Digger piped up. “So what are you saying, we are starting over”
I uttered, “Exactly.”
After a few minutes Dog came back into the office and proudly announced, “All done.”
Guardrail jumped on him, “I better check, you get things mixed up sometimes.” He pushed Dog out the door so they could review what was written.
Lily rose, “I want to see too.”
And then everyone spilled out into the kitchen, just outside my office to gawk at the whiteboard.
Digger summarized, “Four suspects, and one motive that seems to repeat, money.”
I added, “No, Elias could have been jealous or angry about the upcoming marriage of Donna to Robert. And fear could have driven Amber in an attempt to protect her father. Dog add those to the list. And we have no real motive for Palmer, other than some money that might get kicked back to him. And money might be a motive for Robert, but he wouldn’t receive an inheritance till he actually married Donna.”
Lily protested, “Why is Robert even on the list? He is so kind and gentle. And he was seen in town. It doesn’t make sense. And as you just said, he had no reason to do such a terrible thing. Thank goodness he didn’t marry that awful woman.”
I answered, “Glad to see you and Edith are keeping your emotions out of this.” I waited a moment to let the sarcasm in my voice sink in along with the point to the spinster sisters that we needed to use logic, not emotions. Then I continued, “Beth is such a gossip, but she said something interesting just after the murder. The lover is always suspect number one. And Lily, you said to suspect the lover when you thought it was Elias. Why not look at Robert too?”
Dog raised his voice, “I still think it’s a pro. I’m telling ya, hit men are the only ones who kill so clean, with no blood.”
Digger challenged him, “Why do you keep bringing that up. I don’t think we have assassins running around in Potter’s Mill.”
I agreed, “It would be hard for a stranger to come into town in broad daylight and not be seen. But if you knew what you were doing or had some help, maybe. But there are other problems with that theory. Someone would still have to hire him, and for what reason? That brings you back to our list of four. The motive would have to be pretty strong to hire a hit man. But a strong motive does not seem to exist for any of them.”
Piper said, “You know, seeing this all up on the board, it looks to me like Robert, Amber, Elias, and Silus are our most likely suspects. In two days, we found no others to add to that list. But we did pretty much rule out all four. What if the assumed time of murder is off, then the alibis may not be as strong as they seem. That brings Amber, Elias and Robert back into the discussion.”
Lily raised her voice. “Oh for heaven’s sake, I can’t believe we are back to this silly notion where Robert is on the list.”
I added, “It’s not silly if he did it. Maybe there is a motive we just haven’t found yet.”
Piper agreed and yelled back to the office. “Ida, you got anything on Robert yet?”
Ida answered, “Nope, will take some time. But I did set up some additional web crawlers. They take even more time.”
I was exhausted and said, “Alright, seems Ida’s little electronic bug crawler things, or whatever you call them, need time. So let’s regroup tomorrow just before the street fair. We can check what we find from the phone records and anything else she finds online. And in the meantime, maybe we’ll think of something else to investigate.”
I heard Dixie came through the swinging door into the kitchen and stride on back to join the discussion. She asked, “What did I miss?”
Dog leaned over and whispered to Dixie, “It was a hit man.”
Dixie ignored Dog and insisted, “Well? Anything new.”
Lily blurted it out, “Everyone has gone mad and thinks we have eliminated all our suspects. So we have gone back to suspecting everyone.”
Dixie shot me a glance and said, “Good grief, when it comes to suspects for Donna’s murder, you guys bounce around more than a kangaroo on a trampoline.”
Dog spun to Dixie, “I would love to see that, can you imagine.”
Piper’s voice took a condescending tone and she hung her head. “And with that, rational discussion dies a horrible death.”
I added, “Piper’s right, we’re all tired and we’re pretty much done for today. We should regroup here tomorrow morning just before the street fair for the art gallery opening. Agreed?”
Everyone nodded yes. We were all tired but I needed to push myself to close the night out. So I went to help Dixie and Bones finish with the dinner crowd and the group in my office dispersed. Most of the gang went home, except Dog Breath and Guardrail who went to their usual bar stools for one last beer. There was an uneasy air to it all as we went into waiting mode for some unknown electronic thingy to find information for us.
Chapter Fifteen
Potter's Mill is a small town and the last thing you would expect to find is a fine art gallery. But three sisters, Cathy Douglas, Blanche Diaz, and Janis Bishop, believe they can make a profit selling art here. The grand opening was scheduled for today and the whole town pitched in to celebrate the ribbon cutting by throwing a street fair to coincide with their first day of business.
It was early and even though the last two days were long and hectic, I couldn’t sleep and rose early with one question nipping at my brain. Who murdered Donna? I couldn’t ignore it, so I finished my morning routine and wandered down from the apartment over the pub.
Upon strolling into the kitchen, I saw the whiteboard and took another look. I couldn’t help but wonder who or what we missed and more questions flooded my consciousness. Only four suspects, are there others? Three seem to have strong alibis, but can we really rule them out? Who had a motive strong enough to warrant murder? And did Ida get us all in trouble?
The last two days flew past and I was tired. People get things wrong when exhausted and I wanted to avoid missing something or making a mistake. Working with Piper and the gang helped minimize the fear of missing something, but not completely. I went into the office and sat at my desk. Scanning the screens, I saw text scrolling from top to bottom at a rapid rate and felt stupid for not knowing what I was looking at.
I heard a familiar voice bellow, “Boss, your first mate reporting for duty!” Dixie had arrived and must have seen the lights on in my office.
I yelled back, “I’m in here!”
Dixie made her way into the office and took a seat. She looked at me like she wasn’t sure what to say. “You look tired, the ghosts keep you up all night?”
Mention of the grumpy chicken might have been a mistake because the lights flickered in response to her comment. And it seemed impossible, but the next thing we heard sounded like a chicken clucking, “Evil!”
We heard a loud crackling similar to electricity arcing and the lights went wild for a few seconds. Then everything returned to normal.
My eyes were wide and I knew my skin was white. “Dixie, maybe you shouldn’t ever mention our namesake mascot...like ever again.”
Dixie’s eyes were even wider and she was looking around like she might find something else. “What the feathers? That was real creepy. What was it? And don’t tell me another fuse!”
I tried to keep my voice steady. “Maybe it was a fuse. Let’s go have a look.” I looked down at the laptop screen and what I saw stopped me from rising. On the screen, the scrolling text now flowed around some odd blank spaces. And those blank spaces formed two letters – R and H. I finally realized what I was seeing and did not want to spook Dixie. I continued to stare at the screen and said, “Let’s go check the fuse box.”
“Okay. But I’m not touching anything in that electrical box. Two incidents in about two days, it may not be safe.”
We went into kitchen with the intent of moving over to the corner where the fuse box was mounted. But we stopped just outside the office. The whiteboard was now damaged, with a shallow dent like someone
had punched it. And the ink colors changed. Most of the letters had faded to a light gray almost too light to see. Except for two words – Robert and secret. Robert was in a faded red that bordered on pink. And the word secret was in the middle of the dent, glowing in bright green. I felt my knees weaken.
Dixie broke the silence. “You can’t ignore this. That board was not like that two minutes ago. It had to be the chicken. You heard the clucking voice that said 'evil'. And this? It had to be...” She leaned over to me and whispered. “It had to be our ornery fowl.”
In a rare instance, I was speechless. Dixie clearly heard the same thing I had and these changes on the whiteboard were impossible. The green glow of the word secret was not natural and nobody else was in the kitchen. How could this happen?
Dixie whispered again. “Our paranormal clucker is trying to tell us something.”
I rebutted, “There has to be an explanation. Someone may be messing with us. I’m checking the fuses.” And I went to check the electrical box, but nothing was wrong and no fuses had burned out.
The rear door of the kitchen opened revealing another impossible occurrence...Bones arrived early to work. He eyed the two of us. “You both look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Dixie blurted back at him. “Don’t say that. You don’t know how right you are.”
I needed to move past the unexplained event to the business of the day. “Look, it’s weird, yes. But we have work to do to get ready for the fair. The tables need to be set up out front. And don’t forget the white tablecloths. We want it to look nice.”
Dixie gave me the side eye. “So we’re going to ignore all this?”
“For now. What else can we do. Best thing to do is get back to normal as fast as possible.”
Bones chuckled like a surfer that just rode the perfect wave. “Whoa, look at the way that one word is glowing green.”
I grabbed his shoulders, turned him toward the hanging aprons, and pushed him in that direction. “The whiteboard is unimportant right now. We need to set up!”
Suddenly we heard a loud knock at the back door and we all jumped. Bones answered and Piper entered with Ida. We all stared at the two of them and Piper defensively said, “What?”
Dixie chortled, “You don’t want to know.”
I added, “She’s right. It’s been a weird morning and we need to set up for the fair. But I would like to talk with Ida in my office for a minute, alone.”
Everyone knew I was leery of Ida’s hacking and that I thought she could be difficult to be around sometimes. So my request drew odd looks ranging from surprise to shock. Ida nodded and we went into the office and I shut the door.
I told her, “Look at the screen. What could have done that?”
Ida took a seat at the desk and threw her hands in the air. “Look at what? My crawlers are doing their work like they should.”
I moved around the desk so I could see the screen. The text was scrolling down the monitor as usual but the ‘R’ and ‘H’ blank spaces the text had been flowing around were gone. I was stunned but did not want to let Ida know. “Oh, alright. I didn’t know if all that fast scrolling was normal.” I was bad at stalling so I added, “Then can you tell me if your automated stalkers found anything?”
Piper entered uninvited, but I knew she decided we had enough time alone and she did not like being left out. Ida continued pecking at the keys a few times and looked up. “Elias phone records do show he was at the waffle place like he said. And Amber was at the realty office, per her alibi. Silus, I don’t know, still don’t have all the information. And Robert? Nope, still nothing on his phone records either. Robert is older, he might not use his cell phone much.”
“Okay, thanks.” I left Piper and Ida in the office and went to back to work. This murder business was starting to frustrate me and I needed to do something normal, to take my mind off of it. I opened the cardboard box and inspected the huckleberry wine plus some unusual liquors made from the same fruit. I decided to exhibit and sell unusual huckleberry drinks in front of the pub as our part in the street fair. Dixie wanted us to also include some moonshine, but I had to be careful not to flaunt the Georgia alcohol laws. The huckleberry concoctions were the perfect compromise.
I heard the front door in the dining room open and the deep voice boomed through the order window into the kitchen. It was so loud it almost hurt my ears. “The one and only Guardrail reporting for service.”
I faintly heard Dog’s voice scold him. “You don’t need to announce yourself like the King of England.”
The front door opened and closed once more and I assumed it was Digger who was always not far behind Guardrail and Dog. I told everyone to show up early, and they did.
I moved out into the dining room to greet the boys. “How are the grumpy braindeads?”
Dog mumbled, “You don’t have to be mean about us wanting to have a cool name.”
Guardrail ignored Dog and asked, “Did we learn anything new?”
“Kind of. Ida’s creepy little electronic stalkers found that Elias and Amber were telling the truth. They both have strong alibis. Robert and Silus, we’re still waiting on their records.”
Dog chimed in, “So all of our suspects are out?”
I answered, “Well, really two are out. Robert and Silus haven’t been ruled ‘out,’ but they don’t seem to have a good motive for murder.”
Digger shook his head. “Edith and Lily are not going to want to hear that. They think Robert should be ruled out.”
I sighed. “Well, Lily and Edith need to see past their emotions. And if you think about it, it’s pretty much where we left off last night, only a little more sure about ruling out Amber and Elias.”
Dixie became animated and added, “What...you aren't going to spill? Tell them about the whiteboard!”
“Shhhhhh!” I held my index finger to my lips as I hushed her.
Dog was master of the obvious and said, “So what happened with the whiteboard?”
I surrendered, “Go see for yourself.” As I expected, the strange transformation of the whiteboard generated large amounts of unfocused energy in the three men.
They came back into the dining room and Guardrail looked skeptical. He sneered, “Alright, who’s the wise guy. It had to be Ginger or Piper. You two have been pointing toward Robert since yesterday afternoon. Well, we’re smarter than that and won't fall for your tricks. But who punched the board? And how did you get that one word to glow green like that? It’s kind of cool.”
I responded, “You’re right. We shouldn’t fall for tricks. Look we have the street fair to set up for, and I could use your help. Give us a hand with the tables and we’ll talk more about it later.”
Dog always liked being part of the pub functions and jumped into the kitchen to help Bones. Digger went back outside for some unknown reason, and Guardrail just stared at me. He eyed me and said, “So what really happened?”
“Nothing!” I didn’t need this distraction right now.
Dixie for some reason seemed to think I needed help to expand on my one word answer. “You don’t want to know and we can’t tell you anyway. Might cause something else weird to happen.”
Guardrail turned to look at Dixie and scrunched up his face. “Umm...that made no sense.”
Dixie winked at him and said in a low tone, “Big guy, trust me on this one.”
The front door opened and it was Edith followed by Lily. They had some photos with them, which I had asked to borrow to show how the pub looked years ago as part of our exhibit at the fair.
The swinging door to the kitchen opened and out came Dog carrying the box of huckleberry liquors. He made his way to the front door and on seeing the two spinsters, he volunteered, “Good morning ladies! Not much new this morning. Still looks like Robert did it.”
Lily stammered. “Oh, poo! He is too well refined to be a murderer.”
Though I wished different, Dixie spoke again. “Well our whiteboard says different.” Lily just looked
back at her confused. So Dixie added, “Go have a look for yourself.”
Edith and Lily took her suggestion and went into the kitchen to view the whiteboard. After a couple of minutes, they emerged back into the dining room and Lily spoke before even getting to her table to sit. “You didn’t have to resort to such extravagant measures to point at Robert. That was very immature of you Ginger.”
I emphasized, “I didn’t do anything.”
Edith politely asked, “Fine, dear, but you’re not fooling us. So is there anything else we can do to help set up for the fair?”
Lily added, “By the way, dear, how did you get the ink to glow green like that?”
I threw my hands in the air. “I didn’t change a thing on the whiteboard, so I have no idea why the green ink is glowing. For now, can we get back to setting up for the fair? We need to get glasses and the mobile register set up outside. Dixie, can you please get that done?” Finally, my efforts to focus on the fair paid off and we began to get the tables and chairs out on the sidewalk.
The town took pride in its street fairs, and as usual, a banner was hung over Main Street right in the middle of the strip. We all focused on the sidewalk to get set up so The Grumpy Chicken could contribute. Dixie organized one table as an order pick-up station with the register and another for taking orders and displaying the wares. Lily and Edith then left to wander around the shops once outside, while Piper and Ida continued the internet searching in my office. For the next hour or so the boys helped finish the set up for the fair, running extension cords, bringing out ice, whatever was needed; they were my unofficial employees in times like this. As a finishing touch, I brought out an over sized, framed menu so passersby could scan our food selections in hopes they would stop and buy some lunch. As I adjusted the pictures loaned to me by Edith, smoothed the linen tablecloths and arranged all the liquors on display one last time, I noticed Ida had left the office to poke her head out the front door. She looked concerned and flagged me to come over to her.
A Frosty Mug of Murder (The Grumpy Chicken Irish Pub Series Book 1) Page 11