Marja McGraw - Bogey Man 01 - Bogey Nights (7 page)

“Less crime,” I said.

“Pamela, we found a body in our cellar, and he had a letter that was dated 1942 in his wallet.”

F
or at least a couple of hours, I’d forgotten about the body in the cellar.

Chapter
Seven

T
he next morning I checked the newspaper to see if Sharon had written anything yet. There was nothing, and I was relieved. Chris and I were still trying to figure out how anyone could put a good spin on our discovery. It wasn’t going to be easy, and I wondered if it was even possible. There were two strikes against us – a fire at one restaurant and bones in the basement at the new location. I could see the headline. “Fire and Murder Plague Restaurateurs.”

Murder, most probably, although we didn’t know anything for sure yet
. I wondered how I could get Janet Riley to share with us. Did I want her to share with us? Yes. I didn’t understand my motivation, but I wanted to get involved. I mentioned it to Chris.

“Oh, I can understand
. You want to set the record straight and emphasize it happened a long time ago so there won’t be a cloud over the restaurant, right?”

I thought for a moment
. “There’s that, but there’s also the idea of becoming involved in a real mystery. I guess I’ve spent too much time around you, Bogey Man.”

My husband smiled
, after turning his lip under in his best Bogey fashion and pulling thoughtfully on his ear lobe. “This is an old mystery. Maybe it’s time to get out my Bogey duds and quit crying in my beer about the business. You’re right about us being hit by a double whammy though, but if we solve this murder that would certainly be good for business – I think. I can be a P.I. and you can be my gal Friday. Whadda ya say, cupcake?”

“How are we going to get Janet to tell us what’s going on?”

“You leave that to me. I think I can talk her into jawing with us.”

Without warning a feeling of fear overtook me
. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. We weren’t P.I.s, and we weren’t in an old movie. This was real life, even if the crime had been committed many years ago. The feeling left me as suddenly as it had hit me.

I watched as Chris pulled out the phone book and looked up a
listing. He punched in some numbers and smiled at me.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

He held up his finger, letting me know he’d talk to me in a minute.

“Yes,” he said into the phone, “I’d like to speak to Detective
Riley. I believe she’s in the homicide division.”

“Oh,” I said.

Chris turned to me. “They’ve got me on hold. I’m simply going to invite Janet over to the house and suggest that she bring her Lab with her.”

“Oh, you’re smart,” I said
. “You’re going to make it social instead of business, and you’re going to use the dogs to do it. I like your plan. Besides, I kind of took a liking to the detective.”

“I know
. She seemed to like us, too.”

Chris held up his finger again and I knew that Janet had come on the line
. I listened while he talked to her, suggesting that she come over for a barbeque. He told her she could bring a date if she wanted to. And then he suggested the she bring her chocolate Lab, too, to play with Sherlock and Watson.

“
Her name is Friday
,” I whispered, remembering that she’d made a comparison about our dogs’ names.

“Your Friday and our Sherlock and Watson should get along,” he said
. And then he did some listening.

“Uh huh
. Well, since we aren’t working at the moment, any day would be fine with us. I’ll tell Pamela.” He paused again and wrote something on a piece of paper. “We’ll be looking forward to it.” Pause. “She’ll call you.” They talked for a moment longer and Chris hung up.

He handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it
. “Day after tomorrow, Wednesday. Tuesday and Wednesday are her days off. And she wants you to call her and let her know what she can bring. She sounded like she was glad to hear from me.”

“Is she going to bring anyone with her?”

“Probably. She had to check with her friend to see if he’s available. She sounded grateful that we suggested she bring Friday with her. She said she doesn’t get to spend as much time with her as she’d like.”

“I feel like we’re using her,” I said, regretfully.

“We are, but you said you like her, too, so it’s a win-win situation all the way around. Right?”

“Right.”

“By the way,” Chris added, “she said that we can go ahead and begin our construction.” He chuckled. “She’s playing right into our hands. She said she’d update us on the body when she sees us.”

“Holy cow, Bogey Man
. Can things get any better?”

He grinned and picked up the phone, punching in some numbers
. “Hey, Big D, we’re in business. We can start work as soon as you’re ready.”

I immediately found
an old envelope and began writing out a grocery list, tuning out Chris. I wrote down hamburger and then scratched it out. Spare ribs. That was the ticket. We wanted to have a good day with Janet and ribs would win her over. I had no doubt. I knew that barbequed ribs would win Mikey over, too. I wanted him to be on his best behavior while Janet was visiting. We needed her to open up to us, and I thought I might enjoy a friendship in the process.

I cleaned the house, which didn’t really need it, and left to pick Mikey up at school while Chris
checked to see if the barbeque needed cleaning.

“We’ll stop at the grocery store on the way home,” I said before leaving
. Chris had nodded at me and opened the lid to the barbeque, seeming distracted. He took his outdoor cooking seriously.

With the shopping done, Mikey and I drove home
. Chris met us outside and helped carry groceries inside before the two men in my life retreated to the back yard for a game of catch.

And that was our day
. It was quiet and it was normal. I liked it.

***

The next day I waited until a reasonable hour before calling Janet. Being a cop probably meant she worked long hours and I wanted to let her sleep in before bothering her.

Her phone rang three times before she answered
. “Hello?”

“Hi, Janet
. This is Pamela. I thought we should touch bases about the barbeque.”

“Oh, hi
. I’m looking forward to doing something for fun for a change. And thanks for letting me bring Friday. She needs to socialize with other dogs from time to time. What can I bring?”

“You don’t get to go out very often?” I asked
. “Why is that?”

“I’m a cop, and so is my boyfriend
. ‘Nough said. Sometimes we’re lucky if we get to see each other at all.”

“Well, I guess that’s the price you pay, although I don’t know what the rest of us would do if it weren’t for people like you.”

“Thanks. I do my best. So, really, what can I bring?”

“How about a salad?”

“That’s all?” she asked. “I’m a pretty good baker. How about a dessert?”

“Okay, surprise us
. We’re having barbequed ribs. Bring whatever you’d like, and I’m sure we’ll enjoy it.”

We
chatted for a few minutes before we hung up, and I felt like I’d known this woman for a long time. She was easy to get along with. I was looking forward to Wednesday. Cop or no cop, she was still a woman and enjoyed talking girl talk.

After I hung up Chris told me he was going
to meet with Big D. “We need to get things up and running. My savings aren’t going to last forever.”

“I still say I could get another job as a waitress,” I suggested
. “It’s really not a big deal, and it wouldn’t be forever.”

“
Nope. Absolutely not. We’ll work this out, I promise you.” Was it male pride or did he care about me that much? I had a feeling it might be some of both.

While it was nice to have someone tell me I didn’t need to go find a job, I felt a bit guilty for not doing just that
. However, I had no doubt that with Big D in charge of remodeling, it wouldn’t be all that long before we could open for business again. I was hoping that it wouldn’t be more than a few months.

“Why don’t you take Sherlock and Watson with you?” I asked.

“Not this time. I need to concentrate on what Big D has to say. We want this done right, and we want it done as soon as possible. I don’t want any distractions.”

Chris left and I let the dogs in the house
. “You should have heard your person talking,” I said. “He had the nerve to call you two distractions. Can you imagine that? You’re no more distracting than a small hurricane.”

Watson cocked her head, knowing I was telling her something but having no clue what it was about
. Sherlock nudged my hand, looking for attention.

“Good babies,” I said.

They understood that one and wagged their tails.

“Ball?” I said.

Both dogs perked up and their tails wagged faster. Chris said that if he could read their minds, they’d probably be saying, “Ball, ball, ball, ball.” I thought he might be right. They lived for chasing the ball and anything else that required physical activity.

We went back outside and I played with them for about half an hour
, and then it was time to pick Mikey up at school.

“Want to go for a ride?” I asked, looking from dog to dog.

Watson sat at attention, showing me what a good and quiet dog she could be. Sherlock, on the other hand, began bouncing from foot to foot.

“Okay, let’s go.”
I picked up my purse and let the dogs out the front door. They ran straight to the car and sat down, waiting for me. I opened the rear car door and they both climbed in, taking their places in the back seat and watching to see what I’d do next. I started the engine, of course.

I’d gotten into the habit of talking to the dogs when there was no one else to talk to, and now it was just them and me
. Time for a heart-to-heart.

“Okay, kids, there was this murder
. And it happened a long time ago. There shouldn’t be any danger involved. I mean, Chris and I could try to solve it and we wouldn’t have to worry about our safety, right? Or Mikey’s,” I said thoughtfully. I hadn’t thought about my son and the murder until that moment. Of course, we wouldn’t let Mikey anywhere near the investigation. “Investigation?” I said. “Are we really going to investigate this?”

I glanced in the rearview mirror at the dogs
. They were totally ignoring me, watching the scenery out of the window. They were used to me talking to them and never reacted unless I used key words like ball or dinner or walk. Actually, they had a pretty large vocabulary for dogs. I’d read that Labs do react to a lot words, and in my experience, that was true.

“Ball,” I said loudly, and then laughed when they both came to attention
. “I was just messin’ with ya,” I said.

When they realized there was no ball, they turned back to the scenery.

Pulling up to the school, I saw Mikey waiting for me on the sidewalk. He ran over to the car and jumped in, making me wish I had even half of his energy.

He briefly hung over the seat to give the dogs a hug before putting on his seatbelt
. And then he began a long story about his day. I listened intently and nodded or asked questions at all the right places.

“By the way,” I said, “we have company coming for a barbeque tomorrow night.”

“Who?”

“A detective named Janet Riley.”

“A real copper?” Mikey sounded excited.

“Yup
. A real live copper.”

“Cool,” he said
. “Wait ‘til I tell Danny about this. He didn’t believe me about the dead body in the cellar, you know. Some of the other kids did though. Is this copper the one who went to the new house to look at the body?”

I gulped
. He’d been spreading the cellar story? I didn’t think he’d believed Constance when she’d told him.

It didn’t take long to find out just how much he believed her
.

Chapter
Eight

M
ikey and I had been home for about an hour when the telephone rang. I couldn’t explain why, but I had a feeling of trepidation as I picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” I said.

“Mrs. Cross?” a woman’s voice asked me. “This is Mrs. Stanhope, Michael’s teacher. Do you have a moment to talk?”

I had no doubt what this was about
. I knew it instinctively, but I prayed I was wrong. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Stanhope. What can I do for you?”

“Well, let me come right to the point
. Michael has been telling his classmates that you found a deceased person in your basement, and he was rather descriptive. I’m sure there’s no truth to the story, so I thought I should let you know what’s been going on. Most of the students were fascinated with the story – you know how children are – but a couple of them were upset.”

“Uh, well…
,” I stammered. “I mean, Mikey wouldn’t, uh… ”

“Yes?
It was just a story, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Stanhope didn’t quite sound so sure of herself now. I knew it was because I’d hedged and stammered. I’d had a feeling that this was coming, but I hadn’t expected a call quite this soon.

“Well, it’s like this
. My husband and I had a restaurant, and it burned down. It was devastating, to say the least.”

“I know
. Michael told us about that, too, not too long ago. I knew that was true because it was in the newspaper. And, generally, Michael is a well-behaved boy who isn’t prone to telling outlandish stories.”

“He still isn’t
– prone to telling outlandish stories, I mean. We bought an old house to remodel into a new restaurant. In the course of looking everything over, we discovered bones in the cellar of the house. Mikey happened to show up with his babysitter while the coppers, uh, police were there. We tried to keep the matter of the dead body from him, but…” I let my words trail off.

“You actually found human remains?”
Mrs. Stanhope sounded incredulous. This was certainly something outside of her normal realm of experiences.

“I’m afraid we did
. And it appears he was probably murdered.”

I was greeted with dead silence, to go with the revelation of a dead body.

“Mrs. Stanhope?”

“I’m sorry
. I’m trying to take this in. It’s truly shocking.”

I tried to back
pedal as best I could. “Well, it would be an old crime. We found bones, not a whole body.”

“Not a whole body,” she echoed
. “An old body. Oh, my goodness. Let me think about this for a moment.” The phone went quiet.

I sat patiently, trying to give Mikey’s teacher some
time to think. Having met her, I could picture this formidable, older woman tapping her finger against her graying head and looking shocked.

“Okay,” she said
. “I understand. Well, not really, but I… hmm… Could you just ask Michael to keep this information to himself? Some of these children are quite impressionable, I repeat, a couple of them were upset. I don’t want to start receiving calls from parents telling me that their children are having nightmares about bodies being buried in basements. Maybe he could
tell
them he made it up?”

“I’m sorry, but I won’t ask my son to lie
, although I’d be willing to bet he embellished his story a little. He never actually saw the body. I will, however, ask him not to mention it again. Will that work?”

“I suppose it will have to
. So you think it was a murder?”

“We believe so
. At the moment it looks like something happened back in the nineteen forties, so it’s not like we found a fresh body.” I had a feeling I was making things worse. Actually, I
knew
I was.

“I see.”
She didn’t, and I knew it. It was in her voice. “Well, if he could keep this to himself? Please?”

“I’ll talk to him and we’ll see if this situation can just die a natural death
. Sorry, that was a poor choice of words. If he doesn’t talk about it anymore, that should be the end of it, don’t you think?”

“
Maybe,” Mrs. Stanhope said. She didn’t sound convinced. “At the moment the children are quite interested in his story.” She abruptly changed the subject. “So you’re going to be opening a new restaurant?”

“We are, as soon as the house can be remodeled
. Won’t you come visit us one night as our guest?” No harm in trying to soften her up.

“I’m sure that would be delightful
. I did visit your other restaurant one evening, but you and your husband weren’t there. I gathered it was your night off and you’d left someone else in charge. It was quite entertaining. My husband and I even cut a rug, so to speak, while your band played.” I could hear the sound of joy in her voice. Maybe I was winning her over.

“Oh, yes, that band
is wonderful. They were quite good with the forties music. It sounds like you enjoyed yourself, and I’m glad to hear that. So it’s settled. You and your husband will be our guests one evening after we reopen.”

“
I’ll certainly look forward to that evening, Mrs. Cross. And thank you for being so understanding about our situation here. Your son is a wonderful child. I simply thought he’d decided to tell a good story.”

“He did that,” I said, laughing, “but I’ll make sure he doesn’t say anything else.”
I was having a vision of my little angel talking about murder and dead bodies. I cringed as Mrs. Stanhope wished me well and hung up.

I sat quietly, thinking
. I hadn’t really considered how our investigation might affect Mikey. Before my thoughts could go too far, he ran through the house with the dogs chasing him.

“
No running in the house
,” I yelled to his back as he passed me. “
Take it outside
.”

And they did
, right after Sherlock slid into the wall again.

Chris arrived home about five minutes later and
we sat down at the kitchen table. I told him about my conversation with Mrs. Stanhope.

“It was smart of you to butter her up and invite her to our gyp joint
after it opens,” Chris said.

“It won’t be a gyp joint.”
I was irritable and I knew it. “Our restaurant will be classy, not a cheap diner.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t think of another phrase to use
. We’ll talk to Mikey about the bones and keep it toned down. When we investigate, we’ll keep him out of it. He’ll never even know we’re up to something.”

“
In your dreams. Mikey is pretty savvy about a lot of things. But seriously, I’ve thought about that, Chris. I don’t want to put Mikey in any danger. Maybe we shouldn’t look into this, after all.”

“This is a crime that probably took place over sixty years ago, Pamela
. The killer is most likely deader than a doornail by now.”

“
Au Contraire
, there’s every possibility that the killer is still alive. I repeat, I don’t want to put Mikey in danger.”

“Okay, if it even
looks
like we’re getting in too deep, we’ll cool our heels and back off. Deal?”

I had some
serious reservations about the investigation, but Chris did make sense – in a way. We certainly wouldn’t bring the investigation home with us, other than discussions. I nodded, reluctantly.

“So what did Big D have to say?” I asked.

“He had a great time with Sharon last night. But somehow I have a gut feeling that isn’t information you want to hear. You’re not too fond of Sharon, are you?”

“
It’s not that I don’t like her, but that I’ve heard stories about her involving herself in situations she shouldn’t be connected to. Actually, I wanted to know what he said about completing the construction and getting the restaurant up and running.”

“Oh, that
. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of months, tops. We’ll have that place open before you know it. We need to think of a name for it though. I asked Big D to take care of your office as early as possible so you can get in there are start putting things together. We’re going to need new menus, an advertising plan, and… I still think if we can solve this murder it will actually help the business.”

I was more than skeptical
. “We’ll see. You sound like we’re going to run right out and solve it. We don’t even have any details yet. Not a one, other than there is a dead body that was buried in our cellar.”

“Janet will fill us in,” Chris said, sounding confident.

“I hope she has something to fill us in about. I doubt if she knows too much yet. I got the feeling that there wasn’t really anything there in the way of clues.”

“Maybe they’ve identified him by now
. What was the name in his wallet? Charles something – oh yeah, Charles Blakely. That would be a beginning. And you know that once they have a name they can start searching for family. I wonder if they have missing persons records going back that far.”

“I think so, but what do I know?”

“I guess we’ll find out, Sugar.”

Mikey opened the back door and walked in, followed by two panting dogs
. He must have given them quite a workout.

“
Ace, have a seat here at the table,” Chris said, pulling out a chair for him.

Mikey look puzzled
. “Did I do something wrong? Am I in trouble?”

“Now why would you think that? Have you done something
lately that we don’t know about?”

“No, sir
. My life is an open book.”

I started to laugh
. I couldn’t help myself. “You’re so funny sometimes, Mikey. How do you come up with these things?”

He looked very pleased with himself
. “I don’t know. I just do.”

Chris cleared his throat
. “No, you’re not in trouble. But you could be if – ”

“What did I do?”
Mikey held his hands out, palms up.

“Here’s the thing,”
Chris said. “You’ve been telling the kids at school about a dead body in our cellar.”

“But there was one, wasn’t there?”

“Yes, there was,” I said, “the key word being
was
. The police are taking care of things now. That was your teacher on the phone earlier and she said a couple of the kids were upset by your story. So I really,
really
need you to stop talking about this at school. Can you do that? The body is gone and that should be the end of it.”

My son looked disappointed
. “It was kinda fun. Nobody else ever had a story about a dead guy before. Danny didn’t really believe me anyway. He’s my best friend, so he’s supposed to believe me, isn’t he?”

“He’s learning to use his judgment,” I said
. “He listened to your story and decided that something didn’t ring true in his mind. You’re not going to try to convince him, are you? I honestly don’t want you to talk about this anymore.”

“Okay, Mom, I’ll keep my trap shut
. I’ll use my own judgment, but I won’t like it.”

I sighed
. “You sound more like me and Chris every day. You’re going to ‘keep your trap shut’. I should watch what I say around you.”

“No, please don’t, Mom
. I like the way you guys talk. It’s fun. The guys at school like it when I use your way of talking, too. Sometimes they talk like that just for the fun of it.”

“Yeah,
baby cakes,” said Chris. “We like talking this way.” He grinned at me and scooted his chair closer to Mikey’s.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t hurt anything
. There are worse things you could be saying.” I was so glad he wasn’t using cuss words. I must have done something right in raising him.

“Cool,” Chris said.

“Yeah, cool,” Mikey mimicked.

“Sometimes I feel like I have two sons,” I mumbled to myself.

“What?” Chris asked.

“Nothing
. Mikey, why don’t you take Sherlock and Watson outside and feed them while I start getting our dinner ready.”

I think he was glad
to be out of the hot seat. He jumped up and called to the dogs, hurrying out the door and away from us.

“Okay,” Chris said
. “I think we handled that well. No more Stiff Stories at school. One problem down and who knows how many to go?”

“Well, here’s one
. I didn’t defrost anything for dinner. What would you like to do?”

“After Mikey’s done feeding the dogs, let’s go out
. Let someone take care of us for a change. Soon enough we’ll be taking care of everyone else again. And no fast food. Let’s go to a nice sit-down restaurant for a good meal. You deserve a break from cooking anyway.”