Lemon Larceny (The Donut Mysteries) (11 page)

I called Hank, explained
the situation to him, and he agreed to come right over.
 

After I hung up,
I told Momma, “That particular trap is set now.”

“And afterwards?”
she asked me.

“We’ll see where
things lead us.
 
Sometimes planning
too far ahead leaves you missing something important along the way.”

“Then playing it
by ear is what we shall do,” Momma said.

Chapter 11

“To be honest
with you, I didn’t expect to hear from you ladies so soon,” Hank said with a
smile as he came into the house carrying his toolbox in one beefy hand.
 
The box was made from solid oak, dark
and scratched with age and definitely showing the beating it had taken over the
years.

“We had to
call.
 
We need your help,” Momma
said.
 
Okay, that’s what I’d told
her to say, but I hadn’t expected her to be quite so literal.
 
It was time to step in and explain.

“Somebody broke
the hasp holding the lock on the bulkhead last night,” I said, “and we were
wondering if you could reinforce it somehow to make it more secure.”

Hank looked
surprised.
 
“Are you saying that
somebody tried to rob you last night?”

“It was more like
this morning, but honestly, we don’t know why they were here,” I said, not
willing to show all of my cards just yet.

Hank
frowned.
 
“Somebody probably heard
about what happened to your aunt yesterday, so they decided to see what there
was here to steal.
 
Some folks have
no respect at all.”
 
He frowned, and
then the handyman added, “Are you sure they even had to break the hasp to get
in?
 
It hasn’t worked right for
years.
 
All it took was one good tug,
and the whole thing would practically fly open on its own.
 
I kept telling Jean that she needed to
at least replace the hasp and hinges, but she thought I was just being
paranoid.”

“Could you
replace them for us now?” Momma asked.

“I can, and I
will be happy to help,” Hank said, and then he started for the basement.

“I don’t suppose
we need to show you the way,” I said as we followed him to the basement door.

“No, I’ve been in
this house a dozen times over the years.”

“Just a dozen?”
Momma asked softly.

Hank slowly
stopped and looked at her for a full moment before he responded.
 
“That sounds about right.
 
Why, have you heard something different?”

She was into it
now, so I decided to stay quiet and see where this led, despite my earlier
request to let me lead the interrogation.
 
“I understand that you had more than a professional relationship with my
sister,” Momma said evenly, not backing down an inch from his scrutiny.
 
“Is that true?”

“People around
here like to talk,” he said, trying to dismiss her inquiry.
 
“You can’t believe everything you hear.”

I wasn’t about to
let him avoid her direct question, though.
 
“You didn’t really answer my mother’s question though, did you?
  
Hank, were you seeing my aunt
romantically?”

He shrugged.
 
“I don’t know how romantic it was.
 
Neither one of us was a dewy-eyed
kid.
 
Sure, we went out a few times,
but it was never anything all that serious between us.
 
When we decided it wasn’t doing much for
either one of us, we decided to call it quits with no hard feelings on either
side.”

That wasn’t the
way my aunt had portrayed it in her journal, not by a long shot.
 
“When did all of this happen?” I asked
him.

“Well, it wasn’t all
that long ago, as a matter of fact,” he said.

“Still, even
though you say that you two agreed to stop seeing each other, you must have
taken what happened to her yesterday pretty hard,” Momma said, holding him
there with her words as strongly as if she’d grasped his shoulder.

I was watching
Hank’s eyes as she said it, and I could swear that I saw a flash of anger mixed
with pain before he masked it.
 
“Truth
be told, it wasn’t good news for anybody in Maple Hollow who liked your sister,
and that covers just about the entire population,” he said.

“Sometimes it
helps talking about where you were and what you were doing when it happened,” I
said as sympathetically as I could manage.
 
It was as subtle a way I could think of to ask someone for their alibi,
and it still amazed me how many times it worked.
 

Unfortunately, it
didn’t pan out this time.
 
Hank
slapped his forehead as he said, “You know what?
 
There’s someplace else that I need to
be.
 
I completely forgot about Sally
Taylor.
 
I was supposed to install
her new washing machine hoses the first thing this morning.
 
I got caught up talking to you ladies on
the phone and it completely slipped my mind.”

As Hank started
to walk back to the front door, I asked, “What about that hasp and new hinge
for our bulkhead door?”

“I’ll pick some
up this afternoon.
 
Don’t worry,
I’ll be back again before you know it.”
 
He’d tried to put a light tone in his voice, but he’d only been
partially successful.
 
Apparently
Momma and I had struck too close to home a time or two with our questions.

As Hank hurried
out the door, we both tried to follow so we could ask him another question or
two before he got away, but the man was practically sprinting by the time he
hit the porch.

“Do you think
he’ll ever come back after that?” Momma asked me after he’d driven off.

“I’d say it’s
doubtful at this point,” I said with a shrug.

“I’m sorry we
didn’t learn anything useful,” my mother told me apologetically.

“On the contrary,
I think we learned a lot.”

She looked at me
oddly.
 
“How so?”

“Think about
it.
 
We now know that his public
account of the relationship differs quite a bit from Aunt Jean’s.
 
I understand just how much my aunt liked
to embellish her stories sometimes, but what she wrote sounded true to the
heart to me.
 
If I’m going to take anyone’s
word about what happened between the two of them, it’s going to be your
sister’s version, and not what the spurned handyman told us.”

“He did put a
rather mild spin on things, didn’t he?” Momma asked.

“He sure
did.
 
I have a hunch that Aunt Jean
meant more to him than he was willing to let on to us when we asked him about
her.
 
Did you see that flash of hurt
in his eyes when he relayed his story about their relationship?”

“I must have
missed it,” Momma said.

“Well, it wasn’t
there for long, but I know that I saw it.”

“I believe
you.
 
So, we got something out of
him at least.”

“More than that,
Momma.
 
I found his response to my
alibi request most interesting of all.
 
Some folks provide one without question, some admit that they haven’t a
clue where they were, but not many take off and run when they’re asked the
question.”

“Does that make
him guilty in your mind?” my mother asked.

“I’m not ready to
say anything near that just yet,” I said, “but it certainly gives me pause for
thought.
 
Hank Caldwell was hiding
something this morning; there’s no doubt in my mind.
 
The question is what?
 
Was he involved in Aunt Jean’s murder,
or was he up to something else that he doesn’t want anyone else to know about?”

“How do we determine
that?” Momma asked me.

“We keep probing,
asking questions, sticking our noses where they don’t belong, and generally
make pains of ourselves to everyone we suspect.
 
Sooner or later, I have faith that
somebody’s going to slip up, or we’ll find a telling clue, or one a dozen other
things will happen, and when it does, we’ll be there to nail whoever did it.”

“I admire your
confidence in our abilities,” Momma said.

“I admit that it
helps that this isn’t my first time investigating murder.
 
After a while, you learn to trust your
instincts and you don’t give up until you’ve found the truth.”

“And what if that
never happens?”

I shrugged.
 
“Then we take solace in the fact that we
did our best, and at the very least, we managed to put the fear of retribution
in someone’s heart.
 
Worse case
scenario, even if we don’t find the killer, at least we’ll make sure that
whoever did it spends the next twenty years looking over their shoulder,
waiting for someone to arrest them for what they’ve done.”

“Do you honestly
believe that will be enough?” Momma asked sadly.

“It is what is,
so if that’s all that we get, then it will have to do,” I said.
 
“But let’s not even think about throwing
in the towel yet.
 
We have more
suspects to interview, and I know in my heart that there are more clues just
waiting for us to expose them to the bright light of day.”

“Then let’s
tackle the next name on our list by all means,” Momma said.

I didn’t know if
my pep talk helped her, but oddly enough, it did wonders for me.
 

Saying how I felt
aloud helped me believe every word I’d told Momma.
 

If there was a
way to find the killer, we were going to do it.

To my surprise,
Momma and I were spared calling on our next suspect when she showed up on our
doorstep unannounced.
 
The bell
rang, and as I answered it, I was surprised to see Greta Miles, my aunt’s former
housekeeper, standing on the porch.

“Greta, what
brings you here?” I asked her.

“I came to clean,
just like I always do, only my key won’t work anymore,” she said with a pouty
expression.

“We changed the
locks,” Momma explained as she joined us out on the porch.

“Why on earth would
you do that?
 
How am I supposed to
get in now?”
 
The woman was
absolutely clueless about what we’d done.

I was about to explain
to her that she wasn’t going to be cleaning ever again when I realized that
this was a perfect opportunity to interview her.
 
“Won’t you come in so we can discuss the
situation?” I asked as I stepped aside.

Momma looked at
me oddly, something that was happening more and more lately, but she stepped back
as well to allow the cleaning lady inside.

“I came to clean,
not talk,” Greta said matter-of-factly.

“It won’t take
long.
 
I promise,” I said as I
steered her into the living room.
 
Pulling back the curtains, I instructed, “Have a seat.
 
Would you like some tea?”

“Like I said, I
didn’t come here to socialize,” she repeated stubbornly.

“Then what a nice
bonus this must be for you,” Momma said, getting into the spirit of
things.
 
“Sit.
 
We insist.”

There aren’t many
folks who can back down from one of my mother’s strongly worded suggestions,
and clearly Greta wasn’t one of them.
 
“I suppose it couldn’t hurt, at least not for a minute or two,” the
housekeeper said as she sat on the edge of the couch, her oversized handbag
clutched in her arms and propped up proudly on her lap.
 
I had to wonder if she’d brought her own
vacuum cleaner with her, it was so large.

“I’ll make the
tea,” Momma said, and then she quickly exited the room.
 
I had to believe that she would listen
in to our conversation as soon as the kettle was on.
 
At least that’s what I would have done.

“It’s good of you
to come by today,” I said as I settled into one of the other chairs.

“I should have
been here earlier,” she said, “but I got distracted.”

“What happened?”
I asked.

“It was
nothing.
 
It was probably just my
imagination.”

Now I was honestly
curious about what she was talking about.
 
“What happened?
 
I really
want to know.”

Greta frowned,
and then she explained, “I thought I saw someone prowling around outside this
house when I drove up a little bit ago.
 
I got out and looked around, but I didn’t see anyone.
 
It was probably just a trick the morning
shadows were playing on my eyes.”

Given what had
been happening lately, I doubted it.
 
“Did you get a clear look at who it might have been?”

“Like I said,
after I started looking harder, I wasn’t even sure that I’d really seen
anything all.
 
It was probably
nothing.
 
I don’t want to talk about
it.”

It was clear that
the housekeeper was finished discussing it, so I decided to drop it.
 
“After what my mother told you yesterday,
I’m surprised that you came back at all.”

“I didn’t pay any
attention to her.
 
She was just distraught.
 
She probably didn’t even know what she
was saying,” Greta said.
 
“I figured
she’d change her mind after a good night’s sleep, so here I am, bright and
early.
 
Shall I go on and get
started?”