Up Shute Creek: Rose Gardner Investigation #4

by Denise Grover Swank

  I cast a glance to Neely Kate. While I hated to put Bruce Wayne in this position, I’d feel better knowing we had someone with us. “Maybe you should follow behind,” I said. “We’re about to head to the Blue Plate Diner to meet a potential new client. You can sit in another booth and watch us if you’d like.”

  “You’re meetin’ a landscapin’ client at a diner?” he asked in surprise.

  “No,” Neely Kate said, lifting her chin. “We’re meetin’ a new PI client at the diner.”

  If she expected Bruce Wayne to protest our hobby like just about everyone else in our lives, she’d keep on waiting. In the past, he’d told me I was good at PI work and encouraged me not to give it up.

  He nodded. “I’ll sit a few tables away and keep an eye on you. Especially since that’s the place where the asshole from Dallas tried to kidnap you.”

  Neely Kate shivered slightly. It was a testament to how badly she wanted to take this case that she’d agreed to lunch there. But then again, Neely Kate was pretty fearless. She wasn’t about to let a potential kidnapping hold her back.

  “Okay,” I said, then turned to face our client’s front yard. “Those changes we made to the design last week turned out really good. Did you have trouble fittin’ the Japanese maple into the smaller spot?”

  “Nah.” He scratched the back of his neck. “The homeowners are happy with it too. The crew’s wrapping things up now, which means we’ll be ready to start on that job in Pickle Junction tomorrow.”

  “Maeve’s got all the plants ready to go,” I said. “You can pick them up first thing in the morning.”

  He nodded. “Sounds good. I’m gonna swing home and clean up, and then I’ll see you two at the diner. Where are you headed after that?”

  “I’m behind on my designs,” I said, “but if we take this case, we’ll likely spend the afternoon investigatin’.”

  An amused grin spread across his face. “You’ll take it.”

  I rolled my eyes. He knew us too well.

  Chapter 7

  The Blue Plate Diner was usually crowded at lunch, but today there were about ten people waiting outside.

  “What in tarnation is goin’ on?” Neely Kate asked as she pulled into a parking space in the back. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them this busy.”

  “Do you know what our client looks like?” I asked. “She might be standing outside.”

  We got out of the car and started walking toward the building. “She said she was wearing a pink shirt. I don’t see any pink shirts outside.”

  “Then hopefully she got a table,” I said. “Let’s go in and check it out.”

  Up to this point, Neely Kate had seemed pretty unaffected by the fact she’d been kidnapped here days ago, but now she stopped in her tracks and stared at the front door, the blood draining from her face.

  “We can find our client and tell her we’ll meet her somewhere else,” I said. “There’s no shame in bein’ freaked out to be here.”

  She studied the door for a couple more seconds, then drew back her shoulders. “No. I have to do this. Get back up on that horse and all that.”

  I could see in her eyes that this was the last place she wanted to be, but she took off before I could try to change her mind.

  We walked past the people on the front sidewalk and opened the door, only to find another crush of people waiting inside. Every table in the place was packed. A couple of women were wearing pink, but one of them looked upside of seventy. Neely Kate smiled at the other, a thirty-something blond woman dressed in a pink halter top and a pair of cutoff jean shorts, and she started walking toward us.

  “Neely Kate?” she asked, pushing her way through the crowd. When she reached us, she said, “This place is packed tighter than fleas on a mangy dog. Maybe we should go somewhere else.”

  “Neely Kate Rivers!” a man’s voice boomed across the restaurant. The speaker was a man with graying hair. He stood behind the lunch counter, and based on the apron he wore, he worked there. As she turned toward him, he ducked out from under the counter and started shoving people out of the way to get to us.

  “Hey, Mel,” she said.

  “Whatcha doin’ here, girl? Heard how popular you are now?”

  “What?” she asked in confusion.

  “Yeah,” he said as he stopped in front of her, wiping his hands on the apron around his waist. “Word got out that you nearly got kidnapped here, and I haven’t had an empty table in days. Everyone wants to see where it happened.”

  Neely Kate turned to me in shock.

  “You here to eat?” Mel asked.

  “Yeah, but we can wait outside. It’s pretty crowded.”

  “Wait?” he boomed. Turning to face the diners, he announced, “This here’s none other than Neely Kate Rivers, the woman who almost got kidnapped on Friday.”

  The room had been abuzz with conversation, but everyone had stopped talking to listen to Mel. Now they burst into excited chatter, many of the diners getting out their phones and snapping photos of Neely Kate.

  To my surprise, she shot me an exasperated look. Neely Kate normally loved the spotlight, but maybe the kidnapping was a little too fresh for her to revel in her newfound fame.

  I leaned closer and said, “Maybe we should go.”

  “Go?” Mel protested. “We’ll get you a table, right quick.” He walked over to a booth where two men sat, both working on pieces of pie. Mel leaned over and snatched up the plates of half-eaten pie. “Gentlemen, we’ll fix these up to go.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Doreen! Get the check. And some to-go containers!”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Neely Kate protested.

  “That’s okay,” one of the men said, scrambling out of the seat. “We don’t mind. Can I get a selfie with you?”

  Neely Kate’s brow lifted, then she shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”

  She stood next to the man as he pulled out his phone, put on a big cheesy grin, and quickly snapped a photo.

  Mel and a woman I presumed was Doreen took the plates and dishes to the counter, while a waitress quickly wiped the table down.

  “My turn,” the other guy said, shoving his friend out of the way and taking his own photo. “Do you mind if we take another one in front of your sign?”

  “My sign?”

  “Yeah. Over in the booth where you sat.” He pointed to the framed sign posted high on the wall over the window two booths down.

  This is the booth Neely Kate Rivers sat in before she was kidnapped and dragged out of the restaurant.

  Neely Kate’s mouth parted, and she gave me a dazed look.

  “Sorry, boys,” I said, pushing them out of the way. Before Neely Kate could recover enough to yell at them, I shoved her into one side of the booth. “Only one photo per person.”

  They grumbled as they headed to the counter to pay their bill.

  Our potential client had stood to the side, watching everything transpire with a dazed expression. She slid into the seat across from Neely Kate as I sat down beside my friend.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “Turns out Neely Kate’s kind of popular here.”

  I worried that hearing her potential investigator had nearly been kidnapped might scare her off, but her eyes lit up as they latched on to Neely Kate.

  “Were you really kidnapped?”

  “Technically, it was an attempted kidnapping,” Neely Kate grumbled.

  I suspected she was ticked the goon from the Hardshaw Group had gotten her out the back door before she roughed him up and got away.

  “But that’s old news,” Neely Kate said. “Tell us about your daughter.”

  The woman’s eyes saddened as she turned to me. “You must be Rose. I’m Marsha Freestone. My Sarah’s missing. She took off to go party with some friends a week ago yesterday, and I ain’t seen her since.”

  Doreen suddenly appeared at the edge of the table. “Can I get you something to drink, Neely Kate? Or an appetizer? I can bring you a plate of fried pickles.”


  “You ain’t got appetizers on the menu,” Marsha said, looking confused.

  Doreen scrunched up her face and gave Marsha a piercing look. “Well, we got ’em for Neely Kate if she wants ’em.”

  “I’d hate to put you to any trouble,” Neely Kate said, then added in a wistful tone, “but fried pickles sure sound good.”

  “It’s no trouble at all. And what’d you want to drink?”

  “Iced tea would be nice.”

  Doreen spun around and headed to the kitchen.

  “She didn’t get our drink orders,” I said.

  Neely Kate gave me an apologetic look. “We can give them to her when she comes back.” She turned back to Marsha. “I’m sorry we were interrupted. The party was a week ago yesterday?”

  “Yeah. She and her friends were goin’ to hang out on Shute Creek. She mentioned they were gonna go tubin’.”

  “Did she make it to the party?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Everyone I’ve talked to said they didn’t know anything about a get-together.”

  That sounded pretty suspicious. “Do you think they’re lyin’?” I asked.

  “Maybe? I don’t know. She’d had a fallin’-out with her best friend, and she’d just broke up with her boyfriend the week before. She wasn’t much of a partier and only had a few friends…” Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  Neely Kate reached over and covered Marsha’s hand with hers. “That’s okay. That’s what we’re here for. To look into those things.”

  “You said you called the sheriff?” I asked.

  “Not the sheriff.” She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “The Sugar Branch police force. They took my statement and said it sounded like she ran off.”

  I blinked. “Wait. When did Sugar Branch get a police force?”

  We’d investigated a missing person in Sugar Branch nearly a year ago, and I knew for a fact they hadn’t had their own police force.

  “The town voted on it a couple of months ago,” Neely Kate said. “They have two officers on staff.”

  “Only they’re a couple of incompetent fools more worried about writin’ traffic tickets than doin’ real police work like lookin’ for my Sarah,” Marsha said with plenty of venom.

  Neely Kate turned to face me. “The town’s hurtin’ for money, so they hired a couple of police officers to write traffic tickets. But rumor has it that’s all they do.”

  Marsha looked disgusted. “I called the sheriff’s department after they blew me off, but they said it was Sugar Branch’s problem.”

  Based on the steely look in Neely Kate’s eyes, I suspected Joe would get an earful later.

  Doreen appeared with a glass of tea and a plate of fried pickles, setting them both in front of Neely Kate. “Have you had a chance to look over the menu yet?”

  “I know what I want,” Neely Kate said. “What about y’all?”

  “I want a—” I started before Doreen cut me off.

  She crossed her arms and gave me a sour look. “Sorry. Mel says Neely Kate’s lunch is on the house, but that don’t extend to the rest of ya.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, “and very generous of you for Neely Kate, but Marsha and I still want to eat. I’m more than willing to pay for the two of us.”

  The waitress shook her head. “I can’t be seen bringin’ a bill over to the table, not after Mel’s made a big deal of giving Neely Kate her lunch for free.”

  “But he never once mentioned it,” I said. “So no one’s gonna know.”

  She pursed her lips, giving me a look that let me know she thought I was stupid. “He done posted it on the Facebook.”

  “Mel uses Facebook?” Neely Kate asked.

  “He done got us a page and everything,” she said with an eyeroll. “So now you know why I can’t take your order.”

  I gave Neely Kate an incredulous look.

  The warm smile that lit up my best friend’s face told me that she was up to something. “Miss Doreen, I need a moment to make up my mind, but in the meantime, can you bring my friends a glass of water? Surely you can do that since it’s free.”

  Doreen gave her a grudging nod, then headed to the kitchen again.

  “I know they’re about to give you a crown and all,” I said, “but I’m hungry. Maybe we should go somewhere else.”

  “How can you be starvin’ after you ate all that food from Big Biscuit?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just am.”

  “What did you two plan to order?” Neely Kate asked.

  I told her I wanted a club sandwich, and Marsha wanted a chef salad. My phone vibrated with a text from Bruce Wayne.

  I’m in the parking lot and see you girls in the window. Let me know if you spot trouble.

  I glanced out the window, and sure enough, Bruce Wayne’s truck was parked directly opposite us.

  A minute later, Doreen appeared with one glass of water and set it in the middle of the table with two straws. “Here you go.”

  “What is that?” Marsha asked. “You expect us to share?”

  Our waitress gave her plenty of attitude. “Neely Kate said to bring a glass of water. That’s exactly what I did.”

  “I meant for each of them, Doreen,” Neely Kate groaned.

  Propping a hand on her hip, Doreen said in a put-out tone, “Well, you didn’t specify.”

  Neely Kate pushed out a loud sigh. “Well, okay then… I’m pretty hungry, so I’d like a chef salad with ranch dressing, a club sandwich with chips, and a cheeseburger with fries. Oh, and a coke.”

  Doreen gave her a long look, and I was sure she was going to tell her no, but then she plastered on a fake smile. “Comin’ right up.” Spinning around, she headed for the kitchen again, muttering about some people being ungrateful moochers. I suspected Mel might not be so excited to see Neely Kate again.

  “Doreen’s gonna be downright pissed when she sees us eatin’ your food,” I said.

  “Who says I’m sharin’?” she said with a serious expression. A grin burst through like the sun coming through the clouds. “Which one of you wants the coke?”

  Marsha shoved the water toward me. “I would have preferred a Mountain Dew, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “I’ll get you one next time.” Neely Kate’s smile faded. “And I’m really sorry about this. I had no idea they’d act so crazy.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Marsha said. “I just want someone to look for my girl. You’re the first ones who’ve seemed interested.”

  “You asked other private investigators?” I asked in surprise. Was there something about this case we didn’t know yet?

  “The Sugar Branch police,” Marsha said. “The sheriff’s department. The state police. The FBI. Finally, my cousin Hilde told me to call her second cousin twice removed since he was a PI.”

  “And Kermit Cooper told you to call us?” I asked.

  She made a face. “Oh, not Kermit. Hilde’s second cousin twice removed said I couldn’t afford him and gave me Kermit Cooper’s number. When I called him, he told me to call Neely Kate. Y’all are the first ones to actually seem interested in helpin’.”

  “Did Kermit give you some kind of deal?” Neely Kate asked.

  I’d been wondering the same thing, but ultimately it didn’t matter. Kermit never paid us a dime, saying our experience was payment enough. We couldn’t sit for the Arkansas Private Investigator exam without either an associate’s degree or two years of experience with a licensed PI, and he was our best chance at getting the requisite experience.

  No wonder he’d passed along Neely Kate’s number. We’d do all the work while he lay around his trashy mobile home watching Law and Order. What did he have to lose?

  “At first,” Marsha said, “he told me no, but then I stared bawlin’, and he told me to call y’all. He said you’d love a good sob story.”

  Neely Kate frowned. “Yep. Sounds like Kermit.” She pulled her pink sparkly notebook out of her purse along with
her glittery pink pen with a pink puff ball on the end. She opened her notebook and wrote Sarah’s name at the top.

  Marsha stared at her with her mouth hanging open.

  Neely Kate glanced up. “What?”

  Marsha shook her head. “Nothin’. I just ain’t never seen so much pink glitter that wasn’t part of a stripper’s costume.”

  That caught my attention. “Do you work at the Bunny Ranch?”

  The Bunny Ranch was the lone strip club in the county. It also just so happened to be owned by my boyfriend, Skeeter Malcolm.

  “Me?” She laughed as she shook her head. “I don’t have what it takes to inspire a man to pay me to take off my clothes. Not anymore. But I stripped years ago, back when you two were in diapers.”

  Originally, I’d thought she was in her early thirties, which mathematically seemed near impossible for a woman with a nineteen-year-old daughter. Now that I was close enough to see the fine wrinkles around her eyes, I realized she was likely in her late thirties or early forties.

  “What do you do now?” Neely Kate asked.

  “I work night shifts at the convenience store in town. The Feed and Fuel.”

  “The one on County Road 22?” Neely Kate asked.

  Surprise covered Marsha’s face. “You know it?”

  “We visited there last fall,” Neely Kate said. “They had terrible donuts.”

  “Uh…” Marsha said, sounding confused. “They ship ’em in from Little Rock the day before.”

  Neely Kate made a face. “Figures.”

  “What shift do you work?” I asked, trying to get us back on track.

  “The evenin’ shift. From four to midnight.”

  “What about Sarah?” I asked. “What does she do?”

  She shook her head. “She ain’t no stripper, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Surely she has a job somewhere,” Neely Kate said.

  Marsha clasped her hands on the table in front of her, holding tight. “She used to work as extra help at Dr. Knight’s dental office. Then she got a job as a receptionist at that new vet’s office.”

  I gave Neely Kate a quick glance as I asked, “Which new vet?”