Gertrude, Gumshoe Cozy Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1, 2, and 3

by Robin Merrill

  Roderick didn’t answer her. He just looked scared.

  “Oh never mind. I have to go home.” She was exhausted. And she missed her cats.

  As she headed toward the door, she heard Rose ask, “Are you sure she works here?”

  8

  It was dark when Gertrude arrived home. Grateful for her porch light, she stuck her key into the keyhole, but quickly noticed the door wasn’t even locked. She was positive she’d left it locked. She gingerly opened the door and flipped on the lights and was greeted by several glaring felines. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d left them alone for so long.

  “Sorry, kiddos. Momma’s got a job.”

  Lightning, who was sleeping on a pile of assorted hymnals, licked his paw snobbishly in response.

  Gertrude looked around. At first, nothing seemed to be amiss, but then she noticed that a new path had been carved toward the corner of her living room where she kept her rock collections. She gasped. She felt angry, scared, and violated all at once. As she entered the new path, she couldn’t stand the way things had been thrown about, all willy-nilly, so she began to reorganize as she went. The perpetrator had put records on top of her eight-track bins, and that almost pushed her over the edge. She moved the records back to their proper place and then refolded all the afghans that had been tossed onto her stacks of mason jars. When she had left home, her afghans had been neatly folded and stacked according to color in correspondence to the rainbow, leaning against her favorite hutch, which was full of decorative plates and butter dishes. She was so grieved by the mess of afghans, it took her several minutes to notice that the hutch stood open. A few butter dishes appeared to have been moved—she could tell by smudges in the dust, but nothing appeared to be missing. This is the weirdest break-in ever.

  She finished refolding and reorganizing, fed her cats, and then put her coat back on and headed out into the cold.

  She pounded on Calvin’s door.

  “What?” he hollered over the noise of his television. She heard a burst of gunfire and figured he must be watching another western. She didn’t really enjoy westerns unless they featured Wild Bill Hickok. Something about that man just got her motor running.

  She tried the doorknob. It was locked this time. That sneaky scoundrel!

  “Calvin, open up! Someone broke into my trailer again,” she hollered through the door.

  The gunfire stopped and she heard footsteps. Calvin opened the door. “I thought you were locking your door these days?” he asked.

  She pushed by him. “I did, obviously. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, you know. Of course I lock my door. But someone must have picked the lock. Or used a key. I don’t know how they did it. I just know that when I got home, my door was unlocked and someone had messed up my afghan pile.”

  Calvin closed his door. “A key? Where would someone get a key? And why would someone steal an afghan, Gert?”

  “Don’t call me Gert, and I don’t know where they got a key. And I didn’t say someone stole an afghan. I just said they messed with my pile. As far as I can tell, they didn’t take anything. They just rifled through it. So did you see anything? Anyone suspicious in the neighborhood?”

  “No, Gertrude. I’ve been watching television with the curtains drawn. I work pretty hard at not seeing anything that goes on in this neighborhood.”

  “Oh, Calvin. Stop acting like you’re too good to live in a trailer park. You do live in a trailer park, you know. Anyway, you haven’t been watching TV all day. I don’t know when this thug broke in. Could have been this morning for all I know.”

  “You’ve been gone all day?” Calvin exclaimed, incredulous. “Why? Where were you?”

  “I got a job.”

  Calvin laughed. “No. Really.”

  “It’s not funny. I got a job.”

  “As in someone actually hired you to investigate something?”

  “No, as in I got a real job. At Goodwill.”

  “Oh!” Calvin exclaimed as if suddenly everything made sense. “So you’re hiring yourself to figure out who killed that young woman?”

  “I didn’t hire myself,” Gertrude said. “But yes, I’m going to solve Tislene Breen’s murder. I already know more than the cops do.”

  “Of course you do,” Calvin said, and walked back to his recliner. He sat down. “So maybe the break-in is connected to your current investigation?”

  “Oh!” she said thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “You hadn’t thought of that? Why else would someone break into your trailer? Do you have anything worth stealing?”

  “I have lots of stuff worth stealing. You should see my jewelry collection!”

  “Gertrude, if you buy jewelry at a lawn sale, it’s probably not worth stealing.”

  “Look, did you see anything or not?”

  “Not.”

  “Fine,” she said, turning toward the door. “Well, would you keep the curtains open tomorrow? I’ve got to go to work again.”

  Calvin reclined. “Yeah, that’s usually how jobs work. You have to go to them more than once.”

  9

  Willow met Gertrude at the door. “You’re late.”

  “No, I’m not,” Gertrude said, taking off her coat.

  Willow pointed at the clock. “It’s past nine.”

  Gertrude looked at the clock. “Oh bosh. It’s two minutes past nine. Anyway, I have a good reason for being a few seconds late.” Gertrude waited for Willow to ask, but she didn’t. So Gertrude told her anyway. “I had to booby-trap my trailer before I left this morning. Then my cats sprung half the traps, and I had to start all over.”

  Willow wisely avoided this topic of conversation. “Whatever. Come on, someone practically destroyed the plus-sized section. We’ve got to go organize.”

  Willow wasn’t kidding. Someone had definitely made a mess of the full-figured items. “What in tarnation?” Gertrude asked.

  “I know. I wonder the same thing. I guess people think that because the stuff is used, they can treat it like it has no value?” She bent over to pick up a zebra-striped cami and put it back on a hanger.

  Gertrude followed her lead and began to pick up the many items that had fallen off or been knocked off the rack. She tired of this after the third time she bent over, so she let Willow do the heavy lifting and she began to simply neaten up the hanging blouses. As she did this, she noticed a flurry of activity in the row of large blouses. “What’s she up to?”

  Willow rolled her eyes. “Oh, we kind of just let Azalea do what she wants to do. She is currently organizing blouses by color. It’s annoying, but it makes her happy. I’ll have to go through later and make sure she didn’t screw up the sizing while she was making her rainbow.”

  Gertrude scowled. “What do you have against rainbows? I happen to like rainbows.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  Gertrude was wondering what she’d meant by that when she noticed two uniforms enter the store. She groaned.

  “What?” Willow asked, looking up.

  “The cops are here.”

  “So?”

  “So, I really don’t like Hale.”

  “Who’s Hale?”

  “The handsome one.”

  Willow giggled, and Gertrude looked at her, shocked.

  “What?” Willow asked.

  “I didn’t know you knew how to laugh. Or smile, come to think of it.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Willow snapped, her giggle long gone.

  Gertrude watched the two deputies speak to Sherri up front by the registers. Then Sherri led them toward the back. Gertrude’s eyes followed them all the way through the swinging doors. When she could no longer see them, her feet decided to give chase. Slowly.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Willow asked.

  “I’m going to go see what they’re up to. They’re probably finally looking for the murder weapon. I’ve got to tell them where I’ve already searched. Don’t want them to waste their tim
e.”

  “Get back here!” Willow commanded, but Gertrude was already gone.

  She pushed through the swinging doors just in time to see the police escorting Roderick out through the back. In handcuffs. Sherri watched him go, and then turned around and saw Gertrude gawking. “Back to work,” she said, firmly, but not unkindly.

  “Why’d they arrest Roderick?” Gertrude asked.

  “It’s not our business, Gertrude. Now get back to work, please.”

  “But was it for the murder? Or something else?”

  “The murder,” Sherri answered reluctantly. “Now, please?”

  Gertrude finally left the back room to rejoin Willow in the now-much-neater plus-sized section. “They just arrested Roderick for the murder,” Gertrude exclaimed.

  “Humph. Not surprised. That guy’s a weirdo.”

  “Yeah, but, do you really think he would kill someone? I mean, he’s certainly shifty, but he’s no murderer,” Gertrude said.

  “How do you know? I think we’re done here. At least I’m done. You haven’t really done much of anything. Go dust off the glassware.”

  “Why? Where are you going?” Gertrude asked, excited about the idea of being left alone.

  “I’m going to go ask Sherri if she wants me to cover the back. I guess Roderick won’t be accepting donations today.”

  As Gertrude headed toward the glassware aisle, she heard whimpering in the Christmas section. She headed that way, and found Azalea standing in front of a plastic Christmas tree, crying. Wondering how she could have already learned of Roderick’s arrest, Gertrude said, “There, there, Azalea. It doesn’t mean he did it. The police are still investigating. They’ll figure out that he’s innocent. They’re just slow is all.”

  Azalea looked up, confused. “What? Who is innocent?”

  Gertrude was baffled. “Why are you crying?”

  Azalea sniffed and then wiped her nose on her sleeve. Gertrude reached into her walker pouch and pulled out a Burger King napkin. She stepped forward to hand it to Azalea, and then stepped back to remain a safe distance from Azalea’s emotions. Azalea took the napkin and made an obvious effort to catch her breath. “This Christmas tree has a thirty-dollar price tag on it.”

  Gertrude looked at the plastic tree and then back at Azalea. “So?”

  “So!” Azalea cried. “This tree doesn’t cost thirty dollars! It only cost two dollars! Yesterday, it only cost two dollars!”

  Gertrude scowled at her. “Why are you crying?” she repeated.

  Azalea looked at her, wide-eyed. “Someone switched the tags!” she cried. “Someone bought something that was supposed to cost thirty dollars! And they only paid two dollars!”

  “Oh,” Gertrude said. She looked at the tree. Then she looked at Azalea again. “So?”

  Azalea was overcome with a whole new round of hysterics. “Oh, never mind! You don’t understand! Nobody ever understands!” she cried, and ran for the bathroom.

  Gertrude didn’t exactly care about Azalea’s weird emotional breakdown, but she also didn’t want to dust wine goblets, so she headed toward the front to look for Sherri. She soon found her.

  “Sherri, something is wrong with Azalea,” Gertrude said, trying to display a concerned expression.

  “What happened?” Sherri asked, her eyes scanning the store.

  “She was crying in the Christmas aisle,” Gertrude said. “Something about switched price tags.”

  “Oh,” Sherri said, as if that explained everything. “Where did she go?”

  “Bathroom,” Gertrude said, and Sherri headed that way. “What, does Christmas make everyone bonkers around here?” she asked the back of Sherri’s head.

  “This is nothing. You should see Halloween,” Sherri said without turning around.

  Gertrude still didn’t want to dust the glass aisle, so she headed to the back. Willow was standing with her head out the donation door, smoking. When she saw Gertrude, she hurriedly stomped out her cigarette and tried to look casual.

  “I just found Azalea sobbing over a switched price tag. Is that normal?” Gertrude asked.

  Willow smirked. “Yeah. Normal for her. I’m telling you, she lives and breathes this place. She takes it personally if someone shoplifts. Once, someone wrote a naughty word on the bathroom door, and she was inconsolable for a week.”

  Gertrude stared at her, thinking about Azalea.

  “What?” Willow asked self-consciously.

  “Nothing,” Gertrude said. “So, any new donations of interest?”

  “Nope. Most stuff comes in on the weekends.”

  “So you just stand here all day doing nothing?”

  Willow gave her a dirty look. “No, I sort and price while I’m back here. We don’t really need to stand by the door. When someone drives up, an alarm sounds back here.”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve heard that bell. I wondered what that was.”

  “Yeah, well now you know. Did you dust the glassware?”

  “Of course! Who was back here during the murder?”

  “What?”

  “Who was back here,” Gertrude repeated slowly, “when Tislene Breen was killed?”

  “I was,” Willow snapped. “Why? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “And there was no one else? Nobody dropping things off? I mean, you would’ve heard them when they pulled up, right?”

  Willow looked suspicious. “Yes. I suppose. But there wasn’t anyone. I was all alone. I didn’t even know something had happened until the cops came to talk to me.”

  10

  Gertrude didn’t have to work on the weekend, but still she called the CAP bus first thing Saturday morning.

  When the large van pulled up in front of her trailer, she was disheartened to see that Andrea was driving. Andrea took her job a little too seriously, in Gertrude’s opinion.

  “Destination?” Andrea said as Gertrude slid into the van.

  “County jail,” Gertrude answered.

  Andrea turned toward her and looked at her suspiciously. “I can only take you to necessary stops. Why do you need to go to the jail?”

  “I need to pay a fine,” Gertrude lied.

  “Fines are paid at the courthouse,” Andrea said, unblinkingly.

  “You know what?! You need to get a life!” Gertrude cried.

  “And you need to get a driver’s license!” Andrea gave it right back.

  “I can’t. I’m disabled.”

  Andrea turned around in her seat and stared out the windshield. “You can get out now. I’m not taking you to the jail. Why on earth would you want to go to the jail anyway?”

  Gertrude gritted her teeth. Then she said, slowly, emphatically, and not a little menacingly, “I need to go to the jail because I’m having a steamy affair with a hardened criminal who happens to be staying there right now. If you don’t take me to him, right now, I will tell him that you are the reason I missed our date. I will tell him where you live and I will make sure he pays you a visit when he gets out.”

  Andrea looked at her in the rearview mirror. She didn’t look convinced. She also looked a little scared. Wordlessly, she put the van in drive and headed toward the jail. The two women stayed silent for the ride, and for disembarkation. Gertrude noted, with some satisfaction, that Andrea did not log this particular ride on her infuriatingly neat clipboard.

  Gertrude entered the clean lobby of the Somerset County Jail and wondered at what a nice place it was. It looked more like an office building than a jail, and the large welcome desk sat empty before her. She rang the call bell. No one materialized. She rang it again. And again. Soon, an annoyed-looking young man in uniform appeared. “Can I help you?” he asked tersely.

  “I’m here to visit one of your prisoners.”

  The man sat down. “No visitations on weekends.” He pointed to a sign on the counter that read just that.

  “Oh doodlebug!” Gertrude exclaimed.

  The man frowned.

  “So I have to wait till Monday?�
�

  The man nodded, still frowning. “And you’ll need to have an appointment,” he said, pointing at the sign again, which also included this information.

  “Fine. Then I need to make an appointment please,” Gertrude said.

  “All right,” the man said, and tapped a few keys on the computer in front of him. “And who would you like to visit?”

  “Roderick.”

  The man looked up. “Roderick who?”

  “I don’t know,” Gertrude admitted.

  “Well, we need a last name in order to schedule an appointment.”

  “Oh piffle! How many Rodericks were arrested for murder yesterday?”

  A look of recognition flashed across the guard’s face. “I’m sorry, I’ll need a last name. Then I’d be happy to schedule an appointment.”

  Gertrude stood up straight. “You know who I’m talking about!”

  Without looking at her, he said, “I don’t know anything.”

  Gertrude walked to the door and called the CAP bus again.

  “That was a quick visit,” Andrea muttered as Gertrude slid into the van.

  “He’s a man of few words,” Gertrude said.

  “Where to now? The casino?”

  “There’s a casino in Mattawooptock?” Gertrude asked, appalled.

  “That was a joke. Where do you want to go, your highness?”

  Having absolutely no idea why Andrea had just called her “your highness,” she said, “Church please. Open Door.”

  Andrea did as she was asked and looked quite relieved when Gertrude climbed out of the van in the church parking lot.

  Gertrude hurried inside and out of the cold. She hung her coat in the lobby and then headed into the office. “Hi, Maggie. Hi, Tiny,” she greeted her friends.

  “Hey, Gert. What brings you here?” Maggie asked brightly.

  “Need to talk to Pastor Dan,” Gertrude said.

  “He’s in his office,” Maggie said, nodding at his office door.

  Gertrude went in without knocking and plopped down in a chair without being invited.