by Emmie Lyn
“Sure, I can handle that,” I said. “Tuna fish sandwiches with a pickle and iced tea, a meal fit for three charming ladies.”
Charlotte clapped her hands. “I love an adventure, girls. I can’t wait.”
And I loved guests who were easy to please.
Tilly swerved around the corner at the end of Gina’s street, reminding me that I’d vowed never to ride with her again. I sighed. Nothing to be done now except hope she stayed focused and didn’t hit anything.
“Hey! There’s Hitch.” I tapped Tilly’s shoulder. “Pull over. I’ll walk with him and meet you at your house.”
I should have said to slow down, first. We ended up with the passenger side tires over the curb, but thankfully, we were in one piece. Tilly opened her door so Jasper and I could squeeze out. I wasn’t sure if it was a mistake to leave Tilly alone with Charlotte, but I had to find out what Hitch was up to.
“I was hoping you might find me,” he said, waiting for me to catch up to him and draping his arm around my shoulders in a comforting gesture. Jasper plodded along behind us, not bothering to even check any hidden scents. She was ready to be home, too.
“Where’s the banana tree?” I asked.
“Huh?” He stopped and looked at me like maybe I’d transformed into a new person since he’d last seen me. “Banana tree? Are we playing eye spy or something?”
I told him about Tilly’s conversation with Mick, which got a big snort from Hitch. “That’s one of her better word slip-ups. And, to answer your question, it’s hidden, but I don’t want to leave it where it is for long. I didn’t have many choices since I left on foot in a hurry. It’s awkward to carry.”
I had to speed up to match my steps with Hitch’s long stride. “Why did you take it to begin with? Do you realize what kind of trouble you’d be in if Mick found you with that tree?”
Actually, I liked going out for a stroll with Jasper and Hitch. I just wished we weren’t on the hunt for a killer. As Hitch kept reminding me. “Of course, I do, Sunny, but until I know if Gina is safe, that bonsai tree will remain in hiding. Don’t worry, no one will find it.”
“Mick told Tilly that the insurance policy is still in effect, and if the bonsai tree doesn’t turn up, someone will get a big payment. He even suggested that Maxine twisted Harry’s arm to make her the beneficiary. He thought it was funny.”
Hitch started walking faster, the urgency of our mission propelling him on. “That’s what Maxine said? I don’t see how that’s possible. The bonsai tree is a living plant. Why would anyone insure it without safeguards in place, forcing the owner to do everything possible to keep it secure?”
Did I have to be an insurance expert to figure this out? “Like hiring a round-the-clock security guard?”
“Exactly. And Harry kept records of the temperature and humidity that he sent daily to the insurance company. Plus, the policy cost a fortune to begin with. I never thought of this before, but maybe Harry shot me to make the whole break-in look more realistic. Except that Conrad bolted without the tree. Harry should have prepared him better.” He picked up the pace again. I was getting a little out of breath, but he didn’t notice. He said, “We’ve got to get to your house, get your car, and pick up the tree.”
“And then what, Hitch? Turn it over to the police and say, yeah, well, we’ve known where it was ever since Gina dropped it off at Sunny’s house but… but, what? Why didn’t we just turn it in when we had the chance?”
I stared at him. I knew I was being ridiculous but this whole cat and mouse game was taking its toll on me. My nerves were shot.
“Because everything was pointing at me, Sunshine. It looked like I killed Harry for revenge and stole the bonsai tree for its value. We need the tree to flush out the killer.”
Great. Did that make us thieves by association or just dumb?
When we turned onto my street, we spotted a cargo van parked in front of my house. A van? Didn’t Mick suggest the kidnapper would be in a van?
“Hitch? Do you recognize that vehicle?” I asked. My voice shook. And Tilly brought Charlotte right into this potential trap. Had someone guessed our move?
“Let’s just walk by like it’s nothing and check in the windows. If you’re thinking that’s the vehicle that was used to kidnap Gina, I doubt very much that they’d park right outside your house. Too obvious.”
Maybe, but who could really predict what anyone would do. Like us, hiding the bonsai tree in a flock of flamingoes. It didn’t work, though, so Hitch was probably right.
Hitch slowed down when we approached the back end of the van. The small back windows were covered, and it had no windows on the sides. What if they were watching us in the mirror and opened the door and pulled us inside when we got close enough?
Hitch stayed between me and the van.
Jasper woofed and ran, with her nose to the ground, right to her doggy door. I didn’t like this.
“What do we do now Hitch? I think someone might be in my house.”
“First, let’s make sure Tilly and Charlotte are okay. We can keep an eye on this van and your house from her front window.
“What about Jasper? I think she went in through her doggie door. What if someone tries to hurt her?”
“You go to Tilly’s, and I’ll check out your house. I don’t hear any barking so maybe someone dropped some food and made a trail to her door.”
“Maybe.” I jogged across the street and went into Tilly’s house. Someone with a deep voice was talking. I’d heard that voice before.
“Sunny? Is that you? Come on in. Conrad has some interesting information.”
Conrad. It was his van? Did he have Gina? Before I closed her front door, I got Hitch’s attention and waved him to come over. If Conrad was up to no good, I wanted Hitch right there with us.
“Coming, Tilly.”
“Did you make the sandwiches yet, dear?”
“Not yet. I’ll just say hello then scoot back to my house.” I walked into the living room. Conrad and Gina sat next to each other on the couch while Charlotte sat in Tilly’s favorite rocking chair with Pinky in her lap.
It didn’t look like anyone was tied up or held at gunpoint. As a matter of fact, it looked like a normal happy scene. But it made no sense.
What was going on?
29
Hitch screeched to a halt at my side. We both stared at the group of people sitting in Tilly’s living room who stared right back at us like we’d arrived with some important news.
Had we?
He looked at me with the same shocked expression I assumed was on my face. The silence buzzed in my ears as I tried to understand why Conrad and Gina were both sitting here together like long lost friends.
“Sunny, how about you and Gina go fix those sandwiches?” Tilly said, coming to the rescue and breaking through my stunned silence. “Hitch, you stay here.”
Charlotte hummed and rocked and stroked Pinky the whole time, an oblivious, satisfied smile on her face.
I nodded, not sure why Tilly thought I’d need help, but wasn’t about to argue. Tilly had her reasons. She always did. “Come on Gina.”
As soon as we were outside, I turned on her. “What’s going on? You disappear, then show up here with Conrad? We thought he’d kidnapped you.”
I unleased all my worry-fueled adrenaline that my system had converted to anger on her.
She took my arm. “Not here. Let’s get in your house. Did Jasper track me to her doggie door?”
“She tracked something. Did you break into my house again?”
“I was looking for you, but when Tilly arrived with grandma, we went to her house.
Conrad and Gina were we now? I opened the door and let her enter first. Jasper lumbered over to greet us. First, with a friendly sniff for Gina and then she rewarded me with a tail wag before she lay down on her sun-soaked spot in the living room. Immediately, Stash and Princess Muffin attacked her. At least this seemed normal in the otherwise upside-down situation.
Gina had other ideas. Without asking, she began searching for the lunch ingredients. “Here we go. You think three cans of tuna fish will be enough?”
“Better use four. Hitch will want two sandwiches.” What was I doing? I wanted answers, not food. I sighed but handed her a loaf of bread and pulled out the mayo and pickles from my fridge. “Okay. Explain everything while we get this done.”
“It’s not what you think, Sunny. At all.”
I dug out a bowl from my cupboard and handed it to Gina while she opened the cans. “How do you know what I’m thinking?” I asked.
Geesh. Right now, I thought Gina and Conrad were acting like a couple of scallywags in cahoots involving a murder and theft. Not much annoyed me more than someone thinking they could read my mind. Well, Hitch got away with it because he was usually right but that was different. Gina didn’t know me like he did.
Gina emptied the tuna into the bowl and mixed in the mayo while I lined up bread on the counter.
“Conrad didn’t kidnap me,” she said. “He gave me an ultimatum—get in or he’d call the police and say I stole the bonsai tree. I went with him willingly.”
Now I understood Tilly’s plan to separate Gina and Conrad. They couldn’t coordinate their story beyond what they’d already planned together, brilliant on her part.
I fixed a pitcher of iced tea and found my wicker basket to pack our lunch.
“You see,” Gina turned around so we faced each other. “I was in my car ready to drive off. When I saw grandma fall into Tilly’s arms, I panicked. I realized I couldn’t care for her properly and selling the bonsai tree seemed easy until I had to figure out how to actually do it. I didn’t want to be responsible for damaging it and destroying its value.”
She paused as she assembled the sandwiches. “And, the worst part? She doesn’t really even know who I am.” A tear slid down her cheek.
“But how could you trust Conrad? I said. I held up a finger to pause her explanation while I found the sandwich bags. I handed them to her and said, “You told me you thought he killed Harry and might kill you next. Why on earth did you agree to go with him?”
My brain swirled with questions and confusion.
She turned away and slapped pickles on the bread. I supposed I’d annoyed her with my questions, and she needed something to focus on.
“I was completely wrong about Conrad,” she mumbled. “He told me he’s been trying to protect the bonsai tree, first from Harry selling it, and now from Maxine just keeping it. The scariest thing he told me was that he thinks Harry was really trying to shoot him, not Hitch.”
I gasped at what that implied. “Why does Conrad care so much about the bonsai tree?”
Gina looked at me again, gauging how much to tell me. Her eyes were about to flood over. “I never knew this until today.” She looked up at the ceiling and blinked away her tears. “Harry was Conrad’s father from his first marriage, before he married Charlotte.”
“How could you not know that?”
“I never got to meet Harry’s family,” she said matter-of-factly. “You see, my mother hated Harry. She saw him for what he was—controlling and selfish. She tried to convince my grandmother to leave him. It didn’t work. Grandma fell hard for Harry. She loved his flashy life style, I guess, even though it was mostly an illusion. After they married, Harry isolated her and got control over her life, forbidding her to have anything to do with my mother or me. Even years later, when he placed her in the nursing home.”
Gina let out one sharp laugh like she was remembering an old sad joke.
“He made one mistake. As a way to inflict more hurt on me, he told me where she was, but he wouldn’t let me visit. Harry held that kind of power.”
“Over all those years, you never got to visit or talk to your grandmother?” I asked, completely dumbfounded and enraged.
“Oh, Grandma managed to sneak me a letter on my birthday and Christmas, but no, I wasn’t allowed to see her.”
“And, Conrad? How’d he fit in all this?”
“Conrad spent a lot of time with them. Harry didn’t shun his own flesh and blood. Charlotte knew Conrad better than me, her own granddaughter, but,” she quickly added, “I blame Harry for turning her against me.”
I had to let this marinate in my brain for a minute. “So, Conrad agreed to the insurance scam so Harry could get his money and keep the bonsai tree? Why?”
Gina nodded and wiped her eyes. “He says it was to help Charlotte. It was her tree and about all she had left. It’s all such a waste.”
“What is?” I asked.
“Everything.” Her whole body shriveled from what I’d seen as an energetic if not completely together young woman.
“After we eat, will you take me back to my house?” she asked. “I need to be by myself for a while. Figure out my next step. I can’t go back and work for Maxine after all this. There’s really nothing for me here anymore.”
“You’re going to just walk away from Charlotte? Now that you can finally help her?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know if she cares who she lives with. Conrad said he’d make sure she’s taken care of.”
“That’s generous of him. I suppose that means he expects to keep the bonsai tree.”
“I suppose.”
“Okay.” I said, because really, what else was there to say at this point? I stacked the sandwiches in my basket, tucked a bag of cookies in a corner, and added napkins in case Tilly was out. A likely possibility. Maybe Gina would have a change of heart over lunch. It wouldn’t be the first time food forced a new perspective.
“What about Harry’s killer?” I asked. Had everyone forgotten that brutality in the chaos surrounding the bonsai tree?
She flinched. “What difference does it make? The world is better off without him.”
“But, do you think Conrad killed him?”
“I don’t really care, Sunny. I have to think about myself.”
Me too. I wanted a resolution to this murder to clear the taint from my property and new business.
I saw Hitch coming across the street just as Gina was leaving with the basket of food. Judging from the spring in her step, unloading all that information seemed to improve her spirits considerably.
“What’s going on?” he whispered when he reached my front door. “You’ve been over here forever. Conrad’s getting fidgety and Tilly’s almost through her repertoire of whacky stories. No one wants to hear them again. Especially me.”
Jasper, with Stash in pursuit, trotted over to Hitch. “No, you don’t.” I grabbed the escaping kitty and tucked her in my tote. I carefully juggled Stash without spilling a drop from the pitcher of iced tea. I dawdled long enough for Gina to disappear inside Tilly’s house.
“Gina just unloaded a heap of information on me,” I told Hitch. “Now we have to be patient to see where the chips land. I think some things are about to get sorted out. Big things.” I added. “Did you learn anything from Conrad?”
“Like what? That he admitted he killed Harry or something important like that?” Hitch ran his fingers through his hair in his frustrated-out-of-patience gesture.
“The whole situation over there is like something straight out of a nightmare. Charlotte has been rocking and petting Pinky, sometimes smiling and sometimes mumbling something that makes no sense to me. I think she’s a lot worse than she originally seemed. Conrad keeps tapping his foot and doing something on his phone while Tilly talks and talks. Tell me something you learned from Gina."
“Well, Harry was Conrad’s father for starters. Bet you didn’t see that coming.”
“Really? Are you sure you can believe Gina?”
“Good point. Like I said, something is about to break. The truth has a nasty habit of revealing itself.” I took Hitch by his arm and looked up into his green eyes, glad we were on the same team.
“Oh, one m
ore thing.” I said as I closed the door and we walked across the street. “Are you positive the bonsai tree is safe when you took it out of Gina’s bedroom and hid it somewhere?”
“Yeah, it’s safe.
I tapped my lips with my finger. “Good. Call Maxine and tell her to meet us at the greenhouse in a half hour.
“What makes you think she’ll come?” Hitch asked. “I’m not exactly her favorite person lately.”
“She’ll come. Tell her you have some new information about the bonsai tree.”
Hitch rolled his eyes. I hope you know what you’re doing, Sunshine.”
I just smiled and waited for Hitch to open Tilly’s door for me.
Showtime!
30
Tilly, despite her lack of hostess skills, had managed to find plates for everyone and serve the sandwiches. Miracles never ceased to amaze me. Maybe that wasn’t fair. To be honest, Tilly always got the job done.
I carried in glasses and poured the iced tea.
“This is nice,” I said after I sat down with my food. The situation was anything but nice, more like awkward or extremely uncomfortable. But hey, my goal was for everyone to relax so I made a little light conversation.
“It’s not what I expected today, but still… nice,” I said. “How about you, Conrad? How’s your day going? Gina told me a little bit about your background."
I took a bite of my sandwich, suddenly, ravenous. Also, having my mouth full helped keep me from spilling too much of my newly acquired information.
Gina and Conrad shared a look—hers, wide-eyed, and his, scowling. Good. Let them wonder what I might blurt out next. If she thought I fell for her pity party, she could think again.
“Grandma?” Gina said. “Don’t forget to eat your sandwich. I made tuna fish just like you requested.”
Charlotte squinted at Gina and scrunched her eyebrows. “Who are you? Do I know you, dear?”
Gina glanced at me, and I saw her lip twitch, sending me the not so subtle message: Told ya so.
“Charlotte?” I waited for her to look at me. “You’ve found a wonderful friend there in Pinky. I can tell you love animals.”
