Milford Daffy Day Read online

  MILFORD DAFFY DAY

  Book 3 in the Gwendolyn Strong Small Town Cozy Mystery Series

  J A HODA

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Two dollars for one cookie? That’s a lot of money,” Horace Hastings says.

  “Horace, these are from my secret recipe,” Emelina replies. She points to the sign tacked onto our festival booth. “Besides, it’s for a good cause. All the profits are going to the ambulance corps.”

  Horace may be the oldest farmer I know. His bottom land along the river has been passed down through generations. He still works the land by himself, with seasonal workers only coming in for the harvest. He can be ornery, especially if developers try talking him into selling. Here it is, the third week of April, and he already has a farmer’s tan. His face and neck are a leathery brown underneath a straw hat.

  “They better be good,” he mutters. I can tell his calloused hands spend more time running a tractor and repairing fences than reaching into his ancient leather wallet.

  “I’ll throw in an extra one for later,” Emelina says, winking at him.

  “Much obliged, Emelina,” he says as she tongs another chocolate chip walnut cookie into the wax paper bag.

  Could she be flirting with him? She’s Milford’s favorite centenarian, a former kindergarten teacher who taught me everything I know about teaching five- and six-year-olds. Petite, with gray hair in an easy to care for style, Emelina Bidwell keeps young with daily yoga and meditation.

  Horace must be in his mid-eighties. He might be our little town’s wealthiest landowner, but you wouldn’t know it by what he wears. He is tall and sloped-shouldered, wearing bibbed overalls and a faded flannel shirt over mud-encrusted work boots.

  They would make an odd couple. She is sweet, and he is sour.

  “Two dollars apiece, or three for five,” my daughter Erin tells the customer next to him.

  “Two dollars apiece, or three for five,” my adorable granddaughter April parrots.

  “With or without nuts?” Erin asks her customer, then yells, “Caleb LeGrande, stop chasing your sister!”

  I look up from the cash box. Caleb and Jesse are burning off sugar by running around the park. Some of the festival tents are supported by stakes driven into the ground at an angle, and if you are not paying attention, you could get a nasty gash on your leg.

  Horace hands me money and I make change. Then I take a fiver from Erin’s customer without looking up and deposit it as well. Both customers head off with their cookie bags in hand, then new people take their place.

  It’s been busy like this all day. It’s Milford Daffy Day, our town’s annual spring festival, and Emelina’s Cookies, our baking business, is a big hit. Emelina asked me to be her partner earlier this winter. I’ve written down all the recipes she has memorized. Word of mouth advertising and Emelina’s TikToks, produced by Erin, have people from all over the area waiting in line for her delicious morsels of goodness.

  My business partner shakes her head and whispers to me, “He is with his niece, Ruth. Do you think he could have paid for her cookies too?” She points to Horace and a woman of similar age who Erin had served.

  “Some folks are like that, Em,” I say, shrugging.

  Erin takes off her apron and hands it to me. “Mom, can you watch April while I help my kids understand a few simple commands?”

  She is not mad at my other adorable grandchildren; she just wants them to be more careful here, especially on this day. The park sits between the main highway into town and the river. With the sunshine and warm weather this Saturday, Milford Daffy Day is in full swing, and with it, the possibility of strangers harboring ill intent.

  Milford’s flower guild has lined both of those boundaries with rows and rows of daffodils. They stretch in long undulating waves. The flowers are blooming with pride. I want to think that all is right with the world, but so much has happened since last year’s festival. One month, I am a kindergarten teacher, wiping runny noses, blowing kisses on skinned knees, and applauding crayoned drawings; the next, I am solving murders. Erin and Emelina say I have a gift, something about paying attention to detail and seeing things as they really are. It doesn’t hurt that I knew most of Milford’s denizens before they learned guile and deceit.

  Today I don’t want to think of murders or kidnappings. I have a lightness to my step and abounding energy to serve our ravenous fans. Crime scenes and autopsy photos can wait for another time.

  A band shell, swing sets, and a jungle gym sit near the parking lot. A boat ramp in the rear corner gives folks access to the flowing river. Some boaters are anchored off the park grounds with a beautiful view of the bluegrass band ripping through “Fire on the Mountain.”

  Helium balloons tied to kiddos tell me that Milford needs to attract more young parents to our town. I see more people with walkers and canes than with strollers. Enrollments in the grade school are down for another year, and it forced the closure of Milford Elementary last semester. I taught kindergarten there for the better part of four decades until I took a voluntary lay-off rather than have that fate befall my younger colleague, who had less seniority. It jettisoned me into a void of purpose, from which emerged my new calling: sleuthing.

  I’m outside the booth now, and a breeze off the river chills my bare arms. I throw the apron in the air, duck my medium Afro into the opening, do a twirl while tying it, and greet our next customers loudly and proudly. “Yvette and Mike! How’s my lovely goddaughter doing today?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Strong,” they say together. Mike is pushing a stroller with my goddaughter, who just happens to be named after me.

  “Gwendolyn is getting so big,” I say. She isn’t my only goddaughter to bear my name in this small town, but they are spaced out over three generations. We are not competing with the Britneys or Taylors yet, however.

  “Almost five months now,” Mike says. “One of each, please.”

  “Two bags or one?”

  He holds up one finger. I tong a chocolate chip and then use the other tongs for the chocolate chip with walnuts to place them in a single wax paper bag. I do it out of habit now. He hands me a five-dollar bill and says, “Keep the change. It’s for a good cause.”

  “You sure?” I ask.

  Mike the body builder nods his head, while Yvette shakes hers and says, “Chocolate chip, please.”

  I taught them both twenty years ago and know enough to wait until an agreement is reached.

  “It’s not like I am throwing a bag of cookies in the cart at the store, honey,” Yvette says to Mike. “How often do we get a chance to sample one of Emelina’s cookies?”

  He rolls his eyes. “I know, I know. If God made anything better, God kept it in heaven, you always say.”

  “Do you hear that, Emelina?” I say. “I think Mike just gave us our tag line for the business.”

  Emelina beams as she slides an
other cookie into their bag. “’Emelina’s Heavenly Cookies.’ I like it,” she says.

  “I owe my goddaughter a proper visit,” I say.

  “Bring Billy with you,” Yvette says.

  Billy is my rescue—part beagle, part cocker spaniel, all cute. We have become a hit on our travels around town. “Will do.”

  They walk away and a couple from the city approaches us. The giveaway is the hipster all-black ensembles. Both women scans the booth and asks, “Do you have gluten-free?”

  “And dairy-free, just the chocolate chip ones, though. How many?” Emelina asks.

  “Three. Do you take Venmo?” the other asks.

  “Sure do,” I say. “We take Stripe and PayPal. Crypto is next.”

  Emelina waits until they depart. “Wheat-free baking and shaking smart phones at each other.”

  I smile. “It’s a brave new world.”

  Daffy Day is Milford’s biggest day. The parade in town is led by the school band, then a parade of daffodil-inspired floats, trailed by the fire apparatus and all three police cars. A long line of antique cars brings up the rear. My candy-apple red 1969 Ford Mustang convertible qualified this year. The grandkids loved being in the parade instead of watching it from the curb. I got a kick out of driving along the parade route and waving to so many familiar faces.

  Later tonight, after the booths close, the park will be filled with people paying to see the headline act. A country-western singer who went all the way the finals on American Idol a couple of years ago will take the stage at dusk.

  It was touch and go this year, but the mayor was able to find funding for the fireworks display. Some potholes won’t get filled, I imagine, but the voters would punish him at the ballot box if he didn’t have the boom-booms and rockets’ red glare closing out the night.

  We greet most of the visitors to our booth by name. Emelina taught for forty years, and I followed for thirty-five. If we didn’t teach them, they must be out-of-towners.

  A convoy of food trucks moves into the parking lot. Emelina and I had decided to overbake for the event, with any extras going to the soup kitchen Sunday night. Nobody there will complain about her day-old confections. True to form, the line queues up again just to get her prized cookies one more time for dessert. Festivalgoers juggle deep-fried hot dogs, broasted chicken, cheesy fries, and every imaginable heart-stopping festival-only fare to add our cookies to their plates. Usually, the lines are twenty deep at the ice cream vendors or the cotton-candy booth, but those customers now stand in front of Emelina, Erin, and me. I am happy for us and don’t understand the envy and jealous stares we get from the other servers of sweets. Maybe we are stepping on their turf, but this is all for charity, I reason.

  Eventually, we run out of cookies, and our line fans out to the other booths. I stop counting the money to look up at a commotion. Erin and Emelina set down the empty Tupperware to stare outwards.

  “Call an ambulance!” someone yells. We look to see a crowd gathering, blocking our view. They are no more than fifty feet in front of our booth. Louder shouts raise up. A woman screams, “Call 911!” More people gravitate towards the commotion. “Help! Somebody help us!”

  I see the strobe lights of the ambulance turn on in the distant parking lot, then it activates its siren, whelping over “Sweet Home Alabama.” With purpose, it makes its way towards us. The crowds part. Balloons flutter skyward as families scatter. “She can’t breathe!” I hear. I flash to that time when I was twelve and fell out of a tree, getting the wind knocked out of me. I gasp for air now to assure myself. The terror of the person I cannot see is now mine as my anxiety grows while the ambulance lumbers towards us. Why can’t it go faster? My breathing is becoming more difficult. Will the EMTs make it in time?

  Finally, the white and orange transit truck pulls up twenty feet past our booth and turns off its siren. I look again to the circle as the crowd parts briefly. I spot Horace squeezing the brim of his straw hat as he impotently stares at a writhing body on the ground.

  “Oh, no!” Emelina gasps. “It’s Ruth!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A uniformed female EMT exits the ambulance and moves swiftly through the crowd. I recognize Wendy Gallo, whom I taught in kindergarten. I know her more recently from a crime scene reenactment. Would I trust her in an emergency? The other EMT is Jon Lucia, who goes to the local community college. He’s probably in training. I am not getting the warm fuzzies about him. I recall when he passed out at the sight of blood on the playground. He carries their first-aid bag into the swarm of people. Ruth’s fate is in their hands, I’m afraid.

  Do I run out there to help them, or stay here with the cashbox? This would be the perfect time for somebody to take advantage of the hubbub. We silently make the decision that Emelina remains with me while Erin goes to investigate. My daughter slips through the ring of folks juggling their cotton candy and corn dogs. Why are those people just standing there nibbling their treats and gawking? Is it morbid curiosity? Who am I to talk? At school, I was never one to stand idly by, but what can I do here? I try to read the crowd for any hopeful signs, but I cannot discern what is happening, only that people are jostling for a better look.

  The music in the band shell has stopped mid-song. Today has whizzed by like a speeding sedan, but now it’s crawling like a box turtle on the highway.

  I spot my daughter. Her poker face gives nothing away. That doesn’t bode well. She walks behind Jon to the rear of the ambulance. They slide the gurney out of the back of the ambulance and then bippity-bop it along the trampled grass through the crowd, which immediately closes around them. Some idiot has their cell phone out and is filming. What kind of ghoulish entertainment is that? I’m afraid that they are going to post it on social media.

  Em gestures to the gurney. “Is that a good sign?”

  “I hope so.” I try to sound convincing. I reach for her hand, and she takes it.

  She points out Mike Strohmeyer darting through the crowd. “What can he do?”

  “He is strong as a bull and is a pretty cool customer. He works as a sheriff at the jail. I’ll bet he’s seen worse.”

  The sound of Milford Daffy Day is reduced to murmurs from the anxious throng. They start getting louder. Something is happening, but I can’t see a thing.

  It is then we hear a voice crackle from the ambulance’s external speaker, “10-4, you are clear for lights and siren transport to Regional.” I let out my breath. Wendy didn’t call for the coroner.

  Milford had a hospital years ago, but it closed when the population shrank. The nearest facility is now twenty miles away and serves four counties. There are urgent care storefronts sprinkled around the area, but no trauma units. Jon Lucia is dragging the gurney now, with Wendy hovering over Ruth’s face, holding an oxygen mask in place with one hand and a drip bag with the other. Mike Strohmeyer is pushing the gurney from the back, with Erin trailing behind. They move in a choreographed fashion, one backwards, one sideways, one pushing forward. Jon goes in the back and hoists the gurney in as the legs collapse. Mike pushes the rest of the gurney inside while Jon fastens the hooks and nooks. We see through the rear window Wendy telling Jon what to do while she hangs the drip bag from a handle. Out of the public eye, she is more frantic in her movements. She exits the back and Mike slams the doors shut. Wendy is unflappable, but I know from her grim expression that what happens during the next twenty miles will make the difference.

  She changes the siren to a pulsing tone. At this close distance, the vibration slaps me as much as I hear it. Wendy has to turn the van around into where the crowd was milling.

  Mike yells, “Move. Scatter. Get out of the way. NOW!”

  With the speed of a herd of cows, the gawkers make room. The ambulance trundles back to the parking lot and out onto the highway, where it rockets out of sight, the wailing siren slowly ebbing into the sounds of the festival returning to its festivities.

  Erin is talking quietly with Mike not more than ten yards in front of us.
When she’s finished, she walks back to us. “Ruth’s throat closed from anaphylactic shock. Wendy jabbed her with an epi-pen and followed it with an IV drip. Mom, the woman’s lips were as big as sausage links.”

  “I know Ruth from town,” Emelina says. “Her husband was Joe Randle. He’s dead ten years now.”

  “We saw something like this almost every year when a child at school traded lunches with another student and found out the hard way about a food allergy,” I say. “Then there were the insect bites or bee stings. We always took them seriously.”

  “Somebody said she was allergic to nuts,” Erin says.

  From behind her, a woman about my age standing next to Horace Hastings screeches, “That’s right. Where did she get these?” The crowd turns towards the outburst.

  We recognize the wax paper bag and a broken chocolate chip walnut cookie.

  “You could have killed my aunt,” the woman continues. “She knew she had a nut allergy and never would have bought this. You gave her this without her knowing.”

  Emelina looks at Erin and back to the woman. “We were careful. She was with Horace, and I remember Erin asking her if she wanted them with or without nuts. We didn’t make a mistake.”