Tallow cocked his head at Douglas. “You want me to go back to your house and watch Aggie?”
Douglas sighed, realizing that she barely knew Tallow any better than the other neighbors. Still, at least he was family. “I’d have her go to her friend Jenny’s house, but she is out of town today visiting her grandmother.”
“Okay, I-. Are you sure?” Tallow said. “I mean I’d like to get to know her better and all, but don’t you think I should stick around here? There’s things I could learn from the evidence.”
“You are not an official part of the investigation,” Douglas reminded him. He looked back at the forensics team that was already making their way towards them wearing lab coats and latex gloves and imagined his uncle trying to point things out to them.
Douglas forced himself not to cringe at the idea. “Look, you are going to need to make an official statement, but with two crime scenes we are going to be here a while. Then there’s going to be the paperwork back at the station . . . I think we can bring you in to make that statement tomorrow.”
Tallow scratched his head. “So . . . babysitting?”
“Thank you. But don’t call it that in front of Agatha. She hates that,” Douglas said, putting his hand on Tallow’s shoulder. “Look at it as another opportunity to go through Asher’s things. Maybe you will find something new. I’ll catch you up on what we find here when I see you later tonight.”
“Right,” said Tallow. His feet dragged as he walked back towards his car. “Great.”
Chapter 11: Peanut Butter and Pickles
“Dang it!” Agatha growled, casting the offending steak knife into the sink. The cut wasn’t too deep, but it was in a horrible spot. It started just down from the nail of her forefinger and crossed diagonally across her first knuckle. “On a stupid peanut butter sandwich?”
Actually it wasn’t the peanut butter that she had been cutting. It was the big dill pickle she had been slicing to go on top. Peanut butter and pickle sounded like a gross idea for a sandwich, which was one of the reasons she liked making it, but it was actually pretty good. Besides, Asher had taught her how to make it and after what had happened earlier that day, she had needed something to remind her of her older brother.
The darn pickle had just been so slippery and her reflexes hadn’t been fast enough. Agatha scowled at her betraying finger. Blood was already starting to seep from the wound. She turned on the cold water and held her finger under it.
This was terribly annoying. The cut was right across the joint. It didn’t hurt much yet, but she knew from prior experience it would take a long time to heal and it would hurt whenever she was knitting. Her needles would press right on it.
She glanced longingly at her current project which sat on the counter not far away. It was the beginning of Tallow’s cane cozy. Though she had teased him about making it with pink yarn, she had gone with something more tasteful; a black merino wool yarn from her mother’s old stash. She had been looking for an excuse to knit with it and figured she had just enough for the length of the cane.
Agatha chewed her lip. Maybe with a band-aid on the cut it wouldn’t hurt too bad. She turned off the water and wrapped a clean paper towel around the offending digit. Her daddy kept the first aid kit in the cabinet above the stove. She dragged a chair over to the stove and stood on it to put her head level with the cabinet and took out the plastic container.
Luckily they had a few of the smaller stretchy fabric kind of band-aids that she liked. The other girls at school liked the kind with characters on them, but no matter how popular Wonder Woman was right now that plastic kind of kids band-aid just came off too easy.
After wrapping the band-aid around her finger, Agatha put the container away and finished making her sandwich. She had just put the top piece of bread on her sandwich when she heard a car pull up outside. She looked out the window over the kitchen sink and saw that same beat-up old car that had showed up yesterday.
“That Tallow guy,” she mumbled. Agatha still wasn’t sure what to think of him. He was her daddy’s uncle, but he didn’t look that old. He didn’t act that old either. Also he was too easy to trust and Agatha didn’t trust many adults. There was something unsettling about that.
She took a bite of her sandwich as she watched him from the window. Tallow was still sitting in the car. She could see him through the driver’s side window. He was holding something small and roundish up in front of his face and was talking animatedly at it. Was it a walkie talkie? It had kind of a weird shape for that.
Tallow shook his head and put the roundish thing down, moving like he was putting it in his pocket. Then he opened the door and got out, carrying his cane in one hand and his laptop in the other.
Agatha took another bite of her sandwich, then put it on the table and walked around to the front door. She opened it before he could knock. Agatha frowned at him through the still-locked glass outer door. “So you’re back.”
Tallow paused, his cane raised to press the doorbell. He smiled at her. “Your dad sent me to watch you. He told me what happened to Mr. Rutnick.”
She blinked, a chill going through her as she thought of nice old Mr. Rutnick leaning back in that ugly old beat up recliner of his, his face pale and his hand clenching his chest as his wife called 911. When Mrs. Rutnick had left her at the other neighbor’s house and gotten into the ambulance, she had been terrified.
“Yeah,” was all she said.
“What are you doing here alone, Aggie?” Tallow said, lightly chastising her. “You were supposed to be at the other neighbor’s.”
“I don’t know them,” Agatha said. She had felt strange in that place. “Their house is weird. It smells funny there. Like some weird spices.”
He nodded. “I noticed that too when I went there to find you. It was turmeric. I think they may be from India. They seemed worried that you refused to stay with them and went home alone.”
“Their dog was really nasty. He had a gunky eye and was a real slobberfest.” Agatha cocked her head at him. “You look dirty,” she observed.
“I do?” Tallow looked down at the dust that covered his trousers and the front of his jacket. “Sorry. I had to dive onto the ground to dodge some gunfire today.”
Agatha raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yeah, I was with your dad. He’s actually a pretty good shot,” Tallow replied.
“Daddy shot at someone?” she said, her eyes wide.
Tallow blinked, realizing that he had told her more than he should have. “Don’t worry. No one died. They were wearing bullet proof vests . . . and your dad’s okay,” he assured her. “We were fine.”
“Did Daddy and Uncle Bob catch the bad guys that were shooting at you?” she asked.
Tallow chuckled. “You call him Uncle Bob?”
“Yeah,” Agatha said. “So?”
She had started calling her daddy’s partner that not long after Asher had gone missing. It had been Mr. Ross’ idea. Everyone should have an Uncle Bob. Or at least that’s what he had said.
Tallow shrugged, his smile stretching a bit wider. “I guess it doesn’t matter. To answer your question, they caught one of them. I’m sure they’ll catch the others soon enough. Can I come in now?”
Agatha folded her arms. “Daddy didn’t tell me you could come in.”
“Come on. Again? After yesterday?” he said, looking perturbed.
“Exactly,” she agreed. “I’ve only known you one day. That means you’re still practically a stranger.”
Tallow opened his mouth as if to say something sarcastic, but then shrugged his shoulders and nodded. “You know what? Smart girl. You shouldn’t just be letting people in when you’re home alone. Just a minute.”
Tallow tucked his cane up under his other arm and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He dialed a number. “Hello, can you patch me through to the phone of Detective Douglas Jones please. I am his Uncle Tallow. I’m calling about his daughter.”
Agatha stood there with
her arms folded while he waited to be patched through. As much as she was enjoying making him wait out there, she wished that she had her knitting in her hands while she watched him. She would soon get bored otherwise.
“Hello, Douglas. It would probably be best if you just gave me your direct number so I don’t have to go through the switchboard every time . . . Right . . . Uh huh . . . Yeah, I’ll remember it. Okay, well I am standing on your front porch.” Tallow nodded his head at her. “Aggie won’t let me inside without your permission . . . Uh-huh.” He handed the phone out to her.
Agatha didn’t open the outer door, but merely pointed to the mail slot next to it. Their house was an old one, built in the 1960s back when mail carriers still delivered to the front door. The mail slot had already been built into the wall when they bought the place. Tallow rolled his eyes, but slid his phone inside. It clanked down into the chamber a few inches below the slot. Agatha opened the interior panel in the wall and pulled out the phone, then put it to her ear.
“Daddy?” she said. “Have you been swearing today?”
“No, Agatha. Did you make him put his phone through the mail slot?” her father asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
Her daddy chuckled. “Good girl. But go ahead and let him in. He’s family. It’s okay. I asked him to watch you.”
She sighed and looked at Tallow. “Alright. Daddy, is it true you shot someone today?” Tallow winced and there was a couple seconds of dead air on the other line. “Daddy?”
Douglas cleared his throat. “Sweetie, is Tallow inside yet?”
“No. Is it true?” Agatha asked.
“I’ll just talk to him when I get home. I love you. Be good,” he said and hung up.
She wrinkled her nose. “I think he’s mad at you.”
Tallow gave her a dull look. “You know, I’m not going to keep telling you the truth about things if you go tattling to your dad every time. That was not cool.”
Agatha pursed her lips. “Sorry. I just don’t like that he won’t tell me about that kind of stuff.”
“Can I come in now?” Tallow asked.
“You’re still covered in dirt,” she pointed out. “And I just vacuumed.”
“You don’t act like an eight-year-old. You know that, right?” Tallow said.
“I’m almost nine,” Agatha replied.
Tallow sighed. He turned away from her briefly and there was a poof of dust. When he turned back around he was clean. “Ta-dah! How about now?”
Agatha opened the door and gave him a questioning look. “How’d you do that?”
“Magic,” he said.
Tallow walked past her and into the kitchen. He placed his laptop on the kitchen table and glanced at her partially eaten sandwich. He turned to look at the jar of peanut butter on the counter.
“Eating a peanut butter sandwich, huh?” he said.
“Peanut butter and pickles,” Agatha replied and waited for him to grimace. People always grimaced when she told them about the pickles.
He merely walked to the counter and put his hand on the loaf of bread. “Would you mind if I made myself one?”
“With pickles?” she asked.
“And mustard,” he said, giving her a challenging look.
“Eww,” she said with a grimace. “Okay, but only if you really do it with mustard.”
Tallow looked at all the cabinets and closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. He opened the cabinet next to the sink and got out a plate, then opened a drawer and pulled out a steak knife. He didn’t even have to ask where things were.
Intrigued, Agatha retrieved her knitting and sat at the table. She took another bite of her sandwich, this one with a big chunk of pickle and picked up her needles while she watched Tallow work. He opened the fridge and took out the mustard and the big jar of pickles. He sliced a dill pickle in thin slices long ways and pulled out two pieces of bread.
Tallow glanced back at her and held up the bread. It was whole wheat with extra seeds. “It’s funny how people feel like adding chunky seeds and stuff to bread makes it more authentic. Did you know that back in the old days, they never made bread with flour like this? If a baker back then made bread this chunky people would have thought they didn’t know how to grind their wheat properly. Truth be told, I think the wheat we had back then is just better than the stuff we have today.”
“I like bread with all the little things in it,” Agatha said. “It makes a sandwich more interesting. White bread is just kind of blah sometimes. The sandwiches they make at school are gross.”
Tallow gestured at her with the knife. “That’s just because you haven’t had the real thing. Fresh hand ground white flour bread is amazing.”
Agatha shrugged. The only time she had homemade bread was at Thanksgiving when her grandma made rolls. They were small and hard. “Are you really putting mustard on it?”
“Sure I am. The acidity and tartness of mustard goes good with the thick oils and nutty flavor of the peanut butter,” he said and picked up the squeeze bottle of mustard. “The trick is not to put too much mustard on. Just a thin layer.”
Tallow squirted a couple thin lines of mustard on the bread’s surface and used the steak knife to spread it thinly. He rinsed off the blade in the sink, then opened the jar of peanut butter. He scooped out a big glob with the knife.
“I like to put peanut butter on both sides of the bread,” he said and did so, spreading it over the slice without mustard first. “The pickles go in the middle. Then I cut it into fourths so it doesn’t get too messy to eat.”
Agatha watched him make the sandwich and put the ingredients away, her nose wrinkled as she tried to figure the man out. Was he doing this to mess with her or was he really serious?
Tallow brought the plate over to the table and set it down next to his laptop. Then he sat down and opened the computer up. He glanced at her and saw her watching him and picked up one of his sandwich quarters. He shoved the whole thing into his mouth and chewed, his cheeks bulging as he turned his attention to the screen in front of him.
Her eyes wide, Agatha assessed her father’s uncle with newfound respect. Whether he liked that sandwich or not, he followed through. Sometime, when he wasn’t around to see her, she would have to try his recipe for herself.
Tallow fished his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wireless mouse. He started clicking and typing away, every once in a while taking another bite. The man was quick with the keys, his fingers moving agilely, not a hunter and pecker like other older people she knew.
Agatha realized that she was still holding the needles in her hands. She hadn’t even started knitting yet. It would probably just hurt her finger. She set them back down on the table. “Want a drink?”
“Sure. What’ve you got?” he asked, his eyes still on the screen.
“Water or milk,” she said. “Or I could make Kool-Aid.”
He thought about it, bobbing his head back and forth as he typed. “Hey, Asher told me he liked Yoo-Hoos. Do you have any of those left?”
She blinked at him. Asher did like Yoo-Hoos. He always asked their daddy to buy them for him. Douglas wouldn’t buy them very often, so when he did Asher always made them last. When he had left, there had been four bottles in the back of the fridge.
“No,” she said. “There were some, but I drank ’em.”
“You like Yoo-Hoos too?” Tallow asked.
“No. They taste like chocolate-flavored chalk water,” she said, echoing her daddy’s usual words. The only reason she had drank them was because they reminded her of Asher, though she wasn’t going to admit that.
“Hmm,” Tallow said, but then as if understanding her reasoning anyway, added, “Do you want me to pick up some next time I’m at the store?”
Agatha cocked her head at him. “Yes.”
“Okay,” he said and clicked at something on the screen, bringing up a new browser tab. “I’ll just take water for now then.”
Agatha got a glass of ice wate
r together from the dispenser on the fridge and brought it over to him. The website he was typing information into had something to do with the State of Georgia government. She placed the cup next to his plate.
“What’re you doing?” she asked.
“Boring stuff,” he said, taking a drink. “Applying for my Georgia private detective’s license. I figured I should go ahead and take on a few side jobs while I’m here and I’m not technically supposed to be doing work here without one.”
Agatha sat back down, frowning. “Why do you need side jobs? I thought you were just here to help Daddy find Asher.”
“I am,” Tallow said. “But I don’t know how long it’s going to take and I’m not good at sitting around waiting for things to happen. I’ll need to keep busy in the meantime.”
She pulled her feet up on the seat of her chair and wrapped her arms around her knees as she watched him continue to type, her frown deepening. Asher had been gone a month already and he was planning on it taking longer to find him? That wasn’t right. What if Asher was hurt?
“Then don’t,” Agatha told him.
“Don’t what?” he said absently.
Agatha grunted. “Don’t sit around and wait for things to happen.”
Tallow stopped what he was doing and looked at her, his expression softening as he saw the worry in her eyes. “I didn’t explain that very well. What I meant to say is that there isn’t much for me to do while I’m waiting for the police to process evidence.” Her look didn’t change. “I’m not just sitting around. Your dad and I actually found a lot of clues today. But it will take a while for forensics to process it.”
“You found clues while bad guys were shooting at you?” she asked.
“I shouldn’t have told you about that,” he said. “But actually, we found the clues first. I think that’s why they came to shoot at us.”
Tallow Jones: Wizard Detective (The Tallow Novels Book 1) Page 12
