When the Grits Hit the Fan

by Maddie Day

  I hurried to her side. “I’m really sorry,” I murmured. “Found the padlock cut on the barn door and a threatening note inside.”

  Her eyes went wide.

  “Yeah, exactly. Thus the flurry of cops. And I still need to run upstairs and make sure nobody came through the tunnel.”

  “The tunnel?” Her voice ended on a screechy note.

  “Ms. Jordan,” a customer called from across the room, waving his hand.

  At the same time, Danna swore softly. “Too much going on.” She flipped a scorched turkey patty into the trash and started over.

  “I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can. I promise.” I rushed over to one of the many impatient diners.

  It was ten minutes before everyone was placated, served, given their checks, or had their orders taken. I caught Danna’s eye before heading up the stairs. She nodded in a go ahead kind of way.

  I knocked on the closed door before opening it. “It’s Robbie,” I called into the space. I definitely didn’t want to startle Buck and Wanda if they still had their guns out.

  Buck motioned me in from where he stood in front of my table saw. Wanda peered out a back window toward the barn.

  “Had it been moved?” I asked.

  “Nope. Not as far’s I can tell, anyhoo.” He pointed to the saw, then the door. “No scratches or nothing.”

  My relief was more welcome than a cool shower on a sticky Midwestern August day.

  Chapter 34

  Fifteen minutes later, I watched from the barn door with my arms folded across my chest as Octavia directed two state police officers—one to take photographs, the other to dust for fingerprints on all kinds of surfaces. One of her people had slipped the padlock into a paper bag. Danna was once again holding down the fort inside.

  The wind from the morning had blown the clouds through and the barn was a lot better lit, even without the officers’ portable lights. Above their heads motes danced as if ignoring the much more serious work going on below. The police had checked the snow out front before entering the barn, and my assessment had been pretty much on target—nothing usable out there in terms of identifying the intruder from footprints.

  Octavia joined me. She wore her usual sensible blazer. A hot pink blouse glowed like a bougainvillea under her jacket. I’d never seen her wear a bright color before. Bougainvilleas ranked a close second to my favorite California flower, the gardenia.

  “We’re about ready to investigate the tunnel,” she said. “Why don’t you show us the entrance and then go back inside the restaurant. How did you find the second egress?”

  “I’m tearing out walls up there and I came across the opening. It was hidden by the wallpaper.”

  She cocked her head, the streaks of silver in her dark cap of hair glinting with sunlight streaming in the open door. “And why are you tearing out walls?”

  “I’m renovating so I can add bed-and-breakfast rooms. Since it’s winter, I have time to fix up the upstairs.”

  “I didn’t realize you were a carpenter, too. Interesting.” Her dark eyes assessed me from behind black-rimmed glasses.

  “Do you think someone is actually in the tunnel?” Boy, was I glad I’d been able to offload my worry about the note writer and lock cutter to the professionals.

  “Our officers will find out soon enough.”

  “Did Buck tell you about the scrap of fabric?”

  “No, what’s that?”

  “I had to go back through the tunnel after I showed it to him yesterday because I’d left my keys inside the store. On my way, I noticed a bit of torn fabric on a big splinter in the tunnel wall. I left it in place. Maybe it was torn off the coat of whoever went along there.”

  “We’ll check it out. What color was it? And where in the tunnel did you find the fabric?”

  “It’s red.” I thought back. “I saw it where the tunnel takes a turn. I think there’s only one turn. Do you want me to go with the guys?” Not that I wanted to. That was the last place I wanted to be. Especially if they thought my intruder might be in there. I shivered, despite having thrown on a down jacket before I went outside.

  “No, they’ll find it, I’m sure.” She stepped back, indicating I should enter the barn. “Please.”

  I headed over to the area where the old furniture was piled. “I pushed this desk back over the trap door.” Octavia and I watched as a state police officer pulled the desk away, opened the door, took more pictures, and climbed in. Another officer followed him.

  “There’s only one way to go, I’m pretty sure,” I called down after the second one. “And there’s another ladder at the other end, which goes up.”

  “Got it,” drifted up the passageway.

  “I’ll talk to you in the store after we’re done. You don’t have anywhere you need to go this afternoon?” Octavia asked.

  “Nope. I’ll be there.” I headed back to the restaurant. Let them find the stalker. It wasn’t my puzzle.

  “Oh, Robbie?” she called after me. “Might want to get a locksmith over here and put a decent lock on this door.”

  I waved my assent.

  Chapter 35

  The restaurant was still full and buzzing with speculation when Octavia pushed in through the service door on the left side of the building. “Show me the way upstairs, please,” she said in a brisk tone.

  I pointed to the other side of the store. “I’ll take you.” To Danna, hard at work flipping burgers, I added, “Be right back.” I was telling her that a lot lately. I led Octavia to the stairs. Heads turned at nearly every table as I started up.

  I could hear footsteps above our heads. Either Wanda, not a woman you’d call light of foot, was pacing, or the officers had made it all the way through.

  “Robbie, hang on. I need you to go back down to the restaurant,” Octavia said. “Might not be a good place for you up there.”

  I turned sideways and looked down at her. “Why not?”

  “Never know what they might have found in the tunnel.” She beckoned to me.

  I wrinkled my nose as I descended. I didn’t want to think about what the officers could have come across. I was curious but also reluctant to be presented with any more surprises.

  I stood back so she could go up. “The door’s unlocked at the top of the stairs.” I heard the latch click shut behind her. Did she think they were going to find my murderous intruder cowering at the bottom of a ladder? Or a body in the tunnel? Maybe the murderer had struck again, and cut the padlock to stash the victim in between the barn and the store.

  I squared my shoulders at that awful thought. A body in the tunnel? I’d never been one with a vivid imagination. My brain was more of an engineer’s, not an artist’s. But lately thoughts like that sprang into my mind. I hadn’t heard of another death, though. If there’d been one, I’m sure the breakfast or lunch crowd would have informed me about it.

  It was time to get back to the work of a chef and business owner, not indulge in wild and scary flights of fancy. I bustled over to a table that needed clearing.

  “Miss, what in heck is going on here?” a silver-haired man asked from the next table over. He sat with three other gentlemen, all appearing to be of retirement age, all waiting expectantly for my answer.

  “The authorities are just checking something out. It’s nothing to worry about.” I tried to smile reassuringly. “Can I get anyone some more coffee?”

  Footsteps and muffled voices continued above us as I hurried about taking orders, delivering food, clearing tables. I was clearly going to have to do something about sound transmission before I closed in the new rooms up there. I groaned. That meant prying up the floorboards and adding rock wool insulation, maybe even resilient channel, between the floors to deaden the sound, since I hadn’t torn out the ceilings of the store and restaurant and insulated from below. The original antique stamped tin added a fabulous look that I loved and that many customers remarked on. Floor work would have to go on my upstairs to-do list.

  I p
icked up three full plates after Danna rang the bell. She glanced with raised eyebrows toward the ceiling.

  “I promise I’ll tell you after we close,” I murmured and hurried off with the food to a table of impatient customers.

  Twenty minutes later Octavia clattered down the stairs.

  “Here’s the detective now,” Danna said.

  Octavia beckoned to me. “Can you come upstairs, please?”

  I stood. “Sure. I assume they got through the tunnel all right?”

  “Yes. But there was no scrap of cloth.”

  Chapter 36

  What? I stared at her. “How could they not find it?

  She shook her head. “We’re going to need you to go through with us and show where you saw it.”

  “Right now?” I glanced at the clock. “I really can’t. Can’t you see how crowded it is?” Not to mention that the tunnel was the very last place I wanted to go, ever again. That creepy trapped feeling was closing up my throat again. I tried to swallow it down. “I close at two-thirty. I’ll go through then.”

  She stared at me, then nodded. “All right. But two-thirty sharp.”

  “Sure.” I turned back to my curious customers and the even more curious Danna.

  Forty-five minutes later, I followed the last diner to the door, thanked her, and flipped the sign to CLOSED. When I turned, Octavia stood at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Ready?” she asked. “Let’s get going.”

  “One second.” I took in a deep breath and exhaled the tension and irrational fear, like a meditation teacher had taught me during college. I repeated the breath, doing my best to take in the calm and well-being of the world and let out all that was negative.

  “What are you doing?” Octavia asked.

  “I have a claustrophobia issue. I’m just trying to stay calm.”

  Octavia rolled her eyes.

  “Back in a few,” I called to Danna, who had her arms immersed in the deep sink.

  “Got it, my Capitan.” She gave a mock salute with a hand that dripped sudsy water.

  I headed toward Octavia. She trotted up the stairs with me following at a normal human pace. What was the big hurry?

  Once on the second floor, I joined the small cluster of officers. Wanda stood, as she often did, with feet slightly apart and arms hanging out from her sides as if she were a muscle-bound male cop instead of a well-padded female officer. Heck, if I were the only all X-chromosomed officer in a department, I might stand like the guys, too.

  “Hey, Wanda,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “Hey yourself, Robbie.”

  It’d taken Wanda months to understand she could call me Robbie instead of Ms. Jordan. She was older than me, but not by much, and we’d all eaten dinner together at Buck’s house more than once in the past. On police business, she seemed to like to keep it official until recently.

  I joined the two state police officers conferring with Octavia at the entrance to the tunnel. “You really didn’t see the red fabric at the bend in the tunnel?”

  “No, ma’am.” One officer shook his head.

  “Any other surprises down there? No dead bodies, I hope.” I started to laugh, but when I saw Octavia’s face, I covered it up with a cough. Like that would convince her.

  “No surprises, ma’am,” the officer said.

  “Officer Paul will escort you through the tunnel, Robbie.” Octavia motioned sideways toward the small open door as if she were escorting me to my seat at the symphony. “He has a light.”

  I scooted into the hole after the younger of the state police officers. Stepping onto the ground at the bottom of the ladder, I did another breathe-in-and-out routine of the damp musty air until I was calm enough to follow him. Paul was already a yard ahead.

  “Hang on there, Paul. I’m a few steps behind you and can’t see too well back here.”

  His light paused and waited. “Name’s John, ma’am.”

  Huh? “I thought Octavia said your name was Paul.”

  He chuckled. “I’m the guy with two first names. John Paul. Like a pope.”

  I laughed, too. “Now I get it.” I would never remember which was first and which last, unless I treated his name as if it was a word to remember for a crossword. Like pope names. Not that I expected to be spending much time with him in the future.

  “Tell me where do you think you saw that piece of fabric?”

  “I didn’t think I saw it. I actually saw it. Where the tunnel bends. Up a bit farther.” We made our way through the low, dark, dank passageway. Even though it was my third time through, the tunnel seemed lower, darker, and danker than before. What had the officers found that they didn’t want to tell me?

  His flashlight rounded the corner and stopped. “Here?” he asked.

  “Yes. Can I use that?” After he handed me the light, I ran it up and down the wall on my left until I found what I was looking for. “See, there’s the big splinter thing.” I trained the light on the jagged spike of wood, which pointed back the way we’d come. Sure enough, the scrap was gone. I leaned way in. “I think there is a thread left on it. Can you see? It’s a red thread.” I handed him the light. Whew. At least I hadn’t imagined it.

  “Good eye, ma’am.”

  I smiled to myself in the darkness.

  “Mind holding the light for me?” He handed me the flashlight, pulled out a small camera, and took pictures of the splinter.

  “The splinter thing is horizontal and pointing toward the front entrance,” I said. “That would mean whoever snagged their clothing was leaving.”

  “Nice deduction, Sherlock.” His voice was respectful and verged on admiring, despite the words themselves sounding a bit sarcastic. He placed his hands, gloved in blue latex, on the base of the splinter and pulled against the grain. The wood broke off with a satisfying crack. He yanked a bag out of his back pocket and slid in the overgrown splinter.

  “The fact that the cloth is gone must mean whoever cut the padlock came through here, found the scrap of material, and removed it.” I looked at him, but since I didn’t want to shine the flashlight in his face, I couldn’t see his expression.

  “Sounds like a plausible scenario.”

  “Did you find anything else when you guys came through here?” I asked. Maybe this friendly young guy would tell me what Detective Follow-the-Rules Slade wouldn’t.

  “Sorry, ma’am. Not at liberty to say.”

  Chapter 37

  After Paul—no, John—after Pope Guy and I had come up from the tunnel, Octavia had asked me to wait for her downstairs. I counted the till and carried the majority of it back to the safe in my office. While Danna cleaned pots, humming to whatever flowed from her phone to her earbuds, I wiped down all the tables and set them up for the morning. Then I put away the clean pots as Danna vacuumed under the tables.

  I waved at her until she switched off the machine and drew out her ear buds. “I think we’re good here, Danna, when you’re done with that. But before you go, any ideas about specials for tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know, but that Italian soup was really popular. There’s only a couple bowls left.”

  “Did you get any?”

  She shook her head.

  “Take it home, then. No suggestions for breakfast specials or lunch?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “How about apple fritters? Or maybe turnovers?”

  “Both pretty labor intensive. We do have the deep fryer, though. And I’ll bet people will love fritters,” I said. “Sure, why not? How about for lunch?”

  “We haven’t offered salmon burgers for a while.”

  “Have to special order that. I’ll put salmon on the order for the weekend. Good thought.”

  “So what are the detective and the other officers doing upstairs?” she asked, lowering her voice.

  “I haven’t gotten a chance to tell you.” When I’d come in from finding the cut padlock, Danna had already been running herself ragged with a lunch party of eight, a book club celebrating
the sixtieth birthday of one of their members. We’d been on the go ever since. “Sit down and I’ll fill you in.” I gestured to the easy chair near my desk and grabbed the office chair for myself.

  I told her all about finding the tunnel, and then the cut padlock and note this morning when I’d gone out with Buck.

  “That’s creepy. And scary.” She gazed at me. “You seem pretty calm.”

  “I’m not that calm.” I held out my still shaky hand, then folded my hands in my lap. “The police wanted to explore the tunnel, especially now that I found that note. The last time I went through I saw a scrap of cloth on a rough edge of wood, and they’re going to collect that, too.”

  Danna tucked her long legs up under her. “It’s like a Nancy Drew book, isn’t it? The Secret of the Hidden Tunnel,” she said in a deep dramatic voice.

  “I’ve thought the same thing more than once. So you read those books, too?”

  She laughed. “Mom owns a collection of vintage ones, from like the fifties. Way cool.”

  “Agree. When I was ten I found a few from the forties. Too bad this isn’t a nice two-hundred page book where the girl sleuth makes everything come out all right in the end. I keep thinking about who wrote that threat, and why. Have I been asking too many questions about the murder? I don’t think I have.”

  “Who have you talked to about Mr. Stilton’s death?”

  I reached behind me and grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil off the desk. “Lou, of course. And Zen Brown. But neither of those were in public.” I jotted their names down, anyway. “I visited Jo Schultz at her house. I stopped in to see Georgia at the library and Maude showed up. Then last night I took soup over to Maude and Ron.” I wrote down Jo, Georgia, Maude, and Ron.

  Danna pulled her mouth to the side. “I can’t see any of those people killing Professor Stilton.”

  “You never know, Danna. I’ve been talking to Abe, too, but he sure didn’t write that note. If he did, we’re in big trouble.”

  “I’ll say. And there’s been talk here in the restaurant, too,” Danna said.