Carrot Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #10)(34)

“Hi, Rose,” Hannah said, wondering if she was going to get the tattoo story for the third time that evening.

“I was looking for you, Hannah. Hal’s still at the slide show, and I wanted to talk to you alone.”

“Sure, Rose.” Hannah sat down in the old porch swing that graced the porch of the Thompson cottage, and pointed to a wicker chair. “Sit down and be comfy.”

“Thanks. Your guy is sure doing a great job with that slide show.”

Which guy is that? Hannah wanted to ask, but she didn’t. She knew perfectly well that Rose was referring to Norman.

“Anyway…Marge called a family meeting this afternoon. Hal’s her third cousin twice removed, you know, so we went. And she told us she wasn’t sure that Gus was really her brother Gus, but since he didn’t have any scars, or marks, or anything like that when he left Lake Eden, they had to wait for DNA testing to find out for sure.”

“Right.”

“Anyway…he did.”

“Did?” Hannah prompted, even though she was sure she knew what was coming.

“Did have a mark. Gus had a tattoo. He had it when he was a senior in high school.”

“And you know this for a fact?”

“I saw it!” Rose said, and Hannah knew she was nodding for emphasis, even though it was dark and all she could see was Rose’s slightly darker shape in the chair. “Actually, I saw it twice. But I wouldn’t admit it to anybody but you, Hannah. Hal would just die if he ever found out what Gus did.”

Uh-oh! Hannah had all she could do not to groan out loud. She really didn’t want to know the details of how Rose had seen Gus’s tattoo. Twice. Tacked on top of her natural reticence to hearing something embarrassingly personal was the fact that Rose was at least ten years older than Gus, maybe more.

“Just describe the tattoo,” she told Rose. “I don’t need to know anything else.”

“It’s okay. I want to tell you. I’ve kept the secret all these years, and I know you won’t say anything to anybody. It was right after Hal and I were married and he was running the café by himself. I was still working as head secretary at the school.”

“I didn’t know you worked at the school.”

“I was there for four years. I started right after I graduated high school, when Mr. Garrison’s secretary moved away. He was the principal before Mr. Purvis.”

Hannah wasn’t sure what being the principal’s secretary had to do with Gus and seeing his tattoo, but asking wouldn’t do any good. Rose liked to tell things her way.

“Gus was no stranger to the principal’s office. He was always getting into trouble. Nothing big, but since the other guys looked up to him so much for being such a fine athlete, he was supposed to set a good example.”

“And he didn’t?” Hannah guessed.

“Not hardly!” Rose gave a little laugh. “Gus was a hellion, pure and simple. He was always getting into trouble. It was nothing big, just pranks and stuff, but there wasn’t a week that didn’t go by without Gus being sent to Mr. Garrison’s office. And Mr. Garrison was an old Army man. He believed in corporal punishment if the occasion warranted.”

“Go on,” Hannah said, beginning to get a glimmer of things to come.

“Anyway…Gus did something particularly bad the week that school started. I don’t remember exactly what it was after all this time, but it had something to do with the drama teacher and three dead frogs.”

Hannah’s imagination took off like a rocket, and she had all she could do to keep it in check. “And Gus got caught for what he’d done?” she prompted.

“That’s right. Anyway…I was about to take some reports to the superintendent’s office when Gus came in. I knocked on Mr. Garrison’s door, showed Gus in, and then I went to deliver those reports. When I got back, Mr. Garrison’s door was closed and all I could hear was a loud whacking noise.”

“Corporal punishment?” Hannah guessed.

“And how! The first thing I noticed was that the Board of Education was gone. It was a paddle that hung on the wall right outside Mr. Garrison’s office. It said Board of Education on it, and the Board part was in red because it was supposed to be a joke.”

“I get it.”

“Anyway…I knew right away what was happening. Mr. Garrison was spanking Gus with that paddle. And from the sound I was hearing, there was nothing between that paddle and Gus’s behind.”

“I understand.”

“Now normally I wouldn’t have done anything at all. I mean, I was only the secretary and Mr. Garrison had a right to punish the students however he wanted. It’s different now, of course. But I was a little worried because Gus wasn’t making any noise at all. So I went to the door, peeked through the keyhole, and saw the whole thing.”

“What whole thing?”

“Mr. Garrison was spanking Gus. His pants were down, he was bent over, and his back was to me. I could see the tattoo as plain as day, Hannah. It was crossed bats with a baseball between them. Of course everything around it was inflamed and I knew Mr. Garrison had been paddling him for quite a while.”

“What did you do?” Hannah asked, not able to resist.

“What could I do? I was Mr. Garrison’s secretary, and I couldn’t interrupt him. So I went back to my chair and I waited until he was finished and Gus came out of the office.”