Cozy Mysteries Women Sleuths Series: Box Set III: Books 9-12 Read online

  “How do you know she’s homeless?” Loretta answered her sister’s question with one of her own.

  Lacy adjusted the turban on her head. “Because I saw her on the side of the road yesterday, holding a sign. You don’t know who she is, Loretta. She could be a serial killer for all you know.”

  “C’mon Lacy. She is not a serial killer. Look at her. Does she look like a serial killer to you?”

  “Like you’ve seen a serial killer before!”

  The argument was going nowhere. Loretta stomped over to Lacy’s closet and flung the door open. She reached inside and grabbed the first thing her fingers touched. It was a pink and white checkered shirt. “This will work.”

  “I love that shirt,” Lacy whined.

  Loretta ignored her sister and marched over to her dresser drawer, opening one drawer at a time until she found Lacy’s stockpile of shorts, shoved inside in no particular orderly fashion. She pulled out a pair of denim cutoffs and held them up for inspection.

  “You’re giving her a pair of my shorts, too?” Lacy gasped.

  Loretta gave her sister a quick glance. “Do you want her to walk around half-naked?”

  Lacy rolled her eyes. “I suppose you’re going to give her a pair of my underwear, too!”

  Loretta folded the shorts in half and tucked them, along with the shirt, under her arm. “Good idea.” She opened the top drawer a second time and rifled through the lingerie.

  “I’ll pick it out.” Lacy shoved her sister to the side and peered in the drawer. She pulled out a plain white pair of undies and white bra, trimmed in lace. “If these don’t fit, I want them back,” she snapped as she held them out for Loretta.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” Loretta replied sarcastically.

  Lacy slammed the drawer shut and flounced onto her bed, mumbling under her breath.

  Loretta ignored her sister and made her way out of the room, down the hall and down the stairs where Uncle Ichabod and Hannah were waiting.

  Loretta held out the clothes. “Let’s head over to the showers so you can get cleaned up and then I’ll show you where you can stay.”

  Chapter 3

  The clothes Loretta “borrowed” from Lacy fit Hannah to a “T”, and when she emerged from the shower, her long hair neatly combed straight, she looked even younger than Loretta had originally thought.

  Hannah shifted her tote bag from one hand to the other. “I…my clothes are in here.”

  Loretta waved her forward. “I’ll show you where the laundry room is located, along with the shared kitchen area and then the teepee you can stay in.”

  As they toured the facilities, Loretta explained that all of the teepees, except for one, were occupied. Hannah would be responsible for keeping the common areas clean, the sidewalk swept, the trashcans emptied and the clubhouse near the back of the trailer park, clean. In exchange, Loretta would let her stay in the vacant teepee.

  They finished the tour in the clubhouse and Hannah gazed at the pool in the back. “Am I allowed to swim in the pool?”

  “Of course. I’ll give you a key to the gate and when you’re not working, you’re free to use it and the clubhouse,” Loretta said. She was dying to ask Hannah about her family but didn’t want to spook the young girl. She needed Hannah to trust her and then Loretta hoped she would open up.

  In the meantime, she would check with Collier County Sheriff’s Department to see if there was a missing person, or in this case missing teenager, who matched Hannah’s description.

  She led Hannah to the empty teepee and showed her the inside. “You can have a couple hours off to settle in, maybe do some laundry and then start cleaning the common areas.”

  Hannah eased onto the edge of the bed. “Thank you…Loretta. You won’t be sorry,” she promised.

  Loretta stepped out of the teepee and closed the door behind her. She prayed a small prayer for the young girl, turned on her heel and headed to the office. It was time to do a little digging around.

  ***

  “We aren’t running a charity,” Lacy huffed.

  “It isn’t charity,” Loretta patiently explained to her sister. “Hannah will earn her keep. I put her in charge of cleaning the common areas, including the clubhouse.”

  Lacy chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. If Hannah cleaned the clubhouse, it meant she wouldn’t have to. “Still, she could be a hardened criminal for all you know. I guarantee she’s not even eighteen years old.”

  “That’s why I’m contacting authorities, to find out if there’s a missing person report filed on anyone who matches Hannah’s description.”

  Loretta turned her attention to her computer and searched Collier County Sheriff’s Department website for missing persons. Either there wasn’t anyone reported missing or the site didn’t list the missing persons. “I guess I’ll have to run by there to find out,” she said.

  Collier County Sheriff’s Department was located halfway between Misery and Glimmer, the next town.

  Loretta had never visited the sheriff’s department, although Uncle Ichabod, Lacy and she had been smack dab in the middle of several investigations. She made her way across the lawn to the back steps and into the kitchen.

  Uncle Ichabod was sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper. He lowered the paper and watched as Loretta reached for her purse sitting on the chair and her van keys hanging from the hook. “Where are you going?”

  “To Collier County Sheriff’s Department. I want to check the missing persons list to see if Hannah is on the list.”

  Her uncle closed the newspaper and folded it, setting it on top of the stack. “Mind if I tag along?”

  Loretta grinned and shook her head. “Of course not.” Jinxy, Loretta’s tortoiseshell cat, wound her way through Loretta’s legs and then stopped in front of her.

  “First, I need to feed Jinxy,” she said.

  Uncle Ichabod rose from the chair. “Don’t buy the look of starvation! I fed her not twenty minutes ago.”

  Loretta bent down and scratched Jinxy’s ears. “Did you hear that? You’re busted!”

  Jinxy maintained her look of innocence and began to purr loudly.

  “I’ll give you a treat instead,” Loretta said as she shifted to the side, reached in the kitchen cabinet and pulled out a container of treats. She took three from the container and held them out.

  Jinxy delicately nibbled on the treats and then stalked off to the living room.

  “You spoil that cat rotten,” Uncle Ichabod teased.

  It was true. Loretta loved to spoil Jinxy. The cat had shown up while Lacy and Loretta had been in Las Vegas hunting Uncle Ichabod down.

  Loretta had no idea where Jinxy had come from. She had asked around town and no one claimed her, so Loretta decided she was meant to be with them…with her.

  Lacy tolerated the cat, but Jinxy was not allowed in Lacy’s room. Lacy claimed it was because she was allergic to cats, which Loretta doubted since she showed no signs of suffering from allergies.

  “You ready?” Loretta headed to the back door and Uncle Ichabod followed behind. He reached for his gray fedora and popped it on his head.

  Loretta wandered down the steps and Uncle Ichabod followed behind, pulling the door shut behind him.

  “Can we stop by the grocery store in Glimmer after we’re done at the sheriff’s department?”

  Uncle Ichabod had given up driving years ago, long before Loretta and Lacy had moved in, and he depended on Loretta…or on rare occasion, Lacy, to drive him to appointments and to run errands.

  “Of course.” Loretta climbed into the driver’s seat while Uncle Ichabod made his way around the other side and climbed into the passenger seat.

  Loretta backed the van out of the parking spot and pulled onto the gravel drive leading to the road. She caught a glimpse of Hannah, who was carrying her tote bag from the teepee to the laundry area.

  Her shoulders slumped as she walked and Loretta’s heart went out to her. There was sadness about the youn
g girl, as if she carried the weight of the world on her slender shoulders.

  Loretta decided right then and there that she would help the young girl. “Hopefully we can help Hannah.”

  She turned onto the main road and headed toward the Collier County Sheriff’s Department.

  Chapter 4

  Officer Phil Gatlin leaned one elbow on the counter and eyed Loretta skeptically. “You say you talked to this young gal on the side of the road and she appeared to be homeless so you offered to let her stay in one of your teepees in exchange for helping around the trailer park?”

  Loretta nodded. “Yes and I’m concerned because she’s young…too young to be out on her own so I wondered if you could check your database to see if anyone has reported a young girl missing. Her name is Hannah Smith.”

  “If that’s her real name,” Uncle Ichabod pointed out.

  True. She could be using an alias. “She’s about this tall.” Loretta lifted her hand level to her forehead. “Sandy blonde hair and thin. She’s about Lacy’s size.”

  Officer Gatlin nodded as he jotted notes on the yellow pad in front of him. “You say you saw her on the side of the road this morning?”

  “Yes,” Loretta confirmed. “I haven’t asked her where she’s from. She told me she has been staying in the woods right outside Misery.”

  “Let me see what we got.” Officer Gatlin ripped the sheet of paper from the pad, slid it to the side and next to the computer sitting on the counter. He tapped the keys on the keyboard and stared at the screen.

  “I searched Collier County records, along with nearby Medford County and even included Bozier County. There’s no one who matches that description or is even remotely close.”

  On the one hand, Loretta was relieved Hannah wasn’t a runaway. On the other hand, perhaps it meant that she left home because she wasn’t wanted, which was even worse than being a runaway.

  “Thank you for checking, Officer Gatlin. If you hear of anything…”

  The officer nodded. “I’ll be sure to let you know, Loretta.” He changed the subject. “I haven’t seen Lacy around lately. What has she been up to?”

  “Working,” Loretta said. And dating an attractive fireman by the name of Colton, she added silently.

  “Maybe you should stop by sometime, say hi,” Loretta smiled. Catch Lacy with her new hottie!

  Uncle Ichabod chuckled and rubbed his temple. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea to see a few more patrol cars around Misery.”

  Things had been relatively calm in their small town. The last big incident had been when the chief of police’s wife, Caroline Baxter, had killed Fink Greeves, a local, and then blown up the old drive-in movie theater.

  “I’ll do that,” Officer Gatlin said as he rounded the counter and walked them to the front door. “I’ve been doing a lot of desk duty but plan on hitting the streets soon.” He opened the door and waited until they stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  Loretta walked around the front of the van as she made her way to the driver’s side. She eased in the seat and waited while Uncle Ichabod settled into the passenger seat. “Maybe you can invite the gal over for dinner. You’re good at putting people at ease, Loretta. Perhaps you can get her to open up.”

  Loretta inserted the key in the ignition and started the van. “What a great idea. I’ll track her down to see how things are going and then invite her to dinner.”

  She pulled out of the parking spot and headed for Glimmer and the large grocery store, Thrift-Co. The two rode in silence.

  Loretta was mulling over Hannah’s mysterious background. Uncle Ichabod was wondering what wonderful dinner Loretta would whip up for company.

  She pulled into the busy parking lot and found a spot near the front. “What do you say we pick up some fried chicken for dinner? I can grab a few ears of corn and make a side of mashed potatoes.”

  Uncle Ichabod’s stomach grumbled. The next best thing to Loretta’s cooking was Thrift-Co’s deli chicken. “Sounds good to me.”

  Loretta rarely drove to Glimmer to shop at the large grocery store and when she did, she tried to stock up on staples and other items she couldn’t purchase at Misery’s small corner grocery.

  They hit all of the food aisles and ended up with a full shopping cart. After checking out, Loretta steered the shopping cart to the back of the van and they began to unload the cart.

  She placed the shopping bag with the two containers of fried chicken in last and the tantalizing smell whooshed out of the bag and blew into her face. “I’m starving,” she groaned, certain the smell would fill the van and torture Uncle Ichabod and her on the way home.

  “Let’s drive through the burger joint and grab some food to take home,” she said as she pulled out onto the main road.

  Half an hour later, Loretta turned on the gravel drive leading to the trailer park and their house, and pulled into her parking spot.

  She had just opened the driver’s side door and made her way to the back when Lacy burst out the back door and marched across the lawn.

  “You’ll never guess what I caught your new part-time employee, Hannah, doing!”

  Chapter 5

  Loretta reached inside the rear of the van, grabbed several grocery sacks and thrust them in Lacy’s hand. “Here. Make yourself useful.”

  Lacy adjusted the bags. “Don’t you want to know what your little protégé did?”

  Loretta tried her best to ignore Lacy as she reached for several bags and headed to the back of the house. Lacy trailed behind her and Uncle Ichabod brought up the rear. “She was in our laundry room, helping herself to laundry detergent. I watched her take it over to the communal laundry room.”

  “I told her she could use it,” Loretta said as she reached for the doorknob. “That and the fabric softener.”

  She made her way into the kitchen and dropped the grocery bags on the kitchen table.

  Lacy dumped the bags Loretta had given her on the nearby counter. “What are you gonna do? Adopt her? Might as well just let her move into the house with us,” she ranted.

  “It’s a thought,” Loretta said. “We’ll see how it works out with her staying in the teepee first.”

  Uncle Ichabod carried his grocery bag to the fridge and opened the freezer door. “I don’t understand why this girl has you so up in arms, Lacy. She needs help. You should be more charitable.”

  “Charity is what you do on Sunday morning when the church plate comes around,” Lacy argued. “Not drag complete strangers home and then let them have free run of the place.”

  Loretta clenched her jaw and let Lacy vent. There was no stopping her sister. Once Lacy got a bee in her bonnet, it was best to let her air her grievances, no matter how exaggerated.

  Finally, Lacy took a breath and plopped down in the chair to watch her sister and uncle finish putting the groceries away.

  Loretta pulled the boxes of fried chicken from the bag and set them on the counter.

  Lacy eyed the chicken. “Fried chicken for dinner. What’s the occasion?”

  “I’m going to invite Hannah to eat with us,” Loretta said. “I forgot the burgers and fries.” She darted out the door and made her way to the van to retrieve the fast food bags.

  Lacy watched her as she set the paper bags on the table. “Let me guess. You’re going to invite Hannah for lunch too.”

  Loretta reached inside the bag, removed the burgers, then the fries and set everything in the center of the table. “No. I bought her food earlier. She shouldn’t be hungry.”

  The only time Lacy stopped grumbling and griping about Hannah was when her mouth was full of food. All of the moaning and groaning went in one ear and out the other as Loretta wondered for the umpteenth time about the girl’s background.

  Loretta abruptly changed the subject. “How’s the new beau, Colton, what’s his name?”

  “Colton Sheffield.” Lacy brightened.

  “Wonderful,” she gushed. “Why, he gave me a tour of the fire house. Whew! The other two firefighter
s on duty were nice looking, too.”

  Lacy rubbed her hands together. “I should take you down there to meet them,” she said.

  Loretta shook her head. The last thing she wanted was to become involved with a man in uniform. Plus, Pastor Alex Jessup and she had been dating off and on for a couple months now. They weren’t a couple per se, but Loretta would feel guilty for even thinking about another man.

  “They’re all yours,” Loretta said. “Maybe you can rotate them so you don’t get bored,” she joked.

  Uncle Ichabod laughed.

  Lacy gave her a dirty look, shot out of the chair and marched out of the kitchen.

  Loretta watched her leave. “What? That was all it took to get rid of her?” She glanced out the window at the teepees. “I’m going to run over to see how Hannah is doing, to find out if she has any questions and then invite her to dinner. How does dinner at six sound?”

  “Sounds good,” Uncle Ichabod said. “I’m gonna make a run through the trailer park with the golf cart, and then stop to check on the clubhouse,” he said. Technically, those were Lacy’s responsibilities, but most of the time she slacked off on her duties. She preferred spending her time in the small office near the front of the property.

  Loretta suspected it was because her sister could hang out and play games on her computer. She had never called Lacy out on it or even tried to catch her in the act. It was best to let Lacy work at her own pace.

  Besides that, Uncle Ichabod seemed to enjoy making his rounds and it kept him busy and feeling useful.

  They had recently discussed expanding the trailer park, adding more trailer pads. Not long after the girls inherited the property, Loretta had hired a company to survey the property and they discovered they owned several acres behind the trailer park, including a small manmade lake.

  Loretta was in the preliminary stages of getting quotes on excavation, extending the streets, along with extending the water and sewer lines and running electricity to the back where the new lots would be located.