by Tonya Kappes
“I gotta go.” I took a step back before I turned around, giving a slight wave. “I’ll see you in the morning,” I called over my shoulder, not giving him the opportunity to ask me where and what time.
He was finding his way around Cottonwood better than most lifelong residents. Maybe that was what was so appealing to me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The light in my kitchen pierced the window and flooded out into my dark side yard. I slowed down when I approached the house, but let the Wagoneer roll on by as I rubber-necked into the windows of my house.
A shadow that was not Duke’s crept across the large bay window from my living room. My heart pounded, my palms beading with sweat.
“Poppa, where are you?” I cried out. “What good are you if you can’t ghost yourself into my house and see who is in there?”
Was he there to help or haunt me? Right now I needed the help.
“Poppa?” I called out again.
Of course he wasn’t anywhere around when I needed him. I flipped the headlights off and rolled down a couple of houses past mine until I came to a complete stop.
I reached under my seat and grabbed my shoulder holster.
“Here I come.” I unsnapped my gun from the holster and got out of the car, keeping the gun snug in my two-hand hold.
In the dark of the night, I prowled around in the shadows like a cat, keeping out of the full moon’s spotlight. When I got to the side of my house, I made sure to stay low underneath the windows, and headed around the back of the house where I knew my motion light had burned out. It had been on my list of to-dos and now I regretted not working down that list.
The back door was flimsy because Duke always used his paws as a battering ram on it to let me know he wanted to go out. He didn’t scratch like most dogs; he ran full force and jumped up, making the screws loosen a little more each time. Tightening the screws was also on my to-do list. Regardless, I rarely locked my doors. Maybe I’d have to rethink that.
Using my dominant hand, I pointed the barrel of the gun down. My thumb was on one side of the grip and I kept my middle, ring, and pinky fingers curled securely around the other side just below the trigger guard. I planted my back up against the brick of the back side of my house, right next to the back door. Slowly I brought the gun straight out in front of me and cupped my other hand around my gun hand to keep me from shaking. It was the first time I had ever come face to face with an intruder, and I wasn’t sure how this was going to go down.
When I saw the shadow pass by the light of the kitchen, I made a swift movement sideways, kicking in the door with my right foot, smacking the door open.
“Hold it right there!” I screamed, staring down the sight of my Magnum at the back of someone. The intruder stopped dead in her tracks, arms up. “Mrs. Brown?”
“Goodness, child.” Mrs. Brown, my neighbor, turned around and put her hands on her large chest. Her hair was tucked up under a nightcap and her face had paste all over it. “You can’t go running around pointing that thing at everyone.”
“Mrs. Brown.” Confused as to why she was here, I lowered the gun. Duke jumped on me, putting a paw on each shoulder. “Why are you here?”
“Jolee was delivering my Meals on Wheels nightly snack and I told her I was going out for a walk.” She shook her bony index finger at me. “She told me not to since there was a killer on the loose, but I said I’m fine because I live right next to Sheriff Lowry and she won’t let nothing happen to our neighborhood. And that’s when she said she forgot to let Duke out and asked me if I could since I was going on a walk.”
My hands were still shaking. Duke wasn’t moving. I turned the safety on and set the gun down on the counter.
“I’m sorry. Jolee didn’t tell me you were going to let him out.” Thank God I didn’t open fire on my neighbor. “Thank you. I was just freaked when I didn’t see any cars in the driveway and a shadowy figure walking around in here.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Her feet shuffled over to the back door. “I’ll be going now.”
“I’ll walk you home. It’s the least Duke and I can do.” I looked over at my door hanging off the hinges. That item on my to-do list just became a priority. “Be careful of the door I just broke,” I warned and helped her out.
What should have been a five-minute walk took us about twenty. Duke didn’t mind. He sniffed, lifted his leg, and peed on everything in our path.
“That dog never runs out, does he?” Mrs. Brown chuckled. Duke had peed on every single bush along her small red brick ranch house. I held the screen door open for her. Her hand shook as she tried to get the key in the hole.
“Polly told me about the robbery.” Mrs. Brown turned the key and opened the door. I had forgotten she was Polly Parker’s great-aunt. “Would you like to come in?”
“I would like to make sure you are safe and sound.” I followed in behind her and Duke darted in too. The smell of mothballs made my stomach curl. “It’s the least I can do for you.”
“Ask about Polly.” Poppa appeared out of nowhere. It took everything I had not to give him a piece of my mind. If he’d shown up when I needed him to, I wouldn’t be worried about Mrs. Brown and cardiac arrest.
The morning gossip would be buzzing with the fact that I’d pulled a gun on her, and if going in to make sure she was safe would give her a reason not to rat me out on my behavior, then it was worth it.
“Do you know who broke into Viola’s place?” Mrs. Brown shuffled from light to light, flipping them on.
Her house was full of antiques. She could open up her own shop and give Ruby a run for her money.
“I have some good leads, but nothing solid yet.” I put the emphasis on yet so not to look like a complete idiot.
“Polly said it shook her up real good.” Mrs. Brown and I made our way into her kitchen.
There were papers and books all over her kitchen table, but the rest of the house was spotless.
“What were you looking up?” I asked out of curiosity and took a couple of steps toward the table.
“Polly has been experiencing some strange sensations in her legs and arms, so Doc Walton did some testing and diagnosed her with a genetic disease.” Mrs. Brown stirred uneasily around her kitchen. She didn’t look at me. “Only we don’t have the disease in our family.”
“Is it serious?” I asked.
“Enough to put her in a wheelchair at a young age.” She picked up a piece of paper with long words written on top of it. “HSP. It stands for Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia.”
“Take the paper,” Poppa encouraged me.
“I’m trying to figure it out. Her mama is none too happy with how Polly is spending her time with Mayor Ryland.” Mrs. Brown huffed and shuffled back out of the kitchen, letting me know it was my time to go.
“She is?” I asked.
“Kendrick Lowry.” A shadow of annoyance crossed her face. “I know you have flipped over Polly’s life backward and forward to see if she had anything to do with the break-in at White’s Jewelry. I know you’ve figured out there is some sort of relationship between her and the mayor. I told her mama it was because Polly never had a good relationship with her daddy.” Mrs. Brown let out a long sigh. “Especially since they had her so late in life.”
All the information Mrs. Brown was telling me was being fully recorded in my head.
“No offense, but your niece has pampered Polly into a princess and that includes her daddy. So having her later in life didn’t affect their relationship.”
“It has more than they let you know.” A sneer hovered around Mrs. Brown’s lips.
“Can I have this piece of paper?” I asked Mrs. Brown. She simply pushed it toward me. I picked up the paper and folded it, putting it in my pocket.
“Come on, Duke.” I patted my leg and he came
running. “Good night, Mrs. Brown. Thank you for letting Duke out and I’m sorry about the gun thing. Habit.”
“Night night, dear.” She shut the door behind me and I was happy to hear her run the slide lock.
The only thing I wasn’t happy about was her not saying she wasn’t going to tell anyone how I had pulled the gun on her, though I had good reason.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Early the next morning I took Duke for a run while my morning coffee brewed. When I came back, I surveyed the door to determine how I was going to put a Band-Aid on it until I could take the time to really fix it.
“You did a number on poor old Mrs. Brown.” Poppa smacked his leg as he went into a full-on fit of laughter. “I thought she was going to drop a load when you had that gun pointed at her.”
“I don’t think you’re funny.” I continued to survey the door and sip my coffee. “You aren’t the least bit amusing and you’re not helping me.” I turned around and put my hands on my hips when I came face to face with him.
I grabbed the paper Mrs. Brown had given me and placed it on the kitchen counter. Somehow I was going to have to add this new information about Polly to the investigation. Not that Polly having a family disease pointed to Doc’s murder or the break-in, but I had a nagging feeling that it needed to be looked into.
I opened the cupboard under the sink, grabbing the screwdriver set I had picked up at a garage sale when I moved into the house. I plucked the Phillips head out and did the best repair of the hinges I could until I had real time to devote to it. “I needed you last night. You could’ve ghosted your way in here and told me that it was only Mrs. Brown.”
The more I talked, the harder I pushed the screwdriver in the stripped screw and turned faster.
“Wait.” It had just occurred to me: I didn’t need any dang warrant; I had Poppa. “I need you to do something.”
“Do what?” He had a hurt look on his face.
“You zip in and out of places and no one but Duke and I can see you.” The idea of having Poppa be a fly on the wall started to sound really enticing. “I want you to go to Camille Shively’s office and search through her files. See if anything pops out at you.”
“I guess I could.” Suddenly color came back into his face and the sneaky smile I loved grew across his lips. “And this will ramp up the investigation.”
“I won’t be able to prove what you find without the warrant and file in my hand, but you will definitely help speed up the investigation.” People would really question how I got my hands on information without the warrant and an investigation on me would be the last thing I needed.
“I’m not a bad carpenter.” I swung the door back and forth. It was a little lopsided, but it was on the hinges and in working order until I could find the time to replace it.
“Where do you go when you aren’t with me?” I asked, easing down in a chair at my kitchen table and drinking more coffee. “If you’re going to be my ghost partner, then I think you need to tell me.”
“If you must know,” Poppa whispered as though he were hiding something, “I was at Luke Jones’s house.”
“Why were you at Luke’s?” I asked, knowing he was on my list of people to see. I had to get his opinion on those tire tracks.
“Gunsmoke.” Poppa dropped his head. “I’m a sucker for Audie Murphy.”
He was. Every Sunday I would go to Poppa’s house; it was his day of rest and he watched western movies all day long. The 1953 classic happened to be one of his favorites.
“Luke is showing Gunsmoke?” I asked. Poppa nodded. “Early bird special too?” He nodded again. I looked at the clock on the stove. I loved popcorn for breakfast. I filled Duke’s bowl with a bunch of kibble and made sure he had a full bowl of water.
“You stay here.” I gave him a good rub on his head and grabbed my gun and keys. “Come on, Poppa. We’re going to the movies.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Movies?” Poppa asked once we got back in the car. “I thought we had other people to talk to about the murder.”
The pink Beetle caught my eye in the Dixon Foodtown parking lot. I whipped the Wagoneer into the parking lot.
“What are you doing here? I thought you said movies,” Poppa screamed, holding on to the handle on the side of the passenger door as if I was about to kill him. “Grocery shopping should be the last thing on your list when there is a killer on the loose. You are burning good daylight.”
“If I’m going to the movies, I need to get me a Diet Coke. There is something just not right about eating popcorn without a Diet Coke.”
I kept my eye on Toots’s VW Bug.
“Popcorn for breakfast?” Poppa questioned.
“And there’s no time like the present to question Toots Buford about Doc Walton firing her and the fact that she left out that bit of information.” I jerked the Wagoneer into the space next to Toots’s car. Maybe she could let me in on why she was at Doc’s office that morning.
“It’s a little tight over here.” Poppa looked out the window at the space between my car and Toots’s.
“Well, good thing you’re a ghost and you can just whip on through.”
The sign on the door informed customers of their safety, that Dixon’s was taking extra precautions by having extra lighting in their parking lot and Baskin’s Security had installed better surveillance cameras.
“Hmm…” I tapped the sign. “Little do they realize, Toots just might be the one they are ramping up their security for.”
“You never know. It is strange she was at Ronald’s when she was fired.” It was good to hear Poppa working again. I had always loved how he would talk out his ideas with me when he had a case.
My parents begged him to stop telling me about the bad criminals of the world and said he was going to corrupt me, but I loved it and had to believe I might have helped him figure out a few things. Now was no different.
“Her reasoning could hold a lot of the answers you need to solve Ronald’s death,” Poppa said, pointing to the cashier’s station.
“I have to buy something besides a Diet Coke,” I said to Poppa, trying to figure out what I could buy that wouldn’t make Toots run off and tell the town council that I was harassing her at work.
“Duke needs a bone.”
“Perfect.” I snapped my fingers and walked down the produce aisle.
A familiar voice came from the next aisle over. It escalated with each word.
“One of these days I’m going to get out of this crazy town!” The shrill voice was none other than Polly Parker.
“You’ll thank me one day,” her father growled.
“No, I won’t.”
Polly sounded even angrier.
I put my ear up to the piled papayas, parting a few so I could hear them a little clearer.
“Your mama and I have done the best we could by you and you have been nothing but ungrateful. You think you can go around doing whatever you want to whoever you want,” Mr. Parker said in a hushed whisper.
Silence stood between them, but after the sound of a squeaky cart passed, they started up again.
“When your mama and I heard about what happened, we knew it was you,” he said.
My ears were perked up more than Duke’s when I gave him a juicy ham bone. I leaned a little closer until I was practically laying in the fruit.
“Is it telling you it’s ripe?” a guy with a Dixon’s Foodtown apron asked, causing me to jump around, sending the piled up papaya into an avalanche.
“Oh no.” I put my hand out, willing them to stop to no avail. They continued to tumble and tumble until there wasn’t a papaya left in the bin.
Poppa was cracking up as the papaya gathered around his feet. He kicked one toward me. The produce worker watched as the solitary papaya rolled towa
rd me after the others had rolled away from me.
“That must be the one.” I reached down, grabbed it, and tossed it in the air before catching it with one hand. “My dog loves papaya.”
I didn’t look back. I decided against the bone. It was best I got in Toots’s line and out before Polly and her father saw me.
Toots looked none too happy as she ran the items across the scanner and the cash register beeped. I grabbed a Diet Coke from one of the mini coolers on the end of Toots’s line.
“Will this be all?” Toots asked before she looked up.
“Fancy seeing you here.” I slipped a few dollars out of my pocket and smacked it on the conveyor belt. “I had no idea you were working here again.”
“I haven’t been back long.” Toots’s face was pasty white against her maroon hair.
“I’m glad I ran into you. Saves me a trip to your house.” I looked behind me to make sure there were no customers, especially the Parkers.
“Why?”
Her lips smacked together.
Another customer came up behind me and started unloading their grocery cart on the conveyor belt. “Where will you be around lunch time?”
“I’ll meet you at Cowboy’s Catfish.” She didn’t bother telling me to have a good day or even goodbye. She simply took the first item of the customer behind me and ran it across the scanner.
Chapter Thirty
“I wonder what Polly Parker and her father were talking about,” I said to Poppa on our drive over to Luke Jones’s house. “He said that once they heard, they knew it was her. Do you think they were talking about the jewelry store? Do you think Polly did it? She has this disease. How does that affect her?” I sucked in a fast deep breath and let my thoughts roll out of my mouth. “And what does it have to do with Doc Walton if we are trying to tie her to the murder? According to Mrs. Brown, Doc knew about the disease.” I snapped my fingers. “Poppa, do you think Polly went to see Camille Shively because of the disease? Maybe Polly told Doc Walton she was going to get a second opinion.”
