by Jessica Beck
“Suzanne? Are you still with me?” Momma said, bringing me back to the moment.
“Sorry,” I said, focusing my attention back on her. I did have one investigating partner left, and she was standing right in front of me. Momma had helped me investigate my great-aunt Jean’s murder, and she’d proved to be a good ally. But would she do it again, when there was nothing as personal at stake as there had been before? “I spaced out for a minute. Did you just say something else?”
“I said that the two of us need to figure out what happened to that poor man if no one else is going to,” Momma said.
“I thought you were finished with investigating murder,” I reminded her.
“We don’t even know if it was murder yet,” she said. “Besides, I hate to see this ignored just because that poor man wasn’t from April Springs. Are you sure you didn’t recognize him?”
“I can honestly say that I’d never seen him before in my life,” I said.
“Tell me about what you saw this morning, and try not to leave anything out,” Momma said, my luggage temporarily forgotten for the moment. I wished I’d taken a photo of the dead man once we’d gotten the mask off, but there hadn’t been any way for me to do it without Officer Bradley noticing, and that was a fight I hadn’t wanted to have at the time. Still, I could describe him well enough, and after I recounted what I’d seen, I did my best to paint a mental picture for my mother.
“That’s a pretty vivid image you’ve described,” she said after I was finished. “So, we are in search of who might have killed the scruffy moon-faced man.”
“I’m not so sure we should describe him that way,” I said, thinking that it sounded kind of harsh upon hearing my mother say it.
“Don’t worry. We’ll put it more delicately when we’re interviewing people,” Momma said dismissively.
“Who exactly are we going to interview? The only people usually out that time of morning are me and Stevie Marks.” Stevie, a high school junior, had taken over the newspaper delivery route for Ray Blake’s newspaper after the former carrier had retired and moved to Florida to stay with his brother.
“Do you think there’s a chance he saw anything?” Momma asked.
“I’d be surprised. The poor boy is barely able to keep his head up at that time of day. I don’t know how he doesn’t wreck his car along his route, not that it would be easy to tell if there were any new dings, dents, or scratches on that heap he drives. We could always ask him, though.”
“I’m sure Chief Grant has already quizzed him,” Momma said, “if he even bothered to dig that deeply. I need to have a chat with George about where his real duties lie as mayor.”
I was certain that conversation wouldn’t turn out well for anyone. “Momma, maybe you can hold off scolding him until after we’ve done some investigating ourselves. It might pay to be diplomatic for the moment, given that we’re about to conduct our own investigation without any official permission or approval.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Momma said, which told me that she’d make up her own mind, so there was no use in me continuing. “Where might we find Stevie at this time of day? Is he in school?”
“No, he only goes half a day. He should be delivering groceries about now. I don’t know how many jobs he has, but I have no idea when he sleeps.”
“He certainly sounds like an enterprising young man. Suzanne, you don’t have your groceries delivered, do you?”
“No, I couldn’t afford it, but I let Stevie put a flyer up in the donut shop when he first got started.”
“What is he going to do with the money he is acquiring? Does he plan to use it for college?” Momma asked.
“Not Stevie. He wants to be an entrepreneur. I suppose in a very real way he already is. The last I heard, he delivers papers early in the morning, goes to school, and then, after he finishes his grocery deliveries for the day, he tutors students in math and science.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting him,” Momma said.
I handed her my phone. “Then call the grocery store and place an order. There’s a thirty-dollar minimum, but you should be able to meet it easily.”
Momma frowned, ignoring my phone. “Why don’t we just go speak with him without going through the ruse of buying groceries?”
“Momma, we can’t just corner a high school boy and start grilling him. However, if he’s here making a delivery, it’s only natural if we should ask him a few questions. Oh, if you pay the ten-dollar premium, he’ll have them here within half an hour.”
“I suppose I could find enough things to make it worth my while,” Momma said. When she was ready, I gave her the number. It wasn’t that I had a particularly good memory, but Stevie’s number was easy to remember, since it included my birthday in a prominent spot.
After Momma placed her order, she said, “Now we wait.”
“In the meantime, let’s talk about who else we can ask after we talk to Stevie,” I said.
“I’m not at all certain there is anyone else we can speak with,” Momma said. “But I have another idea. Why don’t we go to the largest source of gossip and rumor in all of April Springs?”
“The beauty shop?” I asked her, referring to Cutnip.
“That’s good, but it’s not perfect. I’ve found that the Boxcar Grill has a wider variety of older men, and it has been my experience that they gossip more than women ever dreamed of doing. Do you think Trish would mind if we mine her customer base?”
“If we include her in the investigation, she’ll be ecstatic,” I said.
“Then we have a Plan B,” Momma said. “How many plans do you think we might need?”
“I’ve gone into Y and Z in the past and still needed more,” I admitted.
“Suzanne, thank you for including me in your investigation. I miss our time together,” she said as she touched my hand lightly.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was my final choice, my last resort. “I’ve missed you, too,” which was the absolute and utter truth. So what if it had taken me some time to get to her to act as my partner in crime?
A few minutes later the front doorbell rang.
Momma looked startled. “Surely he’s not here already.”
“You’d be surprised. Don’t forget, you paid the special delivery bonus,” I said as I stood. “Shall I answer the door, or would you like to?”
“I will,” she said as she reached for her purse.
“Don’t be so eager to pay him right away,” I said. “We can use the time you’re searching for your ‘lost’ wallet to interview him.”
Momma smiled as she shoved her entire purse under the sofa, barely able to make it fit there. I knew from experience that the bag was heavy, and if it were ever used as a weapon, the results could be quite deadly. “My, aren’t you a devious little thing.”
“What can I say? I was raised by the best,” I said with a grin. “Are you ready for this? It’s show time.”
“Let us begin, then,” she said as she answered the door.
CHAPTER 5
“I’ve got your order, ma’am,” Stevie Marks said as Momma opened the door. “That will be forty-seven seventy-five, excluding tip.”
I admired the way he’d just reminded her that gratuities were extra. He’d done it boldly, happily, without the least hint of guilt in his voice. I often felt bad about having a tip jar on my counter, and I wouldn’t have done that at all if it hadn’t been for Emma. Stevie was tall and rail thin, with a mop of brown hair that seemed to be constantly in his eyes. It was no wonder that he was so skinny. If I kept his schedule for a week, I was sure I’d finally lose those last twelve pounds that had been haunting me for years.
I wasn’t sure that it would be worth being sleep deprived and run ragged, and besides, Jake liked the way I looked.
“Oh, dear,” Momma said, overacting her part. “I seem to have misplaced my wallet.”
Stevie seemed nonplussed by the confession. “Tell you what. I’ll just set th
ese down on the counter for you while you search for it.” He glanced at me and said, “Hey, Ms. Hart. How are you?”
“I’m good, Stevie, despite what happened this morning. Have you heard the news?”
“Are you kidding? Everybody around town is talking about it. I don’t know about you, but the body count in our little town is getting kind of scary, isn’t it? I’m not sure we even need Fright Week, but I’m going to take advantage of it. I’ve got three hundred glow sticks coming in tomorrow, and if I can unload even half of them, I’ll make a tidy profit.”
“Can’t folks buy those elsewhere?” Momma asked, forgetting the reason we had summoned the deliveryman there.
“Sure, if they think about them ahead of time and get them either at one of the stores or online. What I offer is convenience. Never underestimate the laziness of the American consumer,” he added with a grin. “I know it hasn’t failed me so far.”
“Did you happen to see anything this morning yourself when you were delivering newspapers?” I asked him as Momma pretended to search for her wallet.
Stevie frowned upon hearing the question. “That’s what the police chief asked me this morning.”
“What did you say?” I asked him.
“I told him no,” Stevie said with a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
“But now you’re thinking differently?” I asked him, basing my question on the timbre in his words.
“I might have seen something, but the more I think about it, I’m not sure if it might have just been my imagination supplying something that really wasn’t there,” he said. “I feel kind of foolish even saying it out loud to you now.”
“Please, feel free to tell us. You’re among friends here,” I said, though I hardly knew him all that well at all. “We won’t tell anyone.”
After a moment, he shrugged. “I don’t see what it could hurt. As I was turning the corner at the clock this morning—I never even looked at the dunking booth, so I couldn’t swear if that poor guy was up there or not—I might have seen a long black-and-orange scarf disappear behind Cutnip. Then again, it might have just been a bit of trash floating around in the wind. When I came back through, whatever it might have been was gone.”
Cutnip, our local beauty parlor, was located on the other side of the town clock and near where the dunking booth had been set up. “Did you get any impression at all about who might have been wearing the scarf?” I asked him.
“Like I said, I never even saw the person, if there was even one there. You know what? The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that it was just a piece of a banner or something blowing in the breeze. There are signs all over town promoting Fright Week. That’s probably all that it was.” Stevie’s phone rang, a rather insistent ringtone that sounded a great deal like a UFO landing. “Stevie here. Yes, sir. I’ll be right there. I’m just at Mrs. Hart’s place, but I’ll be leaving in ten seconds. The senior Mrs. Hart. Yes, sir. Okay, thanks.” Stevie turned to look at Momma. “Tell you what. I know you’re good for it. When you find your wallet, give me a call, and I’ll swing back by and pick up the money later.”
I nodded to Momma, who magically found her handbag in the next moment. It was a wonder she hadn’t had to lift up the couch to remove it. “Eureka. I’ve got it right here. How did it ever get under there?”
I knew because I’d seen her put it there, but I wasn’t about to answer that particular question. After Momma paid him, I noticed Stevie smile at the rather inflated tip she’d presented him.
My mother looked him firmly in the eyes as she said, “Young man, if you should run across any errant memories later or glean any new information about that poor unfortunate man my daughter found, I do hope you’ll share it with us immediately.”
“You can count on it,” Stevie said as he pocketed the cash and headed for the door.
Once he was gone, I asked, “Wow, you are really generous with delivery people, aren’t you?”
“I did it for two reasons, Suzanne. One, he will be more willing in the future to share with us anything he remembers or might learn in the meantime.”
“And the second?”
“I admire anyone with an industrious bent,” she said with a shrug. “The world needs more folks like that young man, and I aim to encourage him. Now, what do we do with the information we just received?”
“We can’t just walk around town asking folks if they might have a black-and-orange scarf tucked away in their closet,” I said. “Or can we?” I added after having a thought.
“I can answer that. No, we can’t. It sounds rather distinctive, doesn’t it?”
“I think so,” I said. “And if you were looking for distinctive clothing in April Springs, where would you go?”
“ReNEWed,” Momma said, finishing my thought for me.
“Exactly. Maybe, if we’re lucky, Gabby sold it to someone recently, and if she did, I’m willing to bet she remembers every last detail about it.”
“Then let’s go ask her, shall we?” Momma asked.
When we got to Momma’s driveway, she recoiled as I opened the passenger door. “Young lady, I’m not going anywhere in that vehicle,” she said stiffly.
“Come on. I’ve seen you ride around town in Phillip’s pickup truck, and my Jeep is newer and nicer than that.”
“Be that as it may, there are things I will do for my husband that I will not do for you,” she said.
“Be a sport, Momma. You might like it.”
I didn’t think I had a chance of persuading her to ride with me, but to my surprise, after pondering it for a moment, Momma shrugged and got in through the passenger door. “Fine. I suppose I owe it to myself at least once to see why you find this automobile so alluring that when you wrecked one, you immediately went out and bought another exactly like it.”
“I didn’t exactly wreck it by accident,” I said, remembering how harrowing that particular moment had been for me. I’d escaped with my life, both from the impact and the killer, but it was something that I’d never forget. “These are fun to drive. If you’d like, you can take the wheel yourself.”
Momma actually blanched a little at the thought. “Thank you, but no. How does this seat belt work?” she asked in frustration.
I grinned as I showed her. “Simple. It’s just like every other car you’ve ever been in.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Momma said. Once she was safely belted in, she said, “You do have quite a view in this, don’t you?”
“I can even take the doors off if you’d like,” I said with a grin. “You can really see everything then. Should I pull over and do it? We can put the top down, too.”
“No, I can see just fine as things stand now,” Momma said quickly. “Besides, it’s much too chilly to be riding around without doors or roofs.”
“Suit yourself, but that’s when I like it the most,” I said. “At least it’s not raining.”
Momma peered up at the sky. “For now, at any rate. Must you insist on driving so fast, Suzanne? Taking three extra minutes won’t impede our investigation that much.”
“I’m driving two miles under the speed limit as it is,” I said with a grin. “It just feels faster in my Jeep. That’s one of the things I love most about it.”
“Perhaps I’ll walk back home once we’re finished with Gabby,” she said.
“Suit yourself,” I answered with a smile. “I’ll be sure to wave to you as I drive by.”
Momma clearly wasn’t sure how to react for a moment, but finally, a grin of her own shone through. “I apologize. I’ve just got a lot on my mind, but there’s no reason to take it out on you. I’m sure this is a fine motor vehicle.”
“Having trouble at home?” I asked, hoping beyond hope that she didn’t answer the question.
“No, it’s nothing like that. A business deal I’d been hoping to make fell through at the last moment, and it made me cross. I was all set to buy a particular property, but the seller changed his mind at the last second. I’ve
been hoping that he’ll reconsider. His terms are a bit eccentric, but I’ll comply with them if I can make this deal happen.”
“Surely you own enough property for ten people,” I said. “Do you honestly need more?” My momma was our local version of a modern-day land baron, and even I, her only child, had no idea of the exact length and depth of her holdings. “What’s one more acre or less in the scheme of things?”
“After a while, it isn’t about the land anymore. They are almost like parcels on a Monopoly board. I just enjoy acquiring them and, when the time is right, selling them off.”
“Always at a profit though, right?”
She grinned as I pulled up in front of Gabby’s shop, which happened to be right beside Donut Hearts. “Nearly always, anyway.”
“So, what was so special about this piece?” I asked her.
“It was in Hickory on the Catawba River. I’ve been watching it for months, and when it finally went on the market, I jumped. Oh, well. I’m sure another piece will come up for sale eventually. Now, let’s go see if Gabby can help us, shall we?”
“We shall,” I said.
“Hang on one second,” I said just before we walked through the door.
“What’s wrong, Suzanne? Are you having second thoughts about speaking with Gabby?”
“No, if anything, I want to talk to her now more than ever.”
“Why is that?” Momma asked, clearly perplexed by my behavior.
“Have a look at that,” I said as I pointed to the display window.
A mannequin was standing there in a little black dress, but that wasn’t what had caught my attention.
Wrapped around its neck was a long scarf.
It just happened to be black and orange, just as Stevie had described to us earlier.
The real question was what was it doing in Gabby’s front window?
“Gabby, where did you get that scarf on display up front?” I asked as I burst through the door, Momma close on my heels.
