Darlene Franklin - Dressed for Death 03 - Paint Me a Murder (10 page)

15

Wallace Wilde was the youngest claimant to reach Grace Gulch. His twin sister dared him to celebrate his twenty-first birthday by riding in the land run. When friends heard about it, they agreed he was “always wild, that one.” To Wally’s surprise, he arrived minutes behind the leaders, Grace and Gaynor, and claimed the plot to the south of Bob Grace.

Wallace took his success as a sign from God that he should settle down to a rancher’s life. He christened his land the “Crazy W Ranch” and built a profitable enterprise. His first wife, Dick Gaynor’s second daughter Isabel, died childless. When America entered World War I, Wallace made a name for himself on the battlefields of Europe. He brought home a war bride from England and they had one son, Woodrow.

From
A History of Grace Gulch

Monday, September 18

Noah Brodie might be using drugs? Someone should have said something.
I felt like the sheltered small town girl I was. “What are you talking about?”

“The police have it at least partly right.” Jenna managed a lopsided grin. “I don’t do drugs myself, and I don’t deal with artists who do, but I’ve worked with enough of them. . . Let’s just say, I recognize the signs.”

“Those stupid sunglasses.” I blurted out.

“Even on overcast days. That’s pretty common, to hide the pupils of his eyes.” Audie spoke as if we were discussing a neutral topic, not my sister’s boyfriend. “I had noticed that, but I don’t think it means anything.”

I chewed on that for a minute. “If Noah does drugs, Dina doesn’t know about it. Except for her crazy hair colors, she’s as straight-laced as they come. And she chooses friends who feel the same way.” But ordinary behavior can fly out the window where the heart is involved.

“I used to say the same thing about Finella. She was Miss Goody Two Shoes, never willing to take a risk.” A grin lit Jenna’s face. “Noah and I used to laugh at her. We depended on her to drive us home and help us with schoolwork. Later, I wondered why she hung out with the two of us.”

“Because you accepted her?” I ventured an opinion.

“More like we used her, but maybe she felt accepted.” Jenna looked at a blank spot on the wall. “If anyone had asked me back then who might end up a murder victim, I would have put Finella at the bottom of the list. At least until she married Ham Gaynor. The jerk.”

“Too bad he has an alibi.” Audie reminded us.

“Oh, I know.”

Audie stood to his feet. “Our lunch hour ended about five minutes ago.”

“Oops.” I struggled to my feet, not the easiest thing with a baby sitting on top of your legs. “If Noah is into drugs—is he the one the police are looking for?”

“But from what I understand, he’s been back for years, ever since he finished graduate school,” Jenna said. “Before the problems started.”

I scratched my head. He hadn’t taught at Grace Gulch Community College when I attended—probably still in graduate school. “I think he started a year or so before Dina finished high school. We could find out.”

“I’ll do that.” Jenna dashed out the door before I had a chance to encourage her about Dina.

Audie placed his arm around my shoulder, an intimate gesture that encircled me and Junior and Audie in a single entity. Then his cell phone rang and he answered.

“Hello, Mother.” He winked at me, those blue eyes that made my days sparkle. “Hotdogs for supper? Of course Cici will like it. Great!” He folded the cell closed and hugged me. “Now you get to taste a
real
Chicago hotdogs. There’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world.”

About a year ago, Gilda had a carton of Pontino’s hotdogs, her favorite brand, shipped to us. I grilled them, added a dollop of catsup and even chopped onions for Audie, but he shook his head. “They’re just not the same.” Maybe tonight I would learn what made a Chicago hotdog so different.

After school, the two girls who had first shopped for a prom dress returned with friends. Was I ever that giddy, even in high school? I doubted it. During those years, I ran the household even before Mom died of cancer. I made up for it through my store. Where else could I play dress up every day? I smiled and greeted my customers.

The girls were giggling over a silver lame minidress with a matching jacket.

I approached “How can I help you today?”

“We told our friends about the awesome clothes you have here. Everybody wants one of your dresses.” Megan, the girl who bought a traditional formal during her previous visit, answered.

“I like this one.” A short, rather stout girl pointed to the mini—not at all what she should wear.

“So do I.” The outfit would suit her dark and willowy companion nicely.

“Why don’t we pick out several, and you can try them on.” I led the short girl to a stylish mod gown that had a Victorian flare as well, with ruffles that added a feminine touch suitable to her pale beauty.

Everyone joined in the shopping fun except a dispirited brunette named Danielle. She wore thick-lensed glasses which most teens traded for contacts these days, and looked as though she hadn’t slept well the night before. Maybe she was fighting a cold. She couldn’t stop yawning and her nose kept running.

I wanted to tell her to go home to bed and come back when she felt better. Instead, I offered her a cup of coffee or tea.

“Sure.” She followed me to the coffee pot.

“Coffee okay?”

“Sounds good.” She picked up a Styrofoam cup and dropped it.

“Let me take care of that.” Someone needed to take Danielle home. “What do you want in it?”

“Black. With two sugars.” She poked among the sugar packets and saw the jar of honey Dustin had left. “You do business with the Murks?” She sounded surprised.

“Mrs. Murk has talked with me about the hayride.” I went into saleswoman mode and pointed to the racks of retro casuals from the ’60s. “If you’re interested, I’ve got some nice things for sale.”

“Oh, yeah, the hayride. Everybody’s talking about it.” She tugged off her glasses and dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. Without the distortion of the lenses, they looked weird. My earlier discussion with Jenna and Audie clicked into place. Drugs?

I wanted to take the poor girl to Dr. Johnson and get her some help. I should take her to Frances to learn who was dealing drugs. I could at least question her myself. I didn’t know enough about drugs to ask the first question, so I did nothing.

Danielle drank the coffee and took an extra cookie with her when she wandered off. She headed in the direction of the outfits for the hayride.

By the time the girls left, my stock of ’60s outfits had shrunk by half. I hung velvet pants from special hangers to avoid crushing the fabric. Junior rippled across my abdomen, and I paused, placing my fist at the small of my back as if to prop it up. These last few weeks of pregnancy were a bear. I envied pregnant women who had a desk job. Having Gilda around to cook supper did have its advantages, even if it did mean Chicago cooking every night.

I couldn’t get Danielle out of my mind. Before I could close up shop for the night, I had to do something about her. Who did I know who might be able to help? A school teacher seemed like the best bet. Many of the teachers I had in school had left or retired by now, and I didn’t know the new faculty well. Surely I could think of someone. I searched my memory for a contact. I lit on the doctor’s wife, Jean Johnson. We had connected on a social level during my investigation into the murder at my store before my wedding two years ago, and we had stayed in touch. Although she taught eighth grade English, she might know someone in the high school English department who could check into it for me. I dialed the number.

“This is the Johnson residence.” Her always-friendly voice took me back to her class when I fell in love with Tolkein and first encountered Oscar Wilde.

“Jean, this is Cici Howe. And I’ve encountered a situation that I wondered if you could help me with.” I explained my suspicions about Danielle.

“That poor, sad girl.” Jean’s regret came through the wire. “I had her in my class. She never quite fit in. And she’s not the only one of my former students doing drugs, from what I’ve heard. Of course I will talk with her teachers. Thanks for your concern.”

“What do you know about drugs at the high school? It’s not happening at the middle school, is it?” Of course I had heard about elementary kids using drugs, but please God, not in Grace Gulch.

“Not yet. Thank the Lord. But we’ve had meetings with the high school faculty, educating us about warning signs. If the dealers aren’t caught, it will filter down to us eventually.”

“Do you have any idea who—” I let the question dangle.

“I know some of the students. But I have no idea who’s selling.”

We said goodbye and I reminded myself that the drugs weren’t my problem, but now the issue had a face—two faces, actually. Noah Brodie and a teenage girl named Danielle. If my investigation into Finella’s murder and Brad’s disappearance shed any light on the problem, I would gladly tell Chief Reiner every detail.

16

Wallace Wilde was one of a handful of ranchers to ride out the Dust Bowl with his land intact. By the end of the ’30s, the Crazy W sat beside the expanded Circle G.

Wallace’s son Woodrow, or “Woody,” followed in his father’s footsteps. He stayed at the Crazy W and fell in love with Sandra Ruske, Ned Waller’s granddaughter. Pearl Harbor interrupted their wedding plans. Woody Wilde excelled as a bomber ace in the Pacific Theater. Sandy served as a cadet nurse with the Public Health Service, providing health services to several bases across Oklahoma.

After Woody was demobbed in 1946, he married Sandy and added to the baby boom era with the arrival of their son Leonard in 1948.

From
A History of Grace Gulch

Monday, September 18

My mind settled about Danielle and her suspected drug problem, I locked the store and headed home. Gilda had made it clear she expected us home at 6:30 on the dot.

Heavenly smells greeted me at the door. It reminded me of the one time I had gone to an Oklahoma City Redhawks baseball game, the Triple-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. Hotdogs, yes, but with a feeling of fresh air and excitement and spice in the mix.

Of course I didn’t have a rotary cooker in my kitchen, but Gilda had announced she would “make do” with my microwave.

Microwaved
hotdogs? The very thought made me want to gag, but Audie promised they could win a contest for best-of-show. If the smell indicated taste, he was right.

My husband dashed into the living room and welcomed me home with a kiss. “How was your afternoon?”

An image of Danielle jumped into my mind. “I’ll tell you later. Let’s not keep your mother waiting.”

Audie practically danced into the kitchen. I had never seen him so eager for one of my meals. Will you feel the same way about my cooking some day?
I asked Junior the silent question.

The assembled ingredients looked ordinary enough. Gilda had chased around town for “just the right” brand of hotdog buns. Our usual grocery store didn’t have what she wanted. She needed buns with either sesame seeds or poppy seeds, she didn’t care which, and she didn’t warm them. Plump all-beef Pontino hotdogs sat inside each bun. Small dishes of relish a shade of bright green I had never seen before, mustard, chopped onion, thin slices of tomato, sweet peppers, even a shaker of celery salt. The only thing missing was catsup.

“I thought you would like to choose your toppings.” Gilda handed me a bun with a hotdog fresh from the microwave.

Audie had already taken three dogs and was adding a spoonful from every dish.

“Really, all I usually have on my hotdogs is catsup.” I reached for the refrigerator.

Shock akin to announcing I had gone into labor registered on both faces, and Audie raced to block the refrigerator door. “
No
catsup on a Chicago dog. Ever.” He informed me solemnly.

Weird.
I might as well try a little bit of everything.

Audie chomped down on half his first bun. Mouth still full of food, he managed to gasp, “Now, this is what a
real
hotdog should taste like.”

Grabbing a glass of iced tea—somehow I was afraid the spicy flavor would curdle milk—I sat down at the table and took my first bite. The skin of the hotdog popped in my mouth, and heavenly flavor flooded my senses.

“You like?”

If only Gilda didn’t sound so smug. She must not think much of a daughter-in-law who didn’t even know how to fix a simple hotdog.

By the time we pushed away from the table more than an hour later—full of hotdogs and tea and ice cream—my bed was calling me. I told Audie about Danielle while he massaged my feet, then we both made it an early night. Gilda banged around in the kitchen for awhile, but I pushed away the nagging guilt over leaving her to clean up.

I woke up a bit earlier than usual and made it to the kitchen before Gilda. After last night’s feast, a bowl of cereal or a slice of toast would suffice for breakfast. But if my mother-in-law arrived first, she would insist on a full meal of bacon and eggs and maybe even pancakes. “You’re eating for two, you know,” she’d tell me. I knew my weight gain was expected, but I didn’t want to overdo.

I had a more important reason to hurry. Jenna had called last night to say Brad’s journal had dried. I wanted to look at it while I was at home, away from prying eyes. Maybe I could take it to work and leave it in the office for a sneak peek every now and then.

I stopped by Gaynor Goodies for the usual treats for my store. Jessie had recovered her style. Today she wore an apron covered with autumn leaves and a uniform in an impossible shade of orange. I would never put that outfit together, but it worked on her. “I’ve made some pumpkin muffins,” she told me. “Getting in the mood for fall.”

I bought a dozen. “I hear Suzanne Jay figured out the second clue.”

“That’s what they say. With that Noah Brodie and Enid right on her heels.”

Since she mentioned Noah, I might as well walk through the door. “Wasn’t Noah friends with Finella when they were in high school? You know, one of the Three Musketeers? Do you know if they stayed in touch?”

Jessie packaged the muffins in a bakery box. “Not while she was married to Ham. They kind of stayed to themselves.”

Meaning he was too jealous to let any other man within ten miles of his wife. “But after the divorce?”

“I really don’t know. As far as I know, Finella worked at the Shop ’n’ Save and went to church and didn’t do much else. What does Jenna say?” Jessie printed out a receipt and slapped it on the box.

“She didn’t stay in touch either.”

I decided to stop asking questions before Jessie started wondering why I was poking into Finella’s past. No need to provide fodder for the town’s rumor mill.

The morning passed quietly at the store. A young mother wandered in, hoping to get a bead necklace at a bargain. We haggled a little over the price, but she left satisfied with her finds. I studied the ads in the Sunday papers, not only the
Herald
, but others around Lincoln County. I wanted to replenish my stock before I left on maternity leave. One classified caught my eye. The Murks were holding a yard sale, probably to clear out items accumulated by old Kirkendall over the years. Maybe they wanted to clear out before the hayride, scheduled for the same night. I circled it with a note to call.

I ignored the siren song of Brad’s journal long enough to restock my ’60s clothing and place an order online for a few things to round out my selection. By mid-morning I had finished, and I put a placard by the register that read
Ring Bell for Service.

Even though I didn’t have the actual journal, Brad had allowed me to photocopy a few pages. I had read them before, but never with treasure in mind. For a reputed bank robber and scoundrel, Larry Grace wrote with surprising eloquence. In a way, they reminded me of the letters his brother Bob had written to his fiancé Mary. I had read them when we were chasing down Penn Hardy’s killer. Larry described the flora and fauna of the Gulch in exquisite detail, including small sketches of things that caught his eye. Brad must have inherited his artistic talent from old Larry. I especially liked his rendering of a scissor-tailed flycatcher soaring in the sky. The flashing black and white patterns of its wings must have looked like flying scissors to those early settlers; no wonder they gave it its name.

I reminded myself that I was searching for clues to Brad’s hiding place, if he had one. Nothing in the pages I had read impressed me as clue-worthy, however. I doubted he would give me copies of pages that held secrets.

Other pages hinted at Larry’s mercenary side. He detailed the extent of Bob’s holdings, down to the number of new calves and the manufacturer of Mary’s china. On one visit, the couple celebrated their 25
th
wedding anniversary. Bob gave Mary the Grace garland to honor the special event. In spite of Larry’s snide remarks about the cost of the “trinket,” I sensed he envied his brother’s happy home life. He sketched the garland in such detail that a goldsmith could reproduce the item. Something about the sketch struck a wrong note, but I couldn’t place it.

The bell rang and startled me out of my reverie. The hour was approaching noon. I locked up the pages and went out to the front. Gilda was waiting for me. Oh, boy.

She held up a bag. “I thought we could visit while we eat lunch. Audie’s busy getting ready for that next play.”

“How lovely.” Why did “visit” have an ominous sound? I chided myself. She sounded lonely. I put the
closed for lunch
sign in the window and joined Gilda in eating a fairly ordinary bologna sandwich.

“I found some lovely, all-beef meet in the deli department.”

Of course. Nothing else would do for someone from Chicago. It was extra tasty.

“That’s a lovely dress.” Gilda gestured at my outfit, a tent style no maternity clothes could avoid, whatever the era, with a scoop neckline and sleeves with an elasticized cuff. “It reminds me of my mother, when she was expecting my sister.”

Ah-hah! Gilda’s family.
Audie’s
family. “You just have the one sister, right?”

“Yes. And after she went to college, she never lived at home again. I wasn’t fortunate like you are, with all your family so close.”

Gilda thought me lucky? I didn’t expect that. “It can be stifling at times.”

She managed a sympathetic expression. “Your sisters certainly manage to be, uh,
dramatic.
But you’ve made a lovely place for yourself here.” Did she understand my desire to do something apart from being one of the Wilde girls from the Crazy W? To establish an identity apart from the “quiet” sister compared to my flamboyant siblings?

Gilda finished her sandwich and disposed of the wrappings. She looked into my display windows. “I never realized Maria Tallchief was from Oklahoma. I had heard about her connection with ballet, of course.”

Of course. Gilda probably had season tickets to the ballet and symphony.

“Your equestrian is more what I would expect from Oklahoma.”

Did I detect a hint of self-mockery?

Gilda walked over to the display case showing the Grace Garland. “I saw this when I was in here the other day. It says that the man who founded Grace Gulch gave it to his wife?”

“For their twenty-fifth anniversary.”

Gilda looked at me, a half-smile on her lips. “Absolutely
lovely.”

A couple of minutes before one, Dina knocked at the door, and I let her in. “I stopped by on my lunch hour.” She quirked an eyebrow at me. “I have it! Do you have time. . .?”

Not now.
I mouthed the words. I didn’t want to discuss Brad’s journal in front of Gilda. “Oh, look, it’s time for me to open up again.” I pushed myself out of my chair and turned the sign around on the door. A rosy face pressed against the glass, and I jumped back.

The doorbell jingled, and Enid came in.

“Goodness, you startled me!” Junior jumped around as if he agreed.

“Why, hello, Dina. Mrs. Howe.” Enid marched over to the glass case. “I thought so.” She looked at me and recited “‘She will set a garland of grace on your head and present you with a crown of splendor.’ May I see the Grace Garland, please?”