Armed and Outrageous (An Agnes Barton Mystery) Read online

  “Why in the world, Eleanor, would you leave your door unlocked?”

  Eleanor turned around with an indignant expression on her face. Her large frame squeezed into a matching mustard colored shirt and Capri pants. On her feet, she wore white flip-flops. I couldn’t understand how she could walk in the blasted things.

  Eleanor had blue eyes that simply danced, and her well-wrinkled skin was covered with large moles, as if she collected them. Her thin, gray hair was curled today – her hair appointment had been only yesterday. When she laughed, which she did often, her whole belly shook.

  “Why would I lock the door? I knew you’d be coming straight here after getting the paper. How is Roy this morning?” She giggled and tried unsuccessfully to stop.

  “You’re the one that has eyes for him, not me, Eleanor.”

  “Really? Do you think he would be interested?” Her eyes danced suggestively.

  Ignoring her chatter, I held up the newspaper and handed it to Eleanor to read. She carried it to one of her white wicker chairs and sat reading the article before handing it back to me.

  “It said the same thing on the news this morning. The girl’s father is on his way here too,” Eleanor said, putting her hand against her mouth as if someone else could hear her. “Word is that he is staying at Robinson’s Manor while he’s here.”

  “Put your hand down, and start acting serious for once. How in the world does he think he can get in there? They are always booked this time of year.”

  “There is one suite that is always empty. I heard they remodeled it real quick like just to accommodate him.”

  “Certainly not … the suite?”

  “One and the same.”

  “The suite where Mrs. Robinson was raped and murdered?” I couldn’t believe it. “Nobody in their right mind would want to stay in…that room. Maybe he doesn’t know.”

  “Beats me, but word is he wants to be close to the place where his daughter went missing.”

  I cleared my throat. “Where exactly would that be, Eleanor?”

  “I was hoping you would ask. Not far from Quick Stop. It was the party store she was going to on Tuesday.”

  I stood and walked back through the house with Eleanor hot on my heels. “You won’t find anything there. If the police haven’t found anything, what makes you think you will?”

  “Eleanor, I’m a concerned citizen, and it’s my god given right to get to the bottom of this. It could be related to Sophia’s disappearance. What if all of these cases are related?”

  Eleanor put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Honey, I know you want to believe that, and I’m not saying you’re wrong, but it’s a long shot. I hope Sophia is still alive too, but Agnes, it’s been a year.”

  I wiped away a tear that formed. “I know you’re right, but I have to do this.”

  “Would you like company at least?”

  I gave Eleanor a strange look. “I’m not sure you will fit in my Mustang.”

  We both laughed while Eleanor retrieved her keys. “I’m driving,.” she said

  “I don’t think, th-that’s a good idea,” I stammered.

  “Don’t be silly, Agnes. You might want to move out of my way. I would hate to lose a good friend at my age.”

  Eleanor went into her garage and backed out her gray 1980 Cadillac Seville. It only had 50,000 miles, but that was hard to believe with the damage on the body – part of the reason I wanted to drive. They say a Cadillac is built like a tank, one of the main reasons I raised money and bought her the car.

  Eleanor hadn’t had much luck in her life until she inherited her house from a nephew who’d died unexpectedly a few years back. Her only son, Edward, had nothing to do with her. I met her at the Mikado bingo, quite a distance from where we lived. We were surprised to learn we lived only a mile apart from one another. I was immediately taken in by her quick wit, and I thought of her as a sister I never had – the perfect partner in crime.

  Eleanor opened the car door for me. “Don’t be afraid, I promise I can see much better with these new glasses.”

  I had my doubts about her driving skills, but I climbed in nonetheless. Right on cue, Eleanor hopped in, cranked the engine, and slammed her foot on the pedal. Rocks flew up and tinged the roof; hot tin roof came to mind. She tore off down the road toward Quick Stop. She swerved and didn’t stay in her lane, but we made it there without incident, thanks to the grace of God.

  “Pull over here, it looks like a good spot to start searching,” I said.

  Eleanor pulled over and parked on the shoulder. Lake Huron wasn’t visible from where we started searching, and trees lined the road.

  “What exactly are we looking for?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said, getting out. “I just feel this is as good place as any to start.”

  I walked north on US 23, toward Quick Stop, and noticed skid marks. They were wide and might have come from a truck or van. They extended from the start of the pavement and stopped just on the other side of the double yellow line.

  When I glanced toward the other side of the road, I saw what looked to be blood on a blade of grass. Going past that, I walked toward the trees, but before I reached them, I tripped on something. I thought it was a rock or hole on the ground at first, but it was a shoe!

  It was an athletic shoe with a silver chain with the initials J.M. attached. I knelt and noticed the shoe had a black mark extending from the side of the shoe all the way to the toe.

  Pulling out my cell, I dialed 911 to report what I had found and agreed to wait for the sheriff to show up. He showed up ten minutes later.

  Sheriff Peterson stopped his car and crossed the road. His black hair was plastered to his head, wearing dark sunglasses on his face. He reminded me of a big city cop you’d see in one of those movies I’m so fond of, minus the trim body, so out of place in this small tourist town.

  He shook his head in irritation. “What are you doing here?”

  Not feeling one bit intimidated, I started speaking. “I think I have found something related to the recent missing woman.”

  “What in tarnation are you talking about? If you’ve been watching the news, you’d know she hasn’t been officially listed as missing.” He scratched his head as gnats were flying about and his nose began to drip. Taking a tissue out of his pocket, he rubbed it under his nose, temporarily stopping the clear liquid from dripping further. “Are you suggesting we may have missed something?”

  “You said it, not me, Sheriff.” Leading him to the blade of grass, I found earlier. I knelt. “For one thing, this blade of grass appears to have blood on it.” I carefully stepped around it and walked to where the shoe lay. “I also found an athletic shoe here.” I pointed down.

  Sheriff Peterson walked to the spot I indicated. “So this is your vital evidence, a shoe and a drop of blood.”

  “You missed it of course, but it could be the shoe the girl wore when she was kidnapped. That blood looks fresh.”

  “Agnes, now listen here. There’s no evidence anyone was kidnapped. It’s just a shoe for pete’s sake, and there’s no way of knowing if that’s blood.”

  “So you’re shirking your responsibilities and not looking into it? In my days, it would be your responsibility as a member of law enforcement to…investigate further.”

  He looked back across the road waiting for the traffic to clear. The five or six cars coming through slowed down as they passed us.

  “Of course, I’m gonna look into it.” He crossed the road and returned with plastic bags and gloves. Kneeling, he snipped the blade of grass with a pair of scissors and placed it into a small plastic bag. Picking up the shoe, he placed it into a larger bag. Snatching his gloves off, he walked back to his car as I followed.

  “Sheriff, where was the woman staying?”

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  “I would like to find out if she’s here with friends. I want to ask them some questions. Perhaps, dealing with an old broad like m
e, they’d impart more information to me than to you … maybe?”

  Putting his face close to mine, “You know I can’t tell you anything like that. This is official police business. Go home, and let us do our job.”

  I pursed my lips, which suddenly felt dry. “What you want and what you get are entirely two separate things. I fully intend to look into the matter myself,” I assured Sheriff Peterson. As I walked back across the road to Eleanor's car, I shouted over oncoming traffic, “Oh no, sir, Sheriff. I’m not about to let it go this time.”

  The bungling sheriff tossed the bags he’d collected onto his passenger seat, gingerly worked his bulging stomach beneath the steering wheel, and quickly pulled away. Peterson put his cruiser into a tight U-turn, wheeled about, and sped toward East Tawas.

  Chapter Three

  “Where are we going now?” Eleanor asked, making herself comfy on the passenger seat of the car.

  I glanced up the road a spell and noticed a dirt path that appeared large enough for a car to fit. Getting in on the driver’s side, I started Eleanor’s Cadillac, driving toward the path.

  “What in the hell are you doing? This isn’t a road, Agnes!”

  I didn’t say a word, just continued down the path. Tree branches scrapped across the car and slapped against the windows. I didn’t care. I needed to get to the bottom of this before another young woman was snatched.

  “You’re crazy,” Eleanor laughed. “You talk about my driving.”

  “I know this path leads somewhere.” My hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles had turned white.

  “If you get us stuck in here, we’ll be trapped forever. They won’t find our corpses until winter. I don’t want to be a corpse.” Eleanor pouted.

  I would have looked at her and made a smart comeback, but I had trouble keeping control of the car. Every branch seemed to pull the car off the path.

  I reached a clearing in the woods and tore up the grass as I hit the brakes. I saw a log cabin. It was small with a brick chimney that ran down the right side. I hadn’t heard about this place, which surprised me. Thanks to, Eleanor, who always keeps me up-to-date on the local gossip, I had heard about most everything in the area.

  I stopped the car, stepped out, and approached two young men sitting at a campfire with a blue enamel coffee pot on the fire before them, most likely boiling water for their morning coffee.

  The two young men looked at me with wide eyes, and I knew why. Between one of the young man’s fingers was a joint, and the smell of marijuana hung in the air as if a cloud surrounded their heads.

  “Enjoying your morning buzz, boys?” I asked, smiling. “I don’t give a hoot about that. Why you know in my day… well, forget about that. I never touched the stuff.”

  “Sure, Agnes! Whatever you say,” Eleanor said, standing behind me.

  I popped a glance over my shoulder and gave Eleanor the disapproving eye. I then glanced back at the young men. “I was wondering if either of you knew the missing woman, Jennifer Martin?”

  “Who’s askin’?” a young woman standing at the doorway of the cabin pointedly asked. Her blond hair appeared tousled, and she had black eyeliner smeared beneath her eyes; she wore only a large white Sick Puppies T-shirt. Exactly what that meant was lost on me. Puppies were supposed to be cute, and I couldn’t think of anyone who’d want a sick puppy.

  “My name is Agnes, and Jennifer is like a granddaughter to me. I’m not the type to be waiting for the police to tell me something.” I spoke in my most sincere voice. I knew how to lay it on thick when need be.

  “You don’t want us. You need to drive down the road a spell. There’s a log cabin right behind Lodges Sporting Goods,” the young woman said to the annoyance of the two fellows at the campfire.

  I glanced at the men, and noticed one of them was now busy studying the ground, avoiding my eyes. I, of course, walked straight over to him. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

  He glanced up at me, tears swimming in his green eyes, and he nodded. Standing, he stretched his nearly six-foot frame up. His blond hair was spiked, and he wore cutoff denim shorts. His muscular frame made me think he might at one time have been an athlete.

  “Leave us,” he barked at his friends. The woman glared at him, but his friends left walking down a wider lane on the opposite side of the cabin – clearly, a better way out than the way we’d driven in.

  He walked away and stepped onto the cabin porch obviously in order to have a post and a handrail to lean against.

  “My name is Agnes,” I repeated, now having to look way up at him. “Can I get your name?”

  “Kevin Marks,” he replied. I’ve been waiting for someone to come around asking questions.”

  “So you’re saying the Sheriff hasn’t been out here to talk to you?” I couldn’t believe it. Obviously, nobody at the Sheriff’s Department took Jennifer’s disappearance seriously.

  “If they did, it wasn’t to talk to me.”

  “Can you tell me what happened? I’d appreciate any help you could give me.”

  He took a deep breath, expanding his broad chest even further. “Jen wanted to walk up to the store to clear her head. I wanted to go with her, but she wanted no part of it. When she didn’t come back, I didn’t think anything of it at first until… well, until I saw she had left her medication behind.”

  I started to get the feeling there was something he wasn’t telling me, so I pressed on. “So, you had a lovers spat then?”

  Turning his head with tear-filled eyes, he continued. “We were just friends; he made sure of it.”

  “Who are you talking about? Who was stopping you?”

  “Her father,” he spat out the final word. “I wasn’t good enough for her, and he made sure he pressed the point home. He pulled me aside and offered me money to leave her alone.”

  “How did you react to that?”

  “I told him to shove it up his ass. I may only be a farmer’s son, but I plan on going to college. I have a scholarship to Michigan State University. I’ve played football my whole life and my coach seems to think I could go pro.”

  “Doesn’t sound to me like you’re a loser. Is there something more you can tell me?”

  “Her father has control issues. I doubt anyone would be good enough for his little girl.”

  “Were you the one who called the police?”

  “No, he did. If she missed one phone call, he would call the police to hunt her down.”

  “Did she leave anything behind?”

  Rather than answer, he turned and walked into the cabin. I turned to exchange a look with Eleanor and found her impatiently frowning back at me when I heard the young man return. He held up a mauve backpack.

  “Everything is in there, including her medication. She seemed to do okay, but if she doesn’t get it regularly – who knows what might happen.”

  “Thank you, Kevin. I hope we can find her before that becomes an issue.”

  Eleanor stood by the car, fanning herself with a magazine, waiting. She raised an eyebrow glancing at the backpack I was carrying. I didn’t say a word. I just got inside the car as Eleanor scrambled to get in the passenger door, which took a few minutes longer. While I drove down the wider lane on the opposite side of the cabin, Eleanor couldn’t contain her questions any longer.

  “What do you have there, Agnes?” Eleanor asked, with a sheepish grin on her face.

  “It’s the missing girl’s backpack.”

  “What? He just gave it to you?” Her mouth gaped open, and I hoped a fly would find its way inside.

  “Of course, why not, I’m family after all.”

  Eleanor laughed so hard her belly jumped as if making popcorn inside.

  “Where are we going next, Agnes?”

  “Taking you home.” My face felt tight. I hoped for once she’d just let this go. I loved Eleanor, but I didn’t want her attached to my hip.

  “Oh no you’re not,” Eleanor said. She puffed out her chest in indignation,
resembling a hen. “This is the most exciting thing I have ever done, and I won’t let you spoil it for me.”

  “I hate to remind you that you’re not as swift on your feet as you used to be.”

  “I know that, but nobody would suspect two old ladies digging up clues.” Eleanor rubbed her hands together.

  I nodded in agreement. “I suppose you’re right, Eleanor, but it could get dangerous. Are you still game?”

  “Throw me in the frying pan and consider me cooked, Aggie.”

  “Hopefully our goose won’t get cooked.” It was the understatement of the year because nothing we ever did turned out the way I hoped.

  Pulling into Eleanor’s driveway, we exited the Cadillac, I with the backpack held tight in my hand, just as the sun directly overhead beat down on us.

  “It’s much too hot already,” I muttered out loud, a habit of mine. I talk to myself all the time. They always say just make sure you don’t answer yourself, but I do that too.

  Sometimes you’re the only one that’ll give you the answers you want to hear.

  When we entered the air-conditioned house, we both exhaled loudly. I was relieved that we were out of the blasted heat.

  I set the backpack down and took the items out, carefully setting them on the counter. Spotting the medication, I was shocked such a young woman would have that serious a heart condition. Most likely, she had had it since birth. It was no wonder her father was so frantic to find her. If they didn’t, her life would indeed be in serious jeopardy.

  I examined the items, laid out on the table. Two tall bottles filled with shampoo and conditioner, toothbrush, and toothpaste – the normal toiletries you would find in anyone’s vacation bag.

  I raised an eyebrow when I spotted a small, red velvet box. Upon opening it, I realized Kevin hadn’t told me everything. This made her disappearance, all the more puzzling.

  Chapter Four

  By the time Eleanor and I had tea before us, we sat listening to some god awful Hank Williams music, which Eleanor loved, whereas my taste in music is quite the opposite. I preferred a good pop tune the kids listen to these days like Britney Spears. I'm not too old to shake a tail feather yet.