by Jessica Beck
It was a good save. After all, I didn’t want to make any promises I had no intention of keeping.
“I scratched it on some bushes I was trimming,” he said with a frown.
“But these aren’t scratchy,” I said as I ran my hand over the bush in question again.
“True, but they aren’t the only ones I cut over the past few days. The ones in back are kind of prickly, just like the two of you.”
The slam didn’t bother me, nor did it register with Grace, based on her lack of recognition. “Could we see them?” she asked him.
“You may not,” he said. “What’s the second question?”
“Did you steal money from Maggie Moore just before she died?” I asked him.
He laughed long and hard at the accusation, a reaction I hadn’t been expecting. “Maggie sank nearly every dime she had into that stupid pie shop of hers. There was nothing to steal.”
So, Leanne’s story about Maggie’s financial situation checked out, and Beatrice’s suggestion turned out to be exactly what it had seemed at the time, a woman desperate to divert attention from herself.
“I’d still like to see those bushes,” I said.
“And I’d like a million dollars, but I don’t think either one of us is going to be happy tonight. Now I’ll ask you both to kindly leave my property.” Crusty took a few steps toward the door before stopping suddenly and turning around. “One more thing. If I catch either one of you lurking around in my backyard, you’ll regret it. I promise you that.”
“Is that a threat, Crusty?” I asked him pointedly. I hated being bullied, and I knew that the only way to beat one was to stand up to him. Unless of course he turned out to be a psychopathic mad-dog killer, and in that case, I’d just poked a monster that should have been left alone.
“It’s a promise,” he said. With a grin that had no warmth in it, he added softly, “My eyesight isn’t what it once was. If I saw someone prowling around my backyard, I might think it was a burglar, and if that were the case, you should know that I’m never very far away from my gun.”
Once he was back inside, Grace studied me a moment. “I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to risk it if you are. I think he’s bluffing.”
“But what if he’s not?” I asked her.
“I suppose you pay your money and you take your chances,” Grace said, though without much enthusiasm.
I didn’t blame her. The prospect of being shot at wasn’t a pleasant one in any situation. “I have another idea,” I said.
“What’s that? If it’s dangerous and illegal, you know me. I’d be happy to join in.”
“It’s neither,” I said. “Get in the Jeep.”
She did as I asked, and I did the same thing. I backed out of Crusty’s driveway, but instead of taking off, I parked near the pile of brush in the road, which was clearly in the street and not in his yard.
“What are you doing?” Grace asked me as I popped out of my seat.
“I’m looking for anything scratchy,” I said.
I started riffling through the pile, and soon she joined me.
We weren’t interrupted, but not for long.
“What do you think you are doing?” Crusty asked in anger as he stepped out onto his porch. To my horror, he did indeed have a rifle in his hands.
At least he wasn’t pointing it in our direction.
Yet.
“This isn’t your land,” I said.
“No, but I told you to go, and that’s exactly what you need to do.”
“Come on, Suzanne,” Grace said behind me.
“Fine,” I said, standing in place for a moment to give Crusty a solemn stare before I got back in and drove off. I was biting my lip as I headed down the road, but to my surprise, Grace giggled.
“What’s so funny?” I asked her.
In reply, she held up a short section of branch, full of prickly leaves that were quickly losing their luster. “I found this buried under the pile.”
“So, he was telling the truth,” I said.
“Maybe. Then again, what if he scratched his arm at the pie shop, and that’s when he decided to do a little pruning? It’s the perfect cover, don’t you think?”
“It’s absolutely brilliant, if it’s true,” I said. “The real question is if Crusty is smart enough to think of it.”
“I can’t say that he isn’t,” Grace replied.
“That’s not exactly a firm answer, but he has to stay near the top of our list, right beside Beatrice.” I drove for a few more minutes, but when we got back to the diner, I looked at Grace and said, “Now I can’t get pie off my mind. All this talk about it has gotten me hungry for dessert. Will we look like idiots going back in so soon for something we turned down earlier?”
Grace laughed. “Who cares what we look like if it means we get pie after all.”
I parked, and we went inside. Trish was checking someone out, and when she was finished, she asked us with a puzzled look on her face, “Did you two forget something?”
“Is it too late to take you up on that earlier offer for pie?” I asked her.
“No, ma’am, it’s always time for dessert,” she said. She frowned for a moment before adding, “I’m glad you want pie, because I just sold the last piece of orange pineapple cake. I can’t keep that stuff around.”
“I’m perfectly happy with a slice of pie. Cherry sounds delightful, if you’ve got it,” I said.
“Would you mind adding some ice cream, too?” Grace asked.
“Is there any other way to eat pie?” Trish asked her with a smile.
Grace shrugged. “Not in my book.”
Trish lingered for a moment, and then she asked us, “Listen, are you two busy with anything that you don’t want anyone overhearing, or can I join you?”
“By all means, make it three,” I said. What Grace and I would lose in alone time would more than be made up for in time spent with a dear friend of ours. After all, we couldn’t eat, breathe, and sleep murder, anyway. If nothing else, it was bad for the digestion.
As Grace and I settled at a table near the front, I saw that she was frowning. “Suzanne, this bandage thing is really bothering me,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I still think there’s a chance we’re making a mountain out of a molehill. You went through those bushes yourself, and I can’t see any signs of marks on your arms now.”
I studied them both closely, and though I could still see a few faint traces of the scratches that had been there earlier, they were mostly gone now. “Then again, I didn’t have to spend any time freeing that door up. It’s hard to tell how unruly those bushes were before I discovered them.”
“True, but still,” she said as she pointed to Trish. “She’s got a bandage on her arm, too. Does that make Trish a suspect in your mind?”
“Of course not,” I said as Trish noticed us looking at her and joined us. “Can I get you ladies anything else? Gladys is warming the pie up for us even as we speak.”
“Trish, what did you do to your arm?” I asked her as nonchalantly as I could manage. I didn’t suspect her of murder, but I was curious about it now that Grace had pointed it out to me.
“This?” she asked as she held up her arm. “I scraped it on the edge of my door at home. A little piece of a nail was sticking out from the frame, and I must have brushed against it on my way in or out. It stung like a beast, and when I got inside the house, I was bleeding at a pretty good clip. Don’t worry, a little Neosporin and a Band-Aid was all that it took, and I was as good as new,” she said with a grin. “I took care of that nail and showed it who was boss, too. I drove that poor thing so far into the wood it will never come out again. It left quite a dimple in the doorframe, though.”
“Sometimes you have to show these things who the boss is,” Grace said with a s
mile. “Tell Gladys that meal was wonderful.”
“Thank you,” Trish said, and then she quickly amended it to add, “I will.”
“Trish, how much did you have to do with tonight’s special?” I asked her.
“Me? I just supervise around here,” she replied with a smile.
“Trish,” I pushed. “The truth.”
“Suzanne, everybody needs a helping hand now and then. The poor woman is off her game, so I stepped in and helped out a little. You would have done the same thing if it had been Emma,” she said, almost accusing me of being good-natured.
“You bet I would have,” I said with a smile. “You’ve got a good heart, ma’am.”
In a low voice, she said, “Thanks. Just don’t spread it around, okay?”
“You bet.”
As expected, the pie and ice cream were outstanding. I probably didn’t need the calories, but wow, was it delicious. The company was even better, though.
As we were leaving the diner, Trish said, “I’m sure that I’ll see you ladies tomorrow. In the meantime, try to stay out of trouble, would you?”
“We could try, but what fun would that be?” Grace asked her with a laugh.
“I know, but do it anyway,” she said.
“We’ll do our best, but we can’t make any promises,” I said as I touched her shoulder lightly. “Watch out for those nails now, you hear?”
“The nails need to watch out for me,” she answered happily, and I knew that she was right. Trish wielding a hammer was a very frightening prospect indeed, especially if you happened to be a protruding nail head.
I half expected to find someone else lurking outside of the Boxcar Grill when Grace and I emerged from the diner, but if anyone was there, they were better at playing Hide and Go Seek than I was.
As I drove us both back toward home, I had a sudden thought. “I’ve got a little time before I have to go to bed,” I said. “Are you up for a visit?”
“You know me, I’m always ready for anything. Who exactly are we going to go see?”
“I thought we might pop in on Gabby and Leanne. I’m curious to see what they say about Beatrice’s wild accusations.”
“That sounds like it could be useful,” she said. “Besides, maybe Gabby won’t kill us if there are two of us.”
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it.” I was only half kidding at the time. I wasn’t all that excited about bracing the woman in her own home again, but I needed to be certain that Beatrice had really been making up everything she’d said to us earlier at the diner, and there was only one solid way to find out.
I had to ask her myself.
Chapter 16
“Hey, Gabby. I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if Grace and I could come in for a minute.”
She just shrugged as she stepped aside out of the threshold. “You might as well. This seems to be our night for visitors.”
“Who else is here?” I asked as we walked back into the stylish home for the second time in two days.
“Jane Preston is also visiting,” Gabby said.
That completely caught me off guard. What was my former schoolteacher doing at Gabby’s house? While it was true that we hadn’t completely eliminated her as a suspect, she had certainly shifted to the lower end of the list. “Cool,” I said.
“You might as well come into the living room,” Gabby said. Clearly feeling a little uncomfortable playing hostess, she asked, “Would you ladies like some sweet tea?”
Grace looked at me, but I shook my head. Not only did I not want to load my system with any more caffeine than was already in it, but I also wasn’t crazy on pressing Gabby’s hospitality. “We’re fine,” I said, “but thanks, anyway.”
Gabby looked at me, puzzled for a moment. “Suzanne Hart, don’t you think I know how to make good sweet tea? That’s the second time I’ve offered it to you in the past few days, and it is also the second time you’ve refused it.”
Oh, no. Had I offended the Southern woman in her somehow? “I just didn’t want you to go to any trouble, that’s all.”
“It’s no trouble at all. I’ll make it two,” she said to Grace, who simply nodded.
Leanne saved us from any further embarrassment by calling out to us, “Ladies, come on in. What brings you out so late? Suzanne, isn’t it past your bedtime?” she asked with a weak grin. Maybe she was getting some of her spirit back, which would be a very good thing, given the circumstances.
“Not quite yet,” I said. “Hello, Mrs. Preston. I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”
“It was spur of the moment,” my former teacher said with a cryptic smile. Had we just interrupted something? I wasn’t exactly sure. “You just missed the police chief.”
That certainly got Grace’s attention. “What was Chief Grant doing here?” she asked.
“He wanted to follow up on the poison that was used to kill Maggie,” Gabby said as she walked in with two large glasses of sweet tea. There was no way I was going to get to sleep tonight if I drank even a third of that, but it was better than offending Gabby more than I already had.
“What did he have to say?” I asked as I took a sip of the concoction. If anything, it was even sweeter than mine, which was saying something, but I managed a hearty swallow anyway, since Gabby was watching me closely. “Ummm. That’s delightful,” I said with a smile.
Grace did the same thing, and that seemed to satisfy our hostess.
“You were saying?” I asked Leanne and Mrs. Preston, but Gabby answered for them. Though I had called her Jane a few times earlier, I still couldn’t do it on a regular basis, even in my own mind. “The concentrated chemical used is present just about everywhere. There’s some of the cleaner at the pie shop, but that’s not really all that alarming. I have some of the same stuff in question here, and I wager you have it at the donut shop and at home too, Suzanne.”
“That’s probably true, but I don’t have any idea how to reduce it down to where it would be lethal enough to use to coat pills.”
“Actually, it’s not that hard to find on the Internet,” Mrs. Preston said.
I looked at her oddly. “Are you saying that you actually looked it up?”
“Didn’t you? I was naturally curious about it,” Mrs. Preston said. “I just figured everyone would search for it.”
“That’s true. I did myself,” Leanne admitted softly.
“As did I,” Grace added.
“You did?” I asked her. Why hadn’t she told me she’d done that?
“I meant to say something to you this afternoon, but we’ve both been kind of distracted today,” Grace replied, clearly trying to apologize to me for the slip-up.
“That’s perfectly understandable,” I said, offering her a smile to show that it wasn’t going to be an issue between us. “Opportunity and means might be pretty universal with that side door secret passageway and with that cleaner being so ubiquitous, but that still leaves a big hole when it comes to motive, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the most crucial part of the case.”
“Speaking of motive, you should hear what Beatrice Branch has to say about all of you,” Grace said.
I hadn’t been all that sure that we should mention what we’d heard to anyone else yet after what we’d just learned, but that ship had most certainly sailed now. Then again, Grace’s instincts were usually dead on when it came to things like that, so I wasn’t even upset that she had said something. After all, that pot needed to be stirred every chance we got.
“What exactly did she say about me?” Gabby asked, clearly unamused by the prospect of being mentioned for consideration as a possible killer.
I took another sip of tea to fortify myself before I told her. “She said that Maggie did something to offend you, and that the only reason you’ve been helping us solve the case is because you’re trying to keep us
from learning the truth.”
I wasn’t at all sure how Gabby was going to take it, so her laughter was a welcome relief. “If being irritated with people was truly grounds for murder, half this town would be dead.”
I just shook my head, aware yet again that people continued to surprise me. Gabby composed herself after a moment as she said, “Tell us her other fanciful notions.”
“Let’s see. She said that Crusty probably stole money from Maggie, and so he must have killed her to keep her from turning him in to the police,” I reported.
“What money would he even be able to steal?” Leanne asked. “I already told you that she didn’t have two nickels to rub together.”
“Something I can vouch for as well,” Gabby said. “Did you think to challenge Beatrice about any of this nonsense, or did you just let her stand there and slander us without consequence?” She was angry now, but then again, I’d been fully expecting that in the first place, so I wasn’t all that surprised.
“As a matter of fact, we were all sitting down at the time,” Grace said.
It was not a great time for Grace to try to be amusing. “We told her what Leanne had mentioned to us earlier.”
“And how did she react to that?” Leanne asked.
“She moved on to her next suspect. After Crusty, she went after Gabby, and then you, Mrs. Preston,” I said, looking at my schoolteacher.
She looked at me first and then at Grace, clearly not at all certain how much information my mother had shared with us about her true relationship with Crusty. I tried to give her my most reassuring look as I said, “She thought you were vying with Maggie for Crusty’s affections,” I said, doing my best to make light of it.
“I don’t know why people keep mentioning that,” Mrs. Preston said. “The man is repugnant to me on so many levels.”
“I have found that people are generally idiots,” Gabby said, her composure regained once again. I didn’t share her belief about that, but I didn’t feel that it made much sense to get into a debate about it.
“What did she say about me?” Leanne asked, her voice soft and vulnerable.