The Curious Case of the Missing Figurehead: A Novel (A Professor and Mrs. Littlefield Mystery)

by Diane Noble

  “And you’d be right, but it’s a long story and it isn’t over yet.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Food and water and transportation. And a couple of aspirin would be lovely too. I’m also in need of a telephone—if you’ve got one I can borrow just to make one call.”

  The other woman opened her arms to give Hyacinth a hearty hug. “Welcome, dear. My name is Josie Mae Washington. My husband, Marshall, is the pastor and the one you hear preachin’ right now.”

  “Is it Sunday?”

  “It sure is, and a beautiful one too.”

  Hyacinth felt safe and at home. She wished she didn’t have to leave.

  “We can take care of the things you need. As for a phone, we don’t get much signal out here. Possum Grove’s not high on the telephone company’s list of folks deservin’ a close-by tower, we figure.”

  “Is there a landline?”

  “Oh goodness, no. We don’t even have a church office. Most folks just put up with a mobile phone that works about half the time.” She smiled. “But don’t you worry. I’ve got an old phone that sometimes gets one bar at the top of the cemetery. You can try it as soon as I find it.”

  “Thank you. It’s very important.” She looked around. “But if I do reach someone, I don’t even know where I am.”

  “Honey, you’ve arrived at Possum Grove Holy Ghost Revival Church. Possum Grove proper’s about four miles down the road.” Josie Mae gave her a curious look. “How’d you get here?”

  “I don’t know for certain. I just now woke up in your graveyard. My head hurts, and I think I was knocked out and dumped there. I need to catch the culprits, so I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  Josie Mae’s eyes widened considerably. “Lord, have mercy! Let’s see what we can do to help you out.” She motioned for Hyacinth to follow her. “Let’s get you that phone.”

  She opened a door off the entryway that led down some stairs to a basement. The room had tables and chairs to accommodate maybe twenty-five people. The smell of ham and baked beans wafted from a nearby kitchen, making Hyacinth’s mouth water.

  “Wait here just a minute,” Josie Mae said and hurried down a hallway. Seconds later, she returned and handed an older-model cell phone to Hyacinth. “It doesn’t work half the time. I need a new one anyway. So you can keep it.” She handed her a plug-in car charger, which Hyacinth placed in her pocket.

  Josie Mae then took Hyacinth into the kitchen, handed her a bottle of water, opened a cupboard, and grabbed a bottle of aspirin. She dropped two into Hyacinth’s outstretched hand.

  Without a word, she cut some thick slices off the ham and pulled some homemade rolls from the oven. She made sandwiches and placed them in a plastic container. Next she placed a half-dozen plastic bottles of water in a grocery bag and then dropped in the bottle of aspirin. “Just in case you need more,” she said, glancing up at Hyacinth.

  Hyacinth was touched by the kindness this woman offered to a complete stranger. A simple “thank you” seemed inadequate. She still wore the bangles on her arm and decided then and there where the next one would go.

  “I’d like to stay …,” Hyacinth began.

  “I know, honey, but somethin’ tells me you’re on a mission.”

  “I am.”

  “Then you must be hurrying along. Do you want to try the phone now? I’ll go with you and show you the spot we come closest to getting through.”

  They climbed the stairs to the ground level. The preacher was winding down as they climbed the hill to the cemetery.

  “Over here,” Josie Mae called. “Usually, I get a little something right here by Uncle Rufus.”

  Hyacinth followed her to a spot not far from where she’d spent the night. She flipped open the phone and smiled. A single bar. She moved the phone around to see if the signal strengthened. It didn’t.

  She closed her eyes, then punched in El’s cell number. El picked up on the first ring. “Hello.”

  “El, it’s me. It’s Hyacinth. Can you hear me?”

  Nothing.

  “El,” Hyacinth said louder, at the same time moving around and checking the bars on the phone. “El, it’s me. Don’t hang up,” Hyacinth yelled. “It’s me on a borrowed phone. El—!”

  The line went dead. Her shoulders drooped, and discouragement filled the place where hope had been.

  Josie Mae climbed higher up the hillside. “This spot by Grandpa Jones is always worth a try,” she said, and headed toward a large sycamore.

  Hyacinth trudged up the hillside behind her, reached the spot, and hit redial. This time the call went straight to voice mail. “El, if you can hear me, it’s Hyacinth. I’m in Possum Grove, trying to find the thieves. I was hiding out in the stolen truck but lost them. Run a check on N8724H. That’s ‘Nancy ate 724 hamburgers.’ It’s a rental truck. These guys are pawns. I’m trying to find out who they’re working for and get the figurehead away from them. I’ll try calling when I have a better signal.”

  The phone made no sign that the call had gone through. When she looked down at the phone, it showed the home screen, not the phone app. Had the call lasted long enough for El to get the message?

  She followed Josie Mae to the shed where she’d seen the bicycle. They stooped and examined the tires, looked at each other and smiled. “Not bad,” Josie Mae said. A tattered basket was strapped to the handlebars, which nicely accommodated her bag of sandwiches and bottles of water.

  Behind them, the congregation sang again, this time “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” It felt appropriate. She was ready for battle. She only hoped that El had received her message.

  “Wait here a minute,” Josie Mae said. She hurried off toward the front of the church. A few minutes later, she ran back with her pocketbook. “I want you to take these.” She opened the grocery bag in the bike’s basket and dropped in a few dollar bills. Then she gave Hyacinth a long, searching look. “I couldn’t help but overhear what you said to your friend. You take care now. It sounds like you could get yourself in a whole lot of trouble. I’ll hold you in my prayers.”

  “Thank you.”

  The congregation was still singing about Joshua. By now a number of tambourines had joined the organ, and it sounded as if folks were dancing in the aisles.

  “One more thing.” Hyacinth nearly had to shout to be heard above the music. “If you were a thief with ‘hot’ goods in a rental truck, which direction would you go?”

  Josie Mae gave it some thought. “Possum Grove is in the middle of nowhere. They must have picked this spot to drop you off because of that. If I were you, I’d head back through town to the interstate, and ask around with the description of the truck. Ask folks if they spotted it. Did you get a good look at it?”

  Hyacinth grinned. “Yes, I did. It’s a Coast to Coast truck with a picture of Yosemite on the side.”

  “How about the plates?” Josie raised her eyebrows. “Was that what you were trying to get across to your friend? That Nancy ate 724 hamburgers?”

  “You’re good,” Hyacinth said, grinning.

  “I’m about the only one in these parts who didn’t get a lick of musical talent when God was handin’ it out. So while the others are goin’ to choir practice or such, I read mysteries or watch whodunits on TV.”

  Hyacinth held her new friend’s gaze for a moment. “You’ve taken care of a stranger today,” she said. “I pray you’ll be blessed double for doing so.”

  Josie Mae nodded, her dark eyes shining. “I believe you would do the same.”

  With some effort, Hyacinth got herself up and onto the bicycle seat and headed in the direction Josie Mae advised. Her balance was wobbly at first, but she soon picked up speed and the ride became smoother. Not to mention more interesting than the stationary exercise bike she rode every morning.

  “Thank you,” she called back to Josie Mae, who waved an
d then returned to the little church.

  Now, to catch the thieves. Her mind raced with ideas of what she would do once she spotted the truck.

  She pondered the timetable as she pedaled. It had been evening when they caught her in the back of the truck. By the time they drove out to Possum Grove, it would have been after dark. They would probably have returned to the interstate and, she hoped, stopped at a motel for the night. And, she hoped, because it was Sunday, maybe gave themselves a later start and big breakfast.

  She pedaled faster, glad the road was smooth and flat, but kicking herself for not asking exactly how far it was to the interstate. She stopped every once in a while to check for a signal on the cell phone. There was none.

  Up ahead, the road turned wavy with a heat mirage. Strange, because it was still early and didn’t feel all that warm to her. Although she was getting warm due to the exertion, of course. She could have sworn she spotted the thieves’ truck up ahead, but it faded into a mirrorlike puddle. She pushed the thought from her mind, and instead concentrated on her pedaling.

  She found a comfortable speed and stuck to it, watching the scenery pass by. No other vehicles were on the road, probably because it was Sunday morning, and many of the people who lived in the area were in church. Which reminded her of her favorite way to calm her nerves. Singing. Loud and joyous, just because it was a beautiful day and she was alive to enjoy it.

  This wasn’t a day for “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar.” The singing at Possum Grove Holy Ghost Revival had put her in the mood for a different kind of singing altogether.

  As she pedaled along, she belted out all the verses she could remember to “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” and then moved on to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” It was so pleasing to feel the wind in her face and the sun on her shoulders that she moved right into “When We All Get to Heaven.”

  She was singing the last verse, pedaling in time with the beat of “Onward to the prize before us! Soon His beauty we’ll behold …” when a vehicle roared up behind her.

  She glanced over her shoulder. It was the rental truck, the two men in the cab and aiming straight for her. In her hurry to get over to the shoulder and out of their way, she lost her balance. She wobbled uncontrollably, and the front wheel of her bike hit a rock. She flew off the bike and landed with an undignified grunt in the dirt.

  Raising her head, she blinked as she stared down the road. The two thugs had exited their truck and were coming toward her. It looked like Lagasse was in the lead. And they were arguing.

  “I tell you,” Julia Child said, “this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. We were told to get rid of the woman, once and for all. And here you go, getting all soft on me. Sayin’ she reminds you of your grandma. You kiddin’ me?”

  Lagasse didn’t answer, but made a beeline for Hyacinth. “Maybe I just want to make sure we finish the job.”

  “Yeah, right,” Child said. “So, now that you found her, you gonna save her or do her in fer good?” He spat. “The boss is gonna have yer hide.”

  Lagasse shrugged and kept coming for her.

  “Soon the pearly gates will open,” Hyacinth sang in a whisper. “We shall tread the streets of gold.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Mrs. Littlefield

  Sunday morning, my eyes flew open before dawn. My brain had been working overtime while I slept. I loved it when that happened.

  Memories, ideas, plans marched into my consciousness, those of Hyacinth first in line. I remembered a book report she gave in ninth grade on the O. Henry story “The Ransom of Red Chief.” She laughed so hard she nearly fell on the floor while relating the story of a bratty and obnoxious ten-year-old boy whose kidnappers were so desperate to get rid of him they paid the boy’s father two hundred fifty dollars to take him back.

  She could be bratty and obnoxious if the circumstances called for it. I’d seen her in action.

  Hope soared. I wanted to jump up and down on my mattress, the way we did when we were kids, or at least laugh out loud. I chose the latter. If anyone was tenacious, it was Hyacinth. Always had been, always would be.

  The thieves’ plan was clever, but from my point of view, they hadn’t covered all contingencies. From what Enrique told us, Hyacinth launched herself into the back of the ambulance. The perpetrators had been taken by surprise or were powerless to stop her.

  Now to the thieves. I leaned back on my pillow and tapped the end of the pen on my chin. What if they nabbed Hyacinth at home? I considered it for a moment and made a note. We’d all assumed she’d met up with (per the sheriff) or been forced into, as I swore to be true, the “ring” at the library. What if evidence had been overlooked at her home?

  I sat upright and almost forgot to breathe. Holy cannoli. Had the thieves nabbed her in her garage? Sheriff Doyle had indicated they had seen no signs of a struggle, but some evidence might have been overlooked. And perhaps there were clues in her house or on the driveway that would lead me to Hyacinth, to the thieves, to the figurehead.

  I jumped out of bed. No way would I wait till morning to have a look. Finding Cinth was too important. I ran to the closet, grabbed some jeans and a sweatshirt, and threw them on. Slipping into my tennies, I flipped on the outside lights and raced out the door.

  As I drove to Hyacinth’s house, another idea marched into mind. The cabin. Who owned it? How was that owner related to the thieves? How would I find that out?

  It felt impossible. Sometimes I loved impossible. This was one of those moments.

  The county records office was closed on Sundays, but I could call a realtor in the area. Most worked weekends and had access to such information. First to come to mind was Mr. Hotshot Realtor whose photo was plastered on interstate billboards. I made a mental note to call him later.

  By the time I reached Hyacinth’s, the sky was turning a pinkish gray and the humidity was rising. I parked on the street behind a muscle truck, and left the headlights on for a moment as I took in the truck’s back end. A shotgun hung in the back window, and a couple of faded Confederate flag decals and a plethora of bumper stickers had been stuck haphazardly on the tailgate.

  I’d seen them before, and a few had imprinted themselves on my brain: I Love Jesus and Bluegrass Music; Tomato Whisperer; I Believe in America, God, and the Right to Bear Arms; and Keep Honking, I’m Reloading.

  The same Dodge Ram had been parked on Crab Apple Street just down from my house the morning Bubba and Junior helped Juan with the barbecue. Later that same afternoon, I noticed it in the Encore parking lot.

  It must belong to Bubba and Junior Sutherland. How did they fit into this increasingly complex puzzle? Nothing made sense. Yet here was their truck, parked in front of Hyacinth’s.

  No time like the present to find the pranksters and question them. So I marched across the street and did a search around the property. Nada.

  Hyacinth often asked me to watch her house when she traveled, so I knew where to find the hide-a-key. I stooped near the flower bed that ran along the side of the garage, opened the little fake river rock, and took out a key ring. The key I needed first was marked with diva-pink nail polish.

  The side door to the garage was just a few feet away. I would start there. In dire need of WD40, the lock took a few jangles and twists to get the key to work. Finally, it clicked and I pushed open the door.

  Immediately, two heads popped up from the opposite side of Hyacinth’s car.

  “So there you are,” I said with a note of triumph. “What’s going on?”

  Bubba and Junior started talking at the same time, each obscuring what the other was saying.

  I interrupted. “If you can’t tell me, maybe you’d rather talk to the sheriff.” Unfortunately, I’d left my handbag, and phone, in the car.

  They stood and sauntered over to me. No doubt about it, Bubba’s size was intimidating. The size of his neck and arms didn�
�t help. Neither did the tattoos. His brother wasn’t as big, but his sneer made up for it.

  Maybe they were indeed part of the ring of thieves and had been sent to clean up the crime scene. I had a flashback of how attentive they were when I asked Enrique to help me wire the Encore.

  “Okay, tell me what you’re doing here,” I said.

  “None of your business.” Junior adopted a cocky, intimidating look and stared at me belligerently.

  “So you two are in on this whole thing.” I was fishing, and I had the feeling they knew it.

  Bubba rolled his shoulder, and stood up taller. I backed up as he cracked his neck, flexed his muscles, and took a step toward me.

  “Stay where you are,” I growled. I don’t growl well at all, but I gave it my best shot.

  “What are you doing here?” Junior’s tone took on a singsong imitation of mine, which irked me to no end.

  “Okay, guys,” I said. “I’m serious about getting the sheriff in on this. You had the opportunity to use the ipecac. You were in the right place at the right time. And now here you are, cleaning up the crime scene.” I was fishing, but I needed to see their reaction. “If you won’t tell me, maybe you’ll tell the authorities. Who are you working for?”

  “Can’t say.” Junior slumped his shoulders again.

  “What’s ipy … kak?” Bubba looked at his brother, who raised his brows and shrugged.

  “So we’re busted,” Junior said. “Go ahead. Make our day.”

  “Just remember,” Bubba said, “everything you say is circumstantial.”

  “Trespassing isn’t,” I snapped. “You’ve been caught in the act. At a crime scene. And, I might add that at the very least, you’re fired.”

  The boys looked at each other and laughed. “Fired from what?” Junior couldn’t keep the giggle out of his voice. “Your nothing company? Do you know what everyone is saying about you now? The Butler Did It is gone. It’s a joke, and you’re the laughing stock around town. No one will hire you in a million years.”