Dumpster Dicing (Bunco Biddies Book 1)

by Julie B. Cosgrove

  “Well, Mrs. Fluffy.” She re-positioned the cat which had confiscated a majority of the pillow at her head by encircling her scalp like a furry tiara. “Guess the public lost interest after a while. Reporters often put things on the back burner for more pertinent headlines to tantalize the American minds and sell papers.”

  She placed the portable computer onto sleep mode. Rolling on her hip to stretch for her cell phone, she texted a message to Betsy Ann and Ethel. “Found someone we should speak with regarding the heat issues. Trouble is, he lives near Dallas.”

  And I can’t drive.

  The screen of her phone revealed 9:42 PM. She yawned and snuggled back into her pillow on the couch, not willing to put forth the energy to wobble down the hallway to her bed.

  * * *

  The next morning, Betsy Ann perused the archives, but for George more than any news articles. At last she found him at the station by the window, leaning forward with his lips pursed as he read the minute print on the microfiche screen. He appeared dashing in a hot pink sports shirt and dark walking shorts. They accented his snowy, white hair and beard.

  Takes a man secure in his own skin to wear such a color.

  She peeled her gaze from her target and asked the clerk for the files dating from March 2015 through April 30th. Receiving her disc, she strolled in his direction. By happenstance—or perhaps Providence?—a young student packed his notes in a satchel and vacated the monitor catty-cornered to George.

  She smiled as the young man edged past her before sliding into the still-warmed wooden chair. Making a slightly louder than normal rustling noise as she flipped to a blank page on her writing tablet, she let out a deep, audible sigh.

  George’s eyes dashed from his machine. When they landed on her, his countenance brightened. He waved and mouthed the word, “Hi.”

  She glanced through fluttery eyelashes and gave him a soft smile of faked surprise.

  He scooted next to her and whispered near her ear. His breath upon her neckline sent a shiver up her arm. “Well, well. We meet again. Still crime solving?”

  Her cheeks flushed in the demure way her grandmother taught her when Betsy Ann turned sixteen.

  His eyes took on the familiar twinkle.

  Hook, line, waiting for the sinker. He may be rusty, but I’m not, I guess. “This is tedious work, but I am only glad to do it in order to assist that poor family in finding closure.”

  The man’s Adam apple bobbed. “You are a kind-hearted soul.” He laid his hand across hers.

  She peered through her eyelashes. “Want to help?”

  His face lit up. “Sure. Be happy to do so. Perhaps, in a while, we can grab lunch? Have you ever been to the tea room in the historic hotel?”

  She sucked in her breath. “No, I got their cookbook for Christmas last year.”

  “Ah. Your, ahem, friend gave it to you?” He released his fingers from hers.

  “We are both widows.”

  His eyes held a question mark.

  She quickly replied, “Oh, but we live alone. She has a condo about a block from mine. We play Bunco together, along with lots of other ladies.”

  George’s expression gleamed. “I see. Well, perhaps we’ll order a piece of that cake today. My treat. Though I bet you add a little extra something to yours to make it more scrumptious. I can tell you know your way around a kitchen.”

  She fanned her hand in front of her. “Is it a touch hot in here today?”

  His grin touched his sideburns. “Tell me where to begin, pretty lady. I am your humble servant.”

  She handed him a disc. “We are looking for any information on Edwin Newman’s release and mistaken identity. Also scan for the name Edward Norman.”

  He wrote both of them down. “Got it.”

  As he pulled away, the whiff of his cologne feathered her nose, the brand her late husband always wore. A slight tug on a heartstring brought a tear to her eye.

  * * *

  Ethel tapped her teeth as she waited for Janie to answer her call. Ann and Babs huddled next to her in the stairwell of the Red Oak courthouse. Finally, she heard Janie’s slightly out-of-breath voice. “Hello?”

  “Janie. We hit the jackpot! A delivery van was stolen from the Two Cheap Brothers’ Movers. It was a used one, you know. Like the kind you rent to move yourself? They reported it stolen three weeks ago.”

  “Well, well. I don’t suppose it had a dent in it?”

  Ethel’s grin stretched as she answered. “Yep. One of the movers backed his pick-up into it and it was at the body shop pending the insurance claim adjustor eyeballing it.”

  “Hmm. And a body shop would be the perfect place to paint it so it looked more generic. But why not repair it while you are at it?”

  “Dunno. Rush job?”

  “Possibly. Or they hoped the paint would cover it. Great work, ya’ll.” Janie’s tone sounded more chipper than it had in days. Ethel felt her chest swell.

  “I have info as well. I found out Marjorie Spellman’s cell phone number.”

  “Really? How’dja do that?”

  “I called the Funeral Parlor and told them the Sunset Acres Bunco Club wanted to send flowers but didn’t know how to reach her. The receptionist recalled us and gave me the information in a heartbeat, no questions asked. Sometimes, being elderly has its advantages.”

  “Indeed.” That’s how she, Babs, and Ann sweet-talked the desk clerk at the police station into revealing the details to them beyond the one sentence report in the Red Oak Reader. Of course, the excitement in the young cop’s eyes help to loosen his tongue. Not too many burglaries happen in Red Oak, Texas.

  “Now, Ethel. Do you feel up to paying Mrs. Spellman a visit and sweetly pumping her for info?” Janie paused. “I would myself, but…”

  “Roger that. Let me get a pen and you can give me her number.”

  Chapter THIRTY

  Ethel eyed herself in the rear view mirror. A fresh dab of Reticent Rose lipstick and a poof of the sides of her hair with spray to thwart the ravages of the Texas humidity boosted her confidence. She whispered to her reflection. “You can do this.”

  149 Sycamore. The house sat in an older neighborhood in Alamoville, one which investors and real estate agents no doubt claimed to be up-and-coming. A modest wood-slat home with a large front porch and attached carport greeted her. It needed a new coat of paint and the lawn a good feeding and weeding. So Edwin Newman’s niece resided here now, huh?

  She lifted the cellophane-wrapped grocery store bundle of daisies off the front passenger seat and strolled up the cracked sidewalk. She almost lost her footing on the chipped concrete steps but managed to right herself before tumbling onto the welcome mat. With a deep breath, she punched the doorbell.

  Click-clacks of shoes echoed inside and the door opened. “Yes, are you Ethel? Please, come in.”

  Ethel handed her the summer arrangement.

  “Oh, how thoughtful. Go on in and sit down while I put these in water.” Marjorie Spellman disappeared down a narrow hall, most likely to the kitchen at the back of the house.

  She stood in the hall while the niece got a vase. The plastered walls showed spider vein cracks. The scuffed and stained original wood floors needed refinishing. A threadbare oriental runner covered the center of the foyer. To the right, an archway revealed a room with large windows and an age-worn, bronzed chandelier. Nothing else. No furniture in sight. Faded wallpaper in a light green with magnolia blossoms peeled at the seams. To the left, another arched entry led into a small siting room with a settee, two chairs and a bricked-up fireplace. This room had a soft rose wall color which accented some of the colors of the floral area rug. The Victorian-styled couch had been reupholstered in a time-appropriate cream on cream design. Needlepoint pillows in muted tones of pink, beige, and baby blue basket weave stitched squares accented the rolled arms. The chairs flanking the fireplace were in a striped pattern of maroon, beige, and light blue. An arrangement of silk flowers in like colors perched on the man
tle along with two crystal candlesticks with maroon candles. A print of one of Monet’s water lilies painting hung on one wall. In front of the window, a Queen Anne end table held some knickknacks and a few family photographs.

  Ethel tiptoed over to them and glanced long enough to recognize one of a much younger Edwin with his arm around Marjorie, who appeared to in her late twenties. A posed portrait of an elderly man and woman—her parents?—sat to the right while one depicting a young family propped to the left. A closer peek revealed the girl to be Marjorie at about age three in a back yard with the same couple, but a good thirty years younger.

  At the sound of Marjorie’s footfall, Ethel dashed to perch on the edge of one of the upholstered chairs. Her hostess entered with the posies in a lead crystal vase which she set on the table in the window. She picked up the framed picture of her and Edwin and brought it to Ethel. “This was taken about twelve years before he, well, became wrongly convicted. He came to celebrate my thirtieth birthday. Brought me this.”

  She fingered a heart shaped pendant on a delicate filigree chain around her neck. In the center sat an amethyst jewel. “My birthstone.”

  “How pretty. He must have cared deeply for you.”

  She nodded as her lips turned downward. “Yes, after we both grew up, I guess we sort of got close.” She bent to sit on the couch, but then jumped up like a Jack-in-the-Box. “Oh, I haven’t offered you any refreshments. I have iced tea and coffee cake. Hope that’s okay.”

  Before Ethel responded, the woman zipped out of the room, leaving her guest still holding the photograph. She studied the picture in more detail. Edwin smiled, yet under his cheery expression, she detected a shadow of something else, like a secret. His eyes resembled dark sequins, as if he veiled another emotion. A roughness etched his demeanor like scratchy, light gray pencil marks eking outside the lines of a child’s drawing. Could he have been as innocent as Marjorie supposed?

  The hostess returned with a tray which she lowered to the coffee table. She handed Ethel a glass with a paper napkin cupping the bottom. “There. That’s better.”

  The woman seemed so eager for company, her jittery movements made Ethel’s stomach dance. “So, why did you decide to move to Alamoville?”

  “Oh, when Edwin got out of prison, he wanted to settle in a retirement community so he wouldn’t have to cook. He’d become used to regular schedules and a community environment. Being with people his own age appealed to him since he had been around seniors in the unit for so long.” She smoothed her skirt over her knees. “I’d hoped he’d come live with me in Oklahoma where he grew up, but he turned me down. Said it would be too hard to come home.”

  “I can imagine so.”

  Her head made three rapid shakes. “Yes, so I decided to rent a house close enough to visit and perhaps go out to eat now and then. He’d hoped to get a driver license again and buy a car.” She waved her arms around the room as her eyes glistened. “Now, here I am, and I don’t know a soul.”

  Ethel swallowed the clump in her own throat along with a gulp of sweetened tea. An ice cube dislodged and clunked against her lip. Droplets of amber caffeine hit her white blouse.

  Marjorie bounced to her rescue, paper napkin in hand. “Oh, I am so sorry.”

  “Not your fault. I put my big nose where it didn’t belong.” Ethel’s face blushed at her Freudian slip. She cleared her throat as she dabbed her laced trimmed top. “Speaking of which, do you had any idea who might have wanted Edwin...”

  The niece’s eyes widened.

  “Well, my best friend, Janie, is one of the ladies who discovered, um... your brother. Her son-in-law is the chief detective investigating the case and he has decided we can be of assistance by gleaning some background information. We decided it is the least we can do.”

  Marjorie’s hand trembled as she slid a piece of coffee cake onto her plate. She took a bite and chewed.

  Ethel waited.

  “I guess it’s all right to tell you. Edwin wrote to me quite often. I imagine I alone believed in his innocence. I mean, he wasn’t a saint. Don’t get me wrong. He’d had a few run-ins with the law in his time. Bar brawls, disorderly conduct. That sort of thing.”

  The woman’s eyes darted around the room as if the boogey man hid behind the sheet rock. What frightened her?

  Ethel gave her an encouraging smile. “Few of us have squeaky-clean pasts.”

  “True. But he had a bit of a reputation in our town. Never finished high school, you see? Expelled for fighting. The local judge gave him an option. Go to jail, or join the Army. Edwin signed up, and in three weeks, they shipped him off to Kuwait. When he came back, he’d changed.”

  “How?”

  She shrugged and took a sip of tea. “It’s hard to explain. I guess when you witness the atrocities of war each and every day these things have an effect on you. He seemed withdrawn, more than usual, and sullen. Almost as if life itself had been sucked out of him.”

  Marjorie paused for a moment, then continued. “He floated from odd job to odd job, never finding a career. Drank a lot. Probably did drugs.” She ran her finger over the ribbing of the sofa cushion.

  Ethel pinched her lips together but bent forward, hoping her body language would encourage Edwin’s niece to continue.

  Her hostess took a breath and rose to pace the floor. “Most people around town considered him a loser. So when the news hit the papers he’d been convicted of robbing banks, well...”

  “I understand. Our country treats so many of the returning soldiers in such an unfair manner. Some never adjust back into society. We have a few at Sunset Acres who still have a disconnected look in their eyes.”

  “Yes. As if the civilian world never fully accepted them.”

  “But you said he’d written you about something from prison?”

  She blinked. “Yes.” Her voice lowered and she returned to sit on the edge of the sofa. “The inmates were being stirred up over the conditions. Horrid food, tight quarters. To make matters worse, in the middle of the heat wave, they had no air conditioning, though the prison provided huge fans. Edwin wrote to me about it. Said the vibrating noise put everyone on edge. Hard to sleep or even hear yourself think. Cooped up behind bars, tempers began to flare.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “Well, Edwin voiced a complaint about how ill the guy who lived in the cell next to him became, which fell on disgruntled ears. The guards tightened down the screws, so to speak, to keep the men under control. Some of them blamed Edwin for the punishment.”

  “Are you serious?”

  She nodded as she wrung her disposable napkin through her fingers. “Edwin rubbed three or four the wrong way, which stirred the cauldron further. Once word got around he’d be released, it became even worse. He feared for his life. One prisoner who worked in the laundry with Edwin threatened him. If Edwin didn’t do what he said once he got out, he’d have his thugs hunt him down and...” Her finger slid across her throat.

  Ethel sat back. “Did you tell the police?”

  Marjorie shook her head. “I’m afraid to. What if he finds out I snitched and comes after me?”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “No. Edwin never revealed the name.” Her eyes darted around the room. She made a hush gesture with her forefinger to her lip. Marjorie got her purse and dug out a pen. She scribbled something onto one of the paper napkins and handed it to Ethel. In a whisper, she added. “But he kept mentioning this.” She proclaimed in a louder voice, “I’ll get some more tea.”

  She glanced back as she left the room.

  Ethel cocked her head to read what she’d scrawled. L.W.?

  Chapter Thirty-ONE

  A rapid tap-tap-tap sounded on Janie’s back door. “Yoo-hoo. Janie. You home?”

  She pulled herself to a sitting position on the couch with a sigh. “Where else would I be?”

  Betsy Ann’s flats clippity-clapped across the floor into the living room. “Well, I think I found a lead, with the
help of George’s eagle eye.”

  “Who’s George?”

  Betsy Ann lowered herself onto a chair opposite the couch. She placed her purse on her lap and gripped the handle with both hands. “A man I met at the archives yesterday.”

  Janie’s eyebrows disappeared into her forehead.

  “He used to be a history professor at the university in Austin, and he likes to scrounge through old news clippings for fun.”

  “Sounds like a real party guy.”

  Betsy Ann squiggled forward. “Oh, he is very polite, gentlemanly, old-fashioned and quite intelligent.”

  “And charming?”

  She blushed. “Well, he seems to be attentive to a woman’s needs.”

  Janie sat up straighter. “Excuse me?”

  Her friend’s face turned three deeper shades of red. “Not in that way. We were in the library, for heaven’s sake.” She fanned her neck. “What I mean is, he listens, he understands when to respond and when a compliment is warranted. All quite above board.”

  The tension in Janie’s temples relaxed. “Oh, okay. You worried me a little because you seem so—I don’t know—glittery.”

  “Well, he invited me to lunch.” She held up two fingers. “Twice. Today at the tea room of the gorgeous 1800s hotel downtown. You know, the one whose recipe book you gave me.”

  “Humph. Melody’s favorite spot. Not many men will set foot in there, as if the testosterone will be sucked out of them if they even glance at a cucumber sandwich.”

  “Exactly. But he figured I’d like it so he suggested it. “

  “Sounds like a peach to me.”

  “Uh huh. Though walking the two blocks in this heat wave almost wilted me. And George made note of it. Afterwards, he offered to walk back to his car and pick me up so I wouldn’t get overheated.”