The Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 2

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  With the sweeping view of the ocean before her, the rolling hills behind and the vast splendor of the Oregon coastline to the north and south, Jane agreed that Daisy could have fallen into something much worse. “I want to talk to her again and make her see the value of admitting her relationship.”

  “You’ve gotten as close as anyone else ever has. When that pretty lady and those kids came out here, at first I thought Daisy was gonna tell all finally, but it turned out that lady was trying to bring Daisy back. But Daisy’s a good wife to that Carl of hers, so I knew even if she didn’t hate that group on principle, she wouldn’t have left him. Nope. Daisy’s as good a girl as she could be. She tried real hard to get Carl to move, maybe to the city or somethin’, after her folks found her, but he put his foot down. After that she didn’t talk about them folks again. Not till these boys came.” The dog and Paul played another pass off of the wet and slimy stick. “But when they got here, boy, you haven’t seen her look so glad in a long time. I think she hoped they mighta brought her sister with them, or would find a way to, but they didn’t really seem likely to go back for anyone, to me. Not with all their interest in the girls around here.”

  “Were they interested in any girls in particular?”

  “They were odd jobbin’. Real hard workers. Eventually I noticed which houses they found reason to do jobs at. All boys are the same on the inside.”

  “Were all three boys the same?”

  Paul shrugged. “Wouldn’t be able to say, that Ryder fellow wasn’t here long. Didn’t look out much for work. Hung around the house, then everyone left.”

  “Do you think they’re coming back?”

  “Rusty!” The dog came galloping back. “No. I don’t think they are. And not because there’s some serial killer or something. I think those boys picked the girls they wanted and hit the road.”

  “But Cherry and Skye were relatives.”

  “Sure, but the others weren’t. They’ve all gone off somewhere for good, and that’s a sure thing. Poor mamas at home waiting for them. Makes a man sick.”

  “So where did they go?”

  “Search me. I’ve heard they’re just roamin’ in the woods, and I’ve heard they’re all in Portland, lookin’ for work. You pick. It’s summertime, though, and I expect they worked enough that they felt pretty flush.”

  “How much do you figure they earned odd jobbing?”

  “Had to be several thousand. They roofed a couple of houses, built fences, dug ditches. If there was a job, they did it. If they pooled their money, they probably don’t see a reason to look for work for a good long time—young folks are shortsighted like that.”

  “So they were pretty well off for young people and you’d bet they’re camping.”

  “Money goes farther if you aren’t in the city.”

  Jane exhaled. Paul was no easier to get information out of than Hannah. Or Daisy, for that matter. Hearsay and assumptions. But now she had three votes for hanging out in the woods. “Got anything else for me? Any other way I can confirm who this poor man from my shed was?”

  “If you can find the kids and Ryder’s not with ’em, that’s a good sign. Otherwise, you might want to talk to Daisy’s oldest daughter, Una. She lives up behind the high school.”

  “Cherry isn’t the oldest?”

  “Nope. Una is. Daisy brought Una with her when she showed up in town.”

  “And how do I get myself an introduction to Una? What’s her last name? Where does she work?”

  “Una Smith. Adopted by Daisy’s Carl. Not married yet. Works up at a shop in Astoria, I think. Also works at the farmers’ market, selling smelly soaps. I’d talk to her there. It’s open today, I think. Or tomorrow. They keep crazy hours for the tourists like you.” Paul said tourists like it tasted bad, but Jane shrugged it off. He wasn’t wrong.

  “And how will I know when I’ve found Una Smith?”

  “She’ll be the pretty blonde girl selling soap, with a name tag that says Una.” The dog came galloping back and dropped the stick again, but Paul ignored it. “You’re not much of a detective, are you?”

  “I’m workin’ on it. Thanks for your time.”

  “You aren’t going to ask me anything else?”

  “What else do you know?”

  He shrugged. “There’s bigger mysteries than a car full of kids leaving town, that’s for sure.”

  “Bigger than a dead polygamist in my shed?”

  “No, I think you’ve got me on that. That’s probably the biggest mystery we’ve got right now.”

  “Real fast, before I go. Help me understand Hannah a little. I’ve heard some opinions of her that weren’t generous. Mistrust of her motives and all that. What do you think?”

  “She’s a good girl.”

  “Honest?”

  “Sure.”

  “Think she doesn’t exaggerate, even?”

  “I expect she plays things pretty close to true.”

  “How has she changed since her transplant?”

  He paused to think. “She’s had a hard time, that one. And I bet she wishes she could do more, but she makes the best of it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I like her.” Paul picked up the fetching stick again.

  “All right then. Thanks for the info and the tip. I’ll talk to Una as soon as I can find her.”

  Jane grabbed Jake and dragged him to the farmers’ market. It was open, presumably for the tourists, like Paul said. “So we’re looking for Una and her smelly soaps? That shouldn’t be so hard.”

  “Any luck finding Eric?”

  “As a matter of fact, not even a hint of a clue. I Googled, and I asked Mason.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “Facebook. God bless it. He hasn’t seen his best frenemy since the fight.”

  “And he had no suggestions?”

  “He suggested I go do things to myself that don’t sound like very much fun.”

  Jane laughed. “To the right. I think I see the soap stand.”

  They veered into a booth filled with handmade soaps. Jane picked up a small, speckled pink bar. She held it to her nose and inhaled. “That’s nice! Try it.” She passed it to Jake.

  He sniffed. “Meh. Girl soap. I need manly soap that can remove the dirt and grime men get when they go out and do manly things.” He picked up another bar. “This one looks good. It has real live volcano grit in it.”

  The girl behind the counter laughed. “Yup. Our pumice soap is great for getting man dirt off of rough, manly hands.”

  Jane glanced at the name tag. Sarah. “Do you make the soap?”

  “No, my boss does. I just help sell when she’s busy.”

  “Do you have an ingredients list? I have kind of sensitive skin.” Jane turned over the bar of soap in her hand, looking for the list or contact information.

  “Oh shoot, I’ve got it somewhere.” Sarah riffled through a stack of pamphlets and papers that were spread on the side of the display counter. “Here you go!” She passed Jane a stapled stack of photocopies. “That’s all of the ingredients for all of the soaps. For checking for allergens.”

  An older couple bustled into the booth. Sarah turned her attention to them.

  Jane flipped through each page. At the bottom of the last one was contact information for Ocean Soaps. If the boss was Una, it was at least a start. “Excuse me,” Jane interrupted Sarah. “I didn’t realize this was Ocean Soaps. That’s Una Smith’s soap biz, right?”

  Sarah had her hands full of pumice soap. “Uh-huh, she’s the boss.” She passed the pumice soap to the gentleman in the couple.

  “Is she coming by today?”

  “Not today, sorry.”

  “Okay, thanks!”

  Jake set his soap down, but Jane kept the papers. They wandered through the rest of the market, an eye out for any of their new friends.

  “Hey, it’s a start.” Jake gave her elbow an encouraging squeeze. “Let me buy you some lunch. While we eat, we email. S
ound good?”

  “Food is a very good idea.”

  They grabbed some fish and chips and went back home. “You email, and I’ll search.” Jake set his phone on the table. “Unless you want to do it the other way around, boss.”

  She drummed her fingers on the table. “Let’s see if we can find her first. We’ll save the email.” She was able to pull up an address for Una Smith in Warrenton almost before she had finished speaking. “Okay. I’ve got her address. Why don’t we wait until six or seven and then head over there. Give her time to get home from work.”

  “And we can pass the time some other way.” He had a sparkle in his eye that Jane liked.

  The jangle of his phone broke the moment. “Jake Crawford.” He had switched on his professional voice. “I see.” He frowned at Jane and crossed his eyes. “I am, sir. For another week, actually.” He stood up and walked away from the table.

  There was one person he called sir, and that was his boss at the nonprofit. And sometimes his cousin Jeff, but he only ever said that ironically.

  Jane picked at her fish. If Jake was going to have to spend the afternoon working, she could probably visit Una on her own.

  He came back to the table, looking grim.

  “What?”

  His jaw twitched.

  “Tell me.”

  He opened his mouth and closed it again.

  “Whatever it is…”

  “It is one thing to play detective on our honeymoon when we find a dead body in the shed. It’s almost like a planned activity.”

  Jane sat back. “Play detective? Activity? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s another thing to call me in to work.”

  “But surely there can’t be a fund-raising emergency. What would a fund-raising emergency even be?” She pushed her annoyance at the “play detective” comment aside for a moment.

  “My contact died. Heart attack. It was a few days ago, but his funeral is in two days and they want me to be there.”

  “Oh.” She was hard-pressed to claim that death didn’t trump honeymoon, given their current circumstances. “Where will it be?”

  “Back in Portland.”

  “A day trip, then?”

  “A day trip in the middle of our honeymoon.”

  “But you can’t not go.” She pushed her plate away. “This guy meant a lot to the ministry, so you guys need to represent. Show respect.” She forced some sympathy into her voice. He had, after all, given up a lot of their alone time to her case.

  “We both need to be there. It was a personal request from the president.”

  “Was this the guy you’ve been courting all year?”

  Jake slumped into his chair. “Yup.”

  “So…” Her wheels were spinning. It’s not that she wanted him to die, but… “Now you won’t be taking him to Thailand in a week.”

  “Right.”

  “So we go to the funeral. Big deal. We drive in, pay our respects. Maybe we book a hotel room or stay at that fishing shack of yours or something. Or we just go back to the condo and have a night in our new house. We don’t have to rush back to the beach.”

  “A year’s worth of work. More, really. And all the pressure I put on you to get you to marry me.” He grimaced.

  “But you couldn’t know he was going to die.”

  “Well…”

  “Oh, come on, you didn’t kill him yourself.”

  “No, but he was a seventy-year-old lifelong smoker. It shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise.”

  “Did he leave anything to the ministry?”

  “I doubt it. He loved the idea of what we do, but I hadn’t sold him on us yet.”

  “Are they going to give you another client? Contact? Whatever? Or do you have to go find your own?”

  Jake shrugged.

  Jane’s phone beeped. She checked it. “Stupid Franny. What is this woman’s problem? First the bad beer, then the email, and now text messages. Are you kidding me?” She pushed the phone away.

  Jake picked it up. “Saw you in the news. So sorry about the body in your shed. I’m praying for you both. Also—I have information.” He held it out for Jane to see. “How can our organist from Portland have information about our murder at the beach?”

  “If her information is as good as her beer, I hope she keeps it to herself.” Jane turned her phone off. “You say the funeral is in two days?”

  “Yup.”

  “So we’ve got to go see Una today. Period. End of sentence.”

  “I’m all yours.”

  Chapter 12

  Una’s weather beaten apartment looked like it had once been a motel. It was tucked behind the high school, and not too hard to find. Jane knocked on the plain front door and waited.

  The curtains on the front window shifted as though someone was checking them out; then the door opened. “Yes?” The woman at the door looked to be in her late twenties. Her icy blonde hair was pulled back into a messy bun. Her blue eyes and her cheekbones declared she was related to Daisy Smith.

  “Una?” Jane asked.

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  “Can we come in? We have some questions about your uncle Ryder.” Jane handed over one of her business cards. She could not wait until she had a real private investigator’s license to show.

  The woman didn’t move. “Who are you?”

  “We’re private detectives. We own the house the body was found in. He’s been tentatively identified by his teeth as Ryder, who has been tentatively identified as your uncle.”

  “Come in.” She opened the door wider and ushered them in.

  The apartment appeared to be a one-room studio with closet and bath. A daybed was shoved against the wall that was both living room and bedroom, and against the other wall a two-door cabinet with sink and hot plate was the kitchen.

  The toilet flushed and the bathroom door opened. Eric stepped out. “What’s going on?” His eyes shifted from Jane to a stack of papers on the floor by the bed.

  “They came to talk about Ryder.”

  Eric crossed his arms, but didn’t say anything.

  “We won’t be long.” Jane stepped across the small room to be closer to the stack of papers.

  Eric did the same.

  “Why was Ryder fighting with your cousins Levi and Amos?” Jane directed the question to Una, but kept her eye on Eric.

  Una didn’t respond.

  “When did you find out Ryder was just Cherry’s uncle?” She turned her question to Eric. “Does everyone else know?”

  “Everyone knows,” Eric said. “That’s why I laid into Mason. He was saying some nasty stuff about my girl by saying she left me for her uncle.”

  “How long have you been here at Una’s?”

  “Just a day,” Una said. “He got back into town yesterday. He’s been looking everywhere for them.”

  “So you are worried, then?”

  “She hasn’t called anyone. And some of those girls are young. Like Rose and Emma. Their parents are freaking.”

  “And they’d really freak if they knew the girls had run off with polygamists.”

  Una flinched.

  “Was your bio dad a polygamist?” Jane asked softly.

  “Yes.” Una sat down on the daybed, defeated. “But we got away from all of that before I knew anything about it. And Mom has been so good to us, and Dad. No one knows or talks about it. We’re normal here.”

  Eric chuckled.

  “They don’t talk about it to us, anyway.”

  “I hear one of your mom’s…mothers came by when you were littler. What happened to them?”

  “She doesn’t talk about it and I don’t remember much. They tried to get her to come home. They missed her, they loved her, a lot of ‘look at your brothers and sisters,’ ‘we need you.’ All of that. They even invited Dad to join the community, but he kicked them out.”

  “Sounds like a good man.” Jake also spoke softly.

  “He is.”

  “What doe
s he think about all of this?”

  “He’s mad. He called the police about it.”

  “Who do you think killed Ryder?”

  She stiffened. “Who could have? Or why? I don’t know.”

  “Eric, when did you find out Ryder wasn’t after your girl?”

  He stepped back and looked at Una.

  “Eric didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t know who Ryder was at first, but he didn’t kill him.”

  “Cherry and I have been a thing since middle school. We’re going to get married.” His face slowly turned red.

  “What was her reason for leaving?”

  “Just tell them.” Una’s voice was almost too quiet to hear.

  “She said she wanted to know God better.” His jaw twitched beneath the scarlet skin. His eyes narrowed.

  “Crap.” Jake sat down next to Una.

  She nodded.

  “So even though she told her boyfriend she was leaving him to know God better, and even though she did this by running away with three men from a polygamy cult, you still support the idea in the community that they’re just off on a last-of-summer road trip?”

  “I have to think of Mia and Fawn.”

  “I know Mia, but who is Fawn?”

  “The other sister. She’s thirteen.”

  “That’s a lot of girls…”

  Una looked at Jake, a challenge in her eye. “You can imagine well why Mom’s family hasn’t stopped trying to get her to come home now, can’t you?”

  “But if they all know where she is, it’s not like she’s in hiding. What can telling the truth about her past hurt?” Jake asked the simple question earnestly.

  “You can’t go telling people things like that.” Eric stared at Jake like he was an alien. “Not in a small town.”

  “Because?”

  “Because what will people say when everyone comes home? If they are just out camping? What if they are? If the whole town knows for sure that Amos and Levi come from the Family Group, they will say horrible things about Cherry and Skye and all of them. And then what if it is all true? What if the worst things we can think of are true? How will Fern and Mia grow up in this town with that hanging over them?” Eric looked like he was ready to hit somebody—the imaginary gossip he had conjured. To punish this person before the girls were ruined.