Pumpkin Ridge (Rose Hill Mystery Series Book 10)

by Pamela Grandstaff

  “Somebody ought to go up there,” Hannah said. “To Besington.”

  “It was an accident, not a murder or anything,” Skip said. “I’m curious about it, but it won’t bring him back, now will it?”

  “That sounds like something Scott would say.”

  “Yeah, I wanted to go but he said I couldn’t use work time to do it, ’cause our budget’s so tight. I’d go myself, but I’ve got tests to study for.”

  “You’ve been going to school for like a hundred years. When are you graduating?”

  “It’s hard to go to school and work full-time,” Skip said. “Especially with my hours.”

  “I’m not giving you a hard time,” Hannah said. “It just seems like you’ve been working on this degree for a long time.”

  “I had to retake some of the classes,” Skip said. “They’re really hard, Hannah.”

  “I believe it,” Hannah said. “You know, I have to go up that way to visit a friend, and I’d be glad to look in on the guy’s landlord, maybe find out something for you.”

  “I don’t know,” Skip said. “Scott wouldn’t like it.”

  “He doesn’t have to know,” Hannah said. “This is just to satisfy our curiosity, so we can consider the case closed.”

  Skip ate the last piece of crust, and wiped his hands on his uniform pants, even though there was a paper towel right in front of him. It was all Hannah could do not to treat him like Sammy, who always did the same darn thing.

  “It’s all the same to me,” Hannah said. “I just thought if you wanted to tie up loose ends, maybe write a paper on the case for one of your classes …”

  “That would be awesome,” Skip said. “You won’t tell Scott?”

  “Do I ever?”

  He thought about it for a moment and then went back to the break room, unlocked the file cabinet, took out a file, and came back. He set the folder on the desk and opened it. Hannah leaned over his shoulder to read as much as she could while he looked through the forms and notes.

  The bell on the door jangled, and Mayor Kay Pendleton walked in.

  “What are you two up to?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Skip said, as he shut the folder and slid it behind his back, where Hannah snagged it.

  “I’ll just put this away for you,” Hannah said quietly.

  Skip gave her a fierce look but couldn’t say anything in front of the mayor. Hannah took the folder back to the break room and quickly photocopied the contents while the mayor questioned Skip about security for an upcoming gubernatorial visit, which was scheduled for the next week. As soon as Hannah was through copying, she put the file back in the cabinet, folded the copies and slid them down into the waistband of the back of her jeans, under her shirt.

  She went back out into the main room, said, “I’ve got to run,” and then quickly fled, ignoring the petulant look on Skip’s face, which featured a tomato sauce stain on each corner of his mouth, just like Sammy.

  Out on the street, Hannah met her cousin, Maggie, walking toward the station.

  “Is my husband in there?” she asked.

  “Nope,” Hannah said. “Just Skip and Kay.”

  “What were you doing in there?”

  “Just visiting with Skip,” Hannah said. “What’s going on with you?”

  “You will never in a million years believe this, but I just got a call from Will inviting Scott and me to a surprise birthday lunch for Ava on Saturday.”

  “At the castle?”

  “At the castle,” Maggie said. “Evidently the whole Fitzpatrick family is invited. He told me to let you and Sam know, and for you to bring Sammy.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I’d check with Scott and get back to him.”

  “We have to go,” Hannah said.

  “I didn’t think you’d want to,” Maggie said. “Why should we?”

  “For our mothers,” she said. “You know they are dying to get a look at the place, and if we ruin this chance for them, we will never hear the end of it.”

  “True,” Maggie said. “Why do I think you’ve got something else in mind?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Hannah said, “but I also don’t want to give her the satisfaction of us not going.”

  “Where are you headed now?” Maggie asked. “I’ve got the rare afternoon and evening off, and I’m at loose ends. I should clean my filthy apartment, but I don’t want to.”

  “I’m working on something,” Hannah said. “You’d be bored.”

  “Working on what?” Maggie asked. “Something you wouldn’t want Scott to know?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then I’m in,” Maggie said. “We haven’t done anything interesting in so long.”

  “This is top-secret stuff,” Hannah said. “You may have to lie to your husband.”

  “What’s new?” Maggie asked. “I lie to that man several times per day, and that’s just in the interest of keeping my marriage and sanity intact. Men are so needy and insecure.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Besington, PA.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll fill you in on the way.”

  They decided to take Maggie’s Jeep, which was much more reliable than Hannah’s old truck. While she drove, Hannah read the case notes.

  “Is this about the mystery man who got hit by the coal truck?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes,” Hannah said. “Let me finish this, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “Are those official police records?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Did you steal them?”

  “Maybe,” Hannah said. “Is copying them without permission the same thing?”

  “Good job,” Maggie said. “It's good to know you haven’t lost your touch.”

  When Hannah was done reading the purloined file, she made some notes in her notebook and then told Maggie only the information she wanted her to know. Patrick being Maggie’s brother made for a delicate situation.

  “So you think this man was investigating Ava?”

  “I’m just trying to work it out,” Hannah said. “Someone said Ava was there.”

  “It is weird,” Maggie said. “He rented a car, only to abandon it at the bus station and take the bus to Rose Hill?”

  “Only he didn’t take the bus,” Hannah said. “According to this report, his name doesn’t show up on the bus company’s manifest, and the bus driver didn’t recognize his photo.”

  “Maybe he used other IDs and a disguise,” Maggie said, “and left his wallet and real IDs in the rental car.”

  “That seems foolish,” Hannah said. “Bus stations are not known to reside in the safest neighborhoods; anybody could have broken into the car and stolen the wallet and IDs. He could have used fake IDs and still kept the real ones in his wallet, hidden in his pocket.”

  “He thought someone would search him?”

  “Then he would have died with the fake IDs on him.”

  “So somebody took the fake IDs after he died?”

  “If he had fake IDs and if he took the bus,” Hannah said. “There’s so much we don’t know.”

  “Who are we going to see?”

  “His landlord, and his sister, if I can get hold of her.”

  “If this is mob-related I’m out,” Maggie said. “Just so you know.”

  “I don’t think it is,” Hannah said. “At least, I don’t know if it is.”

  “Let’s take Skyline Drive,” Maggie said. “It’s much prettier scenery.”

  “Suit yourself,” Hannah said. “We gotta drive through somewhere, though; I’m starving.”

  “When aren’t you?”

  The address given for his apartment turned out to be the Bigelow Tavern on Main Street in Besington. It was a double-front brick building with a restaurant on one side and a bar on the other. Above the ground floor were three stories of apartments, with iron balconies and fire escapes.

 
“Are you coming?” Maggie asked Hannah.

  “Wait a minute,” Hannah said. “I’m reading the menu. I could really go for some Fries Diablo.”

  “You just ate thirty minutes ago,” Maggie said. “Focus.”

  Inside, the light was dim, and it took a few moments for them to accustom their eyes to the darkness. Three men were sitting at the bar, and a couple was sitting in a booth, but no one looked up when they walked in. Hannah went up to the bar, but there was no bartender in attendance.

  “He went to the can,” a man said. “He had a burrito from Locos for lunch.”

  “That was a mistake,” the second man said. “Nobody eats at Locos and lives to tell about it.”

  “Juan Carlos,” the third man said. “They make the best burritos you can get around here.”

  “Casa Amigos,” the woman seated in the booth said. “Theirs are the best.”

  “Are you crazy?” the man seated across from her said. “Rancho Del Fuego has the best burritos.”

  “Did you just call me crazy?” the woman said.

  “Only cause you’re batshit,” the man said.

  “There they go,” the first man said.

  “You shouldn’t have started it,” the second man said.

  The woman began loudly insulting the man. He responded by doing the same to her.

  “They’re certainly charming,” Hannah said.

  “Do they always do this?” Maggie asked one of the men seated at the bar.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s par for the course for those two.”

  The woman was now accusing the man of having sexual relations with another woman. The man responded by accusing the woman of doing the same with his best friend. The argument got more and more heated until a man came out of the back and blew an air horn at them. No one seemed startled by this but Maggie and Hannah.

  “You two,” the man said. “Settle down or get out.”

  The couple fell silent but continued glaring at each other.

  “I was worried it was going to turn violent,” Maggie said.

  “It’s just their daily drama,” the bartender said. “They love to argue for an audience.”

  The man and woman were now making up, hands clasped across the table while weepy apologies were being exchanged. Then the woman went over to the man’s side of the table, sat on his lap, and they began making out.

  “People are fascinating, aren’t they?” Hannah said.

  “Insane is what they are,” Maggie said.

  “What can I get you?” the bartender asked Hannah and Maggie.

  Hannah ordered a beer and Maggie said, “Make that two.”

  “You’re not from around here,” the bartender said.

  “We’re from Rose Hill,” Hannah said.

  “Across the Mason Dixon Line,” Maggie said.

  “We come in peace, Yankees!” Hannah announced to the bar.

  The man had reached halfway across the bar with their beers but now stopped.

  “You here to see me?” he asked.

  “Are you the landlord?” Hannah asked, and pointed up.

  “Come outside with me,” he said and gestured to the front door.

  He sat their beers down behind the bar, came around from behind it, and motioned to them to follow him out the front door.

  As he followed them out, he called back, “Anybody touches my liquor, and they’re banned for life. Howard, you’re my hall monitor, and when I get back, your next one is on me.”

  Outside, the sun was low in the western sky, and the wind was cold.

  “Make it fast,” he said. “I got a business to run.”

  “You know why we’re here?”

  “I’ve been working here for twenty years, and in all that time no one from Rose Hill has ever asked to speak to the landlord. We have a tenant who just died under mysterious circumstances in Rose Hill, so I did the basic math.”

  “Why would he rent a car and then leave it at the bus station?” Hannah asked.

  “He wouldn’t,” the man said. “He left here to drive to Rose Hill to do a surveillance job, one he’d been working on for over a year. He rented a car because his car was in the shop and I don’t lend mine to anybody, no matter how good a tenant.”

  “Who was he surveilling?”

  The man shrugged.

  “He didn’t give me any details; I just rent him space upstairs and sell him beers downstairs.”

  “Can we see his apartment?”

  “Who are you?” he said. “You’re not cops, I can tell that much.”

  “No,” Hannah said. “The cops think it was an accident, but we don’t. If we can find out who he was tailing maybe we can find out who killed him.”

  “I could let you up, but you probably wouldn’t find anything,” he said. “His sister said it looked as if nothing had been touched.”

  “You met his sister?”

  “I’ve seen her around,” he said. “They come in together for a drink once in a while.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “A looker,” he said. “I asked him to fix me up with her, but he didn’t think I was good enough, or something. I don’t know.”

  “Can we at least look?” Hannah asked. “You can go with us, keep an eye on us.”

  “I gotta get back to work,” he said. “My dad owns this place; I just run it for him. If he comes in and I’m gone there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “What can we do?” Hannah asked. “Can we leave our driver’s licenses with you? The keys to the Jeep? Her husband is the chief of police in Rose Hill; he would vouch for us.”

  Hannah ignored the look she knew Maggie was giving her.

  He pretended to think about it.

  “You got any dough?” he asked.

  Hannah grimaced.

  “I’ve got, like five dollars,” she said. “Maggie?”

  Maggie rolled her eyes, took out her wallet, and gave the man all the cash she had.

  He counted it, and then looked Maggie up and down.

  “You’re a fine looking woman,” he said. “You happily married?”

  “My husband is a cop,” Maggie said. “And I’m not interested.”

  He held up his hands and backed away.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said. “I’ll get the key.”

  “You owe me eighty dollars,” Maggie said to Hannah

  “Add it to my tab,” Hannah said.

  The man came back out with the key and told them to bring it back when they were done.

  Through a side door and up three flights of stairs they went, and then down a hall to an apartment at the back. Inside, Hannah flipped on the lights.

  “I don’t know what I expected,” Maggie said. “But I didn’t expect this.”

  The apartment was traditional in the sense that there was an open concept living, dining, and kitchen area. It was unusual in that the exposed brick walls looked more like an art gallery. Every wall featured a sizable, original work of art professionally lit by industrial track lighting. Maggie looked at the paintings while Hannah found the tiny office area and tackled the files.

  “These are beautiful,” Maggie said.

  “No laptop or PC but there’s a router and cords for one,” Hannah said. “Probably stolen.”

  “I wonder where he bought these,” Maggie said.

  “If he had a schedule it’s gone,” Hannah said. “Ditto any calendar. He probably kept it all on his phone, and they didn’t find a phone.”

  “They’re all different, but they’re all the same person, I think,” Maggie said.

  “His files are very neat,” Hannah said. “There’s no ‘Fitzpatrick’ or ‘Wooster’ in here. No ‘Ava’ or ‘Rose Hill,’ either.”

  “It’s like ten different perspectives on the same subject,” Maggie said. “Impressionistic, I think. That would account for the use of light.”

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Hannah said. “A big fat zero.”

  “Amazing,” Maggie s
aid.

  “What is?” Hannah said.

  “These,” Maggie said and gestured to the paintings.

  “Art isn’t my thing,” Hannah said. “I like comic books and Harry Potter.”

  “Look at them,” Maggie said. “Look at the subject. What do they have in common?”

  “They’re all naked ladies,” Hannah said.

  “The same lady,” Maggie said. “Don’t you recognize her?”

  Hannah went from one painting to the next. After the fourth one, she looked at Maggie, eyes wide.

  “No way.”

  “It’s her,” Maggie said.

  Hannah continued around the room until she’d studied every painting. She pointed at the bottom right-hand corner of the last one.

  “He painted them.”

  Maggie looked at the one closest to her. The private eye’s name was signed with a flourish.

  “He was an artist, too.”

  Hannah went to the back of the apartment, into a separate room.

  “Look at this,” she called back to Maggie.

  Hannah had flipped on the lights in this small back room, which featured a whole wall of windows from which you could see over the buildings behind it, which faced the other direction, to a park by a river. In the middle of the room there was an easel set up with a sheet over it, and on one wall art supplies were neatly organized on shelves. There were blank canvases as well as finished ones leaned against the other wall. Hannah was going through these. Maggie took the sheet off the easel.

  “Hannah,” she said.

  “Just a minute,” Hannah said. “Looks like these are all of her, too.”

  “Hannah,” Maggie said again.

  Hannah came over to look at what the sheet had been covering. This one had been sketched out, but not painted. There was a photo clipped to the side of the canvas.

  “Gotcha,” Hannah said.

  She used the edge of the sheet to hold the photo while she unclipped it, and then said to Maggie, “Get an envelope or something for me to put this in.”

  Maggie went out to the office and returned with an envelope, into which Hannah dropped the photo of Ava. In the picture, she was looking off to the right and smiling. The wind was blowing her hair just like a model’s in a photo shoot.