Lemon Larceny (The Donut Mysteries) (6 page)

“Please, tell
me.
 
I’m dying to know,” Momma said.

“It’s so simple,
but almost no one does it these days.
 
When I ask someone a question, I actually listen to their answer.”

“That’s all there
is to it?” Momma asked, clearly incredulous.

“That’s it,” I
said.

“Remarkable,”
Momma said.
 
“Now that we’re safely
behind new locks and finally alone, shall we go do a bit of exploring?”

“I thought you’d
never ask,” I said as we both headed for the stairs to see exactly what clues
Aunt Jean had left us before she’d taken that most unfortunate fall.

Chapter 7

“I found a
locket,” Momma said excitedly as she pulled a chain from the doll’s neck.
 
Lil Sis was residing in a handmade bed
to match her size.
 
My grandfather
had clearly made the bed for his oldest daughter’s favorite doll, but Jean had
just as obviously been the one to paint it.
 
The bed frame featured a rainbow
headboard while a rural scene was painted on the bed itself, featuring trees,
grass, a barn, and even a bunny rabbit.

At least I
thought it must be a rabbit.
 

I wasn’t
completely sure, and I wondered how old Jean had been when she’d painted it.

“Does the locket
have any sentimental value?” I asked my mother as I studied it.

“Not to me,” she
said with a frown.
 
“I’ve never seen
it before in my life.”

“Open it and see
what’s inside,” I said.
 
“There
might be a photograph or a note that might give us a clue as to why Aunt Jean
directed you to it.”

“That’s an
excellent idea,” Momma said.
 
After
a bit of a struggle, she finally got the locket opened.
 
Instead of a photograph, though, there
was a small, folded piece of paper inside.

“What’s it say?”

“Give me a
moment,” Momma said as she opened it.
 
As she read the contents, she frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“It doesn’t make
any sense,” my mother said as she handed it to me.

As I read it, I
frowned as well.
 
Written in my
aunt’s handwriting was a note that said, J:P24, S5.
 

“What do you
suppose that means?” I asked her.

“I haven’t a clue.”

“Do you suppose
that it’s a lead meant for us?”

“What else could
it be?” Momma asked.

“I’m not sure,
but until we can figure it out, it’s not going to do us much good.
 
Let’s just hope that the other clues we
get are a little bit clearer than this one,” I said as I handed the paper and
locket back to her.

“I agree.”

There was just
one problem with that, though.
 

Evidently, the
hidden spot in the window seat hadn’t been all that well hidden after all.

Someone had
clearly gotten to it before we could.

“That’s too bad,”
Momma said when she realized that the space was empty.
 
“How did anyone know that something was
in here in the first place?
 
It certainly
wasn’t that good a clue.”

“I don’t know
about that.
 
Somebody surely must
have thought so to take whatever was in there.
 
All is not lost yet, though.”

My mother looked
at me oddly.
 
“What are you talking
about, Suzanne?
 
The space is
clearly empty.”

I studied the
bottom of the compartment carefully before I spoke again.
 
“Momma, is there a flashlight nearby?”

She looked
puzzled as she said, “This is an old house.
 
It loses electricity every time the
storms are heavy enough, so there are flashlights everywhere.
 
Why do you need one?” she asked me as
she handed me a nearby light from Aunt Jean’s nightstand.

“I want to check
something first.”
 
I turned the
light on and directed it down into the cubby.
 
There was a bit of dust on the bottom of
the space, but some of it was clean.
 
As I changed the angle of the beam of light, I could finally make out
what I was looking at, not that it made any more sense than the locket we’d
found earlier had.
 

Outlined by the
fine layer of dust, I saw a shape that was clearly a square the size of a piece
of toast.

“What did you
find?” Momma asked as she tried to look over my shoulder.

“Something was definitely
there, and until very recently, if the absence of dust means anything.”

Momma
nodded.
 
“It has to.
 
Jean was always complaining about how
quickly dust accumulated in this old house.”

“How long would
it take for a fine layer to accumulate?”
 
I asked her.

“I don’t
know.
 
Is it important?” Momma
asked.

“It could be.”

“My sister
claimed that it happened overnight, but I’d guess it would take at least four
or five days for any to accumulate.”

“Look down here
and tell me what you see,” I told her as I handed her the flashlight.

Momma peered down
into the space, and then looked quizzically at me.
 
“Suzanne, what am I supposed to be
looking for?”

“Angle the light,
and then play it along the bottom of the cubby,” I said.

“Okay.
 
Now what?”

“Do you see
anything?”

“Just dust,” she
said.

“Is it
everywhere?”

After a few
moments, she said in amazement, “I see it now.
 
Some of the bottom is free of dust
entirely.”

“It’s about the
size of a piece of toast, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’d call it a
slice of bread if I were describing it,” Momma said.

“It’s the same
thing, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” she
said, “though if you’re expecting one and get the other, I doubt that you’d
feel that way.”

“Whichever way
you describe it, the thin layer of dust around it tells us that whatever was
placed there hadn’t been there long.
 
The absence of dust means that whatever was taken from it had to have
happened within the last few days.”

Momma turned off
the light and put it back on the nightstand.
 
As she returned, she had a look of
surprise on her face.

“What’s that expression
mean?” I asked her.

“That observation
was actually quite brilliant,” Momma said.

“Ordinarily I’d
bask in the warmth of your praise, but it doesn’t do much to help our cause,
does it?”

“I would have
never thought to check the level of dust in the bottom of the cabinet in a
thousand years,” Momma said.

“But what good
does it do us?
 
What else that we
know of is the size of a piece of bread, or even toast, for that matter?”

She frowned.
 
“I haven’t a clue.”

“Then we’re no
better off than we were before,” I said.
 
“Let’s hope the last hiding spot gives us more than the other two have.”

“We can always
hope,” Momma said as she followed me upstairs into the attic.

The clues, such
as they’d been so far, had been pretty obscure.
 
Why hadn’t Aunt Jean left us something
that said, “This is the person I suspect?”
 
I was afraid that it wasn’t going to be that easy.
 
Whatever we got in our investigation, it
appeared that we were going to have to work for it.

“There’s nothing worth
anything up here,” Momma said as we entered the dusty old attic.
 

“How can you
seriously call all of this nothing?” I asked as I looked around at the decades
of accumulated goodies from our cumulative pasts.
 
It wasn’t just my aunt’s things.
 
Some of it had been left for generations
from our ancestors, a history of our family’s life’s flotsam and jetsam from
over the years.
 
I’d played dress-up
with Aunt Jean during more than one sleepover, rummaging through the old trunks
and trying on outrageously outdated clothing and having mad tea parties with
her up there.
 
I picked up a sword
that one of my ancestors had carried in the Civil War and cut it through the
air.
 

Though the blade
showed some tarnish, it was still sharp.

“Be careful with
that,” Momma said.
 
“You might hurt
someone.”

I put it back on
the layer of clothing as I said, “This place is a storehouse of treasures.”

“Not as far as finding
another clue is concerned,” Momma said.

I wasn’t about to
be deterred, though.
 
“You’re
forgetting the secret.”

“What secret?”
she asked me.

“Didn’t Aunt Jean
ever tell you about this?” I asked.
 
I moved a few boxes around and exposed a section of the attic’s
floorboards.
 

“It looks just
like a plain old floor to me,” Momma said.

“The floor isn’t
the secret.
 
Well, I suppose that it
is, but not in the way that you’re thinking.”
 
I found the old butter-knife where Aunt
Jean had kept it and slid the blade between two boards.
 
With a slight wiggle, I popped one board
up, and an entire section came up with it.

“Suzanne, what
are you doing?
 
We’re not here to
vandalize Jean’s home.”

“We’re not.
 
She knew all about it.
 
This is a hidden space she found,” I
said.
 
“She always told me that it
was our little secret, but I can’t believe that you didn’t know yourself.”

“As I’ve said
before, you and Jean had a bond all your own.
 
The secrets that you two shared were not
necessarily secrets that I was privy to myself.”

Had I hurt
Momma’s feelings by the reference to her late sister?
 
Of course I had!
 
What an oaf I was.
 
Instead of looking inside the
compartment right away, I said, “Momma, Aunt Jean loved you so much.
 
You know that, don’t you?”

“I do,” Momma
said confidently.
 
“You don’t have
to tend to my bruised ego, Suzanne.
 
The important question is if there’s anything there, or if it’s another
dead end.”

“There’s
something, all right,” I said as I reached down into the space.
 
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but
it wasn’t fulfilled.
 
“It’s just her
journal,” I told my mother as I unwrapped the blanket around it.

“So then, we are
foiled yet again.”

I started to open
it as I said, “Let’s not be hasty.
 
We
can’t be so sure of that just yet.”

Momma pulled the
book from my hands.
 
“Suzanne, those
were your aunt’s private thoughts.
 
Do you honestly think that it’s appropriate for you to read them?”

I took the journal
back from her.
 
“If it helps us find
her killer, I’m certain that Aunt Jean would have approved.
 
She did more than that, actually; she
guided us here in the first place with her letter, remember?
 
Whatever happened to her, the seeds of
it all might be found in here.”
 
I
leafed through the pages and realized that the book was nearly full of my
aunt’s smallest writing.
 

“This isn’t going
to be quick,” I said as I studied the last page.
 
“Momma, the final entry was written just
two days ago!”
 

Without being
asked, I began to read the last entry aloud.
 

“
My suspicions have been confirmed at last!
 
It appears that someone has been trying
to kill me after all!
 
I don’t know
if I should be so happy about the discovery, but it proves that I haven’t been
losing my mind.
 
Someone really has
been out to get me.
 
I need to get
Suzanne up here.
 
She’ll know what
to do.
 
How proud I am of the woman
that quirky little girl has become.
 
Dot did a marvelous job with her, and I couldn’t be prouder of both of
them.
 

I’ve had reasons to suspect all five of my
prime candidates in the past, but I’m at a loss as to which one is doing this,
and why.
 
When is a motive strong
enough to make someone commit such a heinous act?
 
I don’t know, but I trust that Suzanne
will find out.
 
I’m sure that I’ve
collected all of the clues I need here in my journal.
 

Now I need my niece up here to use them to
catch whoever is trying to kill me before they finally succeed.

“This is going to
take some research,” I said as I hefted the journal.

“Well, there’s no
reason that you have to do it here in the attic,” Momma said.
 
“Why don’t we go back downstairs?
 
It’s beginning to get dark, and this area
has always made me uneasy.”

I looked around,
trying to see the attic as my mother did, and I could suddenly see why it made
her uncomfortable.
 
It could be
scary enough in the daylight, but at night, the place was beginning to have an
entirely different, and much more ominous, vibe.