Ditched

Other Bella books by Josie Gordon

Whacked

Toasted

For Casper

everyone’s therapy dog

Acknowledgments

Thank heavens no one will grade my depiction of Michigan geography. I’d fail. But that’s why I write fiction. While quirky places with unique histories and vivacious lives do dot Michigan’s Great Lakes coasts, and while almost every place that Lonnie visits on her trip in this book actually exists—or did when I took my research trip a few years ago—I made some stuff up. Middelburg doesn’t really exist. Nor does the county I placed it in. I stretched the whole coastline to make room for that little town and its people. Still, I recommend to everyone a visit to the northern lower peninsula and the upper peninsula. Country of astonishing beauty, and  great pasties!

Many thanks to my tribe of big-hearted people who, thankfully, really do exist:  Rhoda, Carla, Pat (and her dining room table), MMC, Jared the car guy, everyone in my family, Casper and Desmond who snore while I type and then demand to play ball, Hattie who naps on my desk, Tim who makes sure I get my exercise picking up paperclips, Nikolaas (the only truly Dutch one of all of us) and most of all, Jen. I couldn’t do it without them. Special thanks to my editor, Katherine V. Forrest, whom it is an honor to know. Any errors in this text are mine, not theirs.

Special thanks to all of Lonnie’s fans. I confess that I’m a lousy blogger, but you can find me at  www.josiegordon.com and on Facebook. I’d love to talk to you.

About the Author

Josie Gordon’s first mystery novel Whacked (2008) won the Lambda Literary Award for the Best Lesbian Mystery of 2008. The second in the series, Toasted, was a finalist for the same award in 2009.

This was a happy ending to a rather scary episode: once upon a time, Josie actually found a dead body in the woods. And though every amateur sleuth she has ever encountered in books or on TV would have seized the chance to march right up and investigate, Josie ran like the dickens in the other direction! Later, while waiting for the police, she resolved to write a book in which the sleuth would be as freaked out by finding a dead guy as she was.

Recently Josie has decided to learn to draw and has begun to practice art journaling and making comics. She lives with her partner in the woods and walks every day in places where there are more trees (and turkeys and woodpeckers and on a good day, even deer) than people.

Ditched is the third Lonnie Squires mystery.

You can learn more at www.josiegordon.com.

Chapter One

I leaned back in my office chair and tossed down the report from my Committee on Liturgy.  The line one caller ID announced my best friend Marion’s work number.  Her latest drama would do nicely for a break in this long morning of reports and meetings, so I grabbed the receiver. Good morning!

Grab your loved ones, Lonnie, and hold ’em tight! said Marion. ’Cause if I were a religious woman—and you know I’m not—I’d declare it a sign of the impending Rapture.

I smiled.  If you get Raptured, can I have your car?

You need it, that piece of crap you drive.  She was probably shaking her head in pity.  But I’m the Eclectic Believer here. I’m the one supposedly getting left behind.

Plenty of folks would tell you Episcopal priests will be hanging around too. I stretched the morning’s tension from my shoulders, wondering what had gotten Marion into this state.

Well, you haven’t got a thing I want. Except that lovely dog. And if anyone on this planet is going to heaven—

It’s Linus. I reached out with my foot and rubbed the eight-month-old black German shepherd’s ribs as he slept beneath my desk—his usual spot despite the bed in the corner of my office. Agreed. And you’re so sure the Rapture is upon us because?

Bad energy everywhere today.

Did the soccer game get canceled? I spun to look out the window and check the weather. The red-golden leaves of the silver maple in the parish house’s backyard snapped in the October sunlight. It hadn’t rained all summer or fall, so of course we’d all dreaded that it would start today, the day of the very first Women’s League soccer game in Middelburg. The first game my over-thirty team, the Hot Flashes, would ever play. But it looked sunny.

Star Hannes is here, in The Grind, Marion whispered. Eating a piece of boeterkoek and liking it. With her crew filming the whole thing!

Whoa. It was a sign of the end times. Star hadn’t been in Marion’s restaurant in months, even before trying to get her shut down last August for supposedly poisoning people.

She’s yuckin’ it up with my regulars, talking about how The Grind is a bastion of local heritage.

"Well, it is a bastion of local heritage, I said. Much as I hate to agree with the woman.  It’s The Windmill Grind Kaffe Klatsch and All Dutch All the Time Café, for God’s sake." Middelburg was founded by Dutch people. Their descendents still populated this place.

But here’s the thing. Marion whispered now. My chi has been out of whack all week. The first not-good sign.  And then in she comes. Another very-not-good sign. Everything is wonky.

I glanced down at The Middelburg Review on my desk. Ballooning ARM mortgages driving foreclosures in the town and the county to an all-time high. The local high school’s basketball team, The Middelburg Warships, losing to Holland Christian in overtime. Bow hunting season starting tomorrow. Star Hannes’ standing in the congressional election polls dropping as election day approached.

It isn’t all bad, I said, eyeing Star’s numbers.

Are you going to tell me I’m being too dramatic? Marion asked. Because I can hang up now.

No, no. I leaned forward as if she were in the office with me. I’m just saying that if Star’s sudden appreciation of your food has you foreseeing karmic cataclysm, maybe you should reconsider joining the Episcopal church. We’re a bit more stoic about such things. Linus sighed, scootching himself around so my foot would hit more of his belly.

Yeah, well. I heard a metallic slap and splash in the background. Marion must be calling from the restaurant’s kitchen. I haven’t told you about the stranger yet.

Outsiders didn’t show up in Middelburg much, except for the rich folks from Chicago who owned mansions along Lake Michigan’s beaches. And over the course of the summer, we got to know them. So the locals have a big case of stranger danger. As a stranger here myself—I’d moved here from Chicago’s South Side only six months ago—I knew.

And what? You think he’s bringing the Rapture?

No. He’s an attorney from Chicago. Never seen this guy before. Little guy. Goatee. Bow tie. Trussed up tight like if he popped a button he’d fall to pieces. She paused, then dropped the bomb. "And he’s got questions. About you."

A tiger clawed upward from my insides. I checked my watch. It was something I always did when trouble struck—something I’d picked up from years of watching old cop dramas on television with  my dad. 11:53. The beginning of the end times. At least, for me in Middelburg.

If that sounds too dire, let me explain. My ex-girlfriend Jamie dumped me last spring and set up with a new chick, an attorney. Jamie kept most everything from our years of cohabitation, which was okay with me. But she’d cleaned out our joint bank accounts for a safer bank, which was not okay. I asked her for half the balances and she stalled all summer. Last week I called and threatened to come after it. She’d argued that New Chick said I had no right to it since I’d left her, moved out of our Chicago home to take on a new life in Michigan. I pointed out that I wasn’t the one who left her bleeding on the ground after a nearly fatal attack by a shovel-wielding murderer.

I called nine-one-one! Jamie whined and I wondered how I’d ever loved anyone who could sound like that. Besides you don’t remember what happened. You had a skull fracture.

I know you said bye-bye before the ambulance got there. I know you didn’t even follow me to the hospital. I’ve got witnesses to that, head injury be damned.

You shouldn’t swear. You’re a priest.

Give me half the money, I said and she hung up on me.

I knew it wasn’t over but I hadn’t expected an attorney to show up. Maybe New Chick had put her foot down about the money and sent a colleague to threaten me.

Get him out of there, I said, before Star—

Marion gasped. Crap! Star just got up from her booth and is bearing down on him with the Middelburg How-Dee-Do Third Degree. Kaylee! Marion shrieked at her restaurant’s assistant manager as pots and pans clattered crazily. Stop her!

Star Hannes, town councilwoman and congresswoman wannabe hated my guts on a good day, ever since I uncovered her plot to defraud pretty much the whole town last May. With less than a month until the election and her standing in the polls slipping, she’d do anything for attention, including exposing the local woman priest as gay. Given my bishop’s aversion to bad publicity, if Star got wind of Jamie, of the truth about me, I was through.

Bring him out your kitchen door. I’ll meet you in the park, I said. I’ll answer his questions and get him out of town.

Everyone will see.

Middelburg’s Central Park sprawled right across the street from Woman at the Well Episcopal Church and parish house, in full view of many downtown homes and businesses.

They’ll all know within the hour anyhow, I said. Might as well act as if I have nothing to hide.

Do you? Marion asked.

I hung up.

She, of course, didn’t know the truth about me. No one did. Ultraconservative Middelburg was too dangerous a place for me to be out, even to trusted friends like Marion. One innocent slip and I’d lose my job for sure—something I couldn’t afford. No telling what other harassment I’d have to endure.

My stomach soured.  If this attorney was here to talk about Jamie and our money, I guess Marion was about to find out. Just one more thing to deal with today.

As I stood, Linus leapt up from beneath the desk, knocking his head on the bottom of the drawer. He’d grown so fast, he still didn’t fully understand the dimensions of his gangly body.

Help, help, help, I prayed as I rushed through a clean-up, wishing I’d worn my clergy clothes instead of jeans, a white turtleneck and a crimson fleece. The priestly costume put the fear of God into most people. Because I want people to feel welcome at church, not afraid, I usually didn’t wear it. But now I didn’t have an ounce of intimidation factor going for me. My short hair lurched out funny on the right, I had black dog hair stuck all over the fleece, and I looked like I needed more coffee.

Linus and I hopped down the stairs in the old Victorian house the church used for parish offices and meeting rooms, landing in what had once been a front parlor and was now a homey reception room. Ashleigh Moore, the extravagantly beautiful twenty-something who’d joined us this summer, sat at her desk chatting with Bova Poster, a middle-aged parishioner, chair of my Committee on Liturgy and one of my very own Hot Flashes. Sitting on the nubbly couch behind Bova, Isabella Koontz tapped the screen of her cell phone, dark hair hanging in her face.

Gotta run out quick! I high-fived Bova’s raised hand.

But! We! Have! A Meeting! Bova folded her arms across her chest causing the embroidered chipmunks on the front of her orange sweatshirt to kiss.

Back in ten. I sidestepped toward the door. Ashleigh will get you tea. And there’s chips. I grabbed Linus’ collar. Have chips.

We’re fine, said Isabella, barely raising her head.

That stopped me. Isabella was always the first to offer a broad smile. That was, unless—

How are you today, Isabella? I asked.

Bova and Ashleigh looked at her.

Isabella nodded, still tapping away on her phone. Oh, great! The kids are doing great in school. I got them matching Christmas dresses at the resale store in Holland yesterday that are going to make my mother just die they are so cute. All this without ever looking up.

And Ivor?

Still she tapped. Very unusual. She did wave her phone though. Just checking in with him. He wanted to have a quick lunch. But I’m here. She roughened her voice. ‘You’re always at that church when I want to spend time with you.’ She shrugged.

I tried to catch her eyes, to see her face behind her hair. In the last few months, she’d managed to sprout a variety of bruises, some on her face, some on her arms. Once she wound up on crutches with a sprained ankle. She claimed she was a klutz. Almost everyone took her at her word or—even if they didn’t believe her—didn’t push it because, well, it wasn’t nice.  When I’d tried to find out if she was safe at home, she’d shut me down. So mostly, I just kept careful watch.

Go! Go! Bova shooed me. We’ll compare! Wafer! Suppliers! While! You’re gone!

I dashed out the door and down the porch steps, holding Linus’ collar. His leash lived in the car for when we walked downtown, but most days we just ran in the church yard or the park. The fall air chilled my denim, which moved cold and heavy against my thighs. Once we crossed the street Linus dashed ahead, chasing the park’s black squirrels up ancient maples glowing in the slanted sunshine. Leaves shushed and ticked as they blew by, curled from weeks of no rain.

Marion and a suited man with dark hair and goatee rounded the corner from Middelburg’s two-block-long downtown. She gesticulated wildly, sunny yellow swing coat flapping behind her arms.

Suddenly, I thought I might throw up.

Chapter Two

I called Linus and as he sat in front of me—the results of our daily obedience training during my lunch breaks—I grabbed his collar. We walked to a leaf-covered picnic table and I pointed to the ground. Down.

Slowly, eyes rolling with dissatisfaction, he lowered his body like a creaky drawbridge until his chest touched the ground.

Good dog.

He flopped on his side and twisted, belly up, big paws waving, hoping for a belly rub. I felt my nausea recede a bit.

As Marion and the attorney approached I brushed the leaves off the table and stood, one eye on Linus, one eye on them. My best friend’s color scheme for the week was, evidently, yellow. She wore a bright turban over her auburn hair, yellow coat and dark green spandex pants that made her look like an out-of-season daffodil. As always she balanced her round frame on skimpy sandals with spiked heels—also sunny yellow. Her fingernails and toenails flashed yellow with, I thought, flaming suns handpainted on the big toes.  Marion had her nails done every Tuesday over at Colleen’s Cuttery and the color change pretty much indicated the dominant scheme of wardrobe for the coming week.

On those heels, Marion towered over the attorney and at six foot even, I did too.  He had a pink bald spot on the top of his head, which flashed as his head bobbed in greeting. Maurice Brand. He offered a business card with the hand that wasn’t gripping the worn leather satchel. The card proclaimed his name in sensible type and unfolded to detail the pedigree of the law firm in which he was a partner.

Looked like Jamie and New Chick were going all out to shut me down. I considered caving right there, telling him that Jamie could keep my damn money. But I couldn’t bear being bullied. Screw her. I’d fight.

Before business, we eat! Marion pulled a silver thermos, three insulated mugs and a huge foil package from her tote. Broodjes are perfect for a picnic.

I just wanted to get this over with. Plus I had a meeting to get to. But Marion’s look told me to obey, so I sat down.

She set plates and two broodjes before each of us. Rye rolls, split in half, each topped with sprouts, Havarti and tomato and cucumber, and finally a sliced hard-boiled egg.

I thought it looked suspiciously like health food and not at all like a perfect picnic.

A few minutes later, Brand patted the napkin to his goatee. Simply fantastic! I had no idea Dutch food could be so tasty. One tends to lump it with British food for some reason. You know, rainy and dark.

Oh, no! Marion’s horror was not pretend. Dutch food is some of the most tasteful and creative in Europe. I know everyone makes a big deal of French or Italian cuisine, but the Dutch is so underrated. It was Dutch food that built this nation, you know. After all, it was the Dutch who settled much of the New World!

Brand nodded as he took another bite of the miraculous broodje. I’m truly grateful to have learned this.

Marion leaned back from the table and looked at me in triumph. She had softened him up for me, made my job easier. Just like she did during a soccer game, finishing on a perfect cross. Marion Freeley, superbestfriend to the rescue once again.

I’m sorry, I said, but I need to get back to the office. I have an appointment waiting.

Indeed. Brand dabbed his mouth again and shifted his cuffs. I’m glad this sunny angel directed me here, because your mother was unwilling to provide me with your exact address, the name of your church or your cell phone number.

My mother? How had she gotten involved? Jamie knew where I lived.

Your church has no Internet presence—hard to believe in this day and age. Brand shook his head.

It’s coming, I said. It was on the docket for our Committee on Communication. Facebook too.

Brand smiled politely. Well, since time is of the essence. I decided to simply come find you. The will cannot wait.

What will? asked Marion.

Brand looked at her then back at me.

You can say anything in front of her, I said. Might as well.

The will of your aunt.

What? I must have sounded shocked because Linus popped up beside me and eyed Brand. She’s been dead nearly a decade. We read her will then.

Not all of it, he said.

Yes, all of it.  I well remembered my sister Cassie’s outrage when I’d received far more of Aunt Kate’s money than she, earmarked to pay my seminary tuition. My sister had begged me not to go, to give her half the money instead. But the money couldn’t be used for anything else. Kate was a proud Episcopalian, even if she’d been a controlling bitch who’d treated me as her personal slave while I was a kid. The money she left us is long gone.

Not so. Brand pulled his satchel onto the table and dug inside.

A cool wind scattered leaves across the grass. A squirrel catcalled from halfway up the trunk of the nearest maple. Linus’ ears turned toward the sound.

Oh, fabulous! Marion laughed. Has she actually been living in Tahiti all this time? I wouldn’t put it past her!

Shut up, I said, or I’ll kick you out of here.

She died nine years, one month, and twenty-six days ago, Brand said. My condolences.

Linus nosed my plate. I gave him a bite of broodje. And the will?

The will contained directions to us, her executors, that were to be kept in confidence until two weeks before your thirty-fifth birthday, which I believe is coming up. Next Friday? October tenth?

Marion cocked an eyebrow at me. The squirrel on the tree chattered, flipping his tail.

I didn’t like the sound of this. Yes. But I don’t get it.

Brand snuffed, studied the stack of papers. It is rather strange. But I’ve brought all the details.

Terrific. My crazy great-aunt, with whom I’d spent my teenaged summers while my parents went through their ugly, unnecessary divorce—the woman who had hounded me, then haunted me ever since I’d moved back to this burg—now she was rising from the grave to screw up my life again. Just terrific.

What does she want from me now? It had always been like that with Aunt Kate. Pretending to give but really demanding something. I had no hope that her being long dead would change anything.

He shrugged, pulled tiny reading classes from his vest pocket and flipped pages. She has given you the potential to inherit $467,863 and some change.

Marion whooped and shot her arms up so fast she nearly knocked over her coffee and Brand’s. Half a million dollars! She whooped again.

Potential? I asked. You said potential. I could smell Aunt Kate’s shenanigans over the broodjes. What does that mean, exactly?

Half a million dollars! Marion clapped her hands. Fabulous exotic vacation here I come.

Brand hadn’t looked up from the papers. That is in addition, of course, to the value of the race car.

Marion froze, hands mid-clap. Race car?

I ran my hands through my hair. My great-aunt had worked as part of a medical team on a local racetrack way back in the Fifties or something. Before she’d made a bundle by investing in cable T.V. But I’d never heard of a car. Aunt Kate had no race car.

Brand kept reading. A nineteen sixty-six Ford Fairlane 500 two-door hardtop racer. One of only fifty-seven built.  Named ‘The Pearly Gates.’

Marion’s grin spread slowly. God, I love your aunt!

Brand peered through his glasses. I have a lot of technical details here. Certificates of documentation from Ford. It has fewer than seven hundred miles on it and all original parts. At last appraisal it was worth almost eighty-two thousand dollars.

Marion’s jaw dropped. I think mine did too. Neither of us spoke.

Your great-aunt provided that it be kept in running condition until you picked it up on your thirty-fifth birthday.

Picked it up from where? I asked.

Conveniently, right here in town. Brand pulled his glasses off. Carson’s Car Care.

Red has your car? Marion clearly couldn’t believe it.

Neither could I. Red Carson was a county sheriff’s deputy I’d met when I’d stumbled upon a body last spring. Since then she and I had become pretty good friends. Well, at least, we hiked together most Sunday afternoons. And she was undeniably cute. Her father had run a garage on the south end of town for decades and her brother had taken it over after their dad’s death. Red helped out occasionally, but since her brother had shipped out to Afghanistan last winter, they hadn’t done any work.

Why has no one told me this before? I asked.

Terms of the will. No mention of any of it allowed until this week.

Of course. Typical Aunt Kate. Secrets. Plots. Manipulations.

Regarding the car, Brand said, I’d advise you to get it appraised again if ownership is transferred. After the trip. A quick breeze tousled his hair and he spread his hand to flatten it again.

"If ownership is transferred?" Here it comes. The scheme. The demands.

Trip? Marion asked. I knew it! Some place with umbrella drinks, I hope! ’Cause I’m going too!

Brand sighed. The terms of the wills are these: Katherine Squires has left you a vintage race car, The Pearly Gates, in running order. However, you only inherit it on the condition that you pick it up on your thirty-fifth birthday, a Friday, and use it to take the trip laid out by your aunt, here. He offered me a thick folder of papers but Marion snatched them. The trip will take until Sunday night. It has a prescribed itinerary which you must follow exactly, taking pictures of yourself and the car at various points along the way.

This trip is around Lake Michigan! Marion said, flipping papers from the folder.

Linus nudged me and I handed him my last bite of broodje. Pure Aunt Kate, I said. Everything comes with conditions.

You have to take a friend with you, Brand said and Marion kicked me under the table. To take photos of you and the car.

The squirrel chattered again and Linus woofed, scaring it back into the thick red leaves above.