by Shari Hearn
“So far, here’s what we know,” I said. “Olive had a map and everyone in her metal detecting club knew about it. That would be Bucky, Rosa, Shelby and the five other members I met last night.”
Ida Belle nodded. “But the Three Stooges don’t have the map. They wouldn’t be trying to scare us into giving it to them if they had it. Personally, I think they’re the gang that can’t shoot straight.”
I gave my half-filled mug of coffee a warm-up in the microwave. “The police might not think Olive was murdered, but I think she was. Helium Throat Alvin said the key is to find out where Henry was during that time, whoever he is.”
Gertie nibbled on one of the doughnuts. “So our marching orders are to find the map and a guy named Henry.”
“You and I can stay here and search for the map or any clues to Olive’s death,” Ida Belle said to Gertie. She looked up at me. “Care to take a stab at finding Henry?”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, nodding.
My first stop was a grouping of mailboxes located near the main clubhouse. A nameplate on each box listed the resident’s full name. There was no “Henry” on any of the 30 boxes.
A woman walked out of the clubhouse, leaving the early-morning yoga class with a rolled-up yoga mat under her arm.
“Excuse me,” I said. “These aren’t all the mailboxes, are they?”
She shook her head. “No. We have five mailbox pods altogether.” She pointed to a map of the trailer park displayed on the wall of the community center. “Each pod is marked with a red triangle.”
I thanked her. After she left, I turned my attention to the park map. Moments later two other women exited the clubhouse, also carrying yoga mats. Seconds after the two women left, a man walked out the door, wearing wire-frame glasses and dressed in shorts and T-shirt. He gripped his yoga mat in one hand, and a rustic, wooden hiking stick in his other hand. I recognized him from the previous night as one of the members of the Desert Detectors.
“Good morning,” I said to him. The way he flinched, I could tell I startled him. “I’m Fortune. Um... Delilah. Olive’s niece. I met you last night at the debate.”
“Oh... Oh... That’s right. I’m Charles.” He extended a hand and we shook.
His reaction surprised me. Hmmm. Five-foot-six, 160 pounds, knobby knees. And those shoes. Vans. White background covered with dog faces.
Helium Throat had a cane, though it could have been a hiking stick. He also wore a pair of Vans on his feet.
“I feel terrible about Olive’s death,” he said.
“Thank you. You knew her well, then?”
“Oh yes, about ten years. We saw one another every week for our club meeting. And we’ve gone detecting together.”
“It was interesting, about that map she burned,” I said.
He nodded. “Yes. Well, I guess she felt a little paranoid about having it because everyone thought it was real.”
I nodded. “Do you believe she actually burned the one she found, though?”
He chewed his lip. “She said it was the one she found, so I believed her. Unless she told you otherwise. Or... you’ve found evidence to the contrary.”
I shook my head. “Nope. She never mentioned it, and I haven’t found one.”
“Then, I’d have to assume she burned the only map she had.”
Just then a man walked out of the clubhouse, stopping when he saw us. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to intrude. Charles, I forgot to ask you earlier. Could you decorate the clubhouse for my birthday celebration on the eighteenth?”
“Of course. Be happy to do it.”
“I’d like some streamers, a banner, and I’d like the ceiling covered in balloons,” the man said.
Charles shot a glance my way before averting his eyes to the ground. “Just leave me a note with what you’d like.”
“Will do.”
The man walked away. Charles kept his gaze to the ground.
“Balloons, huh? Why am I not surprised?”
He brought his eyes level with mine before quickly looking away. “I’m the park’s events coordinator.”
“I bet you’re particularly talented with helium.”
He took a deep breath, exhaling evenly, something he probably learned in yoga to relieve stress. “I really have to run along,” he said. “It was nice chatting with you.”
But I wasn’t through with him. “Who’s Henry? Is he the one who killed Olive?”
He stopped and turned to me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know what I think? I think you’re conflicted. You gave me this little tidbit, telling me to find out where Henry was. I think you want me to do what you’re too afraid to do. Is that it, Charles? I bet you have a damn good idea where Henry was, but you’re too chicken to do anything about it.”
If it had been me and someone called me chicken, I would have fought to prove I wasn’t. But Charles just looked back down at the ground.
“Where were you when Olive died?”
“I was on duty,” he said. “I have the eight-to-midnight shift on the security patrol. Before that, I had dinner at La Cucaracha Bar and Grill with my friends from the Desert Detectors.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I hope you enjoy your stay here. Again, my condolences. Olive was a wonderful woman.”
He turned and walked away.
“She deserves better, Charles.”
But this time he kept walking.
Chapter Twelve
YOU’D THINK A RESTAURANT named after a cockroach would be one place you’d want to avoid, but La Cucaracha Bar and Grill, several miles west of the trailer park, was the desert’s answer to Francine’s. Nothing fancy, but the food was outstanding. This whole situation with Ahmad had better be settled soon, because tacos was one of my favorite food groups, and I doubted there were yoga pants big enough to hold me if I lived here another couple of months. Seven weeks of Francine’s and Gertie’s cooking, and now the best-tasting Mexican food I’ve ever had? My waistline was doomed.
“Sorry you hated the food,” the waitress said to me as she placed the check on the table and picked up my cleaned plate.
Mid-fifties, maybe early sixties. Her nametag read, “Doreen.”
“Despised every bite, Doreen.”
“Did you save room for flan?”
“No, but I’ll take some to go. And I’ll order some tacos to go for my friends back at the trailer park.”
She drew her head back and stared at me. “You’re a little young to be hanging out there, aren’t you?”
“I’m staying in my aunt’s trailer. She died a month ago.”
“Olive? Are you her niece, Delilah?”
I nodded.
“Huh.”
“You look surprised.”
“It’s just... I guess I just expected someone a little... different.”
“Did you know Olive?”
“Are you kidding? She and her friends came in here all the time. They were all joined at the hip, so we started calling them the ‘Four Amigas.’ She also lived a few blocks from me at the trailer park.”
“I heard her friends from her club came in the night she died, but she stayed home.”
Doreen nodded. “I wasn’t working that night, but I was here for the darts tournament over in our bar. There was also a tequila tasting that night.”
“Anything unusual happen?”
She laughed. “Bucky really put the shots away. Poor gal can’t hold her tequila, and she was playing a drinking game while watching the Diamondbacks. She got really sloshed and Shelby and Rosa took her home during the seventh inning.”
“Were they the only ones to leave then?”
Doreen nodded. “The rest of the Desert Detectors stayed till midnight. Of course, Charles left earlier—after dinner. He had to go to work. He has a night security shift at the park.”
A customer called out to Doreen to bring another basket of chips to his table.
“Be right there, Ted,” she said
. She looked back at me. “Nice meeting you, hon. I wish it had been under better circumstances. If you need anything, you just look me up on the park directory. Doreen Sanchez.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, there is one thing I’d like to know. Do you know of a guy name Henry who might live around here?”
She thought a moment. “Can’t say that I do.”
I thanked her, paid my bill and picked up take-out for Gertie and Ida Belle. Once I got in the car and cranked up the air, I called them.
“I hope you don’t mind, I’m bringing back lunch,” I said to Gertie.
“Mind? If you hadn’t, I’d be mad.”
“Did you find anything significant?”
“You might say.”
“I’m on my way, then.”
Gertie and Ida Belle made me wait while they ate their tacos before revealing their findings. I shared how I had failed to find any man named Henry. I also shared with them my conversations with Charles and Doreen.
Gertie patted her lips with the napkin. “When we get back I’m going to ask Francine to do a taco night.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “You have a death wish?”
“She needs to broaden her thinking. I love her Cajun and Southern cooking, but a gal can’t live on shrimp and grits and biscuits and gravy forever.”
“No, actually, she can,” I said. “I’m proof of that.”
Gertie nodded. “Yeah, but she also needs to shake it up once in a while with a big, fat, greasy taco.” She picked up all the leftover bits of cheese and shredded beef from her plate and licked them from her fingers.
“Okay, you’ve kept me in suspense, now, what’d you find?”
Gertie wiped her hands on her napkin. “Ida Belle, why don’t you start first?”
“Why? You want to save what you found for last because you think it’s more important?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re going to milk it for all it’s worth, aren’t you?” Ida Belle asked.
“Just share what you found.”
Ida Belle got up from the kitchen table and grabbed a spiral notebook from the countertop. “Olive’s bedside table has a drawer with a secret compartment under a false bottom, for stuff she didn’t want anyone else to find. Lucky for us, I don’t think anyone else knew about it.”
She handed the notebook to me. “This must be her diary or journal.”
It was dated from the beginning of February of this year to the night before she died.
“We haven’t read the whole thing, but we scanned it and did find some gems,” Ida Belle said.
“She hated you,” Gertie added.
“Me?”
“Well, Delilah. That girl sounds like a real piece of work. She never called Olive, never sent her cards for holidays or her birthday. A real diva.”
“That’s odd. Bucky and Rosa made it sound as if Olive really liked Delilah and talked about her all the time.”
“I bet she did talk about her niece all the time,” Ida Belle said. “Only none of it was kind.”
“Bucky said they all came over and watched Delilah when she played a dead body.”
Gertie nodded. “Yep, she spoke to that. They did come over. They played a drinking game. Every time Delilah broke character and took a breath, they drank a shot of tequila.”
“I wonder why they lied to me.”
“Please,” Gertie said, “I bet everything the Three Amigas have told you since you arrived has been a lie. They just want to get on your good side in case you have the map.”
“Was the map mentioned in her diary?” I asked.
Ida Belle took the notebook and opened it to one of the bookmarked pages. “Olive did some research on the old miner who rented the storage locker originally.”
She handed the notebook back to me and I read the passage describing how the old miner had eked out a living finding gold and semi-precious gemstones in the mountains of Arizona. That is, until one day when he brought several large gold nuggets into one of the local gold exchanges. From that point on, he was one of the most successful independent miners around.
I looked up at Ida Belle. “How successful could this guy have been if he couldn’t pay his storage fee?”
“Keep reading. He didn’t pay them because he’d gone missing.” Gertie said. “He was last seen heading toward a peak in the Superstitions called Weaver’s Needle, a location prominent in the Lost Dutchman myth.”
“So Olive must have believed the map was authentic.”
Ida Belle pointed to the notebook. “She mentioned drawing up a fake map and burning it to fool the other club members into believing it was destroyed. After that, she wrote how she felt she was being watched, and that her trailer was broken into.”
“Bucky was telling the truth about that, then.”
Gertie took the notebook from my hands and found another bookmarked page to show me. “What the Three Amigas left out, though, was that they knew all along about the little scheme to fool the other club members. Olive wanted just the four of them to hunt for the mine.”
Ida Belle nodded. “She was making maps for them by hand and was going to hide them in her trailer to make a little treasure hunt for them, which they knew about. Bucky accused her of dragging her feet making the copies, so Olive decided to stay home from their group dinner the night she died so she could finish up. Bucky and her crew probably didn’t mention it because they thought you, her niece, wouldn’t believe them and would want the treasure for yourself.”
“I don’t suppose Olive mentioned in the diary where she’d hidden the copies?”
“No.”
Gertie cleared her throat. She clapped. “My turn. My turn. Now for the grand finale.”
Ida Belle folded her arms. “I knew you’d do that. But it’s not your turn yet. I have one more find.”
Gertie sighed. “Okay, go.”
“There are four pillows in Olive’s bedroom, two on her bed and two in the closet. Three are covered with monogrammed pillowcases. The fourth one has no pillowcase.”
“Suggesting?”
“I just find it odd,” Ida Belle said. “Olive seemed meticulous in other ways in her trailer. The other bedrooms have spare pillows in their closets as well. They all have matching pillowcases. Most pillowcases are sold in pairs. What happened to that fourth pillowcase?”
“I think someone put a pillow over Olive’s face to kill her and kept the pillowcase because it would have evidence on it,” Gertie said.
Ida Belle folded her arms and glared at Gertie.
“All right. That was Ida Belle’s idea. But I agree,” Gertie said. She clapped again. “Okay, now can I go?”
“You’re up,” I said.
“Well,” she began dramatically, rubbing her hands together. “I searched every inch of this kitchen for any evidence of anything. First, I noticed Olive had two cartons of vanilla ice cream in her freezer. I thought, ‘Who would need two cartons of vanilla? Why not a carton of chocolate and one of vanilla? Or strawberry even?’”
Ida Belle rolled her eyes.
Gertie continued. “I thought, ‘Maybe one is emptied out and a map is hidden inside.’ So I opened them both up.”
“And there was a map inside one of them?” I asked eagerly.
“No, just vanilla ice cream. Go figure. I then noticed two opened bags of shoestring potatoes and I thought, ‘That’s odd. Why would someone have two opened bags of shoestring potatoes? Why not one of the bags be tater tots and the other shoestring? Or one of them be sweet potato fries? But two bags of shoestring?’”
“Oh for Pete’s sake,” Ida Belle said, “stop being so melodramatic.” She looked at me. “This has nothing to do with shoestring potatoes or vanilla ice cream. While searching the freezer, Gertie got distracted by the recipe card stuck on the refrigerator.”
Gertie folded her arms. “I was getting to that.”
“In what century?”
Gertie got up and took the recipe card off the refr
igerator door. “I dropped it and when I picked it up I noticed there was something on the back.” She handed the card to me.
“It’s a map.”
“At least a section of map,” Gertie said. “Which I was getting to.” She pursed her lips at Ida Belle. “It seems that Olive copied the map on the backs of recipe cards. This card is labeled number B-5, and you can see how arrows indicate the map continue above, below and to the right.”
I smiled. “No one would think to look on the back of recipe cards.”
Ida Belle nodded. “I think Olive made three sets and was going to hide the cards around her trailer for the three ladies to find. This one with the ‘B’ on it was probably one section of the map for Bucky.”
“Did you find any more recipe cards with maps on the back? Or even the original map?”
Ida Belle picked up Olive’s journal and opened it to the last bookmark. “Not quite. This lady was a true treasure hunter, though. She hid the old miner’s original map in, and I quote, ‘that ugly green glass vase in the living room that Bucky hated.’” She looked up from the journal. “Her plan was to give a prize to the first one of the three ladies to find the original map.”
I leapt up from the table and started for the living room, but Gertie stopped me. “It’s not there. We looked.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “We couldn’t find a green glass vase anywhere.”
“Maybe someone in Olive’s metal detecting club took it,” Gertie said. “Probably whoever killed her.”
“We need to search every trailer of every member of that club,” I said.
Ida Belle stood. “And we can’t let on to the Three Amigas what we know. It still could have been one of those three who killed Olive. You get more splitting a treasure in thirds than you do fourths.”
Chapter Thirteen
Bucky
BUCKY MARKED OFF HER chores for the day: Straighten up for the poker party at five this afternoon. Check. Shop for appetizers. Check. Remind Rosa to bring the medicine cards. Check. Mix up the blasting powder. Check.
She chuckled. Yes, they had everything planned to a ‘T.’ Fortune, Ida Belle and Gertie were going to be putty in their hands.