The Mystery Sisters series Box Set

by Karen Musser Nortman

“We need to find something here to use so you won’t cut your hand.”

  They rummaged through the pile and Garth came up with a crowbar.

  “That’ll work.” Trevor grabbed a rag out of the pile as well.

  He wrapped the boy’s hand with the rag and positioned his sunglasses on Garth’s face. Annie stood by wringing her hands. “Be careful, Trevor, okay?”

  Trevor nodded and picked Garth up under the arms so that he would not be below the section of window he was breaking. Garth looked up at Trevor and grinned.

  “Now?”

  “Now.” Trevor guided Garth’s arm with a gentle swing. The first swing was a little too gentle, but they got it on the second try. Trevor set Garth back on his feet and took the rag to remove the protruding pieces of glass. He stuck his head out the opening, looked down, and turned back to the group.

  “It’s a bit of a drop but not bad. There’s a ledge below the window that I can stand on. Would a couple of you help me get through this feet first?”

  Two of the younger men stepped forward. With a lot of grunts and oofs, they finally got Trevor through on his stomach so that he could find the ledge with his feet and still cling to the window edge. The ground was only about five or six feet below the ledge. He let go, landed with a loud grunt, and gingerly got to his feet.

  Max stuck her head out the window. “You okay?”

  He brushed himself off and looked up at her. “My ankle might be a little sore tonight but I’m fine. I should have you all out in a jiffy.” He hobbled toward the nearest corner of the building.

  Chapter Five

  that he did. In less than five minutes, they could hear the heavy bar being lifted from the entry door. Trevor held the door open while the rest rushed through. Lil turned her face up to the sun, welcoming its rays even after such a short confinement.

  Max joined her. “I don’t think that was an accident. Too much has been going on.”

  Lil said, “Usually you are too hasty to jump to conclusions, but in this case, you may be right. Someone is organized enough to devise that float in the parade this morning and know our schedule for the afternoon. That’s pretty scary.”

  “I’m going to skip the school tour and see what’s happening at Barney’s. Bob said that’s a good place to pick up the local scuttlebutt.”

  Lil raised an eyebrow. “Care if I join you?”

  “Not at all. I’m going to run out to Carol’s first and check on Rosie.”

  Sharon and Carol said they would stop at the jail to see Donnie.

  On their way back to town, Max had Lil fish a black chiffon scarf out of her glovebox.

  “What are you going to do with this?” Lil held it up.

  “We need disguises—not much because we haven’t been around for so long. If you want the scarf, I have a little golf hat.”

  Lil considered as Max pulled a yellow fabric hat out of her door pocket. It must be the brightest thing in her wardrobe, Lil thought. “I’ll definitely take the scarf,” she said. “Where in the world did you get that hat?”

  “I won it in a golf tournament.”

  “You don’t play golf.”

  “I did once about fifteen years ago in a money raiser for the Botany Department scholarship fund. I won that hat.”

  Lil laughed. “Highest score?”

  “Most lost balls.”

  Lil arranged the scarf over her hair and then wrapped it around her neck.

  Sort of an Audrey Hepburn look, Max thought. She crammed the yellow hat over her own gray bob.

  Max surveyed Barney’s as they entered. A typical small-town bar just at the edge of scruffy and dingy. Music played under the Saturday afternoon voices, but Max couldn’t identify it. She and Lil took seats at the end of the bar. Her hat garnered several amused looks, but no one indicated recognition or even much interest in their presence. She ordered a Coors Lite and Lil asked for a glass of white wine.

  Max raised her eyebrows. “Any white wine?”

  “It doesn’t look like a place you could be picky.”

  “True.”

  They sipped their drinks in silence, not being antisocial but trying to eavesdrop on other conversations. Most seemed to be a discussion of sports or the farm outlook. Lil tilted her head toward a group behind her in a booth, and gave Max a look. They both concentrated on the men’s voices.

  “Cec Ridley ain’t gonna give up until he gets some money out of them Jacobsens,” one said.

  Another gave a loud laugh. “He’s dreamin’.”

  “They don’t want publicity, that’s for sure. Why d’ya think Dutch is dead?”

  “I heard they got Donnie Jacobsen for it.”

  “Huh. There’s plenty of others who weren’t happy with Dutch.”

  “My wife says Junie Coonley worried about what he was gonna put in his book about her.”

  “I bet she did. Gotta go. See you guys later.”

  Chairs scraped, goodbyes were exchanged, and doors slammed.

  “Well,” Max said in a low voice. “Might be something there. Junie Coonley? Buzz Coonley’s little sister?”

  “Not so little any more.” The bartender wiped the bar in front of them and waggled his eyebrows.

  Both women jumped at the sound of his voice.

  “Sorry.” Now he winked at them. “Shouldn’t have been eavesdropping.”

  Max thought he referred to them. “We weren’t. I should say, we didn’t mean to.”

  “I meant me,” he said. “Can I get you refills?”

  Lil stood up and laid a five on the bar. “No, thanks. We need to be going.”

  Max laid a hand on Lil’s arm. “Wait a minute.” She turned to the bartender. “Do you know if Pete Murphy still lives in town?”

  “Pete Murphy lives in a trailer out by the lake.”

  “Okay, thanks.” She laid a couple of bills on the bar and led the way back into the sunshine.

  Once outside, Lil said, “Pete Murphy? Donnie’s old friend?”

  “That’s who he was with last night after Sharon dropped him at the motel. Pete and J.P. Prentiss is all he can remember, and he’s not real sure about that. But he said they were drinking out at the lake and he fell asleep in the grass. We need to talk to Pete and J.P.—I’m pretty sure J.P’s still around too.”

  “Maybe they’ll be at the picnic tomorrow?”

  “Maybe. Otherwise we can run out to the lake after the picnic and see if we can find Pete.”

  By the time they returned to Annie’s house, the rest of the family had as well.

  “Did you see Donnie?” Lil asked Carol and Sharon.

  “Yes,” Carol said. “He’s still feeling sorry for himself, but his lawyer is supposed to come by about 6:00. He asked us again about bail. We could—”

  Max shook her head. “I know it’s late in the game, but we’ve got to stop enabling him. We’ll look at bail tomorrow after he’s seen the lawyer. Maybe more information will come out by then on who really did kill Dutch.”

  Max and Lil were about to share what they had overheard at the bar when the doorbell rang.

  Paige raced to the door, shouting, “I’ll get it!” She opened the door and yelled “Whoa!”

  “Who is it?” Annie called.

  “The cops!” Paige entered the kitchen waving her hands like she was leading a parade. The sheriff, a man of medium height, a slight belly, and round face topped by wispy tufts of blond hair, followed.

  He smiled. “That’s quite a reception.”

  Annie wiped her hands on a towel and greeted him. “Sheriff, I’m sorry. I just assumed it was another family member.” She gestured to the group in the kitchen. “We’re having a family reunion this weekend.”

  “So I gathered, and I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk to—” he looked around, “—the adults, if I may?”

  “Sure,” Annie said. She looked around the room and spotted Kim and Ernie’s daughter. “Chelsea, would you take the kids in and put a video on for them? Paige and Garth
will show you where they are.”

  Chelsea frowned, but nodded and herded the young ones toward the living room.

  Max assumed she was not happy about missing out on the murder talk, or whatever the sheriff was there for.

  Sharon pulled out a chair at the table. “Sit, please, Sheriff. Would you like some coffee?”

  “That would be great.” He laid his hat on the table. As if by plan, Max, Lil, Carol, and Sharon took other chairs at the table and the others perched on the bar stools or leaned against the cabinets. Annie brought the sheriff a mug of coffee along with a spoon, sugar, and creamer. She sat in the last chair at the table.

  There was a lot of shifting and throat-clearing while the sheriff added sweetener to his coffee and stirred. He aligned his spoon along side his mug and looked around the room.

  “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Sheriff John Burns. It sounds to me like you’ve had more excitement at this reunion than you planned?”

  Several nodded, and Ernie blurted, “What about Donnie?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute. First, Trevor Jasper called me. You folks had a little trouble at the old plant?”

  Annie said, “It might have been an accident—”

  The sheriff shook his head. “Trevor didn’t think so. He said that bar has to be lifted and put in place. Now, that smells like more of a prank than an attempt to actually harm anyone. Then my deputy, Specs Johnson, told me about the float in the parade this morning. And all that after we find your brother asleep in a murder victim’s car. So, who wants to tell me what’s going on?”

  Annie started to speak, but Max held up her hand. “To sum it up, Sheriff, we don’t know. Obviously there’re still bad feelings about the closing of our father’s business, but for heaven’s sake—that was forty years ago. Carol is the only one who still lived here at the time, and she wasn’t involved in the business. I’m sure you know better than us whether this is a widespread vendetta or a few disgruntled souls.”

  He raised his eyebrows and leaned back to look at her. “Disgruntled? Disgruntled may have locked you in the plant or hung your father in effigy, but disgruntled doesn’t commit murder.”

  “Are you sure they’re connected?” Lil asked.

  “We’re not sure of anything. If your brother is responsible for Dutch Schneider’s murder, there could very well be a connection.”

  “Our brother has been known to be lazy, irresponsible, and immature, but I guarantee you he’s not a murderer,” Carol said.

  “Then why isn’t the family willing to post bail?”

  Max folded her hands and fixed the sheriff with an icy stare. “Our brother has an alcohol problem. If he didn’t, he would know where he spent last night and be able to provide an alibi. We have ‘bailed him out’ a number of times when he gets in financial trouble, and this time we’re trying to impress on him that he needs to start taking responsibility for himself. I have a question for you. We have heard rumors that there were several others in town who won’t miss Dutch Schneider. Do you know anything about that?”

  He looked skeptical. “Can you give me names?”

  She faltered and examined her fingernails. “Well, no.”

  “Julie Coonley!” Lil blurted.

  The eyebrows went up again. “Junie?”

  Lil nodded. “That’s it. Junie. You know her?”

  “She’s the town mayor,” Carol said quietly.

  “Aha!” Lil slapped the table. “Did she have a beef with Dutch?”

  Burns shook his head. “Really can’t say.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” Max asked.

  “Max!” Carol put her hand on her sister’s shoulder and gave her a stern look.

  Max sighed and rolled her eyes but said no more.

  Lil snapped her fingers. “Sheriff, we also heard that Cecil Ridley thinks we owe him money. He moved the rope that Annie put up this morning to save our parade seats, even though lots of others had saved spots with lawn chairs. Have you talked to him?”

  He sighed. “I hardly think that’s in the same category with these other—um—actions. Getting back to the incident at the plant—have there been any threats toward your family?”

  Max said, “Our father was hung in effigy. You don’t consider that a threat?”

  The sheriff ignored her.

  “Carol or Annie would have to answer that. None of the rest of us maintain much contact with the community any more, right?” Lil looked around at the rest. No one spoke.

  “I’ve never heard of any threats,” Carol said. “It’s always just been a few dirty looks or veiled comments.”

  Annie nodded agreement.

  “Tell me where you all were last night and early this morning. Normally, I would interview you individually, but we don’t have the manpower or time this weekend with a murder and the Festival going on.”

  “That’s simple, Sheriff. We were all out at Carol and Bob’s last night for a potluck supper. Most people left between nine and ten,” Max said.

  “Donnie Jacobsen was there?”

  “Most definitely,” Sharon said. “We took him back to his motel about 10:00 and left his truck at the farm. He was in no shape to go anywhere else.”

  “But apparently he did,” Sheriff Burns said. “How about the rest of you this morning?”

  “We were all at the parade,” Max said. “Then back here for pizza, and then the tour of the plant. I went down to visit Donnie while they were having pizza.”

  “Okay.” He got up and set his coffee mug on the counter. “Thank you for your time.”

  Lil got up and blocked the sheriff’s way to the door. “What about Donnie? We heard Dutch was killed with a piece of antenna. Were Donnie’s fingerprints on it?”

  Sheriff Burns hesitated and finally said, “It had been wiped clean.”

  “That’s very important. Like Sharon said, we didn’t think he was in any shape to go anywhere, but apparently some of his buddies came by and picked him up. But no way could he have thought far enough ahead to wipe his fingerprints off a murder weapon.”

  Burns shrugged. “It’s an open investigation.” He took out a notepad. “Do you know the names of the friends who picked him up?’’

  Carol gave him the names.

  He wrote them down. “All right. Remember, we are still checking all leads.”

  “That’s all we ask,” Lil said. She walked the sheriff to the door and closed it behind him.

  Bob looked at Max and Lil. “Where did you ladies pick up this info about our esteemed mayor?”

  Lil looked blank a moment. “Oh! You mean Julie—er Junie—Coonley? We stopped at Barney’s after we checked on Rosie. A bunch of guys in a booth behind us were not quiet about their suspicions. They talked about that Cecil, too.”

  “What did they say about Donnie? Anything?”

  “They kind of brushed that off. Mentioned that Cecil wanted a big payoff from us—made it sound like blackmail, maybe,” Max said. “Then someone said he heard Junie was afraid Dutch had something about her in his book.”

  Bob brushed his thinning hair back. “There’ve been rumors that she and Dutch were having an affair.”

  “Why would he have written about that? Was he planning to leave town and didn’t care what people thought?”

  Bob shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  “There’s a lot we don’t know if we’re going to help Donnie,” Max said. “Like where are these documents about the sales of Jacobsen Antenna that he supposedly had, and where’s the manuscript for his book?”

  Sharon laughed. “What, Max—are you a detective now?”

  “She’s right,” Lil said. “We don’t know anything about this attorney Ted Larsen recommended, and I doubt if the sheriff’s department has much experience in investigating murders.”

  Dirk said, “The only ones I can remember in the last ten years were either bar fights or domestic issues. Pretty cut and dried.”

  “It won’t hurt to do a little investigating
on our own,” Max said. “Annie? Supper is at 5:30?”

  “Yes, at the VFW. You remember where that is?”

  “I do if it hasn’t moved.” Max looked at Lil. “I need to change clothes. You?”

  “Definitely,” Lil said getting up. “I have three outfits I haven’t worn yet.”

  Carol said, “We’ll be along soon, too.”

  Max had changed and was waiting for the others on the patio, giving Rosie the attention she demanded, when her cell phone rang.

  “Max?” A woman’s voice, harsh and accusing.

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “It’s Janet, of course. What’s going on with Donnie?”

  Max took a deep breath. Donnie’s wife. Not an easy woman to deal with in the best of circumstances, and this situation fell far short of that. Rosie sensed the tension, got up from her sprawl in the shade, and put her head in Max’s lap. Max tried to explain as succinctly as possible what had occurred.

  “What are you doing about it? Did you get him a lawyer?”

  “Yes, we did, Janet, but it’s the weekend and I don’t know if he has seen Donnie yet. He’s from Prairie City. Are you coming over?” Donnie and Janet lived in Milwaukee.

  “Well, no, of course not. I’m very busy. There should be plenty of you there to get this taken care of.”

  Somehow it didn’t feel like a vote of confidence.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I imagine Donnie would appreciate your support.”

  “I would appreciate his support and I never seem to get it.”

  “I understand, but that’s not the issue right now, is it?”

  “Just keep me informed.” She was gone.

  Max sat staring at the phone as Bob helped Carol out the door. Carol read the anger on her sister’s face.

  “Who was that?”

  “Our favorite sister-in-law.”

  “Janet? Must be since she’s also your only sister-in-law. She what—wants to pay for Donnie’s lawyer? Is putting up bail? Is rushing right over to be by her husband’s side?”

  Max gave a humorless laugh. “We must not be talking about the same person.”

  Bob rubbed his hands together. “Should I go punch her in the face?”