by Mary Alfort
They exchanged knowing glances, but were uncharacteristically quiet.
“I was thinking maybe I could help out a little to earn my keep.”
Thelma nudged Selma, who as the alpha twin automatically voiced an opinion for both of them. “Now that you mention it, we could use your help, though not in the waitressing area. Thelma does OK and I can spell her if it gets too hectic. No, what we were thinking was you could help with the books. You were always good at math. You see Butchy, our accountant, went to jail for tax evasion and other charges a few months back, and we haven’t been able to make heads or tails of what he was doing with our money, so--”
“Tax evasion?” I tried to control the panic growing inside me. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Well now why should we, missy? We can handle a little investigation.”
“Investigation? What investigation?” By now, I’d started to envision the diner, the house, and everything the aunts owned being carted off to pay their back taxes.
“It’s nothing’, Laney. The feds just wanna check up on all of Butchy’s clients. Seems he had some ties to the mafia in Louisiana,” Selma assured me.
“What?” The word slipped out in spite of my attempt not to show them any fear.
Butch Peterson was a local brainiac who went away to college, got his degree, and started up his own accounting firm. He had several of the local businesses for clients, but there had always been something a little “off” about Butchy. Even so, I’d thought him harmless enough until now.
“Where did they send him away?”
“Technically, he’s still awaiting trial,” Thelma answered. “I talked to him a few weeks ago—right before you came home. He told us not to worry. It was all just a little misunderstanding. He’d have it cleared up before we knew it. He’s such a nice boy. He wouldn’t do any of the things he’s being accused of.”
Reasons why I’m thankful I came home to Down:
1. To help my aunts stay out of jail.
Really, beyond that, what more reason did I need?
I spent the rest of the day locked away in the diner’s tiny office, poring over the books and trying not to panic. Nothing I found in them made any sense. There were dozens of receipts where Butchy had deposited thousands of dollars into the diner’s operating account, only to withdraw it a couple of days later. While I might not know all that much about tax fraud, anyone in their right mind could see Butchy was up to something very, very bad.
I picked up the business card for the lead agent investigating the case. It was after five, so Agent Donovan Eanes’s stern, yet flat-lined voice informed me to leave a message after the beep. I identified myself and asked him to call me back as soon as possible to discuss my aunts’ case.
I’d just hung up the phone when Thelma stuck her head in the door. “Honey, you’ve been at it for hours. Come have something to eat. You know you’re eating for two now.”
With a heavy sigh, I struggled to let go of my worries for their future.
The diner was in that in-between stage of the day. The last of the seniors were finishing up with dinner and it was too early for the rest of the world to eat.
Thelma piled vegetables, meatloaf, and a couple of rolls onto a plate, then sliced off a doublewide piece of apple pie and set it in front of me before slipping into the seat across from me. “You know, you’re positively glowing, Laney. Having a baby agrees with you.” She smiled in an innocent way and watched me fork huge amounts of meatloaf into my mouth. “I still remember that sweet mother of yours. You’re the spitting image of Deborah, God rest her soul.”
I stopped eating long enough to study Thelma. I would do whatever it took to protect her and Selma. I put down the fork and squeezed her hand, happy to see her smile.
The little bell above the door jingled to life, breaking the spell. A busty, fifty-something blonde, approached our table with contempt on her face.
I caught Thelma’s subtle tsk-tsk and turned back to my aunt. A juicy story was on the way.
“Evening, Evelyn. Nice weather we’re having.” Thelma made polite conversation with the painted-up woman wearing a skirt six inches too short for someone my age.
“Thelma.” The blonde-haired woman nodded and then flicked me a less-than-interested glance.
“This is my niece, Laney Winters. Laney, this is Evelyn DeBeers.”
“It’s Blevins now. I’ve decided to take my maiden name again.”
“Do tell?” Thelma digested this piece of information. “Any word from Stan yet?”
Clearly Evelyn Blevins-DeBeers wasn’t happy with the turn in conversation. “Not a word in two months. Not that I’m expecting any. He’s gone. Probably halfway to South America by now.”
“Uh-huh,” Thelma agreed with a polite nod.
Evelyn, obviously tired of the chitchat, walked away to find her own table out of earshot.
“More likely he’s six feet under, but you didn’t hear it from me.” Thelma made a grand gesture of locking her lips and tossing away the key.
“You’re kidding,” I all but breathed the words. I loved a good mystery.
Before Thelma could go any further, Selma stepped from behind the kitchen counter, poured Evelyn a cup of coffee, and then joined us.
“Always orders coffee while waiting on her beau,” Thelma explained.
“Her beau? She’s got a boyfriend? What happened to her husband?” I directed my question in their general direction while polishing off the last of the pie.
Selma eagerly took up the story. “He disappeared a couple months back. Not a word to anyone, just here one day and gone the next. Everyone thought he was a pillar of the community, what with him doing all those good deeds around town and managing the town’s charity work abroad with the orphans and all. Sheriff Higgins and that half-baked team he calls a police force went over every square inch of the DeBeers place, but no Stan.”
I still found it hard to believe Eugene Higgins was sheriff of Down. I remembered Eugene as the chubby kid afraid of his own shadow, whose only friends were girls.
“Higgie claimed he talked to all Stan’s friends,” Selma continued, “at least the few he had, and not one of them could believe Stan would just up and leave. They said he was in love with Evelyn. His carpet-cleaning business was doing fine, and he had no money troubles. No one had any explanation as to why Stan would simply disappear into thin air, except for Evelyn. She told the sheriff Stan was having an affair.”
Shades of Tom bled into the story. I struggled to keep the nastiness from my tone. “Makes sense to me.” I certainly understood why she’d want him dead. I’d had a few of those ugly thoughts when I’d first learned of Tom’s unfaithfulness. I spared Evelyn a sympathetic glance, seeing her in a different light. There, but for the grace of God, went I.
“No. That ain’t it. He didn’t leave because he was having an affair. He’s dead. She whacked him.” Selma squinted Evelyn’s way.
“She whacked him? Where do you come up with this stuff?” With difficulty, I shoved aside my own past fantasies of doing bad things to Tom.
“From our book club,” Thelma volunteered. “We’ve been reading all the latest Christian romantic suspense stories. You have no idea how educational those books can be. They’ve certainly helped on our stakeouts.”
It took me a moment to actually believe my ears. Had she really said...
“Stakeout?” The word slipped tentatively from my lips. I hoped she’d look me in the eye and laugh at my little blunder. When she nodded solemnly, confirming the insanity, I squeaked, “What stakeout?”
Thelma leaned in close and whispered, “Why, the stakeout Selma and I have been doing on Evelyn’s place since Stan disappear--”
She cut her response short as Evelyn dropped some money on the counter and strolled past us without so much as a word.
“There she goes.” Thelma gave Selma a knowing look.
I was still trying to mentally catch up with the conversation. I’d
gotten lost along the way after my dear, sweet, motherly aunt told me she’d been staking out the house of a possible murderer.
“Yep. Saw the lights flash a few minutes back,” Selma confirmed with an efficient shake of her head. “Her man is out there waiting for her. Same as always.”
“What lights?”
“The car lights, Laney. Evelyn has her boyfriend meet her here. He flashes his headlights when he gets here, and she goes out to meet him. That one there is having herself a fine old time with someone. If you ask me, it’s the pool boy. I mean, who has their pool cleaned every week without fail?” Thelma added another of her famous tsk-tsks. “She thinks no one knows about it.”
“She’s having the affair?” I asked in amazement. “So she’s trying to throw the blame off herself, by casting doubt on Stan.” I sounded like a bad TV movie.
Selma nodded curtly then turned to Thelma. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
My gaze bounced from one to the other.
Thelma’s eyes actually glinted with excitement as she nodded eagerly.
“What are you thinking?” I prompted when they did the silent twin communication.
“We’ll do it tonight after we close up. It’s time for another stakeout.”
4
Sometimes a little boredom is a good thing.
You haven’t lived until you’ve been on a stakeout with two elderly women.
First, there were the bathroom breaks. Lots of bathroom breaks. When Selma suggested Thelma bring a bucket along, I’d put my foot down. But after three trips to the local Seven-Eleven six blocks from the DeBeers’ place, I’d begun to see the wisdom in that suggestion.
Then there were the naps. I had no idea my sweet Aunt Thelma snored like a freight train until she’d startled the daylights out of me by letting loose in the back seat.
“You get used to it,” Selma assured me without blinking an eye.
Somehow, I doubted it.
“OK, I understand you and Thelma get bored from time to time.” I decided it was time to try to reason with my usually sage aunt. “And you need a little...entertainment. But honestly, Aunt Selma. We’ve been here for”—I took a moment to check my watch—”four hours. There’s nothing going on here. The woman’s car hasn’t moved all night. She’s not having an affair. She hasn’t killed her husband. And she—unlike the three of us—is sleeping peacefully in her own bed right now.”
“Don’t let her fool you, Laney. There’s somethin’ going on. Evelyn Blevins-DeBeers ain’t that smart. She’s never been able to keep a secret longer than a gnat’s wink. She’ll mess up, and I intend to be there when she does.”
At this point, I could see arguing wasn’t cutting it with Selma. She could be as ornery as mule when she set her mind on something. “All right, we’ll catch her. But does it have to be tonight? Thelma’s bushed, and I could use some sleep myself.”
Right on cue, Thelma turned loose the chainsaw in the back seat.
By the time we got home and managed to wake Thelma from her coma-like sleep, it was after three in the morning. One can imagine my crankiness at being awakened two short hours later to the sounds of licking. Very loud licking. When I pried one eye open, I saw my roommate, Buster, grooming his private parts right next to my face.
Good grief, that cat is flexible.
“By all means, make yourself at home. The bed’s all yours.” With much resentment, I got out of bed, showered, and then forced myself to abandon all thoughts of wearing the sweat pants. I might feel about as huge as a tractor, but there was no reason to dress like it.
Selma was in the kitchen, serving up a breakfast that included scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage links, and homemade biscuits.
“Thought you were gonna sleep all day.” With her usual briskness, she pointed to the table and plopped enough food in front of me to choke a horse.
I debated whether to be sick or dive in.
“I went for a walk this morning and came up with some theories about where Evelyn mighta buried the body.” Selma dropped into the chair across from me and forked a piece of sausage.
“You went for a walk? When did you go for a walk? It’s still pitch dark out there.”
Selma dismissed my naïveté with a wave of her hand. “I know every inch of this place. Don’t need any light to see where I’m going.”
I was just about to point out the existence of snakes when Thelma trudged into the kitchen.
“Anyone else hear those coyotes last night?”
“What coyotes? There ain’t no coyotes around these parts at this time of year. You were dreaming, Thel.”
Thelma made a beeline for the coffee pot. “Was I? Well, I’ll be. I could have--”
“Get that to go, will ya, Thelma. We’re late, as it is.” Selma poured the rest of the coffee into a thermos and herded her sister and me to the door.
In the rush of the breakfast crowd, it was easy to forget the threat looming over our heads—until Agent Donovan Eanes returned my call.
“Mrs. Winters, I’m glad you called. I don’t think I’ve been able to convince your aunts of the seriousness of their case on any of my visits,” the droning Eanes told me. Unfortunately, he didn’t need to have a riveting tone to confirm my darkest fears.
“This is a federal case, Mrs. Winters. We believe serious offenses have been committed that cannot be overlooked. As of last Friday, Mr. Peterson has finally agreed to cooperate with the investigation. We’re just beginning to ascertain the full extent of the crimes. Needless to say, there will be more arrests to follow. Many more arrests.”
I dropped into the chair in the office, more terrified than I could ever remember feeling. The threat in those words could not have been clearer. “Agent Eanes, I hope you’re not trying to suggest that my aunts had anything to do with whatever crimes Butch Peterson is being accused of committing. I assure you, they are honest women and guilty of nothing more than giving Butchy Peterson a job. Anyway, I thought this was a tax case?”
“Not any longer. As I’ve said, the crimes are far-reaching, but I’m not at liberty to discuss the details, Mrs. Winters. Perhaps I should come to the diner and speak to you in person. I’d like to ask you a few questions, and discuss your aunts’ involvement further.”
Involvement?
“When?”
He took his time getting back to me on that one, but finally answered. “I have some time two weeks from Wednesday, that’s the eleventh. I’ll be in the area around four. I’d like for both your aunts to be there as well.”
“I’ll make sure of it.” I hung up and considered what my next move should be. An attorney. I needed to get them legal representation. I also needed to figure out what Butchy Peterson had gotten the aunts involved in that might just cost them both their freedom. And I needed to do it quickly. I had only two weeks to come up with some answers, and convince the aunts to cooperate with Agent Eanes.
I spent the rest of the morning combing through files, trying to decipher Butchy’s haphazard accounting system. I found numerous checks written to what looked like a food service supplier in Baton Rouge. I found their number and called it at least a dozen times without any answer. Not knowing where else to turn, I called Elise.
“Dear heavens, Laney that sounds frightening. By all means, let me give you my attorney, Edward Javiar’s number. He can direct you from there.”
“Thanks, Elise. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Nonsense. That’s what friends are for.”
After I hung up, I called Edward Javiar, who agreed to get me in touch with someone specializing in this type of law. Feeling somewhat more at peace, I decided that short of getting Butchy to confess his sins, I’d done everything I could for one day.
I went to check on the aunts. I’d just poured myself a glass of lemonade when Sheriff Eugene Higgins walked into the diner, dressed to the nines in his brown and tan uniform. Gun included. Although it had been a couple of years since I’d seen Higgie, he hadn
’t changed all that much. He was still chubby and still knew how to put an outfit together to get the most out of it. Even a sheriff’s uniform.
“Laney.” He tipped his hat to me before taking it off. “Heard you were back in town. Teresa was telling me the other day we needed to have you over for dinner to reminisce about old times.”
Higgie was quite a few years ahead of me in school. He had married Teresa Zamora right after they’d graduated high school. It stunned the locals because Teresa was prom queen, and a cheerleader, and Eugene was...dependable. She was definitely out of his league. Six months later, Teresa gave birth to the first of five kids, causing much speculation about the child’s father being the high school quarterback who’d dumped her weeks before Higgie and Teresa tied the knot.
“That sounds nice. How are the kids?” I forced myself to speak brightly, though I suspected he wasn’t really here to socialize. My aunts had told me that Higgie and Teresa had since had another baby girl.
“Fine, fine. Growing like weeds.” After a few seconds of awkward silence, Higgie turned his attention to the aunts. “Selma, I need a word with you and Thelma, if I may.”
Thelma looked as guilty as sin and as nervous as a cat while she meekly wiped her hands on her apron. But the gleam in Selma’s eye told me she was in her element and ready to give Higgie a hard time.
“What do you want, Higgie? I’m busy getting ready for the lunch crowd.” She didn’t bother looking up from the pot roast she was preparing.
“All right, we’ll do it here then. Laney probably needs to hear this anyway.” Higgie took a seat on one of the stools. “Evelyn Blevins called my office to report someone sitting in front of her house for hours last night. You know anything about that, ladies?” His gaze went from one aunt to the other.
I feared it was only a matter of time before Thelma cracked.
“Can’t say as I do. Maybe it’s Stan wondering why his wife’s having an affair,” Selma suggested gleefully.