by Jonni Good
A Lonely
Way to Die
A Utah O’Brien Mystery
Jonni Good
Wet Cat Books, Hendricks, MN
Copyright © 2016 Jonni Good
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are the product of the author’s imagination. All rights reserved.
ONE
It was just after sunrise on the second Saturday in November. Six inches of snow fell during the night, our first snowfall of the season. The wet snow clung to every tree branch and every blade of tall grass on the abandoned field at the edge of town.
I saw black and white stripes moving behind a wild hazel bush, and my dog smelled skunk.
“Jocko! No!” I lunged for his collar, but I missed, and fell face down in the snow. Seconds later, my Border collie found his skunk, with the usual result.
I struggled to my feet and brushed wet snow off my aching knees and elbows as Jocko slunk back to me, his ears and tail hanging low in shame. The cloud of sulfurous stink that rose off the yellow stain on his chest was thick enough to taste. At least the spray didn’t get in his eyes.
“Third time this month, Jocko. What is the matter with you?”
I waved my arm in the general direction of the river. “Go rub it off on the snow.”
He tried. He hates the smell as much as I do. He rubbed his chest against snow-covered weeds and wildflowers, and wiggled through a stand of high grass. When that didn’t work, he put his head down and tunneled through the deeper drifts, with nothing but his ears and tail showing above the snow.
That’s how he found her. She was completely hidden beneath hazel branches that arched protectively over her snow-covered body.
Jocko whined and started pawing at the snow, and uncovered her hand.
I dropped to my knees and shoved my dog aside. I frantically swept the snow off the body, searching for her head. Maybe the emergency techs could save her.
When her face came into view, I was flooded with relief. She was a stranger, someone I’d only seen one time before.
I pulled off my gloves, ran my hand across my eyes to clear away the tears, and used two fingers to find her carotid artery. I held my fingertips against her neck for several minutes, but I didn’t find a pulse.
I stood up and pushed Jocko away with my leg so I could breathe a little easier. Then I pulled my flip phone out of my jacket pocket with my cold, shaking hand.
My first call was to Mort Schwaab. He’s a retired sheriff, and he was eating breakfast at Angie’s Diner with my mother, two blocks away. The volunteers who drive the fire truck have emergency medical training, too, but Mort was closer.
The call went straight to voice mail. Of course it would—Mort always turns his phone off when he eats.
I tried again, this time calling the number for the restaurant. Angie picked up.
“Utah, I’m busy.”
“Tell Mort to turn on his phone. I found a body at—”
The phone went dead. It rang before I could dial Mort’s number again.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Webb’s land. Southeast corner.”
I didn’t want to look at that frozen face any more, so I closed my eyes and imagined Mort scooting his wide rump out of the red Naugahyde corner booth at the back of the diner. He would pull his short blue jacket over his denim overalls. The coat’s zipper would give him trouble until he stretched the fabric over his ample belly. Then he would lean down to give my mother a kiss on the forehead, stand up again, and pull his dark blue watch cap over his bald head. Now he would be striding down the full length of the diner, and wink at Angie as he passed.
He would push through the glass front door and walk about ten feet to Sam Two Hawk’s snowmobile, which he ‘borrowed’ that morning to drive himself and my mother one block from her little vintage trailer to the restaurant.
When I pictured him reaching the machine, I heard the whine of the engine as he turned the key. It would take him less than two minutes to reach me.
Now that help was on the way, I let out my breath and opened my eyes.
I could tell by the way the snow was mounded over her body that the woman was curled up into a fetal position, with her back pressed against the multiple trunks of the hazel bush. When Jocko first found her, a flock of small birds flew out of the bush, but now they were back again, chattering and hopping from one branch to another while I stood only a few feet away.
On the eastern horizon, one small section of the sky was clear. The rising sun was brilliant red, surrounded by bright orange light. As I waited for Mort, the dark clouds pulled together again, and the sun disappeared.
The sound of the snowmobile came closer. I flipped open my phone one more time and called 9-1-1. The call didn’t take long. The dispatcher in Randall, thirty miles away, would call Louise Martin, who lives next door to the fire station here in West Elmer, Minnesota. A switch on her kitchen wall turns on the siren. Three volunteer firemen would drop whatever they were doing as soon as they heard it. They would bring the big truck, because that’s where they store the emergency medical kit. One of them would follow with the ambulance.
After calling Louise Martin, the dispatcher would notify the sheriff.
The woman’s eyes were closed. Flakes of snow still clung to her dark eyelashes, and her straight black shoulder-length hair pressed against the cold flesh of her cheek and neck. She had freckles and wore dark red lipstick. Her skin was blue from the cold.
A niggling memory tried to make its way through my over-excited brain. I saw her the day before, at the diner, but even then she seemed familiar. Maybe I saw her on TV. No, that wasn’t it …
I heard the first notes of the siren.
The snowmobile slowed, and Mort drove around the no-trespassing sign at the end of the river walk. Then he sped up again, bouncing across snow-covered weeds and tall grass. As he passed a clump of willow, two does and a faun jumped up and bounded away. Jocko and I walked right past the willows a few minutes earlier, and we didn’t see the deer.
The noisy machine stopped ten feet away from the body, with a dramatic turn at the last minute that sent snow flying.
When the engine turned off, Mort’s nose wrinkled and his lip curled in disgust. “Holy crap. He stinks. What is this, the third time this month?” He waved his arms to make Jocko move back. Jocko thought Mort wanted to play.
“No! Go away! Jocko, sit! Utah, do something. Get him away from me.”
Jocko’s ears fell. He moved back a few feet, and sat. I pointed to a spot farther away, near a cottonwood sapling. My dog went where I pointed, and sat again, pouting.
The old lawman swung his leg over the back of the long black snowmobile seat, and his heavy felt-lined boots sank into the deep snow. He walked to the body, knelt, and pulled off his right glove. He felt for a pulse while looking at his watch. Finally, he pulled his hand away and shook his head. He relaxed and sat back on his heels.
“Three minutes, no pulse. The snow started around ten o’clock last night, and there’s no snow under the body. She’s been here a long time, nine hours at least. No way to tell when she died, though.” The hound-dog creases on his face were even deeper than normal as he looked down at her. He shook his head, grieving for this stranger.
“She was at the diner yesterday,” I said. “I thought I recognized her, but I don’t know why. Conrad Krueger was there, too, and another man at the counter. I can’t remember who, but Angie will.”
He stood and took a deep breath.
It made him cough. He frowned accusingly at Jocko, and shook his head again. “How can such a smart dog—?”
“Too many skunks. They’re after the hazel nuts, same as the deer. It’s not entirely his fault.”
“What were you doing out here, anyway? For a mayor, you’re setting a bad example, trespassing on somebody else’s land.”
“I like to watch the sun come up. It’s peaceful out here.”
“Not so peaceful this morning, is it? Go on home,” he said. “Wally can talk to you at the museum, if he needs to.” Wally Adamsen is our county sheriff, and an old friend.
I didn’t move. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t he need to talk to me? Do you think this was an accident?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know yet. I’ll let the EMTs brush off the rest of the snow, but nothing I can see points to foul play. It looks like she laid herself down and let herself freeze. It was below 20 last night, but it would still take some time. Maybe the coroner will find something, once they get her to the morgue.”
That reminded me—the volunteer crew would need to carry the body down the river walk, and it was still covered with six inches of snow. I pulled out my phone one more time and called Billy Mack. Billy clears the driveways and sidewalks around town for people who can still afford his help, and he always starts out at the crack of dawn. He agreed to come right over.
I put the phone back in my pocket and turned to stare at the body. “The way she’s curled up,” I said, “It’s weird, like she’s hiding from something. And she isn’t wearing her coat—she has a dark red one, same color as her lipstick. I saw the coat yesterday at the diner. It was nice, like something you’d wear in the city.”
“Hypothermia,” he said. “You do strange things at the end, without thinking. Taking off your clothes is one of them. The coat’s probably close by.”
“But why is she hiding under the bush if she wasn’t trying to get away from someone?”
“Instinct. Doesn’t mean anything.”
I let this sink in for a moment. “You think she might have done this on purpose? Suicide by hypothermia? That’s insane. Besides, how could a stranger even find this place in the middle of the night?”
“It happens, but it’s a hard, lonely way to die. Most people have more sense. But I’m not saying that’s what happened. It’s not my call.”
He pulled off his watch cap and gave his head a good scratch. “You know, she looks vaguely familiar to me, too. Maybe she has family here in town. I don’t want to search for ID until the emergency guys get here, though. They have a right to mess up the scene, and I don’t.”
Mort turned away and ran his eyes over the body again, dismissing me. There was nothing left for me to do, so I started back across the field, following the tracks of the snowmobile.
TWO
Jocko and I reached the edge of the field and stepped around the no-trespassing sign. We were a few feet down the paved river walk when I stepped into an opening in the hazel hedge to let Billy Mack’s snow plow go by. Jocko sat close by my side, smearing more skunk juice on my jeans. I covered my nose with one hand and used the other one to wave as Billy drove by on his tractor.
The plow couldn’t get around the barrier at the end of the walk, so Jocko and I stayed put, waiting for Billy Mack to turn around and drive back towards the diner. I waved again as he passed the second time, going the other way. It’s a big tractor with an eight foot blade on the front, but it moves fast. He would clear Angie’s lot, too, for the fire truck and ambulance.
I stepped back onto the path. The hazel hedge on the right and the snow-covered branches overhead on the cottonwood and ash trees turned the walkway into a snowy tunnel. The river was still flowing, sluggishly, except for a rim of ice along the bank.
The siren on top of the volunteer fire station turned off, and the siren on the fire truck turned on. The siren started to move.
My phone rang. It was Sam.
“Did I hear my snowmobile drive by a few minutes ago?”
“Probably,” I said. “Where are you?”
“Old Randy Johnson’s place. I went to John Meecham’s place first. His furnace wasn’t working. I got the call around three-thirty this morning, but you didn’t wake up.”
Sam’s low, rumbling voice and his slow, deliberate cadence calmed me. I could feel my blood pressure dropping.
“You sneaked out so quietly. That’s why I didn’t hear you,” I said.
“Yeah, sure. Randy Johnson called while I was at Meecham’s, same problem. So, what excuse does Mort have for stealing my machine?”
For a retired sheriff, Mort does have a fairly loose definition of ownership, but I knew Sam didn’t really mind.
“My fault. I found a body out here on the Webb property. You hear the siren?”
“Who is it?”
“Nobody we know. It’s the strangest thing. She could easily see lights in the houses on this end of town, even through the bushes. And how would a stranger even find that field? Most locals don’t even go out there.”
“Are you OK? You want me to walk back with you?”
“You don’t want to do that. Jocko found his skunk again.”
I held the phone out so Jocko could hear Sam’s response. “Lord—what is this?” he said. “Third time this month?”
Jocko acted like he didn’t hear Sam. I put the phone back to my ear. “Give me twenty minutes to get us cleaned up, and I’ll make breakfast.”
“You can have the twenty, but you have to let me cook.”
A breeze shook the branches overhead and dumped wet snow down the back of my neck. I jumped around, trying to brush it out, while Jocko sat there and grinned. I didn’t think it was funny.
“How’s Randy doing?” I said, still hopping on one foot and pulling at my collar. “I didn’t see him at the last community meeting.”
“Hold on a sec.” A door closed and Sam came back on the line. “He’s not doing so good. His nephew’s a butcher who got laid off from his job at a big grocery store in the city. He’s losing his house. The old man is sending him money to help out.”
I caught my breath. “He can’t afford to do that. He’s on Social Security.”
“Yeah. I peeked in his fridge when he wasn’t looking, and there’s nothing in there.”
We signed off. My phone rang again before I could put it back in my pocket. I looked at the screen. Ian Tavish. I wanted to ignore him, but he would keep calling. Reluctantly, I answered.
“Hello—”
“It’s that damn dog again, Utah. You need to do something. I called three times this week and you haven’t even come out to talk to Rupertsson. That Springer spaniel of his kept barking all night, and my wife can’t—”
“Ian, this is not a good time—”
“Now listen—you’re the one in charge, and I want you to do something about it.”
I gathered my energy and spoke slowly, clearly. “You live next door to Ernest Rupertsson. You went to school with him, for Pete’s sake. Just walk next door and—”
“What’s the point of having a mayor if you don’t do anything to help the citizens of this town? I want you to—”
I hung up on him. Since I’m a nice person, I would probably regret it later.
The mayor’s job isn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. The banks were hacked the same week as the election, and as soon as the bank’s computers were fixed and we knew our money was safe, we all ran down to our local branches and pulled out as much cash as we could, in case the hackers tried it again. Then we all stopped using our credit cards online. With millions of people doing that, it took less than a month for the economy to grind to a halt.
There are only 432 people in our town. When someone has a real problem, they know they should call Mildred Price, our city administrator. She makes a few calls, and the problem gets fixed.
If it’s a problem that can’t get fixed, like a petty dispute with a neighbor, they call me.
There’d been
a lot of unfixable grievances since the recession started. I really missed the days when I was just a sculptor and the owner of the natural history museum. Back then, nobody expected me to perform miracles.
One of Ian Tavish’s neighbors got a notice of default a few weeks earlier, the first step towards foreclosure. And Ian’s wife was recently laid off from her job in Randall. I couldn’t blame him for being a little testy, but I still couldn’t impound his neighbor’s dog.
The siren came to a stop when I was only half a block away from the diner. The driver turned off the siren.
Two men from the fire truck came jogging towards me, pushing a chrome wheeled stretcher between them. I moved to the side of the walk to let them by.
One of the men jerked his thumb in the direction of a boy, eleven or twelve years old, who was running about twenty feet behind them. The kid was wearing a blue and gray jacket, but no hat or gloves, and he was wearing hightop sneakers laced halfway up and filled with snow. I’d never seen him before. I stepped out onto the walk and held out my hand.
“Wait a minute, son. You don’t want to go down there.”
“It might be my mom,” he said, in a voice choked with fear. “I’ve got to see my mom.”
“No, stop.” He brushed past me and kept running, following the men from the truck.
My phone rang again. I pulled it out and checked the screen. It was Josie, my mother.
“Utah, a boy came into the diner with a baby. I think it’s the son of the woman you found. We tried to stop him, but he handed me the baby and took off after the men from the truck. Can you see him?”
“He just ran by. I’m going after him.”
I flipped the phone shut and put it in my pocket. Then I pulled a leash out of my other pocket. I almost never use it, but I couldn’t see any other choice. I had to keep my stinky dog away from the emergency crew. I snapped the leash on Jocko’s collar, and said “Heel.”