Peaches and Scream

by Chelsea Thomas

  Teeny stepped forward. “Lillian’s the one who purchased the Eternal Deck that we found at the scene of the crime. Which means she was the one who left that tarot spread.”

  “Eh, or was she? Big Jim claims Lillian bought those tarot cards,” said Miss May. “But I’m not sure we can trust his intel either.”

  “I didn’t think of that, but you’re right.” I placed a pie in the display case and positioned it perfectly under the light. “It’s hard to trust Big Jim or Lillian. Lillian had mental health issues. We know that she was in an institution just last week. Maybe her theory was paranoid and delusional. Maybe Lillian killed Beth and then was overcome with grief and guilt so she built up a whole narrative about Big Jim being the killer to make herself feel better.”

  Miss May shook her head. “I don’t know. That seems far-fetched to me. Will you pull a tub of butter out of the freezer? I need it to thaw for tomorrow.”

  “OK.” I crossed into the kitchen, opened the freezer, and grabbed the butter. But something shiny caught my eye… “Oh my goodness. I found my keys.”

  That’s right. I had left my keys in the freezer. I’d like to say I’d never done something like that before, but…

  I rushed back into the bakeshop jangling the keys above my head. “My keys weren’t taken by the killer. I just left them in the freezer.”

  Teeny and Miss May laughed. “Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea,” said Teeny. “I swear, you’d lose your ears if they weren’t connected to your brain.”

  “I don’t think my ears are connected to my brain,” I said.

  “You understand what I mean,” said Teeny. “Don’t be a know-it-all.”

  “Hold on a second,” said Miss May. “If your keys were in the freezer, then how did the killer lock the door from the outside after they killed Beth?”

  KP laughed with a mouth full of peach pie. “Oh yeah. I’ve been meaning to talk to you girls about that. You don’t need a key to lock that door from the outside.”

  The three of us turned to face KP. “Why not?” I asked.

  “Yesterday I was working out by the peaches, thinking back to my days in the Navy. And I remembered you can lock the door from the outside pretty easy. There was a guy who taught me how to do it back in training camp. It’s like picking a lock in reverse.”

  “I’ve never heard of that,” said Miss May.

  KP shrugged. “It’s not hard. If you got the right tools, you can lock any door from the outside in just a few minutes. Especially on an old barn like this. It’s not like this is the United States mint or anything.”

  Miss May pulled out a chair and sat down. “So the killer went through a lot of trouble to confuse us. But who? And why?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe they locked the door from the outside to distract us from the other details of the crime.”

  “That’s a decent theory,” said Teeny. “We spent a lot of time thinking about how the door got locked and worrying about it. Heck, we were so scared about it that you two left the farm for days and slept in my house. I loved those slumber parties, but what if that’s exactly what the killer wanted? To get you worked up about your own safety and to lure you away from the scene of the crime.”

  I scratched my chin. “The only reason we went to your house was because my keys were missing,” I said. Then a thought occurred to me and I clasped my hands over my mouth. “Oh my goodness. What if I didn’t forget my keys in the freezer? What if the killer found them and stashed them in the freezer to trick us?”

  “It’s certainly possible,” said Miss May. “Although it’s also very possible that you absent-mindedly left your keys in the fridge.” She looked back over at KP. “Was Big Jim in the military?”

  KP shrugged. “I think so. Not positive but sounds right.”

  Miss May turned back to me and Teeny. “Maybe Big Jim learned the same trick…”

  I nodded. “Even if he didn’t learn it in the military, he could have picked up the skill from a magic book or class, something like that. Sounds like something a magician would know how to do.”

  Teeny jumped to her feet. “What now? We go find that big stinky magician and get a confession?”

  Miss May shook her head. “If we’re going to accuse Big Jim we need more information. I don’t want to be hasty or rash.”

  “And accusations can be dangerous,” I said.

  “Exactly,” said Miss May. “Lillian seemed to think Big Jim was pretending to be someone he’s not. I think she might have been onto something. So let’s go find out.” Miss May headed toward the exit and Teeny and I followed.

  KP called after us. “Hey. No ‘thank you?’ No ‘great job KP?’ Sounds to me like I broke your case wide open!”

  Miss May answered him without looking back. “The peach pie is your thank you,” she said.

  I heard KP laughing as he shut the door behind us. I giggled too, until I remembered that we were on the trail of a murderer.

  And that was no laughing matter.

  44

  Off the Record

  We waited until the next morning to make our next move in the case.

  We didn’t want to confront Big Jim yet, so instead, we went to visit Liz, the editor of the Pine Grove Gazette. Miss May had been gung-ho the prior night, energized by the revelation about my missing keys. But Liz hadn’t picked up her office phone or home phone, so we had decided to hold off until the next day.

  When we arrived at Liz’s office, she was sitting at her desk, typing with hyper-focused fury. Each clack of the keyboard sounded like a gunshot. That girl could type, and I was suddenly glad I had never been in her journalistic crosshairs.

  Liz didn’t even notice when Miss May, Teeny and I quietly stepped into the room. After thirty seconds, Miss May cleared her throat. Liz did not look up from her computer. “Sit down. Typing. Emergency article. The news never sleeps, so neither do I.” Liz grabbed a coffee mug from her desk and took a huge gulped. Coffee dribbled on her chin and she wiped it off with her sleeve, all without missing a keystroke.

  “Were you working on a story last night?” Miss May settled into a chair opposite from Liz. “We couldn’t get a hold of you.”

  Liz nodded. “Undercover assignment. I had to use a new alter ego to gain a foothold at the Department of Water and Power. There’s something amiss at that place. A leaky faucet, if you will. I’m out to plug that leak.”

  Teeny raised her eyebrows. “Impressive.”

  “Impressive is an inadequate word for what I’m attempting. If all goes according to plan, this story will be monumental. It’s going to be national news, and then maybe international news. I suspect that in six months if you travel to Brazil, China, or Japan, people will be talking about this story I’m writing here in front of you today.”

  I cocked my head to one side. “Just those three countries?”

  Liz slammed her laptop shut. “Not just those three countries. The story is going to be global. Every country. Those were just examples. Please. Sit down.”

  Teeny and I obeyed, sitting at the chairs beside Miss May.

  “I have five minutes. What’s up?” Liz downed another big sip of coffee.

  “Hold on one second.” Teeny scooted to the edge of her chair. “Who’s your new alter ego? I’m dying to know.”

  “I can’t say. But I will say I’ve taken on the persona of a highly educated man. I will not share any of his physical characteristics and I will not tell you where he was born and raised. That’s all you get. Four minutes and twenty-four seconds remaining.”

  Miss May launched into the story of our investigation. She got around to the point quickly. We needed information about Big Jim. And we were hoping Liz could point us to some newspaper articles or town documents that might help us understand Big Jim‘s back story. Did he have a secret identity? Did Big Jim, himself, have an alter ego?

  Liz listened with patience as Miss May spoke. Then she stood and slid her laptop into her bag. “I can’t help you with this.”

 
; Miss May sprung to her feet. “Why not? You know everything that goes on in this town.”

  Liz stopped and look out the window. “Not ancient history like that. You want information from Jim’s childhood, right? Well, he’s an ordinary citizen, or he was back then, before he opened the magic shop. So he wouldn’t have made the paper for any reason. And most of Pine Grove’s birth/marriage/death records from that time were lost in a fire. Never digitized.”

  “There was a fire?” I asked.

  Liz scoffed. “There were tons of fires. Back then, people didn’t understand the meaning of ‘flammable’ or ‘fire hazard.’ Basically anytime somebody plugged in a toaster, there was a 50/50 shot they were gonna burn their house to the ground.”

  “There has to be some way you can help,” I said.

  “This might be the first time in my life that I can’t be any help at all, Chelsea.” Liz opened the door and stood aside for us to exit. “Now please get out. I need to wash last night’s fortune cookie crumbs off my face, and I would rather do that in private.”

  We exited with our heads hung low. When we got back out to the car, I turned to Teeny and Miss May. “If Liz can’t help us gather information, who can?”

  Teeny’s face lit up like a thousand-watt bulb. “I know! Ms. Happy! Is Ms. Happy still alive?”

  Miss May nodded. “Alive and kicking.”

  45

  The Secrets of Happy-ness

  Ms. Happy was the oldest woman in Pine Grove. According to Miss May, Ms. Happy had been the very first resident of Pine Grove’s retirement community, Washington Villages. If that were true, it would mean that Ms. Happy was well over a hundred years old when we went to see her.

  Although I’d never been an ageist (my two best friends were thirty years older than me), I was skeptical that Ms. Happy would be a good source of information for the investigation. Somehow, a centenarian seemed bound to have forgotten some facts along the way. I mean, I left my keys in the freezer and I was a third of Ms. Happy’s age. Nonetheless, we headed over to Washington Villages to find out what Ms. Happy knew about Big Jim and his origins in the area.

  When we walked into the cafeteria of the retirement community, a large game of poker was going on at a circular table in the back. Miss May and I had visited that poker table on many prior investigations. Our frenemy Petunia was the head of the retirement community’s gambling ring. She always had information, and she liked to talk. But it was never fun to interrupt Petunia when she was in the middle of a game of Texas Hold ‘Em.

  Petunia turned from the card table and snarled at us before we had a chance to say a word. “What are you three doing here? Chelsea, are you still single? I would introduce you to one of my grandsons but they’re all deeply in love with the women of their dreams. Beautiful families.”

  I stammered. Somehow I had forgotten Petunia’s cutting sense of humor. “You know I’m not single anymore. I’m seeing Germany Turtle. He directed the town play?”

  “Right. He weirds me out. Weird guy. Listen, you have my blessing but the kid is strange. And why is he named Germany? Who names their child after a country, and Germany no less? That’s like naming your child Czech Republic or Yugoslavia.”

  “I don’t think Yugoslavia is a country anymore,” I said.

  Petunia waved me away with an aggressive swat of the hand. “You know what I mean. Don’t be a smarty-pants with me. You need me to help with one of your little investigations, right? Or are you here to accuse me of murder yet again?”

  A curly-haired woman sitting across from Petunia at the table snickered. Petunia turned and snapped at her. “Don’t you giggle over there. It’s not fun to be accused of murder for no reason. If you’re going to accuse me, at least accuse me of something I did. There are plenty of people I would murder if I had the chance. The mailman keeps bringing my packages two hours later than I need them. He’d be the first to go.” Petunia chuckled. “I crack myself up. I’m sorry. Go ahead and laugh. I’m hysterical.”

  “I just have one question for you, Petunia,” said Miss May.

  Petunia looked up at Miss May like as if to say, “ask it already.”

  “What’s Ms. Happy’s apartment number?”

  Ms. Happy lived in the most beautiful area of Washington Villages. Her apartment was nestled among tall trees and seated at the edge of a small pond. A cute stone walkway led to the front door and rosebushes lined the walkway.

  “This is nice,” said Teeny. “When I’m an old person, maybe I’ll live here instead of at the cult.”

  Miss May turned to look at Teeny.

  “I’m not old, May. Not old enough for a retirement community, at least. I have the hottest restaurant in town. Don’t call me old.”

  Miss May chuckled and pressed the doorbell. The bell rang with a loud buzz.

  “Wow. That’s deafening,” I said.

  “It’s probably a special buzzer so she can hear it. My mom has one of those.” Teeny pressed the buzzer again. “I like the sound.”

  I heard the sound of shuffling feet from inside. Then the door opened and there stood one of the tiniest, most adorable women I had ever seen. She made Teeny look like a giant. Ms. Happy was 4’10”, at most. She had enormous, thick bifocals. She was wearing a cute pink top with blue jeans and she had a bright, happy smile that suited her last name. She squinted at us when she opened the door. “Hello? Who are you?”

  Miss May got reacquainted with Ms. Happy. They had apparently served on the town board together twenty years prior. When Ms. Happy finally remembered Miss May, she looked up with an even brighter smile and welcomed us into her home. We sat out in the back sunroom, overlooking the pond. Ms. Happy took approximately fifteen minutes to bring out a pitcher of iced tea. She refused our help, insisting she could do it herself. Then she sat down and we talked.

  Ms. Happy’s eyes widened when we told her about Beth’s murder. “I can’t believe it. Someone got murdered in Pine Grove? I never thought that would happen. Not in my entire life.”

  Miss May looked over at me, then back to Ms. Happy. “This isn’t the first victim we’ve had in Pine Grove.”

  Ms. Happy lurched forward. “You can’t be serious. Other people have been murdered in town?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Teeny. “If Pine Grove wasn’t so incredible and adorable it might be a scary place to live.”

  “I don’t get out much. Usually I stay in the living room. My best friend is ninety-seven and I’m a hundred and two. We gossip like we used to. She’s not going to believe this. Although I wish you were here with better news.”

  “Hmmm. What’s some other gossip? Chelsea has a boyfriend,” said Teeny. “Her relationship history is complicated so it’s good news that she found someone else to love her.”

  “Teeny’s seeing someone too,” I said. “Big Dan. He’s the best mechanic in town.”

  Ms. Happy laughed. “That is good news. It’s always good to have a mechanic you can trust.”

  “Also, Teeny’s got another suitor, maybe you know him…” I said. “Big Jim, the local magician?”

  Ms. Happy clucked her tongue at the mention of Big Jim. “I don’t care for him.”

  “Is it possible he’s not who he says he is?” I asked. “Could he have a dark past we don’t know about?”

  Ms. Happy took a long, slow sip of her iced tea. “I don’t like talking about that man.”

  Teeny’s eyes widened. “Why not?”

  “He was a good boy, growing up. He mowed my lawn. He did a little magic show for my son’s tenth birthday. Or maybe that was my nephew’s birthday? The point is, I saw Big Jim do a magic show for children and he was friendly. Then Big Jim became a father and he showed his true character.”

  Miss May swallowed. “What do you mean?”

  “Jim had three of the most adorable children I had ever seen. They were all born so close together. First came twin girls, then a little boy. No. It was twin boys, then a little girl. It was so nice seeing Jim and his wife and those th
ree infants, all under two years old, walking through town on a Sunday. Then one day Jim left the family. Left the state. No one knew where he went.”

  “I knew I didn’t trust that guy,” said Teeny. “He disappeared on those poor kids.”

  Ms. Happy nodded. “That’s right. He disappeared on those babies. As far as I know, the children were told their father abandoned them at birth. The kids never met their dad and he never got involved in their lives. Not even when they were growing up.”

  “That’s so sad,” said Miss May. “But I think you may have just given us information we needed to solve this case.”

  46

  Who’s Your Daddy?

  “OK. So we think Big Jim was father to Michael, Jonathan, and Beth.” I slid into my seat at our booth at Grandma’s. Teeny slid in next to me and Miss May sat across from us.

  Miss May nodded. “The more we talk about it, the more it seems obvious. Teeny was right about Big Jim. Even though she was generalizing about magicians. He abandoned his kids and now, all these years later, somehow that led to a murder.”

  “But how?” I asked. “Do you think Big Jim abandoned his kids and then killed one of them? I still don’t see the motive.”

  “I don’t see the motive, either,” said Teeny. “But I do see a waiter.” Teeny held up her hand. “Hey Samuel! Can you bring a platter of my famous puppies out?”

  Samuel flashed a thumbs-up and Teeny turned back to us with a smile. “You always get good service when you own the place.”

  “We get good service here and we don’t own the place. I think it’s because you hire good people.”

  Teeny shrugged. “You got that right. I’ve got instincts. I proved that with Big Jim the stinky magician. What are you two talking about, motive, anyway? Trying to figure out why he killed his kid? Who needs a reason? He’s a creepy, sneaky, evil magician.”

  “Slow down.” Miss May held up her hand and Teeny stopped talking. “Let’s just go through the facts.”