Hope Callaghan - Garden Girls 06 - Magnolia Mansion Mysteries (14 page)

But Gloria was firm.  This was her investigation.  Her reputation was at stake!  She turned to Margaret.  “Drop me off at the end of the street and pick me up at the other end.”

Margaret gave her the thumbs up. “Gotcha.”

The two climbed in the SUV. Lucy and Andrea watched them go.  “I wish I had some popcorn. Or better yet, a Snickers,” Lucy decided.

Margaret rolled to a stop. Gloria slid out of the passenger seat and crouched low as she slunk down the dark road toward her destination.  Thankfully, there weren’t many street lights in the area.

When she got to the trash bin, she glanced up.  A lone light shone brightly through the upstairs window. 

She carefully lifted the lid and reached inside, praying that her hand touched the suitcase and not some slimy, rotting food.  Her hand made contact with a hard surface.  She ran her hand along the top until she could feel a handle. She gave the suitcase a quick yank as she pulled it out.  With suitcase in hand, she quietly eased the lid shut.

Gloria glanced around furtively and then darted down the road. She could barely make out Margaret’s SUV parked at the end of the street.  She picked up the pace when she thought she heard footsteps coming up behind her.  Thankfully, she made it to the SUV without incident.  She jerked the door open and slid inside. 

Margaret stepped on the gas and peeled out as they made the short drive back to the post office parking lot.  Lucy and Andrea were inside the jeep. Lucy rolled down the window. She popped a banana chip in her mouth. “Didja’ get it?”

Gloria rolled down her window. She wrinkled her nose at Lucy “
What on earth?
Are you
eating
?”

“Banana chip.” Lucy glanced down at the bag of trail mix in her lap.  “The chocolate pieces are already gone,” she explained.

Gloria shook her head and lifted the case.  “Got it! Let’s head back to Lucy’s place.”

Margaret followed behind Lucy and Andrea as they drove out of town. Gloria rubbed the palm of her hand across the surface.  She could tell it was old – unlike the fancy new suitcases. The ones with spinning wheels and long handles. 

Lucy’s porch light was off. The girls crept up the steps and made their way inside. When they got inside the kitchen, Gloria set the old suitcase on the kitchen table.  In the bright light, they could see several badly worn spots, where the shiny brown coating had rubbed off.  The hinges on the back had rusted. The handle, although scuffed and pitted, was intact.

Gloria flipped open the latches on each side and took a quick breath. She looked around the table.  “Ready for this?”  She didn’t wait for an answer as she lifted the lid. 

The girls leaned forward and peered inside. 

Lying on top was a plaid, button-down shirt. Gloria plucked it from the case and carefully placed it inside the lid.  Beneath that was a pair of bib overalls.  She set those on top of the shirt. 

Inside the case were a few more items: a couple more shirts, similar to the button-down, along with a second pair of overalls.  At the very bottom was a shave kit, right next to a pair of dark, leather work boots.

“You think this stuff belongs to Hank Johnson?” Andrea wrinkled her nose.

Gloria shrugged her shoulders.  She couldn’t be a 100% certain.

She placed the overalls and shirts back inside the case and put her hand on top of the lid.  She started to pull the lid closed when she noticed a small, square tag in the center. She pulled her glasses from her purse and slipped them on. She leaned in for a closer inspection.  She sucked in a breath and read the name on the tag: “Hank Johnson.”

Gloria plucked her cell phone from her purse and dialed Paul’s number.  He was on duty but she knew he’d still answer if he could, which he did.

“Hello?” 

Gloria got right to the point. “I’m with Andrea, Lucy and Margaret.  We have Hank Johnson’s suitcase and we know who put the body in the dumpster,” she blurted out.

Paul leaned back in his chair and stared at the wall of his office.  “I wish I could say I’m surprised,” he replied. “How’d you figure it out?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer.  “No. Don’t answer that.  Where are you? I’ll be right over.”

Lucy fixed a pot of coffee while they waited for Paul to arrive. She put into words what each of them was thinking.  “I wonder if they’re going to make an arrest tonight.”

Twenty minutes later, Paul’s car pulled into the drive. Gloria opened the back door and he slipped inside. His eyes settled on the suitcase, still sitting on top of the kitchen table.  He made his way over to the table and flicked the clasps open, then lifted the lid. He inspected the contents before turning his gaze to his girlfriend. “I can’t wait to find out what happened.”

Gloria started the story with their plot to flush out the culprit. The others chimed in one-by-one with various details.

Gloria summed it up. “So when Doc Decker dropped the suitcase into the trash can in front of his house, I went back for it,” Gloria concluded.

“Did he see you?”

She shook her head.  “I don’t think so, but I can’t be certain.”

“That doesn’t make him the killer,” she argued.  “Maybe just an accessory to the crime.” She didn’t want to believe Doc Decker was a murderer. 

“I just talked to the lab.  The autopsy took longer than they thought but it’s finally complete.  When we know the cause of death, we’ll go from there.” He grabbed the suitcase and headed for the door.  Gloria walked him to his car. 

He opened the passenger side door and dropped the suitcase on top of the seat before he turned back around.  “What am I going to do with you?” He didn’t wait for an answer as he leaned over and kissed her lips.  “I don’t know how you do it.  Somehow you always manage to be right in the thick of things,” he told her.

After he left, the girls gathered around the kitchen table for a few minutes to discuss the evening’s adventure.  Now that things had settled down, Andrea decided to mention the secret room in the library that she and Gloria had discovered and what that might mean. “I need someone to come take a look at the paintings. I’m afraid to move them.”

Gloria looked over at Margaret.  “Do you think your art dealer friend would make a trip to Belhaven?” she asked.

Margaret promised to call her contact in the morning. Lucy walked the group out to their vehicles.  She was sad to see them go.  The adventure had been fun. She frowned at the thought that Doc Decker might be a killer. 

Margaret left first.

Lucy walked over to the passenger side of Gloria’s car and held it open for Andrea.  “Are you going home tonight?”

Andrea shook her head.  “If Gloria doesn’t mind, I’ll stay with her just in case Doc Decker decides to come back…”

Gloria nodded.  “We need to be careful, especially if he decides to check on the suitcase and finds it missing.”

Lucy watched as Andrea climbed into the passenger seat. “I heard you have a new roommate coming to live with you.”

Andrea nodded.  “Yep! Alice will be here tomorrow. I’m picking her up at the airport.”

Lucy grabbed the edge of the door to push it closed.  “I can’t wait to meet her.” She glanced back at mercury light on the side of her outbuilding.  The bright light illuminated the crates, still stacked against the wall. “Hey! I heard you have a handgun at home and you do some target practice.”

Andrea nodded.  “I’m getting to be a pretty fair shot,” she said.

Lucy grinned.  “What do you think about taking out a few small explosives? You know - blow up a potato or pumpkin for fun…”

“Lucy Carlson!” Gloria had settled into the driver’s seat. She slapped her hand on her forehead. 

Andrea grinned.

Lucy winked at Andrea. “We’ll talk later.”

Gloria shook her head as she started the car and backed out of the drive. 

Back at Gloria’s house, the girls chatted for a few minutes.  Both of them were too wound up to sleep right away.

Andrea pulled a glass from the cupboard and filled it with tap water.  She took a small sip. “You want to stop by tomorrow afternoon when I get back from the airport?”

Gloria nodded.  “Absolutely! I can’t wait to meet Alice!”

Gloria gave Andrea a quick hug before Mally and she wandered off to bed. Puddles, the turncoat, slunk into Andrea’s room to curl up on her bed.

Surprisingly enough, Gloria fell asleep within seconds: her dreams filled with monoculars and exploding pumpkins.

Andrea was already awake and had fixed a pot of coffee by the time Gloria rolled out of bed. She was nibbling on a piece of peanut butter toast and reading the morning paper when Gloria shuffled into the kitchen.

Andrea grinned when she caught a glimpse of Gloria’s hair standing up on end.  Gloria caught the look.  “What? What’s wrong?” She automatically put her hand to her head and tried to pat down the pointed tips. 

“You should spike your hair more often,” Andrea advised.  “It makes you look…”

“Trendy?” Gloria prompted.

Andrea nodded.  “Something like that.” She folded the paper and took her coffee cup to the sink to wash it.  “I should get going.  I need to make a pit stop at the house before I head to the airport.  Oh, and I have to stop by Margaret’s place to pick up Brutus.”

Gloria poured a cup of coffee and walked Andrea to the barn to retrieve her car.  She waved to her young friend as she pulled out of the barn and headed down the drive. 

She wandered back into the house and glanced at the phone as she headed to the shower.  She was anxious for Paul’s call and the autopsy results.

By the time she was showered and dressed, she was growing impatient. She glanced at the clock in the kitchen.  Surely he must have the results by now!  She reached for the wall phone when her cell phone rang. 

“I was getting ready to call you,” she told him.

“I have the results back on the burlap bag and nail the boys found in Andrea’s shed.”

“And?”

“The body belonged to Hank Johnson.  He died from some sort of blunt force trauma.  He had a skull fracture and a broken rib. And that nail that you found?”

“Yes?” Gloria sucked in a breath.

“It had pierced the back of his skull.”

Gloria walked over to the kitchen window and stared out. “That’s what killed him?”

“The medical examiner isn’t sure.  The skeleton is old and it’s not like we have state-of-the-art equipment over here,” he admitted.  “It’s possible that the nail didn’t kill him, although it certainly could have.  Or it could’ve been the skull fracture.  The guys down at the lab have different opinions. One thinks it was the nail and the other thinks it may have been a deadly fall.”

“What will happen to Doc Decker?” she asked.

“I’m running by his place here shortly,” Paul told her.

Gloria hung up the phone. She called Andrea first. 

Andrea juggled the cell phone against her head as she let Brutus in through the front door. She followed him inside. “Wow!  Can you believe that?”

Gloria hoped the death had been an accident.  She remembered the journal. “Remember what Barbara Johnson… I mean, Sofia Masson wrote in the journal? It’s possible that his brother killed him during the heat of an argument and not knowing what to do, he called Doc Decker.”

“But why would Doc Decker keep silent about it?”

That was a very good question.  A question that Gloria herself hoped to have answered soon.

Gloria spent the rest of the morning calling each of the girls and relaying the autopsy results.  All of them agreed that it was possible that Abe had killed his brother but somewhere along the way, Doc Decker became involved.

Gloria picked up the picture of the mill and the men out front.  She slipped on her glasses and studied the woman.  The more she looked at it, the more she was convinced that the woman in the picture was not her mother. 

She pulled the photo close and held it up to the light.  Her mother was tall.  Tall like Liz.  The woman in the photo was short.  Short, as in almost the same height at Martha Decker.  Doc Decker’s wife.

The kitchen chair scraped the worn linoleum floor as Gloria slid it from under the table. She sank into the seat and leaned forward, tapping a fingernail on the kitchen table. 

The nail in the skull.  A construction nail.  Gloria remembered hearing that when Doc Decker bought the drug store, he remodeled the back half so that he and Martha could live there. 

She picked up the phone and called Paul.  “I think Doc Decker was involved and here’s why.”

Paul hung up the phone. He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.  His first stop was Gloria’s farm to pick up the old picture.  His second stop: Doc Decker’s house.

Gloria was in the garden watering what was left of her plants when Paul pulled in the drive. She was so engrossed in making sure Mally wasn’t tromping over the top of the tomatoes she didn’t hear him sneak up behind her. She jumped when he reached around and hugged her tight.  “Oh! I didn’t hear you coming!”

She shut the hose off and hung it on the hook nearby.  “C’mon Mally.” Paul and Mally followed Gloria up the steps and into the house.  Gloria had left the photo sitting on the edge of the table.

Paul picked it up and studied the faces. He pointed to the woman on the end.  “You think this is Doc’s wife, Martha?”

Gloria nodded.  “Doc tried to tell me it was my own mother.” She wrinkled her brow.  “I think he was trying to throw me off.”

She followed Paul out onto the porch.  “You’re going there now to talk to him?”

Paul nodded. 

Gloria’s eyes fell on the photo.  “Are you going to arrest him?”

Paul shrugged.  The evidence was inconclusive.  In fact, the report came back stating it was inconclusive.  He would wait to see what Doc Decker had to say. 

Gloria said a small prayer for Doc as she climbed the porch steps and headed back inside.  The man had to be in his 80’s or 90’s by now.  He’d never survive prison.