still preferred Twyman’s taste in pies to the cow treat. I pocketed the nugget in my shorts.

  “Ms. Medlock …” I began.

  “Clover.”

  “Thank you. Clover, I was wondering what you could tell me about this.” And I held out my hand with Twyman’s very expensive diamond on it. It was easier to wear than stuff in my pocket.

  The woman gave the ring a sideways glance as she pushed away the head of a black cow with a huge tumorlike sore covering its eye. “Need to call in the vet on th
is one again. Damn, every time I think I get it healed … Yes, I’ve seen that.”

  “The ring?”

  “Yes, Twyman showed it to me the night before he died. Tried to give the damned thing to me.” Clover snorted as softly as the snuffling cow trying to get in the light canvas bag on her shoulder.

  “Then it’s yours,” I declared, starting to take the ring off my finger.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. I don’t want that thing. Wouldn’t take it from him and won’t take it from you.”

  From Bondesky’s picture, Clover Medlock had been a big, handsome woman. Big boned, with a smooth complexion and Scandinavian blond hair swept into a poufy bun on her head. Now, as she took off the Stetson to wipe a brow that finally acknowledged the heat of the high noon sun, I could see the hair had faded and was drawn up into a tight gray knot. With her long legs encased in faded jeans and a denim vest hanging loosely over the blue work shirt, it was no wonder I had first thought her a man. All of Clover’s beauty now resided in her eyes surrounded by life’s wrinkles. Lines around and above the mouth deepened with old disappointments as she pushed the ring away from her. She slammed the hat back on her head, shading her best remaining feature from the sun.

  “Too little. Too late,” she muttered as she headed on down the field, stirring up a myriad of shining insects with each step toward a stream banked with scraggly brush. “Watch where you step,” she admonished as I followed her.

  “Then what do I do with the ring?” I protested as I did indeed watch my step, sidestepping that which Clover had indicated in her warning. Only to wind up in another pile of it.

  She scooted on down the slight incline toward the trickling water. “Keep it.”

  “It’s yours,” I insisted.

  “Then if it’s mine, I give it to you.” She smiled her crinkly smile.

  “No, I couldn’t accept it. I just found it.”

  “Then throw it away. Give it away. Give it to them.”

  I stared at where she pointed. “The cows?”

  “Yes, the cows. I mean, no. Not these cows. Their counterparts.” And the old eyes lit with mischief.