The Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 2

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “I’ll mention it.”

  Jane let herself out.

  As she rounded the corner, a small person barreled into her.

  “Whoa.” Jane reached for the girl to steady herself.

  Mia grinned from ear to ear. “Keep walking in case Mom peeks.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Ryder was really, really mad at Levi and Amos. Like superdy mad. He yelled at them a lot on the beach the night they left.”

  Jane stopped. “What did he yell?”

  “Keep walking.” Mia tugged on Jane’s hand. “I couldn’t hear super well because I was hiding in the bushes, but I know he said something about them being stupid and that they were jerks just like their dad. Or that they were something just like their dad. I don’t know exactly.”

  Jane stopped again. “Do you think they went back home?”

  “No way. They said so to Mom. They said they got kicked out and needed a place to start over, and Mom cried a lot and hugged them and they hugged her, but they didn’t cry. And they hung out with sis and Skye and all of their friends, and it was going great until Ryder got here.”

  “What changed?”

  “Ryder didn’t want anyone to leave.”

  “Did your mom really like Ryder, or was she just saying that?”

  “Oh yeah, she really, really liked him. He’s her baby brother, but from another mother.”

  “He’s your uncle?”

  Mia shook her head. “I guess.”

  “Do you think Skye meant it when she said everything was fine?”

  “Oh no, definitely not.”

  “Mi-a!” Daisy’s voice carried well as she called for her daughter.

  “Shoot, I’ve got to run.”

  “But real fast, why don’t you think she meant it?”

  “’Cause she didn’t write it. Gotta run! Find my sisters!” Mia spun on the wheelie-heels of her shoes and raced back toward her house.

  Jane wanted to find Mia’s sisters. She really, really wanted to.

  Jake brought burgers and shakes back to the house for dinner.

  “I think we need to head to the woods.” Jane sipped a chocolate malted milkshake. The day was perfect honeymoon weather. Hot but not humid. Perfect for holding hands and strolling on the beach and going back to their air-conditioned beach house to be…alone.

  “Are we one hundred percent confident that Hannah isn’t crazy?” Jake asked.

  “I’d say eighty percent confident.”

  “And I’m at least eighty percent confident that we have no idea how to find lost people in the woods. Plus it’s been almost a whole month now. Even if she had seen Rose, I doubt they’re all still just chillin’ in the coast range, hanging out in the trees.” Jake dipped one of the fat steak fries in Jane’s malted.

  “But it’s our only actual clue.”

  “I get it. But let’s wait until we know for sure that this guy is our snaggletoothed polygamous friend.”

  “That’s not nice.”

  “Neither is enslaving women with threats of spiritual damnation.” He drew his brows over his eyes. “Seriously.”

  “You don’t leap to extremes, do you?”

  He laughed and brought her into his arms. “I go to extreme on the whole ‘don’t enslave chicks’ thing.”

  “Maybe don’t call us chicks, though, yes?”

  He kissed her cheek and rested his forehead on the top of her head. “I will call ladies whatever you tell me to. Just let’s help end the crazy. You and me. We can do something about all the crazy.”

  His touch and his words filled her like a warm sun from within. She nuzzled against his neck, the only sound the ocean in the distance. She breathed deeply—Jake scent, ocean air, mystery. “I like that. Let’s do it. Let’s make the world a better place one crazy at a time.”

  Chapter 10

  They didn’t reconnect with Rocky and Flora until the next morning.

  And they didn’t mind.

  But they hadn’t forgotten the pressing issues. Who was the body in the shed? Where had the car full of kids gone? Who had Hannah seen in the woods? Were the missing kids from the other nearby towns part of the bigger picture?

  The Wilsons brought donuts and accepted coffee from Jane. “Taylor was a real trooper,” Rocky said. “Not many girls can look at a body as far gone as that one was and not flinch.”

  “Was she able to identify him?” Jane put her bear claw back on the napkin. That body had been bad, and the memory of it didn’t encourage an appetite.

  “Insofar as she could. She said she’d swear anywhere that the teeth were his. Joanna called in a composite sketch artist from Portland. She’ll be here later today to talk to Taylor. Since she didn’t know Ryder’s last name or family, we need to go a few more steps towards identifying him.”

  “I know his family.”

  Flora lifted an eyebrow.

  “He was Daisy’s half-brother. Her daughter Mia told me after I left. She ran after me to tell me. She also told me her cousins and her uncle had been fighting and it might have been about the road trip.”

  “If that’s true, a DNA test is possible.” Rocky didn’t let the memory of Ryder’s body ruin his breakfast and finished off the last of his maple bar with one big bite.

  “Possibly so.” Flora sipped coffee from the mug with a faded but very beachy image of a windsock on a church. The message under the sock said, ‘Let your spirit fly while tethered to the truth.’

  They had stumbled on the truth, Jane was sure. The body was Ryder. He was killed by his nephews. All they needed to do now was find those nephews and find out why they had killed him.

  Perfectly simple.

  “Taylor said her friend Coco has recovered and has given up on alcohol.”

  “Did she corroborate Taylor’s fear that she had been poisoned?”

  “She said she hadn’t thought she had drunk enough to poison herself, but she wasn’t willing to lay the blame elsewhere.”

  “So if one of those guys did something to her water bottle, she’s not telling.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “Remember Eric? From that first night?” Jake piped up. “I know we’re all feeling this is a cut-and-dried case of family infighting. But if his girlfriend was running away with these guys and he was jealous, maybe he killed Ryder.”

  “But Ryder was Cherry’s uncle. He couldn’t possibly have been jealous of her uncle.”

  “At that first campfire it sure didn’t sound like they knew he was related.”

  “I agree.” Jane finally nibbled her bear claw. “They don’t know Ryder is related. That was a secret Daisy was keeping. Maybe I should find out how Mia knew.”

  “Or if Mia was telling the truth.”

  Jane dipped her bear claw in her coffee. “How?”

  “Have you found anyone who might be able to confirm this?” Flora asked. “You’ve made a few connections in the last couple of days. Go make use of them. Start with Hannah.” Flora stood up. “Rocky and I need to go. We’re going to exploit some of our connections as well. Let’s meet up for dinner tonight. Text if you can’t.”

  Jane walked them to the door. When they were gone, she turned to Jake. “I wish we could get Eric talking. But I don’t even know where to find him.”

  “Let me work on that. Then you can go see Hannah by yourself. I bet she’d tell you more without me along for the ride.”

  “That works.” Jane finished her breakfast, but wished she hadn’t. It sat like a rock in her nervous stomach. “Anyway, Flora told me to, so I’d better do it.”

  She decided to walk to Hannah’s—it wasn’t far from the Crawford place, but then, nothing in Warrenton was too far away. Before she got there, Flora texted. “Your contact Eric has split. Car gone. Took PT from work. Been gone since the day after his fight with Mason. Find Eric. He knows something.”

  Jane gritted her teeth. Of course. Find Eric. She was so glad Flora had thought of it, because they certainly hadn’t. And
anyway, how hard could it be, what with everything three days’ drive east of the Pacific Ocean to search through?

  Another text came while she was glaring at the message from Flora.

  Franny the organist. What the heck? The most overinvolved wedding organist in the whole world.

  “Dear Jane, please forgive. Feel so bad. Dinner on me at Kaiyo Sushi in Seaside. Best sushi ever. Tell Kenji Nourishi I sent you. He is expecting you anytime this week.”

  She turned off her phone. Just for now. Franny was kind to offer dinner, but it was her honeymoon. Who texted people during their honeymoon?

  Now, on to interview Hannah about the murder.

  She decided against going empty-handed, so she ran back to the house for some soup. She dug through the cupboards until she found a can of chicken noodle. She was about to pocket it and head to Hannah’s when she spotted a thick ceramic bowl splotched with blue and cream glaze. It was a lot prettier than the can. She nabbed it, opened up the soup and mixed it. It looked…sad. So she found some veggies and went to town. When she was done, she had a pot of chicken and veggie soup—carrots, peas, and peppers—with some teeny tiny fresh cheese-filled raviolis. It looked much better. She covered it in tinfoil and took a deep breath. Yes, she was stalling. The last thing she wanted to do was catch whatever nightmare germs Hannah was incubating.

  No, she wasn’t merely stalling. She was freaking out because for the first time ever she had something to do that was more fun than a murder investigation. She was on her honeymoon. As much as she wanted to see this to the end, the two texts had sent her off the edge. She regretted inviting her boss to her honeymoon. She wanted to throttle whoever gave her phone number to Franny. She just wanted Rocky and Flora to go away. And Franny to stop contacting her. And the body to have been hidden in someone else’s shed. And for those missing teenagers to drive home and say they had had a great vacation. She just wanted to go upstairs and snuggle Jake. And then go walk on the beach hand in hand. And other stuff. She really wanted to do more of the other stuff. And she did not want to get sick.

  Why, oh why, had she asked permission to investigate? She stuck her tongue out at the soup and then picked it up. Time to put on her big-girl panties and go back to work.

  Hannah waved her in with a sigh.

  Jane handed her the bowl of soup. “Can I buy some more information from you with this soup?”

  “I didn’t think I was withholding anything, but I’ll gladly take the soup.”

  Jane followed her into the kitchen.

  “I’d offer you tea, but I don’t want to spread my germs.”

  “I appreciate it.” Jane took a seat at the kitchen table. “Let’s talk about Daisy more.”

  “Did you go to see her?”

  “Yes. She admitted a little bit more than I thought she would. But how much do you know for sure?”

  “Nothing.” She coughed into a paper towel. “I’m sorry, everything is second hand. Hearsay. Library gossip.”

  “Who is the most trustworthy gossip you know?”

  “The old men. Definitely. They hear more stories than teenage girls.”

  “When’s the best time to get the gossip? Who should I look for?”

  “The chattiest is a guy called Garrison…” She shook her head. “He’s gone, though. Went to Canada to see his kids. But Paul’s worth talking to. He believes everything he hears and that’s the best kind of gossip. If they don’t believe it, they won’t remember it.”

  “He sent us to a restaurant to learn some stuff.”

  “Did you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then you know his information—” She coughed again, doubled over. “I hate this so much.” She caught her breath. “You know his information is good.”

  “He thought Ryder was a serial killer. That’s what the other guy…Hugh, I think he was called…that’s what Hugh said Paul thinks.”

  Hannah smiled. “Hugh was messing around. That’s not what Paul really thinks.” She rested her head in her hands. “I have a doctor’s appointment in twenty minutes and I still need to shower.”

  “I want to talk more to Paul. How do I find him?”

  Hannah glanced at the microwave clock. “If he’s not at the library, he’s probably out walking his dog on the beach.”

  “Before I go, what do you think about Daisy’s younger daughter Mia?”

  “What about her? She’s just a kid.”

  “Is she the kind of kid who makes stuff up? She said the guy that came into town—Ryder—is her uncle.”

  “He might have been.”

  “She said he was her mom’s baby brother. From the polygamy cult.”

  “That would make sense, I guess. Does it matter?”

  “If he had family in town, we could make a positive ID via DNA test. Even if it doesn’t lead to the killer, it would be good closure for everyone.”

  “Ten-year-old kids are kids. Not expert witnesses. She may have heard a rumor and believed it. She may have heard a conversation and filled in the blanks with her imagination.”

  “Think this is something Paul would know one way or the other?”

  Hannah coughed, long and hard, into her napkin. “This is probably pneumonia. It feels like it.” She pressed her hands to her eyes. “The doctor will probably check me into the hospital for a little while.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “No, thanks. I don’t know what Paul knows or has heard about Daisy and her family. You’re just going to have to ask him.”

  “Do you need a ride to the doctor?” Jane asked. “I don’t mind, and you don’t look so hot.”

  “No, thanks.” The two words were a challenge to get out and another coughing fit stopped her from saying anything else for a moment. “Don’t worry, though, my mom is coming by to take me.”

  Jane stood up to go, but didn’t rush. Hannah was sick and she seemed lonely. Gossip pegged her as an attention-seeking weirdo, but she had sacrificed her tenuous health on a hunch that the missing teens were in trouble. She was just like Jane, only with a compromised immune system.

  Hannah walked Jane out.

  As Jane went back to her own place, she considered the compromised immune system. Hannah said she was on antirejection drugs, which implied a transplant. She claimed this was her normal life and had been for a long time, so the transplant had happened as a child. Had she become one of those people who did weird stuff because they craved the attention they had had when they were sick? No one else had given Jane any reason to think the kids were just camping in the woods nearby—except Daisy, but Jane didn’t put her full weight on Daisy’s word, either.

  Fortunately, if anyone knew whether Hannah was prone to attention-seeking behavior and lies, or if this kind of stuff had ramped up after the transplant, it was the town gossip. Jane sent Jake a quick text and walked across their yard and down to the beach to see if the resident conspiracy theorist and second best gossip was out walking the dog.

  Chapter 11

  Down the beach, a man who might have been Paul tossed something towards the water, and a small dog chased it down. It took Jane long enough to catch up to him that she was able to organize her thoughts.

  “Nice day for fetch.”

  “If it isn’t the girl detective herself.” Paul smiled, very unlike the grumpy man she had met at the library.

  “We made it down to Jackstays.”

  “Did you come out with what you went in after?” The little dog that looked like it had some beagle in it somewhere trotted up and dropped a stick at Paul’s feet.

  “We left with plenty to think about, that’s for sure.”

  “Worth the price of admission, then.” He nodded, pleased.

  “The food wasn’t bad, either.”

  Paul tossed the stick out into the foamy ocean. The dog ran after it, ears flopping and tail wagging.

  “I wondered if maybe you might know a little more about some of the things I heard.”

  “I won�
��t know till ya ask me.”

  The dog ran back and forth across the waterline, stick in his mouth, feet kicking up the wet sand.

  “Daisy’s from a polygamous cult in Arizona somewhere. Not one of the big ones, but maybe that makes it even worse.”

  Paul stared into the distance at his dog.

  “And the boys that were at her house were relatives of hers, boys that got kicked out for being competition for brides. She’s confirmed that much.”

  “Good fer her.”

  “We hear one of them was her baby brother.”

  Paul nodded. “I had my suspicions.”

  “Well, he’s dead. He’s the body from the shed. So I want to know how likely it is that he is her brother. We need some way to positively ID him, and these folks didn’t go in for registering births or that kind of thing.”

  “I’d put money on it. That boy was her brother. I remember more’n a few years back a pretty lady about my age with her hair all done up, wearing some kind of prairie dress, came through town. She had a few kids with her. Stayed at Daisy’s. It weren’t her mother, that much we knew because her ma lived with her for a few years till she died. This lady was her stepmom and the kids were her little half-siblings. Seemed like the feller who came through could have been one of them.”

  “Could have been isn’t was.”

  “Charlene from the farmers’ market, the one who sells tomatoes for too much, says it was. Says she recognized him from back then by a funny mark on the back of his neck.”

  A mark that wouldn’t be there at this point in time, since decay had set in pretty badly. “Any other way we could ID him? Something that would have lasted about a month out in my shed?”

  “Did you think to ask Daisy yourself?”

  The dog finally came back and dropped the stick at Paul’s feet. He pretended to toss it twice before letting it fly into the water.

  “Yes. She only claimed to know his parents. Said she left when he was a baby.”

  “She didn’t lie, then. You know it was a hard road for her. Leaving a place like that. No money, no education, no connections. She’s lucky she didn’t fall into something much worse than this here small town.”