A Chili Death: A Classic Diner Mystery (15 page)

“Better than most guys our age, Duke,” Moose said.

“Did you have any luck?” he asked after Moose introduced me to him.

“Not a bit of it.  I’ve got to tell you, though, I’m surprised Sheriff Croft let someone else search for clues here, even if it is out of his jurisdiction.”

“They searched it together,” Duke said.  “I tried to give them a little advice, but when they both threw me out, I decided to be someplace else quick, if you know what I mean.”  He looked around the living room, and shook his head in disgust.  “It’s bad enough that I’ve had number four empty for five months, now I have to get this one ready to rent again, too.  I thought I was buying a slice of retirement when I dropped a load on this place, but all I guaranteed myself was more work.”

“We appreciate the chance to look, anyway,” Moose said as he started out the door with the last box.  We had them sorted and stacked in front of the apartment, and my grandfather shook his friend’s hand one last time.  “Come by the diner and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee sometime,” Moose said.

“From what I hear, you’re never there anymore.”

“Don’t worry.  I’ll make good on it, and I hardly ever leave the place,” I said.

“You’re gone right now, though, aren’t you?” Duke asked with a grin.

“I’ll write you an IOU,” Moose said, and did just that.  “Present it to the first person who works for us you see, and you’ll get your java.”

“Where are you going?” Duke said as we took a few steps toward the truck.

My grandfather glanced at his watch.  “I can hang around a little bit if you’re lonely, but we both have to get back to work.”

“I don’t want conversation, you old goat,” Duke said.  “I just thought you’d like to see Lance’s storage locker.”

“Did you show this to the two sheriffs?” I asked as Duke led us to the back of the building.

“I tried to, but they ran me off before I had a chance.  I figured somebody might like to take a peek, though.”

Duke opened a side door, and just inside we found a large metal cage with a keyed lock on it.  Inside were a dozen storage lockers, each one no bigger than a coffin, but there was still plenty of room to hide something important inside.

“Which one was Lance’s?” Moose asked as we all stepped inside.

“He had number nine,” Duke said.  “I already took care of the lock, but don’t worry about cleaning this out.  I’ll get to it before I make that haul to charity.  Now, I’ll get out of your way, since there’s barely enough room to turn around in there with the two of you.  You don’t have to stop by when you leave.  Just slam the door, it will lock on its own.”

“Thanks again,” Moose said, and I noticed that he waited until his friend was out the door before he moved to Howard Lance’s locker.

“What’s the matter, don’t you trust him?” I asked softly.

“Oh, I trust him just fine.  It’s just the seven people he’ll tell after that I can’t vouch for.  The man loves to chat, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Got it.”  All of the other lockers inside the cage had locks on them.  I watched as Moose opened Howard Lance’s locker.  Inside were several things that might be of interest to a flea market or a yard sale, but I was afraid that it was just more of the same as what we’d found inside.

“Well, that was a waste,” Moose said as he closed the locker back.

“How could we know that, though?” I asked.  Then, something caught my eye.  “Moose, Duke said that number four was empty, too, right?”

“That’s right,” Moose said.

The only problem was that there was a lock on the storage area, just like the ones on the other, occupied units.  I tugged on the lock on a whim, and to my surprise, it came open in my hand.  “What’s this mean, do you suppose?”

“I’m guessing that Duke never got around to cleaning this one out, either.”

“Maybe,” I said, and then I pulled the lock all of the way off and opened the door.  The first thing I found was the ledger book for 1959 from our records department, and the second was the sign-in book that we’d looked for in vain.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Moose said as I reached for the book.

“Why not?  We’re the ones who found it, fair and square.”

“Go ahead then if you’re determined to do it, but think about how Sheriff Croft is going to feel when he finds out that we uncovered a pair of clues when he hadn’t had any luck at all.”

“Do you think it’s better to grab these quietly, or should we call him up just to rub his nose in it?” I asked.

“We’re not rubbing his nose into anything.  Call him, Victoria, and let him make the decision.  After all, that’s why he makes the big bucks, right?”

I dialed the sheriff’s number, hoping that it would go to voice mail so I wouldn’t have to deal with him directly, but it was just my luck; he picked up on the second ring.  “Sheriff, Moose and I just found something that you’re going to want to see.”

“What’s that?” he asked, the interest evident in his voice.

“We just finished searching Howard Lance’s place,” I said. 

Before I could give him any more details, he said, “I doubt that.  We went through the place pretty thoroughly ourselves.”

“How about the storage locker?” I asked, trying my very best not to sound smug as I said it.  The last thing I wanted to do was make the sheriff angry.

“What storage locker?  Duke didn’t say a word about there even being one.”

“He told us that he tried to tell you both, but you and the other sheriff wouldn’t listen to him.”

There was a long silence, and then the sheriff said, “It was Harley’s investigation.  He just let me tag along during the search as a favor.  I thought it would be a good idea to hear what Duke had to say, but Harley’s like that sometimes.  He was bent on digging on his own.  What did you find?”

“Actually, there was nothing in his unit,” I said.

“Then why the dramatic lead-up to all of this, Victoria?”

“Well, on our way out, we noticed that one of the other locks was loose, so naturally we checked it out.”

I could hear the impatience growing in his voice.  “Are you going to tell me what you found, or do I have to beg for the information?”

“No, sir,” I said.  “Evidently Howard stashed some things in the empty locker, knowing that no tenant lived there.  We discovered the missing registry for 1959, and also the sign-in log for the records room.”

“Was there anything else there?” he asked.  I now had his full attention, there was no doubt about that.

“Moose thought it might be more prudent if we called you first and got your permission to search before we dug any deeper,” I said as I stuck my tongue out at my grandfather.

My grandfather chuckled softly, but didn’t make a return expression of any kind.

“Do you have gloves?” the sheriff asked me.

“I’ve got some gardening gloves at home, but I never use them.”

“I meant with you,” Sheriff Croft said.

“Gloves,” I said softly to my grandfather as I put my hand over the phone.

Moose looked around and came across an old pair on a workbench outside of the cage.  “Tell him I just found some,” my grandfather said.

I was about to when the sheriff said, “I heard him.  Does your cell phone take pictures that you can send?”

“It does,” I answered.

“Take a shot of the locker before Moose does another thing, and then send it to me.”

That was pretty clever of him, and it was something I hadn’t thought to do.  “I won’t be able to talk while I’m doing it.  Give me a call after you’ve seen the photograph.”

“I will, but remember, don’t touch a thing.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I said, and then I got a little satisfaction hanging up on the man.

I took a couple of shots of the open locker until I had one I was satisfied with, and then texted it to the sheriff.

“What do we do now?” Moose asked.

“We wait for his answer.”

Two minutes later, my phone rang. 

“Did they turn out okay?” I asked after seeing that it was the sheriff calling me back.

“Perfect.  Now, have Moose take out each book and set it aside.  If there’s an empty box around there, that would be perfect, but a blanket or towel would do, too.”

“How about both?” I asked as I spotted an old sheet in one corner of the room, sitting inside an empty box.

“Perfect,” he said.  “Have Moose move the books, and then send me another photo of the locker.”

I’d been holding the phone out so that my grandfather could hear as well, and he did as he was instructed.

I told Sheriff Croft, “Consider it done.  You’ll get the shot in a second.”

As we waited for the sheriff to call me back, I looked at Moose and said, “This is overkill, isn’t it?  We’ve already established that the books were in the locker.”

“Just let him do his job, Victoria,” Moose said.  “He’s probably putting his tail on the line even letting us do this, so I’m willing to cooperate in just about any way that he wants us to.”

My phone rang again.  The sheriff said that he was satisfied with the shots, and then he instructed, “Have Moose pull the rest of the contents out, one at a time, and tell me what you find as he does it.”

We did as we were told, but we’d just found the sum total of everything of interest in that locker, at least as far as Howard Lance was concerned.

“The rest of it’s a wash,” I told the sheriff as I surveyed the contents we’d pulled out one at a time.  In that locker, the things we’d checked hadn’t taken up a great deal of room, but spread out on the floor, we barely had room to walk.  There were old tools there, a stack of ancient magazines, a collection of paints and brushes that had seen better days, a few loose leaf notebooks that appeared to be empty, and an old drop cloth that was stained with a variety of spilled paints over the years.

“Now, take a photo of everything and send it to me,” he instructed, “and then find another box and bring it all back with you.  You two did good calling me, Victoria.  Thank you.”

“It’s Moose you should be thanking,” I said.  “He’s the one who thought to do it.”

“Well then, tell him that I appreciate it.  I expect you both to come straight back to Jasper Fork right now so I can examine the contents myself.”

“We’re on our way,” I assured the sheriff as Moose put the last of it in another box he’d scrounged up in one corner.  It was clear from the presence of so many cartons that Duke was prepared for folks to move in and out on him, if the abundance of empty boxes was any indication. 

“What did he have to say before you hung up?” Moose asked.

“He wants it all in his office as quickly as we can get it to him,” I said. 

“I don’t blame him a bit.  I doubt any of it will do him any good, though.  Grab the box with the books, will you?  I’ll get the rest.”

“Okay,” I said.  “Why do you think it’s useless?” I asked as we left the building.

“It’s nice to confirm that Howard took the books, but we already knew that he was scamming all of us.  As for the rest of it, I doubt any of it was anything but camouflage.”

“I hate not making more progress,” I said as we stowed the boxes in the bed of his truck and headed back home.

“How were we supposed to know that we’d just hit another dead end before we came here looking for clues?” Moose asked.

“I’m just getting a little frustrated by our lack of progress,” I admitted.

“I know exactly how you feel, but we’ll just have to take it in stride and keep digging,” my grandfather answered.

“Any idea where we should look next?” I asked.

“No, but we’ve got a long ride home to think about it.”

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to come with anything new along the way.  We’d get back to the diner in time to close up for the night, and I had no idea what the next day would bring, but I hoped that it was one step closer to finding the killer.

Greg and I had finished closing the diner, and we were back home not ten minutes when there was a knock at the front door. 

“Are you expecting anybody?” Greg asked me as he went to answer it.

“No, how about you?”

“Not so much, and unless it’s someone with a great big check with our names on it, I’m sending them away.  After what’s been happening lately, I just want to hang around here and relax.”

Greg came back thirty seconds later with a puzzled expression on his face.  “Victoria, it’s for you.”

“You didn’t invite them in?” I asked my husband, normally a very polite man.

“I tried, but she wouldn’t leave the porch.”

“So you left someone standing out there alone in the dark?  At least turn the porch light on.”

“Just go talk to her, okay?”

I looked at my husband and frowned.  “At least tell me who it is so I’m not going out there blind.”