Fall Girl (Garden Girls Christian Cozy Mystery Book 9)

by Hope Callaghan

  Andrea set her handbag on the edge of the counter. “Yes. We were in here yesterday talking to…”

  “Barbara,” Margaret prompted.

  “Barbara,” Andrea continued, “and she said the Kahr® handgun rep would be here this morning.”

  The young man with the jet-black hair nodded. “Yep. He’s talking to one of the owners now.”

  Margaret glanced at his nametag: Zeke. She frowned. “I thought the owner recently died.”

  Zeke shook his head. “Yeah. He did.” Zeke left it at that and quickly changed the subject.

  “I’ll go get Mr. Maxim.”

  He opened a door that led to the back and disappeared from sight. “That’s interesting,” Andrea muttered under her breath.

  Zeke returned. With him was a bald-headed man. “This is Artie Maxim, our Kahr® representative.”

  The man sported a gray goatee and wore a brown trench coat that brushed against the floor. It reminded Andrea of a coat killers wore while walking down a dark alley in the dead of night, stalking their prey.

  Andrea mentally shook her head to clear the thought. There was nothing odd about a man wearing a trench coat on a drizzly November morning. “Yes. We were here yesterday and one of the guns my mother and I wanted to take a look at was not in stock.”

  He nodded. “Barbara left a note. It was a Kahr®.” He tapped his finger on the glass case where there was an empty spot. “There’s only one model left. Have you seen it?”

  He motioned for Zeke to unlock the cabinet.

  Zeke shoved his hands in his front pockets. “Uh. I don’t have a key to this case. Barbara is the only one who has the key and she’s not here,” he said.

  “What about Randy? Maxim frowned.

  “Nope. Not even Randy. We’re gonna get another key made but haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

  Andrea remembered Barbara telling them yesterday that the Kahr® gun, identical to the one that had killed Bill and the same one that Lucy had at home, had come up missing from the case.

  Maxim folded his hands in front of him. “How do customers look at guns if there’s no key to unlock the case?”

  “They don’t,” Zeke replied. “I mean, it’s only been a month or so. It wasn’t a problem before. Bill had a key and Barbara had a key. One of them was always working.”

  “What about Bill’s key?” Andrea couldn’t help asking the question.

  Zeke nodded. “Yeah. We checked his key ring and for some reason, it’s missing. Just like the model gun that killed him.”

  ***

  “That is no way to run a business!” Maxim whacked his open palm on the counter. “I could be losing thousands of dollars in commission with this shoddily run operation,” he fumed.

  Andrea shrank back. Maxim was turning out to be as sinister as she had suspected. She could even imagine him taking Bill out back and shooting him. But where was the motive? She wondered if Gloria had had a chance to do a little preliminary research on him yet.

  He narrowed his eyes and scowled. “Never mind.”

  Maxim shifted the duffel bag he was holding. He reached inside the bag and lifted out a lumpy roll of canvas. He set the canvas on the glass top and unfolded it.

  Inside the canvas was a whole arsenal of guns. The girls spent the next hour learning about each weapon and their pros and cons. To Andrea it was fascinating. It was boring Margaret to tears.

  Lucy would have loved it.

  After Maxim explained each weapon in detail, Andrea took his card and promised to discuss which one would work best with her mother.

  The women thanked Maxim and Zeke for their time and wandered out of the store.

  The skies had opened up and hard rain, almost a hail, pelted the truck. “I hope the roads haven’t started icing over yet,” Andrea fretted. The truck was a dream to drive except when it came to ice. Andrea hated driving on ice.

  Andrea fumbled around inside her bag, pulled out her keys and unlocked the truck doors. The girls hurriedly climbed inside and yanked the doors shut.

  Andrea backed the truck around, pulled out of the drive and onto the main road.

  The wind picked up and the rain turned into freezing rain. She slowed the truck, gripped the wheel and focused on the road. It was going to be a white-knuckle drive home.

  Finally, she turned the truck onto a side road and let out the breath she had been holding. She could feel the truck slide as they rounded the corner.

  Margaret sat quietly in the passenger seat. She didn’t want to distract Andrea, who focused all her attention on the road in front of her.

  Instead, Margaret prayed a silent prayer they would make it home safely.

  Suddenly, a car that had been following Andrea’s truck, a little too close in Margaret’s opinion, zipped around them and attempted to pass on a double yellow line.

  “Jerk!” Andrea muttered. She took her foot off the gas so that the car could get by. The red car, a beat up two door, rusting around the bottom, started to lose control and fishtail in front of them.

  Andrea instinctively hit the brakes, which caused the truck to lose control on the ice. The vehicle spun in a wide circle and hit the edge of the gravel road where it gained a little traction.

  It was too late. The front tire bounced off a large rock causing the vehicle to shift sideways. When the truck stopped spinning, the girls were smack dab in the middle of an open field, facing the opposite direction.

  The car that had caused them to spin out was long gone.

  Andrea sucked in a breath and put her forehead on the steering wheel.

  Margaret reached over and patted her arm. “Good job, Andrea,” she said.

  Andrea opened her eyes and lifted her head. “Thanks. What a jerk!” she fumed.

  She looked around the open field. “Let’s see if I can get the truck back on the road.” Andrea pressed a button on the dashboard and switched the truck to four-wheel drive. She shifted the truck into reverse and pressed lightly on the gas pedal.

  The truck made a sudden jerking motion as it began to move backward. They made it about halfway out of the field when the truck began to sink in the soft dirt.

  “Oh no!” Andrea pressed the gas pedal harder, which caused the vehicle to sink further into the field.

  “Try rocking it,” Margaret suggested. She knew that trick sometimes worked with a manual transmission. She wasn’t sure if it would work with an automatic.

  Andrea shifted the gears from drive to reverse several times. They went nowhere, except maybe a little deeper in the mud.

  She rolled down the window and stuck her head out as she inspected the tires. “This isn’t going to work. We’ll have to call a tow truck.”

  “Give Gus a call,” Margaret suggested. “He can pull us out.” “Gus” was Gus Smith, a Belhaven resident who owned a small towing and automotive shop.

  “Good idea.” Andrea pulled her cell phone from her purse. She pressed the “on” button, switched to search mode and typed in “G.S. Towing and Automotive, Belhaven, Michigan.” When she found the number, she pressed the call button.

  Thankfully, Gus picked up on the second ring. Andrea explained her – their - situation and Gus told her was on his way.

  Andrea disconnected the line and slumped down in the driver’s seat. “This sucks. I wish I could get my hands on that driver!”

  Gus showed up half an hour later. He waded across the mucky field and approached the driver’s side door.

  Andrea rolled down the window.

  “You dug yourself a hole,” he observed.

  “Yeah,” Andrea groaned. “Some moron decided to not only pass on a double yellow line but on an icy road. When he started to spin out in front of me, I hit the brakes and here we are.”

  Gus nodded. “Yeah. It takes some of these blockheads a while to figure out the roads are slippery.”

  He went on. “Let me get you hooked up.”

  Gus lumbered back to his wrecker. He unwound a long cable from the back of his wr
ecker. On the end of the cable were two long hooks. He hooked the large metal hooks to the underneath of her truck and then climbed behind the wheel of his tow truck.

  The cable slowly retracted as the winch wound the cable around the metal cylinder.

  Andrea let out a sigh of relief as the truck began to inch its way out of the field and back onto the road.

  When the truck was safely off to the side and parked in the gravel, she climbed out of the truck and waited while Gus removed the hooks. “Thank you, Gus. How much do I owe you?”

  Gus fastened the hooks on the back of the wrecker. “You get the family discount,” he teased. “Twenty-five bucks. You can just meet me back at the shop. I forgot to bring my portable card scanner.”

  Andrea frowned. “That seems too cheap, Gus. I think you should charge me more.”

  Gus snorted. “Most people think I charge too much.” He shrugged. “Okay. Forty bucks.”

  “Deal. I’ll meet you back at your place.” She climbed in the driver’s seat and fastened her seatbelt.

  They followed Gus to his shop and both women met him at the door and followed him inside.

  Andrea glanced back at her truck and frowned. A thick layer of mud covered the lower half of her driver’s side door, the trim and the running boards. “Great. I guess our next stop will be the car wash.”

  They stepped inside the repair shop and over to the small counter where Gus was writing up a ticket. “Nice truck,” he commented as he handed her a receipt and took her card to swipe it through his credit card machine.

  When he had finished processing the transaction, Andrea shoved her card back inside her wallet and glanced at Margaret. There was a red bump on the side of her forehead. “Margaret, did you bump your head?”

  Margaret touched her forehead. “Yeah. I think I might have.”

  Andrea leaned in for a closer inspection. “I think that is going to bruise. I am so sorry.”

  Margaret shook her head. “It’s not your fault, Andrea. You didn’t cause the accident. I’ll be fine,” she reassured her young friend.

  Andrea felt terrible. “Let’s stop at Dot’s and get a bag of ice.”

  Andrea hopped in the driver’s seat and Margaret slid into the passenger seat. She backed out of the parking out and turned the truck toward Main Street.

  Thankfully, there was an empty parking spot right out front. Andrea pulled the truck into the empty spot and shut the engine off.

  Andrea waited for Margaret near the front of the truck. “Do you feel dizzy? Light headed?”

  Margaret waved her hand and opened the door to the restaurant. “I’m fine. It’s just a little bump.”

  “What if it’s a concussion?” Andrea fretted.

  “Who has a concussion?” Dot rushed over. “Oh gosh!” A large lump had begun to swell on Margaret’s forehead. “You should sit down.”

  Dot led Margaret to a chair in the back. “Ray! Grab a bag of ice!” she hollered into the kitchen. She turned to the girls. “What happened?”

  Andrea shifted her purse. “We ditched the truck after some moron tried to go around us on the slippery roads.”

  She slid into the seat next to Margaret and studied the swelling. “I am so sorry Margaret,” she whispered. “I wish it had been me, not you.”

  “Nonsense,” Margaret waved her hand. “You two are making too much of a fuss over me. I’ll be fine.”

  Ray made his way over to the trio. He handed the bag of ice and a clean, dry rag to Margaret. “How’d you get that goose egg?”

  Andrea frowned. “We had a run in with the ditch and Margaret bumped her noggin.”

  Margaret covered the bag of ice with the clean rag and placed it against her forehead. “It feels better already.”

  Dot changed the subject. “Well? How did it go at the store? Did you find anything out?”

  Andrea explained what had happened. “I don’t know what to think. I’m not ruling out Barbara, who is the only employee with the key, or Bill’s brother, Randy.” She crossed her arms in front of her and leaned back in the chair. “Who knows? Maybe even the gun rep was involved.”

  Dot glanced at her watch. “Gloria and the rest of the girls should be here anytime. I wonder if they found anything over at Bill’s house.”

  Andrea and Margaret ordered hot tea and a plate of decadent desserts. They munched on the sweet treats and discussed the case. This was the first time that Gloria had sent them out on their own covert operation and it was exciting to be right in the middle of the investigation.

  Margaret reached for a strawberry donut and nibbled on the outer ring. “This is delicious. I’ve never tasted a strawberry donut. Here. Try this.” She broke off a piece and handed it to Andrea.

  Andrea bit into the donut. “Wow! This is so good. Are these new?”

  Dot nodded. “Yep. I’ve been experimenting with strawberries for a while and think I finally got the recipe right.”

  “It’s a winner.” Andrea popped the last of the shared donut in her mouth.

  She stared at the door anxiously. “I wish Gloria would hurry up. I’m dying to know what happened.”

  Margaret nodded and lifted her teacup to take a sip. The cup slipped out of her hand and clattered against the saucer. She put a hand to her head. “I’m not feeling good.” She slumped over in the chair and laid her head on the table in front of her.

  Chapter 14

  Andrea shot out of her seat. “Margaret!” She shook her arm gently. Margaret didn’t respond.

  “Call 911!” Andrea shrieked to no one in particular. “Margaret. Margaret! Can you hear me?” Her eyes frantically searched the restaurant. “Does anyone here have medical training?”

  A young woman rushed to Margaret’s side. “I’m a nurse.” The woman dropped to her knees and gently turned Margaret’s head. Next, she placed her cheek close to Margaret’s mouth and then glanced at Margaret’s chest. “She appears to be breathing.”

  Margaret jerked her head. “I’m just a little dizzy,” she mumbled. Her words were slurred and it was difficult to understand what she had said.

  “We’re going to move you into a more comfortable position.” The woman placed a hand under each of Margaret’s arms and gently pulled.

  Andrea wrapped her arms around Margaret’s middle. The women lowered Margaret to the floor of the restaurant and then placed her on her side.

  The nurse tipped Margaret’s head to ensure her neck and windpipe were in an unobstructed position. The young brunette glanced at Andrea. “What happened?”

  “She bumped her head a short time ago when we slid into the ditch,” Andrea explained.

  Margaret placed a hand on the side of her head. “I’ll be fine. I just need to go home and rest,” she protested.

  The fire department arrived moments later, followed by an ambulance. Despite her protests, paramedics gently lifted Margaret onto a gurney and wheeled her toward the front door.

  The gurney was on its way out the door as Gloria, Ruth and Lucy were on their way in. Gloria did an about face when she saw Margaret on the gurney. “What in the world…”

  “We had a small accident.” Tears began to burn the back of Andrea’s eyes. “Margaret hit her head on the passenger side window of my truck. She insists that she’s fine but she’s not.”

  Dot, Ruth, Gloria, Lucy and Andrea all climbed into Ruth’s van.

  Gloria promptly called Don, Margaret’s husband, to let him know that Margaret was on the way to the hospital. She left a message on his cell phone and another on the home phone.

  They followed the ambulance to Green Springs Memorial Hospital, the small community hospital in nearby Green Springs.

  On the way, Andrea explained what had happened at Bill’s shop and then told them about the reckless driver who had caused them to spin off into the ditch.

  “Stupid jerk. I wish I could get my hands on the driver,” Andrea clenched her fists in her lap. “I’d wring their sorry neck!”

  When they reached the ER en
trance, the girls all climbed out of the van while Ruth drove off to find a parking spot.

  They found a small cluster of chairs off in the corner of the lobby and settled in to wait for a doctor to come out.

  Don arrived shortly after. The girls briefly explained what had happened and Don, accompanied by a nurse, strode down the hall in search of his wife.

  Gloria watched until he disappeared from sight. “Let’s pray.”

  The girls gathered in a small circle and held hands while Gloria prayed. “Lord, we lift up our friend, Margaret. We know that You are the God of healing and we ask that You heal Margaret’s body and if there is something wrong, the doctors are able to find it right away. Thank you. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.”

  Gloria felt a sense of peace as she lifted her head. Margaret was in safe hands…God’s hands.

  Time passed slowly. Finally, Don emerged from the back. The girls rushed forward and crowded around.

  “What did the doctors say?” Andrea asked.

  Don rubbed his forehead. “She has a mild concussion and seems highly disoriented so they want to keep her overnight, just to be safe.”

  He went on. “I have to run home and pick up a few things for Margaret.”

  “I’ll stay,” Gloria offered.

  Dot needed to get back to the restaurant. Ruth needed to get back to the post office. That left Andrea, Gloria and Lucy.

  “Why don’t I have Ruth drop me off at my truck and then I can come back to cover the shift,” Andrea suggested.

  They agreed that Andrea and Gloria would take the first shift and then a little later, Don would return to spend the night by his wife’s side. “Call me immediately if anything changes,” Don said before he headed out the double sliding doors.

  Gloria promised she would. The rest of the girls promised to check in later and Gloria made her way to Margaret’s hospital room.

  She tiptoed to the edge of the door and peeked around the corner. Her heart sank when she saw her friend’s still body covered in sterile hospital sheets.

  Margaret propped herself up on one elbow when Gloria stepped inside the room. “Lucky you. You get babysitting duty,” Margaret joked.