Your Goose Is Cooked (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery) (25 page)

Hardy worked the piano hard, a jaunty tune of his own creation, but the sound didn’t help ease my disappointment. I plunged down to the bottom of the bag and felt something funny. I tugged. A red wig popped out.

When the alarm went off at six-thirty, I groped for it and squeezed it hard. It went quiet. I nudged Hardy with my foot. “
You taking
your shower first?”

His lips slapped together a few times and he turned on his side. I took that as a no.
Which meant I’d have to brave the cold floor first.
My brain felt gummy. My eyes were dry and probably bloodshot. And the phone was ringing. I sure hoped it wasn’t William or Elizabeth calling from the Goose to say they needed something from the store. Or, worse, that one of them was sick and needed to cut out early. That they were doing the morning work so Hardy and I could sleep late was more than wonderful. It’d be a tough day, what with the speeches scheduled. Everyone in town with a political opinion would be there, spreading a rally cry for their candidate, and they all had to eat.

Made me tired just thinking about it.

The answering machine picked up and Chief Conrad’s voice filled the air. “
LaTisha
, give me a call when you get the chance.”

I closed my eyes feeling every bit of my age. That Chief could pull an all-nighter and still be as perky as a puppy stung my pride and forced me to pour myself to the floor. After showering and weighing in, I went down to scramble some eggs for Hardy. A side of cheese grits and a glass of orange juice should hold him off for at least thirty minutes. I started to crack my first egg,
then
switched directions. Instead of plain scrambled eggs, I’d do a hash brown quiche.

The rhythm of putting together a familiar recipe got me to humming.
That and the wig.
I was anxious to talk to Chief. I checked the answering machine and realized I’d missed calls from Lela,
Shayna
, and my daughter-in-law,
Fredlynn
. They were checking on Hardy and had left messages expressing hope he was doing well. I’d call them back tonight, explain the situation, and start working in the fund-raiser angle.

Hardy padded into the kitchen looking like the walking dead. He slumped into his chair and groaned. “I’m too old for this crime stuff.”

“Whose idea was it to go into Aidan’s Dumpster?”

“Too bad we missed going into Carl’s. Maybe we should have started with his.”

I cracked eggs on the side of the bowl. “The wig was a real find.
Strengthens the tie between Eddie and Roger and that blue car.”
Another egg and I started whisking everything with a fork. “Chief wanted me to call him. You dial the number while I chop veggies.”

Hardy stretched hard to reach the phone, finally snagging it with his fingertips.

I spun the dial on the oven to three-seventy-five and pulled out mushrooms, some already chopped up onion, the carton of milk, a freezer bag of diced green pepper, one of southern-style hash browns, and cheese.

“It’s Hardy, Chief,
LaTisha
wanted me to call.”

I made short work of rinsing the mushrooms and chopping them, my ear tuned to the silence on this end of the conversation. I dumped the mushrooms, onion, and green pepper into the egg mixture and started grating the cheese. If the mushrooms were too tough for Hardy to chew, he’d just have to pick them out.

“I’ll tell her.
Yup.”

I motioned that I wanted to talk to him and Hardy handed over the phone. “Hardy got the idea to check Eddie and Roger’s Dumpster.”

“Don’t tell me—you found something else.”

“The red wig.
It was in a trash bag of shredded paper. You found anything on the fingerprints?”

“I can tell you they don’t match Eddie’s or Roger’s prints and nothing in our files, but there’s definitely another set other than Hardy’s.”

A dead end.

“I need to let you go,
LaTisha
, got another call.
Hardy’ll
tell you the rest. I’ll send Mac over for the bags.”

I handed the phone back to Hardy and he ended the call, the phone giving its final beep. “What did he tell you?” I asked.

“I hardly have the chance to hang up and you’re all over me,” he groused. “He wanted to let you know he had an appointment with Carl at ten. He was hoping you could meet him there.”

“He told me the fingerprints didn’t match anything they had. Not even Eddie or Roger.”

“Maybe they’re innocent and the wig is to frame them.”

I peered at Hardy; he was usually full of more sass in the morning. I pressed paper towel onto the thin layer of rinsed hash browns to absorb the water. “I’ll leave William and Elizabeth in charge and head over there.” I purposely left Hardy out of the plans. “
You feeling
okay?”

“Just tired.
What you making?”

“Hash brown quiche.” I greased the pie plate and pressed the hash browns into it,
drizzling
the whole thing with melted butter and popping it into the oven. I eyed the clock. I’d have to let the hash browns cool a bit before adding the mix, but if I ran out of time, I could bake it until it was set, then finish it at the Goose.

Hardy hadn’t responded to my announcement, a strange thing for him. I turned to give him the once over. His chin was cradled in his hand, brow creased.

“What you thinking so hard on?”

He snapped out of his daze and a tiny smile touched his lips.
“Your fingerprint kit.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“What you wanting with that?” I sat down across from him.

“Haven’t thought it through all the way.
You know where it is?”

“Sure I do, it’s in my closet upstairs.”

That was all it took. Hardy bounced himself upstairs to fetch it.

He reappeared as I was taking the hash brown crust out of the oven. He set the box on the table. I decided to give my question another go. “There’s something ticking around in that head of yours.”

“I was thinking of lifting some prints from the glasses at the Goose.”

Unless someone had a record, his prints wouldn’t be on file with the police. And if the person who pulled the trigger on Aidan had never committed a crime before, then pulling prints and matching them against Maple Gap’s citizens might be the ticket.

I leaned over and lifted the lid of the box, excited by the prospect of Hardy’s idea. “You’re the smartest man I know.”

I had one foot out the door when the phone rang. Hardy, sitting in the car behind the wheel, seemed pretty anxious to get to the Goose. The answering machine clicked on. I stood there long enough to make sure the call wasn’t heating to critical. Even if William or Elizabeth were calling in sick or something, I figured Hardy and one other person would be able to handle things. It wouldn’t be like I was ducking out of the Goose for the entire morning.

A breathless, gruff voice.
“
LaTisha
. Your ad dollars are going to the best paper in Maple Gap. I’d be delighted for you to pay me big money for a small
ad.
Say, half a page?”

Michael
Nooseman
. It’s about time he returned my call.

He paused, and when he started talking again his tone had changed. “You think you could swing by my office tomorrow? I need some input on something, and you know how much it pains me to admit that to you, so don’t go and rub it in my face.”

He ended with his usual click. No good-bye. No thanks. He just hangs up.

Hardy must have got tired of seeing half my body sticking out the door with no promise of the other half appearing, because he honked the horn.

I yanked the door shut behind me and marched to the car. Hardy had some classic piano playing on the radio, which he turned down as I slipped in and slammed the door shut.

“The fuse lit on your dynamite or something?” I barked at him.

“You weren’t moving.”

“Was listening to Michael
Nooseman
leave a message.”

“Why didn’t you just answer the phone?”

“Because we had to get going and you know how people can get to talking.”

Hardy pressed his lips together. “He
finally getting
back to you?”

As Hardy edged down our road and made a right onto Gold Street, I made a decision. “You go on in and make sure everything’s rolling along, I’m going to hop down and find out what Michael wants.”

“Thought he wanted your money.”
Hardy straightened the steering wheel and mashed the gas pedal.

“He
was wanting
my opinion.”

Hardy let out a low whistle. “Michael? That is serious.”

I ducked my head into the Goose long enough to get Hardy started on shredding some cheese and chopping some veggies for omelets, then headed on down to Michael’s office.
If you can call it that.
Narrow and cluttered, Michael reminded me of a mole when he stuck his head out of the piles of junk to bite out a greeting.

“Came to throw money at me, huh?” Michael never, ever, cracked a smile. It had become my life’s work to remedy that.

“I’d do anything if it would keep your trap shut.”

He thumbed toward his decrepit coffee maker. “Want something to drink?”

“No thanks, I’ve got to get back to the Goose.”

Michael stretched and scratched his chest and stomach in long strokes, real
slow
, his mouth quirked to one side.
Um-hm.
I knew this look. Had seen it on the faces of my teenaged sons, on Hardy, and on almost any man who had a tidbit of news he exulted in sitting on.

“I got your message this morning before Hardy and I left.”

He sat up. “Ignoring my call, huh?”

“No, just taking advantage of the answering machine. Had one foot out the door and I knew you’d wrap me up in your tongue and I’d never get anywhere on time.”

Michael’s hands hovered over a few sticky notes on his phone. He plucked one off. “Chief told me to run this by you. Someone called and said Eugene
Taser
was being threatened.” His eyes
raised
to meet mine.
“Wanted me to print it.”

“Who’d it sound like?”

His mouth drooped into a hard frown. “If I knew that, Chief wouldn’t have made me run it by you.”

I shot him a huge smile.
“Bruises your pride something awful.”

He rifled the paper. “It came in last night, right before I left. You could tell they were trying to disguise their voice.”

“Man or woman?”

Michael opened his mouth,
then
snapped it shut. “I’m thinking it was a woman.”

Another threat.
Another woman making the call.
With Aidan being dead and the whole hit man thing having died with him, who else would be a threat to
Eugene.
And why?

I dug down in the pocket of my skirt and pulled out a few bills. “Anything else I should know before I hand over this money?”

Michael pulled down a pad of paper and started scribbling my name and address. “I don’t have caller ID, and she didn’t stay on too long. What
are you wanting
in this ad?”

I pushed a piece of paper across the desk to him. I’d worked on the wording of the ad the previous night. He unfolded the
paper,
added up the words, and told me forty dollars would do it.

“I’ll run it in next week’s paper.
Seems to be a lot of people running classifieds this day.
Just got one in from Betsy.
She wants to put her office for rent, and Flossie is selling the house and her furniture. Seems strange that Betsy will put an ad in for the office but not one for that land she’s so hoping to sell.” Michael shuffled through more papers, and ran a finger down a piece of paper.
“Seems Aidan’s buddies are leaving, too, so that apartment will be for rent as soon as the police give me the okay.”

Seemed half of Maple Gap was leaving. I wondered how Carl felt about Flossie selling the house he’d left her in the divorce. Maybe he’d buy it from her.
And Betsy.
After all the hot air about being her own woman, did this mean she was closing the doors on her real estate business and settling in to become the mayor’s wife?