The Complete Honey Huckleberry Box Set

by Margaret Moseley

  NINE

  I sat on the low metal stool in the bathroom — the one that had belonged my Great Aunt Eddie and that had been used to capture small soiled garments — and watched Janie do her nightly face-cleansing ritual. As a result of her diligence, her face was smooth and unlined. And all she used was plain old Ponds.

  “Why don’t you go all around your neck?” I was always hoping for an additional beauty secret because it was no secret that redheads have that kind of skin.

  “Oh, dear. Are you saying I have wrinkles in the back of my neck? Oh, dear.” And she started rubbing double Ponds into the area behind her neck.

  “Necks get old, too,” I said and realized that was probably not too comforting. I changed the subject, “How on earth could you let that man stay in our upstairs?” I was being generous using the “our.”

  She avoided answering me with, “Wonder how much that little stool is worth? I bet a lot at the Antique Mart.”

  “I am not selling my furniture, no matter how broke I get,” I said.

  “The point I’m making, Honey, is that if Sledge doesn’t find Mr. Bondesky, you’ll be selling more than an old stool.” The liberal application of Ponds also was working its way up into Janie’s hairline.

  “You think?” I thought. “Yes, you’re right, and I’m being stubborn. I don’t like that man. I don’t trust that man, and I sure don’t like him staying upstairs.”

  “You just don’t like it that Bailey took to him so quickly,” she said as she finished her face wiping. “And it’s not like he can get to us.”

  Years ago, when my father had added the third floor to the house of his maiden aunts, it had been designed to be reached only from the outside stairway. Well, there was one other — secret — way, but I had that one boarded up. My father’s premise had been that the aunts were proud that since their father had died, no man had slept under their roof. Personally, I thought it was a rather sad commentary on their lives, but then again, they had all died before a man had even slept above their roof. My mother and father had moved in downstairs, and years later, I was born. My father had used the upper floor for an office/workroom.

  “Janie, you know all my father’s tools, plans, and invention models are up there. They’re all valuable, too.”

  “I hadn’t thought of them,” she said with genuine regret. “You want me to go upstairs and tell him to leave?”

  “No, it’s too late now, and besides, you’re all greased up for the night.” I laughed.

  Janie slid a finger across her shiny face. “I usually use a damp cloth to remove the excess, but not tonight. No water. We can take the candle into your room now.”

  I took the candle I was holding to light the ablutions and led the way into my room. It was usually a festive sight of Laura Ashley pink and green flowers, stripes, and solid combinations. Tonight, with only the candle to illuminate the room, it seemed shadowy and eerie. I settled onto the bed, and Bailey leaped on and curled up beside me. “Traitor,” I called him for the umpteenth time that night.

  Janie sat in the flowered-upholstered armchair near the bed and yawned—for the umpteenth time that night. “It’s funny how he did that trick for Mr. Hamra. See if he will do it again. For you.”

  I was dubious, but I pushed Bailey out of the bed and said, “Play dead, Bailey.”

  Nothing but a tail wag.

  “No, he said, ‘You’re a dead dog, Bailey.’ ”

  “That’s an awful thing to say to a dog. Okay. You’re a dead dog, Bailey.”

  And down he went, all four paws straight up in the air.

  “Now how do you get him to get up?” Janie yawned again.

  “You really should go on to bed,” I told her. “Here, Bailey, you little smart doggie, you. Get up here with your mama.” Bailey came alive and returned to his nest of pillows beside me on the bed, where he lay with anxious eyes as if he were wondering if we were going to play games again.

  “I’m okay. And I do want to hear what happened at Mr. Bondesky’s office,” she said, her hand covering yet another yawn. “You whispered. that you cooked the computer.”

  “I fried it. Rather, the lightning fried it, but I think I know a way to get it back. That’s the only reason I agreed to let Hamra sleep upstairs. Your assignment tomorrow is to keep him busy while I go back to Bondesky’s office in the daylight. And you’ll never guess whose name I found in the computer before it blew.”

  “Mine,” she guessed.

  “I don’t know about that. I never got to the Bs. I stopped short when I saw Harrison Armstead in the client file.”

  “Harry?”

  “Yep.”

  “Our Harry?”

  “I assume,” I told her. “Right when I clicked the mouse to access his file, the lightning struck. Everything went black. All I wanted to do was get out of there. That’s why I have to go back tomorrow, while you entertain Mr. Private Eye Hamra.”

  “Our Harry! Well, as I live and breathe. What a mystery. All the more reason for us to go to South Padre, I should think. And I did tell you I still couldn’t reach Evelyn Potter, didn’t I?”

  “At her house? Yes, you told me, but I didn’t understand your whisper about Kantor.”

  Janie pointed upward. “We’d better whisper now, too. I keep forgetting we have a guest upstairs.”

  “What? You don’t want to wake him?” I was being sarcastic.

  “I don’t want him to hear,” she said in a lowered voice. “After all, if we spent all evening hissing messages in each other’s ears, there’s no point in shouting it all out now. And Kantor’s answering machine related that he was out in the field doing research. I didn’t know he was a botanist, too.”

  I laughed. “He considers himself a writer now, and his research field is probably a library. I bet he’s gone into Austin to do research in the university library.”

  “He’s still working on the Twyman Towerie story?” she asked.

  “Yes, that’s what he told me when we last spoke. There are already a lot of articles about Twyman and his books, but Kantor is determined to write the definitive book on the late, great Towerie fraud.”

  “When I think of how close you came to being killed — all because of that man . . .” Janie said and shuddered.

  “Hush, it’s all over now. Anyway, I bet you a dime that Evelyn is with him. If we do go to Padre, and that’s a big if, we’ll stop by Kantor’s place in Fredericksburg and find out what she knows about Bondesky’s disappearance. You better go on to bed now, Janie.”

  She nodded and rose, taking the candle with her. At the door, she paused. “Now, tell me once again. Why is it that we’re not calling Silas Sampson at the police station to report that Mr. Bondesky is missing?”

  I looked at her ethereal image at the doorway. It would probably give me nightmares all night. “Because,” I hissed in my best whisper, “have you forgotten that the last time I reported something about Bondesky to Silas, I accused him of murder? I’m not reporting him to the police again as an embezzler or thief or what have you this time until I know for sure what’s up. And besides, remember I told you I spoke to Bondesky on the phone. Although he sounded confused, and that’s an understatement, I couldn’t really say that he was missing, now, could I? We’ve got a little experience in this business under our belt now, Janie. We’ll figure it out.”

  I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see the image of her smiling, glowing face over the top of the flickering candle. “Yes,” she agreed. “We’re getting good at this. And, of course, now we have Sledge’s help.”

  I opened my eyes to see the candlelight flickering off down the short hall. “Oh, right,” I said to myself. “Thanks for reminding me. That thought will guarantee a good night’s sleep,”

  TEN

  There’s nothing like sleeping in a dark, Gothic house through a rollicking thunderstorm to make one want to get up and get started early. And that’s not even counting the gory images I had of the stranger in the attic.

&nbs
p; I slipped down the stairs in the morning gloom, carefully avoiding those steps that tend to creak your approachment, and silently opened the front door and escaped into the dawn. Not that the precautions seemed necessary. I could hear Janie through the closed entryway doors talking to someone, I presumed Hamra, and smelled the odor of Janie’s good coffee. The water was back on — bless the water company. Another deterrent to sleep last night had been the gagging taste of toothpaste rinsed out of my mouth with warm 7UP.

  Bailey, I am sure, was wrapped around Mr. Hamra’s feet in the dining room. I could pretend that the smart/dumb dog was in on the plan to distract the man while I returned to Bondesky’s. The truth — that Bailey liked Hamra a lot — was harder to swallow. I thought dogs had better instincts than that.

  Those thoughts and a cup of McDonald’s always-hot coffee got me back to the west side for the third time in two days. The computer still refused to respond to my touch, and I put my exigency plan into action.

  Although it was still early, I got a first ring answer from Dell Computers in Austin.

  “Morning, my name is Honey Huckleberry, and I am a temp secretary for Steven Bondesky. While he was out of town — I’m in Fort Worth — I was attempting to update his files, and I think I have really messed things up on his computer.” Sounded legit to me.

  And to the tech on the line. “Good morning, Ms. Huckleberry. You’ve called the right place. What seems to be the trouble, and can you give me Mr. Bondesky’s registration number?”

  “Where would I find that?” I asked.

  With the Dell 1-800 number’s live-help technician, I located the registration number and confirmed the request with the string of digits and numbers on the almost-hidden label. Thank heavens that Bondesky had a service contract with Dell.

  “Ah, it’s coming up now, Ms. Huckleberry. Yes, Steven Bondesky ordered a new Dell Dimension with NT Workstation installed just last spring. Not to worry, this should be a piece of cake.”

  “I like cake,” I joked. “Now what do I do?”

  The tech — whose name was Dana — walked me through the recovery process. First eliminating the possibility of lightning strikes, then a system crash. Words like reinstall, recovery disc, and motherboard flew over my head, but I just punched the keys and inserted discs like Dana told me to do. Eventually, the computer sprang back from the dead.

  “There you go,” said Dana. “Piece of cake.”

  “Before you go, Dana, can you stay on the line while I access the file that I was trying to update?”

  “Sure, but I doubt you’ll have any problems now,” he assured me.

  The whole shebang went dead again when I pulled up the Harrison Armstead file.

  “Hmmm,” said the expert when I explained the problem.

  We went through the whole process again, and this time the computer crashed when I pulled up another file: mine. Then we tried a stranger to me, a Mrs. Robin Aldridge.

  Crash.

  “Okay, okay. I’ve got it,” said Dana. Lord, he was a patient man. I hoped Dell paid him well.

  “I’m all ears,” I said.

  “You’re a temp, right?”

  “Yes, Ms. Potter — the regular secretary — is on vacation.”

  “Okay, we didn’t install it here for Mr. Bondesky, but my guess is that he has purchased some of the available software for secondary security, and he didn’t give you the password.”

  I protested, “But I know the password.”

  “Is Mr. Bondesky’s work highly secretive? Like financial numbers? You did say he was an accountant.”

  “You could say that,” I agreed.

  “There you have it,” he said. “Obviously, he’s installed some software that requires a second password. My guess, it’s a timed response.”

  I didn’t have it. Not the concept or the additional password. “Timed response?”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty sophisticated for someone not in government work, but you can buy these programs that require an additional password within . . . well, whatever time limit you tell it. I’d say yours was about two minutes. Does Mr. Bondesky do some work for the government?”

  “You could say that,” I agreed again.

  “Sorry, I can’t help you more, Ms. Huckleberry. Perhaps when Mr. Bondesky checks in or maybe you could locate the regular secretary? And it might just be that they don’t want certain files accessed by a temporary secretary. Have a good day,” and Dana hung up.

  Well, I was up scum pond.

  I was surprised at how much time I had spent with Dana and Dell. When I left Bondesky’s office, the sun was shining, and it was a fantastic day . . . clear as only a Texas sky can be after a tumultuous, stormy night.

  I called Janie from my cell phone.

  “Everything’s back up,” she said. “Lights, gas, water. It’s amazing what money can do.”

  “Where’s Hamra?” I asked.

  “He left a while ago. I kept him chattering as long as I could. That man tells amazing stories, Honey. He walked Bailey and then left in his truck. Said he had some errands to run.”

  I’d probably left Bondesky’s office in the nick of time. I’m sure it was on Hamra’s errand list.

  “Well, start packing, Janie,” I told her.

  “We’re going to London?” she squealed.

  “No, South Padre Island. We’re going to do some private investigating of our own.”

  “And I’ll be your legs,” she said. Whatever that meant.

  “Right, and dismantle Bailey’s crate. We’re taking him with us.”

  “Honey, what about Sledge?”

  “He doesn’t get to go,” I said.

  ELEVEN

  “Tell me some more about Harry,” Janie requested as the Plymouth Voyager ate up some of the 500 miles we would have to travel to South Padre Island and she made a start on eating up the snacks she had packed for the trip.

  “Harry? That’s right. You only met him that one time and, of course, with finding Jimmy the Geek dead at the same time you were introduced . . .” I let the sentence trail off.

  “I remember he was nice looking, older than you, and . . . hmmm . . . not very tall. Oh, and he had red hair, too — a different shade than yours.”

  “Yes, more auburn than . . .”

  “Orange.”

  “Right. Orange.”

  “Or pink.”

  “Janie, would you quit with the hair?”

  She shrugged. “Yours changes color with the light. Right now, it’s pink. Gray days make it pinker. It takes the sun to make it that orange color. Want another kolache?” She offered the white bakery box.

  “I’ve had enough,” I said and didn’t know if I meant of the conversation or the rolls we had picked up at the Czech bakery in West. I turned on the tape player to start up a new books-on-tape package I had in the van. It was an older Grisham, but I hadn’t read . . . er . . . heard it. “The Client, by John Grisham,” said the reader as cassette one, side one, started to play. I recognized the reader’s voice, but I would have to check the box for the name. I often listened to books on tape as I rode this highway — my old circuit for Constant Books is as familiar to me as the lines on Harry’s face.

  Not that he had many lines. Fortyish and in good shape, he’d made a good trim sailor for Her Majesty’s Navy. Although I think his rank might have been a wee bit higher than that. I didn’t know the British equivalent for Navy SEALs, but I think he told me once he was a commander of one of the units or some such. A nasty injury — accident, he’d said — had sidelined him from his active career, and he’d taken early retirement to roam around the world. A visit to some stateside cousins had led him to South Padre Island and a desire to settle there.

  I’d met him when his bookstore, Sandscript, was added to my South Texas route. I’d fallen for his accent, his auburn hair, and his joking manner at the first meeting, but it was several visits later that we became lovers. Being with Harry meant being in fun: spontaneous laughs and meandering moo
nlit walks on the beach near his bookstore/home.

  Though he possessed a superior intelligence, he wasn’t serious about his business, his books, or his life. He was serious, however, about his golden Lab, Bailey, and about me. He’d asked me to marry him on my last visit to South Padre and again, on his first and only visit to Fort Worth. That he’d walked into a murder scene only confirmed his intent to take me away to a new life. I hadn’t had the time or the heart to answer his question then, and when I finally did have the courage to consider his proposal, he was gone.

  When he’d shipped Bailey to me in Fort Worth, the only note he sent was to say he was called home because his mother was ill. Not another word since. Not for months. And now the key addressed to Bailey. It had to be from Harry, and it had to be for the bookstore. Something he wanted me to find in the bookstore. A clue to his whereabouts maybe. And maybe it was tied in with Bondesky’s disappearance. I was getting tired of people disappearing on me.

  One person I couldn’t seem to lose, though, was Sledge Hamra.

  The private investigator had met me back at the house while I was still packing the dog crate into the van.

  “You skipping out, too?” he’d asked as he walked up to the Plymouth Voyager.

  “I was going to leave you a note,” I lied.

  He stuck his head inside the van, making note of the cooler and luggage. “Like hell you were.” Hamra came straight to the point. “Now, do you want me to find Bondesky for you or not?”

  Not was my first internal reaction, but an idea clicked into place in my head, and I surprised myself by answering, “Yes, I do. I want to hire you.”

  My answer surprised the dome-headed man, too. “You do? Well, that’s great. I charge two a day and expenses. A special offer to you since I have a stake in this also.”

  “Two dollars?”

  He shook his head and laughed. “Guess again, Honey.”

  “It better not be two thousand. I can’t even afford two dollars.”