Hope Callaghan - Garden Girls 06 - Magnolia Mansion Mysteries

by Hope Callaghan

  Gloria could hear the sound of water. She peeked around the edge of a blooming bush. There, sitting in the corner of the perfectly landscaped space, was a three-tier fountain. It was in the shape of a castle. An array of magnificent tulips surrounded it. “What a surprise.”

  They wandered back out front and over to Annabelle. Gloria pulled the painting from the trunk and handed it to Andrea. “I did some research on the painter, Sofia Masson.”

  Gloria slammed the trunk shut. “And?”

  “She was a famous French painter who pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth. Mysteriously vanished is how the article described it.”

  Andrea looked down at the painting. “There was a small photo of her. I think this is a self-portrait.”

  She led Gloria back inside the house and propped the painting against a dining room wall. Gloria looked past the living room and into the new sun porch. The French doors leading to the sunroom were wide open. “I can’t wait to see it finished.”

  “C’mon.” Andrea and Brutus headed down the small hall and into the kitchen. Gone were the rows of Lysol wipes and boxes of gloves. She pulled out a barstool near the counter and motioned Gloria to have a seat.

  Gloria eased onto the seat and pulled the journal from her purse. She flipped it open and then pushed it towards Andrea. “Here’s the journal entry I told you about.”

  Andrea quickly read the words. “That’s amazing,” she said.

  Gloria hadn’t had time to finish reading. There wasn’t much left to read. Just a few more entries. “Would you like a Coke?”

  Gloria nodded. “We should finish the journal together.”

  Andrea popped the top on a can she pulled from the fridge and handed it to Gloria. “In the library.”

  The library was one of Gloria’s favorite parts of the house. When she had some extra time, she planned to investigate it thoroughly. Andrea settled into one of the comfy cushioned chairs and Gloria plopped down on the other.

  Andrea sipped her soda and set the can on a coaster nearby. “Did I tell you Alice is coming to live with me?”

  Gloria looked up from the journal. “You mentioned that she might.”

  Andrea nodded. “Yep. She’s packing up now.”

  Gloria remembered Andrea telling her that Alice hated New York. Hated the city. Yes, she probably would like it here. “I can’t wait to meet her, dear.”

  She flipped the journal open and began to read aloud. Most of the entries described her everyday life. Gloria thought the poor woman sounded lonely.

  They were almost to the end when the journal described a frightening incident. Gloria’s head jerked up. She peered at Andrea over the rim of her reading glasses. “I think we’re onto something.”

  “Abe is furious with Hank. Hank has been involved in several run-ins with Belhaven residents. Every evening, the two of them come home from work and start arguing. I see with certainty that Hank’s days here in Belhaven are numbered.”

  The journal had one more entry. “Last evening, Abe and Hank got into a horrible fight. They began to shove each other. I feared the worst and retreated to our bedroom where I shut myself in. Still, I could hear the shouting from my room. I decided to try to calm them down. When I reached the door, the arguing ceased and it grew silent. Hours later, Abe came to our bed. I was still awake.

  I asked him if all was well. He told me that Hank had left and that he wouldn’t be returning.

  I was greatly relieved with this news and today things are much calmer.”

  Andrea’s mouth dropped open. “You think he killed him in the heat of the argument and then buried his body in the shed?” she whispered.

  Gloria closed the journal and absentmindedly ran a finger along the spine. That made the most sense. But Abe was long gone. Who had moved the body from the shed to the dumpster? Did Abe have an accomplice? She couldn’t wait to get the lab results.

  Gloria pulled herself from the chair. “This journal belongs to you,” she told Andrea. She nodded to the bookshelf nearby. “I’ll put it over here.” She made her way over to the bookcase and spied a small gap on the middle shelf. She slid several books to the side to make room. The book was halfway in when it caught on something.

  Gloria slid the book back out and reached her hand into the small space. On the side of the wooden bookcase was a small catch. She turned to Andrea. “There’s something back here.”

  “Really?” Andrea wandered over to the light switch and turned it on.

  Gloria slid her glasses up and peered in. The bump looked like some sort of button. She pulled several of the books out and set them on a lower shelf.

  Yes. It was definitely some sort of button, she decided. She turned to Andrea, who was now standing directly behind her. “What is this?”

  Andrea shrugged her shoulders. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  Gloria pressed the small button. The girls jumped back as a scraping sound echoed in the room. Like the sound of concrete when it rubs against metal.

  The bookcase began to swing back.

  Andrea’s mouth dropped open when the bookcase stopped to reveal a room. “Another secret room,” she whispered.

  There was a light switch just inside the secret room. Gloria flipped the switch and the room flooded with bright light.

  Andrea took a step forward. “What the heck?”

  The windowless room was rectangular in shape. Lining the walls were paintings. Paintings in every size. Big. Small. Even a few that were round. Above each of the larger paintings was a picture light.

  The girls stepped inside and studied the walls. So this was where the famous Sofia Masson paintings had been hidden! Gloria thought.

  Andrea ran her hand along a gilded frame. “These must be worth a small fortune,” she gushed.

  “Hello?” Someone out in the hallway was calling. The girls quickly stepped out of the room. Andrea pressed the button and the door scraped shut. It closed seconds before the construction supervisor stepped into the library. “There you are. I have a question.”

  Andrea followed the man back into the sunroom while Gloria put the books back in place.

  When Andrea returned, she said exactly what Gloria herself was thinking. “We should keep quiet about this. At least for now - until we find out who put the body in the dumpster.”

  Gloria jumped back in detective mode. Was Hank Johnson after Sofia’s paintings? Could that be the reason for Abe and Hank’s heated arguments? Was someone else lurking nearby, searching for the paintings? They needed to flush out whoever the person was and Gloria had an idea!

  “I have a plan,” she whispered in a low voice. Gloria pointed to the door. The girls walked out front and over to Gloria’s car, out of earshot. “You need to pretend you’re leaving town for a couple days – or at least overnight. That way, whoever is still out there will try to get back into the house, thinking that you’re gone.”

  Andrea nodded. Gloria went on. “You can stay at my place. We’ll hide your car in the barn. We can do a stakeout of the house and hopefully catch the person red-handed.”

  She had a sneaking suspicion that whatever was in the locked room in the basement was what the intruder was after – or maybe it was the paintings. If they gave the person the perfect opportunity to come back, maybe, just maybe, they would have the intruder. Possibly even a killer.

  “We will have Dot and Ruth spread the word that you made an emergency trip back to New York because your father was in the hospital or something.” She waved her hand. “We can work out the details later.”

  With a rough plan in place, Gloria hopped in the car and headed to town. She’d need a little help on this one and she knew exactly who to ask. The Garden Girls!

  Chapter 14

  When she got to Dot’s place, she called an emergency meeting that included all the girls: Dot, Ruth, Margaret and Lucy. She needed some back up to pull this thing off.

  Ruth was the last to arrive. She ran a weary hand through her hair as she
approached the group standing in the back of the restaurant. “This better be important,” she warned. “Good thing Kenny was around to watch the post office for me.” Kenny was the rural mail carrier and Ruth’s right hand man.

  The group of girls headed out to the picnic table, which was behind the restaurant, while Ray and Dot’s employee, Holly, covered the front.

  Dot balanced a tray of iced teas and a pile of baked goods as she made her way through the rear screen door. She set them in front of Lucy, who promptly reached for a chocolate frosted cupcake and lemon bar.

  Gloria eyed the lemon bar in Lucy’s hand. All the sleuthing was making Gloria hungry. She grabbed a lemon bar and set it on the napkin in front of her. “I need some help,” she announced.

  She filled the girls in on the details of the investigation so far. The people she’d talked to: Eleanor Whittaker, Doc Decker and his wife, Martha, George and Maxine Ford. She summed it up. “I think maybe Abe Johnson argued with his brother and there was some sort of accident or maybe even murder.”

  She went on. “The only problem is, someone is hoping to get rid of the body and it sure ain’t Abe, which leads me to believe there was another party involved in the murder. I mean, why else would the person go to all the trouble of sneaking back onto the property to dispose of the body?”

  The girls nodded in agreement. There certainly seemed to be more to the story.

  Gloria thought of something else. She pulled the old black and white photo from her purse. The one with the men standing in front of the old mill. She handed the picture to Ruth who studied the picture and passed it to Lucy. “Doc Decker told me he thought that was my mother.”

  The girls had all grown up in Belhaven and they all knew Gloria’s mother, Esther. They passed the picture around the table.

  Margaret frowned. “Are you sure this is your mother?” The photo was grainy. She wasn’t convinced it was Esther. None of them seemed convinced it was Esther.

  Gloria glanced at the photo. “Doc said there was some sort of skirmish when Mother worked at the mill. She didn’t work there long. Dad made her quit,” Gloria told them.

  Lucy nibbled the chocolate on top of her cupcake. “Sounds like no one liked the stepbrother, Hank.” She peeled back the paper and took a bite. “This is delicious,” she told Dot.

  Gloria tucked the old photo back in the corner of her purse and snapped it shut. “We need to flush out the person stalking Andrea’s place. I think there’s something inside her house they want and I think it’s in the basement in that locked room.”

  She told them how Andrea had said that someone had been in her house not long ago. “They came in through the back door, which is close to the basement door. And the basement cellar doors were unlocked.”

  The girls nodded. They would do whatever they could to help!

  “Andrea and I are going to do a stakeout.” Gloria looked at Ruth and Dot. “You two need to spread the word that Andrea is leaving town tomorrow and that she won’t be home for a day or two.” Which was the truth. She wouldn’t be home. She’d be at Gloria’s!

  Gossip was Ruth’s middle name. “I’ve got it covered!” she said.

  She looked at Lucy. “I’ll need a lookout. Someone waiting nearby in a car that can follow the person or persons after they leave the house.”

  Margaret reached for a cheese Danish. “What about me?”

  Gloria shrugged. She didn’t have a real plan for Margaret.

  A thought suddenly occurred to her. “There are two roads that lead away from the house. The alley out back and the main road out front.” She pointed to Lucy. “One of you cover the alley, the other the main road. That way, no matter what direction they take, we’ll have them covered.”

  Margaret nodded. “We need walkie-talkies,” she said. “Remember the ones I took to the mountains? We can use those.”

  With a plan in place to flush out the perpetrator the following night, they headed back inside. Gloria called Andrea on her way home and laid out the plan.

  Gloria’s heart pounded as she thought about the stakeout. She hoped they weren’t just wasting their time and she hoped that Paul would get back with her in the morning with the autopsy results.

  Gloria was wound tighter than a top the rest of the afternoon. When the phone rang, she nearly jumped out of her skin. It was her sister, Liz.

  “Frances is driving me crazy,” she moaned. “This missing Milt thing has taken over all of Dreamwood. Why, do you know she’s put up missing posters all over town?”

  Gloria grinned. She could picture poor Milt’s face plastered on every telephone pole and grocery store bulletin board from here to Grand Rapids!

  Liz went on. “She asked if you could come by and do a little snooping around. I told her I’d run it by you.”

  Gloria looked out the window. It was almost dark. She wasn’t good at night driving any more. Plus, she was tired. It had been a long day. A long couple of days with the boys. “I’m knee deep in Andrea’s dilemma at the moment. Tell Frances to hang tight. It might be a day or two until I can get over there.”

  Liz groaned. “Oh, you’re killing me!” She sighed. “I’ll let her know. At least it’s something.”

  Before she hung up, she asked Liz what she thought had happened to him. “Honestly, I don’t know. He isn’t one to just up and disappear.”

  Unlike Liz, herself, who loved to cause a stir by taking off without telling people where she was going…

  After they hung up, Gloria popped a frozen dinner in the microwave and sat down at the table. She’d been so busy, she hadn’t even had a chance to read the daily news. She unfolded the paper and slipped her reading glasses on. There, on the cover, was a picture of Andrea’s painting. She peered down to read the caption:

  “Painting by famous artist, Sofia Masson, is discovered during recent renovations of an old Belhaven home.”

  The article went on to tell how the owner discovered the painting inside a dumpster, taped to the back of a sheet of paneling. It gave Andrea’s name AND her address.

  Gloria wasn’t sure if this was good news or bad news. It would certainly get the attention of whoever had been lurking around Andrea’s place. It was time to get the stakeout under way!

  Chapter 15

  Gloria was up early the next morning. She’d spent the night tossing and turning as she plotted out the plan for later that night. She also thought about the old black and white photo. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that the woman in the picture was not her mother!

  She was sipping a cup of coffee, catching up on local news when Andrea called. “What time do you want me to come over and hide out?”

  Gloria glanced at the clock. It was still early. Something dawned on her. Something she hadn’t considered yet. “What are we going to do with Brutus?”

  “Got that covered. Margaret stopped by a few minutes ago. She told me she’d keep Brutus until I get back.”

  Gloria let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to keep Brutus at the farm. She just wasn’t quite sure how Mally would react. The two dogs had met briefly but there was a big difference between a quick visit and having another dog invade Mally’s turf!

  Before they hung up, Andrea told her she’d pack an overnight bag and head out. Gloria made her way out to the barn to open the double doors. She unlocked the padlock and shoved the doors open. She peered in. The tractor took up a good deal of room but Gloria was certain there was plenty of room for Andrea’s car to pull in beside it.

  She was still in the barn when Andrea pulled in the drive. Gloria quickly motioned for her to pull forward and into the empty spot.

  Andrea hopped out of the car and darted out of the barn. The girls closed the door as fast as they could and shoved the lock in place. They hurried into the house and slammed the door. Gloria pulled the kitchen shade, just to be safe. She turned to Andrea. “Did you leave the cellar doors unlocked?”

  “Check.” Andrea nodded. “I lef
t the lock hanging on the door but didn’t snap it down so it would look like I forgot.”

  Gloria gave her the thumbs up. Mally padded into the kitchen and over to Andrea. She sniffed her pant legs, then her hands. Andrea bent down to pat her head. “You smell Brutus, don’t you?”

  She wandered over to her doggy bed and settled in. Gloria was certain she was disappointed that Brutus wasn’t with her. “Sorry, girl. Maybe next time,” she told her.

  Andrea pulled out a kitchen chair. Puddles sauntered into the kitchen. He eyed Andrea for a moment before leaping into her lap. He curled up in a ball and settled in.

  Gloria scowled at the traitor. “Maybe you should get a cat.”

  Andrea stroked his soft fur. Puddles began to purr like a lawn mower in high gear. “I’ve been thinking about it,” she admitted. “Not sure how Brutus will react to a cat.”

  The afternoon seemed to drag on. Gloria was used to coming and going as she pleased.

  At least she was able to make a few trips outside with Mally. She was certain Andrea must be going stir crazy. Although she seemed to be handling it quite well.

  Andrea played on her laptop. She played with Puddles, who loved every second of it. It was obvious he adored her as much as she adored him.

  Gloria thawed the chicken pot pie she’d made a few weeks back and whipped up a batch of corn muffins to go with it. After the girls had eaten, they changed into their stakeout clothes. Black slacks, black shirts, sturdy black shoes. Ones that they could run in, if necessary.

  The group had agreed to rendezvous at 9:00 p.m. The plan was for Andrea and Gloria to park Annabelle at Lucy’s place. Lucy would drop them off in the alley, behind the house, and then Lucy would find a place to park on the side street. Somewhere out of sight. Margaret would be waiting nearby - at the other end of the alley.

  Lucy’s porch light was on when they pulled into the drive. Gloria glanced around as they slid out of the car. She hoped no one would drive by and see Andrea. That was one of the downfalls of living in such a small town! Everyone knew everyone and, thanks to Dot and Ruth, Gloria was certain that 99% of the residents now thought Andrea was out-of-town on a family emergency!