Varnished without a Trace

by Misty Simon

  I did “eep” when I saw the window on the far wall was open just a bit and there were fingers curled around the windowsill.

  I pointed, and Max took a step back when he looked.

  Grabbing my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans, I texted Burton, because this wasn’t something I could handle on my own, even with the awesome Max by my side.

  “I’ll lock the door,” I whispered to Max. “You get ready to grab whoever that is before he or she decides to drop.”

  Once I quietly closed and locked the door, I crept to the window and threw up the sash. And what to my wandering eyes should appear but a very sweaty Hoagie, hanging on for dear life off the side of a two-story building.

  His eyes were incredibly wide and his mouth open like a gaping fish on a hook. Max grabbed the older man’s wrists before another second passed and yanked Hoagie up and into the room. He caught him before he hit the floor so as not to alert the people next door, who had gone back to fighting now that the back door was presumably locked.

  “Hoagie,” I whispered. More like breathed, because I wasn’t sure what could be heard, though the two next door had reached a crescendo of screaming words that I didn’t even understand at this point.

  “Let me go.”

  “I can’t do that. We need answers, and I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who can provide them.”

  His eyes darted around the room. Looking for something to hit me with so he could get away? An escape route I wasn’t aware of or couldn’t see?

  “Then we need to get out of here. Before they see us. Like now. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just get me out of here before they come in and find the safe.”

  The safe! “Where is it?”

  “I’m not telling you, and I can’t get to it without making noise. We’ll have to come back later.”

  “But will you be here later?” I looked him over to watch for anything that would tell me he was lying.

  “Yes, I promise. I’m tired of running.”

  “Okay. I texted Burton and he should be here right about now.” As if on cue, there was banging on the front door and shouts to open up.

  Something clanged to the floor in the next room, and footsteps scurried left and right. The two people clattered down the stairs and, I assumed, ran for the back, but from the yells to get down, I assumed the other half of the force was back there waiting for them.

  Good work, boys.

  And now I was left with a very tired-looking Hoagie with no smile in sight. His hair was standing up from his head and his eyes looked hollow.

  “Where have you been?” I asked.

  He gestured over to the cot in the corner. “Never thought I’d have to do this again. But I’d do it over and over if it would protect my kids. Nothing I wouldn’t do to protect those ungrateful little buggers, no matter what they think of me.”

  Would he kill for them, though? Hopefully, we’d know soon.

  But first, we had to get out of there. I had only told Burton that there were two intruders that I had watched walk into the store, not that there was anything else. And it was possible that because they’d caught those two, he wouldn’t come in to check anything else.

  As always, though, I shouldn’t have thought of him if I didn’t want him to appear out of nowhere.

  “Tallie. I should have known.”

  “Oh, Burton, you’re going to love this one. Or at least I think you will, once I figure out exactly what’s going on here.”

  * * *

  We all sat down in the break room at the hardware store. I’d asked Burton to give us a chance to get the story from Hoagie without going to the police station just yet. I thought it might be a good idea to let the others process the two intruders before bringing Hoagie into the mix, and he’d agreed. Apparently, the two people who had been trying to ransack the room next door were his niece and nephew. Family, at least in Hoagie’s case, were people you couldn’t trust. You couldn’t run from them forever either, apparently.

  See, good things do happen.

  Hoagie brought me a cup of plain old coffee from the percolator on the desk next to his computer. I had to use powdered creamer and sugar packets galore, but it would suffice for the moment.

  Burton and Max had opted for water, and once I took a sip of the coffee I almost wished I had gone for the same thing.

  “So, let’s hear it, Hoagie.” Burton took out his trusty notepad and flipped to a new page.

  “First I’d like to know what you know,” the older man answered.

  “No, it’s not going to work like that.” Burton crossed a foot over his knee and sat back in a folding chair, much like the one from bingo so many days ago. “I want to hear what you have to say. I’ll protect your identity and I’ll even give you a pass on hiding out in here when we’ve been looking everywhere for you, but I have to know what’s going on, and I want it all from the horse’s mouth.”

  Hoagie sighed and wiggled around in his chair, which he’d turned around to face our little circle. Max sat next to me on his folding chair with his water bottle dangling from his fingertips between his knees.

  “In a state far, far away . . .” Hoagie laughed softly, but no one else even cracked a smile. “Okay, forty years ago in West Virginia, my twin brother murdered a man and I was given immunity for my part in gambling, racketeering and other nefarious activities if I testified against him.”

  I sat back stunned. I knew there was more to the story, but even this part was almost more than I thought I could handle hearing it directly from him, confirming what I hadn’t wanted to believe in the first place.

  “You were into all that stuff too?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

  “I haven’t always been a nice guy, Tallie, and I’m sure you’ve talked to my kids, which is par for your course, so you must know that I was also a harsh dad. But I wanted to protect them. Well, first I wanted to provide for them the only way I knew how, but then, when that fell through, I just wanted to protect them. You don’t know what it’s like to have to look over your shoulder every day, make sure no one ever takes a picture of you that could leave you recognizable, and don’t get me started on this dang internet thing. Anybody could see anything at any time. I couldn’t allow anyone to find us or they might have killed us. I have grandchildren to worry about.”

  “So you killed Ronda after you found out your brother had died, went down to take his body from the funeral home and tried to fake your own death by fire. Did you set that one?” Burton’s voice was low, but you could hear the anger under the tone.

  Hoagie shook his head. “I did none of those things. Okay, I did some of them. But I did not kill my wife. I loved her, no matter how much people around here can’t believe that. She used to be happy and vivacious. She loved all the money I made and the many things I could buy her. She loved being married to someone who could take care of her. And she never forgave me for moving her away from everyone she knew to this “Podunk town,” in her words.” He rearranged himself again in his chair and took a stapler off the desk to open and close it.

  I was a little concerned about how he could use that stapler as a weapon if he chose to do so, but Burton just kept his eyes on the man and waited for more.

  “She was angry and bitter that we had to live on the money a hardware store could make. But it was the only thing I knew how to do outside of the gambling and racketeering, and once I got in here, I actually enjoyed it. I came in under your father, Burton, and I saw that there might be another life for me if I’d take the chance. Ronda didn’t see it that way and made me pay for it every day of my life.”

  “So you killed her. Which would make sense if she finally did something that tossed you over the edge and pushed you too far.” I interjected the comment just in case I could throw him off guard. This was no longer the beloved uncle who threw Halloween parades and dressed up like Santa. This was a man who’d done awful things and gotten away with it just because he’d turned snitch.


  “You’ve got it all wrong. I took everything she handed out and just cherished the fact that she was alive. She was the first one they’d threatened to kill, along with the two kids we had at the time. They were going to leave me until last so that I could suffer through each of their deaths. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay there and watch them be hurt, so I took the deal the government gave me and chose to move us out and start a new life.”

  “And you lived that way for forty years. What changed?” Burton flipped to the next page, keeping an avid eye on Hoagie. I had started looking at the floorboards to see if I could find the outline of a safe. With whatever info he’d brought with him from the past, we might be able to confirm or discredit his story. I was on board with either one at this point.

  Hoagie sighed, and it ruffled my bangs. “Ronda must have kept tabs on her family and mine throughout the years. And like I said, that damn internet. She saw when Jerry got out of jail and called her sister to congratulate her.”

  “Wait, her sister was married to your brother?” The story just kept getting stranger and stranger.

  “Yes. We met Wanda and Wendy at the same time. Ronda was Wendy before we left.”

  “So, your wife calls her sister to congratulate her on getting her husband back after forty years and then what happens?” Burton asked.

  “Well, a lot at once. See, the government gave the deal to the wrong brother. I was the one who committed most of the crimes and Wanda knew it. She demanded that Ronda give her something for everything she had lost and Ronda saw a way to keep me from gifting the store to Nathan. She signed it over to Wanda’s son.”

  “Can she do that, though?” Max asked. “She’d need your signature too.”

  “Which she got when she threatened to go back to West Virginia and lead each and every one of them here if I didn’t give in to her demands. She thought that with Jerry dead, we’d be able to go back to our old lives.”

  “And when was this?” Burton’s pencil was poised over his notepad.

  “Two days before Christmas. I wasn’t happy, but I couldn’t think of what else to do. I had promised Nathan the store, so instead, I told him I’d give him a big raise and a promotion to store manager before I handed the store over to my nephew.”

  “And then you’d just what? Retire? Because as far as I can tell, it sounds like even with your brother dead, you’d still be in danger.” Burton had a valid point and I was very interested to hear what Hoagie would say.

  “We would have been, no matter what she thought, but she wouldn’t listen. So, I figured Ronda and I would fake our deaths on a deserted road and run away to start over somewhere she wanted to be, with a life she wanted to lead. It was the least I could do for her after all I’d put her through over the years. But then she was killed, and it all fell apart. I want that person’s soul in my hands and their neck under my foot.” He snapped the stapler open and closed and his breathing got harsher. I scooted my chair back, then waited to see what Burton would do.

  “Good story, Hoagie, but I’m not sure I believe it. I think you killed her to finally get away from her and then realized that you’d miscalculated when the fire you set to throw off investigators by pretending to be the firebug didn’t jump across to your building. Were you going to let the thing burn down so no one got it?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, raised his hands as if to show he didn’t know and said, “That was the plan.” Then he chucked the stapler at Burton’s head and made a run for it.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Hoagie had dinged Burton in the temple, so Max ran out of the room to hunt him down while I tried to get Burton to respond. He finally did wince and groan, so I felt he was going to live, thankfully. I took the radio out of his belt and pushed down the button to ask anyone who was in the area for help. Matt answered back that he’d be right there.

  I heard pounding footsteps and some grunting but stayed with Burton because I didn’t need to see what was going on. I believed Max had it handled. Or at least I hoped so.

  And my hopes were very much confirmed when Max yelled, “Got him!”

  I chanced a glance over the metal railing on the walkway, and there was Hoagie, strapped to a toilet with one of those winches people used to hold down luggage on the roof of their car.

  “Nicely done.” I said.

  “All part of the service, ma’am,” he answered, and this time I laughed.

  Burton groaned again behind me, and I turned to help him sit up.

  “Did you get him?”

  “Max did. He has him downstairs, ready to be taken away. I have a feeling that might be the last we get from him, because he’s going to lawyer up immediately.”

  “Maybe not.” Burton removed a key from the floor next to where his nose had been. “I picked up the stapler and found that there was a small compartment for that key in the bottom.”

  “Your dad says there’s a safe in here somewhere.”

  “Does he, now?”

  “He also said you’re very good at your job and he misses you.” Okay, that last part was a lie, but it was Christmastime, a time for miracles, and maybe Burton wouldn’t be so grumpy if he had his dad back in his life.

  “Yeah, thanks. Now pull the other leg, Tallie; I like them to match.”

  I harrumphed. “Fine, but he was very lonely, and I guess he doesn’t get many visitors, and he feels cooped up. I just thought if you could maybe go over and tell him what ends up happening here, maybe you could smooth things over. He’s not getting any younger. I’ll even give you the snickerdoodles I told him I’d deliver to him. That should make the road like polished steel. And he did say you do a good job.”

  “I’ll think about it. First, let’s find the safe.”

  We hunted for about ten minutes before I was able to find a springy board in the floor. I was a pro after finding all the flaws in the third floor before we hired a contractor, so I knew my way around.

  Pushing on the nails, they both sank down, and then the boards creaked open and there was the safe.

  Burton put in the key and turned it. I don’t know what Burton thought we’d find. Heck, I didn’t know what I thought we would find, but I highly doubt either of us considered the fact that there might be bundles and bundles and bundles of wrapped one-hundred-dollar bills.

  “Quite the haul.”

  “Quite the savings,” I said instead. “Why wouldn’t he have given some of this to Ronda to make her happier? I’m just not sure I believe he didn’t kill her.”

  “Me neither, but I need evidence. I need his prints on the can, although they’re going to be there anyway because he put the dang thing on the shelf. I would need to know where he purchased it, but I already know where it came from, and who had access to it is not a mystery. All I don’t know is how he did it and why now.” Burton ruffled through the stacks of money to see if there was anything else there.

  “I think the why is that he wanted out, saw a way and blamed Ronda for taking away the comfortable life he’d made for himself.”

  “It’s a fine theory, Tallie, and one I’m surprised you thought of. I was sure you’d see through everything and zero in on me, seeing as how everyone thinks you’re the smartest person in town. Maybe not so much if you didn’t see what was right under your nose,” Nathan said from the door with a gun in his hand.

  Really? No way was it Nathan. No way!

  The gun shook a little in his hands, and the smile looked forced. I stared at him, knowing he’d never actually use the thing. Well, scratch that. He might use it if he was pressed, but I doubted he wanted to.

  I knew who had killed Ronda now; I just needed to figure out how to get an admission from the right person.

  “Ah, now I see it, Nathan. It was you the whole time, wasn’t it?” I willed Burton to go along with me. Sometimes it worked with Max, or my mom, but I wasn’t sure Burton would get my drift. “You killed Ronda outside the bingo hall, and then, when Hoagie found out, he agreed to hide it for you and dis
appear so that you wouldn’t get into trouble. After all, you’ve helped him for so many years, and Ronda wanted to cut you out of getting the store. With her gone, he could disappear too, like he had forty years ago, and start off fresh somewhere else. Burton here could just assume that Hoagie had gotten away, and eventually, it would be a cold case.”

  “Right.” Nathan looked back and forth between me and Burton. His hand shook some more, and I wondered how long he’d be able to keep the gun up.

  “I mean, Ronda was awful to you, wasn’t she? When she found out Hoagie’s brother had died, she wanted to give the store to her nephew, not a thankless kid who’d never done anything for her and who she treated like a piece of garbage any chance she got. Am I right?”

  He shook his head and folded his lips in on themselves. But he said, “Right,” again.

  “And I’m sure all those times she snubbed you and never invited you to do anything with the family were just knives in your back over and over again. Like you were being cut out of something that had finally been good in your life, or at least you thought it would be good until you met up with that evil lady. Hoagie was so good and then his wife was a piece of—”

  “Stop! Just stop!” The hand holding the gun wavered some more and then dropped to his side. “Just stop.” This time it was said more quietly, and tears ran down his cheeks. “She was never like that to me. She might not always have been the nicest of people, but she was decent, and in her own way she loved me. Heck, she was nicer to me than she was to her own kids most days. I did everything for her and she appreciated it. She even remembered my birthday every year and brought me the kind of cake I liked when Jenna forgot.”

  “And Jenna wasn’t a big fan of the idea of you not getting the store outright. She wanted that handed to you, so she could be the owner’s wife and not have to work anymore unless she wanted to,” I said softly as Max came up behind Nathan and took the gun out of his hand.