Varnished without a Trace

by Misty Simon

  “You’ve had one of her dogs, then? The woman can cook the most elaborate things, but you give her a poor, defenseless piece of pseudo-meat that costs about three dollars a pound and she ruins it.”

  “I will not confirm or deny that because I can’t have you using it against me at a later date.”

  He sighed. “I probably won’t see you again once you get all your answers anyway, so what does it matter?”

  Now I got a pang in my heart. Did anyone come to see him? Burton didn’t that I knew of. But maybe other people did? I could probably swing a visit every once in a while. I wouldn’t offer now, but it was something I put in the back of my brain, along with the wig and Zeke’s pissing match with the cleanup of the fires. There was a lot back there right now, but I’d just have to trust that it was all going to sort itself out right when I needed it.

  “I’d come see you again and I can bring real cookies next time.”

  “Does your mom still make those snickerdoodles?”

  “Yes, but my boyfriend tends to eat them all.”

  “Well, make him stop, or grab some before he gets to them. Those are my second favorite, right after oatmeal. I asked your dad to put some in my coffin with me when I’m gone, just in case I need something to hold me over while I hang around the gates of heaven until my slate is wiped clean.”

  I snorted. “Really? I hadn’t heard about that.”

  “Well. I suppose I didn’t ask your dad; I asked your grandfather. He said he put it in the paperwork. I believed him, but you might want to check when you go back to make sure it’s still in there.”

  “I can do that as soon as you tell me what I want to know.”

  He sighed. “I got a call in the middle of the night that a guy and his family would be coming in the next day and buying Maynard Wright’s store from him to sell the hardware. No one was to know who this guy was and we were all supposed to treat him like he’d been here forever. They were going to set him up with a new name and a new identity.”

  “Wait, are you saying he was officially part of the witness protection program? I thought he was just running from someone and you’d done a favor for a neighboring police station or something.”

  “No, nothing that small. Hoagie had turned in his twin brother for running with the wrong crowd and for setting up racketeering and gambling, loan sharking, I believe a murder or two. His twin brother got forty years in federal prison, but Hoagie’s family was being threatened, so the government stepped in and hid him permanently by putting him in the program and starting him with a new life for his testimony.”

  Holy cow!

  I handed over the last bag of cookies, said a quick thank-you and goodbye, then ran out of the retirement home. I had things to look in to and people to hunt down. Namely, one Maurice Howard aka Hoagie Hogart, who had seen more than he should and had hidden for forty years from his twin brother, Jerry Howard. How did I think I was going to be able to find someone who’d hidden for that long?

  Hoagie had had years to be good at it, but maybe I could be better.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I drove past the Clemens house on my way back home. I hoped Sherman would be able to figure something out from the wig I’d handed him. A break in one of the two cases going on would be something at least.

  This information from Hal Burton was good too, though, and gave me a jumping-off point to see what Maurice Howard aka Hoagie Hogart had been up to before he’d moved to our town and pretended to be in our family for years.

  Pulling in back of the funeral home, I got out of my car and made a beeline to the back door. I had a lot of things to do and not a lot of time to do them in if I wanted to keep anyone else from dying or going up in flames.

  I must have been too loud with slamming the door behind me because my mom caught me at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Tallie, if you have a moment?”

  I really didn’t, but I knew that with her mother here she might need to talk. I couldn’t put her off forever.

  “What’s up, Mom?” I took my foot off the first stair while looking longingly up the flight to where my computer sat just waiting for me to search like I’d never searched before.

  “I looked for more information on Hoagie and his family but wasn’t able to find anything. I was wondering if maybe you thought you should follow up with Carl? He and Caitlin might have been old enough to remember life before they came here.”

  “Oh, that is a good idea.” I leaned back against the oak banister with my arms and ankles crossed.

  “Thanks. I do have one every now and again.”

  “You have them far more often than every now and again.” I sat on the carpeted step. “Did you ever get to do what you wanted to do most, Mom? Was there a passion you had that you laid aside so Dad could pursue his dreams of playing with the dead?”

  She waved a hand at me. “Oh, you. Your dad doesn’t play with the dead, Tallie, and you know it. He serves an incredibly important purpose around here and I love helping him.” She took a seat next to me on the stairs.

  “But you didn’t answer my question. Is there anything you really wanted to do that you didn’t get to do?”

  Leaning her head against the wallpaper, she looked at me. “I loved to paint when I was younger and thought I might do that someday. But it just never happened. Probably was a good thing too, because for some reason the paint thinner smelled like old broom closets mixed with incense. Plus, I did love to burn candles when I was younger and never paid attention to what they might be near. Did I ever tell you about the time I set one of my best dresses on fire? I was twirling around with this petticoat my mother had finally caved and gotten me and I tripped over the fashion magazine on the floor. Set myself on fire. I wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for my mother thinking fast and throwing me to the ground so she could stomp on the dress.”

  “So, she is good sometimes?”

  Mom laughed. “She’s actually good a lot of the time. I know you see more of us fighting than not, and you probably think I’m weak for not standing up to her more often, but honestly, so many of the things she gets in a snit over just aren’t worth it to me to fight about.” She took my hand. “You kids, though? You were always worth fighting for. There were several things she wanted me to do in raising you that I absolutely refused to do. And look, she said you turned out okay after all.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “You have one son who likes to play in the dirt and is a big, old flirt, another who finally got his head out of the dead body business long enough to propose to the girl he was trying to convince they should get married to save his reputation and a daughter who is a mess.”

  “I’ll give you the first two, but that last one is entirely untrue. I have a wonderful daughter who sees a need and tries to fill it no matter how it might affect her.”

  “And gets in trouble in the process.”

  “Well, there is that. But I wouldn’t change a thing about you. I’m so happy you’re back with us that I’d take you any way I could get you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean it. If you never wanted to work another day here, I’d go up against your father to make sure he left you alone. I haven’t done that yet because there are aspects that you seem to enjoy.”

  “I do like driving the hearse.”

  She chuckled and squeezed my hand. “I don’t know how you park that thing. But that’s beside the point. I raised a strong, independent daughter who knows her mind and that’s never a bad thing. And you’re helping both Burton and Sherman with things they can’t figure out for themselves. You remind me of that lady on TV who wrote books and solved crimes.”

  “Jessica Fletcher?”

  “That’s the one. And I know you’ll figure this all out too. If you need help, just give me a holler.”

  “I’m going to need some more snickerdoodles that you can’t let Max have a crack at first. Hal Burton wants some for helping me.”

  “And did he help yo
u?”

  “Absolutely.” A light went off in my head. “Actually, I think he helped me more than I realized.” My leg started bouncing. “Mom, I have to go. I think I might have figured something out.”

  “Of course, dear. I’ll bring those cookies up when they’re ready.”

  “No rush on them. You can leave them in the kitchen when they’re done. I’ll grab them on my way out. Love you, Mom.” I gave her a quick kiss and then ran up the stairs so fast I tripped on a few of them.

  That click in my brain was way too big to ignore and I knew exactly what I was going to research and exactly how I was going to research it.

  Fortunately, when I got into the apartment, it was empty except for the dog and cat. I filled both of their food bowls while I worked out exactly what I was going to look for.

  And then I sat down and got to work.

  Fifteen minutes later, I wanted to crow from a rooftop. It was all here, all of it, once I’d typed in the right words.

  I knew from Grams that Maurice Howard was also Hoagie Hogart, but I hadn’t put that together with the corpse in the basement. Maurice Howard was Jerry Howard’s twin and had been on the run from the guy who’d died shortly after getting out of jail.

  Online, there were a few grainy pictures of the trial, but it was enough to absolutely convince me that Hoagie and Maurice were definitely one and the same, and Jerry Howard must have been who he was running from.

  It didn’t tell me where he was now, but a theory was careening around inside my brain.

  What if Hoagie had found out his brother was dead and killed Ronda to get to start over with a whole new life? He could leave the store to Nathan, allowing everyone to think he was dead, and then start over again somewhere else.

  Not all the pieces fit into that scenario, but my concern at this point was that he might have skipped town and we’d never see him again.

  I put in a quick call to the retirement home and got Hal Burton on the phone.

  “This requires more cookies. I hate talking on the phone.”

  “I already asked my mom to make them and she’s going to let me know when they’re done. I’ll bring them right over, but I think I might have figured something out and I need to confirm it with you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why a hardware store? Why did Hoagie get a hardware store when he started his new life?”

  “He said it would be the perfect place to hide and make a new life for himself. He’d always liked building things, I guess, and thought that he might excel there. Why?”

  “And when he moved here, did he have anything with him, like previous identification? Anything from his past?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, but he was very interested in the safe in the floor that the hardware store had.”

  “Do you think he would have stored his stuff there?” I was thinking it had to be somewhere. From the articles I’d read about the trial, Hoagie had been very close with his family. Well, everyone except his brother. So, to have to leave and with how sentimental he was and what a good man he actually was, I couldn’t imagine he had left with nothing.

  “I would think the marshals would have confiscated all of that when they made a new life for him,” he answered.

  “But not necessarily.”

  “No, not necessarily,” he agreed reluctantly.

  “I’m going to go look.”

  He cleared his throat. “Tallie, I’m not going to tell you that you can’t. I’m not even going to tell you it’s a bad idea. But I am going to caution you and suggest that maybe you should just take this to my son and let him do his job.”

  “The one you don’t think he’s good enough at?”

  He cleared his throat again. “I never said that. He’s a good cop, and I was happy to leave the department in his hands. I’m mad at him for leaving me in this old folks’ home, but that doesn’t mean I think he’s no good at what he does.”

  An idea formed, but it would have to wait for a later time. “Okay, thanks for the help. I’ll get those cookies to you as soon as I can. I appreciate everything you’ve given me.”

  “You’d better, and for all this I want a double batch. I’ll hide them under the floorboards if I have to.”

  I chuckled as I disconnected. Under the floorboards. And that was probably doable with how old that place was. The hardware store wasn’t exactly new either, and though the first floor had been turned to concrete some years ago, the upstairs was still wooden flooring, from what I remembered. Could that have been where the safe was?

  Perhaps Nathan would know.

  I figured at this point the hardware store should have reopened, and I wanted to get in there before it was sold off, either to Nathan or to a big corporation, depending on the true will.

  Plus, I had to find Hoagie, and what better place to start looking than in his effects? Maybe now that his brother was dead, he’d go back to the place he started. It was at least worth a shot.

  I was heading out the door when Max came in.

  “Phew, that is going to take some getting used to.” He plopped down on the couch and rested his head back against the top.

  This deserved my attention more than anything else at the moment, though.

  “Hard day at work, dear?”

  He chuckled. “No, just weird and unusual and very informative. Did you know Clarissa can trowel on a layer of makeup over an inch think and it still looks natural? I didn’t think that was possible. And she uses like forty-two different kinds of powders to bring the color back to the absolute white of the skin?”

  I sat next to him with my hand on his knee. “I did. I’ve watched her perform her magic before. It is fascinating, even if it’s weird.”

  “Fascinating. That’s a good word. This is all fascinating. Your dad was trying to give me a tour, but I just couldn’t stop going back to watch the transformation of Wilma Freedman from the Women’s Auxiliary.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.” And I was going to have to truly accept that, now that the funeral bug might have caught my boyfriend. It could wear off, and I was sure it had for some people before, but helping others cope would appeal to Max, and now that he’d seen the transformation of a body from cold and dead to warm-looking and just sleeping, he might not be able to turn back.

  “It was just so different.”

  “Well, you’ve played with numbers for your whole life, of course this is different.”

  He rolled his head toward me with a smile. “Yeah, speaking of that, I think I should probably go pick up my stuff from the hardware store. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be needing that office space anymore. And if they want to rent it out to someone else, or if they’re selling the place, it would be better if I were already out.”

  I hugged his arm. “Brilliant idea. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t know if I’d say it was brilliant.”

  “No, it is. It really is.” I gave him the rundown on everything I’d found recently. This was the perfect excuse to go in to the hardware store without having to fake buying paint or another new toilet seat.

  “Are you ready to go now?”

  “I am. Let’s go figure this out.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The front door of the store was locked, but I could see lights on inside. I dragged Max around back and found that door open. I took it as an invitation and walked in like I owned the place. Because no one knew who would really own the place in the end, I figured I was as good as anyone else at the moment.

  “Do you have your key?” I asked Max, who trailed right along behind me.

  “I do, but are you sure we should be in here? I have a feeling they didn’t leave the door open as an invitation.”

  “I’m choosing to take it that way anyway.”

  We walked across the concrete floor and up the metal stairs. I heard voices in the room where Hoagie had kept his base of operations. Could that be where the safe was? It was right next to the room Max rented. I was
as quiet as possible on the metal walkway. No need to alert anyone. My grams hadn’t been wrong when she said the best always listened in for information.

  “I just don’t get why you are doing all this. Call it done and let’s go.” It was a woman’s voice, and one I didn’t recognize.

  “Because you were the one who got us into this mess. Now I have to figure out how to get us out. I don’t know why she called you, and I still don’t understand why you thought it would be a good idea to tell her she could sell the place to us, but I have to find that documentation or we might end up in jail, just like Uncle Maurice.” That was a man’s voice, deep and full of anger.

  Uncle Maurice? As in Maurice Howard aka Hoagie? Oh my word. A nephew and niece of Hoagie? The ones he’d left behind and run away from when he’d testified against his twin brother?

  “You’re whining, and you have nothing to whine over. She said everything was in the works and there was no need to worry about anything. Yet here you are, being a worrier,” the woman said.

  “I have to worry for both of us because you don’t seem to be smart enough to worry for yourself. Did you at least close the door out back when you came in from the car?”

  Crap! I darted my eyes to Max. He quickly fumbled his office keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door directly behind him. We slipped in just as I heard the other door open and slam closed. We left the door cracked just a bit to see if she would say anything else on her way downstairs.

  “Stupid bonehead. He messed it all up, and Wanda was going to hand it to him on a platter. Now it’s all over the place, and he’s not going to be smart enough to fix it, is he? No, he’s not.” She tromped down the stairs and, I assumed, went to the back door to pull it closed and maybe lock it. At least we’d be able to get out after they left. Whenever that was.

  Turning to the room behind us, I wondered how long they’d stay and what it meant that they were here, whoever they were. Related to Hoagie yes, but how and who did they mean by “she” when they referenced “her” calling?

  My eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room because we couldn’t turn a light on without risking them seeing it under the door. Max shrugged when I turned to him. I shrugged back, not sure what to do but not wanting to make a single sound.