Murder & Mayhem in Goose Pimple Junction (41 page)

“
Mama said he’d tried to tell her a couple of times about somethin’ in the trunk in the attic. She assumed he was talkin’ about his grandmother’s steamer trunk that they kept up there with old clothes and quilts in it. Mama searched it high and low but never found anything he’d left. When you said you found a key, I knew that’s what it was for. It brought all those memories back.” Lou’s eyes got watery, but she reined her emotions in and continued talking as she fiddled with a tissue in her hand.

“
At first it was an obsession with her. About once a week, she went up there to that attic and took every article out of that trunk. She
unfolded and shook out each piece, examined it, only to have to fold everything back up and put it all back in the trunk. It never made sense to her. Then after the detective finished his investigation, she never went near that trunk again.” Lou took a deep breath. “And then there was the insurance money . . . “

“
What about it?” Tess asked.

“
Mama filed a death claim suit against the insurance comp’ny, on
account that her husband was shot and killed by an unknown person.
I b’lieve she asked for $10,000 double indemnity benefits under a $5,000 policy he held. You know . . . it’s like an accidental death benefit. But the insurance comp’ny denied the policy, alleging the death was suicide. That just about killed my Mama. I mean, how could it have been suicide? His gun hadn’t been fired, and there were three bullet holes in his car windows. It just didn’t add up. But sometimes life makes as much sense as bowling cleats.”

“
Okay, that trunk has been searched—right?”

“
And searched and searched,” Lou said.

“
Could he have been talking about something else besides the
steamer trunk? Try to think of what else was in the attic that could
have been considered a trunk.” Jack leaned forward in earnestness. 

Lou
closed her eyes and put her hands on her temples. Finally, she said, “I just don’t think there was anything else up there. There were some old chairs, and some Christmas decorations in boxes, and excess stuff like that up there, but nothin’ else that you’d call a trunk.” 

“
Okay, can Tess and I see the trunk? Sometimes a new pair of eyes can see somethin’ others have missed.”

“
Y’all are welcome to gwon up there and look at it. I hope ya won’t mind if I just stay put.” 

“
Of course you can stay here, Lou, can we get you anything before we go up?”

“
No sugah, I’ll just go check on Buttabean.”

Thirty
minutes later, Jack and Tess came back down the stairs,
looking dejected.

“
Well?” Lou asked.

“
Here’s the thing, Lou,” explained Jack. “We didn’t find anything, but I think it’s possible that old trunk may have a secret compartment.
I once wrote about an old trunk from that era in a book of mine, and
I did some research on them. They
always
had secret compartments that were hard to find. It’s so dark and cramped up there, would you mind if we took it to one of our houses to get a better look at it? It’s getting’ late, too, and it might take us awhile.”

“
Y’all really think somethin’ could be hidden in that trunk?”

Jack
and Tess both nodded, and Tess answered, “It’s worth a
looky-loo.”

“
But Mama surely knew about a secret compartment, or else why would Daddy hide somethin’ there?”

“
I don’t know, Lou. I’d just like to go over it with a fine-tooth comb to be sure.”

“
Just promise me somethin’.”

Jack
raised his eyebrows in a question.

“
If ya find out somethin’ horrible, you’ll keep it to yerselves and tell me y’all didn’t find a thing. Deal?”

“
Deal,” they said in unison.

“
Alrighty then, gwon. Get it outta here.” She waved them off
upstairs.

Tess
and Jack came down the stairs with the trunk, just as Martha Maye came in the front door with Henry Clay.

“
Where on earth are y’all takin’ that old trunk?”

Lou
came into the hallway, holding a Barbie doll. “Ah, don’t mind Sherlock and Watson. They think they’re hot on the trail of a mystery.”

Martha
Maye looked at Tess and whispered, “You got her to talk? How?”

“
Long story. We’ll talk later, okay?” Then louder, Tess said, “Lou, we’ll pack this up in the truck and then take off. We’ll let you know
tomorrow what we find out, okay?”

“
Why don’t y’all just look at it down here? You don’t have to take it to one of your houses,” Henry Clay said.

“
I’d rather ‘em take it, Henry. No tellin’ what they might find, or how long it’ll take. Y’all gwon, and remember our deal. And thanks for the cake. It wasn’t better ‘n sex, but it was delish.”

Tess
and Jack went next door to his house and sprung Ezzie from lock-up. She trotted happily at their sides out to the truck.

“
Let’s put her in the cab with us,” Tess said, looking at the sky. “It looks like it’s blowing up a cloud.”

As
they drove away from the house, they could see Martha Maye, Henry Clay, and Lou sitting down in the living room.

“
Should we have stayed to make sure she’s all right with this?” Tess asked.

“
Nah. She’ll be fine,” Jack assured her. “Henry Clay and Martha Maye will see to it.”

veeola
: interjection \vee-oh-lah\ voila

And veeola, there it is.

[  Sunday,
December
15,
1935  ] 

“Daddy, phone’s for you!” Ima Jean called.

As
soon as John said ‘Hello,’ Nate Hunter said, “Be at the old Goose Creek Bridge tonight at seven o’clock.” He heard a click, and the line went dead.

John
went to his bedroom, dodging his sons and their toy cars along the way. He took a folded sheet of paper from his dresser drawer, picked up the trunk key, and went up to the attic, where he went to the bracket-footed Victorian trunk.

I've
got to leave it here. If the worst-case scenario plays out, people will be swarming the house. I can't chance just anybody seeing this.

John
knelt down and slowly ran his fingers along the top edges of the trunk. It had a secret compartment that would open once a trigger spot was pressed. The trick was to find that one very subtle, well-disguised spot—so subtle, one couldn’t find it by sight. He closed his eyes and felt for a slight fingertip-sized depression. Once the small
indentation was found, he pressed his finger into it and heard the faint sound of the spring releasing.

After
unlocking the trunk and raising the lid so the side panel could lift upward, he bent down at the side of the trunk, where the released spring had raised the side panel ever so slightly. Using his pocketknife to make room for his fingers to get under the panel, he slid it up, revealing tiers of small drawers, and one narrow but deep pocket at the bottom of the trunk, hidden to the eye by its feet. He pulled his revolver out of the deepest space, placed it in his suit coat pocket, and put the letter to Maye in one of the small drawers.

Pushing
the drawer back in and sliding the side panel down, he loaded the spring in place. Locking the trunk back, he thought what a mistake he might have made in never telling anyone about the hidden compartments
.
He’d kept his secret hiding place to himself because he didn’t want to chance anyone but him finding his gun.
I’ll have to find a way to tell her about it now, so she’ll know to look here just in case I don’t return home.

He
sat there for a long time, just staring at the key.

[ 
July
2010  ]

Jack and Tess carried the trunk into her house and sat it on the floor of her living room. Suddenly they could hear the roar of rain hitting the house. Tess and Ezzie went to the window.

“
We got in here just in time. Look at it out there! It’s really coming down in sheets.”

“
Good,” Jack said. “It's been so hot and dry, you could blow dust out of the rain gauge.”

Ezzie
was restless with the storm and went running from window to window.

Tess
joined Jack on the carpet in front of the trunk. “Do you really think there’s a secret compartment in this trunk?”

“
I do. When I researched these Victorian trunks for my book
Victory Days
, I found out they often had numerous compartments, ranging from basic to complex. A basic trunk was usually comprised of a hatbox, a shirt compartment, a coin box, and a document box. A complex trunk, however, could have several hat and shirt compartments, a coin box, several document boxes
and
a secret compartment. The trunks were
strategically designed so that no one would know of a hidden compartment’s existence except for the owner. It made it safer when traveling.”

Jack
studied the trunk for several minutes in silence. He looked it over top to bottom. They’d taken everything out of it except for some tissue paper on a shelf and left the contents at Lou’s. He took the shelf and paper out, laying them on the floor. Ezzie inched over, took the
tissue paper and began shredding it.

He
studied the inside of the trunk, looking for a false bottom, then he sat back, momentarily perplexed.

“
What’s wrong?” Tess asked.

He
reached for her and lay back on the floor, pulling her on top of him as he went. “I just need some fortification,” he said, kissing her.

She
looked at him in a shocked and strange way.

“
ForTification,” he said quickly. “Although the other could be
arranged.” He flicked an imaginary cigar in the air and wagged his brows.

After
several minutes of kissing, laughing and rolling around on the floor, Jack suddenly froze.

“
What is it?” Tess asked.

“
I just remembered somethin’. Hidden compartments often have trigger spots that can’t easily be detected.”

He
sat up, closed and locked the trunk, and began running his
fingers over the top of it. Tess sat up, watching intently.

“
I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. Damn if you aren’t some kind of distraction.” His smile told her he wasn’t entirely kidding.

“
Well, seeing how you just remembered something vital after kissing me, I’d say I’m a good distraction.” 

“
That you are, Mary T. That you are.” His eyes sparkled at her.

Jack
shut his eyes. “I remember reading the Braille method is the best way to find the hidden trigger point. It’s often so subtle it isn’t any bigger than
an almost invisible
depression. He continued slowly running his fingers over the surface of the trunk. At last, he stopped and looked up at Tess with excitement.

“
I see something in your eyes. You found it, didn’t you?”

He
nodded. “The most intricate designs have an end that slides
up, revealing drawers concealed in the false bottom. Because of the
shallowness of the secret drawers, the hidden compartment could easily pass unnoticed. Once you find the trigger point,” he took Tess’s fingertip, placed it on the trunk, and pushed down, hearing a soft click, “you can pull the side panel up.”

Jack
put the tip of his pocketknife under the small crack in the side of the trunk. “And voila.” Pulling the wooden side panel straight up, he proudly announced, “Behold, the secret compartment.” He slid three long, shallow drawers out, revealing a single sheet of paper in one of them.

Pulling the letter out of the drawer, and with awe in his eyes and voice, he said,
“Well, I'll be dipped in peanut butter! Would you looka here.”

Tess
squealed, then scurried around behind him so she could read the letter over his shoulder. Mid-way through, she gasped, and splayed her hand over her mouth. The room was silent except for the sound of a hard rain, the rumble of thunder, and the tearing of tissue paper.

My beloved Maye,