by J. R. Ripley
I chuckled. “Please, next you’ll be telling me Ruby Lake has its own Loch Ness Monster.”
Esther smirked. “We sort of do, don’t we? We’ve got the widow in the lake.”
I waved a disparaging hand. “An old wives’ tale.” I was trying hard to believe the story was as phony as a three-dollar bill.
“Mary McKutcheon was no old wives’ tale,” Esther shot back. “She was a real life, flesh and blood, saliva-spitting pioneer woman.”
“The widow in the lake was a McKutcheon?” Why had I never heard that before?
“Of course.” Esther folded her arms across her chest. “After she passed, the life just sort of went out of the place. Family tried to keep the farm going for years and years. But trouble always followed. My grandpappy, rest his soul, said that nobody was safe living there, not a McKutcheon or anybody else.”
She twisted her head toward our customer, who was working his way back toward the door and his escape. “Can I go now?”
A few more steps and the man would have made his escape. “Fine, go.”
Esther called out to the sitting-duck-slash-customer, then turned back to me. “I’d stay away from the McKutcheon house, if you know what’s good for you!”
Sadly, I rarely did.
4
Things got busy at the store, not that I was complaining. I forgot all about the widow in the lake and the body I’d seen, or thought I’d seen, being thrown out of the upstairs window of the McKutcheon house.
The day passed quickly and uneventfully. Kim came in around noon to help out and Esther took off for parts unknown. Probably upstairs to watch TV, smoke the cigarettes she claimed she didn’t have, and talk to the cat she swore she didn’t own.
Mom was going to handle the store that evening. The hours between dinner and closing are the quietest. “Aunt Betty will be here, too. The girls and I are going to play cards after closing.” Aunt Betty, Mom, and their friends Anita and Luann participate in a weekly fourhanded pinochle match. Occasionally, Mom hosted and they set up the card table in our apartment.
“Have fun!” I called with a wave.
“Don’t lose more than you can afford, Mrs. S,” Kim added.
“Not much fear of that,” Mom quipped. Mom has little more than her pension and Social Security checks. Most everything else went to cover Dad’s medical expenses. What little she’d had left in savings, she’d loaned to me to help get Birds & Bees off the ground. I wasn’t worried about her betting the bank. I was worried about paying her back one day though.
My aunt Betty is Mom’s fraternal twin. At least, so they and the medical records declared. I’d never seen two women more different, personality-wise. Mom was steadfastly married to my dad until his passing, and I’m her only child. Aunt Betty is on her third husband, Sterling, and has a pair of twins of her own from her first marriage. My two cousins, Rhonda and Riley, are a couple years older than me.
Mom shooed us off after I promised to come back with a fresh apple pie from the diner, for her and her friends.
Kim and I dodged traffic—Lake Shore Drive is a bustling thoroughfare in the summer—and walked into Ruby’s Diner. I inhaled the mingled scents of fresh savory dishes coming from the kitchen.
The diner was nearly full. Kim and I waited up front for a table.
“Be with you in a minute,” promised Tiffany, one of the waitresses, looking harried at the moment. She blew a strand of blond hair from her eyes. “Busy tonight.” Tiffany’s a buxom, green-eyed blonde a few years my senior. She’s practically as popular as the food.
The busboy finished wiping and resetting a window booth and Tiffany led us to it. She dropped a couple of laminated menus on the tabletop. “Good to see you both. What can I get you to drink?”
I ordered the tea and Kim a root beer with a dollop of whipped cream on top. If I ate as much junk food and sugar as Kim did, I’d gain two pounds a day.
The diner, once a gas station, still maintained that charming old 1940s petrol station ambience, with a couple of antique gas pumps in the lobby and original neon signage and décor. Staff wear khaki pants and Kelly green shirts with white name patches, like old-time gas station attendants. Tiffany looks like a demure 1940s pinup girl in hers.
We chatted over our beverages and a big appetizer basket of deep-fried onion rings—a diner specialty. The onion rings were disappearing fast. I was starving, having nibbled on nothing but bird food all day—peanuts and sunflower seeds. Eating the inventory was proving to be something of a problem. The crunchy golden rings were delectable. The only downside was that they were especially good at adding rings of fat to my waistline.
Kim shot me a look. “Not that it matters to me, but I thought you were watching your weight now that you’ve got a man in your life.”
Kim’s a long-legged blonde with devilish blue eyes. She’s never had to worry about having a man in her life. They follow her around like flies on a wedge of ripe watermelon.
I frowned. “I’ll walk it off this weekend.” I’d be leading a two-hour bird-watching expedition through the state park the next day. Surely that would more than make up for a few lousy onion rings?
Nonetheless, I threw a half-eaten ring back in the wax paper–lined basket. “And I don’t exactly have a man in my life. Derek and I have only dated a couple of times.”
Kim plucked the half-eaten onion ring from the basket and polished it off. “If you ask me, there’s love in the air.”
I snorted. “Please, what do you know about love? What do either of us know, for that matter?” We are the same age and grew up together. There isn’t much we don’t know about each other.
I’ve never been married and have had only one serious long-term relationship. At least, I’d thought it was serious—my then-boyfriend, not so much.
Kim leaned back as Tiffany dropped our burgers in front of us. “Refill on the onion rings?” Tiffany asked.
“Not a chance,” I said. “And please,” I added, scooting the basket toward the edge of the table, “take the rest of these away before somebody gets hurt.”
Kim laughed.
I glanced toward the glass display case on the corner of the front counter. A row of polished chrome stools with red vinyl seats runs the length of the counter along the rear of the diner. The cash register’s up near the door. A half dozen pies rested inside the round display case. “I promised Mom I’d bring back an apple pie.”
Tiffany looked toward the display. “It looks like we’ve got a couple whole ones left. I’ll save you one,” she said with a wink, before leaving.
“You know,” said Kim, picking up the thread of our earlier conversation, “just because I’ve never been married, doesn’t mean I don’t know what love is. Look at me and Randy. We’ve been together six months.”
Randy Vincent is a local property manager. He owns a number of rental cabins, some at Ruby Lake and others around town. He’s been separated for over a year from his wife, Lynda, who shares the business. Kim swore the divorce was going to be final anytime now. I only hoped for her sake that she was right.
“Where is he, by the way?”
“He’s got a quarterly meeting with Lynda,” she said matter-of-factly. “Business stuff.”
“Doesn’t it ever bother you that—” I couldn’t figure out how to end my sentence in a way that wouldn’t cause hurt feelings or insecurity.
Kim understood anyway. “The man’s got baggage,” she said with a shrug. “Who doesn’t?”
I liked her attitude and said so.
Kim stuffed several French fries in a glob of mayo—a taste she’d acquired on a vacation to the Netherlands—and practically inhaled them. Disgusting.
I grabbed the ketchup bottle and smothered my burger. Unfortunately, it reminded me of blood, and blood reminded me of death, and death reminded me of what I’d seen that morning.
“What’s wrong?” Kim bit into her sandwich. “Is there something wrong with your burger? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I told Kim about what I’d seen at the old McKutcheon house. I’d refrained from bringing it up in the store, not wanting to get into it with customers around.
“You really think you saw a murder?” Kim sat back. Her plate was wiped clean. She dabbed her lips with a napkin, then reapplied red lip gloss.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not so sure anymore. Jerry thinks I’m crazy.”
“Nothing new there.”
“Do you suppose that’s him?” I pointed with my chin to the man visible through the kitchen’s long order window.
“Him who?” Kim swiveled to look.
“That one there.” I pointed my fork toward a squat, bristly haired man standing at the edge of the grill in a soiled white apron. “Could that be Guster McKutcheon?”
“Beats me. I’ve never seen him before.” I said I hadn’t either. Tiffany laid the bill between us and removed our dishes. “Why don’t you go ask him?”
I opened my wallet and pulled out enough money to cover my share of dinner and the tip. “There’s Moire,” I said. “Let’s go pay at the register.” We could ask her about Guster McKutcheon. As we approached, a swarthy, dark-haired man approached Moire from behind. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. The diner owner turned with a smile, rose on her tiptoes, and kissed him on the lips.
“Wow,” Kim whispered in my ear. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
The man turned his hazel eyes on me. Moire caught his look and turned. “Hi, Amy, Kim.” She took the check from my hand. “How was everything?”
The man she’d been smooching with smiled seductively and stepped back, leaning against the counter. He stood more than a head taller than Moire and, unlike everybody working in the diner, he wore a crisp, white, button-down shirt and charcoal trousers.
I wondered who the new man in her life was and where she’d found him. “Irresistible, as always,” I quipped, patting my tummy.
“Yeah,” added Kim, “like your friend here.”
Moire giggled and adjusted her blouse.
The man touched her shoulder and said he’d be back in a minute. He left to talk with one of the waitresses working the counter, a recent hire named Lana Potter, a smoldering raven-haired beauty who’d been turning Ruby Lake heads since the day she arrived.
“Sure,” Moire said. Her full name is Moire Leora Breeder. Moire’s husband was killed in a U.S. Marines training accident some years ago. Plump in all the right places, Moire’s a blue-eyed blonde. She lives in the apartment upstairs.
“Who’s the new guy in the kitchen?” Kim demanded, not one to waste time.
“Which one?” Moire asked.
I described the man at the grill.
“That’s the new prep cook. He’s working part-time. Emmanuel quit.”
I nodded. “I heard Guster McKutcheon is working at the diner now, too.”
Moire tilted her head and pushed the register drawer slowly shut. “Who told you about Gus working here? It’s only been about a week.”
I explained how I’d called Jerry Kennedy to investigate a possible murder I’d seen.
“It was at the old McKutcheon house,” Kim put in. “Amy saw some guy toss another one out the upstairs window!”
Moire’s eyes grew. “Are you certain?” She turned toward the kitchen. “I didn’t hear a thing about it.”
“Well, if I were you,” I said, “I’d be very careful with this Guster McKutcheon, Moire. Jerry might not have found anything, but there’s something funny going on across the lake. I can feel it. Murder or no.” I pocketed my change. “Did you run a background check on McKutcheon before you hired him?”
Moire pursed her lips. “Well . . .”
“I mean, because this is Guster McKutcheon’s house, whatever is going on, I’m guessing he’s at the center of it.” I turned my eyes pointedly on the man at the grill as he fired up a couple of burgers.
Moire chewed her lower lip. Mr. Swarthy headed our way, running a well-groomed hand along the side of his head as he did.
“Hey, babe.” He draped an arm possessively around Moire’s waist. “Who are your friends?” His white teeth gleamed like they’d come straight from the film set of a toothpaste commercial.
Moire squeezed his hand. The look she gave me was inscrutable. “Gus, I’d like you to meet Amy Simms and Kim Christy.”
My mouth fell open. “Gus?” I felt my face heat up. “As in Guster?” I rasped.
Behind me, I heard Kim suck in a breath.
The man held out his hand and I shook it. “That’s right,” he said, easily. “Gus McKutcheon. Pleased to meet you, ladies.” His fingers were cool to the touch.
I trembled and stuttered a goodbye. I went for the door. Kim caught up with me outside. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I inhaled lungfuls of fresh mountain air. “Just confused.”
“Tell me about it,” said Kim, shifting her purse up over her shoulder. “Moire’s been holding out on us. I had no idea she was seeing someone.” Kim’s eyes skirted to the diner. “Let alone someone so sexy.”
“Sexy?” I replied. “The man could be a murderer.”
Kim rolled her eyes. “You said yourself that Jerry didn’t find anything at his house. Besides, you also said that Guster McKutcheon wasn’t home when Jerry got there.”
“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t home when the murder was committed.” My eyes widened. “Quiet!” I whispered. “Here he comes.”
Gus McKutcheon loped toward where we stood at the edge of the street. He seemed taller than the one man I’d seen in the window of the McKutcheon house, and not as heavyset as the other. But it had been dark and stormy, and I’d been watching from afar, so there was no way to be sure one way or the other.
Gus held out a white cardboard box. “You forgot this.” His voice was deep and rich. “Moire asked me to run it out to you.”
I nodded and relieved him of the apple pie. “Thanks,” I said, my mouth dry as sawdust. “I forgot.”
“No problem. We all forget things one time or another.” He placed his hand on my upper arm. “Sometimes forgetting is the best thing we can do.”
McKutcheon impaled me with his eyes and I hurried across the street, oblivious to the honking cars and Kim’s plea to be careful and slow down.
5
Rat-a-tat-tat-brrr.
Drummy the woodpecker woke me at the crack of dawn. I rose, stretched, and picked up the binoculars. “Okay, okay. I’m up, I’m up.”
There he was, in his usual spot on the gray hickory. “I’d have thought you’d have run out of bugs by now,” I muttered. Maybe if I hung some suet cakes in the backyard, I could get him to change his habit. It was definitely worth a try. Suet cakes are quiet eating compared to hollowed-out tree limbs.
“You know, Drummy, it’s not like I’m a night owl, but I’m no morning lark. Do you suppose you could take a morning off now and again?”
His only reply was to bang out a beat reminiscent of the overture to My Fair Lady. Maybe I should be flattered. Maybe he was serenading me.
Maybe I needed to stop talking to birds.
The sun was coming up and the sky was nearly cloudless. As much as I knew I shouldn’t, I couldn’t resist another look across the lake. A lazy wisp of smoke came from the brownstone chimney. Two men were visible in the yard, one pushing a wheelbarrow. It was too far away for me to determine if either was the house’s new owner, Guster McKutcheon.
Several boats bobbed in the water. An early morning kayaking tour was already underway. Four blue kayaks followed the red one belonging to the tour’s owner and guide. I still hadn’t had the chance to seek out the skipper of the boat that I’d seen on the water the morning I’d been watching the McKutcheon house. The watercraft had a distinct orange top and had been on the small side, maybe a thirty-footer.
I dressed quickly and beat Mom to the kitchen. “Scrambled eggs are ready!” I beckoned my mother to the table.
She carried the toast ov
er on a plate and we dug in while going over the morning’s plan. I’d be leading our fledgling bird-watching group on a tour of the state park while Mom and Esther ran things at Birds & Bees.
Kim was spending the day with her boyfriend, Randy. A property he was rehabbing was taking longer than usual and she was providing design assistance. I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly. Prior to working with me, Kim had worked as a real estate agent. That was how she’d met Randy. She’d sold him a property or two.
Kim still has her real estate license and dabbled in real estate the way she dabbled in birds—lots of enthusiasm, not so many hours at the grindstone, or, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say, cuttlebone.
After breakfast, I opened up the store. Several budding birders were waiting outside, eager to get started. I had hopes that offering the monthly bird-watching hikes would be good for business, get more folks interested in the benefits of bird-watching and bird feeding.
Mrs. Bessie Hammond extended her arm and held her gold watch under my nose. “You’re late.”
“Sorry, come on in.” I waved Bessie and her fellow early arrivers inside and told them to help themselves to coffee and tea. Within minutes, everyone I’d been expecting had appeared.
“Good morning, John,” I said, as John Moytoy, the last of the ten people on the list, showed up and signed in. “I’m glad to see you could make it.” John Moytoy works at the Ruby Lake rary and is a good friend.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” John replied, pushing his thick black glasses up the bridge of his nose. John is of Cherokee heritage. He’s also a history and nature buff. “Thanks for putting this together.” A heavy-looking pair of binoculars dangled across his chest.
“Where’d you get the antique glasses?” I quipped.
John grinned. “They were my dad’s.” He rubbed his sternum. “I may have a bruise or two before the day is done.”
I gathered them all together near the front entrance. “Does everyone have everything they need?”