Armed and Outrageous (An Agnes Barton Mystery)

by Johns, Madison

  Most of the light pole bases were once painted yellow, but had been scrapped down to gray concrete, I think from some of the seniors living in town. I know on occasion my own eyesight was tested. Seniors had just as much right to a driver’s license as the younger population, although I had noticed through the years that my reaction time is much slower.

  Andrew parked at a slant. Oh, God forbid someone plows into his expensive LX. Not that I knew how much it cost; I just knew a Lexus can be a bit pricey as in the cost of a modest home, which always begged the question of how many Lexus owners actually lived in their vehicles.

  We strolled inside, and Eleanor found an electrical shopping cart or buggy as she called it.

  “Oh no you don’t. That’s the last one, and it’s mine,” Dorothy Alton said, running toward her.

  Who knew Dorothy could move so quickly.

  “I don’t see your name on it,” Eleanor retorted.

  “She was here first,” Andrew said.

  “Well... “ Dorothy froze, her eyes shifting between Eleanor and Andrew. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Eleanor’s friend, and she was here first.” He grinned. “Find yourself another one.”

  “She won’t even fit on it, she’s too – “

  “Jesus Christ Dorothy,” Dorothy’s husband, Frank, now protested. “Will you leave that woman alone! You want another episode like you had in the ice cream shop again?”

  Dorothy lowered her shoulder and rubbed her hands together. “Oh Frank, I don’t mean anything by it. I just don’t like the way she’s looking at you.”

  Eleanor climbed into the buggy seat while Andrew unplugged it. She backed up and turned it around with ease. She drove the buggy better than she did her car. Maybe I should buy her an amigo.

  “Thanks,” I whispered into his ear.

  “What happened in the ice cream shop?” Andrew frowned, curious.

  “You’d have to have been there to believe it. Let’s just say Eleanor is a real scrapper.”

  I selected a cart and made my way toward the grocery area.

  Fluorescent lights hung overhead, lighting our way, so blindingly as to resemble a runway strip. So much so, I had to stop and rub my eyes because the light here distorted my vision. I needed to get my eyes checked again, if I could ever find the time.

  When we rounded the corner, I saw the store packed with persons of a certain age, commonly referred to as seniors. I hate the word elderly, even more than seniors. “If you are able bodied enough to make it through this pack, you’re not feeble, Andrew, and for it, you deserve a medal,” I philosophized in his ear.

  “I recall a time when the older generations were treated with respect,” mused Andrew, “but given how bloated the population of seniors had grown, you have to agree, a lot of zombies among us!”

  I had to admit, he had a point as together we looked over the obstacle course of 'zombies' ahead of us.

  As we went down the aisle, I nodded and said, “Nowadays the young, they push us around and lock us away!”

  Eleanor piped in from her seated position with, “And if we sign the wrong piece of paper – they can throw away the key.”

  I nodded. “Alzheimer’s or dementia is one thing, but most of the older population are of their right mind and capable of making their own decisions.”

  I saw two young couples laughing and taunting an elderly man using a walker with a basket. The younger people were treating it like some Saturday Night Live skit.

  “Move your ass, old man,” one said.

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” he muttered. He shuffled along, moving off to the side, and as the couples moved past him. He pushed his walker out, and tripped the one that was yapping the loudest. The young man fell headlong into a display of potato chips. Bags burst open, and it rained barbecue and sour cream dust!

  “That’ll teach you, young man.” He continued past the surprised couples. “You younger folks need to learn some manners.”

  “Do you know him?” Andrew asked me.

  I nodded. “That is Mr. Wilson. I’m not sure what his first name is. I’m not sure he knows either, but he doesn't put up with any Dennis-the-Menace types!”

  Andrew strolled down the aisle, and picked up items, placing them in the grocery cart.

  Employees couldn't fill the shelves fast enough. They barely moved away before the customers were on it like flies on honey. Beginning of the month sales were always the worst as everyone's social security deposits had automatically landed in their accounts. It sure beat the old days when you had to wait for a check to arrive in the mail, with all that worry about someone snatching it. Yes, times had changed so entirely. It was hard to know if it was for the better or not.

  The busiest aisle in the store always proved to be the pet food section, specifically the cat food area. “You see how the rumor got started about seniors eating cat food.”

  “How's that?” Andrew asked.

  “Someone just noticed one day how many seniors were buying cat food, and the rumor, like all rumors, took off like a rocket.”

  Andrew shrugged. “I don't know one person around our age who doesn't have a pet of some sort. In a way, it’s downright therapeutic. Cats are just an easier pick. They're pretty self-sufficient, and as long as you feed them, keep their litter box clean – “

  “And rub their fur the right way,” I added, “they’ll let you think you’re in charge. Just ask Eleanor.”

  “Where is Eleanor?” Andrew suddenly asked.

  “She's given up on this aisle, I suppose.” I turned my cart around to find an easier route, because there was no way I was getting around this pack of shoppers.

  I moved down the next aisle and saw Eleanor talking to Mr. Wilson. I moved nearby and picked up their conversation.

  “Hello Eleanor, sweetie. How are you doing?” Mr. Wilson asked, his voice cracking.

  “Great.”

  “You should come over for dinner sometime.”

  Eleanor blushed. “Oh, that sounds great. What are you fixin’?”

  “I don’t know.” He snickered. “I can make a damn good dessert though, ha!”

  She placed her hands on her ample hips, even though sitting on the buggy the gesture was noticeable. “If you want dessert, you have to make a girl dinner first.”

  Mr. Wilson’s cheeks turned pink, a hard feat considering how gray his skin looked of late, which was never a good sign. His gaunt face did take to shining as he spoke to Eleanor. A longtime resident here, Mr. Wilson's tomatoes won county fair ribbons and were the best around. His system of covering the ground with hard plastic helped to keep the moisture in the ground, thus turning out prize-winning tomatoes.

  Even I was a little jealous – not of Eleanor's catching his eye but his fat and delicious tomatoes.

  Wilson wore gray work pants and a long sleeved shirt. You always found him in the garden or mowing the lawn, even on the hottest of days.

  Eleanor flashed her lashes like a preening bird and said to Wilson. “If you can whip up one of your famous tuna noodle casseroles, I’m game.”

  Wilson's voice crackled again as he replied. “Okay, then it’s a date, sweet Eleanor. I better get over there and buy some tuna fish. I think they're offering a two for a dollar sale.”

  He moved his frail body, quickening his pace.

  I shook my head. I needed to erase the image of Eleanor and Mr. Wilson in a compromising position out of my head.

  “There you are Eleanor. Wherever have you been?” I asked.

  “Just driving around. I should have started putting things in my basket because there is no way I’m going to make it through that pack in the next aisle.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Maybe you should stalk the stock boys, eh? Get items as they come outta the box!”

  “Great idea, Aggie.” She darted away for the swinging stockroom door where the young stock boys came and went, a louder whirling coming off her hot-wheel-like buggy. I flashed on a fire coming off those wheels.


  I was kidding, but no harm if it’d get us out of this store sooner.

  Andrew beamed when he walked toward me while carrying four cases of canned goods. He reminded me of a hunter bringing home his kill. Rightly so, if you managed to get anything before the throng of people bought it all.

  “What did you catch?”

  “I almost caught a cane upside my head. Does that count?” He put the cases in the cart. “I saw Mr. Wilson getting into a fight with Dorothy over tuna fish. I’m not sure what that was all about.”

  I roared and almost spit out my upper. “Oh really?”

  “What gives?”

  “He’s making dinner for Eleanor. He said something about dessert too.”

  “And it involves tuna fish? I don’t think I want to know what he plans for dessert.”

  “Me either but I’m pretty sure it will kill him.”

  We both laughed so hard tears came.

  “She’s waiting outside the stockroom door. I better get over there before she gets into trouble.”

  “I’ll push the cart,” he said.

  “Go right ahead, maybe you can make it through the savages easier than I can! Just like a man to want to take charge!” I lightly chastised, and when he ignored me, I added, “It’s as if a man can't be happy unless he's driving something.”

  Andrew laughed this off.

  I directed him toward the stockroom door, and just as I feared, Eleanor was heatedly waging a battle of words with an employee.

  The employee was trying to push his cart past her, but she had blocked his path.

  “Can’t you see I’m practically an invalid?” Eleanor asked.

  “Lady, that describes most of the customers here today.”

  “I’m not moving until you give me what I want.”

  Sweat poured from the thin, lanky man’s forehead and down his cheeks. His wide eyes watered and were unblinking as if he were facing down a ravenous mountain lion. “Lady, I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “Let me see what you have on your cart. Maybe I won’t want anything.”

  “If I let you do that, it will violate store policy, not to mention we will start getting attacked at the stockroom door.”

  I imagined the picture the employee envisioned – a feeding frenzy.

  “Eleanor, let the man pass.” I winked.

  She drove away, but once the poor man had moved ten feet, Eleanor leapt from her seat and started pulling boxes off his cart and handing them to Andrew, who then put them in my cart.

  The employee threw his hands into the air as a show of defeat, and walked back into the stockroom.

  “You better hurry!” I said, indicating check out. “I think he’s going for reinforcements,” I said.

  Eleanor pouted then smiled before saying, “I hope he doesn't call the police like last time. I sure would hate to be banned from the store again.”

  “Banned?” Andrew asked.

  “Three months ago. I had to come incognito.”

  We moved away when the manager came out, and by then, the cart was being emptied yet again by another throng of walker-wielding seniors.

  The manager clenched his fists and waved them in the air. “I hate the beginning of the month,” he very nearly shouted.

  “No more than, ahhh, me!” I countered. “Can't the store do something about it? Create kiosks or Disneyland holding areas or something? Maybe create spiraling aisles, I dunno. I mean the backup at the registers, I could have gotten a PhD in the time it takes to get through there.”

  The manager did not look as if he wanted to take me on.

  Eleanor added, “And forget about the handicapped register! It's even longer.”

  The manager, having had multiple run-ins with the two of us, and especially Eleanor, proved the virtue of retreat to fight another day.

  “Did you get anything good?” Andrew asked Eleanor.

  “I sure did. Plenty of baked beans, green beans, tuna fish, and Ramón noodles. I even found a date.”

  “I heard! So what is Mr. Wilson’s first name?”

  “Beats me.” She chuckled. “He’s really a nice fellow when you get to know him, and his lips are so soft.”

  “Too much information on register five,” I said.

  “Oh quit being such a sour puss. I’m old, not dead.” She smiled at Andrew. “Isn’t that right, Andrew?”

  “Just because we’re older doesn’t mean we can’t still have fun.” He smiled suggestively at me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I picked up a snickers bar and examined it as if half expecting someone to dissuade me from making a random purchase.

  “Don't do it, Aggie,” Eleanor said, eying up the offending bar of chocolate. “They get extra points when you pick things up at the register.”

  “Points?”

  “Sure, why else would they load all this extra merchandise close by the registers.”

  “For add on sales.”

  She eyed me, looking serious. “You don't want the cashiers getting points the easy way. They need to earn them the old fashioned way.”

  “How would that be?”

  “You know dang well they are gonna try and get us to buy something at the register like always. They love to try and cram more sales outta us before we leave the line.” She grinned. “They do that and I'm paying in pennies.”

  “You do that and I'm leaving you here,” I volunteered.

  We straggled through the line when finally it was Eleanor's turn.

  The frazzled cashier looked up and rolled her eyes. Yup, they all knew Eleanor, and from the looks many of them threw her way, they'd rather she not be taking up space in their checkout line. I imagined that there was a wanted poster in the back with her picture displayed.

  Trying not to glance up, the pretty blond scanned Eleanor's items with the speed of a gazelle.

  “Aren't you gonna ask me if I found everything I wanted?” Eleanor asked.

  Still not looking up, she shrugged.

  “You're supposed to ask me if I found everything I wanted!” Eleanor demanded.

  “Fine,” the cashier said and looked up. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “What if I said no?”

  “Please... “ The girl looked across the aisle where a man in a suit stood with a clipboard. “Don't make trouble for me.”

  “Eleanor,” I whispered. “Stop harassing the girl.”

  We paid for our goods without further incident, and the three of us made our way into the parking lot, Andrew leading the way to his LX. Eleanor, still in her riding buggy, followed close on Andrew's heels, occasionally hitting the back of his shoe! I walked slower. My eyes focused on two black Impalas that crawled into the parking lot.

  I tried not to let my mind work overtime, but I couldn’t help it. Black cars always worry me. The only people known to drive black sedan type cars were government men or crooks. I had seen my fair share of crooks in my day, but I also knew I possess an overactive imagination; still, that same imagination seemed more right than wrong. Perhaps it was because I had married a state trooper, or the fact that I had little else in my life to focus on.

  So absorbed in my thoughts, I bumped into Andrew.

  “What are you looking at, Aggie?”

  I turned my head and eyeballed him. “Hurry up and get the groceries loaded.”

  He didn’t say another word. Within minutes, he had both the groceries and us loaded into his LX.

  I sat on the edge of my seat as we made our way through the lot. Right before he pulled back onto the road, I heard what sounded like firecrackers, followed by a series of loud bangs.

  “Get down!” Andrew shouted.

  The car shut down as the glass breakage sensor chimed. He picked up his cell and dialed 911. The two Impalas raced past, and I was sure I saw the barrel of a gun.

  I glanced over my shoulder, noticing the shattered rear window, too close to my head for comfort. I shuddered involuntarily as if I had no control
over my body.

  “Oh my,” Eleanor said.

  “It was those damn goons!” I shouted.

  Andrew looked at his broken window, less than amused, and a maybe-I'd-best-take-this-seriously-look on his face. Maybe now he was on his way to believing what I’d tried earlier to tell him.

  Two State Police cruisers ripped into the parking lot, followed by the sheriff. We exited when they approached the car. Their game faces appeared more serious than ever, and why not? Tawas wasn’t the sort of town to have a shooting and in Walmart parking lot no less?

  I noticed a crowd forming, and they all stood there gawking. After all, this was the most exciting event to happen all year in Tawas.

  Glass littered the ground and something red splattered up onto the remains of the back window – most likely chili beans and tomatoes.

  Trooper Sales led the way. He ripped his dark sunglasses off when he saw me.

  “Oh thank God, you’re here!” Eleanor gushed. “Someone blasted our back window out.” She shuddered. “What kind of town are you running here?”

  He grimaced and didn't immediately speak as if struggling for words. I knew what he really wanted to do was run us out of town like a John Wayne character in a western film.

  “Did you see who fired at you?” he asked.

  I exhaled. “I saw two black Impalas that looked similar to the ones we saw at Roy’s Bait & Tackle.”

  Eleanor nodded so hard her head looked ready to topple off. “It was those same goons.”

  “Goons?” the trooper asked.

  “Yeah, the same ones that ruffed up Roy, duh,” Eleanor said.

  Trooper Sales shifted his eyes to me. “Is there anyone who'd want to harm any of you?”

  I didn’t want to answer, because I had no idea who would go to this extreme to stop me from investigating Jennifer’s disappearance.

  “That list might be mighty long,” Sheriff Peterson began. “Agnes is a meddler and folks don’t like meddlers.”

  Trooper Sales jerked his head toward Sheriff Peterson. “I think we can handle it from here, Sheriff,” he said.

  Peterson glared at me as he walked away, jumped into his car and sped away. I didn’t know what his beef with me was, and I couldn't care less. “He’ll see what a pain I can be at the next election,” I muttered to Eleanor, and Andrew, overhearing erupted with a chuckle.