by Patricia Fry
“I want to feed the horse,” Bethany said.
Savannah looked at the two girls, then stooped to their level and suggested, “How about this, let me show you to your rooms, okay? You can put your things away, if you want to. Then come back down and we’ll have some lemonade. Grammy made pink lemonade today. You can play with some of Lily’s toys while we visit. Once your mommy and I have had a chance to rest a little, we’ll walk out and feed Peaches. Okay?”
Cassie asked wide-eyed, “You won’t forget, Aunt Savannah?”
“I won’t forget,” she promised.
Savannah showed Holly and the girls to their rooms upstairs and returned alone to the living room. She had just picked up Teddy when the doorbell rang. She opened the front door and saw Sharon standing there. Savannah frowned. “Oh, no. Sharon, I’m sorry. I completely forgot about the flyer. It’s been busy around here.” She caught herself and said, “That’s no excuse. I promised I’d design that flyer for you. I’m really sorry.”
“Oh,” Sharon said, looking disappointed.
“When do you need it?” Savannah asked. “When’s the committee meeting?”
“Eleven in the morning at your newspaper-writer friend’s house.”
“Oh, Colbi?”
Sharon nodded.
“How about this,” Savannah said. “I’ll finish it up this evening and drop it off in the morning at her place. Will that be okay?”
“Um…well, yeah. Thanks.”
“So how’s it going?” Savannah asked.
“Great. I think the flyers will give us some great exposure. From what I’m told, merchants here are good about displaying things related to community events.”
“Yes, they are,” Savannah agreed.
“Well, thank you for doing this, Savannah. I’d better be on my way.” Sharon started to leave when she heard someone call out her name. Both women turned and saw Holly approaching.
“Sharon,” she said again. Oh, my gosh, it is you.” Holly glanced at Savannah, then looked at Sharon again. “What are you doing here, for heaven’s sake?”
“Oh, Holly! Well, I…um…” Sharon glanced briefly at Savannah, who was standing with her mouth open. “I live here now,” Sharon said. “I moved here to Hammond.” She then asked, “How are you? Here for a visit, are you?”
Holly nodded. “We all wondered where you went.” She cocked her head. “This sure is a surprise…I mean to see you here, of all places.”
Sharon stared at Holly for a moment, then said, “Well, good seeing you, Holly.” She addressed Savannah, “Thanks again. See you soon.” She then turned and walked swiftly to her car.
After closing the front door, Savannah faced Holly, a puzzled look on her face. “How do you know Sharon?”
“That’s the gal who used to clean houses in our neighborhood. Remember, I told you she left without notice right before she was supposed to clean my house?” She shuddered. “Oh my, and is my house getting dirty as we speak, with all that ash and soot and smoke filtering down into the neighborhood. I just hope Keith is keeping the doors and windows closed.” When Holly noticed that Savannah didn’t seem to be listening, she said, “Earth to Savannah.”
“Oh, sorry,” Savannah said. “I just…”
“Well, there they are,” Michael said exuberantly as he walked into the living room.
“Uncle Michael!” Cassie called out, rushing to hug him.
“Uncle Michael,” Bethany said, running into his arms.
“Well, what a nice greeting,” he said. He embraced Holly. “Good to see you guys.” He frowned. “So it’s smoky in the Smoky Mountains is it?”
Holly winced. “Michael, you need a refresher course in geography. The Smoky Mountains are in Tennessee. We live in Colorado, remember?”
Michael winked at her.
“The smoke hurts my eyes,” Bethany complained.
“And it’s dirty. Ashes everywhere,” Cassie said, motioning dramatically with her arms.
Just then Gladys appeared from the kitchen. “Will everyone be ready for dinner in an hour?”
Holly looked at Savannah and Michael and nodded. “Sure.”
“Any time,” Savannah said. She handed Teddy to Michael, saying. “He might need changing.”
He took the baby. “Oh, I don’t think I want to change him.” When Savannah and Holly looked at him, he added with a grin, “I kinda like him just the way he is.”
“Funny,” Savannah laughed. She then said to the children, “Hey, shall we go feed Peaches before it gets dark?”
“Yay!” Cassie cheered.
“Yay!” Bethany said.
“Feed Peaches carrot?” Lily chirped. “Apple?”
Savannah thought for a moment, then said, “How about we just give her some hay for now. We’ll take her a treat tomorrow, okay? She’s hungry for her hay dinner. Come on, everyone,” she said, leading them out the side kitchen door toward the corral. She opened the tack room and showed Cassie how to peel a few flakes of hay from an open bale. Bethany helped her sister toss it into Peaches’s hay bin. Savannah then coached Cassie on filling the bathtub watering trough. She looked at Bethany. “You can give Peaches water tomorrow, okay?”
“Can I pet her?” Cassie asked, once she’d finished filling the trough.
“Sure. Come over here and you can reach her while she eats.”
“I want to pet the horsey,” Bethany said. When she got closer, she stopped and looked down at the horse’s hooves and exclaimed, “She has big feet!”
Savannah saw this as a teaching moment. “That’s why you always need to be quiet and careful around a horse. You don’t want to get stepped on by those big hooves.”
The girls stood quietly and stared at the horse as she chomped on the hay, stomping one front foot a time or two and swishing her tail.
After the children had watched Peaches for a while, they trotted off toward the house and climbed up the steps to the wraparound porch. Holly and Savannah walked more slowly.
Savannah shook her head. “Holly, I still can’t believe that gal Sharon is the same one who was cleaning houses in your neighborhood.”
“I know. I’m stunned.” Holly grabbed Savannah’s arm. “Do you think…?” she started.
Wide-eyed, Savannah said, “That this has something to do with…”
“That jewelry?” Holly finished.
Seeing that the children were entertaining themselves running around the expansive porch, Savannah sat down in a deck chair. “Oh my gosh, Holly. There have been some suspicious things going on with her—things I questioned in my mind, then somehow justified.”
“Like what?” Holly asked, lowering herself into a chair.
“I mean, she was sure eager to start a friendship.” Savannah thought for a moment and said, “She came here one day claiming that her car had broken down and her phone quit working. But while she was here, her phone rang. Also, she said Auntie wasn’t home that day, which is why she traipsed all the way back here from the highway. But my aunt was home.”
“She still wears that same perfume,” Holly said quietly.
“That scent,” Savannah said, quickly standing up. She paced, then stopped in front of Holly. She put her hands up to her mouth. It was her! Holly, remember when we first smelled it in the locked room at the Verano house before someone blew it up?”
“Yes,” Holly said breathlessly. “I’d forgotten all about that. We did smell it in that room, and then in the garage later.”
Savannah thought for a moment, then said, “Holly, I think she’s been snooping.” She checked on the children as they continued to run around on the deck, then sat down again and said, “During a meeting here, she claimed the toilet in the downstairs bathroom wasn’t working, so I sent her upstairs. Come to think of it, she was gone for kind of a long time.” She became more animated. “And Rags found some pictures in her purse—you know, photographs of our walls.” She frowned. “Why would she take pictures of our w
alls, for goodness sake?” She then yelped, “Holly, do you think she’s a friend of your neighbor, Wayne, and he sent her here to see if we have the jewelry? Did she clean for Wayne Morrison’s family?”
“Um…I don’t know,” Holly said.
Savannah leaned closer to Holly. “Do you think she’s been looking for the jewelry here?”
Holly gasped. “You know, when she came to our house to talk to me about cleaning, she sure was into it. Remember, I told you she opened a lot of cupboards, cabinets, and all?”
Savannah put her hands up to her mouth. “Gads, Holly, she knows about the jewelry and she thinks we have it.” She turned to Holly. “What should we do?”
Holly recoiled. “We?” She giggled nervously. “Do you have a mouse in your pocket?”
Savannah grinned. “Sorry, kiddo, Ive been muddling around in it, but you just walked into it. We’re in it together…again.”
Holly took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
Just then Michael stepped out of the house onto the porch. He looked around. “What’s going on out here in the dark?”
“I guess it is starting to get dark,” Savannah noticed.
He shouted playfully to the kids, “What’s all that noise? Is there a flock of billy goats running around out here?”
Cassie laughed. “Billy goats?” she repeated.
“Or maybe you’re ponies. Are you girls ponies? Or baby elephants. You’re making as much noise out here as a baby elephant herd.”
“I horsie, Daddy,” Lily chirped.
Cassie began to gallop. “I’m a horse. I’m Peaches.”
Michael poked Bethany in the tummy. “What are you? Are you a goat?”
She shook her head.
“Are you a pony?”
She grinned and shook her head.
“What?” he asked.
She pointed at herself. “I’m Bethany.”
Everyone smiled.
Just then Gladys poked her head out through the door. “Soup’s on,” she announced.
Lily began to cry.
“What’s wrong, punkin?” Michael asked, picking her up.
“I don’t like soup,” she wailed.
“Well, good, because I think Grammy has fixed us some tamale pie. Do you like tamale pie?”
Lily squirmed to get down. “Pie!” she exclaimed, running toward the door into the kitchen.
Before following Michael and the three girls inside, Savannah said quietly, “Holly, I think we ought to set a trap.”
“Huh?”
“Well, how about if we give her some of her own medicine—pretend that nothing has happened, that we know nothing, and we’ll see if we can get her to show her hand.”
“What hand?”
Savannah stared impishly at Holly. “I guess we’ll find that out, won’t we?”
“Lordy, lordy,” Holly complained.
****
The following morning Savannah told Holly, “I made arrangements for us to drop the flyer off at Sharon’s house.”
“Oh?” Holly remarked.
“Yeah, I’d like to see her place, for one thing.” She laughed impishly. “She was resistant to my coming there, but I pushed the issue and she agreed. We’ll go this morning around ten, if that’s okay with you. Mom said she’ll keep an eye on the kids for half an hour or so.”
“Okay. So what’s the plan? What are we looking for?”
“I don’t know—I guess some sort of indication that she’s after the jewels. I mean, what else could it be? What other reason would she have for following us to Hammond?”
Holly had an idea. “Hey, do you think Vickie and Dino told her about the jewelry? Maybe they did know about it, after all.” She shook her head. “But why would they tell their cleaning gal? Hey, maybe Sharon happened to find it while she was cleaning and was waiting for the right time to take it.”
“It seems like the right time would have been while the house was empty, like when we were at the mountain lodge.” Savannah took a sip of coffee, then said, “Maybe someone beat her to it.” She narrowed her eyes in thought. “But it would have been right before the house blew up, because Rags and Lucy were still dragging jewelry out a few days before that happened.”
Holly shook her head. “It’s a real puzzle. Makes my head spin.”
As if she hadn’t heard Holly’s comment, Savannah continued, “She sure might have known about the jewelry, but I doubt she knew where it was. If she did, she would have cleaned out the place while we were gone, don’t you think so?”
“Makes sense.”
****
A couple of hours later, Savannah pulled her car up in front of a small house.
“Cute place,” Holly said, “if you like little homes.”
“It’s a good size for just one person,” Savannah said. “When I was single, I sure didn’t want a big place to clean and fill with trinkets.” She turned to face Holly before they got out of the car. “Now let’s just be aware of what she says and does, okay? If I get brave enough, I may ask some pointed questions.”
Holly shivered. “Ohhh, you’re more courageous than I am. I’m not sure I want to know her story. It might put us in jeopardy…again.”
Savannah stared at Holly for a moment, then stepped out of the car and walked to the door. Sharon opened it rather quickly, stepping out onto the small porch. She pulled the door almost closed behind her. “Do you have it?” Sharon asked.
“Yes,” Savannah said, “but…um…I’d like to sit down with you for a moment and explain a few things, if you don’t mind.”
Sharon looked at her, then Holly. She seemed to wince, then she said, “Oh, I guess that’ll be all right. Come in.” She motioned around the house. “I’m not all the way unpacked, as you can see. I’ve been busy.”
“Oh, that’s a job,” Savannah said. “Hey, I can help you, if you’d like. I’m a pretty good unpacker. I’ve done it many times. Just let me know when you’re ready and I’ll come over.”
“Oh,” Sharon said, weakly. “Well…um…sure. I’ll let you know.”
“Where’s your furniture?” Holly asked. “Hasn’t it arrived yet?”
“Um…no. Not yet. I’m still waiting for it.” She led the women into a dinette area with a small table and four chairs. “We can sit here.”
“Who’s this?” Savannah asked, picking up a photograph from the counter. “She looks a lot like you.”
Sharon frowned. “Oh, that’s my cousin, Harriet. We actually can’t stand each other. She likes to send me photographs of herself living the good life. I’ve worked hard all my life trying to make my fortune while she just falls into piles of money. She’s always been charmed. She has good man-karma too.”
“Man-karma?” Holly asked.
Sharon looked at her. “She knows how to find and trap men—especially men with a lot of money. She’s a gold digger.” She shook her head. “No, we don’t get along. I just wish she’d drop dead. I especially hate seeing pictures of her.” When Savannah didn’t say anything, Sharon asked her, “Is something wrong?”
Savannah laid the picture on the counter. “No. Nothing. Uh…I just think she resembles you, that’s all.”
“Well, this is what I think of that and of her,” Sharon said, picking up the picture and tearing it in half.
“Wait!” Savannah exclaimed. When Sharon looked at her, she said more calmly, “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”
Holly stared at her sister-in-law wide eyed while Sharon frowned. “Why? Why would you want a picture of my evil cousin?”
“The print in her skirt,” Savannah said quickly. “I want to make a skirt for an event coming up and I love the pattern in that fabric. I’d like to see if I can match it, if you don’t mind.”
“Heck no,” Sharon said. She dropped the photo on the counter and turned away. “Take it.”
Savannah tucked the torn photo into her jeans pocket, then opened the folder she’d brought in with her
and took out the flyer.
“May I use the restroom?” Holly asked.
“Yeah,” Sharon said. She motioned with her head. “It’s in there.”
Savannah glanced at Holly, then went back to talking to Sharon about the flyer. “I love the committee’s idea for an old-fashioned barn dance with turn-of-the-century activities—bobbing for apples, a cakewalk and all.” She pointed at the flyer. “See, I used little images of a cake here and an apple here for added interest.”
“I love it,” Sharon said. “I’ll run it by the committee and let you know if they want any changes.”
****
Fifteen minutes later Holly and Savannah returned to the car and Holly said, “I’ve got to know, why do you want that picture?”
“Well, I’m not sure, but I think that photograph has a major clue in it. I can’t wait to get home and dig out the magnifying glass.”
“What sort of clue?” Holly asked.
Savannah squirmed to dig the pieces of torn photo out of her pocket and handed them to Holly. “Do you see something familiar there?” She then asked, “By the way, did you see anything unusual in the house?”
“Just the fact that she doesn’t seem to be actually moving in there, do you think?”
“She sure sounded like she was ready to become a member of our community. She’s making noises and taking steps to do so. But yeah, she hasn’t done much with her place.”
“How long has she been here?” Holly asked.
“I guess around three weeks, why?”
“Wouldn’t you have put your toothbrush and other toiletries away in a drawer or cabinet by now?”
“I would. But I guess there are people who just aren’t very organized.”
“Maybe,” Holly said. She chuckled. “They say it’s the grocer’s family that is always out of bread and milk, the plumber’s family has leaky faucets, the electrician’s family has faulty light fixtures. I guess someone who cleans houses for a living isn’t eager to clean her own place.” She studied the photograph of Sharon’s cousin and said, “I don’t know what you saw in this picture. The gal sure looks like Sharon, though; they could be sisters.”
