Murder on the Ol' Bunions (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery)

by S. Dionne Moore

  He nodded, looking miserable. “I told her I wasn’t keeping the secret any longer, that I wanted to be a part of Valorie’s life, not just a nice stranger. I told her I had DNA tests to prove everything, should she lie and say I wasn’t Valorie’s father.”

  Valorie calmed in my arms, her slender body melting completely against me. “I told her I wanted him in my life.”

  That hatched a question in my brain. “So when did you find out he was your daddy?”

  Mark answered for Valorie. “I told her about a week ago.”

  “Mom didn’t know that I knew. I told her the night before—” She gulped, then covered her face with her hands.

  “Um,” I could imagine Marion blowing her stack. “I’m sure that didn’t set well with her.”

  “She ranted and raged and began taking everything out on Valorie,” Mark said. “Telling Valorie how her cheating brought such shame, that she’d never amount to anything if she listened to me.”

  “I was so mad, Mrs. Barnhart.” She sucked back another sob. “I was afraid to say anything, but it kept eating at me—”

  “Both of us would do things differently if we had the chance. But we won’t, and that’s part of what we have to deal with,” Mark said, staring at his jittering foot.

  I wondered if he realized how this looked.

  Their confession had the ring of truth. A knock on the office door signaled the return of the pastor. I shot Mark a look. “It would be good for you both to talk to him. Forgiving others can be a lot easier than forgiving ourselves.”

  What I really wanted to do was ask Mark the questions about the break-in at Marion’s. I doubted Chief had a chance to mention it to him, in light of the funeral. I sighed. Valorie didn’t need anything else to rock her world right now. I’d have to hold off.

  A little smile curved Valorie’s lips as she sat up. “Thanks.”

  I patted her cheek. “Deep down, you know your momma loved you, Valorie. Very much. She just had a problem showing it sometimes.” As I spoke my mind went to my reaction to Shayna. “We mommas love so strong that we have a hard time knowing when to let go.”

  Pastor set a box of donuts on the table by Valorie and peeled off the lids of a coffee and a hot chocolate. I heaved myself to my feet and served Mark a look.

  I’d never seen him look so. . .so. . .humble. He and I shared a long, silent stare, before Pastor Haudiare blocked him from view as he offered Mark the coffee. “Pastor, I-I think it would be good if my daughter and I talked to you.”

  I made my exit right then, knowing I’d left them in good hands. They’d made the first step, the rest wouldn’t be quite so hard.

  Not one person remained in the sanctuary, so I beat it out of there. In the parking area, Dana stood talking to Sara’s mother, while Sara clutched her mother’s hand and stared at Dana. When she saw me, she broke free and ran over.

  “Hey, little gal.” I greeted her with a hug.

  “Mommy and Dana are talking about clothes.”

  I matched her smaller steps but kept on course to the car where I could see Hardy sitting, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. I glanced at my watch. Payton would be at our house in a little less than an hour.

  “I was getting bored.”

  “Talking about clothes?” I tried to look exasperated. “How can you call yourself a girl when you get bored talking about clothes?”

  She giggled as if I’d said the funniest thing in the world. “I told Mrs. Letzburg she looks as pretty today as she did the day I saw her going into that dead lady’s shop. She said thank you and mom asked her where she got her outfit.”

  I ground to a halt. Sara grinned up at me, unaware of the maelstrom she had loosed. I took her hand and tugged on her piggytail, not wanting to appear abrupt or scare her, but I knew the next few minutes were important.

  “You saw Mrs. Letzburg the other day? I thought you was in school.”

  “I was in school. We have recess before lunch. Mary and me played hopscotch and I won. She got mad at me and left.”

  “Mrs. Letzburg play with you then?”

  Sara giggled. “No, silly. She was all dressed up like she is today walking down the sidewalk. I waved at her, but she didn’t see me and went into the dead woman’s store.”

  Excitement buzzed around inside my body. But I needed to get an idea of the day and time.

  “You sure it was Mrs. Letzburg?”

  Sara’s head bobbed in the affirmative. “She has on the same outfit as she did then.”

  No way to find out what I needed to know but to come right out and ask, though I hated to do that for fear Sara might go back and let it slip to Dana that I’d been pumping her for information. I had to try. I massaged my brain. Then I got an idea.

  “I hope you ate all your lunch that day.”

  She scrunched up her nose. “No. They had carrots and meatloaf. Yuck.”

  “Sara!” Her mother called out from the other side of the parking lot. Sara gave me a quick hug, before she skipped away.

  “Love you, sweetie,” I called after her, my eyes on Dana as she slid into her car. At least I didn’t have to worry about Sara letting it slip that we’d been talking about her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I got us a date over at Dana’s this afternoon.” Hardy informed me as soon as I set foot in the car. I blinked at him and yanked the safety belt around me, my brain in a buzz.

  His hand on my arm tugged me around to what he’d been flapping his lips about. “You lookin’ a little splotchy in the face. You have indigestion again?”

  “No, I don’t have indigestion. Sara told me she saw Dana one afternoon last week walk into—” I made air quotes, “—that dead woman’s shop. What you think of that?”

  “What day? It’s been locked up tight.”

  “Whatever day they had meatloaf and carrots on their menu at the school. I’ll have to call Wilma Billings. She’s head cook.”

  “Shouldn’t be hard to find out,” he said as he slipped the car into drive and we chugged out of the parking lot.

  “You talk to Payton about anything else?”

  “Maybe.” He pointed a finger at a toothpick stuck in the seam where the fabric on the roof met the plastic of the side. “Hand me that thing.”

  I snorted. “You’ve only got one tooth to pick, why you need it?”

  “Like to suck on them.” He pulled a face. “And I’ve got plenty of teeth in my head yet.”

  I handed it over, trying to hide my irritation at his change in subject. Sometimes it just wasn’t worth it for me to admit he knew something I didn’t. He knew how it irked me when he savored a juicy tidbit I had no knowledge of. “You better stop playing your games with me, Hardy Barnhart.”

  He gave me a cheeky grin, the toothpick stuck to his lower lip. “Payton didn’t talk much.”

  I waited for him to continue but when I looked over at him, his mouth worked the toothpick instead of forming more words. “And . . . ?”

  “Don’t get your stockings in a twist. I’m just messin’ with you. But you think on it a minute. Payton’s a nervous chatterer, usually saying something to fill the emptiness, and tonight he was quiet. Real quiet.”

  Ah. I saw where he was headed. Maybe. “It was a funeral. He’s probably being respectful.”

  “Could be,” he conceded, pulling the car into our driveway. “I did call and talk to Tyrone. Cora's doing fine. They sent her home to rest. I told him we’d check on them tomorrow.”

  The news of Cora relieved me. With that worry laid low, I could turn my complete attention to this mystery. I wanted so bad to figure out this whole thing. I trusted Hardy’s observation of Payton, being the man’s friend and all.

  Inside the house, I let my purse fall to the table and picked up the phone first thing to dial Wilma. It took her a minute to lay her hand on a menu, but when she did, I felt my scalp tingle at the news. I hung up real fast.

  Hardy’s rear-end stuck out of the refrigerator as he dug a
round. “Sounds like good news,” he muttered.

  “It is. Sara, bless that baby’s heart, is gonna get a whole pie for this.”

  He backed out of the fridge, clutching lunch meat in one hand, the jar of mayonnaise in the other. “Do I get a whole pie? Blueberry?”

  I gave him a caustic look and grabbed the sandwich makings out of his hands. “Give me that! You eat more than any man I know.”

  “And I burn it all. What you flappin’ at me for?” He struck a pose. “You just can’t stand my fine physique.”

  Laughter bubbled. He looked like a plucked chicken standing there, biceps the size of an egg, acting as if he were some Greek god. “Oh, I can stand you all right. I’ll stand you right outside this door and not let you in until I’m through with my thinking.”

  Hardy’s eyes crinkled at the corners and he hitched his britches up high to rankle me. “I expect I’ll be outside a long while then.”

  I slapped the mayo and coldcuts down and lunged for him. He hightailed it outside, not even shutting the door. Honestly, he needed a good ear-wringing. He sure was a pert little thing. But as much as we pecked at each other, I knew I’d never want to nest with any other man.

  I threw together a sandwich and yelled out the door for him. He was hanging over the fence talking to our neighbor. With me needing to do some cooking for Valorie and Sarah, I started banging around in my pots and pans drawer.

  My thinking session began with chopping onions and a green pepper, rolling ground beef into balls and browning them on the stove. The more my mind spun around the events of the morning, the more I came back to Mark and that dining table. In light of the secret room, it seemed way too coincidental to think he’d done it accidentally. If he knew about the room behind the bookcase, why didn’t he tell Chief? What was he hoping to do by butting the dining table up against it? The flashlight we’d found didn’t work and we were forced to leave so we wouldn’t be late for Marion’s funeral. On the way to the church, I’d shared with Chief what I’d learned from Regina’s mother’s nurse.

  Hardy’s voice boomed out a greeting and I heard a car door slam. It was too early for Payton. I stirred together tomatoes and minced garlic, before wiping my hands and peering out the side door. Chief Conrad’s face framed in the glass about made me jump out of my girdle. I shot back and heard his laugh.

  “You spying on me now?” he asked as he slipped inside.

  “What are you doing, trying to scare me dead?”

  “No, sorry,” he chuckled. “I came by to tell you that Regina came back because she had to pay that money and knew it was due this afternoon. She confirmed it was Betsy picking up where Marion left off, but I’m processing Betsy’s fingerprints and trying for a match before I proceed. I knew you’d want to know.”

  Hardy slipped in the door. Never shy about eating in front of others, he started right in on his sandwich, but I knew he had his ear cocked toward our conversation.

  I told chief about Sara seeing Dana go into Marion’s Tuesday at around eleven o’clock. We swapped theories about the purpose of the secret room when Hardy interrupted.

  “I can tell you what that room is. It was the assayer’s office. He says so right in the diary. That little map shows the layout of the building. He was trying to think of a good hiding place for the gold and must have doodled that map.”

  Chief and I stared at Hardy in stunned amazement.

  “You knew about the room?” Chief asked.

  “He read the diary all the way through last night,” I answered the question.

  “Yeah, and if you had read it all, too, you would have known.” Hardy paused to wipe at a smear of mayo on his lip with the back of his hand. “He tells you pretty plain about his little operation, just not where he hid the gold he took.”

  Chief pivoted toward the door. “I’m going over there right now, with a good flashlight, and having another look around that room.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Someone was looking for the diary.

  That’s the only conclusion I could settle on as I finished up the pot of spaghetti and turned it low to let it simmer. It was the only explanation for Marion’s bookshop being ransacked.

  Deciding I’d better have another look at that diary, I brought it down from upstairs and settled with it into a cozy armchair in the living room. The front window looked out over the driveway, so I could hear the moment Payton arrived. I’d let Payton in, then leave to find Mark. By now he’d know about the break-in at Marion’s.

  My concentration shattered when I saw Payton’s car turn into the driveway. I huffed up from the chair and set the diary aside as Payton and Hardy tumbled in together. Ditching the monochromatic look, the musician’s newest garb screamed so loud it hurt my eyes to look at him.

  “LaTisha! So good to see you again.” He held out his hand as he inched closer. “It’s been a long time since we’ve talked. Terrible about Marion.”

  I rolled my eyes at his extended hand. “Something in that brain of yours is just rattling along. Don’t have time for your nonsense, I need to go see Mark. You tune that piano real good now, you hear?” For a nanosecond, I thought I saw his features pinch, but his expression morphed into a show of bright eyes and big teeth. Nice teeth, truth be told.

  “Have a nice visit. Send him my best.”

  Hardy threw his keys up in the air and caught them. “I’ll be waiting for ya.”

  But I wasn’t done with Payton. “You’d have more customers come in to look around your store if looking at you didn’t hurt so much.” I rubbed my eyes to highlight my point.

  Payton’s smile didn’t budge. “Don’t like the new threads, huh?”

  I laid a bit of bait on a hook. “Wearing those clothes lights up a room so much, you probably won’t need electricity. Speaking of which, I saw some lights on in your shop the other night. You’re gonna have a whopper electric bill.”

  His smile flattened the slightest bit. “I must have forgotten.”

  Hardy broke my questioning as he hollered a warning to me. “Best hurry, woman. I ain’t waitin’ on you.”

  Payton opened his bag and began to dig around. I scrammed out of the house and made my way down the driveway where Hardy waited.

  “Let’s walk,” I suggested.

  “You sure?”

  “The exercise will do us good.” And give me a chance to process Hardy’s announcement about the secret room being the assayer’s. Could be that was the reason Payton rallied for his building to be declared historical. If he truly knew . . . And why shouldn’t he? The legend was well known. Dana, too, would have an inside track, being a Letzburg and all.

  “How do you think Mark could be involved in this whole thing?”

  Hardy matched my pace and swiped his forehead with the back of his hand. His jaw worked back and forth as he mulled on it. Deciding not to push him for an answer, I released my thoughts to the beauty of the day, and let the sunshine wash over me. Too much thinking made my head feel all clogged. I breathed in the fresh, clean air. The sun on my skin turned from pleasant to hot in short order and I quickly recalled why I’d decided to drive this morning. Still, aching feet and all, I needed this time out in the air. Just ahead, we’d be shaded by the arching branches of the trees that lined our road. They formed a leafy arch, and the shade lowered the heat of the sun to bearable proportions.

  We made it all the way to Gold Street before Hardy finally responded.

  “He writes that article for the paper. He’s doing his own research on Maple Gap. Could be he ran across something that got him to thinking Marion’s building was important. I’m guessing Marion had a key to the shop around the house, which means Mark probably has unlimited access to the store.”

  I latched onto that line of thinking like a moth to light. If Mark had Valorie’s key to the shop, what would prevent him from entering whenever he liked? Chief hadn’t bothered with putting a different lock on the door. Was Mark looking for the diary? But him pushing the dining room t
able to block the entrance still remained unexplained.

  We crossed Gold Street when we came parallel to Your Goose is Cooked. The sign in the door read CLOSED.

  On the way back home, my legs chafed in step with my temper. Why hadn’t I called first and saved myself a trip? Hardy remained quiet. For once. When we turned off Gold Street to Spender Avenue, I glanced down the road, gratified to see Chief’s car outside Marion’s. Maybe this wouldn’t be a wasted trip after all.

  “Let’s go see what Chief’s up to.”

  Through the window, I could see only the shadowy outlines of furniture. Hardy tried the door and I hollered out, not wanting to startle the man.

  Chief poked his head out of the hole in the wall. “Guess what I found?”

  “A skeleton,” Hardy guessed as a shudder ran over his body.

  “Nope.”

  My turn to guess. “A dead body?”

  Chief laughed and pointed a finger. “You’ve been reading too many criminal science textbooks.”

  I waited for Chief’s explanation. His gaze went to Hardy, a tiny smile playing about his lips. The moment the light bulb went on in Hardy’s head, I could see the bright light shine from his eyes. Too bad I was clueless. Chief smiled huge. “Yup, Hardy. That’s right.”

  Now you can guarantee I didn’t like this non-talk talk one bit. Something brewed between these two men and they were enjoying it at my expense. I crossed my arms. “I’m gonna be bangin’ some heads in a minute, po-lice officer or no.”

  Chief busted out laughing. Hardy joined in.

  The nerve!

  I reached out a hand and gave Hardy’s drawers a good upward yank. He shut up. His eyes got real buggy.

  Chief might have choked to death trying not to laugh if I hadn’t narrowed my eyes in his direction. “Talk. And make it quick.”

  He sobered up nicely as Hardy worked on getting his britches lowered a notch. “Nothing really, LaTisha. I figured since Hardy worked out the drawing in the diary so well . . . anyway, we found a partially boarded up entrance that leads right up to the back of one of those uprights Payton was moving around the day of Marion’s death.”