Plan Bee (25 page)

“Stanley Peck can’t find his grandson,” I called Hunter back and said. “We’re going to look for him. I hope he’s okay.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me and Holly and Mom.”

“You’re with your mother?” Did I hear incredulity in his voice? And why did my protective reflexes kick in?

“She’s a changed person,” I said, a bit defensively. “Nothing like the old Mom. You should re-meet her.”

“I have to see this. How about now? Ben and I will help search, if that’s okay.”

“Great. Meet us at Tom Stocke’s apartment.”

“Why there? What’s going—”

I interrupted. “I’ll explain later,” I said.

By the time we left the store, dusk had settled over Moraine. Dark clouds were swirling above and the air smelled thick and musky. Without a full moon to guide the way and with all the lights out on Main Street, we wouldn’t have been able to see a thing if I hadn’t brought two flashlights from the store to shine the way. We stepped carefully around tree branches that the wind had blown to the sidewalk.

Holly, Mom, and I walked around to the back of Tom Stocke’s antique store. Mom let us inside his apartment with a key she plucked out of a flowerpot. I wondered how long she’d known where to find the key, and if her relationship with Tom was moving a bit fast for my comfort level. Then I shook it off. My comfort level shouldn’t matter.

Tom looked like he was living a simple life for a man who’d won the lottery. Just the basics, no frills. He’d even incorporated antiques from his store into his small living quarters. I noticed a few white sales stickers dangling from furniture.

“I’ll put a bag together for him,” Mom said, flashlighting her way into his bedroom. “You girls wait right there in the kitchen.”

“She seems to know where everything is,” I said to Holly, a bit accusingly.

Holly sat down at Tom’s table. A tin antique-looking box filled with fresh-cut daisies was in the center. It had Mom written all over it. In fact, were the flowers from Grams’s garden?

“I think I’ll look around a little,” I said.

“Mom said to wait.”

“I can’t sit still.”

With the light from the flashlight to guide me, it took only a few minutes to cover his kitchen and living area. Saying the place was small was a huge understatement.

“Where does this door go?” I said coming back into the kitchen and muttering to myself as I opened it.

The basement.

I flicked my light on the steps ahead of me and tiptoed down so Mom wouldn’t hear. The stair’s wooden floorboards didn’t cooperate. They creaked under me. I heard a
psssttt
sound coming from my sister, her response to me for not listening to our mother. I chose to ignore it.

How could I resist an opportunity like this? When else would I have a legit reason to be inside a murder suspect’s digs? If I was going to help Tom with his self-defense plea, I needed all the information I could get.

“What are you doing?” my sister hissed after following me down. “You left me all alone in the dark.”

“Shush!” I whispered back.

I swung the flashlight beam up and down and across, my eyes sweeping over the unfinished basement; concrete floor, cement-block walls, everything neatly stored on shelves, labeled boxes, a workstation, nails and screws in mason jars, a washer and dryer, all the standard stuff homeowners keep in their basements.

Walking toward the opposite wall, I spotted another entrance to the basement from the outside. The slanted outer door, steep crumbling steps, and wooden shelves and cupboards along the wall told me that area had been used as a root cellar. Fruits and vegetables had been stored there at one time.

Based on Grams’s cellar design, which was much like this one, I knew the outer door could be padlocked from the outside and probably was.

To my right, a door led to a utility room and I assumed that was where the furnace and water heater were. The door was closed and padlocked.

Mom’s voice came from the top of the stairs, sounding thunderous. “Are you two girls down there?”

Holly and I stared at each other. The basement stair squeaked and before we could answer, Mom joined us. “What are you doing down here?” she demanded as soon as she reached the bottom step.

“Snooping,” Holly said, which I couldn’t believe she’d just admitted. What was my sister thinking?

“We were not,” I lied. Mom frowned, so I did a quick reversal. “Okay, maybe a little.”

Holly, who could read Mom better than I could and knew what to say at times like these, said, “We’re curious about Tom. After all, he seems to be very important to you.”

“And we want to get to know him better,” I said, scoring my point, too.

“Isn’t that sweet of you,” Mom said, her tone softening, again sounding just like Grams, only a little more delusional.

Right then, we heard Hunter’s voice above us. “Story, where are you?”

“Down in the basement,” I called, seeing a flashlight beam appear at the top of the stairs.

Hunter came down. “Do you have permission to be here?” the cop in him couldn’t help asking.

Mom told him why we were inside, finishing with a slam dunk. “I even cleared it with the police chief.” She beamed. “And how are you, Hunter?”

Mom has never, ever approved of Hunter Wallace. Not when we were hot and heavy in high school. Not even after Hunter stopped drinking and became a good cop. Not even now, when she knew we were seeing each other again. She always had a cold, disapproving way of looking at him that perfectly matched her icy tone of voice.

Except now.

“How’s your family?” she asked. “I hope everyone is well.”

Hunter didn’t miss a beat, although he had to be as stunned as I was. “Everybody’s doing great. Thanks for asking.”

“Our family likes to get together on Sundays at my mother’s house,” she went on. “You know where that is. Would you like to join us for dinner sometime?”

Hunter’s eyes met mine. He grinned. Probably because my mouth was hanging wide open in utter astonishment. I didn’t have much of a poker face, which is why I stay out of the store’s sheepshead card games. But really. My mother had just invited my boyfriend to dinner. I had to be dreaming. Any minute I’d wake up.

“Sure,” Hunter answered her, still smooth. “Thanks for the offer.”

I found my voice. “Holly and I thought we’d look around,” I said to him, partly for Mom’s benefit. “We wanted to make sure everything was locked up tight. The last thing Tom needs while he’s away is a break-in, somebody stealing his antiques.” I tested the root cellar door. It was locked.

“He’ll be back tomorrow,” Mom said with total confidence. “Nothing to worry about.”

In case Hunter was about to burst her imaginary bubble with the plain truth, I jumped in with a fast subject change. “What’s behind this locked door, Mom?”

“A furnace,” she said vaguely.

“Why does it need a padlock?”

“Tom’s safe is also inside. He told me all about it. He said he cemented it to the concrete floor inside the utility room and locked it up tight.”

“That’s a lot of effort on Tom’s part,” Holly said, taking the words right out of my mouth. “What’s in the safe? Gold bullion?”

“That’s Tom’s business,” Mom said. “Not ours.”

I stared at the locked door. Who goes to those lengths unless they are guarding something valuable? Like gold. Or the
Mona Lisa
. Or a queen’s jewels. Or stacks of cold cash.

“Mom,” I ventured. “Tom must have a banker, somebody who looks after his money. Where does he bank?”

Hunter glanced sharply at me, following my thought pattern.

Mom started bristling at the banker question. “What’s with you? For cripes’ sake, he isn’t after my money, if that’s what you think. Not that I have much to go after, but Tom doesn’t need financial help. He still has all of his lottery money stashed away. His antique business is healthy, and he has no debt. There, are you happy?”

“We’re just looking out for you,” Holly said.

“I don’t need any looking out for. I’m perfectly fine.” Mom glanced down at the bag dangling from her hand. “I have to get these things to Tom.”

With that, we climbed the steps, relocked the outer door, and put the key back in the pot.

Out on Main Street, Hunter and I watched Mom and Holly walk down the street toward the store, the night darkness swallowing them up.

“I see what you mean about your mother,” Hunter said in awe. “Talk about a complete personality change.”

“Isn’t it incredible?” I agreed. “Holly says it’s because of Mom’s feelings for Tom Stocke, that all she needed was some romance in her life.”

I really wished she’d found true love with somebody
other than a murder suspect, though. For example, Stanley Peck would be a perfect choice. He’s an available widower and doesn’t have a murdered brother. And he isn’t in jail. But I could wish on every star in the sky, if they were visible, and it wouldn’t change a thing.

Then Hunter said, “Story, you aren’t going to stick your nose even further into the Ford Stocke murder, are you?”

I gave him an eye-roll, hoping he could see it in the dark. “Of course not. I’m just helping my mother with a few things.” I didn’t mention that those “things” involved hoping to prove Tom had acted in self-defense. Instead, I brought up Bob Petrie. Not that I could tell Hunter the whole story. Dating a cop has its own set of problems. Hanging around Patti has even more. I couldn’t tell Hunter that Patti kicked Bob in the crotch, kidnapped him, threatened him, then kicked him again. I had to keep quiet because, like it or not, I had become her accomplice. I sort of circumvented that part.

“Bob Petrie was driving the truck that delivered Patti’s telescope,” I said. “He’s been acting suspicious. He might have been involved in the attack on Patti.”

“Patti’s a piece of work. Stay away from her.”

“But it happened on my block. Bob’s been in trouble in the past and some of the things he told us made me very suspicious. Check Bob out for me?” I asked. Patti had worked the CCAP site, but Hunter had better resources. “Run a background check.”

Hunter shook his head. “I’m not touching this one.”

“Johnny Jay isn’t bothering to investigate at all. Unless Patti’s attacker trots into the station and admits it, we aren’t ever going to be safe again on Willow Street.”

Now Hunter rolled his eyeballs. I caught it clear as day, even though it was pitch-dark. “Fine. I’ll see what comes up on him,” he agreed. Then he did some kind of strangled thing with his throat, then said, “You know I never tell you what to do, right?”

“That’s what I love best about you.”

“We respect each other just as we are, right?”

Now, we were beside Hunter’s SUV with Ben eyeing us from inside. “Right,” I agreed, sensing a
but
coming.

“But…” he said, “this time, just once, I’d like to…”

I silenced him the only way I knew—moving in close so our bodies touched, lifting my face to his, my eyes sending a promise he couldn’t mistake. When our lips came together, I felt an electric connection, one I experienced every time we kissed.

As Grams would say, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Men are so easy.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go over to Stanley’s and see if he found Noel.”

When we got inside the SUV, Ben licked my face in warm welcome. I put my arms around the big guy and hugged him tight. We took off through the night with only our headlights to guide us. The town seemed a scarier place without streetlights.

Apparently only our local area had lost electricity, because as we approached Stanley Peck’s place we saw lights in the houses we passed. I wanted more than anything to find Noel sitting at the kitchen table, writing in his notebook.

Johnny Jay’s police car was in Stanley’s driveway. I remained hopeful. “Maybe he found Noel and brought him home,” I said, jumping out.

My promising good mood was short-lived. Because, inside the house, Stanley was filing a missing person’s report.

“He hasn’t been gone that long, Stanley.” Johnny Jay wore the same old attitude he’d had last time we met up. “If it wasn’t for the storm and all, I’d tell you to wait a little longer.”

“You sure do like to wait, don’t you?” Stanley said with a matching attitude, risking ticking off Johnny Jay, but I
had to silently applaud his boldness. Anyone who carries a concealed weapon and doesn’t like the chief is a friend of mine for life. “But this is a kid we’re talking about here. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to report it. You’re useless.”

“A little respect for the law, Stanley,” Johnny warned.

“Respect goes both ways.”

Johnny noticed us at the door. “Fischer. Wallace. We’re busy here. Take a hike.”

“No. Don’t. Come in,” Stanley said, visibly relieved to have friendly support. “Noel’s still missing. I looked everywhere.”

“We’re here to help search,” I said. Hunter opened the screen door, which creaked loudly, and we went in.

“You can’t predict what a kid that age will do,” Johnny said to Stanley. “He’s probably mad at you over something and making you pay for it. Did you have a fight?”

“No.” Stanley shook his head adamantly. “We never have a harsh word between us. Ever.”