Lemon Larceny (The Donut Mysteries) (12 page)

“Hang on a second,”
I said.
 
“We’re not finished having
our little chat.”

Greta had started
to stand, but that put her back in her seat.
 
After all, what could she do at that
point?
 
“I don’t know what we have worth
discussing.”

“Let’s talk about
my aunt for a minute,” I said.

“It was a
terrible thing, what happened to her,” she answered automatically.

“I couldn’t agree
with you more,” I replied.
 
“You
shouldn’t feel guilty, you know.”

That caught her completely
by surprise.
 
“Guilty?
 
Why should
I
feel guilty?”

“Well, if you’d
been here working, she might not have fallen,” I said, watching her carefully.

“I don’t see
how.
 
From what I heard, it happened
while I was having my oatmeal,” she said, as if defying me to contradict
her.
 
“How could it have been my
fault?”

“That’s my
point,” I said smoothly.
 
“It
wasn’t.
 
Do you eat breakfast at the
diner in town we saw on our drive in yesterday?”

She scoffed.
 
“I’m not paying anyone three dollars and
ninety five cents to make my breakfast, especially when it costs me thirty-eight
cents to make it at home for myself.”

“You’ve actually
calculated what it costs you?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t
I?
 
I’m a woman on a budget, after
all,” she said defensively.

“So, money’s
tight then?”
 

My aunt had
suspected that Greta had been stealing from her, and this might feed into that
theory.

“It always is,”
Greta said haughtily, “but there’s nothing wrong with that.
 
My father always used to say that
thriftiness built character.”

If she
had
been stealing, then the lesson
hadn’t been learned very well after all.

“That’s a lovely
ring you have there,” I said as she shifted one hand holding her bag to the
other.

“I inherited it
from my mother.
 
It might look like
it’s worth something, but it’s nothing but fake stones and cheap metal,” Greta
said, acting as though she were surprised to even find it on her finger.
 
Sliding it off, she put it in her bag
and then latched the clasp shut with a great deal of force.
 
Had she stolen it from my aunt, or perhaps
one of her other cleaning clients?
 
It might bear looking into.
 
Finally, it appeared that she’d had enough.
 
“I’m through waiting for that tea,” she
said as she stood.
 
“Am I cleaning
today, or not?”

“I’m afraid not,”
Momma said as she came out of the kitchen.
 
“As I said yesterday, as much as we appreciate your offer, my daughter
and I can manage fine without your services now.”

“If I go now, I
won’t be coming back,” Greta said huffily.

“I’m sure that
your other clients will welcome your increased attention to their needs,” Momma
said sweetly, though it was clear that there was iron behind it.
 

I doubted that
we’d see Greta again this time.

Once the
housekeeper was gone, Momma said, “I know that I probably ruined your
investigation, but I wasn’t about to have that woman in this house for another
second.”

“What happened?”
I asked her.

“Did you see the
ring she was wearing when she came in?”

I nodded.
 
“I did, and I wondered about how she
could afford it.
 
She claimed that
it was a fake, but it looked pretty real to me.”

“It belonged to
my sister, as a matter of fact,” Momma said.

“Was it
valuable?
 
We need to call the
police chief if it was,” I said as I reached for my cellphone.

“Don’t
bother.
 
It wasn’t worth more than
fifty dollars, so it’s hardly worth the trouble.
 
Besides, Greta will probably just claim
that Jean gave it to her.”

“Fifty
dollars?
 
Really?”

“I know.
 
It’s quite good, for what it is.
 
I was surprised how real it looked
myself, so I bought it for Jean as a gag gift last Christmas.”

“When I asked Greta
about it, she told me that it had belonged to her mother.”

“I doubt that,”
Momma said with a frown.

“The funny thing
is that Greta claimed it was fake,” I said, “but I got the impression that she
didn’t believe it for one second.”

Momma
smiled.
 
“Then I’m just sorry that I
won’t be there when she tries to pawn it after she’s finished with it.
 
What a lovely surprise that will be.”

“What else might
she have stolen if she took Aunt Jean’s ring?” I asked my mother.

“I haven’t a
clue, but right now, we’re looking for a murderer, not a thief, correct?”

I shrugged.
 
“It’s not that hard to believe that she
might be both.”

“Explain.”

“Well, what if
Aunt Jean caught her stealing, so Greta killed her to keep from being exposed
and going to jail?
 
It’s possible,
don’t you think?”

Momma’s face
fell.
 
“So, I let my anger get the
best of me, and I’ve closed off access to a woman who might have killed my
sister.
 
I’m so sorry, Suzanne.”

I rubbed her
shoulder gently.
 
“You don’t have to
apologize to me.
 
Besides, you might
have done me a favor without even realizing it.”

“How so?”

“The next time I
approach Greta, I can commiserate with her over your treatment of her.
 
You wouldn’t mind if I disparaged your
character a little while I did it, would you?” I asked her with a grin.

Momma answered in
kind as she said, “Say whatever you please about me.
 
If it helps find Jean’s killer, then I’m
on board.”

“Don’t
worry.
 
I’ll try not to be too rough
on you,” I said with a hint of laughter in my voice.

“Suzanne, there’s
no need to spare my feelings,” Momma said.
 
“I’ve been called some bad things over the years by people who have
meant every word they said.
 
A few
slings and arrows from you will be a walk in the park for me.”

“Understood,” I
said.
 
“Now, that just leaves us
with three folks we need to speak with before we decide what to do next.
 
Do you have a preference between the
attorney, the chief of police, and the next door neighbor?”

“I’d be happy if
we left Anna Albright until the end,” Momma said.

“Let me get this
straight.
 
You’d rather interview a
cop and a lawyer than a pushy woman?”

“Let’s just say I
can deal rationally with rational people.
 
It’s the other type that perplexes me sometimes.”

“I get that,” I
said.
 
“Care to take a ride into
town, then?”

“That’s one
idea,” Momma said.

“Do you have a
better one?” I asked.
 
“I’m always
open to suggestions.”

Momma didn’t
reply; she just raised an eyebrow and stared at me.

“Okay, usually,
then.”

She still didn’t
respond.

“Well, will you
at least give me sometimes?” I asked with a slight smile.

“I will,” she
said magnanimously.

“Then what’s your
idea?”

“I know how to
get the police chief here,” she said.
 
“Let’s just report the actual break-in that we had last night.”

“That would
work,” I said, “but that begs a question.”

“Which is?”

“What do we tell
him when he asks why we didn’t report it last night when it happened?” I asked.

“We can say that
we were too tired to deal with an investigation at that hour, and that we were
both still too much in shock over my sister’s death.
 
Surely he’ll understand those excuses.”

“You know
what?
 
He probably will.”

“So then, you’ll
call him?” Momma asked.

“Just as fast as
I can dial the numbers,” I said as I pulled out my cellphone.

“Thank you,
Suzanne,” she said before I finished dialing.

“You’re
welcome.
 
What exactly are you
thanking me for?”

“For embracing my
idea and not discounting it,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t I
use it?
 
It’s a good one.
 
Momma, just because I’m running this
investigation, there’s no reason for you not to speak up whenever you’ve got an
idea.
 
We’re partners here.”

“Equal partners?”
she asked, smiling slightly.

“Well, let’s say
fairly equal and leave it at that.”

“It’s a deal,”
she said.

“Can I finish
dialing now?” I asked her.

“Be my guest.”

“Good.”
 

I got the police
chief on the line, explained what had happened, and he promised to come right
over.
 
After I hung up, I said, “He’s
on his way.”

“Should we take
down your barricade before he gets here?”

“No, I think it
lends a certain credence to our story.
 
Besides, it happens to be true, so at least there’s something
corroborating our story.”

“Why would we lie
about what happened?” Momma asked me.

“Well, if we
hadn’t had a real break-in, staging one might be a good way to get him out here
without arousing his suspicions.”

Momma considered
that for a moment, and then she asked, “Have you ever done that in the past
yourself?”

I whistled a
little as I looked anywhere but into her gaze.

After a moment,
Momma asked, “You’d rather not answer that, is that correct?”

“Let’s just say
that the information is on a need-to-know basis.”

“And I don’t need
to know, is that it?” she asked.

I nodded.
 
“Now you’ve got it.”

Chapter 12

“That’s a nice
patch job you did there,” the police chief said a little sarcastically as he studied
my makeshift repair.

“Hey, it might
not be pretty, but it works,” I replied.

“No doubt about
that,” Chief Kessler said as he pushed against the bulkhead door.
 
“It’s solid enough.”
 
He turned back to us and added, “I
wouldn’t worry too much about it.
 
It was probably just some kids that thought the house was empty.”

“That’s your
reaction to a crime committed in your jurisdiction?
 
Honestly?” Momma asked.
 
“Chief, someone broke in and trespassed
on my sister’s property.
 
Aren’t you
going to do
anything
about it?”
 
She sounded outraged, and I was sure
that it was sincere enough.
  
My
mother was not a big fan of lawbreakers.

“Well, I might
have been able to do something a little more productive about it if I’d been
called right away,” he said pointedly, his smile locking itself firmly in
place.

“We already told
you why we didn’t call you right when it happened,” I said.
 
“Do you have any idea who might want to
break in?
 
I’m not talking about
juvenile delinquents.
 
I don’t buy
that for one second.
 
I think
someone was after something.”

The chief
shrugged as he looked around.
 
“What
is there here that could possibly be of any value to a thief?”
 

“That’s a good
question,” I said.
 
“Do you have a
lot of break-ins around here?”

“I won’t lie to
you; every now and then they run in spells.
 
We usually catch them, but since they
are mostly underage, there’s not much that’s done to them.
 
I’ll write up a report, but since
nothing of note was stolen, it won’t do any good contacting your insurance
agency.
 
That door hasp is about the
only thing you lost, and it wasn’t worth much to begin with.”

“That is completely
unsatisfactory,” Momma said sternly, and then she marched upstairs.
 
I knew that it was part of the ploy that
we’d come up with earlier to give me time alone with the police chief, but I
was still stunned by how real it seemed.

“I’m sorry about
that,” I said sympathetically.

“Don’t apologize.
 
It’s not necessary.
 
Your mother went through a lot yesterday
losing her sister so suddenly like that.”

“Thanks for understanding,”
I said.
 
“I’m not accusing you of falling
down on the job or anything, but where were you when she had her
accident?”
 
I hated calling it that,
but since Momma and I were the only ones who believed that it was murder at
this point, I didn’t have much choice.

The police chief
scratched his chin, and then he said, “I was probably at Burt’s Diner.
 
I’m there before work most mornings
nursing a cup of coffee before I tackle my day.”

That was going to
be something I needed to check out, but not at the moment.
 
I had other, more pressing issues with
Chief Kessler than his alibi.
 
Aunt
Jean had been suspicious of his activities, and that’s what I needed to focus
on at the moment.
 
“Is that where
you generally do business?”