Baby Daddy Mystery Read online

  We murmured no.

  Barbara offered that her second oldest child, Teddy, had been running around the house chasing chickens with his cap gun. She’d been inside with the windows shut watching her recorded daytime TV programs with Wilma, the baby, and Billy Junior. It would have been hard for her to hear anything but the TV.

  Boots flipped open his tiny notebook. “Did you know the deceased?”

  Barbara eyed me.

  I eyed Veenie.

  Veenie eyed us both.

  “Not exactly,” murmured Barbara. “I mean, I hostess out at the Pancake Palace. I might have met him once or twice. We get lots of customers. Traffic on 50 headed to the interstate in Seymour. Some headed out west through Bedford.”

  I answered, “Well, horse pucky, Boots, of course we knew him. Who doesn’t know the Apple twins?”

  “But you had no reason to want him dead? Any of you?”

  Veenie rolled her eyes.

  “Oh for Pete’s sake, Boots,” I squawked, “you watch too much Matlock. You know we aren’t killers.”

  “It’s my official job to ask the difficult questions, Ruby Jane.” The tips of his ears flamed red.

  The coroner’s white van pulled into the yard. It pulled straight up onto the grass, past the mud puddles, scattering the chickens. The coroner, April Trueblood, slid out of the van. She was a petite woman with curly salt and pepper hair. She was wearing a short, stained white lab coat and a black sock cap. She strolled up to the porch and sat her black leather bag down on the top step.

  “That the deceased?” she asked, opening her bag and snapping on a pair of blue plastic gloves. She slipped a pair of clear plastic glasses over her eyes and a set of paper booties over her tennis shoes before walking closer to the porch glider.

  Boots sniffled. “That would be him. One of Doc Apple’s boys. One of the twins.”

  “The dentist?” asked April. As Boots nodded yes April knelt down, removed the tattered scarecrow hat, and peered at him closely. “Bromley? Oh man, he was a good dentist. A little handsy with the ladies. Did the neatest crowns though. Hate to see him go. Man, you just can’t find a good dentist these days. Might have to drive to Salem now just to get my teeth cleaned. Gosh darn it.”

  While all the brouhaha was happening, I got Billy Junior to hock up some DNA into a test tube.

  Veenie was getting impatient. “I want to skedaddle home in time to make deer chili for supper and watch Hee Haw.

  “Hee Haw has been in reruns for forty years,” I said. “You won’t miss anything.”

  “That’s what you think. I don’t remember much of the seventies. It’s all new to me.”

  I didn’t argue. I knew as far as Veenie was concerned, Hee Haw represented the height of network television. I wasn’t sure that I disagreed with her.

  We squeezed out around April and hightailed it back to the Impala. Boots trailed after us. “Don’t you ladies leave town. Might be a murder. Might be needing to talk to you two soon. Depends on what the coroner finds.”

  I fired up the Impala and shot one hand okay and good-bye out the window to Boots.

  We were halfway up the steep Holler Road, the Chevy fishtailing on the gravel, when Veenie said, “Bootsie boy just wants an excuse to call on you. He’s still sweet on you.”

  “I didn’t fancy him in the second grade. I don’t fancy him now,” I said. “I don’t want a man. You know that.” And I meant it. My husband, Charlie “Whiskers” Waskom, had died suddenly twenty years ago. His ticker gave out right in the middle of a farm insurance quote. I’d grieved him for a good two years. Then one day I woke up and suddenly felt pretty okay. Marriage, in hindsight, had been a heap of work. Most days I didn’t have that much get-up-and-go left in me.

  I did wonder who on earth had killed Doc Apple’s son. And if it had anything to do with Barbara and her bushel of little Apples. Surely there was some connection. One thing I knew for sure: Avonelle was not going to be pleased about this. She’d hired us to quietly clear up a child support mystery, and now things had progressed to murder. There’d be no keeping these things a secret in a town as slack-jawed as Knobby Waters.

  Chapter Five

  The dead fellow on Barbara’s porch glider was Bromley Apple, the less popular of the Apple dental twins. Bert was known for his down-to-earth manner. Bromley was most noted for not being able to keep his hammy hands off the waitresses down at the Roadkill Café. Another family trait, I reckoned.

  “What am I to make of this?” Avonelle asked. Her bottom lip quivered.

  It was Easter Sunday, after church, and Avonelle and I were sitting side by side on the swing on my front porch. We were discussing the case. I hadn’t been to church, but Avonelle had. She was wearing a lovey white felt pillbox hat with a purple veil that she had pulled back and pinned up. The hat really topped off the purple knit suit with mauve piping she had worn to Easter Sunrise Services. Avonelle was, per usual, keeping a stiff upper lip, but I could tell she’d been crying. I reckoned she wouldn’t let anyone see her in tears, certainly not an employee like me.

  Veenie was in the kitchen frying up a bologna sandwich for breakfast. I could smell the bologna and the toast through the open screened windows. Since Avonelle was feeling poorly, I aimed to keep Veenie in the kitchen and deal with updating Avonelle myself, just for safety’s sake, given their past spats. Whatever Avonelle and I discussed, I’d update Veenie later.

  Avonelle blew her nose gently with a monogrammed handkerchief before taking a small sip of the lemon iced tea I’d fixed for her. She showed me the screen of her iPad. The Hoosier Squealer gossip website was displayed. It featured a banner ad for half-off ground chuck at the IGA. It also spotlighted a story by Squeal Daddy on the dead fellow found in Hound Holler. No one was supposed to know the identity of the body, but apparently Squeal Daddy had his sources. He wrote a fairly good description of the body and the mysterious circumstances.

  Foul Play in Hound Holler?

  Sorry to report that one of Knobby Waters own esteemed native sons, Bromley Apple, left town to meet up with his eternal maker yesterday. He was found deceased on a porch glider at the home of one Ms. Barbara Skaggs. Ms. Skaggs has enjoyed being lead hostess out at the Pancake Palace since arriving in Knobby Waters ten years ago. She has cousins over in Washington County. Her boss, Hubert Persinger, describes her as “a sweet church-going lady who minds her own beeswax and gives sick little children extra scoops of ice cream. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Barbara told the Squealer last night, “Honest to God, I have no idea how that man’s body got on my porch.”

  The strange event happened in Hound Holler, a place renowned in bygone days for its colorful characters and late-night comings and goings. Barbara, who says she never met the dentist, at least not that she can recall, would like to thank Coroner April Trueblood for removing him so quickly and neatly.

  The body was wearing a hat and jacket that had previously been the attire of a nearby scarecrow. Nobody knows how that happened either. Foul play may be afoot. Sheriff Boots Gibson, who investigated, offered no comment for the readers of the Squealer other than his customary, “Stop pestering me.”

  Mrs. Lavinia Goens, who was visiting Barbara, along with her lifelong friend Mrs. Ruby Jane Waskom, went on record saying it is indeed unusual for poorly dressed dead bodies to pop up on people’s porches.

  Stay tuned for updates. In the meantime, remember it’s Easter Sunday, and the Hoosier Feedbag is selling past date hams for only two bucks a can. Hurry on down and get yours. Yum! Yum!

  I wasn’t happy to see Veenie quoted in the article. We weren’t supposed to comment on open cases. I was relieved not to see in print the real reason we’d been visiting Barbara Skaggs. There was no mention of our being on an open case, or of William Apple and his illegitimate children, thank you Jesus.

  Mrs. Apple sniffled, bringing me out of my reflections on the Hoosier Squealer article.

  “How long for the DNA?” she asked.

&n
bsp; “A week.”

  “It will tell us without a doubt …”

  “Yes. They’ll compare William’s DNA, which you gave us, with the DNA from Billy Junior’s spittle.”

  I could tell Avonelle wasn’t pleased that Barbara had named her oldest son Billy Junior, after her husband, William. I had to admire Avonelle for being dogged in her pursuit of the truth, even though it was bound to reflect badly on the Apple family name.

  Avonelle slipped her handkerchief into her purse. “You met the woman. What’s your professional opinion?”

  “I imagine she’s telling the truth.”

  “And Bromley? Why was he at her place?”

  “Don’t know. You want us to look into the entire affair?” I realized as soon as I said it that “affair,” might not have been the most judicious word choice.

  “Yes, I would. There must be a connection. I’d like to know what that connection is before the Squealer gets hold of this mess. I have the bank’s reputation and my grandchildren to protect. Don’t want the whole family ending up on that Inter Tuber thing.” She took five crisp one hundred dollar bills out of her purse and laid them on the table. “Will this suffice?”

  I nodded.

  Avonelle rose to leave. “Also, if you don’t mind, could you ask Veenie not to be talking to the press?”

  “Done.”

  Veenie waited until Avonelle was down the sidewalk and out of earshot before coming out to sit on the porch swing with me. She’d thrown on a ratty blue chenille robe and was wearing her mule house slippers. “You reckon Bromley was down in Hound Holler nosing around about his bastard kin?”

  “Nobody calls them bastards anymore, Veenie.”

  “I do.”

  “Biological children is the polite term, I think.”

  Veenie pouted. “Can we still call the men dickheads?”

  “I think they’re called baby daddies.” Like Veenie, I too had problems with the new terminology. Baby daddy sounded like a term of endearment. Itchy-pants idiot seemed to more accurately reflect the situation, but I liked to stay modern, keep up with the times.

  “Thought you had a date tonight,” I said to Veenie.

  “I do. Dickie Freeman is taking me to the drive-in in his new Ford F-150. You know how I love trucks. Big trucks get my groove thing going.”

  The east Highway 50 drive-in theater was open for business again. Some Millennials from Seymour had bought a caboodle of old country drive-ins. They hoped to bring back wholesome family fun. They’d installed bouncy castles and an outdoor mini laser tag field. They showed family classics. They served meat and soy hotdogs. Popcorn with real butter. Local microbrew. Anyone who grumbled about the snack selection was free to pack their own. Veenie had a pallet of Ding Dongs and Big Red soda pop from the Costco squirreled away in the basement. She was hunky dory with bring-your-own snacks.

  I kicked my feet, propelling the porch swing back and forth. “What’s playing at the drive-in?”

  “It’s Easter week. They’re showing The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur. I hope like heck they play Ben Hur first. If they play The Ten Commandments first, it’s bound to put a cramp in Dickie’s make out style. He was raised Southern Baptist, you know. One look at that twenty-foot Moses, and his gopher is going back in the hole, if you catch my drift.”

  Unlike me, Veenie had a sex life with someone other than herself.

  Our boarder, Sue Ann Smith—Sassy, everybody called her—strolled out onto the porch wearing some type of silky lounging suit. Sassy had lived in California the last few decades. She was forever strutting around in urban hippie attire. Large red roses bloomed in swirls around her body. Her face was done up like it was date night. She was wearing false eyelashes and a push-up bra that lived up to its name. She sat down in a rocker facing the sidewalk so she could see who strolled by. She’d recently moved back to Knobby Waters and was surveying the pickings for a man to sink her fangs into. Her last husband, Doogie Duval, a LA real estate developer, had recently won an all-expense-paid trip to Club Fed, in Terre Haute, leaving her destitute. Rumor had it he was involved in a real estate scheme that had to do with selling desert lots to dim-witted Midwesterners.

  Sassy claimed she hadn’t known anything about her husband’s shady businesses. She claimed he left her just enough money to hightail it back to Knobby Waters. The California attorneys, however, felt Sassy must have had money squirreled away. They called the house all hours trying to get Sassy to fess up. When Veenie caught one of them peering in her bedroom window, she gave him an awful eyeful. He never did that again.

  Sassy pulled out an emery board. She dragged it halfheartedly across her nails. “The Passion Pit open again? Lordy, but we had good times there, didn’t we, gals?”

  “You and the entire Knobby Waters basketball team.” Veenie clicked her false teeth.

  Sassy inspected her nails. Not satisfied with the results, she started raking again. “Veenie, you know full well I was born to entertain.”

  Veenie propped her tiny feet up on a white ceramic stool that was shaped like an elephant—a two-dollar Goodwill steal. “I plum forgot. How many Oscars was it you dragged home for your performances down in the passion pit?”

  Sassy ceased filing. “It’s a woman’s rightful place to seduce a man. It’s all right there, plain as gospel in the Bible. It’s how people get begat and all.”

  “You read the Lord All Mighty’s word, and that’s what you came away with?”

  “I’ll have you know that I had an important position once, out in LA, in the Church of Scientology.”

  “What position was that? Missionary?”

  Sassy raked a nail with a grand flourish. “I’ve seen that little hottie Dickie Freeman hanging around here. You two exclusive?”

  Oh boy. I could see the fur flying. “Veenie’s dating Dickie Freeman right steady. Hands off, Sassy,” I felt compelled to say.

  Veenie crossed her arms and hugged herself tightly. “All other body parts too.”

  Sassy studied the sky like she was pulling down memories about Dickie. “Those Freeman boys were all cute as buttons. All sandy hair and dimples. Don’t Dickie love to dance? Don’t he own that humongous gorgeous old house over on Maple Street?”

  Veenie nodded. “Same house. Hair nests above his ears like baby bunny tails. I think he looks better now than he did in high school. What do you think, Ruby Jane?”

  “Agreed.”

  Sassy screwed up her face. “Didn’t Dickie marry Ruth Rucker?”

  “Married. Buried.”

  Some days it felt like we weren’t growing older. It felt like we were aging backward. The women fought over boys. The men just wanted to cop a feel. We’d returned to middle school, which had not been that swell the first time around, at least not for me. Sassy, on the other hand, had reigned over the tongue-tied farm boys like a backwater Cleopatra.

  I chewed on my cheek as Sassy recalled memories of Dickie Freeman. I knew that look in Sassy’s eye. I’d seen that look back in 1965 when she made me, the tallest girl in the class, hold the rabbit ears in place on the Zenith TV in her mother’s basement. The goal then was for us girls to get an educational eyeful of Peyton Place.

  Peyton Place, the book, had been banned from the Pawpaw County Bookmobile. Sassy had, therefore, been determined to watch it on TV. She mined a good bit of her ideas about seducing men from that show, most of which she reenacted with flair on the Daulton brothers at the ’65 Spring Hop. Too bad there hadn’t been a Facebook back then.

  I could feel it brewing. A sixties redux. I wouldn’t be surprised if I came home one day to find Veenie in the downstairs toilet treating Sassy to a well-deserved swirly. Yep. It was spring in Knobby Waters. All God’s creatures, except for me, were on the prowl.

  Chapter Six

  I unlocked the office Monday morning and stepped over a pile of letters that the postman had poked through the brass slot on the door. I stooped to gather the mail. Ackerman’s Tanning, Fence, Catering, Stump Removal Serv
ice (they had diversified over the years to stay afloat) was offering a two-for-one spring stump removal special. It was such a good deal I regretted that I couldn’t use the coupon.

  At the bottom of the pile I found a postcard that read “Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.” The photo was of Lover’s Leap, a stone terrace on the trail up Lookout Mountain. Flipping the card over, I recognized the boss’s ratty handwriting. “Don’t tell Shap!”

  I pinned the card to the corkboard along with a dozen others, now all curling at the edges. Every time Harry went on the lamb, he sent a postcard. He might or might not be in Tennessee. Hard to tell. Last time he’d gone on the lamb, we’d received a mermaid postcard from Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida. Harry had, in truth, been hiding out just down the road at the Winkin’, Blinkin’, and Nod Motor Court in the town of Toad Hop. Harry liked to plant red herrings in case some ticked-off husband was trying to track him down.

  The office door squeaked open, and Veenie shouldered in. She’d been at the bank making the week’s deposit. She carried a white bakery bag, which I imagined held half-price day-old cinnamon twists from the Roadkill Café. When she saw me pinning up the postcard, she said, “Harry?”

  “Uh huh.”

  I sat down at my desk and fired up the computer. Now that Avonelle had authorized us to snoop into Bromley’s death, I had some items to look up. I started with arrest records. In my experience, if people had secrets, they were usually about love or money. I wondered which had been the issue with Bromley Apple.

  Veenie put on a pot of coffee and split open the white donut bag while she waited for the pot to drip perk. She squinted at Harry’s postcard. “Remember when we took the kids to Lookout Mountain, down in Tennessee? Remember the shenanigans Eddie and Joyce pulled?” Eddie and Joyce were my grown children.

  “Not easy to forget.”

  Veenie tore a square off the paper bag, placed a donut on it, and slid the donut across my desk. She poured a cup of black coffee into my yard sale mug, which read, “Hello darkness, my old friend.”