Solve-it-yourself mystery
Great-uncle Chester’s face clouded. He looked Jodi over carefully before a hint of a smile appeared. “Now I know you. You aren’t an in-law… so you must be one of the outlaws?”
“I am, Uncle Chester,” admitted Jodi, who, when she wasn’t at family reunions was a police detective and hardly an outlaw. “I’m married to Bob.”
“Bob?” Another thoughtful frown. Jodi told Uncle Chester which Bob she was married to before moving on, greeting people she hadn’t seen since the last reunion.
She nodded to Russell, Sarah’s boy, busy plugging in the ice-cream machine at the edge of the pavilion as she went by. He was hardly a boy anymore, married now to a young woman from Alaska, and if Jodi’s detective skills were any good, there would soon be a Russell Jr. in the mix.
Aunt Mae, at her age, had made the trip from California. She rested in a lawn chair in the shade of the pavilion, looking as though she were holding court. Nieces sat around her and more wandered by, slowing to chat.
“You’re the one with the photo?” Jodi asked.
“Might be,” Mae said. She gave Jodi a guarded look.
“Mother, behave.” Millie, a small woman in her late 60s, scolded Mae. “You promised.”
Mae had been hoarding an old photo of four generations of Statler women. It featured Mae’s niece, Sarah, as a baby, with her mother, Mae’s sister who had died, as well as her grandmother and great-grandmother. There had been some talk that maybe Sarah’s branch of the family should have the photo— or at least be able to see it.
“I brought it!” Mae grumbled. Millie nodded. “It’s in the back of my car.”
Only it wasn’t. They sent one of the husbands to the parking lot to get it, but when he couldn’t find the picture, Millie went herself. It still wasn’t there.
Aunt Mae set her mouth in a line.
“No more than I expected.” She glared. “Those kids are just like my sister.”
Aunt Mae and her sister hadn’t been close. In Mae’s opinion, her sister had gotten everything while Mae had settled for second-best. When her sister passed away, the blame passed down to her children.
“We’ll find it, Mother,” Millie said. She looked grim.
“This is silly, Aunt Mae.” Sarah looked exasperated. “No one would steal a photo!”
“You’ve talked about it often enough,” Mae snapped.
“It’s my mother in the picture. If that makes me a suspect…”
“Any idea where it is?” Millie asked her.
Lips pinched, Sarah said, “I haven’t left this pavilion since Aunt Mae arrived.”
After that, a lot of voices sounded at once.
“Where’s that woman?” Aunt Mae demanded, cutting through the noise. Jodi, unfortunately, knew exactly which “woman” Aunt Mae meant.
“That police woman. She’ll get the scoundrel.”
The Statlers turned to Jodi. “The outlaw!” Uncle Chester cheered. “She’ll nab the thief.”
Jodi sighed. “Did anyone leave the area?”
Children ran in circles on the playground, a number of the men were tossing horseshoes at the pits nearby, but no one from the pavilion area admitted to leaving.
“How about Russell?” someone asked.
Russell came up the hill, carrying three aluminum canisters of ice cream, pink leaking around the tops. “Dessert!” he announced with a big grin. Then, noting the sea of frowns that greeted him, added, “What?”
Jodi explained.
“Well, don’t look at me. I was cranking my arm sore making ice cream. You don’t crank, you don’t get ice cream.”
“You drove off in your car,” another voice said.
“I left the teaberries at home. No teaberry ice cream without the teaberries.”
“So no one could have done it?”
Jodi shook her head. “I know who did it. And I suspect there’s a good reason…isn’t there?” she asked, turning to the culprit.