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“You wanna tell me why we’re going to Gorham?” Calvin asked.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because then you might not go.”
“Well how about this. If you don’t tell me, I won’t go.”
Gertrude looked at him. “You’re already going.”
Calvin looked exasperated. “I can turn this car around, Gertrude. Just tell me where we’re going.”
Gertrude thought about it. He’s a snob. He’s going to think a pound store is beneath him. But if I don’t tell him, he might not help me. “I know what the murder weapon was,” she announced. “And I think I know where to find it.”
He looked interested. “Where?”
“In Gorham.”
“Gertrude!” he hollered.
“You don’t have to holler. We’re in a small space here.”
“Where in Gorham?!” he hollered.
She sighed and then mumbled, “The pound store.”
“The what?”
“It’s where Goodwill treasures go to die. They call it the pound store because people pay by the pound. I think the murderer put it in the bin that was bound for the pound store. Hey, that rhymed!”
Calvin thought for a minute, but he didn’t slow down or touch his turn signal, for which Gertrude was grateful. “So then, the murderer must work at Goodwill.”
“Right. Probably. They already arrested Roderick, but I don’t think he did it.”
“Why not?” Calvin asked.
“Because I asked him if he did, and he said he didn’t.”
“You know, Gertrude. Sometimes people do this thing called lying. I know you are entirely unfamiliar with such a practice,” he said sarcastically.
“Nah,” she answered. “I lie quite a bit. So I can usually tell when someone else is lying. Unless they’re really good at it. And I don’t think Roderick is good at much of anything.”
“And I’m assuming that you told the police about your Gorham theory?” Calvin asked.
“I tried.”
“All right then. Let’s go to the pound store. What’s the murder weapon?”
“It is the ugliest green lamp you’ve ever seen. And it had dead birds hanging off it. Well, they weren’t really dead. They just looked it. Hang on,” she said and flipped over to reach into the back.
“I hate it when you do this,” Calvin said, leaning toward the door. “I don’t like being this close to your bottom.”
She flopped back into her seat. “Here,” she said, showing him the bird. “I found this. It fell off the lamp. But there were a whole bunch of other birds hanging off it too. I’m telling you, we find this lamp, there will be no mistaking it.”
“OK and then what?”
“What do you mean, and then what? Then we have the murder weapon!” Gertrude said.
“Yeah, but Gertrude, it’s going to have a million fingerprints on it by now.”
“Oh yeah, well, I guess I hadn’t thought of it. Let’s just hope it doesn’t have Roderick’s prints on it. That will help him. And even if it’s got a million prints on it, at least it will narrow down the suspect pool to a million.”
Calvin laughed. “Great. Hale will be thrilled.”
Gertrude slept most of the way to Gorham, and awoke disoriented when Calvin poked her.
“What?” she said, and then wiped a bit of drool from her lip.
“Get out your phone. We need the GPS.”
“Oh. All right. Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I just did.”
Gertrude opened her map app and then began to slowly type.
“What are you giving it for a destination?” Calvin asked.
“Pound store.”
“That’s not going to work. You need an add—”
“It just did work,” Gertrude interrupted as the map appeared.
“You are on the fastest route,” Gertrude’s phone declared.
Calvin grunted.
“Holy smokes,” he said when they pulled into the large parking lot. “Why are there so many people here?”
“I don’t know,” Gertrude said, looking around in wonder. “We’d better get in there. It never occurred to me that someone might actually buy the stupid thing, but who knows with this many people here.”
“All right. Let’s go, before I change my mind,” Calvin said and climbed out of the car.
Gertrude’s legs had stiffened up during the long ride, but Calvin walked slowly alongside her as they made their way to the front door. This made her feel warm and fuzzy inside.
When they entered the dimly lit room, Calvin let out a low whistle. “This is so disturbing.”
Gertrude couldn’t believe her eyes. The pound store was a warehouse. A warehouse full of blue bins. And there were so many people. Scores of them surrounding each blue bin, digging with diligence.
“How are we ever going to find anything in here?” Gertrude asked, a little worried.
“We should split up,” Calvin suggested. Gertrude didn’t like the idea, but she knew he was right. “I’ll go left. You go right. Good luck,” and he was off.
Gertrude made her way to the right. And she began to dig along with the rest of them. She noticed most of the diggers were wearing rubber gloves and she sincerely regretted not bringing some. As she contemplated this, a man elbowed her hard in the ribs. “Oh!” she cried accusingly. She gave him a glare, but then saw he was holding a hammer and got scared. She moved to the other side of the bin, but no matter how she went at it, someone was always pushing her out of the way.
She noticed a long line of shopping carts along the wall and she headed toward these. Most of them were overflowing with goodies. She began to paw through one of them but a woman began screaming at her in a language other than her own. She backed away from the cart and realized many people were staring at her. Oh no. She realized then that these carts belonged to shoppers. They were filled with treasures that had already been claimed. She walked back to the bins, but when people stopped staring at her, she meandered toward the carts again. She resolved not to paw through them, but it couldn’t hurt to look, right? In the last cart, she saw something that made her heart leap. Keeping one eye on the crowd, she sneakily rearranged the cart until she could get a good look at the lamp inside it. But alas, it was the wrong lamp. No dead birds.
Just then, a tired-looking employee pushed a new, full bin toward her. She happily scurried toward it.
“Back!” someone barked. She looked around for the source of the command. Then she found her. Another angry woman was glaring at her. “Back! Stay behind the line!” she ordered. Gertrude looked down at her feet and sure enough, there was an actual red line on the floor. She stepped back behind it and waited, along with a growing crowd. Then the drill sergeant yelled, “OK, go!” and the crowd attacked the new bin. If it weren’t for her walker, Gertrude certainly would have been trampled. She watched the experts dig in and waited for some of the mania to abate before perusing the bin herself.
Nothing.
The next bin: nothing.
The next bin: a gorgeous sparkly purple housecoat she just had to have.
The next bin: an Elvis pepper shaker. There was no salt, but she figured that was OK. It was the King, after all.
The next bin: nothing.
She stood up and stretched. Her lower back ached like the dickens.
“I don’t think it’s here, Gertrude,” Calvin spoke from behind her.
She turned around. “I know.” She felt like crying. “But if it’s not here, I don’t know where to look next. Someone must have bought it. It could be anywhere in the state by now.”
“Or it could be in a landfill. You’re right. We’ve been here for hours. I’m pretty sure I’ve caught something awful by now. We should go.”
“Caught something?” Gertrude asked, sounding hopeful.
“Yeah, as in a communicable disease,” Calvin said with a grimace. “Come on, let’s go home and take long showers.”
“All right,” she conceded. “I’m just going to go to the little girls’ room first. It’s a long ride.”
“Fine,” he said. “Why not drag this nightmare out some more? I’ll go wait by the door.”
“Actually,” she said, handing him the robe and the Elvis shaker, “can you check out for me? It will save time, and I don’t have any money. I’ll pay you back later.”
“Yeah, when pigs fly,” Calvin muttered, but he grudgingly took her finds and headed toward the checkout scales.
She turned and looked around for a restroom sign. She found one that led her down a narrow hallway that spilled out into an even larger warehouse area. Her breath caught as she looked around. This room was triple the size of the one she had just left, and she had thought that one was monstrous. She looked around, her mouth hanging open, and completely forgot about the bathroom. Blue bins were stacked on top of blue bins. In all directions, all she could see was stuff stacked up to thirty feet in the air. And then she saw them. Hanging out of a bin. A few dead birds. She made a beeline for that bin and was soon standing under the birds, looking up at them. There was no doubt. They were the same birds. And there was also absolutely no way she could reach them. She looked around for a stepladder or very tall bookcase, but found neither. She did, however, find a forklift.
And the keys were in the ignition.