Stuck with a Stiff

by Scott, D. D.

  “Good thing these woods are thick and the road’s so narrow, otherwise those tracks would’ve been long gone. I’ll take some pictures and measurements, and I’m sure our forensics guys will want to have a look too.”

  “While you’re doing that then, I’ll check out the noise coming from the potting shed that Mom mentioned. It’s probably just the wind, but I’d like to have a look before we go into the house.”

  “No, we’ll all be going to the shed together,” Sam said, looking to Captain Allen for confirmation. “We’re suspects, Nicky. We shouldn’t be doing anything alone that involves this case.”

  “She’s right,” Captain Allen said, smiling at her, obviously impressed that she was grasping the nature of this mess a lot quicker than I was.

  Somehow, it hadn’t quite sunk in with me that we were actually suspects in a murder investigation and not simply creating our own crime scenes and whodunits for my next bestseller. I needed to get a grip before I woke up and found myself in a supermax prison.

  As we crossed the back yard, it was clear that the disturbing sound coming from the direction of the shed was neither imaginary nor created by the wind. It certainly wasn’t hard to see how a superstitious person like my mom could come to the conclusion that there’s a banshee residing within. There was, however, something vaguely familiar about the sound, but I couldn’t quite place it.

  Before unhooking the latch and pulling open the wooden door, I hesitated, thinking this type of scenario is much better to imagine in my fictional worlds than to experience in the flesh.

  After opening the creaky old door, I took a huge step back, unable to immediately process what I’d just seen. It was now crystal clear why the sound had seemed familiar.

  There, tied up on the floor with his beak taped shut and shivering something fierce, lay Napoleon, doing his best to sound his own distinctive alarm.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Nobody ties up a rooster and leaves him for dead in a potting shed, not in Samanthra Aldredge’s world!

  Time to call in the big guns, I thought, excusing myself from the horrors of the potting shed long enough to hit speed dial number one on my cell phone.

  “You’ve reached Bellesconi and Witherspoon,” my cousin Zoey’s polite but all-business voicemail message greeted me. “Please leave us a message, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we possibly can.”

  In Zoey-speak, that meant sorry for the delay, but right now we’re already busy dealing with other huge thugs of the world, so get in line, and we’ll be with you shortly.

  I shuttered, still unable to imagine that my Hollywood stylist cousin had traded in most of her red carpet business, married into the Italian mob and now made mob business her primary profession.

  I left a brief message, knowing Zoey’s love for me and animals would put my situation at the top of her and Roman’s Must Hit List.

  And I sure hoped that the Captain wouldn’t have a problem with the extra help I’d just called-in.

  Without a doubt, though, Nicky would be all out of sorts about it. But he needed my family’s help and as quick as I could get it. Whether he realized it or not.

  Noticing the Captain was busy conferring with the local county deputies who’d just arrived on the scene, I decided to go on into Nicky’s lake house and hide out with him and his mom while I waited for Zoey and Roman.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Since Dad passed away, everywhere Mom turned on the farm reminded her of him. And because she had always wanted to live on the water, she decided to move up to the lake house. After losing her high school sweetheart and lifelong partner, the lapping of waves and the sound of waterfowl and frogs were a comfort.

  I was pretty sure the insanity we were dealing with was not what she had in mind when she made the move. So much for the serenity she’d found.

  I was really hoping she wasn’t going to get dragged too deeply into this mess, but so far, hoping hadn’t really paid off.

  I found her sitting in the living room before a crackling fire, wrapped in an afghan and holding a cup of tea. She looked a little pale.

  “You okay?” I asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’ll be fine. I’m just some crazy old bag hearing things that aren’t there.”

  “Don’t talk like that. And you weren’t hearing things. We found Napoleon tied up in your shed.”

  Her eyes grew wide, and her face became paler still.

  “What is your rooster doing in my potting shed? And why would he be tied up?” She asked, her voice quivering.

  Her reaction made me realize I may have revealed that bit of information a little too quickly, as if I was describing just another day in the life of her oldest son. This was not going well, especially since I still had so much more to tell her about what had taken place at the farm.

  “We don’t know yet, but we think it might have to do with something that happened…”

  “Yes? What?”

  I glanced down at my hands for a moment then knelt before her.

  “Mom…someone was found dead on the farm by the chicken coop. And it looks like he was murdered.”

  The cup slipped from her hands, sloshing some of its contents onto her lap before I could catch it.

  She sat in silence for what seemed an eternity before she spoke.

  “More death? What does it all mean?” She cupped her head in her hands. “I want to get your Aunt Liza in on this.”

  That made me about drop the tea cup. Aunt Liza was the last person we needed to hear from. Nobody needed her kind of help.

  “Mom, I think it’s best if we let the authorities handle this. Whenever Liza gets involved, things always seem to go a little haywire. Besides, I’m sure she has plenty to keep herself busy.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with talking to my sister. I know she’s a little eccentric, but I’m going to ask if she wants to come up and keep me company until things are less crazy around here.”

  I started to protest further, but she already had her cell phone out and was making the call.

  Resigned to the inevitable, I headed toward the kitchen where I’d heard the back door open and close a few moments before.

  When I turned the corner, Sam stood at the sink topping off the still warm teapot. The electric burner on the stove was already glowing a bright crimson.

  Mom and her sisters always insisted on electric ranges. No amount of cajoling on my part could convince them of the superiority of cooking with gas. Each time I brought up a potential switch to any of them, their responses were automatic, almost robotic. It was always something along the lines of, “It’s just too dangerous. I don’t want to come home from antiquing one day to find a great big crater where my house used to be.”

  Better than finding a stiff, I harrumphed, all to myself.

  As I thought of this, an image of a giant smoking crater flashed through my mind. A fitting metaphor for the bomb that had exploded in the center of my life that very morning.

  Once Sam had the pot on the burner, she turned to me and motioned toward the living room.

  “How did your mother take the news?” She whispered.

  “She’s pretty upset. But right now, it’s not her we need to be concerned with.”

  “That’s a rather callous thing to say.”

  “You don’t understand. Of course I’m concerned about how my mother is doing. However, at this very moment, she’s putting in a call to Aunt Liza. The crazy factor is about to be ratcheted up several hundred notches.”

  Sam’s mouth literally dropped open before she recovered her poise. It’s not often you get to see her at a loss for words.

  I was actually a little flummoxed at her being in a snit about Liza’s involvement. There was certainly more than one colorful character in her own family.

  “Don’t worry, Sam. I’m sure Liza will be fine. I just hope she doesn’t bring along her varmint gun.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “Varmint gun?”

 
“Um. Well…yes. She has an unusually close relationship with her shotgun.”

  The truth was that Liza seemed to think she was the second coming of Annie Oakley. And if you were unlucky enough to be a member of a species on her hit list, it was not wise to wander into her crosshairs. Not that she even needed to aim. Her gun could essentially vaporize whatever hapless critter incurred her wrath.

  “A shotgun? What gauge of shotgun? A .410, perhaps?”

  I had hoped Sam wouldn’t pursue that particular line of questioning.

  “Not exactly…it’s a 10 gauge,” I said, as casually as I could manage.

  Again, Sam was struck momentarily speechless, but she quickly recovered.

  “10 gauge?! Do they even make those any more? What kind of varmints are we talking about, woolly mammoths?!”

  This was not going well at all.

  “Well, we do have some fairly large raccoons and groundhogs around here. She doesn’t like the raccoons because they eat her cats’ food and the baby birds in her birdhouses. As for the groundhogs, they’re always getting into her garden.”

  Sam just stared, a look of utter incredulity on her face.

  And I knew what she was thinking, ‘cause it wasn’t anything different than what the rest of the world wondered when it came to Liza. Why would she need what was essentially an arm cannon to dispatch small woodland creatures?

  “She says that she wants to make sure she gets the job done,” I offered up, trying to ease Sam’s mind along with my own.

  Her unchanging countenance made it perfectly clear, however, that this was not an acceptable explanation.

  I suddenly felt an urgent need to change the subject.

  “Listen. Don’t worry about Aunt Liza. I can deal with her. She’s less of a headache than that cousin of yours and her mob family. Can you imagine what would happen if they got involved in this mess?”

  At the mention of Zoey and her clan, a slight wince passed over Sam’s face. And that look said it all. I didn’t even have to ask…but I did anyway.

  “Samantha Aldredge, you didn’t?”

  “I’m afraid I did.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I actually felt sorry for whoever had killed Jack Collins and took Napoleon hostage. With Aunt Liza and the Bellesconi Mob comin’ after ‘em, they’d probably be better off dead or in prison.

  I hadn’t seen any sign of the mob’s arrival yet, although from what Samantha had told me, they had a way of being there without you knowing it.

  On the other hand, when Aunt Liza made an appearance, you couldn’t help but notice. And I knew it wouldn’t be any different this time.

  Sam still hadn’t divulged anything about her conversation with the Captain on their drive up to the lake. So I was clueless as to where that relationship was headed. But in the meantime, she and my mother seemed to be hitting it off.

  From where I sat in the living room, I could hear them in the kitchen. Judging by Sam’s sporadic laughter, she was almost certainly being regaled with the usual “when Nicky was a little boy” stories that were standard fare whenever one of my acquaintances met my mother. Mom meant well. And it was an easy topic with which to break the ice, but Sam was the last person who I wanted to hear about my childhood foibles. And she was certainly the last one I wanted looking at my naked baby pictures.

  Okay, to be honest, it didn’t bother me all that much. Well, nothing except for the naked baby pictures part.

  I knew Mom’s nerves were about shot and telling embarrassing stories about me was probably a way of keeping her mind off the surrounding insanity.

  My mind, in the meantime, wasn’t getting any reprieve. Looking out the big bay window in the living room normally calmed my nerves, but not anymore. There was Aunt Liza’s battered 1968 baby blue International pickup truck coming up the drive. Crap. Here we go.

  In order to get a preemptive feel for her current level of nuttiness, I decided to go out and meet her.

  The second she opened her door, her booming voice and patchouli scent filled the air.

  “Hey there, Sassafras! What the hell’s going on around here?”

  It was one of her standard over-the-top greetings accentuated by the usual hearty punch to my arm.

  “Hi, Liza,” I said, as I rubbed my aggrieved limb. “What brings you up to the lake?”

  Of course, I knew exactly why she was here, but I wanted to know just how much she knew before I caused myself extra torment by telling her something she didn’t already know.

  Her head cocked to one side just like a dog trying to figure out human rubbish. Her gaudy rhinestone earrings swayed back and forth, hanging on for dear life.

  “Whadya mean? You thick, Kiddo? I heard we’ve got some trouble, and I’m here to lend a hand. With every police cruiser in four counties parked in your driveway, it looks like you could use all the help you can get.”

  Sassafras. Kiddo. In all the years I’d known her, I don’t think I’d ever heard her address anyone by their actual given name. Instead, it was all these country bumpkin tags.

  “Well, there isn’t much for us to do. We’re trying to let the authorities handle everything. The last thing we want is to make the situation worse.”

  If only that were true. I just hoped the authorities could handle all the help that was coming their way.

  “Hmph! Pish posh. If somebody’s sneaking around your mom’s place, me and Sweet Pea are going to stay up here and keep her company for a while.”

  Great. Sweat Pea was Liza’s overly affectionate nickname for her gigantic shotgun. But there was nothing sweet about it. Watching her remove the damn thing from the gun rack in her truck sent shivers all the way down to my toes.

  “Is it really necessary to bring that thing into the house?”

  Aunt Liza just blinked at me, apparently astonished at the absurdity of my question.

  “Listen, Tootsie Face. With all this trouble afoot, this old gal won’t be leaving my side. Not even for a second.”

  As she spoke, she patted the gun with obvious affection while cradling it like a newborn.

  With her trademark pink rubber boots and green plaid hunter’s cap, she certainly cut quite the figure. But that’s not what disturbed me the most about her current getup. The housecoat she’d been wearing earlier had been replaced by a bulky canvas hunting jacket. All the pockets were bulging with what were almost certain to be shotgun shells.

  “Nice jacket.”

  I couldn’t help myself.

  “Thanks. Just picked this puppy up the other day at the outfitters. With the purchase of over $100 in ammo, I got it at a substantial discount.”

  “Forgive me for asking, but why would you need $100 worth of shotgun shells?”

  “My left pinky toe’s been twitching again.”

  I stared at her for a few seconds, assuming she would eventually say something that was relevant to my question.

  Noticing the perplexed look that must have been on my face, she continued, “That means it’s going to be a big varmint year, and judging by the events of the past twenty-four hours, we’re not just dealing with the four-legged kind.”

  With that, she turned on her pink rubber heels and headed for the house.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  While Nicky was dealing with Liza and her big ass gun, I received a text from one of my cousin Zoey’s partners in crime-fighting, Kat McDonald. Kat is a Mom Squad member. The Mom Squad is a group of six women who Zoey refers to as the blue-haired version of Charlie’s Angels. Actually, to me, they’re more like geriatric Bond Girls.

  Although blue-hair is quite normal for their ages, only one of them, Grams, meets that description. And she is so far out of control, the blue-hair is the only thing normal about her. As for Kat? No way would she do the blue-hair regimen of a weekly trip to the beauty shop for a comb out and set. She’s way too stylish for that. Stylish and beyond intelligent. If James Bond were a woman, Kat would be that kind of kick ass chick. Actually, she’d be the perfe
ct date for Sir Sean Connery.

  The perfect date, that is, if she weren’t already head over heels for her very own Quartermaster R. Bond may have Q, but in my cousin Zoey’s Will and Kate meet Bond world, their Q is an R.

  Kat’s text said she and R would meet me down at the water’s edge behind the lake house. And with Nicky more than tied up with Liza’s arrival, I had the perfect chance to greet my covert crew.

  Kat said to stand next to two bushes on the small slope leading down to the Blane’s private dock. I did exactly as I was told. But as I looked out at the gorgeous lake, I realized I had no idea what I was looking for or waiting for.

  Before I could begin to imagine the wild possibilities, one of the two bushes talked! I damn near peed my britches.

  “Don’t you think it’s going to seem a bit odd that I’m talking to a bush?!” I asked.

  “Not if you keep facing straight ahead, my dear. And don’t bend down as if you’re some kind of bush whisperer,” Kat calmly replied as if talking bushes were absolutely nothing new.

  “Just listen to us. That’s all you need to do for now,” R’s bush said.

  “We’ve got the entire squad in place, and we’ll begin our operations at sundown,” Kat continued.

  “Where are they?” I asked, looking again to the lake where I certainly didn’t see anything unusual. Just a few ice fisherman.

  God, I hope one of those nuts isn’t Grams, I thought to myself, also hoping that if I didn’t toss that idea into the universe, it wouldn’t be true.

  “They’re under the ice. We’re approaching this mission with an amphibious entry,” R said in his every day mission impossible, everything calculated and planned for state of calm.

  “You know how bad Grams has been dying to try out her new scuba gear,” Kat said, who was never able to suppress her humorous take on current events.

  “At this time of year?!”

  Now I’d heard it all.

  Suddenly, I realized I’d rather see Grams out there pretending to be ice fishing. The thought of her raising hell under the frozen surface of the lake was even scarier.