Kelly shook her head and said, “He’s an idiot.”
The star of the show was the paper mache volcano in the middle of the newspaper-covered table.
Pepper defended herself. “We’re not using Mentos this time. And since we’ve seen a real volcano in Hawaii, we thought we’d try the experiment again.”
“It’s stupid,” Kelly said. “Everyone knows what vinegar and baking soda do when they’re mixed.”
“It’s science,” Pepper said. “And you’re both writing reports on volcanoes so deal with it.”
I stepped back inside the kitchen doorway. “Don’t let me stop you.”
Pepper picked up a styrofoam cup with a lid. “When you do your reports, you’re going to find out that some volcanoes flow and some volcanoes blow.”
“Our last one sure blew,” Keith said.
“They all blow,” Kelly said, clearly not happy with the experiment.
An all-too-common look of frustration came over Pepper’s face. “Our last volcano was a mistake. This one should flow nicely.” She removed the lid and poured the concoction in the cup into the volcano.
The eruption was instantaneous and shot into the air, hitting not only the hanging light fixture with its six bulbs, but also slamming into the ceiling.
“Thar she blows,” Keith shouted and doubled over with laughter. It was obvious he was responsible for sabotaging the experiment.
Pepper looked near tears and shouted at him, “Go to your room!”
Kelly stood from the table, a sticky cola mixture dripping from her hair. “Mom! You have to do something about him. He’s out of control. I don’t want to be homeschooled anymore. I want to go to school with my friends.” She stormed out of the room.
Pepper quickly bunched all the newspapers around the volcano, swept the entire mess up into her arms, and dropped it into a large trash can she had placed in the corner of the room. I’m sure she originally thought there would be a simple cleanup.
“Are you leaving, or are you sticking around?” she asked, defeat resonating in her voice.
“Go get cleaned up,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do to help with some of the mess.”
I wiped down the table and chairs and grabbed fresh newspaper from the kitchen counter to spread on the table to protect the wood. Until the ceiling and light fixture were cleaned, they were going to drip for a while. The walls and drapery appeared to have been spared, but the carpet around the table would have to be scrubbed. I knew Pepper had a carpet scrubber, so other than a little mopping, I didn’t try to actually clean the carpeting.
I poured a cup of coffee and was settled at the breakfast bar in the kitchen when Pepper came downstairs. She looked tired as she poured her own cup and sat down beside me.
“You haven’t recovered from Hawaii yet, have you?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Keith is really pushing the limits around here, and you heard Kelly. She wants to go to school with her friends.”
“Then send her. Why are you still doing this? Didn’t you decide to homeschool so you guys could meet Buck on the road more often and spend more time with him?”
“That was one of the reasons. The other was because we felt the teachers weren’t doing their jobs, and I was spending too much time helping the kids with their homework and teaching them myself.”
“That was two years ago. How many times have you taken the kids to see Buck? Twice? Three times? He’s home every other weekend, and he spends plenty of time with both of them. Give the school another chance. It’s almost the end of the school year. Send them both next year. Keith will settle down when he has to follow the rules at school. It’ll be good for him.”
“I feel like a failure.”
I reached over and put my hand over hers. “Pepper, you’re not a failure. You’ve done a good job schooling both of them. You’ve taken them on great field trips, and they’ve been exposed to more culture and classics than the kids in public school ever have. Things will be easy for them, because they’re going to be ahead of their peers. You’ll see. Talk to Buck about it. I bet he’ll be on board with sending them back to school.”
A flicker of relief crossed her face, and I could see she was thinking. “Maybe. I’ll talk to him about it.” She sipped her coffee and asked, “What are you doing today? Why did you stop by?”
I reached into my bag and pulled out the picture of Pickles. “Ethel Bunwich’s cat is missing. But it’s not really missing. It’s been scraped off Seventh Street and buried in a neighbor’s back yard. I don’t have the heart to tell her. She’s old, and this could kill her. I don’t want to kill her. She loves this cat. It eats pickle relish.”
A smile crossed Pepper’s face. It was good to see her smile, and I couldn’t help smiling myself. A moment later, she was laughing uncontrollably. Her laughter was infectious, and I was soon howling with her, but I knew if we didn’t stop soon, she’d be in tears - and they wouldn’t be good tears.
Kelly walked into the room and looked at us with disgust. “You guys are nuts.”
Pepper managed to get herself under control and stood from the stool. “Get your brother. I want you both to get the dining room cleaned up. He can scrub the light and the ceiling. You can run the carpet scrubber.”
Kelly stomped her foot and began to protest, “But I didn’t-”
“Stop,” Pepper said. “I have to go somewhere with your Aunt Jo for a bit. If that room isn’t clean when I get home, you’re both grounded for two weeks. No internet, no phone, no going anywhere.”
Kelly stormed back up the stairs, hollering for Keith and blaming him for the cleaning detail.
Pepper smiled and said, “They used to be sweet. Do you remember when they were sweet?”
I laughed. “They’re still sweet, and you know it.”
Pepper grabbed her purse and marched out the door to my truck. I followed.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To the animal shelter, of course.”
“Why?”
“You don’t want to tell Ethel Bunwich her cat is dead, so let’s get her a replacement.”
“I can’t just hand her a new cat. She wants Pickles. What if she can’t handle training a kitty?”
“She won’t be training a kitty. We’ll pick out an old cat that looks closest to Pickles. She’ll never know the difference.”
My mouth hung open. “Are you kidding? There’s no hair on the cat’s tail, and it’s blind in one eye.”
“We’ll shave the tail, and Ethel will never notice the cat can see out of both eyes. This will work. Trust me.”
I knew in my gut there was no way this would work, but my lemming gene kicked in, and I agreed to go to the shelter anyway.
On the way, I said, “I had lunch with Jackie today. She showed me a couple of news articles about Natalie Ping. She was the soap heiress in Hawaii who went missing.”
“I remember. You told me about her and that Pete guy.”
“She’s no longer missing.”
“Did her parents find out she was already married to him?”
“I doubt it. She’s dead. Her body washed up on a beach.”
“Wow. Good thing we’re not still there or you might have found the body. Was she murdered?”
“There weren’t any details in the articles, and Jackie implied I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. She said Natalie may have died in a swimming or boating accident, but if that were the case, you’d think the newspaper would have had statements from eyewitnesses. Personally, I think she was murdered.”
“Why do you care? There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“I don’t know. It feels like a loose end.”
Pepper rolled her eyes. “Good grief. Don’t you have enough to do without getting involved in something that happened five thousand miles away? You can’t afford to go back to Hawaii, and Glenn would never let you go anyway.”
I knew she was right, but the feeling there was something I could do wouldn’t leave me.
I turned onto Dog Park Way. The local dog park and animal shelter were at the end of the street. I reached into my bag and felt around for the picture of Pickles. I handed it to Pepper and said, “I won’t be any good at this. You find a cat that looks like this.”
She looked smug. “I will. You’ll see.”
Chapter Six
“What made you stop at Smitty’s?” Glenn asked as he reached into the plain white box for another barbecued rib.
I took a long draw on my cold beer before responding. “After spending the afternoon with Pepper, I didn’t have time to fix dinner, and we haven’t had ribs in ages. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
He smiled broadly, causing his dimple to make an appearance. Even with a little sauce on his upper lip, the dimple was adorable.
“No objections here,” he said. “These are great.”
I glanced down at the long scratch across my hand. The new Pickles Bunwich hadn’t taken kindly to Pepper using an electric razor on her tail.
Keith and I had to hold the cat while Pepper wielded the razor. The cat caterwauled so much, the neighbors surely thought we were murdering it. I suppose that’s why they call it caterwauling in the first place.
Pepper’s arms had loads of scratches, but Keith didn’t have a mark on him. I was probably lucky to get away with only one.
It dawned on me that we didn’t know if Pickles had been declawed. Would it be inappropriate to ask Gordon Berger to dig her up and check?
“Jo,” Glenn said, bringing me out of my thoughts. “Did you hear me?”
“Sorry. I was thinking about Pepper shaving that darn cat today.” I couldn’t help smiling. “You should have seen it. She and the cat were both determined, but Pepper won. What did you say?”
“I asked you if you used antiseptic on that scratch. You’ll have to keep an eye on it.”
“It’s just a scratch. What’s to keep an eye on?”
“Cat-scratch fever.”
I laughed. “That’s the name of a movie or a book. It’s not a real thing.”
“Oh, contraire. It’s a real thing. When I was a kid, the old lady next door had a house full of cats. One of them scratched her real good one day, and she ended up with cat scratch fever. It spread to her brain and killed her.” He stood from the table to take his plate to the sink. “Just take care of it,” he said over his shoulder.
His words made me nervous. The skin was already dark red around the scratch. I slipped into the small bathroom off the kitchen and scrubbed the broken skin with antibiotic soap before pulling first aid items from the medicine chest. When I felt I’d done all I could to prevent the disease, I called Pepper.
It was just my luck she was agitated when she answered the phone.
“The cat’s hiding in the garage with Mr. Honey. I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again. I put pickle relish in cat food and set it out, and the food is gone, but I don’t know if the new Pickles ate it or if our Mr. Honey ate it.”
“Mice ate it,” I said.
She sounded indignant. “We don’t have mice.”
“Maybe not, but you might get cat scratch fever with all those scratches on your arms.”
“No I won’t. I cleaned them with peroxide,” she said. “I’m glad you called. We forgot to talk about Nancy’s wedding shower. It’s this Saturday, and we haven’t finalized the plans.”
I groaned. “I’m not good at these things. You and Mama are making the food, so what’s left to plan?”
“We have to come up with games to play, prizes to win, and the party favors aren’t going to make themselves. If you don’t want to help with the shower, you can at least help by occupying some of Aunt Addie’s time while she’s here.”
Aunt Addie was Arnie’s sister, and therefore, Nancy’s aunt. “Why do we have to occupy her time? Shouldn’t the Baranski family be occupying her?”
“I don’t know. All I know is she’s staying with Mama and Roger for a few days. No one in the Baranski family has room for her, and Mama can’t babysit her the entire time she’s in town, especially if she’s helping me with the shower.”
It was a tossup. Show a little old woman around town or help Pepper and Mama with Nancy’s shower. I’d rather go to the dentist for a root canal than do either of those things.
The day had been full of regrets, and I now regretted calling Pepper. “I’ll help with Aunt Addie for a few days. I’ll introduce her to the crew at Milly’s Beauty Shop. I can probably leave her with them for a few hours every day.”
Pepper sounded relieved. “Good. She lives in Cincinnati. Hank’s driving down to pick her up, but I don’t know what day yet. I’ll have to let you know.”
I ended the call before I could be roped into anything else and found Glenn in the basement working on a walnut butcher block. It was our wedding gift to Hank and Nancy. I wasn’t too keen on the idea at first, but Glenn’s work with wood was beautiful, and he planned to engrave the block with their names and wedding date. It would be a unique gift, and with Nancy’s love of all things kitchen, I eventually agreed the block was a good idea.
I slumped into the loveseat in my murder room space. The whiteboard was empty. There wasn’t anything exciting happening in Buxley right now, and my work as a private investigator was quickly becoming boring.
An image flashed before my mind. It was of the whiteboard filled to the edges with information about Pete Sinclair, Natalie Ping, and the strange events on the cliff.
I grabbed my markers and began working to jot down everything I knew about all three. An hour later, I stood with hands on hips, studying the information. The board wasn’t filled to the edges, and there were no clues as to what happened to Natalie after she arrived at her parent’s house. The bride and groom on the cliff were a conundrum. I couldn’t help thinking Pete was lying about the incident just as he had lied about the coins. He surely knew about the wedding dress in the closet. The question was – did he know about the grass stains on the dress and who was wearing it?
I suddenly remembered the slip of paper in the bottom of the gown’s garment bag. I hurried over to the washer and dryer next to Glenn’s work area. I hadn’t yet washed all of our laundry from our trip. I shuffled through the basket of clothes and found the shorts I had been wearing that day. The folded slip of paper was still in the pocket and turned out to be a receipt from Lela’s Bridal Boutique in Chicago. I went upstairs to grab the two newspaper articles from Jackie and took the items to the whiteboard. I taped all three to the right edge.
Chicago.
It was the one word I had written in red, and it stood out from the rest of my writing.
Glenn slipped an arm around my waist and took a few minutes to study my work. “What are you doing? You know this isn’t something you can solve from Buxley. There are too many unknowns.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Now that Natalie’s been found, Jackie said she’d keep me updated as information came in. I just want to have everything in one place in case something jumps out at me.”
He smiled impishly. “Give me twenty more minutes, and I’ll jump you.” He patted my bottom and headed back to his workbench.
I sat at my desk and opened my laptop. I knew Natalie only had one sister, but I had forgotten to check if Pete had siblings. It took several minutes, but I found him to be an only child. His mother had him later in life, and although both of his parents were still living, they were elderly. It was unlikely they had recently been in Hawaii as they lived in an assisted living facility in Chicago.
Chicago.
That’s where the answers to this mystery were.
~ ~ ~
“What do you mean she’s on her way? I wasn’t expecting her until Friday, or better yet, Saturday morning.”
I had just talked with Pepper last night, and now she was telling me that Hank was on his way to Cincinnati to pick up Aunt Addie. I wasn’t prepared to deal with her yet.
“She packed her bags and demanded someone come get her right away. I’m gues
sing you don’t say no to her.”
Exasperation filled my voice. “I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather wrap mints in netting than deal with a bossy old woman.”
“You can’t change your mind. I already told everyone you were handling her, and you owe me, Jo. I’ll have the new Pickles ready for Ethel by Friday. Maybe sooner.”
I resigned myself to the situation. “Ok, but I’m not calling her Aunt Addie. She’s not my aunt.”
“I don’t care what you call her, but be prepared to call her something tomorrow morning, because you have to pick her up at Mama’s by nine o’clock. Roger has a doctor’s appointment to get his prostate checked, and Mama has to be there to give him moral support.”
Was nothing private in this family? I scrunched up my face at the thought of Mama watching Roger’s examination.
“I’ll pick her up,” I said. Defeat and aggravation were clear in my voice. I hung up the phone without saying goodbye.
I walked out of my office and saw Nancy sitting at her desk with her hands in her lap. I was such a dunce. I had just had my conversation with Pepper with my door open.
“I’m sorry, Nancy,” I said. “I know she’s your aunt, and you must love her very much. I shouldn’t be whining about spending time with her. I’m sure we’ll be fine once we get to know each other.”
She giggled. “I wasn’t offended. I barely know the woman. I only saw her at family gatherings once or twice a year when I was little. My dad always said she lived a colorful life, and I don’t think he wanted me around her or to even know much about her. I heard my Uncle Graves used to lock her in the attic when he worked nights so she wouldn’t go out with other men.” Her eyes flew open wide, and she looked embarrassed. “I don’t mean to gossip. I shouldn’t have told you about that.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “No worries. I’ll keep that interesting tidbit to myself. How old is she?”
“She’s older than Uncle Arnie. I think she’s seventy-eight or seventy-nine. I know she’s not eighty yet, because she’s demanding a huge party for her eightieth.”
Murder Wears a Veil Page 6