A Real Pickle by Jessica Beck Read Free Book Online Page B

impressed by money,” he said.  “If I were, I never would have opened a diner.”
    “I’m glad that you did,” I said.  “But it’s all still really over the top.”
    “They’re just showing off,” Moose said, and then he drained his milk.  “That hit the spot.  It should hold me until dinner, anyway.  Who eats at eight o’clock at night, anyway?”
    “People who don’t have to open a diner at six a.m. the next morning,” I said.
    “Well, you don’t have to worry about that for the next few days.  You’re on Eastern Pickle Time now,” my grandfather said with a broad grin.  I knew that it had been dangerous asking him not to constantly refer to the pickle empire that had paid for all that we were surrounded by.  It had backfired, and Moose was intentionally working pickles into the conversation.  I just hoped that he didn’t do it when we started talking to our suspects, but I knew that it was nothing that I could count on.  Moose had a mind of his own, and usually I respected him for it, even if it did mean that he was tough to deal with at times.  Then again, I’m sure that I had my faults as well.  In the end, we were both stubborn, even cantankerous at times.  Perhaps it was one of the reasons that we got along so well with each other.
    The same brunette returned and whisked our dirty dishes and plates away, and Moose stood.  I joined him, and then I asked him, “Where is everyone?”
    “They’re probably in the secondary master ballroom annex on the third floor,” he said with a smile.
    “Is there such a place here?” I asked him.
    “Who knows?  I doubt any of them do,” he replied.
    “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get started with our interviews,” I said as I started back toward the kitchen.
    “Where are you going?” Moose asked me.
    “I thought I might get some information about the mourners instead of stumbling around blindly from room to room hoping to run across somebody.”
    “It’s not a bad idea, but who are you going to ask?” Moose asked me as he looked around.  “This place is so empty it echoes.”
    “Maybe we can get Humphries on the telephone,” I said as I picked one up sitting on a mahogany table tucked into an alcove.
    “What are you going to do, dial 0?”
    “Why not?”  I hit 0, and sure enough, Humphries immediately came on the line.  
    “May I help you?”
    “This is Victoria Nelson,” I said.  “Where is everyone else?”
    “They are gathered in the library waiting for you,” he said.  “Are you ready to meet them all?”
    “Why not?” I asked.
    “Excellent.  I’ll be right with you.”
    After I hung up, Moose asked, “Did you have any luck?”
    “Humphries is on his way.  We’re going to the library.”
    Moose shook his head.  “Of course we are.  Just watch out for Colonel Cody with the crossbow.”
    “This isn’t somebody’s twisted idea of a board game, Moose,” I said.
    “Funny, it surely feels like one,” my grandfather said.  As we waited for Humphries to appear, my grandfather added, “Can you imagine growing up here?  It doesn’t seem like a very good fit with the Curtis we knew, does it?”
    “Ahem,” Humphries said behind us.
    “I didn’t mean any disrespect by what I just said,” Moose explained.
    “None was taken,” Humphries said with a slight smile.  “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to the library.”
    As we walked behind the butler, Moose looked at me seriously and said, “And so it begins.”
     

 
    Chapter 5
     
     
    “May I present Moose Nelson and his granddaughter, Victoria Nelson,” Humphries announced as he showed us into the book-lined room.  I’d always been fascinated by libraries when I’d been a girl, and this place was the stuff that dreams were made of.  For starters, it was larger than the home where I now lived.  Thousands of leather-bound books lined the room, each carefully tucked into its proper place on the mahogany shelves.  There