Breezy Spoon Diner Box Set Collection Page 6

  Needless to say, Rafe cut Kitty and Timmy out of his life completely. Lloyd's mother Rose would have loved to see her grandson, but as long as Rafe was alive that wasn't going to happen. I hired Kitty to work as a waitress and cashier on the shifts when Charlene wasn't here, and since then Rafe has hated me, too. This was the reason for the sign, and the reason that the sheriff making Rafe go away before the crowd outside the diner took matters into their own hands.

  “Who do you think you are to harass me like this when criminals are going free in this town?!” Rafe sputtered.

  “I'm the one who's going to drag your sorry behind to jail if you don't get that sign out of here and get off Miss O'Shea's property! You got three seconds,” the sheriff growled.

  Rafe knew that the sheriff meant business, plus the deputy was having little success calming down the crowd, and their mood was growing uglier by the minute. Like most bullies, Rafe was no hero, so he reluctantly pulled up the sign, sending as much dirt flying onto my sidewalk as he could.

  “You ain't got the guts to run this town right, Wilkerson!” he shouted. “Wait till my Lloyd gets back and he'll shape up this place.” He shook his fist at the crowd as he was walking away, and shouted, “And as for you bunch of phonies, you better hope that I don't take me a notion to call the state police and let them know what I seen some of you doin'! Yeah, I seen plenty a' stuff that goes on around here! You better believe I have! You all won't be so high and mighty when your dirty secrets come out, will you?”

  Once he was out of shouting range, I opened the door and let the customers come in. Kitty had come in through the back door of the diner.

  “I'm sure sorry about Mr. Duval, Miss O'Shea,” she said. “I didn't mean to bring him down on you.”

  “You didn't, Kitty,” I replied. “Rafe has been a jerk forever, long before either of us was born. He did as little work in his life as he could get by with, he treats Rose like a dog, and he hates everybody and everything. All you can do with people like that is stay away from them.”

  “And that's what I do,” said Kitty. “I dread the day when Lloyd gets out of jail. I've thought about moving to a different part of the country, but Dad says that if Lloyd is dumb enough to try to come after me, it would be better if I'm here where people know me. I hope he's right.”

  The customers were filing in now and Jack Hartley, one of my regulars, had just come up to the counter. “Your Dad's right, Kitty,” he said. “If someone's determined to find you they can follow you anywhere. You're better off where the folks in town know you and will look out for you.”

  “Well, I don't plan to go anywhere, Mr. Hartley,” she said. “Besides, Miss O'Shea's brother Bob offered to take me to the shooting range. He thinks I won't be so concerned about Lloyd if I know how to protect myself. Bob's so nice. Well, I'd better start taking some breakfast orders; because of Mr. Duval, everybody's coming in at once.”

  Jack Hartley was tall, tanned and looked much younger than his 60 years. I think he liked to come for breakfast early to avoid being deluged with dinner invitations by half the older women in town. He had retired here about ten years ago and had a beautiful house built just outside of town. My favorite newspaper columnist, Millie Farnsworth, chased him unmercifully. She was looking for husband number four, and Jack met all her qualifications: He had money. Jack was not nearly as interested in Millie as she was in him, but she still managed to rope him into coming to various social events, like the prom.

  Jack sat on a stool at the counter. “What did you think of old Rafe's threats, Dani?” he asked. “Do you think he's got people worried that he'll really call the state police on some of them?”

  “Heavens, no,” I replied. “Rafe has been threatening stuff like that for as long as I've known him. He just wants to act like he's a big deal in front of everyone. People know him too well to be concerned about anything he says.”

  “Does he come around here a lot? I don't believe I've ever laid eyes on him before, and I can't say that I'm sorry for that.”

  “No, thank God. He lives out in the woods by the lake and doesn't come into town all that often, but when he does, it's to make trouble for someone. What can I get you for breakfast today?”

  “How about two eggs over easy, a slice of ham, fruit salad and a couple of those homemade English muffins,” he said. “And some of Tammy's blackberry preserves if you have any.”

  “Sure do,” I said. “I'd be in big trouble if we ran out. I hear you're going to be chaperoning at the prom with Millie. I'll see you there, I guess.”

  “Anything to help the kids,” Jack sighed, managing a weak smile.

  I took the order back to the kitchen and found two plates of sausage, scrambled eggs, hash browns and toast ready in the window. Kitty was still taking orders, so I put the plates on a tray and brought them to the table marked on the ticket.

  To my surprise, the table was occupied by Sammy Brown and Al Sholes. No, not the Sammy Brown and Al Sholes that had founded East Spoon Creek City (although that would have been surprising, too), but their descendants Sammy Brown the Fourth, owner of Sammy's Bar and Lounge, and Al Sholes III, proprietor of Sholes Famous Emporium.

  Sammy and Sholes had hated each for years because each of them claimed that it was their ancestor who founded East Spoon River City. Sammy argued that his great-great grandfather was there first, but Al said that it wasn't a town until his great-great grandfather arrived and they agreed to settle there together. The town council had put up statues to both of their ancestors in the town square in an effort to stop the feuding, but it didn't work. Now here they were sharing breakfast in my diner.

  As I approached the table Al saying, “But could he have seen anything? The old buzzard could have been snooping around when-”

  “Take it easy! The guy's just a loud-mouth,” Sammy hissed back.

  They both fell silent as I reached the table and placed their plates in front of them. I asked if they wanted anything else, but Sholes just shook his head and smiled in a strained sort of way.

  I was on my way back to the kitchen when I saw Cooter James standing by the end of the counter, rubbing his hands nervously on his shirtfront. He stepped up to me as I passed him and asked in a hushed voice, “Miss O'Shea, do you think that if a person stole a couple of beers from McGee's Grocery when he was under-aged, he could get sent to jail for it ten years later if someone saw it and told the state police about it? Not that I know anyone who done it but I was wondering if there was a statue of limitations on that kind of thing.”

  I almost laughed, but Cooter was serious. “That's statute of limitations, Cooter,” I said. “And no, it would be too late for that person to get in trouble over that now.”

  “Well, good,” he said. “I was just asking for a friend of mine. He'll be glad to know that. Say, can Brendan make me a sausage and scrambled egg submarine sandwich or is it too early for subs?”

  “Nope, it's never too early for subs,” I replied, “I'll have it to you right away.”

  Only in East Spoon Creek City, I thought as I took the order back to the window. Apparently Rafe's blustering had struck a nerve with a lot of people. I guess everyone has something going on that they'd like to keep private. I wondered if he was really trying to blackmail someone; he didn't seem smart enough to be to actually put together some kind of blackmail scheme, but who knows? He didn't seem smart enough to know what a bad idea that would be, either.

  I noticed Hamilton Hamsky sitting in a booth by the front window, looking like his coffee needed topped off, so I made my way in his direction. As I was filling his cup, he looked up and asked, “Dani, do you have a minute?”

  “Sure,” I said. I poured myself a cup of coffee and slid into the booth across from him. “What's up, Ham?”

  “It's this thing that Rafe said,” he began. “I know he's a lying old coot, but if you think about it, he doesn't do a lick of work; he just wanders around and pokes his nose into everybody's business. He might know a lot about the t
hings that go on in town.”

  Apparently it was contagious! “I wouldn't give Rafe much thought,” I started.

  “I wonder if he knows anything at all about my wife Sheila,” Ham cut in. “I'm not trying to fool myself, but I'm so sure she wouldn't just run off with her boss like that. You just know things about someone when you're married to them. It just wasn't like her. And besides, her boss, Justin McElroy had been dating Letty from the dry goods store since he came to town, and he didn't seem like the cheating type. The whole thing just doesn't make sense.”

  A couple of months before I had moved back to East Spoon Creek City, Ham's wife Sheila had suddenly disappeared, along with her boss at the tax preparation office in Pumpkin City where she had worked for years. It made for quite a juicy scandal, and the town was still buzzing about it when I returned. Since then, not a word had been heard from either one of them, and everyone had gradually lost interest. Ham, on the other hand, had only become more suspicious as time went on.

  “I know how you feel,” I said. “It was hard for me to believe, too.” Sheila and Ham and I had all been in the same class at the high school, so I knew how close they were. When I was overseas, Sheila had sent me letters every now and then to keep me up to date on the doings back home, and she had always sounded happy in her life with Ham.

  “But there's something else I found out,” Ham continued. “Now this is just between you and me, but someone that you and I both know really well in law enforcement has been checking around for me and found that there are no records of Sheila or McElroy's credit cards being used in the last five months. They haven't used their Social Security numbers to get a job anywhere that I can find either. Also, McElroy was a police officer in Illinois before he retired and moved down here to Kettletown, and he was getting a pension deposited into his account every month. Since they disappeared, the account hasn't been touched!”

  “They could have changed their names, gotten fake IDs...”

  “Sure, but why would they do that? There wasn't any need for hiding. They both knew that I'm not the kind of guy to go chasing after them with a shotgun. Besides, McElroy had a great business going; He had two offices in Kettletown, and then he opened the branch in Pumpkin City a few years back and a couple of months before they disappeared he had come to East Spoon Creek City to find a spot for a new branch here. Sheila was going to be the manager of the new branch; why would they throw that all away to start over from nothing?”

  “But if they're not hiding, then what happened to them? I can't think of any pleasant alternatives.”

  “Me either, Dani, but I've got to know what happened. It's driving me crazy! If she's with the guy and they're okay, it will still hurt but I love her enough to want her to be happy even if it isn't with me. It just doesn't feel like that's what happened. When I heard Rafe talking, it got me wondering if he might know anything that could help me find some answers. What do you think?”

  “I doubt that he knows anything, and I doubt even more that he'd want to help you even if he did,” I said. “He's just not that kind of guy, Ham.”

  “I know,” he said, “but what if I offered him some money? He's greedy as hell.”

  “I really wouldn't do that if I were you. He'd just lead you on, make up stories and bleed you dry. I know you're desperate but if he had any information he would have tried to get something out of you before this.”

  Ham leaned back and sighed. “Yeah, you're right,” he said. “I just need to know.”

  I sighed inwardly, wishing there was something I could do to help him. Perhaps his investigating was nothing more than a grieving husband refusing to accept that his wife had left him for another man, but some of the things that he had uncovered sounded strange enough to give me doubts. Suddenly I remembered something that Ham had said about McElroy.

  “Ham, did you say McElroy was from Illinois? Where in Illinois?”

  “Rockford. Why?”

  “Is that close to Chicago?”

  “Er, I don't know, but what difference does it make?”

  “Sorry, I should explain. Do you know my landlord, Mark?”

  “Oh, sure, the new fireman. Nice guy. He plays on our softball team on Saturdays when he's off work. What about him?”

  “Well, his brother is a detective in Chicago. Maybe he would have some connections that could help find out more about McElroy. Is it okay if I tell Mark about this and ask if his brother can look into it?”

  “That would be so great, Dani. If there's some way to learn more about McElroy's background, it could give us a clue to where he went with Sheila,” Ham said.

  I got up as I saw Letty Anderson walk in the door of the diner. Ham saw her too, and waved to her. Letty and Ham spent a lot of time comparing notes since Sheila and Justin McElroy had disappeared, and I saw them together a lot now.

  “Hey, Letty, sit down,” he called. “I've got a few interesting things to tell you.”

  Letty had red hair, green eyes and filled out clothes nicely. She had worked at the Dry Goods store since we were in high school, and after the owner retired, Letty managed to take out a loan and buy it. She modernized the store and also offered interior decorating services. She was a great help to me in refurbishing the diner so that it looked more modern but still kept that old-timey diner charm.

  “That's great, Ham,” Letty said as she slid into the booth opposite him. “Say, Dani, I hear that Brendan made his famous sausages today; any chance that there's a couple left?”

  “For you, of course,” I replied. “What would you like on the side? Or do you just want to pig out on sausages, pun intended?”

  She laughed. “A veggie omelet would be nice and some of the pecan coffee cake.”

  “You've got it,” I said. “Nice talking with you, Ham.”

  “Same here,” said Ham. “Nothing like good food, good advice, good friends.”

  I gave him a thumbs up and headed for the kitchen. This had been a crazy day so far. I was hoping that things would settle down as the day went on. And yet...

  It was about noon when Sheriff Wilkerson returned to the diner accompanied by the young deputy that I had seen outside with Rafe Duval this morning.

  “Dani, I'd like to introduce you to my nephew Brian Holmes, my sister Phyllis's son,” the sheriff said, not looking very happy. “He's starting a trial period here as an Assistant Deputy. He's worked in law enforcement for some time and we're going to see if East Spoon River City is a good fit for him.”

  The way he said it sounded strange, but it didn't look like he was going to offer anything else on the topic. I smiled and put out my hand to shake Brian's. “Nice to meet you. Welcome to The Breezy Spoon.”

  “Sorry, miss, a law enforcement officer isn't allowed to shake hands with the public while in uniform. Safety precautions, you know,” he said.

  “Really, Brian ---” the sheriff started to say.

  “If you'll excuse me, I'll need to wash up before we eat,” he said as he turned and headed towards the restroom.

  “You see what I'm dealing with, Dani?” Sheriff Wilkerson said, shaking his head as he sat down in a booth. “I'm about to go nuts with this guy!”

  “Yes, I saw him try to arrest half the town this morning,” I replied. “If he's not working out, why are you still keeping him on?”

  “You know how families are sometimes,” he answered. “Brian has started police training in five different counties, but he never makes it through all the way to the end; he always messes it up. The last sheriff's department he was at almost jailed him; he released two prisoners charged with homicide because he said he found a flaw in the paperwork! He's a nice kid and he's really smart, but he just doesn't get the hang of law enforcement. I think he's memorized every rule in every police manual that exists, but he never knows how to apply them.”

  “Why does he want to be a police officer, then?”

  “It's Phyllis that's set on it! She's determined that he'll make a great police captain someday so
she's foisted him off on me to whip him into shape. 'Family needs to help family,' she says! She doesn't want him to go into construction like his dad, because she thinks it's beneath their family to do that kind of work anymore. You know what a social climber Phyllis is!”

  “Yes, I'm afraid so. But do you think Brian has a future in law enforcement at all? I mean, with your help?”

  “I'd have better luck training Cooter James. Just yesterday old Mrs. Malone called 911 and said she thought someone was breaking in to her house, but if Deputy Holmes was on duty then not to bother sending him out, because she'd rather take her chances with the burglar. He's like Barney Fife only he isn't funny.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Well, sooner or later I'll have to go up and have a talk with Ted, Brian's dad,” the sheriff sighed. “Ted's a good guy that wants the best for Brian, and he needs to convince him to make his own decisions and stand up to Phyllis. I think Brian himself really knows that he's lousy at police work.”

  Brian came back and stood next to the booth. “I have to report that I just told the cook that I was going to inspect the kitchen and he turned to me with a large knife in his hand and said,'That might be hard to do without a head on your shoulders.' What action is called for in this situation, Uncle Jesse?”

  “We don't inspect kitchens, Brian,” Sheriff Wilkerson explained wearily. “The county does that. We should just order lunch.”

  “But he refused a direct order by a law enforcement official,” Brian said. “That's against the rules.”

  “Let's order lunch, Brian!”

  “What can I get for you, Brian?” I asked.

  He turned to me. “Well, another thing that I noticed is that you have an approximately 25 by 30 foot grassy area next to the building. That's not a crime, but I mention it because you could easily put a door on that side of the diner and add a patio out there. It would look good with an ornamental ironwork fence around it, and you'd have seating for at least twenty more customers in the warm weather. Of course you'd want to put up a canopy for rainy weather, and knock down those bushes and a few trees at the back of your property so that the patio would have a better view of the town square, but that would be easy enough.”