Starke Naked Dead

by Conda V. Douglas

  Where could Rupert run? I’d always believed his cabin was his only sanctuary. After he gave up the search for my mother, he retreated there.

  Could I ask Aunt Maddie where Rupert might be? No, I didn’t dare. I knew her reaction to me finding a dead body in his cabin. Not great. Not good. Not repeatable.

  Mallard sat back in his chair. I noticed his had all its casters. “Are you sure, Dora?”

  I sniffed again and caught a faint scent of old cinnamon roll. I realized who I could ask. Who might know where Rupert hid.

  “What is it?” Mallard must have read my expression.

  I opened my mouth to tell him. I shut it again. Now, if I told Mallard about the necklace, would he even believe that I wasn’t involved? And I was involved.

  “Dora…” Mallard said in his best cop voice.

  “If that’s all, Sheriff—I mean Deputy—I’ll be going.” That sounded lame, even to me.

  “No, you—”

  I hopped up. My chair toppled with a crash. “Am I under arrest?” I stepped toward the door.

  “No, but—” Mallard managed in a pain-strangled voice.

  “All right, then see you later.” I made my getaway.

  “Dora, come back here,” I heard behind me. I ran faster. Now I knew how my father felt.

  TWELVE

  I stood on the wooden sidewalk outside Mama Chin’s Save On Drugstore Emporium and told myself that nothing remained permanent. It didn’t help.

  Had it been only this morning that I’d discovered Derek’s body? My stomach insisted it was several millennia ago. Food and answers now were at hand, my still-inked hand. I reached to open the door when the sidewalk boards vibrated a warning.

  Mrs. McGarrity stomped towards me with intense intent in all of her three hundred plus pounds. The tatted lace of her sweater set ruffled in her self-made breeze. Mrs. McGarrity tatted everything and today she resembled an enormous and elaborate filigreed wedding cake.

  I had no illusion that she hadn’t already heard about the murder. The Widows Brigade’s gossip connection in Starke flew faster than broadband Internet. And the rumors circulated with the same degree of accuracy or inaccuracy. She’d corner me and demand to know all about the dead naked man.

  I flung open Mama Chin’s old glass door, patched with duct tape from when my grandfather kicked it in 1945. The bell over the door, a twin to Mad Maddie’s Marvel’s, jangled. I stopped and stared, one foot raised. In Mama Chin’s, the display racks sat empty, boxes perched everywhere. All five milk glass globe lights lay along the countertop of the fountain. At least the ancient ceiling fan clattered away.

  Traditional American cooking aromas wafted around me. My stomach growled loud and insistent. “Be quiet,” I said.

  Mrs. McGarrity paused in her trudge down the sidewalk. Her little dog, Bark, the Rat Terrier Terrorist, paused beside her. The dog’s hair bristled. Whether at my stomach’s growl or me talking to a body part, I didn’t know. He barked once. The loud sound reverberated around the restaurant and demonstrated why he was named Bark.

  Mrs. McGarrity glanced at her watch, the one with the antique art deco design watchband that I so coveted. She no doubt considered whether she had time enough for me before another Widows Brigade meeting. Mrs. McGarrity adored her meetings. Where she reigned over the Brigade, whose membership numbered three, total.

  I gave my errant tummy a pat.

  Her frown of perpetual disapproval softened. “Oh, Dora, you poor dear.” She resumed her progress toward me, this time at a trot. She thundered the last few feet, her plump feet slapping the wood, the hand not holding the dog’s leash outstretched. Maybe she feared I’d melt into sobs.

  “How terrible for you, you poor little thing,” Mrs. McGarrity huffed at me as she jogged.

  Maybe she wanted me to sob.

  I paused mid-pat.

  Mrs. McGarrity might also be headed into Mama Chin’s. To spread the word about a murdered man in my father’s cabin. I didn’t know what Mama Chin’s reaction might be to the news. She might not tell me where Rupert was. She might tell the police.

  My stomach clamped in fear.

  Mrs. McGarrity reached me. She puffed. At almost six-foot, she towered over me. She patted my arm, the lace on her sleeve flopping. The dog sniffed my apron.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she said, “I’m sure they’ll catch that nasty killer Rupert.”

  Her face sparkled. The Widows Brigade loved a good scandal. If Starke’s oral history reported it right, they had adored a hanging. Although my great-grandfather broke the rope and lived.

  I pulled away. “Did you forget Rupert is my father?”

  Mrs. McGarrity stepped back. Her dog didn’t, having discovered a food spot on my apron. I wished I’d discovered it first. “Now, now, little Dora,” Mrs. McGarrity purred, “I only meant that, um—”

  I snorted. “You meant that you’ve already condemned Rupert.”

  Mrs. McGarrity’s look of pity faded. “It was his cabin.”

  “That doesn’t mean he kill— Quit licking my apron,” I said to the dog. “And I’m not your little dear—”

  At Mrs. McGarrity’s scowl, I hesitated. It didn’t do to annoy the Widows Brigade. They possessed lots of rope.

  My stomach demanded sustenance, preferably Mama Chin’s cinnamon rolls. I berated myself for considering my stomach at a time like this. My stomach berated back. It threatened to denounce veganism and rip off a chunk of Mrs. McGarrity’s little dog’s hind leg and eat it raw.

  I ducked into Mama Chin’s. Mrs. McGarrity tromped on my heels. Could she tromp.

  “We’re closed,” Mama Chin’s voice came from the back.

  “You’re never closed,” Mrs. McGarrity called back. She sounded desperate.

  Oh no, that meant she needed a gossip fix.

  I turned and tried to block most of Mrs. McGarrity. Not easy. “You can’t bring the dog in here,” I said.

  Mrs. McGarrity paused, the door part open.

  From inside came an indignant chittering. I ignored it. A pair of red eyes regarded us from a cardboard box. The box was tucked into a far corner, far away from the tempting kitchen.

  Mrs. McGarrity huffed. Bark’s ruff raised.

  “Mama Chin’s rules, remember?” I said.

  The little dog tried to squeeze around Mrs. McGarrity’s bulk.

  “Some rules,” Mrs. McGarrity said. “If she can have that vermin—”

  “He’s not vermin, he’s Fat Freddy.”

  “Filthy—”

  “Rats can be cleaner than dogs and people,” Mama Chin said as she swung open one of the kitchen’s double swinging doors. “And no dogs.”

  At Mama Chin’s tone, Mrs. McGarrity stepped back onto Bark’s paw. Bark yelped and Mrs. McGarrity jumped. A space opened big enough for Bark to squeeze by her.

  “Bark, Bark,” Mrs. McGarrity cried.

  “Freddy,” Mama Chin hollered.

  A blur of pure white fur followed by a bigger blur of chocolate fur raced through the kitchen’s swinging doors. Freddy sure moved fast for such a fat rat. Freddy raced over his owner’s shoes but bigger Bark banged into Mama Chin’s shins as he ran by.

  “Ow!”

  “Don’t hurt my dog!” Mrs. McGarrity ran full tilt at Mama Chin.

  Mama Chin yelped and leaped back into the kitchen.

  Mrs. McGarrity banged through the swinging doors. I followed. The doors swung wildly back and forth. I held out my hand to stop a door and got smacked. In the kitchen, silence reigned.

  I managed to kill the swing. I pressed the door open into the kitchen, expecting to see the remains of bloody carnage and Fat Freddy. Rat Terriers, Mrs. McGarrity had proudly told me once, were named because they hunted…well, rats. Even pet rats.

  Instead, Bark crouched at the lip of a large hole cut in the middle of Mama Chin’s kitchen floor. A trap door for the hole lay to one side. The tunnels. Built underneath Starke during its early days as a rip-roarer of a mining town, the tunnels con
nected all the old buildings.

  During my childhood, the tunnel entrance in my aunt’s store often provided a refuge. Aunt Maddie often stored the worst tourist junk in the small open space beneath our trap door. I’d hunker down at the entrance in the cool damp dark and cry. Where no one could hear. I wanted to go hide out there now and forget all about the murder and my missing Rupert.

  “Freddy, come back,” Mama Chin called down into the black hole. She and Mrs. McGarrity bent over the tunnel entrance, next to Bark.

  I joined the little clutch at the tunnel entrance.

  Mama Chin got down on her knees and leaned forward. Her black panted bottom pointed upwards, an exclamation point. “I’ll make sure that evil beast doesn’t hurt you,” she continued.

  At “evil beast” Bark looked at her as if to say, “Who, me?” Then he gave her a big slurp of a kiss.

  “Ugh,” Mama Chin said.

  Mrs. McGarrity made a shooing motion at her dog. “Bark, don’t do that.” She frowned hard. She must be hurt by his affection towards another. Mrs. McGarrity’s husband, before his death, had also been known to freely share his affections.

  Mama Chin looked up at Mrs. McGarrity. “Dogs are dirtier than rats. Freddy never kisses me.”

  Mrs. McGarrity’s frown deepened.

  “It’s all your fault,” Mama Chin said. “You interrupted me while I was checking the tunnel.” She stood up. She pointed down at the hole. “Freddy’s gone, he’s lost. Who knows what could happen to him down there?” She gave a little sniff. “And now that the entrances are being filled…” She sniffed again.

  I patted her arm. “Don’t worry, Mama Chin, rats are naturals in tunnels.”

  “Not pet albinos.” Mama Chin moved her point to Bark. “Get that dirty mutt out of here, now.”

  Bark licked her finger.

  “I’ll have you know, he’s a purebred Rat Terrier,” Mrs. McGarrity said.

  Mama Chin stepped close to Mrs. McGarrity until they stood chest to face. Mrs. McGarrity’s generous chest to Mama Chin’s pinched angry face. Mama Chin looked up at Mrs. McGarrity with the same expression I expected she had when she took a kill shot aim on her annual bear hunt. She always got her bear.

  “In Asia, dog is considered a great delicacy,” Mama Chin said in a quiet low voice.

  Mrs. McGarrity snatched Bark up into her arms. “You can’t mean that,” she said. Bark squirmed.

  Mama Chin smiled a faint, determined smile. “Bamboo shoots and fresh peas.”

  Mrs. McGarrity turned, lace flying, Bark wriggling. “I’ll shut you down,” she shot over her shoulder as she banged through the swinging kitchen doors.

  Bark scrambled to Mrs. McGarrity’s shoulder.

  “I’m already shutting down,” Mama Chin shot back.

  Bark stared at us as the doors swung shut, his eyes wide, head tilted to one side. He let out a single huge bark, a bark big enough to shake his sides and prove he was well named.

  Mama Chin turned to me. “Did Bark know what I said?”

  Bark groaned, deep in his chest. The mournful sound faded as Mrs. McGarrity left Mama Chin’s.

  “About eating him?” I asked.

  “I didn’t mean it,” Mama Chin said. “I’ll never cook Chinese.”

  I gazed around the kitchen. A catastrophe reigned here as well, with boxes of canned food, sacks of sugar and flour scattered everywhere. “You didn’t mean it about shutting down, right?”

  She nodded.

  I nibbled on my lips. Perhaps she meant that the café was shutting down for renovation, as Mad Maddie’s Marvels had. “Really?” I asked.

  Mama Chin didn’t answer. She returned to the lip of the tunnel entrance. She stared down it with a grief-stricken look on her face. I stood next to her and put my arm around her shoulders.

  “We could go searching for Freddy,” I suggested. Although the idea of crawling around in the long abandoned tunnels made my Buddhist-compassionate-so-I-offered skin crawl.

  Mama Chin shook her head again. “You know what a wussy-boy he is, we might frighten him further. He might run.”

  I sighed. “True, but—” something occurred to me, “he’s also a stomach with legs. Why not put some food right here,” I pointed with a foot, “and maybe he’ll follow the scent home.”

  “Dora, that’s a great idea.” Mama Chin sounded amazed.

  “I sometimes have ideas,” I defended myself.

  “Uh-huh.” She opened the refrigerator door and looked inside. “No, Freddy hates asparagus,” she said, her voice muffled.

  I’d wasted way too much time dithering with various pet problems. I had to find my father. If I struck while Mama Chin was grateful and distracted, she might answer without thinking.

  “If Rupert wasn’t at his cabin, where would he be hiding?” I winced. I shouldn’t have used the word “hiding.” It implied he might have something to hide. And boy did he.

  Mama Chin pulled her head out of the fridge. “What?”

  I thought fast. “Rupert’s not at his cabin and I need to find him.”

  Mama Chin’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  I licked my lips. I used the same reason I had with Lester and Mallard. “I need to get hold of some of his jewelry to sell.”

  Mama Chin placed one hand on her hip. “Dora, even if that’s true—”

  “It is true.” Okay, not the whole truth, but still.

  “—and even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Why not?” I feared I knew the answer.

  “Mrs. McDay got here before Mrs. McGarrity.” Satisfaction dripped from her every word.

  I sighed. I feared the Widows Brigade had beat me to Mama Chin.

  “Rupert’s gone and killed a man,” Mama Chin said, and confirmed my fear.

  “You’re as bad as the Widows Brigade. You’ve already convicted my father of murder. We don’t know yet what happened.”

  Mama Chin held her hands up, palms out. “Dora, you don’t know about Rupert.”

  “What?”

  Mama Chin ducked. She turned back to the fridge.

  “Tell me.”

  “Cinnamon rolls,” Mama Chin answered.

  My stomach leaped in joy. “What has that got to do with my father?” I managed around a mouth full of saliva.

  Mama Chin shook her head. “Darn, no time to make them.”

  My stomach sank toward my toes. “Mama Chin, you have to tell me where Rupert is. Please.”

  Mama Chin looked at me. “Let the police deal with your father.” She opened the freezer. “Besides, I make ’em with eggs, milk and butter.”

  “The police?”

  “No silly, the cinnamon rolls.”

  My stomach gave a tiny, dismayed moan. “Oh no, the rolls are off my list.” I’d always suspected that the cinnamon rolls contained eggs and milk, but had never dared ask.

  “That’s why I never told you before.”

  “I’m going to be a starved-to-death vegan.”

  “Vegan.” Mama Chin snapped her fingers. She pulled a package of patties from the fifties’ avocado green refrigerator. Emblazoned across the side were the words “all natural meat substitute.”

  My empty tummy perked up. Yum, my favorite: fake meat.

  “Mama Chin, where’s my father?” I put every ounce of my childhood spent sitting at her counter eating cinnamon rolls into my voice.

  Mama Chin stood, one hand grasping the industrial-sized package of pretend burgers. “Why?”

  My mouth worked. I wanted to spill the beans, or the necklace. However, it was my burden. And I didn’t know what Mama Chin would do with the information. Probably go right to the cops. I held out one hand, palm up, toward her.

  “Dora, I don’t know where he is,” she said.

  I believed her. I ran my hand over my mouth. “Okay.” Now what could I do to save my father? Where could I go? Who could I turn to?

  “Fat Freddy loves my new vegan burger.” Mama Chin moved to the 1940’s stove. When I’d
asked why she kept the one from her mom’s days, she told me with only a little cafe to run, why’d she need a new one?

  “Vegan burger?” I asked.

  She turned on the stove. “Yup, the new Mama Chin’s Save On Drug Emporium is getting a new, expanded menu for the Aurora ski bums and that includes vegan burgers.”

  My stomach gurgled a cheer. Hooray, hurrah, yippee. I gestured at the scattered cans and boxes. “You’re shutting down to renovate, like we’re doing at Mad Maddie’s, right?” I asked with a faint hope it might be true.

  Mama Chin shook her head. Her tight-wrapped grey braids bobbled on her head. “Wrong. I’m moving to a new place.” She slathered a hunk of thick white vegetable shortening onto an iron pan and plonked it on the stove.

  “But you’ve been here forever. Your family has been here—well, the Chins got here third—just after us Starkes and the Camerons.”

  Mama Chin’s mouth pursed. “And you’ve never let us forget how we’re the newcomers.”

  “Newcomers?” I flailed my arms. “This place is your new place. Your mom rented it after the Starke fire, and that was sixty years ago.”

  “We’re moving out to the mall.” She slid the burger into the frying pan.

  “You’re going to the Sun Dog Mall?” I couldn’t believe it.

  The voracious wolf pack of developers was building the monstrous mall that crouched at the end of Main Street. The mall resembled mining shafts pressed together. The tall planked wood structures, not yet completed, already looked tacky.

  “Don’t know why those durn-fool dogs went building mine shafts, not after the fire that shut Starke’s real ones down forever, and killed those men,” Mama Chin said, echoing my thoughts.

  The mines were petering out before the fire, but afterwards the Cameron Mining Company shut down. And Starke’s population plummeted. Until now.

  “Doesn’t make no never mind, however. First place to open is going to be mine.” Mama Chin picked up the pan and flipped the burger. “And Henry can take his hole and shove—” With quick, deft motions, she spread the vegetable shortening on the two halves of a hamburger bun and placed them face down in the pan.

  “Hole? What hole?” I asked.

  Mama Chin slid the bun from pan onto the plate. “The tunnel entrance, of course.” She eased the burger onto the bun and added mustard, tomato and lettuce.