Julie Seedorf - Fuschia Minnesota 01 - Granny Hooks A Crook

by Julie Seedorf

  Granny could barely keep it together. This Gram Gramstead was trying to steal her job. Granny wanted to reach over and pull her bright red, fake colored hair right out of her head but Franklin had too tight a grip on her shoulders.

  “Well Gram, you must be tired after all that work. Can we drive you home?”

  “No, I have my own car. Thanks for the dinner. It was exciting. We’ll have to do it again sometime.” Gram looked deeply into Franklin’s eyes and said, “Perhaps just you and I?” With that, Gram winked at Franklin and walked out the door.

  Granny started sputtering. “There’s something about that woman that makes me want to scream.”

  “Maybe that’s because she’s a lot like you. She even looks a little like you the way she dresses and wears her hair. She can grab a crook with the best of them, Granny. Her red hair makes her stand out and call for attention. Maybe you should team up.”

  Granny pinned Franklin down with a glaring look, picked up her pocketbook and her umbrella and stated “Take me home.” With a sharp pounding of her cane with each step, she walked to the front of the restaurant, winked at a cute waiter, walked out the door of Rack’s and sat in the back seat of Franklin’s car so she wouldn’t have to ride in the front seat with him.

  When Franklin walked Granny to the door of her house against her protests, he asked, “And what are you going to be up to tomorrow?”

  Granny, thinking about the key that Franklin didn’t know about, replied, “Dying my hair bright pink, since everyone seems to think bright hair makes someone smarter!” Granny retorted in a belligerent tone. Realizing that wouldn’t get her what she wanted, she meekly lowered her eyes, sagged a little and yawned. “I’m so tired. I think I’ve had enough excitement for the week. I’m going to stay in bed and rest, eat chocolates and read a good book. There’s no need for you to check on me. I’ll be sleeping from time to time.” Granny gave him another tired, meek look and walked in the house.

  Granny decided to get a good night’s sleep because she was going tunnel hunting tomorrow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A rustling in the kitchen woke Granny up from a wonderful dream where the mayor of Fuchsia was presenting her with a key to the city and proclaiming it Granny Day for all of the crime in the city she had prevented.

  Granny checked her attire. She’d gotten dressed last night and slept in her clothes so she could get an early start. She had the correct attire on so she jumped right out of bed to check out the noise.

  Thor greeted her when she entered the kitchen. “Hi, Mom, I hadn’t heard from you. What kind of trouble are you getting into now? I’ve heard rumors.”

  “You didn’t tell your sisters did you?”

  Thor ignored the question and set donuts down in front of Granny. “Now talk,” he said in a stern voice.

  “I’ve met someone.” Granny said, thinking quickly.

  ”Someone?”

  “A nice older man. You might say I fell for him.”

  “Those aren’t exactly the rumors I heard. I heard that you might be having a few problems.”

  Granny looked at him with a guilty expression.

  “I’ve heard you’ve been attacking strangers in stores claiming they’ve stolen something, only they’ve been innocent. Do we need to take you to a doctor?”

  Granny, relieved that this was all he’d heard, sighed and said “Why don’t we give it a few weeks and see how I’m feeling. It only happens occasionally. If it doesn’t stop, I’ll let you take me to the doctor. Maybe it’s time for the wrinkle farm.”

  Thor gave her a suspicious look, kissed her cheek and started for the door. “Oh, and, mom, maybe the next time you’ll explain to me how you happen to all of a sudden have a forest in your back yard. And don’t worry, I won’t tell your daughters that you now have four creatures living in your house. I also stocked your freezer with ice cream.” He winked at his mom and walked out the door.

  Granny got her umbrella and her pocketbook ready. She loaded her pocketbook extra heavy in case she ran into any problem in the tunnels. She remembered to check on her neighbors. George was certainly getting creative with his boxer shorts these days. They were always different colors and you never knew the strange ways they were going to be hung on the pole. She’d ask George later what was happening with that. He was always so neat.

  Granny decided to walk to town. She didn’t want anyone, especially Franklin, to see her car. He didn’t need to know what she was up to. She wasn’t sure yet if she could trust him. Anyone who would flirt with Gram wasn’t trustworthy in her book.

  Baskerville was sitting outside, guarding Mrs. Shrill’s house. Granny decided Baskerville needed some donuts, so she’d saved some from the plate Thor had brought to her. She tossed the donuts at Baskerville and, right on cue, Mrs. Shrill showed her face outside the door and shook her finger at Granny and said, “Tut, tut, tut.”

  Granny threw her a donut and laughed at the look on Mrs. Shrill’s face as she caught the donut. It made Granny so happy, she skipped all the way to AbStract.

  Justine was at the jewelry counter when Granny entered AbStract.

  “Hi, Granny, anything I can help you with today?”

  “No, just nosing around. Continue with polishing those gems.” Granny pretended to be examining the purses near the nook at the back of the store. When Justine wasn’t looking Granny hurried over to the nook and gave a good crack at the corner with her umbrella. This time Granny was ready. She quickly stepped aside as the floor opened and then proceeded down the hidden stairs. The floor automatically closed behind her.

  Granny’s eyes adjusted quickly to the mellow lighting in the walkways. As Granny looked around, she thought it looked like a street straight out of Harry Potter. It was strange because it was very clean, as if a street crew had been maintaining it. Granny walked to the steps where she’d seen Fish, the little white poodle, Furball and Tank enter and exit the hidden underground world. She climbed the steps and peered out the hole.

  It appeared that this had once been an exit in between AbStract and its adjacent building. It would have led to main street had it not been blocked off. Granny turned around back down the steps and walked the distance which she guessed to be almost a block.

  There were stairs leading up to another closed floor. Granny didn’t try to find the entry; she kept on walking forward on the underground street. There were more stairs at intervals leading up to other floors of some type of buildings.

  As she walked further, there were no more stairs but the streets led into more streets branching off of the main underground brick-lined walkways. Granny walked them all until she came to a dead end. She would then turn around and walk down another walkway.

  At intervals, Granny found indentations in the wall. She was able to slide one over a little to reveal a door. Granny was able to squeeze her little hand inside the slit and feel a lock. She took the key and tried it in the lock but it didn’t fit.

  Granny didn’t know how long she spent in the tunnels, but as she was walking down the final underground street, she felt something land on her head. It was Furball and with her was Fish, the little white poodle and Tank. She sat down on the ground and petted and greeted them.

  “So, this is where you hide out? What is this place?”

  At that question, Furball jumped off of Granny’s head. Fish, the little white poodle and Tank ran with Furball down the underground street out of sight.

  Granny wondered about the time. She’d left her cell phone at home in case there were creepy people down here. She was always forgetting to turn it to vibrate and if it rang, she didn’t want to be caught trespassing in the creepy people’s lair. Granny couldn’t remember where she’d left her watch.

  Granny gave a chuckle as she moved the nail to open the floor at AbStract. She hoped no one was standing on the floor or sitting in the chair by the floor opening. She’d hate to give someone a heart attack and be put in the orange jumpsuit for that.

  The coas
t was clear. In fact, it was very clear. The store was closed. Granny glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was after 5:00. The streets rolled up early in Fuchsia. Now she was in a dilemma. How was she going to exit the store without setting off the alarms?

  Granny decided she’d call Franklin to rescue her. After all, maybe he had found some information on the town that would explain the tunnels. She’d still keep her key find to herself. First, she had to find a phone. It would be the last time Granny left home without her cell phone.

  Granny happened to glance out the window. There was the good looking young man and he was looking straight at her. Granny smiled and waved at him, thinking the tables were turned. He was usually inside and she was usually outside. However, that didn’t solve her dilemma. Where was a phone? And if she used the phone would it set off the alarms so the store would know she was inside?

  She could see the orange jumpsuit becoming a reality and she didn’t look good in orange.

  The young man had disappeared. All of sudden, Franklin peered into the window as if looking for something. She waved at him. He gave her an exasperated look and shook his head. He shouted through the window, “I’m calling the store manager.”

  Granny gave him an alarmed look until he said, “When he comes, hide. I’ll get him to let me in and you can slip out unnoticed. But don’t run away because I’ll hunt you down if it’s the last thing I do. You’re the most exasperating woman!” He proceeded to take out his phone and make the call.

  Granny hid behind the designer shoe shelves at the front of the store. She saw a pair of shoes exactly like the ones Gram Gramstead had been wearing at Rack’s the other night. Gram couldn’t be too poor if she could afford these shoes. Who was she?

  The store manager let Franklin in the front door. Franklin led him back to the men’s clothing department mentioning something about looking for his wallet in the dressing room. Granny quickly snuck out the front door and started sprinting for home.

  She was almost to her driveway when Franklin pulled up beside her in his 1957 black Corvette. “Thought you could get away didn’t you? You aren’t going anywhere until you tell me why you were locked in tonight at AbStract. I happened to be looking for you. You were suspiciously missing today. I checked your garage and your car was there. To think I was actually worried about you. Resting? Resting!” he shouted, “I should know better,” Franklin chided Granny.

  Granny gave up and invited him in. When Fish, the little white poodle, Furball and Tank saw them come in, they ran and hid underneath the bed in Granny’s bedroom.

  “Why do you suppose Itsy and Bitsy ran and hid from me?” Franklin asked in a bewildered tone.

  “Because you call them Itsy and Bitsy,” Granny answered with a sly smile on her face, “Let’s get this over with Franklin. I’m tired and I want to go to bed. I investigated the tunnel and I found nothing. When I came up the steps and back into the store, it was closed for the evening. End of discussion. Did you find out anything about the underground streets and tunnels?”

  “Not a thing. I checked the courthouse, old maps, new maps and the history of the town. It seemed the founding father of Fuchsia was Phineas Fuchsia. In fact, he built the house you’re living in and the other old Victorian houses that pepper some of the neighborhoods. He owned and leased most of the businesses that started this town. He built the buildings and invited people in to start their own businesses. You could say he owned the entire town at one time. Your house was one of the original homes. The homes across the street from you such as Mavis,’ George’s and Sally’s are part of the newer editions.”

  “It’s time for you to go home, Franklin. I’m going to faint from exhaustion.” Granny took his arm, led him to the door and closed it in his face. She half expected him to knock to try and get back in and she was kind of disappointed that he didn’t. However, she had sleuthing to do.

  Granny pulled out her maps of the city. She found AbStract and then started mapping her journey underground. The street and the steps all seemed to coordinate with the original buildings that Franklin had said were built by Phineas Fuchsia.

  She had always known that AbStract, Ella’s Enchanted Forest, Nail’s Hardware, Rack’s Restaurant, Lulu’s Quilt Shop, Pickles Grocery, Headaches’ Drugstore and Ecstatic Emporium were part of the old Fuchsia formerly known as the village.

  In Granny’s foggy brain, she felt that the underground streets, the good looking young man and the heists all had to be connected, but how? Had the women who worked in the stores who Granny had befriended been part of these heists?

  Granny had always thought she was a good judge of character, but maybe her intuition was failing her in her granny years.

  Fish, little white poodle, Furball and Tank came out from under the bed once Franklin had left.

  “What’s up with you four hiding? You like Franklin. Furball and Tank, he’s your dad. Were you afraid he was going to take you home?”

  Little white poodle took that moment to drop a note at Granny’s feet speckled with drops of red. Was it blood? Granny picked up the note. Her big toe turned purple when she read the note. It said: “Help us please! We can’t get out. We are being held hostage because of love. Help, please find us…. We don’t know how much longer we have.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Granny started shaking and dropped the note. After she calmed down, she picked the note back up and examined it carefully.

  “Where did you get this note, little white poodle? I wish you could talk.”

  Granny sat down on the couch and looked at the note, looked at the maps and looked at the four shysters. Then she got up and started pacing back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth.

  When she was done pacing, she went over to the fridge and pulled out the ice cream. She scooped a big bowl of ice cream, loaded it up with crumpled chocolate donuts with sprinkles and then drizzled chocolate syrup on the top. She sat down and examined the maps some more.

  Should she call the Big Guy and tell him about the note? Would he think she was involved? Would he take her seriously?

  If she didn’t call, what would happen? Would the women turn up dead because she didn’t tell someone?

  A drop of chocolate flirted with her map. It made a spot right at the end of her street. Chocolate always did solve Granny’s problems. That drop of chocolate gave Granny an idea.

  Granny gathered up her maps, found her umbrella and dug out her lantern. Granny then proceeded in the dark to the forest in her backyard where she got her crowbar and her shovel. She put all of her gathered items in the trunk of her 57 red Corvette.

  Granny quietly drove into the alley behind AbStract. Normally, Granny ignored alleys at night. Nothing good ever happened in alleys on television shows and Granny was scared of rats and she was sure she’d step on a rat in some dark alley on some dark night.

  Granny parked in front of the closed brick wall with the hole between the buildings. Granny checked out the alley to make sure she was all alone. Nope, no rats, not even the human kind. Granny opened the trunk and took out her crowbar, her hammer that she kept in the trunk, and her shovel. She laid them by the hole in the wall. She then went back to the car for her lantern and her umbrella. She’d left her pocketbook at home so she didn’t have so much to carry.

  Granny was a little bit of a thing, but she still had muscles at her age thanks to her weight lifting in her basement three times a week. She brushed off the bricks and peered into the hole. Then she gently tried to wiggle each brick around the hole to see how loose they were.

  Granny picked up her hammer and gave a swing with all of her muscles behind it. It hit the top bricks full on. They came loose. She then took her crowbar and dug into the crumbling cement and pulled. The bricks fell one by one at Granny’s feet.

  Granny stood up and peered around her car, making sure no one heard the ruckus. She continued to pick away at the bricks until she had a hole big enough for her to crawl through. Granny being so tiny didn’t hav
e to break away too many bricks.

  Granny put her tools back in the trunk and proceeded to crawl through the hole to the stairs on the other side. Once she got to the bottom of the stairs she pulled out the map from her pocket.

  Granny was surprised that she didn’t need the lantern. The underground streets were still lit with a mellow light. She might have to be careful. Night time was always the time the break-ins occurred so the creepy thieves might be ready for another heist and she didn’t want to surprise them. She might end up in the cemetery if she did. She thought by the look of the map that it was possible that one tunnel led to the cemetery behind the fence at her house.

  Granny proceeded to the steps of AbStract. Looking at the map, she followed the tunnel to where she thought Headache’s Drugstore should be located. Headache’s was also one of the original buildings in Fuchsia. Sure enough, there were steps leading to the drugstore. Granny climbed the steps, found the nail and pushed. The floor opened up over her head.

  Granny peeked her head through the floor. It was Headache’s Drug Store alright. Granny decided not to go into the drug store, but to proceed on to prove her theory. It appeared to Granny that these underground streets had access to all the first built buildings in town. That is the way the crooks were gaining access to the stores.

  Granny stopped when she got to Ella’s Enchanted Forest. Next to the steps was an indentation, something like a parking garage. Granny walked into the indentation and shined her lantern at the ceiling. The ceiling seemed to be one big block of floor cut out. Along the side of the wall were trolley’s or railings attached to the floor as if it could be moved up and down.

  In her mind, Granny was imagining the Enchanted Forest layout. This floor would be right where the forest had been in Ella’s Enchanted Forest. Was this the way the forest had been stolen? If that was the case, how did they get the forest to Granny’s back yard?

  Granny decided to leave those thoughts for later and continued with her map, marking stairs with the stores on the map. She then headed down one of the underground streets that led away from Main Street. If her calculations were right it should be her street that she was on. She was a straight shot from Main Street.