She nodded.
“Okay, good. Would you mind showing me how it works?”
———
Later that evening, the food was prepared and the trap set. We’d set up the baby remote control monitor for lowlight, making sure it was full of batteries and switched to on when we hid it in a nearby tree. Then, once we’d served the meal, Lisa Leann slipped into the nursery, set her video camera on a desk tripod, pointed it at the monitor, and hit record, filming whatever the baby monitor displayed.
One by one, we all broke away from our duties and joined Lisa Leann and Vonnie. Evie lead the prayer: “Lord, please protect our friend. Please let this night lead us all to truth.”
“Amen,” Lizzie said, swaying with the baby still in her arms.
I turned to Vonnie. “You don’t have to go through with this, you know.”
“This is for Doreen, Evie, and even Chucky,” she said before she walked into the night armed only with her flashlight and her purse, which she’d showed us was full of cash.
“In case I need it as a bargaining chip,” she said.
We held our breath as Vonnie rounded the corner to the back of the building and called into the darkness. “Anyone out there?”
We heard a voice answer back. “I’m glad you could make it; did you bring any of your little friends this time?”
I could see Vonnie step into position. “No, it’s just me. Do you have my dog?”
A man stepped out from behind the woods at the edge of the church property and into full view of the monitor’s camera. He didn’t look anything like the man I’d always imagined Horace Shelly to be. This man was old. Used up. An aura of evil hovered around him.
So this is the man? This is the man my mother left Dad and me for?
“First,” Horace said to Vonnie, jarring me back to the present, “you’ve got something I want.”
“Money?”
“I heard that Lisa Leann found a satchel filled with things Zeke left at my aunt’s old house and I figure you’ll tell me all about it, that is if you want your dog back.”
“How did you hear about the satchel?”
“It’s funny, that pastor of yours never seems to notice when a workman’s hanging around when he’s on his office phone. I overheard that Lambert woman tell him everything.”
Vonnie pursed her lips together. “Then, is that why you killed Doreen? You thought she might hold the key to finding Zeke’s riches?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you? For goodness sake, tell me what happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Are you sure? Because I’m terribly worried about Evie.”
“You mean because she got arrested?” He laughed then spat in the dirt.
Vonnie put her hands on her wide hips. “This has been a terrible ordeal for her. It looks like she’s going to trial.”
“So? With all her fancy lawyers she’ll get off. And by then I’ll be long gone.”
Vonnie pleaded in that soft, little girl voice of hers. “Hoss, tell me what really happened to Doreen, won’t you?”
He shook his head. “She got what she deserved.”
“You killed her then?”
“We had words. It got physical.”
“You pushed her?” Vonnie asked.
“She fell.”
“Because you pushed her?”
“It wasn’t my fault that I’d come to the wrong conclusion about her, okay? She told me she’d hit pay dirt at the gold rush. How was I to know she was only talking about a promotion at her stupid job?”
“So you’re saying you pushed her?” Vonnie asked again.
“Well, yeah. I thought maybe you ladies had let her into your confidence since you all used to be friends. I’d seen you all on TV, talking about the gold legends and all. Then when I heard about Founders Day celebration, I figured you women might dig around the church and make a move on what was rightfully mine. I had to try to make her tell me the truth.”
I held my hand up. “Stay here, everyone,” I said to the girls as they clustered around the monitor. “The man’s already given me what I need for a conviction.”
Evie said, “Then I’m off the hook?”
I looked over my shoulder as I headed out of the nursery. “You are.”
With my hand on my holster, I ran to the front door of the church, then silently made my way around the building, not realizing the girls had followed me like a line of silent ducklings.
I pointed my gun with both hands. “Freeze!” I called out to Horace, who had grabbed Vonnie by the arm.
When he saw me, he let go of Vonnie and ran to his bike, which was stashed behind a nearby bush.
“Stop or I’ll shoot,” I called as he positioned himself on the bike seat and started to crank the pedals. I didn’t get a chance to fire my gun. Without warning, Vonnie conked Horace with her oversized purse, and he fell from his bike. “You killed my friend Doreen,” she cried as she struck him again.
Evangeline joined the fray. She too hit him with her purse. “And you tried to hurt Vonnie.”
Goldie and Lisa Leann joined the brawl. “Shame on you!” Lisa Leann cried, striking him with her red Brighton purse. “You scared the liver out of me, twice!”
Vonnie struck him again. “You took my dog and put my life in danger because of a stupid treasure hunt!” Horace stumbled and fell on one knee on the grass while the girls, minus Lizzie, continued to pummel him. Horace managed to stand and stumbled toward his bike. He teetered as he tried to stick his feet on the pedals. But before he could accomplish the task, Lisa Leann grabbed the handlebars with a jerk, sending him tumbling back to the ground.
“How dare you try to hurt my friends!” she cried as her purse came down on him once again.
Poor Horace could only cover his head while I holstered my gun. “Ladies, ladies, settle down!” I said as I knelt down to handcuff the man. I pulled him into a standing position. “Pal, you’re coming with me.”
As I walked Horace to my Bronco, people started to pour out of the church. I opened the back door of my truck and locked Horace inside. Then turned to walk around to the driver’s door. But before I could climb inside my cab, David’s ambulance, sirens blazing, turned into the church parking lot.
David braked to a stop in front of Lisa Leann. He hopped out of the truck and ran to open the back doors. “Come with me,” he told her.
“What’s happening?” Lisa Leann cried as Clay ran toward her with his camera ready.
David grinned. “There’s someone here—fresh from DIA. And don’t worry, this is one ambulance bill I’m covering myself.”
Lisa Leann screamed as Clay’s camera flashed and Henry peered out of the truck. “Surprise!” he shouted before he turned to help their daughter down. Mandy, who was looking pretty well, actually, opened her arms and ran to her mother and laughed. “We made it, Mama. We made it home.”
“Where’s Ray?” Lisa Leann demanded.
“I’m here,” a voice called from the back of the truck. I looked to see. Sure enough, there sat Ray, both legs in casts but sitting comfortably in the back of the ambulance.
“Where’s my baby?” Mandy asked, looking around the crowd. Lizzie ran to her with little Kyle in her arms. The baby squealed in delight as his mother wrapped him in a hug and Clay’s camera flashed again.
“However did you pull this off?” Lisa Leann asked David after a few minutes of celebrating with her family.
“With a little help from Fred and Henry,” he said with a grin.
The church folks had crowded around, laughing, hugging, and praising God that the lost had been found. But no one enjoyed the moment more than Lisa Leann. She laughed till she cried, then she laughed again. “Thank you, God,” she called as she waved at the heavens. “Thank you!”
And all the while Horace sat in the back of my Bronco, seething, looking like the lost son of Grace Church he was, God help him.
——�
�
Later, once Horace had been processed down at the jail and Lisa Leann’s video, complete with the purse attack, had been admitted into evidence, David and I drove over to Horace’s campsite and retrieved Vonnie’s dog from a rope tied to a tree. Chucky was a bit muddy and hungry but otherwise okay. We rushed him to Vonnie’s, where we watched as her furry pet, mud and all, leapt into her arms, then covered her cheeks with kisses.
While Vonnie hugged and petted her baby, David and I walked out to the porch and sat on the front steps beneath the night’s bright stars. He reached for my hand, and I leaned my head on his shoulder.
“Remember that day last year when you asked me to marry you?” I asked, looking up at him.
David nodded. “You just about broke my heart when you ran out of the restaurant.”
“I wasn’t ready then,” I said.
“But now?”
“If you really want to know the answer to that, you should ask me again.”
Our foreheads touched as David grabbed both my hands. Then he went down on one knee as his brown eyes softened with love. “Donna Vesey,” he whispered, “my heart belongs to you. Would you marry me?”
I nodded. “Yes. Yes, I will.”
He wrapped me in his arms as our lips met. When we finally pulled away, I said, “I hate to change the subject. But I know where Old Zeke hid the gold.”
David kissed me again. “No kidding? Where?”
I kissed him back then pulled away, laughing. “He hollowed out the cross at the front of the church before setting the whole thing into the stone wall.”
David laughed. “Are you going to tell anyone?”
I shook my head. “No. Let’s leave it as it is. For as Old Zeke himself said—”
David laughed and said it with me: “The cross is my treasure.”
He kissed me again.
Why, look at us—we’d found pure gold.
The Potluck Catering Club Recipes
Corned Beef and Cabbage
Chicken Potpie
Smothered Pork Chops
Hot Fudge Pie
Cold Pasta Chicken Salad
Pecan Cobbler
Incredible Peach Cobbler
Peanut Brittle
Cashew Chicken Wraps
Baked Corn
Apple Salad
Onion and Cheese Meatloaf
Gold Rush Brownies
Scrambled Egg Gourmet
Prissy Pecans
Smash Cake
Sunshine Cake
Fred’s Barbecue Chicken
Cinnamon-Buttermilk Coffee Cake
Waikiki Meatballs
Potatoes Gourmet
Pineapple Ginger Chicken
Almond Bark
Doreen’s Easy Chicken and Rice Casserole
Scalloped Asparagus Casserole
Chicken Tetrazzini
Southern Sweet Iced Tea
Crabby Corn Chowder
Quick Potluck Pizza
Easy Crock-pot Pumpkin Soup
Raisin Sauce for Ham
Black Bottom Pie
Chocolate Coconut Pie
Golden Carrot and Pineapple Salad
Apple and Cheese Crisp
Stuffed Chicken Breasts for a Crowd
Corned Beef and Cabbage
4 cups cabbage, shredded
¼ teaspoon salt
dash of pepper
½ teaspoon caraway seeds (optional)
1 can cream of celery soup
1 can corned beef
1 package cornbread mix
necessary eggs and milk (according to the mix)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place shredded cabbage in 2½ quart baking dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper and caraway seeds. Spread celery soup over cabbage. Crumble corned beef and scatter over top of soup. Prepare cornbread mix according to the package directions and spread over top of corned beef. Bake for 25–30 minutes.
Serves 3–4.
Lizzie’s Cook’s Notes
This is the perfect dish for those days when your schedule is more consuming than you have time for. My family enjoys a nice tossed salad served with it, or in summer months, a sweet congealed salad.
Chicken Potpie
2 regular-sized piecrusts*
3 large chicken breasts, cooked and diced to bite-sized portions
1–2 cups fresh vegetables, cooked (broccoli, shredded carrots, peas, mushrooms, etc.)
1 can cream of chicken soup
6 tablespoons chicken broth
salt and pepper, to taste
Bake one piecrust according to directions. Cool. Combine chicken, vegetables, soup, broth, and seasonings. Place in baked piecrust. Place second piecrust on top of mixture, crimp edges, make slits on top of crust.
Bake in a preheated 370-degree oven until crust is brown.
Serves 6.
Goldie’s Cook’s Notes
What I often do is place the chicken and veggies in a crock-pot on low all day. Then, when I get home from work, all I have to do is bake the crust (or I can do that before I leave so that it has the day to cool), take the chicken and veggies from the crock-pot to the crust, and finish baking the pie.
* Be sure to buy piecrusts that come rolled up, not already in pie plates.
Smothered Pork Chops
4 pork chops
1 envelope Lipton onion and mushroom soup mix
salt and pepper, to taste
½–1 cup water
Fry pork chops (breaded or unbreaded) in just enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a frying pan. Blend soup mix, salt and pepper, and water, then pour over chops. Cover and simmer for 15–20 minutes.
Serves 4.
Evangeline’s Cook’s Notes
The amount of water may vary according to your desires. Personally, I find that half a cup to a cup works just perfectly for me. Vernon likes this served with mashed potatoes, green peas, and dinner rolls.
Hot Fudge Pie
1 (1 pound)
package brownie mix
9-inch pie shell, unbaked
¼ cup chocolate syrup
¼ cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)
whipped cream or ice cream
Prepare brownie mix as directed on package then pour the mixture into the pie shell. Pour chocolate syrup over top and sprinkle with nuts (optional). Bake in 350-degree oven for 40–45 minutes. Serve warm, topped with whipped cream or ice cream.
Lisa Leann’s Cook’s Notes
This recipe always makes me lonesome for the Texas Hill Country, especially at bluebonnet time.
Cold Pasta Chicken Salad
8 ounces vermicelli pasta noodles
1 cup French dressing
10 fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 cup fresh broccoli florets, blanched
10 sliced cherry tomatoes
¼ cup ripe olives, sliced
1 can artichoke hearts, sliced
2 cups chicken, cooked and cubed
1½ teaspoons dried basil
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
Cook pasta, drain it, and place in mixing bowl. Toss with 1/3 cup of salad dressing and toss well. Chill 3 hours then mix in mushrooms, broccoli, tomatoes, olives, artichokes, and remaining dressing. Stir in chicken, basil, and nuts and store in refrigerator.
Serves 6–8.
Donna’s Cook’s Notes
I love pasta dishes, especially for lunch, and this one stirs up pretty fast, especially when I use canned chicken.
Pecan Cobbler
Crust
½ cup butter, melted
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
Filling
1/3 cup butter, melted
3 eggs, slightly beaten
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup dark Karo syrup
1 cup pecans, chopped
For crust, pour melted butter in a 9-by-13 casserole dish. Mix flour, sugar, and milk in a separate bowl, then pour mixture over butter. For the filling
, without stirring, layer the butter, beaten eggs, sugar, syrup, and pecans over crust mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 35–40 minutes or until done. Serve with whipped cream, dessert topping, or vanilla ice cream.
Serves 6–8.
Vonnie’s Cook’s Notes
One mention of this treat, and friends and family come running. I’ll have to make it again, and soon.
Bake Until Golden: A Novel (The Potluck Catering Club) Page 28