GRANNY SKEWERS A SCOUNDREL
(A Fuchsia, Minnesota Mystery)
Julie Seedorf
I would like to thank Boneyard Coffee & Tea and Latte Da in Champaign, Illinois, for the use of their name in Granny’s adventures.
I would also like to thank Amy Beth Arkawy for the use of her book Dead Silent for Granny’s reading pleasure.
I would also like to thank Cozy Cat Press and Patricia Rockwell for helping me reach my dream.
I dedicate this book to my friend Jan who with her courage in the way she lives her life, gives me courage to journey into the future.
CHAPTER ONE
When Granny ran out of her house into the middle of the street, all she could do was stare. She forgot she was wearing her purple and red velvet-trimmed nightie that was decorated with pink bows. She forgot that she had left her home without her umbrella to protect her. She forgot that Mavis’ shade was pulled down and George’s boxer shorts were hanging on the pole outside of Mavis’ house. All Granny could do was stand frozen in the middle of the street looking at Sally’s house.
In all the years Granny had known Sally, she had never seen Sally’s yard looking like this. Granny shook her head to clear out the cobwebs, wondering if she was hallucinating, or if she was suffering lasting effects from the perfumed smell that had knocked her out in the tunnels underneath Fuchsia yesterday, and put her in the clutches of the kidnappers and thieves.
Granny tried to remember if she had made her usual bed check of her neighbors’ houses the night before as she usually did. It was Granny’s job to keep the neighborhood safe. Every morning and every evening Granny checked on her neighbors.
Granny would haul out her binoculars and make sure that Mavis, who lived right across the street, was up and kicking in the morning and ready to get some shut eye in the evening. Mavis usually put on an exhibition or a show for Granny so Granny would know she was ok. Mavis had always wanted to be in a reality television show so she decided to create her own reality TV show for Granny’s eyes.
George, who lived next door to Mavis and catty corner on one end of the street from Granny, hung a pair of boxer shorts on a pole outside his door each morning so Granny would know George was ready for the day. Although lately, George’s boxer shorts had been looking a little unusual and had gotten very colorful as of late. Sally, the neighbor on the other side of Mavis and across the street catty corner from Granny, the opposite end from George, always put her shade up in the morning and down in the evening so Granny would know that Sally was up and as Sally would always state, “The grass was still talking to her.”
In all her excitement, Granny could not remember if she had checked on her neighbors last night. That wasn’t unusual for Granny to be forgetful. Some of the time Granny forgot that she forgot. Granny’s memory occasionally had a little fog in it. She would forget her car, she would forget her cane, or her umbrella which she occasionally used for a cane, and sometimes she would forget the correct spelling of the name of the town she lived in––Fuchsia, Minnesota. On occasion Granny would spell it Fuschcia. When people called her on getting the name wrong she would tell them that she was reinventing the name Fuchsia because there were too many other things that used the spelling such as the color Fuchsia or the flower Fuchsia. Granny even went so far one time to cover up the fact that she couldn’t remember the correct spelling of Fuchsia by trying to get the town council to give Fuchsia a double name, stating that the citizens of Fuchsia would then have a choice whether they wanted a pink Fuchsia town or the strange Fuschsia name.
As far as forgetting her cane, she really didn’t need it; it was part of her undercover persona. She didn’t want everyone to know that she could sprint with the best of them. Who would think that a little old lady like Granny could hook a crook?
All Granny could do was to stare at the weeds that were everywhere in Sally’s yard. Weeds were starting to climb over the windows on the basement of the house. There were purple weeds and pink weeds and weeds that wove their way through what had been grass just the other day, but now looked like viney snakes waiting to catch someone in their lair. How had that happened?
Forgetting that she was standing there in her purple and red velvet-trimmed nightie, Granny offered up a silent prayer as she proceeded to Sally’s door. Sally would not have let her yard get like this. Sally meticulously took care of her grass. She had recently told Granny, “The grass speaks to me,” as Sally was down on her hands and knees with her scissors snipping a little here and there. Granny never could hear the grass talk, so she chalked up Sally’s conversation with her grass to Sally having too much time alone since she didn’t appear to have any family.
As Granny neared the door, she could see that it was partially open. Why had she left her umbrella at home? Gently Granny eased the door the rest of the way open. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a long knitting needle lying on the floor. Granny quietly bent down and picked up the knitting needle and put it in jab pose. She called out, “Sally, Sally, are you here?” No answer. Granny opened the door wider and quietly stepped into the house. Calling one more time. “Sally, Sally, where are you?” Hearing no answer, Granny got into her swat team mode and proceeded to check the house room by room, poised with knitting needle in hand in case she met a worthy opponent.
After checking all the rooms and finding no sign of Sally or a dastardly despicable villain, Granny put down the knitting needle and looked around. The window shades were up which meant Sally had either already been up for the day or she hadn’t put the shades down last night. Granny couldn’t remember if she had checked last night.
Granny smelled the dishes in the sink. They couldn’t have been there too long because they only smelled a little like leftover tuna. Granny looked down at the floor when she realized she was wearing her purple and red velvet-trimmed nightie decorated with pink bows. Maybe Sally had something in the closet she could borrow while she investigated what happened.
Granny walked back to the bedroom and opened Sally’s closet. A sea of green hit her. Most of Sally’s clothes were green. Granny supposed they reminded Sally of her grass that talked to her. Muttering to herself, Granny grabbed Sally’s green trench coat and threw it on. It was a little big and as Granny was rolling up her sleeves, a loud wail sounded from the back yard. The wail kept building into a loud crescendo.
Granny knew that sound anywhere. Baskerville, an old dog that Granny had inherited last night when his owner was carted off to the hoosegow, must have gotten out when Granny rushed out the door of her house.
Granny picked up the knitting needle she had put down just in case, ran back out the door she had come in and ran to Mavis’ back yard, coat flapping as she tried to find Baskerville in the midst of the growing weeds. How could it be so hard to find such a big dog? The weeds were overtaking everything. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Granny blindly plowed her way through the weeds, some as tall as corn right before harvest, until she came to the spot where Baskerville was howling. There was Baskerville standing by Sally, who was on the ground covered with weeds.
“Sally, Sally, wake up, wake up!” There was no response. “Baskerville, lick her face.” If that didn’t wake her up, nothing would.
Baskerville started licking Sally’s face, occasionally nuzzling her neck and whining in her ear.
Sally finally started stirring.
“Sally, what happened? How did you get here? Where did these weeds come from.?”
Sally weakly lifted her head, and shakily grabbed Granny’s arm. “The grass,” she whispered, “
It quit talking to me.” That was all she could say before she fell back on the ground, silent.
Granny jumped up. “Baskerville, go for help.” Baskerville, jowls hanging, sat and looked at her and started howling. “Not now. We need help.” Just as the words came out of Granny’s mouth, she heard people tromping through the weeds toward her.
“Help, someone help us!” Granny yelled as she looked for her cell phone. Dagnabbit! She had left home so fast that she had forgotten her phone on the table.
At that moment, George and Mavis tromped through the weeds to get to Granny and stopped quickly, almost falling on top of Granny when they found her. Being so short, Granny had also been hidden by the weeds. They were followed by the shysters: Fish, Little White Poodle, Furball and Tank, Granny’s menagerie of furry creatures that lived with her.
Fish was Granny’s male cat rescued from a Fish Tank, thus the name Fish; Little White Poodle (female, the name says it all); Furball (huge furry female cat); and Tank (male, short, hulky, stubby-legged dog) were brought home by Fish and had recently helped Granny solve the mystery of disappearing store clerks and mysterious shifty people who showed up in Fuchsia.
When the shysters, as Granny always called her group of furry creatures since they were always in trouble, saw Granny and noticed Sally flopped on the ground with closed eyes and not moving in the midst of the weeds, bedlam ensued. Fish started meowing loudly, Little White Poodle started yapping, Furball curled up hissing and clawing and Tank started snorting as if he smelled something bad. George and Mavis started yelling.
Granny pointed the long knitting needle that she held in her hand straight at George’s chest. “Stop that hollering or I will stick you up on the end of this needle and leave you to the weeds. Do you have a phone? We need to call for help. I think she’s dead.”
George and Mavis looked at Granny in shock. Mavis had been about to call 911 when Granny said the dreaded word “dead.”
The phone dropped out of Mavis’ hand and she burst out with the worst caterwauling Granny had heard since Hildy Buckshaw opened her eyes one morning to find out Granny (Hermiony Vidalia Criony) as she was called in her middle school years, had dyed Hildy’s hair red and blue during the night while she was staying over at Hildy’s house. Hermiony had always wanted to try red and blue hair but her parents said proper young ladies didn’t do that so Hermiony decided to experiment on Hildy to see what it would look like.
Granny caught the phone just as George grabbed Mavis and put her in a huge lip lock to stop her caterwauling. Granny wanted to stare to figure out what was going on between the two of them but she figured she better see if she could save Sally first.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“We need an ambulance at Sally Katilda’s house, pronto.” In Fuchsia, everyone knew where everyone lived so there was no need for addresses.
“Would that be across from Hermiony Fiddlestat’s house?”
“Quit wasting time, Fern. Sally’s dying. The weeds got her. We need that ambulance.”
“Did you say weeds, Granny?”
“I hear the sirens!”
“Weeds, Granny?”
Granny hung up the cell phone and directed Baskerville “Howl, Baskerville. Howl!!”
Baskerville started wailing the saddest howl Granny had ever heard. He kept howling until the ambulance crew found them among the weeds. They were followed by the Big Guy as Granny called him, also known as Cornelius Ephraim Stricknine, Fuchsia’s Lead Detective/Police Chief.
“Good thing Baskerville was howling or we would have never found you,” the Big Guy stated.
As the ambulance crew worked on Sally, the Big Guy turned to Granny, George and Mavis.
“I should have known you couldn’t stay out of trouble for very long,” the Big Guy chided Granny.
“Me? Can I help it if Sally got tangled in some weeds when I wasn’t looking? I have been a little busy you know, helping you keep Fuchsia safe.” Granny tapped the Big Guy in the chest and gave him her best put out look. “And this is the kind of thanks I get.” Granny purposely sniffed and hung her head. “After all, there is Sally, laying there like a lump and you’re accusing me of having something to do with it.”
Granny turned and watched as one of the paramedics looked up at the Big Guy and shook his head, indicating there was nothing more they could do for Sally. Granny saw the slight gesture the paramedic made and marched over to him and started jabbing him lightly in the chest with the knitting needle she still held in her hand. “You’re wrong; keep working! You can’t give up; you can’t give up!” Granny screamed at the paramedic. “Sally still has too much grass to talk to.”
Just as the Big Guy started over to grab Granny, another large man stepped in, seemingly out of nowhere and grabbed Granny away from the startled paramedic who thought he was going to be jabbed to death by an out of control 100-pound old woman.
“Granny, stop, stop.” The man shook Granny gently. “Sally is talking to her grass in heaven now.”
“Franklin Gatsby, unhand me.” Granny stepped away and put the knitting needle between her and Franklin.
Mavis and George huddled in the corner watching Granny unravel, Mavis weeping loudly. George stoically stared, keeping his eyes turned up to the sky, trying to be brave with his emotions for Mavis’ sake.
“What are you doing here, Franklin?,” asked Granny, still holding him off with the knitting needle.
As Granny’s attention was directed at Franklin, the paramedics quietly put Sally’s still body on a stretcher and wheeled her through the weeds, occasionally getting tangled in the mangled mess of vegetation that seemed to envelope the stretcher at times, finally reaching the bright-colored Fuchsia Ambulance that would take Sally to the morgue for an autopsy.
“You didn’t meet me at Ella’s Enchanted Forest at 10:00 a.m. like we had planned. I heard sirens and for some strange––I can’t imagine why––feeling, I knew it had to have something to do with you.” Franklin raised his eyes to the heavens and shook his head unbelievingly. “And I was right. You were about to skewer a paramedic!” Franklin yelled reaching for Granny as if he wanted to shake her with exasperation.
Granny held up the knitting needle again in defense. “She’s dead, Franklin, she’s dead. I failed. I failed. I was supposed to be keeping an eye on Sally. Every day I get my binoculars out and I check on them––George, Mavis and Sally. And last night with all the hoopla of hooking the crooks, I must have forgot, and now Sally is dead; she’s dead.” Granny dropped the knitting needle, dropped to the ground, uncharacteristically sobbing uncontrollably. Baskerville came over beside her and started howling his saddest howl. Fish started licking her face, little white poodle climbed into her lap and started nuzzling her hand, Furball jumped on her head and started purring to comfort her and Tank rolled over on his back, which was a hard thing to do for such a hefty lug of a dog, right next to her side to give her comfort.
The Big Guy turned to George and Mavis to usher them through the weeds back to Mavis’ house to question them, turning to Franklin before they left, “I will question Granny after Mavis and George. You can have a few minutes. It appears that Sally died of natural causes trying to take care of her yard. My team will go over everything but I suspect there isn’t anything unusual here.”
Watching the others leave, Franklin let out a big sigh and sat down in the weeds next to Granny. Franklin Jester Gatsby had moved to Fuchsia, Minnesota, from New York City. He had been a detective and after his wife had died had wanted to move somewhere quieter. He had met Granny a few weeks ago while she was doing her undercover work for the merchants of Fuchsia. She literally kept falling for him. Then Itsy and Bitsy, Franklin’s two pets, whom Granny called Furball and Tank, got into the act by teaming up with Fish and little white poodle who were constantly finding clues for Granny to follow about the kidnappings and break-ins in Fuchsia.
It was hard to believe Franklin had only known Granny for a few weeks. She was so much li
ke his mother who drove him crazy. He had no intention of getting drawn in to Granny’s investigations but it seemed he couldn’t help himself. She drove him crazy too and he had never felt so alive.
“Hermiony,” Granny gave Franklin that look; no one called her Hermiony and got away with it, “Hermiony,” Franklin repeated, “You can’t blame yourself. You probably checked on Sally last night; you just don’t remember. You do have that problem occasionally. It was a rough day, you almost got killed, you saved three people and you got yourself a new ‘57 Corvette Convertible. So you see, you can’t remember everything.”
“But, Franklin, you would think we would have all noticed all these weeds. Sally’s yard is always perfect. How did they grow so fast?”
Franklin helped Granny up off of the ground, taking the knitting needle out of her hand and setting it on the ground, just in case she got her feisty second wind back and decided she was in jabbing mood again, and started to lead her home. The shysters––Franklin also called the menagerie of animals by the shifty name––led the way.
CHAPTER TWO
Fish, the Little White Poodle, Furball and Tank scooted into the house through the pet door that was installed in Granny’s front door. Baskerville started to try to scoot in but Granny opened the door before he could get his big lug of a body stuck in the door.
“Franklin, remind me to expand that pet door for Baskerville,” said Granny, momentarily forgetting about Sally’s death in her concern for Baskerville.
“Granny, if you expand that door to fit Baskerville you might as well take the door off of your house and invite the whole country to ‘come on in.’” Franklin chided.
As they stepped into the house, Franklin attempted to help Granny take off the bright green coat that Granny had borrowed from Sally’s closet to cover her attire. Granny, realizing the nature of her attire under her the green coat, slapped Franklin’s hands and sprinted into her bedroom and slammed the door.
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