The Possum Hollow Hullabaloo (The Penelope Pembroke Cozy Mystery Series)

by Nickles, Judy

  “Mornin’, Nellie.”

  She glanced up at Jake, standing in the door of the hall leading to his apartment, looking spiffy in a light blue and white pinstripe shirt. Snowflakes fell over a darker blue tie. “Sam’s gone.” Tossing the note on the table, she rose and headed for the coffee maker.

  “Thought he was going to be here through Christmas.”

  “So did I.”

  “Maybe he’ll get back. It’s still four days away.”

  “I don’t know, Daddy. What do you want for breakfast?”

  The phone rang before he could answer. “The police found the girls early this morning. Tonya called a few minutes ago.”

  “Oh, Mary Lynn, are they all right?”

  “They’re being checked out at the hospital right now.”

  “Where were they?”

  “In an abandoned warehouse near the railroad tracks.”

  “Do the police know…”

  “Nobody knows anything right now. At least, that’s what Tonya gave me to understand. She said she’ll call back later.”

  “I’m so relieved.”

  “How do you think Harry and I feel? We went over to the church last night to pray and ran into Fr. Loeffler. We talked a long time, and then he told us to stay as late as we wanted to. We were there until almost midnight.”

  “St. Anthony came through.”

  “With bells on.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Wait for Tonya to call. If she gives us the go-ahead, we’ll drive up this morning and stay through Christmas.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  “Absolutely. Talk to you later.”

  “They found the little girls?” Jake asked when Penelope hung up.

  She gave him the gist of what Mary Lynn had said.

  “Do you think that has anything to do with why Sam took off?”

  “No idea. I’m just glad they’re safe, and Jeremiah Hadden’s locked up. Surely no judge will release him now for any amount of money.”

  “We can always hope. So what do you want for breakfast?”

  ****

  On the way to the Garden Market, Penelope ran into the library to tell Shana about Ellie and Evie. “Now I’ve got a bombshell for you,” Shana said when Penelope finished.

  “I saw that Snively character going into the newspaper office about an hour ago, and as far as I know, he hasn’t come out.”

  “Hal probably threw him in the dumpster out back,” Penelope said, smiling at the mental image.

  “That may be where he belongs, but I don’t think that’s where he is. He wasn’t alone.”

  “No?”

  “Some guy in a business suit went in with him.”

  “Well, at least he didn’t disrupt the Christmas program. With everything that’s happened, I haven’t had time to properly appreciate what a rousing success it was.”

  “Oh, it was. Tabby loved it. She said it was almost as good as the program at her school.”

  “High praise. Are you going to spend Christmas in Little Rock?”

  “I’m going up Christmas Eve, but I’ll stay in a hotel.”

  “Right—you can’t afford to give those sleazy in-laws any fuel for the fire.”

  “Ex-in-laws.” Shana sighed and straightened a stack of date-due cards on the scarred circulation desk. “But they’re Tabby’s grandparents, after all.”

  “You and Peter just need to get married.”

  “I’m getting a ring for Christmas. We picked it out last week-end, but it had to be sized.”

  “That’s wonderful, Shana!”

  “I don’t know. If it causes trouble for him with those people…”

  “He has a right to move on with his life.”

  “I know that, and you know that, but they don’t.”

  “They wouldn’t care what he did if he’d give Tabby to them.”

  “He’d die first. I recognized the Gray Ghost at the program. Is he…”

  “Gone again. He says he’ll try to be back for Christmas, but it might be easier if he just stayed away.”

  “You’re crazy for him, aren’t you?”

  Penelope nodded before she thought. “But if you say I said so, I’ll murder you, and tell God you just disappeared.”

  ****

  Elbert Hadden avoided her eyes when Penelope began to browse the produce. “I see you, Bert” she said, moving closer to where he was spraying down the carrots. “I’m not mad at you.”

  He nodded without looking at her.

  “The story about Jeremiah Hadden was on the news this morning. It didn’t mention the little girls.” She watched to see if he showed any surprise. He didn’t. “I wonder how he knew which direction to head?”

  Elbert’s hand faltered on the sprayer between the carrots and the cucumbers.

  “But you know, don’t you?”

  “I wish I didn’t know half of what I do,” he mumbled. “I thought I got out of there.”

  “The Hollow? You did.”

  “Not really. Nobody gets out completely.”

  “Why don’t you get a transfer away from Amaryllis? The boys are still young enough to adjust well somewhere else.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t.”

  He shrugged.

  “Well, Merry Christmas, Bert.”

  He didn’t reply.

  ****

  After Penelope put away the groceries, she decided to take the gifts from the closet under the stairs and arrange them around the tree in the parlor. By the time Jake added his, and Bradley and Rosabel brought their load, the pile would be embarrassingly large. Abijah followed her out of the kitchen and curled around her ankles as she fiddled with the latch on the closet. But when the opened the door and reached to pull the light string, the big orange tabby hissed and shot up the stairs.

  Penelope’s skin crawled, and her hand froze in mid-air. She backed away, letting the door swing shut, and flew up the stairs behind Abijah. In her room, with the door locked, she called Bradley’s private number and told him about the closet.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said, trying not to sound as panicked as she felt. “I don’t know what it is, but Abijah sensed it, and I didn’t even turn on the light.”

  “I’m on my way, Mother. Where are you?”

  “Locked in my bedroom.”

  “Where’s Pawpaw?”

  “Still uptown with the Toneys as far as I know.”

  “Then stay put, and I’ll be there.”

  She realized her mouth felt dry, and her palms were clammy. She began to pace, stopping occasionally to look out the window. When she saw Bradley’s official car coming down the street, she unlocked the door and started down the hall. She could hear him using his key in the front door and waited as his footsteps echoed in the foyer. The closet door creaked. Then she heard him yell, “Mother!”

  Her feet barely touched the stairs. “What?”

  He grabbed her arm and shoved her through the front door and toward the street. Without her coat, the breeze went through her. “Bradley, what’s going on?” She watched him punching in numbers on his phone. The word dynamite turned her chilled body into a block of ice.

  Almost immediately, sirens filled the quiet neighborhood. “Closet under the stairs,” Bradley said to the fire chief. “It’s connected to the string hanging down from the light bulb.”

  “How many sticks?”

  “I counted six.”

  “Abijah’s in there!” Penelope shrieked.

  Bradley grabbed her arm as she turned toward the house. “I saw Pawpaw’s truck in front of the café as I left the PD.”

  “But Abijah…”

  Bradley steered her toward the patrol car and put her in the back seat. She rolled down the window and heard the chief telling the other four firemen to fan out to the houses on either side and behind the B&B. “Get ‘em all out, and then we’ll go in.”

  Penelope sat in the patrol car, her teeth chatterin
g more with terror than with cold. Craning her neck to see out the rear window, she observed Rosabel in uniform setting up a roadblock at the intersection. In front of her, a state police vehicle turned horizontally to block access, and a trooper emerged, bullhorn in hand.

  Hysteria rose in her throat, but she began to giggle. You don’t need that thing. This place is so small you could stand on any corner and yell, and half the town would hear you.

  Ed Biggs removed his chief’s helmet and put on another one with a protective face covering. His heavy regulation coat flapped open revealing a padded chest protector. She thought of his wife and four teenagers and wanted to scream at him not to go inside. The house—even Abijah—wasn’t worth a man’s life.

  She stuck her head out the window. “Bradley…”

  He waved her off and followed Ed as far as the front steps. After a hasty conference, Ed mounted the steps to the porch and didn’t hesitate before walking inside. Penelope buried her face in her hands. Then, feeling like a coward, she lifted her face and noticed her neighbors, now routed from their homes, being herded past the barrier Rosabel had set up. Her heart turned over as a state trooper practically carried old Mrs. Putnam away from the home she’d come to as a bride seventy-odd years before.

  Penelope was sure she didn’t breathe again until Ed emerged and signaled to Bradley. They spoke briefly, then fanned out to impart their conversation to the other firefighters. Bradley went to speak to Rosabel before he came to the car. “It was a dud, Mother. No blasting caps. Ed’s going to bring out the dynamite sticks.”

  “Oh, Bradley, he’s got four kids at home!”

  “The dynamite’s not going to go off, Mother. He’s made sure of that. He knows how to handle explosives since the city sent him to that training class over in Little Rock three years ago. He didn’t think he needed to go at the time, but now he’s glad he did.”

  “Why would somebody want to blow up the B&B? And me?”

  “Nobody wanted to blow you up. They just wanted to scare you.”

  “A Hadden?”

  “Probably, but I can’t figure out what his connection with Jeremiah is.”

  “Just that he’s a Hadden.”

  “Well, there’s that, but he’s after something else. Listen, we’re going to go through the whole house, but I doubt we’ll find anything.”

  “Can I go back inside? I’m freezing.”

  “I’ll get Rosabel to take you to the station.”

  “I’d rather go inside.”

  “I’ll come get you as soon as I’ve checked things out. Be a sport.”

  “A sport? And by the way, why did Abijah take off as soon as I opened the door?”

  “Cats have sensitive noses. Ed described the odor in the closet as dead possum. The guy had probably been hunting before he came in the house.”

  “How did he get in?”

  “I’ll look for that, too.”

  Rosabel walked up. “Come on, Penelope. Let me take you somewhere warm.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  If you know everything, then why don’t you know about this, and why haven’t you called to make sure I’m in one piece? Penelope circled her bedroom, stopping to peer around the edge of the drapes of the window, hoping that Sam would be leering up at her from the graveled driveway. When a second look convinced her he wasn’t there, she jerked back the bedcover and crawled in. That dynamite didn’t blow up the house, but it sure exploded my Christmas spirit, what I had of it anyway.

  The phone rang beside her bed. “Just checking on you one more time,” Mary Lynn said.

  Penelope swallowed her disappointment that the late-night caller wasn’t Sam. “I’m okay.”

  “Tonya Cisneros called earlier with an update on the girls. They’re back in the foster home.”

  “Are you and Harry driving up?”

  “No, she decided it wasn’t a good idea.”

  “Did she tell you why they ran away—assuming she knows?”

  “Ellie wouldn’t tell her anything, and Evie told her they decided to go home.”

  “Home as in Possum Hollow.”

  “Just home. Evie didn’t know, of course.”

  “As long as they’re all right.”

  “They checked out physically—cold and hungry but otherwise unscathed.”

  “Maybe Ellie would talk to you.”

  “I suggested that, but Tonya thought not. But she confirmed she had us recertified as foster parents. Listen, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “If somebody doesn’t blow me up first.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “’Night, Mary Lynn.”

  Penelope hung up the phone and punched her pillow a couple of times. It had taken Bradley and Ed a couple of hours to check out the house, so she assumed they’d done a thorough job of it. But if the unknown Hadden had managed to get in to plant the dynamite, he could get in again. She turned over and switched off the lamp. Abijah slithered up from the foot of the bed and purred for the first time since the scare. I’ll get the locks changed after Christmas and see how expensive a security system would be. And I’m going to buy a gun. I know Daddy has his pistol, but I need one I can get to. I should’ve done it a year ago.

  The sound of footsteps in the hall brought her bolt upright. “Sam?” Her voice came out as a whisper.

  Someone tapped on the door, then opened it. “Nell?”

  Her feet hit the floor, and she didn’t even reach for her robe before she flung herself into his arms. “Oh, Sam, I’m so glad you’re here!”

  His arms tightened around her like a vise. “I heard what happened.”

  “I don’t even care how you heard. I’m just glad you’re here.”

  He walked her back to the bed. Abijah jumped off and stalked to the love seat. “I’m glad I’m here, too.”

  “Have you talked to Bradley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know the dynamite wasn’t set to go off.”

  “It could still have been dangerous.”

  “Oh?”

  “Explosives aren’t anything to mess around with.” He laid her back on the pillow and stretched out beside her on top of the quilt.

  “Mary Lynn called. Ellie isn’t telling why she and Evie ran off. Are you back to stay a while?”

  “Maybe until the twenty-sixth. Did you buy me a present?”

  “Should I have?”

  “You couldn’t resist, I bet.”

  Penelope thought of the cashmere pullover she’d found on sale in Little Rock, blue like the color of his eyes. “I have plenty of willpower,” she murmured, avoiding his lips.

  “I’m not irresistible?”

  Oh, Sam, if you only knew… She tingled as his lips worked their way from her temple back to her mouth. “Do you know what’s going on with all this?”

  “With all what?”

  “Well, it just looks like a simple case of murder. You know, Jeremiah killed his wife, and the girls saw it, and…”

  He turned over on his back. “Murder is never simple. It’s not an open and shut case.”

  “I wasn’t making light of it. I just wondered if something else is going on.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, something like was going on at Pembroke Point.” She propped herself on one elbow and tried to see his face.

  “Things are going on everywhere.” Sam sat up. “I’m going to bed.”

  Disappointment replaced the cozy tingle she’d experienced lying close to him. “Goodnight then.”

  “Unless, of course…”

  “Goodnight, Sam.”

  She listened to him walk down the hall and heard the door of the front room close a little more firmly than necessary.

  I wanted you to stay, Sam, but not to…well, maybe to… She buried her face in the pillow. If I died tonight, I’d probably go to Hell just for thinking what I’m thinking

  ****

  After breakfast the next morning, Sam helped her carry the wrapped pr
esents from the closet under the stairs into the parlor and arrange them around the base of the lighted tree. “Dead possum,” she said. “That’s what Ed Biggs, our fire chief, called the smell.” She sniffed the air. “Maybe I should rewrap everything.”

  “I don’t smell anything.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  She sat back on her heels. “All right then.”

  “I guess you and Jake are going to Mass later.”

  “We always do.”

  “And again on Christmas Eve.”

  “That’s tomorrow night.”

  He gave her a hand up. “I know.”

  “Sam…”

  His eyes locked with hers.

  “Never mind.”

  “I’m going to drive over to Little Rock while you’re gone, but I’ll be back for supper.”

  “The dynamite wasn’t even set to go off. Somebody just put it in there to scare me. But what I don’t understand is what he thinks he’s going to accomplish.”

  “You’ll have to testify against Archie.”

  “Yes, but…you think that’s all it is?”

  “That’s enough.”

  “Is it? Miss Maude can testify, too, but she hasn’t been bothered.”

  Sam shrugged.

  “And another thing, what was somebody doing with dynamite? It’s not that easy to get hold of, is it?”

  “Steal it, maybe.” Sam’s mouth twisted. “You ever hear about any mining operations out in the Hollow?”

  Penelope laughed. “Not unless they were trying to blow a hole in the side of a mountain to hide a still. But Brad mentioned some old stories about silver mines. Talk to him.”

  “I will.” He kissed her cheek. “You be good and go to Mass, and I’ll be good and busy elsewhere.”

  ****

  “Daddy, did anyone ever do any mining around here?” Penelope stopped at the edge of the church parking lot and looked both ways.

  Jake narrowed his eyes. “Mining was how Possum Hollow got started, or so the story goes.”

  “You’re kidding me!”

  “No, I heard it all my life.”

  “Does Bradley know?”

  “He knew the story about the old silver mines, so I guess so. It wasn’t a big operation, and the miners who didn’t move on just stayed put.”