by Marja McGraw
I set a simple breakfast on the table with eggs, grits and toast, and my boys dug in. We’d never had grits before, until a few months earlier, and we discovered that with milk and a little sugar, we loved them.
I pulled the rubber band off the newspaper and opened it, and there it was, halfway down the front page. “Vintage Murder Scene Found at Site of New Restaurant”. Vintage murder scene? How very cute of Sharon to put it that way, I thought with a touch of sarcasm. I was not a happy camper. I didn’t think Chris would be too happy either.
At least she hadn’t mentioned the restaurant by name, but then how could she? It didn’t have a name yet. She did, however, mention the fire at the old restaurant.
She also named the victim and the location where the remains were found, and she made a point of writing that it was under investigation as a homicide. The victim was Charles Blakely, and family members had been found and notified. Blakely had a sister, a niece and a great-niece who lived in the area.
She also mentioned Chris and me by name, commenting briefly on our involvement in another murder which had taken place a year earlier. That was when I’d first met Chris. She even had the gall to mention Chris’s resemblance to Humphrey Bogart.
She was playing us up in the article while telling about the old murder. Did she honestly think that would bring business into the restaurant? And why on earth did she have to mention our involvement in a year-old murder? If I read the story and didn’t know Chris and me, I’d think there was something wrong with us for being close to two murder scenes. This would not be a draw for customers.
After finishing the article I handed it to Chris. I wanted to say something to him, but not in front of Mikey. And there was a lot that I wanted to say to Sharon. All of my comments would have to wait until Mikey was at school.
The boys finished their breakfast and left the table, and I started washing the dishes. I could hear the shower running upstairs, so I knew Chris was ready to face the day. Mikey dressed for school and came back downstairs after a few minutes. He had his books and backpack with him and he sat down at the table.
“Did you make your bed?” I asked.
“I did.”
I put the last dish in the drainer, dried my hands, and grabbed my purse and car keys. “Let’s go then.”
On the way to school I reminded Mikey about his promise not to mention the dead body. He said he remembered.
By the time I arrived home, Chris was sitting at the kitchen table rereading the article and frowning.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I think all the stories we’ve heard about Sharon are true. She didn’t try to put a good spin on the murder. I guess I should say, the situation. I don’t think we want to use the ‘M’ word in public.”
“Well, I don’t really want to stick up for her, but how can you put a good spin on a murder? I mean, really. You can’t. At the very least I thought she’d leave us out of it and put the story in the back of the paper or something.”
“But, Pamela, that wouldn’t put her in good with the editor. And she does want to become a real, honest-to-goodness reporter.” His tone sounded sarcastic, and I understood how he felt.
“Now what are we going to do?” I asked.
“All we can do is wait. Hopefully this will all be over and forgotten soon. We should probably talk to Sharon, too. Maybe remind her about the good spin she was going to put on her story.”
“Can you talk to Big D about Sharon? I know they just met each other, but maybe he can help us. Do you think he carries any weight with her?”
“I doubt it. He’s just a big ol’ Teddy Bear when it comes to women, and he really seems to like Sharon, which makes it even worse. Plus they just met.”
“He lets women walk all over him? I know he can be shy, but I’m still surprised to hear that. I would have thought he’d be the alpha dog in a relationship.”
“Nope. He thinks of women as delicate little flowers.”
“Oh, brother. Is he ever in for a rude awakening.”
I left Chris alone so he could read the rest of the newspaper and began making preparations for our barbeque. I planned on serving barbequed ribs, baked beans and French fries, and maybe onion rings, along with garlic toast. Thinking about it made me hungry. I had some avocados, so I thought I’d make some guacamole, too, as an appetizer. Onion dip and potato chips… No, I was already thinking of onion rings. I didn’t want to overdo the onions. Maybe I’d just serve French fries and forget the onion rings. I stopped and chuckled to myself. It takes so little to distract me, which isn’t always a bad thing. I prepared the guacamole and put the bowl in the refrigerator.
I was unwrapping the ribs when the doorbell rang. Chris glanced up from the newspaper, rolling his upper lip under. We weren’t expecting anyone.
“I’ll get it. You just stay right there and read the paper. No need to get up or anything.”
He quietly growled at me.
I rolled my eyes and he returned to the paper. He was so cute that it was hard to feel angry. I was teasing him and he knew it.
The bell rang again and I hurried my steps.
“Yes?” I said, opening the door to find a pair of strangers standing on the porch. I hoped they weren’t selling anything. I can be such an easy mark.
“Are you Mrs. Cross?” A little brown-haired munchkin addressed me, appearing nervous. She had to be under five feet, and she was petite enough to make me feel like an Amazon warrior, even though I was only five-four. She had very delicate, lovely features. Directly behind her stood someone of about the same size. All I could see was a cloud of blonde hair framing the first woman’s face from behind.
“Yes, I am. What can I do for you?” They didn’t look like saleswomen, at least the one I could see, and they didn’t look like choir members out to talk us into attending their church. Besides, I had my own church.
“My name is Midge Meyers, and this is…”
She suddenly realized that the other person wasn’t standing beside her and reached back to pull her to her side.
“…and this is my daughter, Pidge. Pidge is just a nickname.” The woman sounded as nervous as she looked.
Pidge was almost a carbon copy of her mother, but about twenty years younger and slightly heavier. While her mother appeared nervous, the younger woman looked embarrassed.
Okay, I wondered, what’s this all about?
“We’re here to talk to you about the dead body, or bones, that were found in the cellar of your new home. Or restaurant. Or whatever you want to call it.”
I turned from the door and called to my husband. “Chris, I think you might want to come to the door.”
Turning back to the women, I said, “Wait for just a moment, until my husband joins us. We don’t know anything about the man that was found. I’m not sure what you want from us.” I figured they were probably some screwballs who read the newspaper article and wanted to lay claim to some long lost fortune. I mentally rolled my eyes for even having such a thought.
“We’ll wait,” Midge said. “I’d like to talk to your husband, too.”
Pidge fidgeted while we waited.
“What is it?” Chris asked.
“These two women would like to talk to us about the bones we found at the restaurant. That’s all I know.”
“Mr. Cross?” Midge said, holding out her hand. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Midge Meyers, and this is my daughter, Pidge, and we’re here about the body that was found in your basement. He was my uncle, Charles Blakely.”
I stepped back from the door and invited the women to come inside. They had my full attention. “Your uncle?” I asked. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” I was, but it felt funny saying that since he’d been gone for so many years.
Midge and her daughter took seats, each at opposite ends of the couch. Chris and I sat in chairs and faced them.
“How can we help you?” Chris asked.
Midge took a deep breath while her daughter stared
at the floor. “The police notified us of the discovery, and then we read the article in the newspaper. As I recall, you were also involved in a murder about a year ago. The article reminded me of that.”
Chris started to say something, but she held up her tiny index finger to stop him.
“Please hear me out. We always knew something bad had happened to Uncle Charles. He was a good man, and my mother never believed he would just lose contact with everyone like that. His disappearance hit hard. We are, and were, a close-knit family.”
Midge appeared to be in her early sixties, and I couldn’t imagine she remembered much about her uncle, if she knew him at all. I wondered if she’d even been born when he disappeared.
“How old were you when the family lost contact?” I asked.
“Oh, I hadn’t been born yet. However, my mother and grandmother used to talk about Uncle Charles a lot. Actually, it’s my mother who wants me to try to find out what happened. She’s still in her own home, but she doesn’t get around much anymore. She adored my uncle. From the stories she tells, he practically walked on water.”
She shook her head, looking sorrowful.
“I wish I had known my uncle.”
“Again,” Chris asked, “how can we help you?”
“Here’s the thing,” Midge replied. “The police made us feel that because of the time lapse since the crime was committed, this is very much a low priority case for them. I’d like to hire you to find out who killed my uncle so that my mother can have some peace of mind. I know, I know. That’s a pretty tall order, but I gather you’ve had some experience.”
“I’m not a private investigator,” Chris said. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“You could begin by looking around that house for clues, and you could try to find out who was involved in his life in those days.”
“Yeah, Chris,” I said. “How hard could that be?”
Pidge gave me a look. I couldn’t quite identify the look, but my feeling was she didn’t like my sarcasm. Or maybe she agreed with me. I couldn’t tell.
“Mrs. Meyers – ” Chris began.
“Midge. Please call me Midge.”
Chris looked uncomfortable. “Midge, my wife and I have actually thought about looking into this, but there are a few factors involved here that you need to think about. We don’t want to get in the way of the police investi – ”
“If it’s low priority for them, then it shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
“As I said, I’m not a private investigator.”
“You helped out in that murder case last year. You’ve had experience.”
“I don’t want to put my wife or son in danger.”
“What danger? This happened a long time ago. My mother needs closure. At her age, she kind of obsesses about her older brother sometimes.”
“I’m not licensed to do this type of work.”
“You don’t need to be. This will be mostly research.”
“By the way,” Pidge said, “when this uncle of ours lived in that house, it was a boarding house. There could be plenty of suspects. How’s that for a place to start your investigation?”
Chris rolled his upper lip under and I knew we were in, like it or not. Who was the pigeon here – Pidge or Chris? My vote went to Chris. These women wanted us to actually solve the case. It was no longer just an idea of ours.
Chapter Ten
Midge told us what little she knew and then excused herself to retrieve a shoebox from her car. It contained letters to her mother from her uncle. At the time of his disappearance, Midge’s mother had moved out of state with her husband but returned when Charles couldn’t be located. She’d spent a lifetime grieving over the loss of her brother, as had her mother.
“We’ll do what we can,” Chris said, “but I can’t make any promises. I want to make sure you understand that.”
“I do,” Midge replied. “I’ll pay you whatever you want. I am a woman of means, so money isn’t an issue.” Before pulling out her checkbook, she flapped her hand at Chris like discussing price was distasteful to her.
“I won’t charge you anything, so put your checkbook away. You don’t seem to get it, but I’m not a P.I. I can’t charge for this. Anything that we do will be totally unofficial. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“I do, but I still feel like I should pay you something.”
The phone rang and I excused myself to answer it.
“Hello?” I said.
“Good morning, Pamela. This is Sharon. I thought I’d call and see how you like the article I wrote. Pretty good, huh?”
I took a deep breath. “Sharon, I thought you were going to try to put a good spin on what happened. Not only didn’t you do that, but it was on the front page with information about Chris and me. What were you thinking? Or were you thinking at all? You even brought up the fire at the other restaurant. What’s wrong with you?” I could feel my lips begin to purse.
“But I thought I wrote a great article.” Sharon sounded hurt.
I didn’t care. “You didn’t help us at all. In fact, now everyone will relate the murder to our restaurant while the information about the fire rumbles around in the back of their minds. You – ”
“I’m on my way over,” Sharon said. “See you in fifteen minutes.”
She hung up before I could tell her not to come.
I glanced toward the living room and our guests. Uh oh. I needed to get Midge and Pidge to leave before Sharon showed up. She’d have a field day with this if she knew what the two women wanted.
I called to Chris asking him to come see me in the kitchen.
He excused himself and I closed the door to the kitchen as soon as he walked through the doorway. “Sharon is on her way over. We’ve got to get rid of those women in a hurry.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
“She hung up before I had the chance.”
Chris paced around the kitchen twice before returning to the living room. “I’m sorry, ladies, but my wife just reminded me that we have an appointment. Please excuse us, but we’re going to have to leave in a few minutes.”
“Oh, I understand,” Midge said. “You will take the case though, am I right? Please help us.”
“Yes, we’ll take the case. Let me give this some thought first and then I’ll get back to you. I know I’ll have questions that only you or your mother can answer. And I want to look into the previous owners of that house.”
The women stood to leave after Midge and Chris exchanged phone numbers. Midge reached out to shake our hands. Her daughter held back. I wasn’t sure if the younger woman quite trusted us. Her demeanor made me feel that she wasn’t sure her mother was doing the right thing.
Chris and I watched them walk out to their car, a beautiful black sports model Mercedes, and I could see Pidge’s mouth working while she constantly shook her head. Midge stopped, said something to Pidge, and took her hand, patting the top of it. Pidge shook her head one more time and climbed into the vehicle.
I started to laugh, unable to help myself. “Midge and Pidge? Good grief! They should be on that TV show, What’s in a Name?”
“They’re so tiny,” Chris said. “I felt like I was talking to a couple of kids, except Midge seems to know what she wants and I think she might go to great lengths to get her way. I get the feeling that dame is probably the brains behind this little investigation. I think she could be quite the little Dragon Lady.”
“Dragon Lady? I don’t think she’s intimidating at all,” I said.
“That’s because you’re a woman. A very small dame can be intimidating because she’s small. Men are afraid she’ll fall apart like a China doll. They’ll handle her with kid gloves and she then becomes the intimidator. I was half afraid to press the flesh with her because her hands were so small.” Chris thought he had women figured out.
“You shake a small woman’s hand just like a big woman. Gently.” I didn’t argue with anything else he said. Let him live in hi
s little dream world. What could it hurt?
“Okay,” I said, “Sharon is on her way over and she knows we’re not happy. Maybe she’s going to try to do some damage control.”
“One can always hope. I’ve been thinking, cupcake, and my thought is that I’ll hit the bricks and drive over to the new restaurant, and let you handle Sharon by yourself. You’re better at that kind of thing than I am.”
“Don’t even think about walking out that door, buster. You stay right here and face her with me. She’s got to undo some of the damage she’s done. And if you’re uncomfortable when she arrives, try intimidating her. Put on your hard case persona and put her on the spot about what she’s done. I know you can do it.”
“Uh huh.” He didn’t sound convinced. “You know, you used to be so quiet and demure. What happened?”
“I married you and came out of my shell.”
“My fault, huh?”
“In a way. When I met you I was a widowed mother raising a child and working two jobs. I didn’t have time to be anything more than quiet. Demure? No. Well, maybe a tad shy, but that was because of my circumstances.”
Sharon pulled up to the curb which effectively cut off the conversation. That might have been a good thing. We weren’t arguing, but it could have led to that because Chris didn’t want to have a confrontation with Sharon. He wanted me to.
I opened the front door and stood with my arms folded, waiting for Sharon to walk up the steps. Intimidation comes in many forms. Her knowing that I was standing with the door open instead of passively waiting in the house was one of them. I should have been tapping my foot as though waiting for an errant child.
“Now, Pamela,” she said quickly, stopping in front of me, “we can fix this. I reread my article and I can see why you might be upset, but I had to do it. That’s my job. I write about what’s going on in town. And an old body turning up is news.”
I stood silently with my arms crossed and didn’t acknowledge her statement. If I let her talk long enough, she just might hang herself.
