Lucy picked up. “To avoid being seen! I wonder if he kept this back door locked.” She wandered over to the back door, inserted the key and turned the knob. The door creaked as it opened.
“Wait!” Gloria held out a hand. “The door creaked. If someone were trying to sneak in the back door, wouldn’t it have creaked and Brian would’ve heard it?”
Lucy hovered in the doorway, giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the lack of light inside the building.
Rose barged past the others, lunged forward and shoved Lucy inside. “Lordy! Don’t you know you’re never supposed to stand in an open doorway?”
The shove caused Lucy to lose her balance. She fell forward, barely catching herself as she gripped the side of the door. “Huh?”
“Uh. Rose is a little superstitious,” Dot explained. “She thinks if you stand in a doorway, you’re caught between the world of the living and death.”
Rose darted across the threshold and stood next to Lucy. “See? That’s the way to walk inside a building.”
The girls followed Rose and Lucy inside, careful not to linger too long on the threshold lest Rose decide to drag them inside.
Ruth was the last one in and she closed the door behind them, extinguishing their only source of light.
Gloria sniffed the still air. The room smelled like a mixture of musty and metal. She took a step forward and the floorboard creaked under her weight. “It would be hard to sneak up on Brian, what with the creaky door and creaky floorboards.”
She had been in the storeroom once before and vaguely remembered the layout. Gloria stumbled forward until she reached the other side of the room and the door leading to the store. Gloria reached for the doorknob.
“Wait!” Ruth hissed. “I hear something!”
Gloria held her breath and listened. She could hear a faint scuffling noise coming from somewhere overhead.
“What is that?” Rose clutched Dot’s arm.
“I…” Margaret began to speak.
“Eek!” Dot shrieked and began hopping up and down. “Something just crawled across my foot!” She shoved her way past Margaret and Lucy, and ran to the door. “Let me out of here!”
Dot elbowed Gloria out of the way, yanked the door open and ran into the front of the store.
Gloria, losing her balance, stuck her hand out and grabbed the wall to steady herself. “There has to be a light switch here somewhere.” She ran her hand along the wall. “There it is.” She flipped the switch and bright light illuminated the room.
The girls gazed at the storeroom floor. A small field mouse hovered near the corner of a wooden shelf.
“Heavens to Betsy! This little critter?” Margaret reached down, grabbed the mouse’s tail and picked him up, holding him at arm’s length so the others could get a closer look.
“Margaret Hansen! Put that thing down!” Ruth shrieked.
“This?” Margaret swung the rodent toward Ruth, who bolted out of the room and joined Dot on the other side.
“Margaret,” Gloria warned.
“Okay! This critter is more scared of you than you are him.” She opened the back door and tossed the mouse onto the grass. “Sheesh!”
“You should wash your hands. Rodents carry diseases,” Gloria told her.
“I ain’t afraid of no mouse,” Margaret began to sing cheerily as she breezed into the store.
Gloria, the last one to step into the store, closed the door to the storage room behind her. She focused her attention on the back of the store and shivered as she studied the cash register, the back counter and Brian’s small corner cabinet space. Her eyes settled on the oak floor and a dark stain. “This must be the spot where they found poor Brian.”
Her stomach tensed as she steeled her gaze away from the floor. With a look of determination in her eyes, she turned to her friends. “It’s time to turn this place upside down, girls. Leave no stone unturned.”
“Or in this case, leave no screw unturned,” Ruth declared.
Chapter 6
Dot and Rose scoured the front section of the store. Ruth began combing the middle aisles while Lucy and Margaret meticulously inspected each of the shelves in the back. Gloria, meanwhile, began her search in the corner where the counter, cash register and coffee area were located.
Gloria lifted several coffee cups and inspected the area surrounding it. Her cheeks burned at the thought of someone attacking their friend in such a horrific manner. What was the world coming to when violence occurred in a peaceful, quaint town like Belhaven? She vowed to get to the bottom of the attack, not only for Brian and Andrea’s sake, but for every single resident in their beloved town.
Violence had no place in Belhaven and Gloria hoped when the perpetrator was caught, the judge threw the book at them!
Gloria opened the refrigerator and peered inside. The small refrigerator was full of protein shakes, yogurt, a container of hummus and a Ziploc bag full of chopped vegetables. “Huh. Health nut.”
She closed the refrigerator and opened the top cabinet drawer in the compact kitchen area. Inside the drawer was a small tray of silverware. Next to the silverware was a packet of paper napkins. “Nothing here,” she muttered.
The second drawer contained extra coffee cups, packets of creamer, sugar and a Tupperware tub filled with coffee.
Gloria reached down and pulled open the last drawer. “Oh my!” She reached inside and pulled out a pair of knitting needles. “Well, I’ll be.” She shifted her gaze and studied the contents of the drawer. Skeins of yarn filled the drawer. Next to the yarn was a set of barbells.
“Is that what I think it is?” Ruth had crept up next to Gloria and gazed inside the open drawer. She reached inside and pulled out a skein of dark blue yarn. “Brian is a closet knitter?” Ruth held the yarn in one hand and grabbed a five-pound barbell with the other. “He knits with one hand and lifts weights with the other.”
Ruth juggled the yarn and barbell. “Knit one, lift two. Knit one, lift two.”
Gloria shook her head and smiled. “I had no idea.” The other girls had finished their search of the store and circled Ruth and Gloria.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever met this young man,” Rose commented.
“Perhaps not,” Dot agreed. “I had no idea he liked knitting. I guess you never know someone unless you live with them.”
“You can also live with someone and never really know them,” Lucy added.
“No truer words have ever been spoken,” Margaret sighed. “Well, I guess we’ve run into a dead end on this one. Maybe it’s time to try to talk to Andrea, see if perhaps Brian had mentioned anyone hanging around, acting suspicious.”
“I was thinking the exact same thing,” Gloria said as she took the yarn and barbell from Ruth and placed them back inside the drawer before closing it.
The girls retraced their steps through the back storage area. Dot bolted across the storage room and ran out onto the rear yard.
“The mouse is long gone,” Margaret called out after her.
Lucy was the last to leave. She closed the door behind them, turned the key in the lock, and then tugged on it to make sure it was secure.
Dot and Rose stopped by the restaurant to check in with the guys and make sure they were still managing okay. Luckily, it was in between the breakfast and lunch crowd and they told Dot and Rose they could handle the crowd for at least another hour, before the lunch bunch started to arrive.
A caravan of vehicles descended on Andrea’s place and filled her driveway – Dot’s van, Gloria’s loaner SUV, and Margaret’s SUV. Ruth, disappointed that she had to return to work, made Gloria promise she would let her know if they were able to glean any valuable information out of their young friend.
Dot and Rose had arrived first and were waiting on the front porch. Margaret, Lucy and Gloria met them there moments later.
Rose studied the massive columns that graced the front of the home. “I had no idea there were mansions in Belhaven. You say Andrea lives here all alone?
”
“She lives here along with Alice, her former housekeeper,” Gloria explained as she pressed the doorbell.
Gloria could hear muffled noises from the other side and suddenly the door swung open. Alice peered out. “Oh my! Miss Gloria. You bring the whole posse with you dis time.” She shifted to the side. “Come in. Come in. Miss Andrea, she not come out of her room yet.”
Alice shook her head. “Mr. Brian. His parents, they call this morning and say their son still not remember Miss Andrea. I think her heart broken.”
She tapped the tip of her finger against her forehead. “He no right in his head but he love Miss Andrea. I know.”
She placed a fisted hand on her hip. “You go talk some sense into her.”
The others unanimously agreed Gloria should be the one to try to talk to her.
“We’ll wait in the sunroom.” Lucy led the others to the sunroom while Alice hurried to the kitchen to fix a pot of tea and coffee for the unexpected guests.
Gloria glanced worriedly up the stairs toward the master suite wing of the house. If Alice couldn’t get Andrea to respond, how was she going to? She loved Andrea like one of her own, but knew her well enough to know when Andrea had something set in her mind it was hard to change it. To put it bluntly, Andrea could be as stubborn as a mule.
“Here goes nothing,” Gloria muttered under her breath as she climbed the stairs.
When she reached the double doors leading to the master suite, she lifted a hand to knock and then paused. “Lord, please give me the words to say to this poor girl, to give her hope that everything will work out, even though I have doubts myself.”
Gloria sucked in a breath and rapped firmly on the door. Nothing.
She tried again, this time a little louder. “Andrea. It’s me. Gloria.”
She heard a muffled response from inside and waited. Gloria tried again. This time she heard Andrea loud and clear. “I want to be left alone!” The tone of Andrea’s voice reminded Gloria of a petulant five-year old throwing a temper tantrum.
Gloria used her best I’m the mother and you’ll do as I say voice. “Andrea! I’m not leaving until you open this door.”
She stood there for several long moments, and was about to give up when the door opened.
Andrea peered out through the crack in the door. “I want to be left alone.”
Gloria nudged her foot in the door and wiggled it back and forth, opening the door a smidgen wider. “I know you’re upset because Brian can’t remember you and honestly, I can’t blame you, but you aren’t helping yourself – or him – by holing up in your room and feeling sorry for yourself.”
“What if he’s pretending? What if he does remember me and this is his way of getting out of our engagement?”
“Andrea Malone. That is not the case. Someone whacked poor Brian over the head with a pipe wrench! The man is lucky he doesn’t have brain damage!”
Gloria could tell her scolding was starting to sink in and the door eased open a little more.
“I guess you could be right. I’m just having a pity party,” Andrea admitted.
“Can I come in?”
The door swung open and Andrea, barefoot and wearing her pajamas, her hair sticking up all over her head, stood off to the side. She turned around and waved her in. “Come on in.”
Gloria quietly closed the bedroom door behind her and stepped into the room. It was a mess. Andrea’s wingback chairs that faced the fireplace were nearly invisible. Layers of discarded clothes covered the armchairs and hung off the sides.
A stack of dirty dishes covered the coffee table. A dozen different shoes littered the floor. “Good heavens! This room looks like a cyclone blew through.”
“I…was going to get dressed but couldn’t decide what to wear so I gave up.” Andrea crawled into the unmade bed and pulled the covers to her chin. “I’m thinking about moving back to New York.”
Gloria marched to the side of the bed. “New York? I thought you hated New York.” Andrea loved living in their small town. She had tons of friends. Not only that, Alice was there now. She couldn’t up and move away!
“Think about it. I’m cursed. First Daniel dies. Then, this house starts turning up dead bodies. Now Brian. Everything I touch and everyone I love is cursed.”
Gloria strode across the room. She grabbed the clothes off one of the chairs, dropped them onto the back of the second chair before dragging the chair to the side of the bed and plopping down. “What about me? You love me and I’m not cursed!”
Andrea sighed heavily. “Not yet, but wait. It’ll happen. One day something awful, something really terrible will happen to you and it will be my fault!”
Gloria was about to argue that Daniel, Andrea’s first husband, had been a scoundrel. His death had been a direct result of his own actions and had nothing to do with Andrea.
She was also going to point out the bodies found inside and outside Andrea’s home had nothing to do with her, either. In fact, one of them had been there before Andrea had ever been born, but the look on Andrea’s face was the same stubborn look Gloria knew all too well, so she tried a different tactic.
“Poor Alice. Where will she go? She has finally found happiness, and possibly the love of her life. You’re going to rip the rug right out from under a woman who is like a mother to you? What will happen to her?”
This may have been a stretch since Gloria wasn’t 100% certain Alice and her boss, Mario Acosta, were an item. She had sensed an attraction between the two the last couple of times she had visited the dog-training center but so far, she hadn’t heard the two were an “item.”
Andrea flopped down on her pillow and placed the back of her arm across her forehead. “She’ll get over it,” she sighed dramatically. “At least she wasn’t jilted at the altar.”
Gloria rolled her eyes. “You have not been jilted at the altar.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “I never pegged you for a quitter. I thought you had more pluck than that, but I guess I was wrong.”
She went on. “Well, my cousin’s daughter is a real estate agent. I can get her number if you’re serious…” Gloria’s voice trailed off.
“Just like that?” Andrea flung her hand away and bolted upright. “You’re going to let me give up just like that?”
Gloria grinned and hopped out of the chair. “Much better. The other girls are waiting for us in the sunroom. I’m going to head downstairs while you get your butt out of bed and get ready. We have work to do!”
She marched to the door and turned back. “If you’re not in the kitchen in twenty minutes, we’re all coming up here for an intervention.”
Gloria didn’t wait for a reply as she flung the bedroom door open and strode down the hall. “That wasn’t so hard, after all!” she whispered under her breath as she headed downstairs.
Chapter 7
Andrea strode into the kitchen eighteen minutes later. “I even cleaned up my mess!”
Alice clapped her hands. “Miss Gloria, the miracle worker!” She picked up a wooden spoon from the counter and waved it at Andrea. “Next time I have trouble with you, I call Miss Gloria,” she threatened.
Andrea shifted her head and wandered over to the baking dish, sitting on top of the stove. She peered into the dish. “Whatcha’ making?”
“Your favorite. Chicken tortilla casserole.” Alice shifted her gaze. “You must all stay to eat. You can discuss the uh – case - while I finish putting this together. It will be ready before you know it.” She looked at Gloria, her eyes pleading.
A wave of guilt washed over Gloria. They had never included Alice in their investigations. Not only that, this one involved her, in a roundabout way.
Her eyes slid to Rose. It wouldn’t be fair to include Rose, a relative newcomer, and not include Alice, who had been around much longer. “I would love to stay and have lunch. I’m not sure of the others.”
Dot made a quick call. If they ate an early lunch, Rose and she could still make it back to th
e restaurant in time for the lunch rush.
Alice assured them they would have plenty of time. She began assembling the casserole as the girls gathered around the counter to discuss the robbery.
They told Andrea they had searched the hardware store and were disappointed they hadn’t found a single clue. Gloria was about to mention the knitting needles and yarn, but decided to remain silent. It was none of her business what Brian did in his free time. Plus, she thought it was cool that he loved knitting. Perhaps he could teach her a thing or two!
“Did Brian mention any suspicious activity recently? Anyone prowling around the store? Strange customers coming in to purchase items? Anything that, looking back, seems odd?” Gloria asked.
Andrea swirled her teabag around in her teacup. “No…not that I can think of.” She took a sip. “Wait! I do remember him saying the other day some guy came into the store asking about do-it-yourself surveillance equipment. Brian told him they didn’t sell surveillance equipment and he would have to go to one of the larger supply stores. He said the guy was acting a little weird. He finally left the store and then stood outside for a long time, like he was texting on his phone. Finally he left.”
“Maybe he was scoping the place out,” Gloria mused aloud. “Still, why the hardware store and why Brian?”
Ruth fidgeted in her chair and Gloria turned to face her friend. Ruth, along with most of the other Garden Girls, had lived in Belhaven more years than they cared to count. She knew Ruth as well as she knew her own sister, Liz. The fidgeting meant Ruth had beans to spill. “What is it Ruth?”
“What’s what?” Ruth’s eyes widened innocently.
“The fidgeting,” Gloria said. “You’re dying to say something. What is it?”
“Me?” Ruth pressed a hand to her chest.
All eyes turned to Ruth, who slapped an open palm on the counter and groaned. “I…can’t. My job…”
There was more than one way to skin a cat. “You know something. Perhaps there was a piece of mail or package Brian received that you think might be a clue,” Gloria guessed.
Forget Me Knot (Garden Girls Christian Cozy Mystery Series Book 13) Page 4
