Granny stood up straight and shook off the Tall Guy’s hand which was holding her arm. “That’s why I’m here, Amelia. You didn’t think I’d visit ya unless I had a good reason. Your husband’s dead. Did you kill him?”
At the word husband and dead, Amelia’s entire body visibly shook. “Where? What? What are you talking about?”
Thor stood in front of his aunt. “I know this is a shock, Aunt Amelia, but that’s why we’re here. We just got the id on the body and it was––”
“Robert Blackford!” said Granny, “the love of my life! Amelia stole him from me! And she’s probably the one who killed him!” Granny pointed a finger at her sister.
“Let’s all go inside and sit down,” the Tall Guy suggested, again taking Granny’s arm and moving past Thor and Amelia into the house. An agitated Amelia let Thor lead her in after them.
After they were seated, the Tall Guy continued for Thor. “We got the id on the person you forked in the hay mound, Granny. His name is Dickey Lee Hatchet. We found his wallet on his body.”
“I don’t know where you got that name,” Granny said, expressing her disbelief, “but his name is Robert Blackford. Do you think I’d forget what the love of my life looked like?”
Granny turned to Amelia. “What did you do to him?”
Thor broke in, “And he escaped from prison about six months ago. The reason we came here, was because he had a picture of Amelia in his pocket. Do either of you know why he was here?”
“Hermiony,” said the Tall Guy, “since this Dickey Lee Hatchet was found on your farm, perhaps you were hiding him because he looked like this Robert Blackford you claim is the love of your life.”
“In case you forgot,” replied Granny, incensed, “six months ago, I was busy planning my wedding and snowing a sneak. You think I had time to play hide and seek too with Robert––and that’s who that dead man is, Robert Blackford, not Dickey Lee Hatchet or Cratchet or whoever you claim he is.”
Amelia cleared her throat and timidly suggested, “Well, um, um, you didn’t marry Franklin, Hermiony, and you haven’t set another wedding date. Maybe this Robert look-alike was the reason.” Amelia cleared her throat again and in a low voice said, “There’s something none of you but Hermiony knows. I was married to Robert Blackford. He left, out of the blue, when I was 20 years old and we’d only been married a couple of years. He took our son with him. I haven’t seen either of them since. I came back to Fuchsia on the chance that he might have come back here. I want to find my son. All the detectives I hired over the years couldn’t locate either one of them. Now, however, I am more hopeful because of all the new developments in forensic science.”
“You have a son?” Granny asked Amelia. Then she turned to Thor and the Tall Guy, “That dead man is Robert Blackford!” Turning back to her sister, Granny paused before speaking, “Well, Amelia, you’re not off the hook yet for stealing Robert from me, but if I have a nephew, I’m going to help you find him.”
Turning once again to look at the two men, Granny continued, “And I didn’t kill him! But it’s a good thing he’s dead or I would kill him! I’d fork him with that pitchfork! But you really need to change those orange jumpsuits you use in the hoosegow to pink. It’s a better color for me. You know, just in case I ever need one.”
CHAPTER SIX
It was after six by the time Granny got back to her house. Despite her protests, Thor and the Tall Guy followed her to the police station to be questioned about her part in finding the body at her old farm. They wanted details and they wouldn’t question her in front of Amelia––something about the two sisters possibly being in cahoots with each other. What a birthday this had turned out to be!
Granny looked around the room to see if any of the shysters or their cohorts were home. All appeared to be silent. They probably were out on their run of the town before ending up at Franklin’s house. Their routine still wasn’t back to normal since the last murder investigation had been solved. Granny called Fish, Little White Poodle, Furball and Tank her shysters because she’d acquired them during Gram Gramstead’s crime spree and, without their help, Granny wouldn’t have solved the crime. Of course, Furball and Tank were Franklin’s, aka Itsy and Bitsy. Granny had renamed them to more fit their character. Add that to the fact that they were always in trouble, and the name shyster fit perfectly. Baskerville and Mrs. Bleaty didn’t quite seem like shysters though, so Granny decided to call them cohorts, because they were always right in the thick of things too.
The creatures’ usual routine had been to show up at Granny’s house around four in the afternoon, leave around 10:00 p.m., check out the town, and head to Franklin’s house around 5:00 a.m. They’d stay there until 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. before they headed out again to patrol the town. It had been a daily routine until Silas Crickett moved in across the street with his loud-mouthed Radish––a gray parrot. Baskerville fell in love with the parrot, and Silas used this relationship to woo Granny’s pets to his house where he had a pet play room in his basement. She and Franklin now had a hard time keeping the shysters and the cohorts out of trouble, and out of Silas’s house.
Reaching down to take the top off her footstool, Granny moved the false insides around and took out her wine and a glass. It was her birthday, after all. She didn’t know why she still bothered to hide her wine in the footstool. It was becoming common knowledge to all of her friends and family that Granny imbibed occasionally, and that she hid her wine in the footstool. Maybe she’d move it soon. A false wall, she thought, maybe a false wall somewhere they wouldn’t suspect. Granny poured herself a glass of wine and sat down to survey the room, looking for the perfect place for a false wall.
While drinking her wine, thoughts of the dead body––Robert Blackford––swirled around in her head. Why was he at the farm? How long had he been there? And why now, just when Amelia had come back? Granny set the wine glass down on the table next to her chair and closed her eyes, remembering her eighteenth birthday.
A loud pounding coming from somewhere in the basement woke Granny up. She must have fallen asleep while reminiscing about her eighteenth birthday. With a frown on her face, she lifted her cell phone to her eyes to check out the time. It was midnight! The pounding got louder!
Granny grabbed her umbrella which was sitting beside the front door, and for good measure, added her knitting needle cane––her two favorite weapons––before descending the steps into her basement and family room to see what or who was pounding. Where were the shysters when you needed them?
The noise seemed to be coming from the other side of the hidden fireplace door. Someone was pounding on the door to the underground streets. Granny reached into the fireplace and pushed the latch to open the secret door that wasn’t so secret anymore, switching on the light and moving through the room to the outer door.
“Stop! I’ve got weapons! Go away or I’m going to let my guard dog out!” Granny yelled. Where was Baskerville when she needed him?
“Granny! Granny! It’s us––Delight and Mavis. Open the door!”
“It’s midnight. How do I know it’s really you?” Granny countered.
“Boneyard!” Delight shouted.
Granny opened the door because Boneyard specialty coffee was Granny’s favorite coffee.
“What are you doing here?” she asked the two women. “It’s midnight!”
“It’s time for our surprise! Come on,” Mavis urged.
“Did you really fork someone at your farm? We didn’t know you still owned the farm,” Delight questioned, while taking Granny’s arm. Mavis took the umbrella and knitting needle cane out of Granny’s hands and laid them down inside the room, before taking Granny’s other arm and leading her into the lighted underground street.
“Where are we going? It’s past my bedtime!” Granny tried to change the subject.
Delight giggled, “It’s a surprise! You’ll see.”
The streets were pretty much deserted this time of night. The residents of Fuchsia
didn’t use the underground streets as much during the summer as they did in the winter, except when it was raining. The underground also made a good tornado shelter when the weather was bad.
When they reached Graves’ Funeral Home, Granny stopped. “Now what? The underground street ends here.”
Mavis, ever the dramatic one, gestured wildly with her arms. “After you, my dear! Your carriage awaits you.”
Granny skewered up her face, lifted her eyebrows and said, ”In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not Cinderella and you’d better not have a fella waiting for me at whatever carriage you’re talking about. I’ve had enough of fellas for the day, and I don’t see any carriage anyway.”
“Granny, use your imagination. Get with the program,” Mavis instructed, miffed that Granny wasn’t playing along with her make-believe show.
Delight giggled again. “Never mind, Mavis. Granny, the new street is open to the Pink Percolator. We’re going to have a midnight party! Come on.” Delight moved to Granny’s right and Mavis moved to Granny’s left, each taking one arm to escort her down the new underground street and up the stairs to the Pink Percolator.
When they got to the top of the stairs and Delight opened the door to the Pink Percolator, it was dark. Mavis gave Granny a little push to get her into the shop. As Granny stepped through the door, the lights came on and Granny felt something light and stringy touching her body, at the same time she heard the word surprise echoed over and over again.
Looking up, Granny saw Lulu from the quilt shop, Ditty Belle, and a woman she didn’t recognize squirting pink wacky string right at her. On the counter was a cake that looked just like Granny with a knitting needle as a candle in the Granny cake’s hand.
Extricating herself from the wacky string, Granny’s eyes misted over a little and she said, “I’m old, you’re bold, but this is gold!”
Lulu led her over to one of the chairs. “Sit here while we get you some cake and a little wine.”
Delight was already pouring the wine as Mavis was cutting the cake.
They all scooted their chairs into a circle around the table and then lifted their glasses in a toast to Granny.
“She likes wine, she has a mind, of her own and she has a clone!” Mavis raised her glass to clink it together with the others.
“She’s ornery, she’s old, but to us, she’s our pot of gold!” Delight rhymed, raising her glass for another clink with the ladies.”
“She doesn’t knit, when she’s in a snit, she purls and whirls to make her point and make someone oink!” The glasses clinked as Lulu finished her rhyme.
“Oink?” Granny questioned, taking an extra sip.
“She reads with the best, but it’s her zest that cleans up the mest!”
Granny turned toward Ditty Belle before clinking her glass with the others, “Mest?”
Ditty Belle lifted her eyebrows and gave Granny a haughty look. “Yes, mest. I made the word up in honor of your birthday.”
Granny turned to the woman they’d invited to the party she didn’t know. “Who are you and why are you here?”
“Granny, you’re a legend and when I overheard them whispering they were going to have this surprise party for you tonight, I asked if I could attend. Can I have your autograph? You’re a legend at the We Save You Christian Church.”
Granny gave the woman a skeptical look before turning with a questioning look to Mavis and Delight.
Delight giggled. “Granny, this is the new pastor at We Save You Christian Church. She took Pastor Snicks’ place. She just arrived this past week and we became acquainted. Meet Pastor Henrietta Romans.”
“You’re a pastor?” asked Granny and then turned to the others, “You invited a pastor to my birthday? You invited a pastor to my birthday and you’re plying her with wine? And you didn’t warn me? Franklin isn’t hidden around here somewhere, is he?” Granny looked around suspiciously. “You’re not planning a surprise wedding too, are you?” She stood up ready to leave. “I’m not quite ready for that yet,” she warned them, sprinting toward the door.
Mavis and Delight caught up with her right before she made it out the door. “Relax, she’s one of us. We’re going to help you solve this new crime. No one will suspect Pastor Henrietta is one of us,” Mavis informed Granny.
Lulu nodded her head in agreement. “Yes, and Ditty Belle and I want in on the excitement too!”
“And what better person to have on our team than a pastor; they hear everything!” Delight added.
“Well, I can’t divulge everything,” Henrietta warned them and then giggled. “But I can help. I’m an expert.” Motioning them closer, she continued in a conspiratorial voice, “You see, I read mysteries. And at my last church, I figured out who stole the communion wine and hid it in the base of the baptismal font. And then, I planted seeds of suspicion in my sermon to get the crook to make a mistake and give himself away. And he did! So, I know I can help you, Granny.”
“Mavis retreated into the Pink Percolator kitchen and returned with a tall, long, wrapped present in her arms. This is for you, Granny. We got it this afternoon after we heard the news.”
“We had a hard time knowing what to get you and then we heard the news about the body you found and we just knew!” Delight announced, a proud smile on her face, taking the present from Mavis and presenting it to Granny.
Granny unwrapped the present.
“Careful, you might get forked,” smirked Ditty Belle.
Granny lifted her present––a bright, pink-handled, fuchsia-colored pitchfork. “You gave me a pitchfork because I forked a dead body that turned out to be my long-lost love Robert Blackford?”
Mavis moved forward and looked Granny straight in the face. “It’s the perfect weapon to protect you and us while we snoop out the scene of the crime.”
Granny gave them a perplexed look.
The women surrounded Granny. “Tell us what you know,” Lulu commanded.
“I forked Robert Blackford.”
“You never told us you still owned that farm,” Mavis scolded.
“Why were you there in the first place?” Ditty Belle asked.
Henrietta took Granny’s arm and led her back to the table and motioned for her to sit down in the chair. The others followed and sat down too. Henrietta reached across the table and put her hand on Granny’s arm, assumed her most sympathetic look, and said in her most pastor-like tone, “Now, Granny, you said that you forked the love of your life. How hard that must have been for you. I think you need to talk about it. It will be better for you to talk to someone about this instead of keeping it all bottled up inside.”
Granny pulled her arm away from Henrietta and looked at the other women. “Okay, she’s in. She’s got a good interrogation technique.”
At her acceptance into the group, Henrietta said to Granny, “Spill it, Granny.”
Granny told the women about her experience at the farm, about her interrogation at the police station, and her sister’s involvement in the case.
Mavis looked at the clock on the wall “It’s time to go.”
“Go where? Home? Yes, I am kind of tired,” sighed Granny.
“You’re getting old, Granny,” Delight chided, “But this party isn’t ended. Grab your new pitchfork!”
Ditty Belle cut the lights. “We’ll go out the back door. I brought my van. We can all get in that.” Ditty Belle ushered them over to the waiting vehicle.
“Stop!” Granny said in a loud voice.
“Shh!” the other women all said at once.
“We don’t want anyone to hear us,” Lulu warned.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what you have planned. Are we hunting zombies in the cemetery?”
“No, we’re going back to investigate the scene of the crime,” Mavis informed Granny, hustling her into the van. The van slowly moved through the dark streets of Fuchsia––they thought, unseen.
CHAPTER SEVEN
All was quiet when the van carrying Grann
y and her friends pulled into the old abandoned farm yard. The night was dark, and clouds overhead kept the stars from lighting the night sky.
Granny was the first out of the van. Mavis handed Granny the pitchfork and passed out the flashlights that she’d thrown in the van when the women had hatched the plan to celebrate Granny’s birthday doing what Granny loved best––sleuthing.
Shining her flashlight toward the silo, Granny could see that the crime scene tape was gone and the scene had been cleaned up. She turned to her friends who now seemed to be a little more uncertain that this was the right thing to do.
“Did you hear that?” Ditty Belle whispered, moving closer to Lulu.
“Something just touched my leg,” Lulu answered as she grabbed Ditty Belle.
“It’s Ditty Belle’s leg; want me to fork it to prove it to you?” Granny’s crusty attitude was revealing itself again.
Mavis, panicking, asked, “Did you see that? Did you see that?”
“What?” Granny rasped.
“Something moved in what is left of the house in the upstairs window!” cried Lulu.
Granny glanced up at the window and moved her flashlight beam in the same direction. “Relax, it’s just a bat.”
“A bat, a bat, it’s a bat! It’s going to get in my hair. It’s going to bite me!” Lulu ran around in a circle swatting over her head and moving towards the van.
Henrietta grabbed Lulu’s arm and, in a quiet, soothing tone said, “Lulu, my dear. God will protect you. He sent that bat to eat the mouse that’s by your feet.”
“Henrietta, I mean, Pastor Henrietta, I think you and I are going to get along fine!” Laughing, Granny moved towards Lulu. “She’s kidding, Lulu. No rat, no bat. It was just an old curtain blowing in the wind.”
“What should we look for?” Ditty Belle asked.
“Anything that would explain Robert Blackford’s presence here at the farm,” said Granny.
“I thought they said his name was Dickey Lee Hatchet. I know you think it’s this Robert Blackford, but your friends think it’s this Dickey Lee,” Henrietta countered, “At least that was what I heard when Franklin, your fiancé, and Silas, your neighbor, were visiting your sister late this afternoon.”
Granny Forks A Fugitive (Fuchsia Minnesota Book 4) Page 3