Calamity @ the Carwash: A Parson's Cove Cozy Mystery

by Sharon Rose

  By the time I settled them down, I was completely awake so I decided to go downstairs and have a drink of water. I’d taken to sleeping in my bed again even though my air conditioner didn’t work. Sleeping downstairs with the cats creeping around all night was worse than sleeping in a sweaty nightgown.

  I didn’t turn any lights on because there was enough light from the outside sky to help me find my way. Three cats followed me. The rest were curled up on my bed. The three who came downstairs chatted all the way down.

  “No,” I said to them. “I am not getting food for you. I’m getting a drink of water. If you think I’m going to start feeding you in the middle of the night, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  I stood at the kitchen sink and drank my water. People from the city were renting the house behind mine. The old house was empty most of the year and the owner lived in the city. I’d talked to the young man who was renting. I believe he said his name was Jeff and he was staying until September. He seemed pleasant enough. His wife, apparently, would be joining him but she didn’t start her vacation until next week. I was surprised to see lights on in the kitchen but then again if I were a normal person, I would have lights on in my kitchen too. Most people don’t walk around in the dark. I’m sure the thunder must’ve jolted him to life too.

  I rinsed the glass out and was just about to turn away when I saw the backdoor open and someone coming out. By now, the rain had started and whoever it was had his jacket pulled over his head. Right then there was a flash of lightning but he was moving too fast and I couldn’t see his face. I was quite sure it was a man though. The kitchen light remained on so I assumed that Jeff had company. Probably another fisherman, telling tall tales and drinking beer.

  The Krueger house behind me has become quite notorious over the past few years. First, there was a murder and then, about a year ago last winter, thieves used it as a storage place for stolen antiques. I guess an empty house is an invitation for crooks, especially when it’s secluded. I am the only one who can see if anything is going on there. There are high hedges on both sides of the yard and no houses across from it.

  Mr. Krueger and my father were friends many years ago. Well, they were friends as long as both their gardens did well. If either man had a crop failure, they were not on speaking terms. If Mr. Krueger’s tomatoes were bigger or redder than my father’s were, my father went to bed for a week. Mrs. Krueger was the town gossip but my mother was probably the most cantankerous woman in Parson’s Cove so you can imagine their relationship. As soon as Linda Krueger finished school, she moved away from Parson’s Cove and after her parents died, she decided to rent the house instead of selling it. For one thing, no one would ever buy it but in the summer, we do have quite a few tourists in town. Our lake is teeming with fish and there are a few nice beaches. If it weren’t for the tourists, I would be bankrupt. Not that I get many customers during the week but on the weekend, the place is buzzing.

  I listened to the rain pattering on the roof, the thunder rumbling somewhere in the distance and the purr of seven cats. It didn’t take long to drift back to sleep. When I awoke, the sky was gray and the wind was howling around the corners of the house.

  Flori came into the shop the moment that I unlocked the front door. She carried a large brown bag with a few spots of grease showing here and there.

  “Did you hear the latest?” she said, as she plunked the bag down on the counter.

  “I don’t think so. What’s it about?”

  “Calvin Koots is suing the Retirement Home.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because they told him he can’t take the bus to the city again. Well, Mr. Kinney didn’t but the board members want him out.”

  “Well, that’s just plain crazy. It’s obvious that he hates being a senior-sitter and they sure can’t stand him. Did he have a contract?”

  “Apparently but Jake says there’s a probation period so he doesn’t stand a chance of winning.”

  “Is he so poor that he can’t make the payments on his taxi?”

  “Jake says he’s always throwing money around like it’s going out of style. He likes to brag and pay for everyone’s coffee at the café so he can’t be all that broke.”

  “Charlie says Calvin does a lot of running around during the night. I wonder what he’s up to, Flori.”

  “I don’t know, Mabel, but I do know one thing – it’s none of our business. Right?”

  When she said ‘right?’ she looked me square in the eye.

  “In other words,” I said. “You don’t want me running around in the middle of the night following Calvin Koots. Right?”

  “Right. Now, can we have some coffee? You don’t even have it on yet.”

  “I’m behind this morning. That storm woke me up last night. Or, the cats did. I’m not sure which is to blame but I did lose some sleep. By the way, remember I told you that there was a young fellow renting Krueger’s house? Well, he had company last night and they didn’t leave until after three. I sure hope that when his wife comes they don’t have wild parties all night long.”

  Flori shook her head. “I’m so glad we don’t live by one of those rental houses. In fact, I’ll be glad when all these tourists pack up and go home.”

  “Don’t say that. If it weren’t for them, I’d be eating at the soup kitchen and sleeping on a park bench.”

  “Oh Mabel, you know I’d never let you sleep on a park bench.” She proceeded to hug the stuffing out of me. When I started to gasp for breath, she squeezed a little harder and said, “And, I mean it about not following Calvin Koots in the dark.”

  About four, several customers came into the store. All of them were tourists and although they were interested in some of the souvenirs, they seemed more curious about the murder.

  An elderly couple dressed as though they were on an African safari, was the first to broach the subject.

  “We hear you had a terrible murder here several days ago,” the lady said. “Isn’t it shocking when such crimes infiltrate small towns? We’ve never been here before but we read about Mr. Bernstein in the papers and we thought we’d check it out. Do they have any suspects yet?”

  “No,” I replied. “However, we’re making sure our doors are locked and some are getting guard dogs. I hear there are a lot of unsavory characters running around in the streets at night.”

  Their eyes bulged. “You know this? Why doesn’t the sheriff do something about it?”

  I glanced around the room and lowered my voice, “Well, between you and me, the sheriff isn’t as young as he used to be. He’s ready to retire and in my opinion, is just counting the days until he gets his pension.”

  They both gasped. “That’s terrible,” the old man said. “Your lives could be in danger.”

  “Have any tourists been attacked?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” I said. “And, I’ll tell you, it’s not good for business. I might have to declare bankruptcy if I don’t start selling something. When everyone is living in fear, they don’t want to spend much money. My only consolation is that we have a really good soup kitchen in town for the down-and-outers.”

  The two walked away whispering as they walked down each aisle.

  “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Langside,” I said as I accepted their credit card about ten minutes later. “That will be $87.59.”

  Mrs. Langside reached over and patted my arm. “I hope everything works out for you, my dear. We mentioned your predicament to your other customers and they’ve agreed to help you out. Unfortunately, we’ve decided we won’t spend the weekend in Parson’s Cove after all, but perhaps we’ll return some other time.” She gave me a knowing look. “You know, when it’s safer. It is a lovely little place and I hope the sheriff will change his ways and get down to solving this crime. Thank you again.”

  The next three customers all purchased something and when it was time to close shop and I’d chased Esther Flynn out, I added up my sales. I made more in the past hour than I had for the whole
week. And, lucky for me, none of the tourists planned to stay in Parson’s Cove for the weekend. It was good for my business but the hotel would probably suffer.

  “However,” as I explained to Reg later on that evening on the phone “it’s much easier to solve a murder when the town isn’t brimming with nosy tourists.”

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  “Did you find out anything from Maxymowich?” I asked after I’d explained my little plan for getting rid of visitors. As you can well imagine, I did describe things somewhat differently to Reg. For example, I believe I inserted Captain Maxymowich’s name for Reg’s name. I know how Flori feels about my lying but sometimes it seems to be a necessity. Especially when trying to find a killer. A lie seems like such a lesser sin.

  “Not much. He was very careful with his words. I think there’s more going on than meets the eye, Mabel. I know they’re trying to find whoever murdered Bernie but somehow, they seem to be concentrating on other things too.”

  “Concentrating on other things? Like what?”

  “Like very discreetly asking questions about Scooter Macalvey.”

  “Really? Do you know what, Reg? Charlie was talking to me about Scooter. He said Calvin Koots goes there at night. I don’t trust Calvin one bit. We should try to find out what those two are up to.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Reg?”

  “I think I was told not to get involved.”

  “What do you mean, you were told not to get involved? Who told you that?”

  “Well, Maxymowich suggested that I concentrate on keeping Parson’s Cove safe by doing more patrolling and watching out for the tourists.”

  “So that’s good, Reg. Why don’t you patrol in the night and keep your eye on Scooter’s house?”

  “I believe he distinctly mentioned ‘day’ patrol. Me and the boys. The big city boys are protecting us by night.”

  “Oh posh. I’m going to have another talk with Charlie. He’ll know what’s going on at night and I know one thing, he won’t say anything to the Captain unless I tell him to. Even then, he probably wouldn’t.”

  “I don’t know, Mabel. You don’t want anyone seeing you talking too much to Charlie. We don’t want anything happening to him. Besides, Maxymowich will know if Charlie starts snooping around that you’re the one behind it.”

  “I’ll be very subtle about it all, don’t worry.”

  Reg snorted. “Mabel, you have no idea what the word, subtle, means. By the way, the Captain called me today before I went over.”

  “You’re kidding. What did he want? Some of your input?”

  “No, he wanted the brick back. I guess they’re collecting all the evidence and they didn’t need me to hold onto it anymore.” He sighed. “Guess my usefulness is finished.”

  “Oh for Pete’s sake, Reg, get a grip. You have to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Have you visited Melanie lately?”

  “No, I haven’t visited anyone. What’s the point? I don’t know what more I can learn from her.”

  “Well, I don’t know either but we can’t just give up. You go and visit her tomorrow because they’ll let you in. I’ll be stuck at the store all day. At noon, I’ll walk over and talk to Charlie again.”

  “I don’t know, Mabel.”

  “I know, Reg. We can sit on our butts and not do anything or we can try. Someone in Parson’s Cove is a murderer and we have to find that person. We have no choice. Now, let’s do it.”

  “If you ever want to go into another line of work, Mabel, you could always be a motivational speaker.”

  I was glad to hear the chuckle in Reg’s voice. I’m sure I have no idea how these wives keep their husbands motivated to do anything.

  It was ten before it was completely dark outside. The clouds had rolled away during the day and it was a clear warm night. It was a quarter moon - not too light out and yet not so dark I couldn’t see where I was going. At least, in the areas where there were no street lamps.

  Maybe Reg had his orders but no one had ordered me to stay inside after nine p.m. and as long as I called Flori before I left, I knew she wouldn’t call back. Especially since I told her I was going to try to get a good night’s sleep after the awful one I’d had the night before.

  “Mabel, don’t worry. I won’t call and I suggest you take your phone off the hook. You need your sleep because you’ll have a shopful of tourists tomorrow. Jake said the town is buzzing with them. They all want to see where Bernie was murdered. I think it’s disgusting, don’t you?”

  “I do but you know human nature. Everyone is intrigued by a mystery.”

  “I know all too well. I’m glad you aren’t sticking your nose into this one, Mabel.” Before she hung up, she suggested that I try some warm milk with a bit of cinnamon in it before hitting the sack. I told her that I’d give it a try.

  I’d promised Reg that I would talk to Charlie the next afternoon but now that I was outside, I thought I might as well take care of that right way. As my father would say, why put off for tomorrow what you can do today.

  I didn’t want to give anyone the impression that I was sneaking around; however, I did wear my black jeans with a black long sleeved shirt and black sandals. The only other shoes I owned were sneakers and they were so white they almost glowed in the dark.

  Charlie was sitting in his usual spot. He wasn’t wearing his straw hat but everything else was the same.

  “Hi, Charlie,” I said and plopped down beside him. “Are you ready for some adventure?”

  I’d never tried this angle with him but it was worth a try.

  “What kind of adventure, Mabel?”

  “Well, you said that Calvin Koots visits Scooter Macalvey at night. I thought that maybe you and I could check it out. You know, very inconspicuously.”

  “Someone else might be there.”

  “Someone else at Scooter’s?”

  He shook his head. “Someone else is checking them out, inconspicuously.”

  I tried to control myself but somehow that really tickled my funny bone.

  “Why is that so funny, Mabel?”

  I couldn’t tell him that he sounded like Porky Pig when he said ‘inconspicuously,’ so I lied and said, “Nothing’s funny, Charlie. I’m just excited to think someone else is watching the house too. That’s all.” I could feel my nose growing but Charlie didn’t notice. “Are the city cops keeping an eye on Scooter’s garage? Is that what you’re saying?”

  He nodded.

  “So, is there any good hiding place where you and I could watch and no one else could see us?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s good. Could we go there right now?”

  Wrong move. Charlie doesn’t go anywhere ‘right now’ and I should’ve known that.

  He started slowly rocking back and forth.

  “You’re not ready to show me the place yet, is that it?” I asked.

  I’ll never know if he was ready to show me or not because that was all I was getting out of him for one night. After watching him moving back and forth and humming for several minutes, I decided I’d start off on my own. How hard can it be to find a hiding place for one very small person?

  Scooter’s garage was facing the back lane so I headed for that lane. Scooter’s wife was probably at work so I wouldn’t have to worry about running into her. It seemed to me she’d been working the night shift at the hospital for years.

  To make my little excursion easier for you to comprehend, you have to realize that many years ago in the old part of Parson’s Cove, almost everyone built their garages facing the back lane. My street is the one exception. For some reason I have no back lane and my garage is at the back of my lot facing the street. Any way you look at it, if there’s six feet of snow in the winter, there’s lots of shoveling to do.

  Only the light of the moon illuminated the lane so in other words, it was very dark and in some areas I could hardly see my hand in front of me. Twice I walked into a garbage can but fortunately,
I was still quite a ways from Scooter’s place. When I was two houses away I stepped into a backyard and listened. It wasn’t late yet but the street was very quiet. Of course, there were no young children on this street at all so probably everyone went to bed before ten. Which is where I should have been.

  I slowly stepped forward, placing one foot carefully in front of the other, until I was one garage away from Scooter’s place. I stopped and listened again. This time, I could hear muffled talking and something making a clanging sound. If I stayed on this side of the lane I wouldn’t be able to see into the garage unless I peeked around the corner of the door. Not a good idea. So, I backtracked several homes and slunk across the narrow graveled lane. Now I would be able to look right into Scooter’s garage if he opened the door, hopefully some time before the sun came up.

  I decided that instead of trying to sneak across in front of each garage, I would see if I could go through the back yards. This was a good idea as long as no one looked out their window and saw a shadowy bent over figure traipsing across their lawn or garden. Or, trying to climb over their fence.

  I didn’t have too much trouble reaching the backyard across from Scooter’s garage. This was Amy Hunter’s yard. She had a daycare in her home and play structures filled the backyard. Now my problem would be finding a place to settle in for a few hours or as long as it took to see what was happening behind that closed door.

  One structure had two slides - one going straight down and the other going in the other direction, making a twist. There was a ladder going up to the top where the children could wait their turn inside a small ‘house’ that had a pink roof and two tiny windows. I’d found my perfect hiding place. I carefully made my way over to the play area and climbed up the ladder. This was definitely not Charlie’s hiding place. It was only large enough for two small children at the most or me.

  I snuggled into my hiding spot and watched Scooter’s garage from my window. All was quiet except for the muffled sound of voices coming from within. Every so often, someone would laugh and if it were too loud the other person would tell him to shut up. I could hear no female voices. It was warm and actually quite comfortable in my hiding spot except for the faint tinge of urine. I might mention to Amy that her slides could use some bleach.