She’ll Stitch You Up

by B K Baxter

  “Yeah, mother nature sure played a hand in this.”

  “Maybe I should make a piece for her too?” Ethel gave a chuckle.

  Velma was happy they were getting along. “Are you still mad at me, Eth?”

  “If I stayed mad at you every time you did something to make me angry, I’d be mad forever. You aren’t the easiest person to live with, but then, neither am I, and I’m glad we have each other. The evening wasn’t all bad. There are still two pieces of pie in the fridge.” She waggled her brows.

  “Maybe I’ll have breakfast after all.” She put the board aside and got to her feet.

  “Sorry I fed your breakfast to Miss Vicky.”

  “Not half as sorry as you’ll be when you clean out the litter box. I hear eggs really do a number on cats. Gasses them up the same way it does humans.” She didn’t know if that was true or not, but neither did Ethel.

  Ethel’s face fell. “Well, let’s hope Miss Vicky has a stronger stomach.”

  Velma took out the box with their pie and grabbed two forks from the drawer before returning to the table. “I’ll even let you have the bigger slice.” She passed Ethel a fork.

  “I think it’s time we forget about this case for a day. The police are still investigating, and with any luck, they’ll solve the crime, and things can go back to the way they were.”

  “That might be okay for you, but I have a reputation to uphold.”

  “Your reputation is for getting in trouble and sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “That’s not entirely true. I’m pretty well known for my charitable contributions, and the chief did give me credit for helping with the last case. I’m clearly moving up in social circles. My sister even went on a date with the richest man in town.”

  Ethel’s eyes widened. “You know, now that you put it that way, I guess that’s true. He is the richest now that Everett is dead.” She made a face. “That’s really morbid, isn’t it?”

  Velma took a bite of her pie. “Yes, and I wonder who is going to inherit all of Everett’s money and estate. Reeves deserves it, but when it comes to the business, I’m not sure he would know how to run it.” The old man didn’t look like he knew the first thing about the oil industry.

  “What would he do with a big house even? Sell it?” Ethel wished she could afford such a house and thought maybe they’d turn it into a resort or something. Maybe Harrison would buy it. If so, she’d never be able to go there again.

  “Probably. He must feel weird with no one to look after.” Velma wondered if he had kicked Alice out of the house. She still wanted to question the woman.

  She took a post-it from the pad and placed it on the board. “This is our ‘still need to question’ list.” She jotted down the mayor’s name and Alice.

  “If you want to go question him, you’re doing it alone,” said Ethel. “I’m not spending a night in jail with you for breaking that restraining order.”

  Velma eased back in her chair and took another bite of pie. “I’m just making notes, Ethel. Something’s got to ring a bell sooner or later.”

  “Well, you can spend your day dwelling on this all you want. I’m going to sit in my chair and watch out the window while I crochet until the news at noon comes on.”

  “Boy, Ethel, you sure know how to have a good time. I will be in here doing something useful with my time.” They ate the rest of their pie in silence, both content with their plans to stay in.

  Chapter 24

  By lunchtime, news had spread about Everett’s death and Ray’s arrest, though the media did keep his name out of it, only saying that one person was in custody.

  Ethel stared at the TV, shaking her head. “So much for keeping it a secret.”

  “Nothing the richest man in town does could be kept secret for long. And I’m sure they had to announce his death to his employees. It was only fair to do so.” Ethel wondered how the announcement had gone and if the plants would stay fully operational or shut down for a day out of respect. Knowing how much money would be lost, she doubted they’d close.

  “It just makes it seem all the more real now, Velma. I mean, there’s no denying it’s big news, and we were there. I bet if the guest list gets leaked, the media will come and want to talk to us. I should make sure my new dress doesn’t smell like that Dirty Shirley.” She moved her crochet from her lap and got to her feet.

  “Calm down, Ethel. I doubt they’ll bother us. We’re nobodies. I doubt anyone would know we were even there.”

  About that time, the back door opened and in barged Landon Jr. “Grams?” he called.

  “In here, Landon. Why aren’t you at school?” She gave him a scolding look.

  “It’s lunch, and I have open campus privileges. Did you see the news?” He dropped his backpack by the back door.

  “About what?” Velma didn’t know if he had seen the news about Everett or if he’d care at all.

  “Everett Gaines is dead. He died at his house. Didn’t you two go to a party there on Saturday night? Is this why you had to leave your car there?”

  Ethel and Velma exchanged a look as they got to their feet.

  “The word around school is that there were two bodies pulled out of there. Katie Harris said her uncle Buck talked about it yesterday.”

  “That’s nothing for you to worry your head over.” Ethel went to the kitchen. “Did you skip lunch to come all the way over here about that?”

  “Yeah,” he said, going into the room with her. “That’s really insane news, and if my grandmother was there for a front-row seat, well, duh. I want to know all about what happened.”

  “We’re not telling you so you can go back and blab everything to your friends. Besides, you should be ashamed asking us about it. It’s been a trauma.”

  He looked over to the kitchen table where he pulled up a chair. “What’s this?” Velma had left her gameboard and clues lying on the table.

  “Uh.” Ethel drew a blank.

  “It’s not any of your business, is what. Ethel put blinders and a muzzle on this kid, would you?” She tried to move her diagram, but it was too late. He’d already seen the labels.

  “You’re trying to solve the crime, aren’t you, Aunt V? Just like you did with the last one?”

  “How do you know about that?” asked Ethel.

  “Come on. You know the Sheriff said you had a hand in it, and so yeah, a couple of my friends from school came up and asked me if I was related.”

  Ethel shook her head. “Landon, dear, you can’t talk about this with anyone.”

  “It’s an open investigation, and if you do, I’ll string you up by your toes.” Velma wasn’t kidding. She didn’t need Ethel’s little shit of a grandson messing up everything.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, holding up his hands. “I won’t say anything. But I’ll help if I can. I could be your spy if you want.”

  Velma couldn’t imagine the kid doing anything useful other than mowing the lawn, and even those skills were questionable. He had already been benched on the football team, and the season hadn’t even gotten started yet. And his girlfriend, who turned out to be his study partner, stopped having anything to do with him. The kid was a screw-up. “I’m good, but thanks.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, I’m here.” He turned his attention back to the board. “Is this where they died? The game room and the dining room. Dang. He died during dinner? Gross.” Landon made a face and Velma gave her sister a pointed look.

  “No, he didn’t die at dinner. Another man did. But we hadn’t been served our food yet.”

  “Why don’t you just tell him everything?” Velma picked up her board and her game pieces and tossed them into the Clue box.

  Ethel, who had been milling around by the cabinets, took the jar of peanut butter and made Landon a sandwich. “You shouldn’t be skipping meals,” she said, sliding it in front of him. “Now, I think you should eat and get back to school.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He took a bite of th
e sandwich and looked across the table at Velma who was still holding her box. “Did you do that for the last case too? You should turn the wall into your very own investigation board like they have on the movies.”

  Velma’s eyes lit up, but Ethel shook her head. “Oh no. If she does that, she can do it in her room, not the rest of the house. I will not have my entire life taken over by the investigation bug.”

  “I think it’s pretty cool, Aunt V. Putting those things together is like working a big puzzle. Have you found any clues? If they arrested someone, does this mean you think they got the wrong man?”

  “You’re very observant and annoying,” said Velma.

  “I’ve always told you that Landon is a very smart boy.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll get lucky, and he’ll be on the right side of the law.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be a cop,” said Landon. “But am I right? You wouldn’t be going through all of this trouble if you thought the man who they arrested was guilty. Lucky for you, research should be a lot easier. You can find everything you need to know about someone online. You could make profiles for each of your suspects.”

  Ethel gave Velma a smile, and while it aggravated her to no end, she wondered if there was a way the boy could help them. “How do I get the information I need? Is there a databank of people out there waiting to tell me everything I need to know about someone?”

  “As a matter of fact, there is. It’s called Facebook. And then, of course, there’s always Google. You can even use the satellite feature to find people’s houses if you have an address.”

  “Well, don’t you sound like a little stalker?” Velma wondered why the kid knew so much about such things.

  “It’s common knowledge.” He took another big bite of his sandwich, practically inhaling it.

  “That’s scary.”

  Landon chewed quickly and swallowed what looked like a big lump from the way he choked it down. “Look, I have free study next hour. Let me show you.” He reached into this backpack and pulled out his laptop.

  He pulled up a website, and as his fingers went to work, Ethel and Velma sat patiently. “Look, here’s your house,” he said, turning the computer around.

  Ethel gasped. “You can see our car, the garden, and even the frisbee you threw on the roof.”

  “Two years and I’m still waiting for the wind to knock it down.” Landon had been so upset when he’d lost it, but Ethel wouldn’t dare let him climb up on the roof.

  “That’s neat, but how can I find out about a specific person?” She couldn’t help but think it would be a good way to learn more about Bats and what he was doing in town, and more about Alice as well.

  “If they have a Facebook account, chances are you’ll learn way too much about them. People tend to overshare.”

  “That’s always good for an investigation.”

  Landon looked up from the screen. “So, who is it you want me to look for?”

  “Nice try, kid. But I’m not letting you get involved. You need to take your scrawny butt back to school, and let your old Aunt V keep the computer for the day.”

  Landon smiled. “Okay, Aunt V.” He got up from the table and grabbed his backpack. “Do you think you can handle it?”

  “I’m sure I can figure it out.” She had been a little out of things for a while, but she had also taught college and spent years on the computer. While she hadn’t ever been on Facebook, she was pretty sure she could handle it.

  “Just don’t delete anything. I have a lot of stuff saved on this thing.” He leaned over and kissed Ethel on the cheek. “I’ll be back after school, Grams.”

  As soon as he was gone, Velma pulled up Facebook. “Let’s look for Balthazar Unker and see what pops up.” She typed in the man’s name but came up short. “Hm. This isn’t good. I guess we could try Bats Unker.”

  “That’s what he went by.” Ethel leaned in close to see.

  Velma typed in his name. “It looks like that’s not going to work either.” Velma didn’t know what to do. If the man didn’t have a profile, she wasn’t likely to find anything. “Let’s see if Alice has an account. What was her last name?”

  “The invitation says Ms. Alice Connor,” said Ethel, glancing over her shoulder to where it hung on the fridge.

  Velma typed in the name and up popped several Alice Connors. “Let’s see, how am I supposed to be able to find which one she is?” She added Bliss, Texas to the search, and sure enough, it worked. “This is her.”

  “Boy, she sure posts a lot of political stuff,” said Ethel as Velma scrolled down the page.

  “It’s all environmental. She’s an activist, so it would seem.” There were plenty of photos in her albums that Velma stumbled on to on the side of her profile. “She has been to protests and marches in the past year, but nothing in the past six months? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe she changed her ways like she changed her hair color.” Ethel pointed at the screen to a photograph that must have been taken some time ago. “Hard to believe she’s a brunette.”

  “I wonder what else changed. You know, someone that passionate, they don’t change overnight. They dedicate their lives to whatever cause they are into.”

  “Well, that certainly explains some of her bizarre behavior.”

  “She’s a tree-hugger, not a killer. But it’s obvious that she must have loved Everett. If she gave up doing what she loved to do to be with him.”

  “They say that true love is about compromise,” said Ethel.

  She kept scrolling down—at that point, just because Velma was nosy—and she found a post that someone tagged Alice in from a party. Alice stood smiling at a fancy gala event with an older man. “Look at this. He must be her father.”

  Ethel leaned in closer. “Um, that’s not her father. That’s her boyfriend. Read the comments.”

  “Another old man?” Velma didn’t know what the pretty young woman saw in old men. “Talk about having daddy issues; this girl has grandpa issues.”

  “Maybe it’s her type.” Ethel shrugged. “I don’t think we have any right to judge.”

  Velma let her fingers fly across the board, getting the hang of it again. “Let’s check him out. I’d love to see what kind of man he is.”

  “Well, I wish that younger women would stop taking all of the decent men our age. It’s no wonder we can’t get dates.”

  “I somehow don’t think that has anything to do with us not getting dates, Ethel.” Although she knew she would be upset if Calvin suddenly had a desire for younger women. “Only certain types of old men want young women like her, and I’m afraid I don’t have a nice word for them.”

  “Dirty old men is what they are,” said Ethel. “Plain and simple.”

  The screen changed, and the results came up for the man, whose name they had gotten off the post. Ethel and Velma’s eyes widened. “Does that say he’s a dead oil tycoon, Velma?”

  “Yeah, Ethel. That’s what it says.”

  Chapter 25

  Velma woke after tossing and turning all night. The shock of their discovery about Alice’s last boyfriend before Everett was still sinking in.

  After clearing their browsing history—much to the dismay of Landon who thought he’d be able to find out their list of suspects by checking it—they had returned his computer. Ethel and Velma had spent the evening speculating about their next moves, and there was just one thing left to do.

  “Are you sure you want to go and question this woman? She has possibly put two grown men in the ground, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be stabbed.”

  “We don’t know if that’s how the other man died.” She didn’t want to speculate and mess up her own investigation, but it was odd and way too much of a coincidence to have another dead man in the picture. “I need to go and talk to her and see if she lets go of any information. If she lied about her past, we know there’s something wrong.”

  “It can’t be a coincidence, Velma.”

&nb
sp; “No, I agree.” It was just hard to believe someone could cut themselves and then blame an innocent man. “Part of me feels like we should go and check on Ray again. See if the investigation is progressing. We could even go by the chief’s office while we’re down there.”

  “And get scolded again? You’re a glutton for punishment, Velma, and I’m too embarrassed to go back down there. You know what happened last time.”

  “You made it to the toilet, Ethel. It could have been worse.”

  Ethel hid her face. “It was the most embarrassing day of my life.” She didn’t want to think about it, much less go down there and face everyone.

  “Come on. We should at least go see Ray and find out how prison life is treating him. We can tell him what we found about Alice. At least then, someone will know where we went if we come up missing. Who else could we tell?”

  “You could tell Calvin. You haven’t talked to him since Sunday.” She gave Velma a look.

  She had been so busy thinking about the case that she hadn’t thought much about him. She was sure he hadn’t thought much about her either. “That’s because he has better things to do. Come on, Ethel. Get dressed. If we get there early, perhaps we can catch the chief before she’s too busy.”

  “What if we do go missing? Alice could kill us and have us tossed in the river. They’ll never find us.” She held her chest. “There’s no telling what she might have done to poor Everett’s body if we hadn’t been there.” Her eyes widened. “What if she goes after poor Reeves next?”

  “Calm down. I was being funny.”

  Ethel narrowed her eyes. “I can never tell.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Velma went to her bedroom, put on her shoes, and made sure her hair was combed back in its bun. She walked out and grabbed her handbag. “I’m ready.”

  “I’m not going in this time,” Ethel said, fluffing her hair and straightening her lipstick. “I’ll drive, but you’re on your own.”

  “Come on, Eth. You can’t make me go alone. You’re my wingman, my sidekick, my partner in crime.”