Granny Burns Rubber Read online

  Granny Burns Rubber

  A Secret Agent Granny Mystery Book 10

  Harper Lin

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  GRANNY BURNS RUBBER

  Copyright © 2021 by Harper Lin.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  www.harperlin.com

  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

  About the Author

  A Note From Harper

  Excerpt from “A Book to Kill For”

  One

  I’m beginning to think there’s something wrong with me.

  Murders keep happening wherever I go. I can’t go to a book club meeting, a Sunday drive, or even on a school field trip with my grandson without someone dropping dead. Once a body even dropped into my shopping cart.

  It’s becoming a frightening trend, and one that’s made my retirement in the sleepy little suburb of Cheerville anything but sleepy.

  But I thought that I could at least help a friend plan a wedding without a body turning up.

  Silly me.

  I’m Barbara Gold. Age: 71. Height: 5’5”. Eyes: blue. Hair: gray. Weight: none of your business. Specialties: Undercover surveillance, small arms, chemical weapons, Middle Eastern and Latin American politics. Current status: Retired CIA agent, widow, and grandmother.

  Addendum to current status: wondering how I inadvertently got a wedding planner drowned in a mass of wedding cake.

  Perhaps I should back up.

  Of all the oddballs I’d met since I moved to the superficially boring town of Cheerville in order to live close to my family, none are more interesting than my friend Liz Danfrith. When we first met, we saw a lot of each other, literally. I had infiltrated a nudist colony in order to investigate one of Cheerville’s endless string of untimely deaths. She had been a suspect, then had been an ally, then had become a friend.

  Since exposing the case of the murdered nudist and causing a scandal from which Cheerville barely recovered, Liz and I had seen each other many times. Liz was a healthy, slim girl in her early forties (being on the wrong side of seventy, I get to call a middle-aged woman a girl) who was fit and active.

  She was also an outspoken activist for nudism. The bumper stickers on her Lexus said “I brake for naked people” and “I can’t bear not being bare.” I skipped over that part of her personality and enjoyed her company for chats over coffee, strolls through the Cheerville Botanical Garden, and the occasional short hike.

  I had only set one rule to our friendship. Clothing was not optional. It was mandatory. I’m not a nudist, or a nakedist, or a full-body suntanner, or whatever the term is these days. I’m also not a prude. Liz can do whatever she wants with her own time, but if she’s in my house, I want her clothes on. Her house is governed by her rules, so she came over to mine, or we met in one of Cheerville’s many clothing-mandatory cafés.

  There was only one little cloud over our friendship. No, not the nudism. Instead it was her suspicious past. She claimed that she had been a forward observer in the Army, reaching the respectable rank of first lieutenant. A forward observer is positioned as close to enemy lines as possible in order to call in locations for the artillery to hit.

  I didn’t believe that for one minute. I can smell a cover story a mile off, having made up so many of my own over the years.

  Oh, I believed that she had been in the armed forces. Perhaps she’d even been in the Army. But she knew too much about too many things to have been simply an officer with a specialized skill set. Her training was too broad. I felt convinced she had been a bit closer to enemy lines than some camouflaged observation post. I think she was actually behind enemy lines.

  Much of our conversation was taken up with talking about her boyfriend, Captain Rick Dillon. He had been serving in Afghanistan (a place Liz suspiciously knew a lot about) and was just finishing up his third tour of duty. He was resigning from the force and due back within a week. They had promised each other they would get married when he returned. Liz asked me to help plan the wedding.

  “I’m so excited, but there’s so much to do,” she enthused as we sat one afternoon at the Tick Tock Café, infamous throughout Cheerville as the noisiest place in town at every quarter hour. Every wall was covered with clocks, many of the cuckoo variety. There must have been a couple hundred of them.

  “Weddings can take a lot of planning,” I agreed.

  “I’ve never been married before. Heck, with my army duties, I’ve hardly even been to any weddings before.”

  “Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “I’ve been to heaps of them. I’ll help you out.”

  “Great! And, of course, you’ve been married yourself. What was your wedding like?”

  James and I had been in the CIA together. He had proposed in a bunker as we were getting shelled by mujahideen. He got down on one knee, his fatigues dusty and blood smeared on his face, and said, “We might not get out of this alive, so I have to ask you—will you marry me?”

  How can a girl say no to that?

  Poor man. The Islamists attacked just then, and he had to wait through a two-hour firefight before he got his answer. Actually, I shouted “yes!” several times through that battle, but my words got drowned out by gunfire.

  Neither of us being the kind to waste time, we got married at a forward base. A chaplain helicoptered in for the occasion while a trio of Special Forces girls were my bridesmaids and a brigadier general walked me down the aisle (actually a space between a wall of sandbags and a line of mortars) to give away the bride. James’s best man was the battalion sniper. A buddy of his in the Air Force arranged a flyover, which turned into a bombing run against an enemy force trying to sneak up on our position.

  That sort of set the tone for the rest of our marriage.

  “So what was your wedding like?” Liz asked again, pulling me out of my memories.

  “A quiet affair in the country. Just a few close friends.”

  “Ours is going to be a little different,” Liz said, an impish smile growing on her face.

  I looked at her askance. “It’s not going to be a nudist wedding, is it?”

  Liz laughed. “No! Rick’s family is super conservative. They’d have a mass heart attack. No, it’s going to be a military-style wedding.”

  “Are you going to have it on base?” I tried to remember where the nearest base was. Cheerville and the surrounding area weren’t exactly national security hotspots.

  “No, we’re going to have it at Lakeview Park with Megaton Army Surplus doing the arrangements.”

  I blinked. “I’ve been to that army surplus shop to buy camping gear. I didn’t realize they catered weddings.”

  “Oh, yes. They even have his and hers tanks.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “We’re each going to ride up on one, and when we get married, they shoot confetti out of their guns. One’s painted with blue camouflage, the other with pink.”

  “Doesn’t sound like very effective camouflage.”

  “Well, it’s not like
we’re going to be in mortal danger,” Liz said.

  Just then, every clock in the place rang the quarter hour. A loud booong reverberated through the café.

  I should have taken it as an omen.

  Two

  Lakeview Park was exactly what it sounded like, a lovely hundred acres of rolling hills, copses, and picnic tables with Cheerville Lake at the center.

  The lake itself wasn’t very big, a roughly circular body of water half a mile in diameter, but pretty enough. It had been spared any “development” thanks to being entirely owned by the municipality. The only building was an activities center, a sizeable wooden bungalow right by the lake used by various organizations and school groups. Liz and Rick had rented it for the big day, just a week away.

  We had gone down to check out the venue because the wedding planner who Liz had hired to oversee the caterer, decorations, guest list, dealing with the venue, dealing with Megaton Army Surplus, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, was running another wedding today.

  To my disappointment, this particular wedding wasn’t being run by Megaton Army Surplus, so the parking lot only had a caterer’s van and a couple of employees’ cars—no his and hers tanks. I had to admit they had piqued my curiosity.

  The actual vows for today’s wedding were taking place at Cheerville Central Baptist Church (located between Cheerville Baptist Church and Cheerville Southern Baptist Church), and then the wedding party would come down here for the actual eating and drinking and dancing that most guests show up at weddings for. Especially the drinking. So we had a little while to check out the venue and talk with the wedding planner Liz had hired.

  We were greeted at the door by Fiona Younger, owner of Getting Hitched Wedding Planners, a chirpy woman in business casual with the blond bob that seemed to be part of the uniform of Cheerville’s female professional class. As soon as she saw us, her face lit up like we were long-lost friends reunited after years of separation.

  “Hey, Liz!” she said, rushing out to greet my friend with a big hug and air kisses. She turned to me. “And you must be Liz’s mother.”

  “Um, no. Just a friend. I’m Barbara Gold.”

  “So great to meet you!” she squealed, treating me to a big hug and air kisses too. “Come on in. I want to show you everything!”

  The lake house had several function rooms, mostly closed and dark at the moment since the wedding party had rented the entire venue. On a corkboard by the door, I saw a schedule of events including meetings for various local clubs, a kid’s birthday party, and another wedding. The place looked fully booked. Liz had been lucky to get a slot.

  We passed down a hallway to a huge room on the lake side of the building. There was a floor-to-ceiling window along one wall, offering a sweeping view of the lake and the surrounding park. A few motorboats puttered around the lake, along with those bright-red plastic boats you paddle side by side with a friend. A small marina and boathouse stood on the opposite shore. Along the lakeside, a few families strolled, their children splashing in the shallows.

  The view was so pleasant, it took us a moment to notice how the wedding planner and her crew had decorated the room itself. White crepe hung along the upper part of the windows. At one point was suspended a large photograph of a young man and woman arm in arm while smiling at the camera. They looked in love. I wished them well as I thought of James. Tables and chairs filled about half of the room. To one side, an area had been cleared for a dance floor, complete with DJ booth and disco ball.

  Along the center of the room, a long table groaned under the weight of a giant three-layered wedding cake, buckets of ice for the champagne that was soon to come, and a cornucopia of cakes, pies, snacks, nibbles, hors d’oeuvres, munchies, tidbits, and all the other words you use for stuff you stuff yourself with.

  “Of course, this is a traditional wedding,” Fiona was saying when I tuned back in to her and Liz’s conversation. “Yours will have the military theme you requested. But even so, the basics are the same. Dance floor over there. The DJ can play any type of music you like. Your fiancé has already sent me his request list. Send me yours when you get the chance. Dining area over there. Open bar and full waitstaff. And, of course, the food! This is our general layout. If you have any specific requests, feel free to email me.”

  “It looks great,” Liz said, surveying the feast.

  “You haven’t decided on a cake yet,” Fiona said, pulling a glossy folder out of her briefcase. “Check out these samples.”

  Liz opened it up, moving next to me so I could see. I felt flattered. I’d planned a couple of weddings before and always appreciated being asked to share in someone’s special day. Liz and I really had become close.

  We flipped through the pages showing different styles of wedding cakes—two-tier, three-tier, four-tier, ones garlanded with edible flowers, ones painted in sugar with beach scenes that looked like they had been done in watercolor, even vegan and gluten-free cakes. As different as they all were, they had one thing in common—the high price. Add that to renting the venue, hiring the staff, and supplying the food, and this would be a serious expense. I felt grateful that James and I had a wedding on the cheap. We didn’t even have to pay for the bombing run.

  “I like this one,” Liz said, pointing to an ornate three-tier cake with lots of pink frosting. I was about to point out that it hardly fit with the theme of a military wedding when she asked Fiona, “Can you make this in camouflage and the frosting look like barbed wire?”

  To her credit, Fiona didn’t skip a beat. “Sure! Any color you want. The cake maker is a genius. She can use spun sugar for the barbed wire.”

  “I’ve never eaten barbed wire before,” I quipped.

  “You’ll love it,” Fiona said. “Trust me.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I replied.

  “Megaton Army Surplus sells wedding cake figures,” Liz said. “I’ll go pick up a bride and groom in fatigues.”

  I turned to her, surprised. “They sell those?”

  “Sure. Haven’t you ever been in their wedding supplies aisle?”

  “I didn’t even notice.”

  “So it looks all set,” Fiona said. “I can have the bakery get to work on the wedding cake, and I’ll chat with Megaton about the other arrangements. I’ll need an initial down payment of five thousand.”

  I blinked. You could buy a lot of Kalashnikovs for that.

  Fiona pulled a credit card machine out of her briefcase.

  “Not a problem. Hold on,” Liz said, reaching into her pocket.

  Just as Liz pulled out her wallet, several things happened all at once.

  Firstly, Liz fumbled her wallet and dropped it, causing her to bend over to retrieve it.

  Secondly, there was a cracking sound from the direction of the window. I spun, as much as my knees allowed me to spin, and I saw a bullet hole.

  Thirdly, the wedding planner fell face-first into the wedding cake with a splat.

  I spun back to look at her and saw a growing bloodstain on her back.

  Liz saw it too.

  “Shooter!” she shouted, diving for the floor.

  I didn’t need to be told. I was diving for the floor right alongside her, although not as quickly as I would have liked.

  As we hit the deck, another crack came from the direction of the window, and a second bullet hole appeared a little below the first. The bullet thudded into the far wall.

  We heard the roar of a motorboat. On instinct, we rolled in opposite directions. Once I’d made it a few feet, I peeked from behind the cover of a chair and saw a small boat about two hundred yards out on the water. A masked man was at the helm of the outboard motor while a second one, gripping a pistol with a silencer, aimed at us.

  “Stay down!” Liz told me. “He’s going to fire again!”

  Like I needed that explained to me. That’s youngsplaining, a bit like mansplaining but where younger people assume older people are blithering idiots.

  They never seem to real
ize that we’re old because we’ve managed to survive all these years.

  I kissed the carpet. A series of cracks told me he was unloading on us. I felt a spike of pain as a shard of glass cut the back of my hand.

  Then the firing stopped. We heard the motor speed away.

  Glancing at Liz and seeing she was unhurt, I poked my head up a little to check out what was going on with the shooters. Their boat skimmed over the water to a forested area on the far side of the lake, about a quarter mile along the shore from the marina. Nobody on shore appeared to have noticed what they were doing, thanks to the silencer.

  The boat slowed as it approached the shore. The guy at the tiller headed straight for land and beached it. The two masked men leapt out and disappeared into the woods.

  In shock, Liz and I got to our feet and hurried over to Fiona. I felt her neck for a pulse, but no. She was dead.

  Three

  The police came quickly enough, taking our statements, bandaging my hand, and sending a squad car over to the marina, which was the only spot on the little lake where you could rent a motorboat. Liz was visibly shaken and told the police she had no idea why anyone would kill poor Fiona Younger.

  The shaken part might be true. The ignorance of the killer’s motive? Not so much.

  Because it seemed obvious to me that the real target had been Liz.

  My friend had been standing right between Fiona and the window when she dropped her wallet. It was only pure luck that she bent over at that moment and the bullet meant for her ended up in Fiona’s back. Liz was sufficiently versed in ballistics and reaction times to know that.

  But she decided to play dumb. Why?