Stuck with a Stiff

by Scott, D. D.

  • • •

  I was surprised by the intensity of the pain now shooting up my right leg.

  Dammit if she hadn’t nailed me again.

  I’d developed a habit of checking out the kicking and stomping potential of whatever pair of shoes Sam was wearing. Her weapon of choice was the dreaded stiletto.

  I’d given the Uggs a low rating on my Shin and Foot Damage Potential Scale. However, Allwitch had somehow overcome the soft, poofy boots to deliver yet another effective blow.

  Evidently, I was laboring under the illusion that my Valentine’s Day gesture would buy me at least a few days reprieve from her feet of terror. The rhythmic throbbing in my shin, however, made me realize that had been nothing more than a delusion.

  “It’s not funny enough that you call me Allwitch? You have to share it with the whole goddamn community? What’s wrong with you, Nicky? I swear you’ve got wires crossed up there somewhere.”

  Todd cleared his throat. He looked more uncomfortable being with us than with the stiff.

  “Ma’am, can you confirm that Mr. Blane was, in fact, in Indianapolis at the aforementioned time?”

  Todd continued in an official, nothing-but-business tone.

  “I’m not sure I can,” she said, crossing her arms and glaring at me.

  “C’mon Sam, it was just a slip of the tongue,” I said, trying to appease her. “He didn’t mean to say it.”

  “A slip he wouldn’t have made without your help! You’re just an asshole. A total asshole.”

  “Listen, I may have mentioned your nickname when we were repairing fence or something. We spend a lot of time together. It was probably after one of the many occasions in which you called to bitch at me about something. And to set the record straight, I have not told the whole community.”

  Todd spoke up again. “Ms. Aldredge, I need you to answer the question.”

  After staring me down a moment longer, Sam turned her attention back to Todd.

  “Yes, he came to pick me up. I had a rental car all lined up, and this jerk drove down and cancelled it. I had no choice but to ride with his sorry ass all the way up here.”

  Todd turned to me and said, “Well, at least you’ve got yourself an alibi, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

  He put away his notebook, which I’ll admit, relieved me. “That’s all we need from you for now. Keep your phone handy. We may need to call you in to answer some more questions. And don’t leave the area, either of you.”

  As the last word left his mouth, my phone rang. Better the phone than having to deal with Sam, who was gonna be mighty damn pissed if she was stuck with me till both my new book and this investigation were finished.

  I pulled out my phone and saw that it was Don Mitchell calling.

  “Crap.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Don Mitchell is my neighbor. The pasture and woods in the back of his farm abuts the cornfield in the back of my farm.

  Calls from Don usually meant one thing…

  My cows had escaped onto Don’s or one of my other neighbors’ properties.

  Don fed his cows up on the top of the ridge overlooking where our properties join, so he kept a lookout for any bovine shenanigans. Said shenanigans were generally instigated by my arch nemesis, Beulah.

  Beulah’s one of my Black Angus cows. She’d been Dad’s favorite because she consistently produced high quality calves that we could sell at a premium to other farms.

  The only problem with Beulah was located between her ears. And since Dad had passed, and I was left in charge of the farm, she’d only gotten worse.

  She positively reveled in causing trouble. You could see it in her eyes. Sometimes, I’d swear she was smirking at me. Come to think of it, she reminds me of a certain editor I know.

  But anyway…

  Don’s call yanked me right back into farmer mode.

  “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news.”

  His gruff country drawl came through the phone’s speaker. He hesitated, knowing he really didn’t have to say any more.

  If he only knew what we were already dealing with at my chicken coop…

  “How many is it this time?” I asked, then sighed.

  “I can see four from here. They’re over in Donovan’s cornfield.”

  “Damn. All right. I’ll grab some posts and my fence repairing equipment.”

  There was a pause, then Don continued, “I’ll be waitin’ for ya. I can show you where they got through the fence and help you get ‘em back in. It’s in the far southeast corner where all three farms meet.”

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll see you in a few.”

  I hit the End Call button and turned to Todd.

  “Beulah’s on the warpath again.”

  “I don’t know why you don’t just get rid of that old knucklehead,” Todd said, obviously as relieved as I was to be changing the subject.

  “I just can’t.”

  Sam piped up. “If you don’t mind my asking, who the hell is Beulah?”

  I shifted my gaze to Ms. Stomp and Kick. “Don’t worry, you’re gonna get the chance to meet her soon enough. Follow me.”

  I waived to Todd and headed for the house.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When we stepped back into the house, the washing machine was doing its thing and Molly was mopping the hardwood floor in the kitchen.

  In my Samantha Aldredge World, mopping was always the last thing on the to do list, but a very good thing to be doing when you were stressed out about something else. Perhaps she was trying to keep herself occupied and her mind off what she’d seen.

  “What happened to Deputy Williamson?” I asked.

  “He’s out in the barn. The detectives spoke to him on his radio gadget thingy and asked him to check out all the buildings on the property. It sounded like he’s supposed to be looking for the murd…”

  She stopped. Tears welled up along her eyelashes.

  “He’s looking for whatever they used to hit Mr. Collins with,” she continued, composing herself with obvious effort.

  Nicky cleared his throat, which may have made him feel better. But me…not so much.

  “Okay, Molly. Can you take Sam up to the work clothes room and get her fitted out? Beulah’s up to her old tricks again, and since Vernon has the day off, I’ll need Sam’s help.”

  Then turned to look at me.

  “I’m not sure if you remember, Vern’s my hired hand, but I gave him a couple days off for the holiday.”

  “Work clothes?” I asked.

  This should be interesting. The only work clothes I own are designed by Armani, or if I’m working from home, Juicy Couture.

  “Why would you give Vernon the day off for Valentine’s Day?” I asked, always full of questions for Nicky because that’s the only way you got most information out of him.

  “He recently met someone, and I thought he might like to spend a couple days with her up at his cabin.”

  “After we find some clothes, I’ll send Ms. Aldredge out.”

  Molly was already in action so I didn’t have much time to ponder Vern and his new woman.

  “Please just call me Samantha,” I said, so intrigued by this wonderful woman and wondering how she put up with Nicky.

  Entering what Nicky referred to as his Work Clothes Room, I couldn’t help but be amazed by his forethought. For the record, I was just as amazed as I was irked.

  Molly explained to me that he kept what is essentially a changing room with a large walk-in closet filled with men’s and women’s farm clothes of various sizes.

  He wanted to be prepared for his visitors from the city and able to outfit them for a tour of the farm. That way, Molly said, Nicky hoped his guests would get a true feel for the farm experience.

  Interesting that the majority of the clothes in the room are for women, I thought, making a mental note to come up with some snarky comment for Nicky about this. It didn’t reflect well on his already shady history with women.

>   After he’d become a bestselling author, he’d taken advantage on a fairly regular basis of certain perks of his celebrity status. All you had to do was open up any tabloid and there, in full-color splendor, you could catch up on his latest escapades.

  Lately though, I’ll have to say, he’s seemed a bit more subdued. If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he’d grown tired of all those games. But, yeah. Fat chance of that happening to Boston, New York and Chicago’s rogue playboy, Nicky Blane.

  CHAPTER SIX

  While Molly got Sam outfitted, I headed down to the old cinder block garage.

  Dad had three five-gallon buckets filled with various tools he’d used to mend the farm’s ancient fences, which were now my tools for mending fences and a variety of other farm maintenance tasks.

  Why I just didn’t have all new fencing installed, I couldn’t say. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t afford the best they made, but it was a serious undertaking to fix ‘em yourself.

  The hardest part of replacing fence, as any farmer will tell you, is that you have to clear out most of the trees that have been growing up along and into the fence line for a gazillion years.

  Harder still was the fact that I just couldn’t get myself to do away with a part of working the farm that brought back memories of working alongside my dad.

  After starting up the big F250 diesel truck and loading the last bucket into the bed, I made one more trip into the garage. Some farmer I was. I’d almost forgotten the most essential tool for fence repair…the fence post driver.

  A post driver is made to be placed over the top of a metal fence post and slammed down repeatedly until the post is driven deep enough into the ground that it’s stable. Just imagine a twenty-pound hollow baseball bat with a ten-inch long solid steel cap on the end, and you’ve pretty much got the idea.

  I stared at the spot where it should’ve been.

  It wasn’t there.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  An image of Jack Collins’ smashed head flashed through my mind. There’s no question that a blow to the skull with a fence post driver would do anyone in.

  To chase away that thought, I tried to focus on the task at hand. Besides, my most immediate problem was Beulah, and she had no regard for human concerns.

  I took out my cell and called Mitchell. “Don, you got a post driver handy?”

  “I should. Haven’t seen it in a while, but I’ll take a look,” he said with a hint of amusement in his voice.

  Yeah. I was some farmer, and everybody knew it. As in, they knew I still had a whole helluva lot to learn about running this place after being away for so long.

  “Alright. Thanks. I’ll be down there in a minute,” I said then turned to head back to the truck.

  I almost ran right into Sam, who’d evidently been standing there for who knows how long.

  “Looking for something?”

  “Yeah. Maybe. But you don’t wanna know,” I said, hoping not to concern her with what was probably nothing more than an overactive thriller writer’s imagination.

  “You think this post driver gadget is what was used to kill Jack, don’t you?” She asked, as if it were just another manuscript, another story question, and another fictional stiff.

  So much for keeping her in the dark. Somehow, she always knew everything, without me having to say a word.

  “I’m not sure, but one thing I am sure of is that Beulah won’t wait until we fix her latest mess before she causes more trouble. Let’s get going.”

  I went around to open her door and help her up into the passenger seat.

  “It should be nice and warm by now.”

  “What’s this? You don’t think I can haul my ass into this monstrosity by myself?”

  “I’m quite positive you don’t need my help at all. I’m just trying to be polite,” I said, wishing she’d drop her hard-ass attitude.

  I know. I had a lot of wishing to do where both she and Beulah were concerned…among other things.

  I couldn’t believe Beulah had done it again.

  Who the hell was I kidding? Of course I could.

  It seemed like just yesterday that Dad and I were leaning on the fence and talking during one of my visits to the farm down from Chicago.

  It was almost sunset, and we’d just finished cleaning up after one of Beulah’s capers.

  Dad turned to me and said, “If anything happens to me, don’t sell Beulah. Your mom wants to get rid of her, and if you have a lick of sense, you will too. She’s a real pain in the ass, but keep her around for me.”

  Dad was in poor health then, but I didn’t want to acknowledge the possibility that he might be gone soon. Neither did he. Even though his condition was one of the main reasons I’d moved from Boston to Chicago, we just didn’t talk about it.

  I made the usual protestations about how he wasn’t going anywhere and how Beulah was going to be a thorn in his side for many years to come.

  But that wasn’t how it played out.

  Less than a month after that visit, he was gone.

  For a long time, I didn’t think life could go on…but it did.

  After he passed, the management of the farm was up in the air, so I took it under my wing. And yep…that meant Beulah wasn’t just under my wing. She was also a very large and persistent pain in my ass.

  In less than five minutes following my trip down memory lane, we were pulling up the drive of the Mitchell farm.

  I couldn’t believe Sam hadn’t said a word since her bitchy comment about my manners. Well, I should say I don’t think that she’d said anything. I’d basically tuned out both her and her nasty Allwitch attitude.

  I drove the truck past Don’s ice and snow-covered pond and cattle pastures, then on by his house and back toward the barn. As we rolled to a stop, he emerged out of the barn carrying his post driver.

  Good thing he’d been able to find it. We couldn’t fix the fence without one. But the thought of whoever the hell had taken mine and what they could have possibly done with it made me queasy.

  I threw the truck into park and hopped out, leaving the door open. If you did that back in Boston, mind you, some taxi driver would see to it that you no longer had a door. Just saying…

  Don stopped in front of me and handed me the ancient implement that looked fairly similar to Dad’s. “Appreciate you letting me borrow this,” I said, turning it in the sunlight to get a better look. “Looks a little banged up. Is it still good for pounding posts?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “You been using this thing to hammer nails?” I asked, then chuckled.

  “Sometimes.”

  “You know, they make a specialized tool for that. It’s called a hammer,” I said, loving the opportunity to yank Don’s chain just like my Dad used to do.

  “Yeah, well, sometimes you can’t find the tool you need, and you gotta make due with what’s at hand.”

  I chuckled again then looked down at my feet, unable to look Don in the face. I had no idea how I was supposed to tell my neighbor and life-long family friend that there was a dead guy on my farm and that all indications were pointing to me being the cause of his death.

  But Dad always went with the tell-like-it-is approach, so I thought I’d start with that. This wasn’t a time for my writer’s style guide emphasis on choosing the best word possible. A thesaurus offers many alternatives for murder, but none of ‘em are pleasant.

  “We’ve got some trouble up at the farm. I’m sure you’re going to hear about it anyway, so I might as well tell you now. We found a body out by the chicken coop this morning, and it’s not just any body.”

  I shuffled my feet and continued, “He’s another bestselling author and one of my main competitors, so it doesn’t look good. Somebody wants people to think I killed him so I could sell more books…or something. I don’t know. But that’s my take on it.”

  Don exhaled and nodded slowly while staring off into the fields over my
shoulder.

  After what seemed like an eternity, he spoke.

  “Your dad asked us to keep an eye on you kids if anything ever happened to him. You just let us know what we can do. If you need anything, all you have to do is call.”

  Perhaps it was all the mayhem of the morning, but I found myself getting a little emotional. I tried to shake it off, but wasn’t very successful.

  “Okay. Thanks, Don. And don’t worry about showing me where the cows got out. Beulah’s handiwork is usually anything but subtle.”

  I headed back to my truck, even more keenly aware of why my dad loved Don Mitchell. Neighbors and friends like Don seem pretty rare these days.

  “I’ll holler at you later. Thanks again.”

  “Alright. Remember, call if you need anything.”

  I gave him the farmers’ nod and tossed the post driver into the bed of the truck.

  As we headed back up the road, Sam turned to me and said, “If that’s what they killed Jack with, it wouldn’t have taken much of a blow.”

  “You’ve got that right. All the years I’ve worked with those things, I’d never considered what it would be like to get hit over the head with one. Just the thought of it makes me cringe.”

  “So, who has your post driver?” She asked.

  A simple question, but one that had me about ready to toss up Molly’s tea biscuits and cookies.

  “Good question,” I said, thinking the less I said here perhaps the better…for both of us.

  Both of us? Shit. What if they thought it wasn’t just me that offed Jack, but that Sam also had something to do with it? We were a team, of sorts. I wondered if she’d thought of that. But I wasn’t about to ask her.

  “A question we’d best be finding the answer to, don’t you think?” She asked, looking at me over the top of her glasses.

  I usually thought that look was kinda cute. Now…it just rattled my nerves even more.

  Obviously, I was much better at writing this kind of drama than living it.