“I’m your new neighbor. I’m renting George’s house.”
Granny stood up so fast that she dropped her wine glass right in Thor’s lap.
“I guess that’s my cue to go.” Thor laughed and stood up and sprinted for the door, turning around at the last second before he disappeared out the door. “Won’t we have fun?”
Granny quickly ran to the window and peered through the blinds. Thor was going the wrong direction. He was going to Sally’s house. Why would he go to Sally’s house? He certainly couldn’t be going to see that floozy. And why was he living in George’s house? Was that why her kids had let Granny stay here? And she had thought it was because she had introduced them to Franklin. As Granny peered out the window, she heard soft paw prints behind her. Then she heard a big slurp. Granny turned around just in time to see Baskerville slurping up the rest of Thor’s wine, and Fish, the Little White Poodle, Furball and Tank heading for the door.
Granny sprinted over and blocked the doggy door but she wasn’t quick enough to stop Baskerville from howling, opening his door and leaving, followed by the rest of the shysters. Granny walked to her bedroom and picked up her cellphone.
“Franklin, Granny here. I am breaking our engagement. And watch out for the shysters; they’re on to something. I just know it.” Granny walked back into the living room with her cell phone, set it on the table and turned it off for the night. She couldn’t resist peeking out the blinds one more time. There were no lights on in George’s old house or in Mavis’ house, but there were lights in Sally’s old house and Granny could see two figures through the window. Deep in thought, Granny plodded back to bed. After all, tomorrow she had to meet the mayor so she should get some beauty sleep. She would take care of Thor tomorrow.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Granny opened one eye slowly. She opened her second eye quickly. Her nose was picking up on something smoking and her ears were picking up on something sizzling. Granny sat up as fast she could and steadied herself with her bedpost. She slipped on her flip flops and clomped down the hallway as fast as she could run. Smoke seemed to be billowing down the hallway.
“Fire! fire! Someone help me!” Granny started yelling through the smoke. She grabbed a vase of stale water that she had left at the end of her hallway that still had dead flowers sitting in it and gave a toss toward the kitchen right into the face of Thor.
As Thor was trying to recover from the water in his face, Granny picked up the fish bowl that she used to have for her fish before they swam to the fishbowl in the sky, and tossed the water she still kept in the fish bowl in memory of her fish, at whatever was burning in the kitchen. This too landed in Thor’s face as he was trying to stop her forward flight.!” Granny grabbed Thor and with her full 100 pound weight pushed him toward the door. “I don’t want you to die trying to save me.”
Thor turned, grabbed Granny and picked her up and set her down on a kitchen chair. “The bacon is burning, Mom; your house isn’t on fire.”
Granny looked at Thor, looked at the stove and looked around at the smoke in her house. “Why is there bacon burning on my stove?” Granny shouted. “I don’t do bacon this early in the morning. I do donuts.”
“I thought since I lived so close I would help you out a little bit, so I was making you breakfast.”
“You don’t know how to cook.”
“I’m learning.”
“You could have fooled me. I thought maybe you were trying out for the fire department. Why are you here? You didn’t tell me you planned to make me breakfast last night.”
“It’s a nice change of scenery. My job ended. I have a stash put away so I can live comfortably for a while until I find a job. I thought I’d move here and help you out. Better me than my sisters or the wrinkle farm,” Thor said in a cajoling voice. “Nice door for Baskerville, by the way.”
Granny got up and stomped back to her room, stating, “Got to get dressed. I have a meeting with the mayor this afternoon and I am supposed to bring the shysters so I better round them up. Maybe I shouldn’t bring them. Maybe it’s a trick and the mayor wants to put the shysters in the doggie hoosegow. They have been getting into a little bit of trouble lately. On second thought, I think I’ll forget the shysters and go down to Nail’s Hardware and pay Neal Nail for his work yesterday. If you’re good, you can meet me at Rack’s for lunch.”
“I already have plans. Rain check?” Thor winked at Granny and let himself out the front door.
Granny got herself dressed in her most respectable clothes. She put on her black, what she called her ‘go to funeral’ dress, threw on a matching black sweater and, instead of her granny hose, she put on her nylons and black patent flats. After all, she had to talk to the mayor and since she wasn’t sure why he wanted to talk to her, she thought she had better dress the way people thought she should dress to look respectable. With a glint in her eye and a smile on her lips, she lifted up her skirt to reveal her hot pink, polka-dot slip, checking to make sure it could not be seen from the outside. She picked up her pocketbook and her pink cane that looked like a giant knitting needle, and put the black bottom back on, so that it now resembled and was able to be used as a cane. Before she left the house, she put yogurt, vegetables and water in the dishes for the shysters should they come home before her, and walked out to her garage to get in her car.
Granny parked in front of Nail’s Hardware Store. She stopped to pat the Wrench Bench before opening the door and listening to the nail chimes alert Mr. Nail that she was in the store. Just as Granny walked in the door and the chimes started singing, she heard a loud crash, a big thump, a low moan and then silence.
Granny ran to the back of the store, past the hammers and the wrenches. She grabbed a hammer and held on to her pink cane in case she encountered questionable activity when she arrived in Mr. Nail’s backroom. The first thing Granny saw when she entered the back room was collapsed storage shelves, and bags of fertilizer piled on top of the broken shelves. Granny could hear a groan coming from under the mountain of fertilizer. Then the groan stopped and there was dead silence.
Granny moved forward slowly and carefully, not wanting to disturb the precarious pile but just enough so that she could peek around the mound to see if she could find where the silenced groan had been.
“Mr. Nail? Mr. Nail? Is that you? Can you hear me? Are you ok?” Granny asked as she lifted her cell phone to call 911. Just as she did that, she saw a hand sticking out from underneath the mountain of fertilizer bags.
“Dad, what happened? What happened?” Neil Nail rushed into the room and over to the hand that was peeking out of the mountain. Granny tried to stop Neil by trying to block him with her cane but because she was on the phone, it was to no avail. Neil was sobbing on the floor grasping the hand.
“We need an ambulance and the police at Nail’s Hardware,” Granny yelled into the phone. “Mr. Nail had a mountain of fertilizer fall on top of him.”
Granny hung up the phone and crawled over some of the bags to get to Neil. “Neil, honey; help is coming. Can you feel a pulse?” Granny reached over and moved Neil’s hand to see if she could feel a heart beating in what she thought must be a lifeless body underneath the mountain. She really wanted to scream but she had to be strong for Neil. Just as Granny was going to tell Neil there was no hope, the ambulance and the fire department arrived along with the Big Guy. Franklin wasn’t far behind.
Granny tapped Neal with her cane. “Neil, we have to move so they can help your father.” Granny wished she now had her umbrella with the crook in it so she could just hook Neil’s arm and drag him away. “Neil,” Granny said in her sternest tone, “Move it, move it, move it.”
Neil gave Granny a dazed look but got up and followed Granny to the side of the storage room so the fire department could get the collapsed shelves and bags of fertilizer off of Mr. Nail. The Big Guy walked over to both of them.
“Can you tell me what happened, Granny? Again, you seem to be in the middle of disaster.”
> Granny gave him her harshest look, poked him with the top edge of her cane and advanced on him, finally looking him straight in the eye. “What are you implying? I came here to pay Neil. I heard the ruckus in the back room, ran back and saw the collapsed shelves and fertilizer and then I called you.”
“I’m sorry, Granny, I didn’t mean anything by it. It seems like we have bodies everywhere lately. Neil, what can you tell me? Were you here when this accident happened?”
Neal looked at him through glazed eyes. “No, I came in right after it happened. Granny was in the back room and there was my father underneath all the bags of fertilizer. It’s my fault; it’s all my fault. I stacked those bags of fertilizer. I was in a hurry because I had work to do at my new house. I bought Mrs. Periwinkle’s. If I had just taken more time.” Neil started sobbing, burying his head in his hands.
Franklin, who had been watching the fire and ambulance crews, came over to the small group. “I’m sorry, Neil; your father is gone. Granny, can you take Neil out front so we can clear up this mess and the Big Guy can investigate the cause of this accident.”
“I’m kind of wobbly. Neil, can you help me get out front?” Granny said in the weakest voice she could muster.
Neil, immediately hearing the tone in Granny’s voice, stopped sobbing and helped Granny out front. “Are you ok, Granny? I’m sorry; this must be a shock for you too. You found him.”
“I do feel a little faint. Maybe you could get me some coffee.” Mr. Nail always had a little refreshment around if Granny needed it. Usually she had coffee that he kept in a thermos after purchasing it at Ella’s Enchanted Forest in the morning. Granny thought that perhaps finding her coffee would help Neil get himself together a little bit before he had to deal with the details of his father’s death.
Neil went behind the counter to grab his dad’s thermos but it wasn’t there. “Sorry, Granny, all Dad has here is lavender tea. In fact, he has boxes of it in the back room. Said a salesman talked him into it one day, saying it was the finest tea leaves around and a box of lavender tea would be perfect to give to his customers as a thank you gift.”
At the words, lavender tea, Granny stood up. “Lavender tea? Think I’ll pass on that,” Granny answered, thinking of Sally and Mrs. Periwinkle. “Neil, why don’t you go home and take a rest? You will have a lot to deal with. I’ll have the Big Guy come over and talk to you later and I am sure Graves Mortuary will be calling.”
Neil looked toward the back room. “I’m not sure I should leave.”
“It’s ok, Neil, things are in good hands with me. There is nothing more you can do here.” Neil turned around as if to say something, shook his head, wiped a tear out of his eye and walked out the door muttering that it was all his fault.
Granny started heading toward the back room when the Big Guy stopped her. “Time for you to leave, Granny. Nothing suspicious here anyway. The shelves were old and collapsed, and Mr. Nail just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” As the Big Guy finished his sentence, he started ushering Granny toward the door.
“Granny, didn’t you say you had an appointment with the Mayor at 2:00?. It’s just after 12:00; maybe you should go over to Rack’s and get a bite to eat,” said the Big Guy. “You look a little peaked and you may want to whip up some strength for the meeting with the Mayor.”
“What did you do now?” Franklin asked as he came out into the front of the store. Then he winked at Granny.
“You’re all trying to get rid of me. Something’s up.” Granny pounded the end of her fake cane on the floor.
“We’ll let you know.” Franklin took Granny’s arm, ushered her out the door and locked it.
Granny turned and looked at the street. There was no one mulling around. It was pretty quiet, not usual for Fuchsia when there had been a suspicious death. Granny trekked down the street, deep in thought, shuffling her feet through the leaves that had fallen on the ground. As she was shuffling, she felt her toe hit something solid. She leaned down and picked up a large key that appeared to be very old. The handle had some rust on it but the part that fit into a lock, the old type of lock, was shiny as if someone had cleaned it recently. It almost resembled a skeleton key but unlike a skeleton key it had a little different configuration. There was a tag attached to it and the tag was labeled with a triple X.
Granny turned the key over in her hand, noted the time on her cell phone and threw the key in her purse to look at it closer when she got home.
Rack’s restaurant was always busy at noon. As Granny headed back to her normal booth, she happened to turn her head to the right. When she did that her head stayed turned to the right and her body quickly followed her head. “Change of destination,” she said to herself.
Sitting right across from the bar was Thor and that floozy who now lived across the street from her house. Granny plopped down in the booth right next to Thor.
“Am I interrupting anything?” Granny asked innocently.
“I was just asking Elena to marry me, but other than that….” Thor winked at Elena. Elena hid her smile.
“What! You just met! She’s too old for you and look at the way she’s dressed.” Granny glared at Thor.
Thor started laughing. “Gotcha!”
Granny gave him the evil eye. Pretending to signal for the waitress, Granny knocked Elena’s glass of water over and onto Elena’s lap. Elena jumped up but not before the entire glass of water had spilled in her lap.
“I am soooo sorry,” Granny said as she hung her head trying to hide her smile. “Can I help you clean it up?” Granny stood up as if to help. Elena moved away from the booth.
“I…guess I had better go home and change. It’s ok, Granny. I know you didn’t mean any harm.” Elena leaned over the table and gave Thor a kiss on the cheek. “See you later,” she said in a flirtatious voice and walked down the aisle and out of the restaurant.
Thor laid his head on the table and with great reserve on his part, pounded the table gently with both arms. “What was that? Maybe my sisters are right.”
Granny quickly hailed down her waitress trying to get Thor’s mind off of his sisters. “My usual,” she said to the waitress, “and make it fast, I have a meeting with the Mayor.”
“What’s that all about?” Thor asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know, maybe he’s going to fire me.”
“Fire you from what?”
“There’s something I haven’t told you.”
“Surprise, surprise,” moaned Thor. “What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into now? Don’t you think kidnappers and almost getting yourself aced so that we actually would have to put that silly rhyme you made up on your tombstone is enough?”
Granny squared her shoulders, took a drink of her coffee thinking that Rack’s coffee wasn’t half as good as the Boneyard Coffee & Tea Specialty coffee being served at Ella’s, closed her eyes and started to speak. “Well, you see, I am employed by the merchants of Fuchsia as their undercover sleuth. I catch shoplifters and stop them, and then the Big Guy swoops in and arrests them. It was no accident that I was involved with the investigation of the kidnappings and thievery that was happening.”
Thor turned and looked at her with raised eyebrows. “I now understand why my sisters might be concerned. Maybe living alone with those daffy animals––yes, I know all about them. Now you are making things up.”
“Just in time,” Granny remarked to the waitress as she brought Granny’s food. Granny looked down at her plate and it was a healthy salad. Everyone in Rack’s knew that when Granny was with her kids, she ate healthy instead of her usual favorite foods.
Thor and Granny ate the rest of the meal in silence.
Granny decided to forgo her usual dessert as it was almost 2:00 and she didn’t want to be late for her meeting with the mayor. Granny kissed Thor on the cheek as she got up. “See you later.”
Thor stood up and threw money for the check on the table. “Since you ruined my date, I might as well
tag along with you and see what the mayor wants.”
Granny gave Thor a look of alarm. “Don’t you have something better to do with your time? Like mow your lawn?”
“Nope, I’m between jobs, remember? I can mow my lawn anytime. I think this will be much more interesting.” He took Granny’s arm and led her out of Racks.
Since Ella’s Enchanted Forest was not too far down the street from Rack’s, they walked. They had to go past Nail’s Hardware. It was closed up tight with no lights on and a big closed sign on the door. Granny let out a sigh.
“You’re going to miss Mr. Nail, aren’t you?” Thor asked.
“Yes, but I feel really bad for his son Neil. He has no one else. Maybe I should adopt him into our family.”
There was a big crowd milling around Ella’s Enchanted Forest.
“What’s this all about?” mused Granny. “I must have been mistaken. Maybe I don’t have a meeting with the mayor. Maybe I dreamed it.” Granny looked confused.
When Delight saw Granny enter her store, she and Ella ran to meet her. “Granny, we have a place for you right here in the Forest Room. We have it all set up with a latte with whipped cream on the top and a plate of your favorite donuts.”
“Delight, what’s going on? I thought I was supposed to meet the mayor.”
“He’s here, Granny. He has an announcement to make and he requested that you sit at the table with him.”
“On second thought, Delight, I think I forgot that I left my bacon burning on the stove this morning and I have to go home before my house burns down.” Granny turned to go back through the crowd to exit the building. Just as she did that, Thor and Franklin each took an arm and led her to the mayor’s table.
“Oh, no, you don’t, Hermiony,” Franklin instructed. “You will sit here until the mayor has his meeting with you. You don’t want to lose your job. You know, he’s the boss.” Franklin pulled out the chair for Granny. “I’ll see you later. Thor and I will be over here. Got to get to know my future stepson.” Franklin winked at Granny and was gone before Granny had time to protest.
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