Birds of a Feather (An Agnes Barton Senior Sleuth Mystery Book 9)

by Madison Johns

  Peterson’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t say.”

  “What are you doing here, Agnes?” Trooper Sales asked. “I thought I left the two of you back at your party.”

  Peterson’s face reddened. “So, you’re the one who told her there was an accident?”

  “No. She wasn’t even in the room when I received the call. Someone else must have told her. And I’m hoping it wasn’t my wife.”

  “It wasn’t. My granddaughter never tells me anything, but I’d rather not divulge my source.”

  “We found footprints and shell casings in the woods,” Eleanor informed them. “But I suppose you don’t want to know about that since you’re such a great investigator, Peterson.”

  “Where?”

  I led them back to where we were trying to eavesdrop and pointed out the footprints.

  “Where are the shell casings?”

  I opened my hand and showed him.

  He pulled out a baggy and took them from me with the bag. “Good job, Agnes,” Peterson bellowed. “The only fingerprints we’ll find on these will be yours. I’m sure by now you know better than to touch vital evidence.”

  “Oops. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

  “And that’s exactly why I don’t like either of you meddling with cases. You might have jeopardized this one past repair.”

  I walked back to the car. “Since the window is already broken, I guess it would be hard to know for certain if he was shot or if the collision caused the windows to break.” I walked around the car and onto the road. There were two sets of skid marks and all of what was left of the passenger’s side of the car was damaged. I pointed out the skid marks. “I think someone tried to force him off the road.”

  “And after he hit the tree, the gunman finished him off,” Eleanor added. “Look, there are binoculars there on the ground. The victim might be from out of town and only here for the birding festival.”

  “I certainly hope not,” Peterson said. “That’s the last thing I need to deal with.”

  I walked around to the back of the car and snapped a picture of the license plate number with my cell phone while Eleanor body-blocked me so Peterson wouldn’t see me do it.

  “I suppose we should leave, now,” I volunteered. “I’m sure you have more investigating to do.”

  “Is that it?” Peterson asked. “No asking if you can go through the car before you leave?”

  “I would love to know the cause of death when the coroner is finished with the autopsy, if you’d care to share.”

  “Only in your dreams. Even with these shells, this very well may just be an unfortunate accident.”

  “Go along back to the party, Agnes,” Sales said. “But don’t mention anything about the accident. It would be nice to be able to investigate without everyone in town knowing the details. I’m sure you could understand how you’d feel if this was your family member.”

  “Of course, Sales,” Eleanor said. "You can count on me, err, us.”

  I made my best attempt at an innocent smile that I just knew nobody would believe. Eleanor and I had to go back the way we came, through the woods, since a roadblock had been set up. By the time we had made it back to our car, an angry woman stood there with a shotgun trained on us.

  “Is this your Lexus?” the woman asked, shifting her shotgun so that it no longer was pointed at us, which relieved me considerably.

  “Yes, sorry. I didn’t mean to block your driveway. Its just there’s an accident up the road and I wanted to see if anyone needed any help.”

  “Why not drive directly over to it, then?”

  “Well, the cops had blocked off the road, you see.”

  Eleanor’s eyes widened and she tried her best not to laugh. “She’s an ambulance chaser.”

  The woman pointed to the road. “I have half of a mind to tell the sheriff all about your antics.”

  “Believe me, he already knows and gave us our walking papers,” I informed her. “Did you happen to hear anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Besides the two of you traipsing around in my woods, no. You’re lucky my dogs didn’t jump the fence.”

  “I’m sure glad,” I replied. “But are you certain you didn’t hear any cars racing up the road, or the sound of a crash?”

  “Teenagers race up and down this road all the time and it wouldn’t surprise me if one of them got themselves killed.”

  “Have there been any car crash fatalities on this road lately?”

  “Don’t you two live in Tawas? It seems you’d know the answer to that question already.”

  “We’ve been out of town since the end of December,” I said.

  “So we was just wondering if there have been any accidents since then?” Eleanor asked.

  “Why don’t you two haul off back to wherever you came from? I have better things to do then stand here talking all day about something I could care less about.”

  “Fine, consider us gone,” I said, as Eleanor and I hopped back in the LX and drove back to Elsie’s house.

  When we walked inside, Mr. Wilson and Bill Hays had lampshades on their heads, and so did my Andrew! “What on earth are you doing, Andrew?”

  “Did you look at her face?” Wilson asked. “I think you won that bet.”

  “Bet?” I asked.

  “What bet is that?” Eleanor demanded. “To see which one of us would react the worse. Everyone knows Agnes here would win that contest every time. I’m quite certain from the look on her face that she’s never seen Andrew wearing a lamp shade before.”

  I found nothing funny about this. “Have you been drinking Elsie’s spiked lemonade?”

  “No, I just wanted to be one of the boys.” Andrew laughed. “So, did you find out what Sales was called away for?”

  “Just a car accident, but it looked like a bad one.”

  “I found s—”

  “Eleanor means she found seashells in the woods. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  Eleanor made a motion with her hands like locking her mouth and throwing away the key.

  Andrew’s brow shot up as he took the lampshade off his head and set it down on the table. “I wonder, but there’s no sense going into that today. Elsie’s been waiting for you two to show up before she cut the cake.”

  “Sales must not have left for anything interesting,” Elsie said. “You two are back too quick. Now who wants cake?”

  Elsie wheeled out an elaborate cake in the shape of a marijuana leaf! “What on earth?” I said. “I hope you don’t have pot in that cake.”

  “No, why?”

  “It’s in the shape of a marijuana leaf, for one.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s a maple leaf, I tell you.”

  “I’ve never seen a maple leaf that looks like that.” Eleanor laughed. “Who made the cake, Rosa Lee Hill?”

  Rosa Lee shrugged. “No need to go ballistic here. It was supposed to be a joke. No need to get your panties in a bunch over it.”

  “Oh, Ma,” Curtis said. “You’re such a jokester.”

  Curt took his finger and made like he was going to swipe it in the frosting, but Rosa Lee picked up the spatula and gave him a smack. “Dang, Ma. I wasn’t really going to do it!” he said.

  “Boys.” Rosa Lee shook her head. “There’s no telling what they’ll do next.”

  “At least they’re good boys.” I took the knife from Elsie’s hand and cut the cake, which was vanilla on one side and chocolate on the other. Elsie went to work dishing it out and everyone in the room was indulging, since Rosa Lee baked the best cakes around.

  After the cake, Sophia gave me some time with my great-granddaughter as she went to help with cleaning up the cake dishes. Then she came back with a pot of coffee. We sat around card tables and played board games. I, for one, was tired of playing cards since we had just come back from Vegas.

  I handed the baby back to Sophia and walked her out to her car. It was mid-afternoon now and cooling up nicely. I waited until Sophia had buckled t
he baby into her car seat before I gave her a hug.

  “So, what really happened at the call Bill went on?”

  “Like I told you. It was a car accident.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Far as I know. Have a safe trip home.”

  Sophia slid behind the driver’s seat and said, “You’re a horrible liar, Gramms.”

  I didn’t respond, just watched her back out of the driveway. Apparently someone had picked up Sales, since he wasn’t allowed access to his police cruiser when he wasn’t not on duty. I went back inside and there was now a cat standing in the middle of the cake, with two more hopping on the table.

  “Err, Elsie, who let the cats in?”

  “Why?” She narrowed her eyes as she followed the direction of where I was looking. She dashed across the room, shooing the cats off the cake. “That darned Bernice is at it again. She’s the only person I know who would bring her cats to your coming home celebration.”

  Bernice walked into the room, rubbing her belly. “You’ve put together one great coming home party, Elsie.”

  “It was great before you showed up with your cats. Look what they did to the cake.”

  Bernice proceeded to cut herself a piece of cake and munched on it. “Tastes fine to me.”

  Eleanor doubled over in laughter and I tried not to join her, since Elsie was quite upset. At least I had already eaten my cake. Bernice was known as the Cat Lady, but we no longer called her that, not since we had learned her first name.

  “What’s new with you, Bernice?”

  “I sold my house to some folks from Southfield. It no longer suits my needs.”

  “But your house is gorgeous now since all the renovations.”

  “And that’s exactly what I don’t like about it. I liked it the way it was, so I bought another place just up the road. The only problem is my blasted cats keep going back to my old place. For some reason, the new owner doesn’t care for that much. I suspect he doesn’t care for twenty cats climbing all over his porch, either. Course he plans to turn my house into a bed and breakfast. I’m not sure how that will work since there are plenty in town already, and my house isn’t haunted like the Butler Mansion.”

  “I bet your place would do fine with that sort of business.”

  Elsie retrieved a broom and out the door the cats went. It was like they were accustomed to being swept out the door.

  I went across to the room and sat next to Martha, Captain Hamilton, and Stuart.

  “So is there anything you’d like to tell me about where Trooper Sales went?” Martha asked.

  “Oh, no. Just an accident. I’m not sure why everyone believes there’s more to it than that.”

  “Might be your MO, Mother,” Martha said.

  “Oh, so she’s always sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong?” Hamilton asked. “And here I thought she only did that on cruise ships.”

  “Nope, pretty much everywhere Eleanor and my mother go. I can’t say it’s a bad thing since they are pretty resourceful investigators. Believe it or not, they’ve only been arrested once for butting into cases.”

  I didn’t care where this conversation was going so I excused myself. “I should be going now. This party has really whipped me out.”

  “Sure, Mother, whatever you say,” Martha said, with a smug smile on her face.

  “Let’s be fair now,” Stuart said. “I haven’t seen her doing anything out of the way here. I bet she hasn’t even been able to question the police about the accident. I’m sure they wouldn’t be allowed at the scene of the accident.”

  “Think again,” Eleanor remarked from behind me.

  “Eleanor, remember?” I reminded her. “We promised.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Elsie said. “So it wasn’t really an accident, was it?”

  So much for trying to keep anything from my friends. “Oh, it was an accident all right.”

  “A suspicious one,” Eleanor added. “I just hope it’s not one of those out-of-towners who came to Tawas for the Birding Festival.”

  “Now that would be bad,” Elsie said. “I imagine Sheriff Peterson has downplayed the crimes in town.”

  “Well, it’s not like any of them have ever hit the major news channels,” I said.

  “Where did you observe the accident, from the woods?” Elsie asked. Is that why both your pant legs are covered with burs?”

  “Of course. You didn’t think Peterson would really let us near that wreck, did you?”

  “Suppose not, but how bad was the wreck?”

  “The fatal kind, the poor schmuck wrapped his car around a tree. It will take some doing to find out if it really was just an accident, but there were binoculars at the scene and I took a picture of the license plate number. Hopefully I’ll be able to piece it together since there were skid marks.”

  “I could check that out for you,” Stuart suggested. “Just text the picture to me and I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, son.”

  “That way when you figure out it was only an accident, you can concentrate on your new husband and retirement.”

  I smiled, even though on the inside I was screaming, ‘fat chance.’

  “Why don’t you come over to my new place and check it out?” Bernice suggested. “You don’t have to stay long.”

  “Sounds okay to me,” Andrew said. “Let’s head out now.”

  We thanked Elsie for a wonderful surprise party and we said our goodbyes. Stuart promised to come over for breakfast in the morning, which made me very happy. It would be another chance to see him before he left town on assignment. Life was too short to not spend the time you’d like with your family.

  Chapter Three

  We followed Bernice’s big black rusted car and when she went in the direction of the accident, I fretted. We wouldn’t be let through the roadblock. When she went through a trail in the woods, I exclaimed, “Where is she going now?”

  “It might be her driveway,” Andrew said, maneuvering the LX to follow her. We hadn’t gone very far when it became darker than dark since trees closely packed the drive that I was now calling barely a trail. At that point, I even thought that Bernice was cutting her own pathway into the woods.

  “I’m scared,” Eleanor said, sitting on the edge of her seat.

  “Sit back and relax,” I said.

  “How am I supposed to relax when I can’t even see where we’re going?”

  “Me either,” Andrew added. “And I’m the one driving!”

  The LX was soon rocking and jumping as we rode over ruts and I felt like a kernel of popcorn under high heat. The LX lumbered down the trail and through a clearing, finally reaching a patch where one ramshackle of a house stood. It had two stories with broken windows and a rickety porch and the siding looked like it had once been white.

  “This doesn’t look too different from Bernice’s old house before her renovations.”

  We climbed out of the LX and waded through the knee-high weeds until we were at the porch. Since the steps were broken, Andrew helped Eleanor and me up onto the porch, leaving behind Wilson, who was pushing his roller walker, using a stick like it was a samurai sword and the weeds were his opponent.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Wilson said. “I’ll wait out here.”

  “Careful,” Bernice said. “The porch is sadly in need of repair.”

  I passed cats that stared us down like we were their next meal and I could almost believe it, since many of Bernice’s cats were quite large for house cats.

  We walked in and there was a wooden floor that looked like it was made from barn wood. The fireplace was loaded with soot, and the rooms were devoid of furniture, just like her previous house had been.

  “I have some moonshine if you’d care for any. I promise it won’t get you sick this time.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll skip it this time,” I said. Eleanor and Andrew also declined her offer.

  She gave us the grand tour, the kitchen was
quite spacious and the cupboards were in good shape, at least. There was also a patio, and her cats perched outside on the back porch. When an errant bird flew past, those cats tried to catch it for a snack, but fortunately it got away.

  Up the stairs we went and into one of the bedrooms, which actually had a bed and dresser in it. “Wow, I’m glad to see some furniture, but you need more.”

  “Rosa Lee told me she’d bring me more tomorrow.”

  “I have an extra table and chairs in my shed,” I suggested.

  “I’d hate to have you give me any of your fancy things. I’m more of a simple woman.”

  “It’s not fancy and believe me, I don’t want to change you. I rather like you and your forty-two cats.” I laughed.

  Bernice rubbed her chin. “I’ve lost count of how many I really have, but they keep me company.” She smiled.

  “So, what’s been going on since we’ve been out of town?”

  “Oh, nothing all that different. Tawas just doesn’t seem as fun without you girls in town.”

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to us,” Eleanor said, dabbing at the invisible tears at her eyes.

  “Well, I suppose we should get going now,” I said. “We have a few things we need to do.”

  “Like go grocery shopping,” Eleanor said. “I don’t have anything in the house to eat.”

  “Well, let me walk you out to your car. Thank you for dropping by.”

  “Hey, does there happen to be another way out of your property other than the pathway we came in?” Andrew asked.

  “Sure, just drive between the two pine trees at the east of my property and you’ll find a better way out.”

  When we came off the porch, Wilson was on the ground, cats covering him.

  “Unhand my husband,” Eleanor wailed. She batted the cats off him and helped him to his feet.

  “I think the varmints smelled the cheese in my pocket and down I went.”

  “Are you sure that you’re okay?” I asked him.

  “Yes, at least now I am. Let’s get out of here before the varmints attack me again.”

  Andrew led the way back to the LX and took Wilson’s walker once Wilson had climbed into the back seat. Not long afterward, we were all in the SUV and heading down the drive that Bernice told us about. The only problem was that it wasn’t any better than the pathway we had come in from.