by Hannah Reed
“No way, Fischer.” Uh-oh, Patti has never called me by my last name. That was more Johnny Jay’s style. Then she said, “You’re either with me or against me.”
She stared into my eyes and must have seen my answer, because she was out of the truck before I could blink.
“Don’t you dare take off with that computer!” I called after her, realizing belatedly that it had already slipped through my fingers along with my temperamental partner.
Before I went into the store, I called Hunter.
“Hope your day is going better than mine,” he said right away.
“Now what?”
“Let’s not discuss it.”
“Then you shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Well, aren’t you testy.”
“Just tell me.”
The gist was that it was Hunter’s job to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Al Mason had murdered his sister. He probably had enough, but Hunter is a perfectionist when it comes to his career. He doesn’t like to make mistakes, and he’s climbed the professional ladder to land the position of detective because he’s good at what he does. That perfectionist part is important when you’re dabbling with people’s lives.
“Ben picked up a scent out at the farm. We were doing another routine search and he found something.”
“Something new, you mean? Something he didn’t find before?” That wasn’t like Hunter’s K-9 partner. If evidence was there, Ben always found it.
“This was inside the barnyard. At the back, in a pile of manure. Whatever was buried there, though, is gone now.”
I didn’t think this was such a big deal, but this was my man and I had to support him. “If only Ben could talk,” I said.
“Wouldn’t that solve a whole lot of problems? Anyway, he could have missed it the first time, because of where it was buried. Ben is the best tracker on the force, but animal manure is just too much for even the best.”
“What do you think he’s trying to tell you in dog language?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s telling me that whatever was there had the victim’s blood on it. Probably an item of clothing, since we already have the murder weapon. I’ve been wondering how the perp managed to stay blood free.”
Okay, maybe this was a big deal. I connected a few dots. “You know, somebody let the animals loose the other day. I’d assumed it was an accident, that somebody didn’t close the gate properly. But what if the killer needed to create a diversion in order to have the opportunity to remove some incriminating evidence?”
“I don’t know, Story. Possibly. This complication wouldn’t even have surfaced if it had been left where it was. Somewhere in the unearthing, a new, fresh scent clued in Ben.”
“What does Greg say?”
“He claims he doesn’t have any idea. In fact, he actually challenged Ben’s training. Greg accused me of planting false evidence against his father.” Hunter sighed. “Sometimes I hate this job.”
“Because now you have a little bit of doubt as to Al’s guilt?”
“Nothing conclusive, nothing that changes what we already have on him. But I don’t like it. How is your day going? Cheer me up with some local color.”
So I shared the wedding menu and the ongoing contest of wills between Mom and Grams.
“Your grandmother will win,” he said with a chuckle. “How many chairs did you see? That will give us the answer.”
How many had there been? That’s the difference between a detective like Hunter and an amateur like me. He would have known the answer. Me? All I could say is, “We’ll find out tomorrow, won’t we?”
As I approached the back door, my step was lighter and my spirit had improved.
Hunter didn’t have to say any more than he had to get my hopes back up. Because if someone had really created a diversion so they could remove a bloody piece of evidence, it couldn’t have been Al.
He was already in jail the day his barnyard pets ran free.
So who had let the animals loose?
Thirty-seven
Gosh, The Wild Clover was busy for a Monday. Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to the ebbs and flows in the service business. Luckily, Carrie Ann has a sixth sense when it comes to staffing and rarely gets it wrong. The twins were restocking the shelves from the weekend rush, and my cousin and Stanley were working the checkout line.
I pitched in and was rewarded with small talk, which has been a bit lacking since the store has grown. Not that I’m complaining. I may miss the socializing, but I never want to go back to stocking shelves. Arranging a pretty display for visual effect is one thing; it’s quite another to struggle with heavy boxes filled with melons or large canned goods.
As Monday afternoon wore on, everybody and his uncle passed through our doors, many of them mentioning tomorrow afternoon’s wedding. Even Lori wandered through complaining that she didn’t have her invitation yet. I didn’t mention that invitations wouldn’t have been sent through normal channels, that Grams would have given word-of-mouth invites to a certain circle of her friends. Plus, she’s no fool. She knows better than to put the two of us at the same event.
“What’s the blushing bride going to wear?” someone asked.
“Off white?” someone guessed. “Ivory?”
“Pure white, I’m thinking.”
“That’s for new brides.”
“In this day and age you can wear whatever you want. Red, blue, the sky is the limit.”
“Let us in on the secret, Story.”
I gave them a Mona Lisa smile to imply that Mom’s wardrobe secret was safe with me, when in actuality I hadn’t even seen Mom’s dress. It could be black for all I knew.
“Since Story isn’t telling, we’ll just have to wait and see tomorrow.”
It seemed that Grams hadn’t left out a single one of her peers.
Milly came in.
“Which one of my family members gave you a head count?” I wanted to know. “Grams or Mom?”
“Your mother gave it to me,” Milly said before flashing a sly smile. “But your grandmother amended it.”
“And Holly is aware of any last-minute surprises for seating and all?”
Milly beamed, having so much fun. “Everybody who needs to know knows. I’m all set except for a few items that I’m getting here now, like that cheese for the fondue.”
The wedding caterer disappeared down one of the aisles.
Holly rushed in in a panic over forgotten this and that. “How’s the list coming?” she asked me, sounding frazzled.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” I said, suddenly worried because Carrie Ann had been so busy I’d completely forgotten to ask if she’d had time to work on it at all.
Johnny Jay came in and strutted up and down the aisles like a peacock. I had the pleasure of checking out his purchases. Nothing special. Enriched white bread, whole milk, peanut butter.
“How’s the sting operation coming?” I asked him. “Catch your smut thief yet?”
“These things take time,” he said, all-important. Then he gave me one of his menacing glares. “Fischer, it was probably a mistake to discuss official business in front of you. A serious lapse of judgment on my part. You haven’t been blabbing it around town, have you?”
“Of course not. If someone is stealing from the library, they need to pay for their actions,” I said, meaning what I said. Emily, the library director, is a good friend, and doesn’t deserve to be ripped off. Neither does the town. Our taxes help support the library. Still . . . “I just don’t think it’s the kind of crime that needs police involvement and security cameras.”
I could have added that the chief and town chairman must be bored to smithereens to have even concocted this scheme. Once again, I thought of Lori Spandle and how much she was disrespecting her husband by carousing around town, chasing after constructi
on workers. If anyone deserved to get caught doing something lascivious, it wasn’t some kid sneaking erotica out of the library. It was Lori.
A little later Greg stopped by to pick up the box of leftover produce I always send over on Mondays for the farm animals, all stuff that would just get thrown out otherwise.
“How is the investigation going?” he asked in a low voice. “Have you made any headway on clearing my dad?”
“Not yet,” I said, “but I’m working on a few ideas. I can’t say more quite yet.”
Greg nodded and left toting the food box.
Had I spread myself too thin? I hadn’t been effective as a wedding planner’s assistant or as a private investigator. I hadn’t even been a good live-in girlfriend, and was lucky that Hunter had been preoccupied with the case himself. Patti was ticked at me, so I wouldn’t win the good-neighbor award, either. Once the wedding was over and the case solved to everyone’s satisfaction, life would return to normal.
I’d totally forgotten about my other to-do list helper in all the commotion, until I found time to visit the back room and discovered Joan Goodaller as she was finishing up a phone call at my desk.
“There you go,” she said, handing over Holly’s list for the wedding with every single item crossed off.
“You have to be the most efficient woman I’ve ever met,” I told her, overjoyed. Gleeful, really. She’d saved me from certain damaging criticism from the matriarch in our family.
Then I realized this volunteer should be invited to Mom’s wedding. “Please come to the wedding tomorrow,” I thankfully remembered to say. “The family appreciates everything you’ve done.”
“I’d love to,” she said. “Count me in. If Al gets out, can he come, too?” Joan gave me a weak smile, though I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t hopeful that would happen.
“But of course,” I told her. “He’s welcome as well.”
“But on a more serious note,” she went on to say, “Greg tells me you’re working hard to free his father.”
“I have a few loose ends to explore. Keep your fingers crossed that they work out.”
“I’ve crossed my toes, too,” she said before breezing out the door, leaving me alone to realize how exhausted I was both mentally and physically.
I plopped down in my office chair, folded my arms over the desk, and rested my head on them. Where to go from here regarding the murder? Nowhere, that’s where. Since Hunter had a new sliver of doubt about Al Mason’s guilt, he would dig (no pun intended) through the b.s. (as in manure), and, just to help him along, I’d bring him up to speed on today’s findings. Especially Nemesis. Excluding, of course, any mention of Patti.
How could one individual be so high maintenance in the friendship department?
Still, while I realized that I complained pretty much nonstop about Patti, geez, she sure does make life entertaining. Maybe it was time to stop running away from her and her escapades and embrace her for who she is and what she brings to my life.
I lifted my head from my crossed arms, thinking I must be really tired, slaphappy, even, to be thinking of a long-term relationship with the person whose main contribution to our friendship is conflict and frustration.
I stood up, yawned, and wandered out the back door into the parking lot. While there, I noticed Stanley Peck standing in the cemetery at one of the markers, head bowed. When was the last time I’d walked its worn paths?
It had been a while. When I was a little kid we used to play hide and seek among the markers. Looking back, that wasn’t very respectful, but kids don’t know any better.
Stanley looked up and spotted me, so I waved and walked over to where he stood.
“Thought I’d stop and pay my respects before heading home,” he said. “My great grandmother and grandfather are buried right here.”
“I remember you saying something about that.” I read the inscriptions etched into the stones. “They died the same year?”
He nodded. “Grandpa went first. After that, my grandmother didn’t have the will to live. But they were both in their nineties and had lived full lives. We all should live so long.”
After a few moments of respectful silence, Stanley said, “Well, I’m off. Have a nice evening.”
He headed toward Main Street as I rubbed my weary eyes. Another day almost done. And not much to show for it, except pretty decent sales.
Some of my ancestors were buried in this cemetery, too. Not Fischers from my father’s side, but Morgans from Grams’s maternal line. They were buried in the oldest part of this small church cemetery, and I wandered over to give them a nod.
Which I did, reading the inscriptions, imagining daily life way back when.
After that, I walked along, reading names on other gravestones, recognizing many names of families still living in the community. Then my eyes swept across another one. Why, I don’t know. The inscription was faded, the letters worn down with age.
I came to a sudden halt.
And read it again.
The first name, which had been carved on the gravestone, was as common as could be. Jacob. A nice biblical name. The surname is what threw me, because it wasn’t common at all. In fact, I’d only met one person with that particular last name, and she wasn’t even from Moraine.
I read it again. Goodaller.
Jacob Goodaller.
Joan Goodaller.
What were the odds?
Thirty-eight
All kinds of bells went off. Literal ones, too. When I converted the old Lutheran church into The Wild Clover, I’d left the bell tower intact. The community had missed hearing the bell rung and requested that it be brought back to life, so I had the automatic controller repaired and set to ring twice each day—once at noon, and again at five in the afternoon. The five-o’clock bell sounded now.
As I stood staring at the inscription on the headstone, all kinds of thoughts went through my muddled mind.
One random piece of trivia came through. What was another name for a bell tower? A belfry. What did it mean to have bats in the belfry? Insanity. It was insane what my mind was coming up with.
I glanced upward, half expecting a whole colony of bats to take to the air.
The other bells going off weren’t dinner bells or jingle bells.
They were internal warning bells.
Hell’s bells.
Sweet, grandmotherly Joan, always on the periphery of every little crisis, pitching in wherever she was needed, quickly becoming part of our community. Widow Joan, dating divorced Al Mason. My customers and I thought they were a good match.
Part of me reasoned that the names were just a big coincidence and that if I asked Joan about it she would have an acceptable explanation. Maybe that’s why she wanted to be part of our community, because she’d had ancestors living in Moraine long ago. In fact, she might even say she’d been named after one of them.
That was reasonable, right?
Yet, she’d never mentioned a local connection, and we’d had quite a few chats together. Remembering back, some of our topics had even included local history. Wouldn’t that have come up then? She’d have had a perfect opportunity to share that connection. She could have said, “My great grandfather is buried in the cemetery right next to your store and his name was Jacob Goodaller.”
That would have been a perfectly normal response.
If it had been true. Which intuition told me it wasn’t. Had she been walking through this very cemetery while considering a move to Moraine? Had the name on the gravestone caught her attention? And later, she’d remembered it when she’d chosen an alias, moved to town, and . . . what? Why would she do that? And another glitch in my theory—Joan had never mentioned children, especially not a dead son. Wouldn’t that have come up?
It wasn’t much of a leap for me to wonder if “Joan Goodaller” could possibly be El
eanor Marciniak, the woman with a vendetta against Claudene Mason. After a few brief calculations, I deduced that she was the right age to be Buddy Marciniak’s mother. Eleanor Marciniak, who had been instrumental in the inquiry into her son’s death. Perhaps she was also known as Nemesis. And/or witch number thirteen.
That was a whole lot of aliases for one woman to have. One innocent woman, at least. Was I crazy to even be thinking this? Perhaps I was barking up the wrong tree (as Grams would put it in her endearing way). This had to be a coincidence, right?
I rushed back inside the store, relieved that my sister had finished up and taken off. I did an online search for Joan Goodaller and refined it by adding the keywords Milwaukee and Waukesha County. Geography didn’t matter, because when I expanded the search out from Wisconsin, the only name even close was Jane Goodall, famous for her life’s work studying chimps.
Carrie Ann was checking out a customer when I pounded up to her. My heart raced when I noticed it was Officer Sally Maylor, off duty and out of her cop uniform. Both of them turned and stared at me.
“What?” I asked, working at breathing normally.
“You look spooked,” Carrie Ann said.
Really? I looked that bad? “No, I’m perfectly fine. Um, Sally, can Al have visitors yet?”
Sally shook her head. “Not yet. Why? You want to visit Al?”
I considered sharing my crazy hypothesis with Sally, but it was complicated and would take a lot of time to explain, and she’d get Johnny Jay involved, and what if I was wrong?
I went the evasive route. “I’m helping with his animals and have a few questions about feeding them.”
“Can’t you ask Greg or Joan?”
“Um, it’s okay, I’ll manage.” Now what? I needed to ask Al one quick question.
And with that thought, something magical happened.
Sally said, “I can get you two on the phone, but you’ll only get a minute.”