Baby Daddy Mystery

by Daisy Pettles

  Rusty eyed her. “Kayleigh, are we having a love affair?”

  Kayleigh slid her eyes over me, then rested them on Veenie. “Not that I know of, sir.”

  Rusty raised both his palms up. “See?”

  They both looked innocent enough.

  Veenie was not convinced. “Why were you over at Kayleigh’s last night at all hours if she’s not battering your old corn dog?”

  “Veenie,” said Rusty, his face puckered in disapproval, “I’m going to do us both a favor and pretend you didn’t just say that.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Veenie, “but that don’t answer my question.”

  Rusty eyed us. “Have you two been tailing me?” He stood up and placed his hands on his hips. He brushed back the tails of his jacket. The muscles in his jaw twitched. He was clearly unhappy.

  “No,” I said, which wasn’t all that much of a lie because the little electronic gizmo on his bumper had done all the tailing.

  Rusty paced in front of us. “I do not have to account for my behavior to you. You have no earthly right to be accusing me of anything.”

  “Me either,” said Kayleigh. “I’ll have you know that I have a fiancé, and he’s a lot younger than Mr. Krotch, and … well … much better looking too.” Her face fell into a pout.

  Rusty looked a little hurt at that comment. “Thank you, Kayleigh. You can go now. See if you can get the paperwork completed on the IU police union’s disability policy and their new workman’s comp before you close out tonight.”

  She murmured something under her breath and backed out of the office, practically slamming the door behind her.

  Once the door was shut, Rusty let us have it with both barrels. “Jesus Christ Almighty, I can’t believe Joyce called you and told you that I was having an affair. Of all the harebrained notions. You sure Joyce is the one who told you all this?” He squinted his eyes.

  Veenie said, “She didn’t call. She texted. And if you could keep your wiggle worm in its zipper cage, she wouldn’t need to be hiring us to look into your private pokings.”

  “Hire? She hired you?” That seemed to make him madder.

  “We’re professionals,” said Veenie.

  “Oh for God’s sake,” bellyached Rusty. “Well, how about if I hire you to stop snooping on me.” He pulled a checkbook out of his top desk drawer. “What’s your fee? Name your price.”

  Veenie looked like she was considering the offer, so I jumped back in. “Keep your money,” I said. “Joyce is my daughter. If you aren’t running around on her, what were you doing at Kayleigh’s apartment in the middle of the night?”

  Rusty heaved a sigh. “I can’t tell you that, at least not now. I’m having some issues with the business. Little things. Some cash flow problems. But I am not cheating on my wife.”

  “Can you tell us more?” I asked.

  “No, I cannot.”

  Veenie tossed in her two cents. “You better come clean, or we’ll have to tell Joyce you’re playing ride the bologna pony with Kayleigh.”

  Rusty shot Veenie a dirty look, which she returned, along with sticking her dentures out at him by way of punctuation.

  Rusty huffed. “Lavinia, just so you know, that was uncalled for and very—very—immature of you. I mean honestly, at your age …”

  “Hold your wild horses, both of you,” I said, breaking into what looked to be a free-for-all brewing between the pair of them. “Veenie, hush up. Give Rusty a chance to tell his side of the story.”

  Veenie murmured something that sounded suspiciously like “Jackass,” under her breath but settled back in her chair, her arms crossed tightly against her chest, signaling that she was willing to shut her pie hole long enough to hear Rusty’s side of the story.

  Rusty sank down in his chair and loosened his tie. Not able to get it loose enough, he yanked it off and bunched it into his fist a time or two. “You two can’t breathe a word of this to Joyce. Understood? I have some financial problems with the business, but I’m ironing those out as we speak. I don’t want Joyce or the kids worrying their heads over this. I’ll have it all sorted out in a few days. A week tops. Joyce doesn’t need to know about any of this. Understood?”

  I shook my head. “Joyce hired us to get to the bottom of your odd behavior. What do you suggest we tell her? You’re coming and going at all hours. She’s going to need some explanation.”

  He rubbed his lips. “Stall her.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Joyce is like a tornado. Once she gets wound up, God himself can’t hold her back.”

  Veenie said, “Ain’t that the truth. What are we supposed to tell that child? She’s all certain that you’re up to no good, staying out all hours, sneaking around like a crazed polecat.”

  “I’m asking that you tell her nothing. Tell her you’re still investigating. Stall her until I get this thing sorted out, for Christ’s sake. Once I’ve got this thing under control, I’ll tell her everything. Scout’s honor.” He gave us a little two-finger salute. “Just give me a few days,” he pleaded, his eyes earnest.

  I looked at Veenie, and she made a little face that suggested we didn’t really have much of a choice.

  “All righty,” I said as I rose from the chair. “We’ll give you three days. Three days. That enough time?”

  Rusty nodded. “I’ll make that work.” He looked grateful. His face was more relaxed than when we’d arrived. If he were telling the truth, he was probably mortified that he’d had to admit he had money problems to me, his poor-as-dirt mother-in-law, of all people. Rusty didn’t have a whole lot going for him, but he’d always been an ace provider for Joyce and the kids, and mighty proud of it. My heart melted a bit for him.

  It wouldn’t be easy keeping Joyce in the dark for a few more days, given how all fired up she was, but I reckoned Veenie and I could keep our clappers shut a few days. I knew I could. Veenie was less predictable, but she knew as well as I did that we didn’t have any solid proof that Rusty was up to no good. And we still had that tracking doohickey on Rusty’s bumper, so we could keep right on snooping, and he’d never be the wiser. In the meantime, we could look into his financials, see if things there supported his story.

  I texted Joyce as we left Rusty’s office, let her know that we were on the case but didn’t have anything solid to report back yet. I wasn’t about to stop by the house and look her in the eye, even though she was text bombing me to do just that.

  She texted back, “You telling God’s truth?”

  “Course I am,” I shot back, feeling guilty.

  I tossed my phone to Veenie, asked her to shoot some comforting words and pictures Joyce’s way as I wound around the pothole repair teams and navigated us out of downtown Bloomington. I headed toward the country roads, where all I had to keep an eye out for were deer. This time of year the deer, like Harry, went crazy trying to mate. They’d hump anything that moved. Hop right into your headlights. I didn’t want to end up with a big ol’ buck as a hood ornament on the Impala.

  I stomped the accelerator as soon as we were free of city traffic. We’d have to fly down the back roads if we hoped to make it back in time to meet with Avonelle’s blackmailer down in Hound Holler at nine p.m. The Impala coughed a bit, but when I didn’t let up on the accelerator, it revved into Indy mode. We were shooting up and down the roller coaster hills toward home in record time.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  We were about ten minutes late pulling into the tractor turnoff at the creek across from Barbara’s house. We would have been on time, but when we hit town, the Impala threw a hissy fit and started shaking and quaking like a Holy Roller at a revival. We had to park it and let it cool off. It’d be fine in an hour or so, but we needed to get some new wheels under us fast.

  Harry, who was hanging out at Pokey’s Tavern down the block from the office was kind enough to loan us his Toyota so we could make it to the blackmail meeting at the barn. “Don’t be letting Veenie drive,” he ordered me, pulling a duplicate car key
off his Ball State keyring and plunking it into the palm of my hand.

  “You know Veenie doesn’t drive anymore.”

  “Only because you keep an eye on her. I’ve seen her driving around town from time to time.” He dangled a bottle of Schlitz between his fingers before taking a big gulp. “She’s like a demon, murdering parking meters and trash cans right and left.”

  I eyed Veenie, but she just shrugged and made a “he’s loco” swirling motion around her right ear.

  While I was squaring everything with Harry, updating him on our cases, Veenie scored a bag of cheesy mystery meat sandwiches and a side of onion rings from Pokey. No one knew what kind of meat Pokey and his mama Dolly used in the sandwiches, but they were always hot and greasy and slathered in melted cheese and onions, so no one much cared about the true ingredients, least of all Veenie, who would eat pretty much any meat that didn’t bite back.

  With a new set of wheels and a hot dinner on the seat between us, we made record time climbing up the knobs and down the other side into Hound Holler. As I pulled the Toyota onto the shoulder, Veenie was busy piling up a stack of crunchy golden onion rings on the pointing finger of her left hand. She’d slathered the onion rings in ketchup and was trying to eat them off her finger without messing herself or the seats of Harry’s Toyota. She certainly was enjoying herself.

  It was dark but we could see the ramshackle barn across the road, leaning in the direction of Barbara’s house. Barbara’s car wasn’t in the gavel driveway. No lights were on in her house. I reckoned Barbara was at work, maybe had taken the kids to a babysitter. A haze of humidity rose up from the creek bed, which was low because we hadn’t had much rain. We had the windows rolled down on the car. Once I flipped the engine off, the mosquitoes swarmed in. I reached over and got some bug juice from the glove compartment where Harry, who was afraid of dying of some hillbilly bug disease, kept an arsenal of sprays. I squirted my neck and chest. That seemed to drive the mosquitoes away. I wasn’t about to squirt Veenie while she was eating. I knew from experience that she didn’t take kindly to anyone getting between her and her cheesy meat.

  Satisfied no one had arrived to meet us yet, I pulled a sandwich out of the greasy white bag on the seat between me and Veenie. I peeled down the paper until I could take a good-sized bite. Veenie stuck a finger my way, offering me an onion ring, which I yanked off and snacked on between sandwich bites. It didn’t take us any time to finish dinner. Still no sign of anyone around the barn or the house, other than the mosquitoes. Veenie grabbed the bug juice and sprayed herself. We sat quietly for a few minutes.

  Veenie spoke first. “You reckon we should go into the barn?”

  I checked my Timex. “Note said we were to meet up in the barn loft.” We’d been late arriving, so I supposed it was possible that our mystery blackmailer was already hiding up in the loft waiting for us.

  Veenie asked who I thought sent the blackmail note.

  I shrugged. “Hard to say. Avonelle said Bromley had a lot of debts. She seemed to think the blackmailer is somebody Bromley owes money to. Can’t get the money legally, so he’s squeezing her.”

  “Well,” said Veenie, “we better be prepared.” She reached under her seat and pulled out her BB pistol from where she’d stashed it when we traded cars. She rattled it a couple of times for good measure. Not satisfied with the sound, she pulled a plastic tube of BBs out from under the seat compartment, sprung open the reservoir, and poured in more little silver pellets.

  “You reckon we’ll need that?”

  “Blackmailers ain’t nice people, Ruby Jane.”

  She had a point there.

  I checked my watch again. It was half past nine. “Okeydokey,” I said. “Let’s see who our blackmailer is.”

  It was dark, so I picked up a sycamore stick alongside the creek bed and beat at the weeds, mashing a path from the road to the barn. No one had mowed around the barn for a coon’s age. The mosquitoes hovered over us like a giant cigar-shaped blimp, held off by the bug juice. I looked for a light up in the hay window on the barn loft, but the place was dark. I gripped a flashlight in one hand. Veenie trailed along after me, griping about the chiggers, which were after her ankles.

  The barn had a small side door, so we headed in that direction. Whippoorwills sang out, and I heard something clucking, probably chickens. Tree frogs croaked all around us. I flipped on the flashlight but held the stream of light low to the ground because I didn’t want to spook anyone who might be waiting inside. The barn door had a handmade latch—just a flap of wood attached to the board door with a loose rusty nail. Once I shoved the wooden latch down, the barn door creaked open. A cool blast of what smelled like hay, moldy wood, and cow piss smacked us in the face. Veenie shot into the barn under my arm, not seeming to notice the smell. Her pistol was raised.

  It was quiet inside the barn, the dirt floor damp and slick under our feet. I twirled my light up and spied a homemade ladder on the far side of the barn. The rickety ladder leaned up against the edge of a second-story loft. My right knee, which was fussy from driving all day, ached at the sight of the ladder. The weathered board steps were nailed wide apart. It would take a two-handed scramble to get up the ladder into the loft. I peered up at the loft, hoping someone might come on down, but no such luck. I stuck my flashlight in my back pocket. Veenie stuck her pistol in the stretch waistband of her capri pants. I helped boost Veenie up on the ladder, mindful of the location of the BB pistol, so it didn’t slip and discharge accidently, shooting off some vital part of her anatomy.

  I followed Veenie up the ladder, my head butting up into her posterior, urging her upward. A cloud of mosquitoes had followed us into the barn. Between the mosquitoes, the cow piss smell, and my aching knees, I was thinking maybe, just maybe, being a PI wasn’t as glamorous as I’d imagined.

  Veenie reached the top. She grunted and rolled across a hay-covered floor, making room for me to roll up and do the same. We lay there in the hay, looking up at the stars through a hole in the tin roof. It was kind of romantic, except for the smell of cow piss and Veenie’s snorting and panting. I didn’t hear anyone and couldn’t see anything, so I pulled out my flashlight and bounced the beam around the loft. No one there except for Veenie. A rusted-out milk pail sat in one corner. A blue tarp that was pretty beat up was stretched across a couple of busted bales of hay.

  Veenie had her BB pistol raised. She swung it around in time with the beam of light from my flashlight. “Ain’t nothing up here but bad smells,” said Veenie.

  It was now almost ten p.m., so I reckoned we’d been stood up. And I was ticked off that I’d climbed that ladder for nothing. It’d take a case of Bengay to get my knees moving again.

  Veenie sniffled. Then she sneezed, her allergies kicking in. “You reckon he stood us up?”

  I gave the loft another go over with my flashlight. All I saw were a pair of deer mice as they dove into a hole in the hay bale. “Gosh darn it,” I mumbled.

  But then we heard the barn door creak open below. Through the floorboards, I saw a thin beam of light swing into the barn and move toward the loft ladder. Veenie and I held our breath. We heard a scuffle. Then a gun went off, a shotgun from the sound of it. The tin roof above us rattled as pellets scattered holes in the metal. Debris scattered down from the rafters, into our eyes and hair. Veenie sneezed. Another shot went off. Something whizzed past my ear.

  “Hit the hay!” I called to Veenie, who dove in front of me into the hay pile. She bounced over onto her belly, her pistol raised.

  I heard the BB pistol go off. Puff. Puff. Puff. Then I heard more ear-splintering racket as the BBs ricocheted off metal. Down below, I heard the barn door creak again, and the dull thud of footsteps running away. By the time I made my way over to the wall and got my eyes pressed to a crack in the wallboards, all I could see was a shadowy figure disappearing through the tall weeds, headed out into the overgrown field. A beam of light from the runaway’s flashlight bounced around, cutting a yellow path through th
e weed field.

  I went back and offered Veenie a hand up. “You okay?” I asked.

  She sounded winded as she stood up. “Yep, ain’t bleeding that I can tell. Who was that? You see anyone?”

  I turned the flashlight on and shone it Veenie’s way. Veenie’s round face was red, like a piece of fireball candy with white Kewpie doll hair. Her glasses sat sideways on her nose. The knees of her capris were smeared in dirt.

  “Dag nabbit! He got away,” I whined. “Didn’t see a gosh darn thing. Just a shadow scurrying off across the field.”

  “Avonelle ain’t gonna be happy about this,” Veenie said as she brushed hay off her legs before brushing some hay off my ass. “You reckon them shots were meant for her?”

  “Pretty much,” I said.

  If there was any doubt in me about Bromley’s death being from natural causes or about Avonelle hiding something big, that doubt had now drained away, along with a good bit of my courage. I felt my dander rising. Someone had just tried to kill us, and that didn’t sit right with me.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Someone shot at you two?” Sherriff Gibson asked. His blue eyes squinted up like he didn’t believe me or Veenie.

  We were in the police station bright and early the next morning, and he was taking our statements. Normally, I tried not to drag Boots into our cases, but he had guns—real guns and real bullets—and right about now, I figured we needed some manly fire power.

  “They sure did,” I said.

  “Sounded like a shotgun to me,” said Veenie. “It sound like a shotgun to you, Ruby Jane?”

  I nodded.

  Boots tipped his sheriff’s hat back on his head far enough so we could see where the sunburn on his forehead stopped and the snow white of his receding hairline began. “How you know they were shooting at you?”

  “I reckon the bullets that whizzed past my head gave me that notion.”