“I’m sure she was real happy to hear that.”
Chief pushed himself upright. “She’s coming in for a few questions.”
Hardy vaulted vertical. “Good, so we can go.”
Chief shook his head and pointed to the chair. “Not so fast. I want to know what you were doing in that Dumpster.”
Hardy shuffled his feet. “LaTisha made me do it.”
“What!” I cuffed him on his arm. “Don’t mess with me, boy. I haven’t been able to make you do anything for forty years.”
He rubbed his shoulder. “I demand protective custody.”
Chief Conrad’s laughter rolled over us. “Listen, you two, I’m not arresting you or anything of the sort. I do need to know what prompted you to be in that Dumpster. I thought you might be up to something, LaTisha. It’s a good thing I followed you.”
“I thought you were strange tonight. Didn’t even say good night to me like you usually do.”
Chief cracked a grin. “We know each other too well.”
I shifted my weight in the chair, chagrined. Apparently I didn’t know him well enough. “All I know is Hardy said he saw a blue car in Betsy’s back lot. He thought he saw the driver throw something away back there.”
Hardy piped up. “That was only after you said a blue car almost ran you over on Gold Street.”
Chief rubbed his jaw. “I heard something about that.” His eyes shifted to me. “You almost got hit by a car?”
“Sure did. It was a big blue car. An old one. Lady had long, wild red hair.”
Chief struck his cop pose. “Can’t tell me anything more than that?”
The prick of his eyes worked at my conscience. If I didn’t tell chief the license number, I’d never know anything more about the car, or the person to whom it was registered. “The license number is KXT-L685. Shiny Portly saw the car, so did Bob, Regina, and Janet. They came to help me.”
“I’ll run it. Why didn’t you report it?”
Hardy answered for me. “She thought it was some old person who was trying to avoid the highway and taking the back roads through Maple Gap.”
Which was true enough.
Chief pressed his lips together as if squelching a chuckle. “LaTisha, really, an old person with red hair?”
“Women dye their hair.”
“Men don’t.”
“Did I say it was a man? And some do. Look at Eugene.”
“It could have been a man. What makes you think it was a woman?”
“Long red hair
“Men can have long hair.”
“Most don’t.”
“Some do.”
I speared him hard with my eyes. “Don’t play with me.”
Chief Conrad and Hardy shared a conspiratorial glance and burst out laughing.
“It’d serve you both right to just die laughing.”
Hardy slapped his thigh. “I keep telling you you’d miss me.”
“Why do you think I make sure to pay that life insurance premium? All that money would keep me toasty in the Bahamas.”
Betsy Taser chose that moment to make her grand appearance. The wind had picked up and the door flew inward, tugging Betsy off her feet. Her hair stuck out in all directions, or maybe that’s how she looked at 1:35 a.m. She straightened and pawed over her hair. I almost told her it was hopeless, but kept my lips sealed. I could tell by her look she was primed to explode.
“Why in the world am I being dragged down here?”
Chief stood straight, his chest swelled as he stepped back into his policeman’s skin. “We’ve had an interesting evening, Mrs. Taser. Something of interest was found on your property. I have a few questions to ask you.”
“Well, I’m here.”
Chief didn’t even flinch at her attitude. “That you are. I appreciate your coming in.”
His voice dripped not the least bit of kindness.
I’m sure we’d all appreciate you leaving even more. I bit my tongue. Hard. And prayed. Fervently. I thought I might even be able to feel God giving me a pat on the head.
Betsy turned her head our direction. I braced myself. “Surely you don’t expect me to answer questions in the presence of them.”
This called for me to rise to the occasion. I doubled in size like William’s bread dough, but wasn’t anyone going to punch me down. “We were just leaving, Betsy, honey, so you’ve no reason to fear us. You do have good reason to fear the law, what with Hardy finding the murder weapon in your trash Dumpster.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chief was probably ready to smoke me right there. Betsy’s complexion paled a shade and I knew between her reaction after my comment about Aidan looking like a hit man, and the prospect of finding the murder weapon on her property, this gal was scared. Chief knew it too.
“If you’ll follow me, Mrs. Taser, we’ll talk about this in more detail.” His hard gaze razored me. “LaTisha. Hardy. We’ll talk later.”
Hardy pulled to his feet and flapped his boots to the door. I followed, wondering what thought might be skittering through his head. I shut the door behind us. Hardy turned and pursed his lips.
“Know what I think?”
“Knowing you do is real good news.”
He smacked his lips together. “Is that how you talk to the man who is your hero, and about ready to become your knight?”
“What you talking about?”
“I think we should continue diving.”
This truly surprised me. “What you meaning? What more do we need to be looking for in Dumpsters? The police crawled through every one of them in the alley, and the trucks came as soon as the scene was released.”
He scratched at his side, then his head, and I knew his wheels were spinning. I let my mind cast over the possibilities. The police looked through the Dumpsters for clues to the murderer’s identity, but mainly for the murder weapon. But that didn’t mean something else hadn’t shown up in the meantime. Savvy crooks would know how incriminating a Dumpster could be and might delay throwing anything away that could be used against them.
“You’re thinking we might find something useful?”
Hardy’s feet started shuffling and he did a little twiddle thing with his fingers, as if playing an imaginary piano. “What about Carl? His name keeps coming up. We could check Aidan’s Dumpster again too. If Eddie and Roger have something to hide, now is the perfect time for them to get rid of information.”
I knew he had a point. A solid point. Carl’s name had come up during this entire investigation. And someone else’s too. “Randy is working at Shiny’s. He said his momma was in Aidan’s jewelry store once and heard someone arguing. Thought it might have been Flossie.”
Hardy kept pace with me, two steps to my one. He remained quiet until we passed Regina’s shop and took the footpath that led into the alley. “Doesn’t Flossie work with Carl?”
Flossie. I rolled her name around a bit. Her name tugged on something in my head. Flossie.
“Couldn’t she be the one taking the jewelry to Aidan?”
“I’ve been wondering how two people so hot on a divorce, could suddenly want to be together so much.”
Hardy stopped, the whites of his eyes visible in the weak moonlight. “Should we do Carl’s first, or Aidan’s?”
“Aidan’s. We’d better hope Eddie and Roger are deep asleep though.”
Turns out Hardy had to be real careful in Aidan’s nearly empty Dumpster, or the sound of his feet would have echoed off the metal sides and floor. I heard his grunt, and saw the flash of his light sweep the inside. His head popped out. “There’s two small bags. I’m going to push them out and we’ll haul them back to Old Lou.”
What was he thinking? “And what are we going to say if someone catches us with two bags of trash?”
He disappeared back inside. Before long a white bag was pushed my way. I grabbed it and set it on the ground. The other one appeared. Both were lightweight, nothing like the heavy loads of food waste I hauled out from th
e Goose.
Hardy poised to come out rear first, one leg made it over the edge. He hopped backwards, one foot still caught. That’s when the seam on his pants gave way. A nice ripping sound that startled Hardy into lifting his head and banging it against the Dumpster. With his leg caught on the edge, he ended up falling, his foot kicking the side and making more racket.
I quick picked up the two bags, checking to make sure he hadn’t smacked himself unconscious.
“Hurry!” I prompted.
Hardy pulled to his feet, his hand rubbing the tender spot on his head.
A window above us snapped open and a voice hollered down. “Hey!”
Hardy took off, leaving me pushing to keep even with him. His car keys were in his hands as we weaved through the alley and popped out onto Gold Street and Old Lou. He made short work of unlocking the doors. I threw the bags into the backseat and settled myself, trying to pull my door shut and get it to latch without slamming it. We didn’t say another word until we got home, hustling those bags inside and shutting and locking the doors.
“You think they saw us?” Hardy asked as he ripped open a bag and scanned the contents.
“The only thing they probably saw was the whites of the bags and your drawers hanging out of that hole.”
Hardy twisted around, trying to see the hole, plucking at the broken threads with the most sorrowful expression on his face.
“Your old faithfuls finally busted out.”
He shot me a frown, but I was way too interested in digging into those bags. I parked myself on the ottoman and reached down to pull out some papers from Hardy’s bag. He watched me, not joining in, and I knew his nerves were still all knotted up. “Why don’t you play me a tune.”
Most of the papers contained junk mail. Others were wrappers and napkins, with a couple of fast food bags. The most disappointing discovery was at the bottom where a pile of shredded paper stopped me cold. I ripped open the second bag and discovered more shredded papers.
Hardy worked the piano hard, a jaunty tune of his own creation, but the sound didn’t help ease my disappointment. I plunged down to the bottom of the bag and felt something funny. I tugged. A red wig popped out.
When the alarm went off at six-thirty, I groped for it and squeezed it hard. It went quiet. I nudged Hardy with my foot. “You taking your shower first?”
His lips slapped together a few times and he turned on his side. I took that as a no. Which meant I’d have to brave the cold floor first. My brain felt gummy. My eyes were dry and probably bloodshot. And the phone was ringing. I sure hoped it wasn’t William or Elizabeth calling from the Goose to say they needed something from the store. Or, worse, that one of them was sick and needed to cut out early. That they were doing the morning work so Hardy and I could sleep late was more than wonderful. It’d be a tough day, what with the speeches scheduled. Everyone in town with a political opinion would be there, spreading a rally cry for their candidate, and they all had to eat.
Made me tired just thinking about it.
The answering machine picked up and Chief Conrad’s voice filled the air. “LaTisha, give me a call when you get the chance.”
I closed my eyes feeling every bit of my age. That Chief could pull an all-nighter and still be as perky as a puppy stung my pride and forced me to pour myself to the floor. After showering and weighing in, I went down to scramble some eggs for Hardy. A side of cheese grits and a glass of orange juice should hold him off for at least thirty minutes. I started to crack my first egg, then switched directions. Instead of plain scrambled eggs, I’d do a hash brown quiche.
The rhythm of putting together a familiar recipe got me to humming. That and the wig. I was anxious to talk to Chief. I checked the answering machine and realized I’d missed calls from Lela, Shayna, and my daughter-in-law, Fredlynn. They were checking on Hardy and had left messages expressing hope he was doing well. I’d call them back tonight, explain the situation, and start working in the fund-raiser angle.
Hardy padded into the kitchen looking like the walking dead. He slumped into his chair and groaned. “I’m too old for this crime stuff.”
“Whose idea was it to go into Aidan’s Dumpster?”
“Too bad we missed going into Carl’s. Maybe we should have started with his.”
I cracked eggs on the side of the bowl. “The wig was a real find. Strengthens the tie between Eddie and Roger and that blue car.” Another egg and I started whisking everything with a fork. “Chief wanted me to call him. You dial the number while I chop veggies.”
Hardy stretched hard to reach the phone, finally snagging it with his fingertips.
I spun the dial on the oven to three-seventy-five and pulled out mushrooms, some already chopped up onion, the carton of milk, a freezer bag of diced green pepper, one of southern-style hash browns, and cheese.
“It’s Hardy, Chief, LaTisha wanted me to call.”
I made short work of rinsing the mushrooms and chopping them, my ear tuned to the silence on this end of the conversation. I dumped the mushrooms, onion, and green pepper into the egg mixture and started grating the cheese. If the mushrooms were too tough for Hardy to chew, he’d just have to pick them out.
“I’ll tell her. Yup.”
I motioned that I wanted to talk to him and Hardy handed over the phone. “Hardy got the idea to check Eddie and Roger’s Dumpster.”
“Don’t tell me—you found something else.”
“The red wig. It was in a trash bag of shredded paper. You found anything on the fingerprints?”
“I can tell you they don’t match Eddie’s or Roger’s prints and nothing in our files, but there’s definitely another set other than Hardy’s.”
A dead end.
“I need to let you go, LaTisha, got another call. Hardy’ll tell you the rest. I’ll send Mac over for the bags.”
I handed the phone back to Hardy and he ended the call, the phone giving its final beep. “What did he tell you?” I asked.
“I hardly have the chance to hang up and you’re all over me,” he groused. “He wanted to let you know he had an appointment with Carl at ten. He was hoping you could meet him there.”
“He told me the fingerprints didn’t match anything they had. Not even Eddie or Roger.”
“Maybe they’re innocent and the wig is to frame them.”
I peered at Hardy; he was usually full of more sass in the morning. I pressed paper towel onto the thin layer of rinsed hash browns to absorb the water. “I’ll leave William and Elizabeth in charge and head over there.” I purposely left Hardy out of the plans. “You feeling okay?”
“Just tired. What you making?”
“Hash brown quiche.” I greased the pie plate and pressed the hash browns into it, drizzling the whole thing with melted butter and popping it into the oven. I eyed the clock. I’d have to let the hash browns cool a bit before adding the mix, but if I ran out of time, I could bake it until it was set, then finish it at the Goose.
Hardy hadn’t responded to my announcement, a strange thing for him. I turned to give him the once over. His chin was cradled in his hand, brow creased.
“What you thinking so hard on?”
He snapped out of his daze and a tiny smile touched his lips. “Your fingerprint kit.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“What you wanting with that?” I sat down across from him.
“Haven’t thought it through all the way. You know where it is?”
“Sure I do, it’s in my closet upstairs.”
That was all it took. Hardy bounced himself upstairs to fetch it.
He reappeared as I was taking the hash brown crust out of the oven. He set the box on the table. I decided to give my question another go. “There’s something ticking around in that head of yours.”
“I was thinking of lifting some prints from the glasses at the Goose.”
Unless someone had a record, his prints wouldn’t be on file with the police. And if the person who pulled the trigger on A
idan had never committed a crime before, then pulling prints and matching them against Maple Gap’s citizens might be the ticket.
I leaned over and lifted the lid of the box, excited by the prospect of Hardy’s idea. “You’re the smartest man I know.”
I had one foot out the door when the phone rang. Hardy, sitting in the car behind the wheel, seemed pretty anxious to get to the Goose. The answering machine clicked on. I stood there long enough to make sure the call wasn’t heating to critical. Even if William or Elizabeth were calling in sick or something, I figured Hardy and one other person would be able to handle things. It wouldn’t be like I was ducking out of the Goose for the entire morning.
A breathless, gruff voice. “LaTisha. Your ad dollars are going to the best paper in Maple Gap. I’d be delighted for you to pay me big money for a small ad. Say, half a page?”
Michael Nooseman. It’s about time he returned my call.
He paused, and when he started talking again his tone had changed. “You think you could swing by my office tomorrow? I need some input on something, and you know how much it pains me to admit that to you, so don’t go and rub it in my face.”
He ended with his usual click. No good-bye. No thanks. He just hangs up.
Hardy must have got tired of seeing half my body sticking out the door with no promise of the other half appearing, because he honked the horn.
I yanked the door shut behind me and marched to the car. Hardy had some classic piano playing on the radio, which he turned down as I slipped in and slammed the door shut.
“The fuse lit on your dynamite or something?” I barked at him.
“You weren’t moving.”
“Was listening to Michael Nooseman leave a message.”
“Why didn’t you just answer the phone?”
“Because we had to get going and you know how people can get to talking.”
Hardy pressed his lips together. “He finally getting back to you?”
As Hardy edged down our road and made a right onto Gold Street, I made a decision. “You go on in and make sure everything’s rolling along, I’m going to hop down and find out what Michael wants.”
Your Goose Is Cooked (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery) Page 16
