Nuttier Than Pecan Pie

by Rachael Stapleton

  “Go where?”

  “Back to the historical society.”

  “But we just came from there. The roads are terrible.”

  “I know, but I need to see what was in those files.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A s Eve drove away from town, she encountered a windshield full of quickly moving snow, and by the time she passed over the bridge, she was enveloped by it. She switched on her lights and eased off the gas as the lines of snow trailed across the road and between the buildings, giving the town a ghostly appearance as visibility dropped to only a few hundred feet.

  It wasn’t uncommon for snowstorms to move quickly like this, especially so close to the lake and in March. She slowed even more, so she didn’t miss the entrance to the parking lot at the Historical Society.

  Perhaps three cars remained in the lot, their windshields covered. Eve pulled into an open slot near the pathway that led to the museum and shut off the engine. The day had dimmed to a brownish orange glow, created by the pale light of the descending sun filtering through the dense atmosphere.

  As she climbed out of the truck, she was grateful for Clara’s fur coat; she could have done without the barbed comment, but c’est la vie. Slipping her hands into the coat’s pockets, she turned to survey the scene around her.

  An elderly couple was headed toward their car, huddled together against the dampness and chill of the late afternoon. Farther down the property, she could hear snowmobiles, most likely venturing out onto the lake. But other than that, the place looked deserted. Eve supposed a few folks might still be out on the surrounding nature trails, though with the arrival of the snow they probably wouldn’t be there much longer.

  As she started off along the path, slowly, like a desert mirage, the apparition began to take shape.

  The Bohemian Lake Museum.

  Eve wondered if she’d be able to get inside. Was it even still open? It didn’t matter, she decided. One way or the other, she was going to have a look around.

  Clara had been right about the doll. If Bianca had stolen it, then most likely she’d hidden it either at her home or in her office. And everything Eve had learned lately, including the most recent clue about Gwen donating Ted’s research, pointed here. The connections were just too suspicious to be a coincidence.

  As she climbed the steps to the glass doors, she glanced back over her shoulder. She saw only the retreating backs of the older couple as they headed toward their snow-covered vehicle.

  Quickly she looked in both directions. She was alone. If she was going to get inside and snoop around, now was the time to do it.

  A handwritten sign posted on the inside of the door window indicated that the museum was closing early due to the weather. Eve glanced at her watch. She still had ten minutes. She could get in and get out before they closed. She cast one last look over her shoulder and stepped inside. The main floor was a ghost town. No visitors, no greeters, not even a janitor in sight. Now, to find the archives. As she started up the stairs, she heard arguing off in the distance.

  She turned right and reached the first office just as the shouting grew louder. She needed to get out of sight. The door was labeled as Professor Mick Spirit’s. Good enough. Mick was the head of the Planning Commission. He could be a bit of a curmudgeon unless he was talking to Nana Vianu who he had the hots for.

  She took a step inside, entering cautiously, her gaze sweeping the interior as the scent of old spice and mildew wafted up her nose. Hot damn! The man was a hoarder. Filing Cabinets stood at either end, laden with papers. Books were stacked waist high against two of the walls. No wonder Nana wouldn’t give him the time of day.

  There was a desk and chair near the back of the room, and one small window, which accounted for the gloominess inside.

  Stopping a few steps inside the door, she carefully closed it behind her. Her eyes scanning the room for another door that might lead to the back hall. She knew some of the offices up here had them.

  “. . . don’t know what you think you’re doing,” she heard Mick Spirit. “You’ve got yourself mixed up in this thing too deep.”

  “Don’t worry, Granddad, I can handle it,” L’il Mickey replied, sounding somewhat sullen.

  “I do worry about it,” Mick said, “and now you’ve got me involved.”

  Eve stood frozen, uncertain of what to do. Mick and L’il Mickey appeared to be headed right toward her and the office. Her heart beat faster. Why had she picked this office? Should she make herself known to them, or should she hide?

  In the end her instincts took over. Moving quickly, she stepped lightly across the office into the front corner, trying to meld into the shadows. It wasn’t much of a hiding place, though, and if they entered the office, she’d surely be seen. She tried to formulate an excuse, so she’d have something to say if she were caught.

  “It’s time for you to get rid of it,” Mick said, his voice getting closer now. “Do you want to wind up behind bars?”

  “I can’t get rid of it now,” L’il Mickey protested. “I have too much invested.”

  “Listen to me, Grandson. I know how these things work. Destroy the evidence before they come looking for it.”

  Eve could hear Mick coming closer. She ducked down and crawled under the desk. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice her amongst all the clutter. She whacked her hand on a box. Oww. Great. Now she had a dang paper cut.

  “It’s going to be fine,” L’il Mickey protested, his voice now tinged with frustration. “I’m not in high school anymore. I’m almost twenty years old.”

  “You’re still my grandson,” Mick said sternly, “and you’re still my responsibility.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” L’il Mickey asked angrily. “Responsibility? I wish Dad was still alive.”

  Eve heard footsteps descend the staircase and then a door slammed once… twice.

  She jumped up and looked out the window.

  Mick ran after his grandson, hurrying up the pathway toward the parking lot, chasing after L’il Mickey.

  Eve waited in the stillness for a few minutes, allowing her heart to slow and her breathing to ease. She realized she was sweating.

  Eve, you have to stop doing this to yourself, she thought with a shake of her head.

  As she bent forward to grab her purse from under the desk, she glanced at the box that she’d cut herself on.

  It couldn’t be.

  Eve felt a chill go through her.

  Hesitantly, as if in slow motion, she reached out for the box, half‑afraid it would suddenly disappear before she could touch it. Her fingers stretched out toward it as the snow outside parted, allowing a stray beam of the late afternoon sun to stream in through the window, illuminating the office’s interior in a blissful glow.

  She closed her fingers on it, thumb on top, the rest of them on the back of the box and pulled it out. She delicately lifted the doll out.

  Daulene.

  The name on one of the papers below caught her attention.

  Theodore Barker. She’d found Cocoa Barker’s doll but more importantly she’d found Teddy Barker’s research.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  S he stood staring in disbelief. How could Mick have this stuff! How could he let his grandson away with such a thing? She felt her face flush. A few fingers of panic reached into her, causing her to stiffen. She set Daulene back in the box and picked up the phone’s receiver on his desk. She needed to call Cody.

  Are you kidding me? No dial tone.

  She chucked a stapler across the room in frustration.

  Then she hit the button to disconnect a few times, attempting to figure out the society’s phone system but there was nothing. Obviously, the lines were down due to the storm.

  Instead she loaded the box into her arms and hurried down the stairs, eager to get away with the evidence. She couldn’t let them destroy it before she got back with the police. But when she got to the front door, she realized with a start that it was locked, and the alarm was set
. If she set the alarm off now, Mick would most likely be the one contacted and he was probably still close by.

  Dang it! If I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any at all.

  She was trapped inside the museum!

  She couldn’t believe she’d gotten herself into this jam. What was she going to do? “Just stay calm,” she told herself in a low breath. “Stay calm and figure this out or you’ll get another grey hair.”

  Despite her rebuke to herself, she could feel her heart beating faster as the panic threatened to build, to sweep through her in an unbridled surge. But she kept it under control as she tried to decide what to do next.

  The snow had settled in outside, becoming impenetrable. Any tourists who might have lingered on the property were probably all gone, driven off by the worsening weather and leaving her stranded alone on the grounds.

  Suddenly she reached back with her hands, urgently patting the pocket of her bag, as if her hands were on fire. Her cell phone! She could call for help.

  A wave of relief washed through her as her shoulders visibly sagged. She’d found a way out. She could breathe again.

  She brought up the contact list and scrolled down to her home phone number. She couldn’t recall if Ren had anything planned this afternoon, but he’d pick up if he was around. He was her best option, she decided, as she pressed the button that selected the number. But before she pressed send, she hesitated.

  Maybe it would be better to call Juniper instead. No doubt Ren would tell Penny who would look very unfavorably upon Eve’s current predicament and would probably give her some sort of lecture, or at the very least, disapproving looks for days. Juniper was the better choice.

  She quickly found Juniper’s number. Her thumb hovered over the send button. But again, she hesitated. She should look through the box first. After all, the doll was here. Maybe it would be better to call Cody directly. He’d tell Penny too, but she’d get into trouble for interfering again if she didn’t.

  Oh, what else was new.

  Her gaze rose to the door. Outside, the light was fading, squeezed from the day by the dense snow. She walked to the window and looked out. A few lights were flickering on around the complex, activated by sensors, she guessed. They formed glowing pools of pale illumination in the murky day highlighting the snow like the millennium falcon jumping into hyperdrive.

  She turned and looked over at the lobby’s light switch. It was time to do what she’d come here to do. She shoved her cell into her pocket and started systematically going through the papers and notebooks.

  And then she saw something interesting. It was an email from the manager of the Nutkins’s largest manufacturing plant.

  Mr. Nutkins,

  I’m sorry you disagree with my assessment but the presence of water in what should be a dry processing facility for peanuts is like adding gasoline to fire. I’ve sent a sample out for testing and I am positive the results will confirm salmonella. Please, I ask you again, grant me permission to destroy this batch.

  Eve went on to read the remaining correspondence. The manager of the plant was begging for permission to dispose of all current product and to have the roof fixed, describing the filthy conditions of the plant, including roaches, rats, mold, dirt, accumulated grease and bird droppings. In the email he was advising the owner, Wallace Nutkins that salmonella poisoning was most likely present in one of the upcoming batches. Wallace vehemently denied his request and threatened to terminate him.

  There was another copy of Cocoa’s obituary from March 2017. Along with letters and test results from the hospital. Cocoa had died of salmonella poisoning right before the contest. There was another list of names—all deceased of salmonella around the same time. It included the name of the manager who had threatened to blow the whistle.

  Eve pulled Cocoa’s recipe from her purse. The note at the top of the recipe said the recipe needed Nutkins’ smooth peanut butter.

  So, that was what had happened. Cocoa had used the tainted peanut butter and somehow died of it. It looked like Ted was building a case but was he murdered for getting too close? This thing was bigger than she imagined. A cover up? A conspiracy?

  His widow had given all the evidence away—not realizing her husband had been murdered. Then someone must have stumbled over it here at the museum and alerted Wallace.

  Sharlene, Bianca, or, no, it must have been Mick? Or Mick’s grandson?

  She looked up in sudden shock. Her heart thumped again in her chest, more powerfully than before. She felt her blood turn cold.

  Someone was at the door. The click of the key in the lock sounded as clearly as if it’d been positioned just inches from her ear. “Who turned the lights back on?” a voice muttered as a dark figure strode into the office leaving wet snow marks on the floor.

  Eve gasped.

  Mick Spirit stopped in his tracks, his head swiveling toward her.

  A look of complete confusion clouded his face for a few moments as he studied her, trying to figure out what he was looking at. His gaze shifted briefly to the box and then the doll, which she still held by the red yarn-like hair, and then upward again as their eyes locked.

  A scowl came to his face. “What are you doing with that?”

  Eve couldn’t move. She’d been caught red handed—or at least red-haired doll in hand!

  TWENTY-NINE

  M ick Spirit took a few steps toward her, his face flushed, his eyes hardened and accusing. “You shouldn’t be in here. What do you think you’re doing?” He leveled a finger at her angrily.

  Eve instinctively jumped and let out a yelp. “Stay away from me, Mick,” she said, grabbing a gun out of her purse and holding it out toward him.

  Her heart thumped in her chest as she twisted her head back and forth, searching desperately for an escape. But there was only one way out – through the lobby’s double doors. And right now, Mick Spirit stood between her and freedom.

  “Stay right there or I’ll shoot.” Her adrenaline was pumping.

  “You’ll shoot what? I’m pretty sure that’s not how those work but perhaps Jack or Juniper would be better off explaining that to you.”

  Ah, hell, she was holding a hammer.

  Eve cursed, “Well, regardless, I’ll use it.”

  As he came toward her another few steps, she moved away from him, around the greeting counter, slipping sideways like a crab. She kept her eyes on Mick, not on her footing. As she moved, one of the books slid from the box onto the floor, landing with a slam.

  Mick gave her a distressed look. “Hey, don’t mess anything up!”

  “Just stay away!” she yelled back at him with all the force she could muster. “Don’t come any closer. I know what you’ve been up to.”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You know exactly what it means. I heard you and your grandson.” Eve glanced back over her shoulders, looking for where she’d dropped her purse.

  “Oh, well. Listen, Eve, please, you can’t go to the cops. He’s just young and stupid.”

  “I just want to get out of here,” Eve said.

  “Well, okay,” Mick said. “Go on then. No one’s stopping you.”

  Eve wasn’t fooled. “Yeah, I bet that’s what you told the others, huh, Mick?”

  Again, he gave her a strange look. “Others?” He indicated the doll, which she still held tightly against her. “That belongs to the museum. You’ll have to leave it here.”

  “Leave it here?” Eve nearly shouted the words as anger mixed with the fear and panic inside her. “You—or your grandson —stole it!”

  At this accusation, he looked more annoyed than anything else. “Quit goofing around and put it back.”

  Eve clutched the doll and the notebook with the email correspondence tighter to her chest. “I’m not goofing around. And I’m not giving it back. It doesn’t belong to you.”

  “Of course not, but it belongs to the museum.” Mick sounded irritated now. “You found i
t here, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right. I found it in your office, Mick. What are you doing with it?”

  “Oh hell, I don’t know.” He squinted at the object. “What the hell is it, anyway?”

  “You know perfectly well what it is. It’s the doll, Mick. The one that belonged to Cocoa.”

  “Barker?” At the mention of the name, Mick’s brow fell dramatically. Mick finally seemed to understand what was going on. His face went pale. “It was in Teddy’s box?” he asked after a moment, as if the realization had only just hit him. He shifted his gaze to the doll, studying it. Suddenly he straightened and walked forward, holding out his hand. “Here, let me have a look at that.”

  Eve darted off to one side again, out of his reach. “Just stay back.”

  “Look here, now,” he said, planting his feet and putting his hands on his hips. “Maybe you should tell me what’s going on, so we both know.”

  Something in his tone made the fear, panic, and anger inside Eve suddenly dissipate. She still stood warily in a combative stance, and she still held the blue‑handled hammer out in front of her. But she was looking more closely at Mick now. She was starting to realize that something was not as it seemed. “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “About the doll.” For some reason she couldn’t explain, she held it out in front of her, so he could see it. “This doll. It was stolen from Clara’s house last week. Your grandson took it, didn’t he, and you hid it under your desk.” She pointed up to where his office was on the second floor.

  “No, of course not,” he retorted.

  “But I found it there.”

  “Well, I think I’d know if I put it there. People are always shoving boxes full of papers in my office. I’m the one who files everything away.”

  He paused, his face shifting, becoming more thoughtful. “Can I see it?” He paused. “Please?”

  Eve held it tightly a few more moments, uncertain of what to do. But something in his tone made her trust him. He seemed more curious now than threatening. “Just remember,” she said, “I have a hammer.”