Geared for the Grave (A Cycle Path Mystery)

by Duffy Brown

  “The place is falling apart around my ears.” Rudy picked up another screwdriver. “This is paying the price for putting off those spring repairs. Ed here’s been trying to fix a few things, sawed off the bottom of the door here so it wouldn’t stick. He’s a handy guy to have around.”

  “The way I see it, ye be shut down any time now,” Donna chimed in. “The shop is looking sad, it is, and it doesn’t matter to the town council if ye be Mark Twain or that Tom Sawyer person.” Donna paused, a new glint in her green eyes. “Unless we can be making it matter. What if we do a little Tom Sawyering of our own?”

  “Build a raft and sail the Mississippi?” I said, taking over hinge duty from Rudy. With a house full of lawyers, someone had to know how to put more than an appeal together. “The way things are going around here, it’s not a bad idea.”

  “I was thinking more like we can be painting the place up and having it look like fun and get the tourist kiddies in on the act, just like Tom Sawyer did when painting the fence,” Donna offered.

  “And if the town council gives us grief,” Rudy added, sounding a lot happier than he did a minute ago, “we can say that over there at the Museum House they’re having Native American basket making for the kids and at the Biddle House it’s weaving and sewing classes. All the fudge stores do a class now and then. We can paint this place by making it look like history coming to life. Make it into a tourist attraction, since Twain did indeed stay here and give lectures about his books.”

  Ed snorted. “Never going to work. Unless it’s some kind of phone, pad or screen, kids’ll never go for it, and Tom Sawyer painted a fence, not a shop. I’m telling you, the only way out of this mess is to get Abigail here and find a good attorney.” Ed held up his hands defensively. “Not that I’m calling her. Rudy here put the kibosh on that idea. But she needs to know what’s going on with her own father.”

  “I’ll sketch a picket fence on the front of the shop to make it all look like part of the book,” I said, adding another screw to the hinge and trying really hard not to think of Abigail showing up. “And it doesn’t matter if the kids buy into the painting idea or not. Fact is, it’s better if they don’t; we’re just using them and the Sawyer idea for a cover. We can get more done around here without them in the way. As long as it looks like we’re doing Twain, we’re good to go.”

  “Never going to work, I tell you.” Ed checked his watch. “I have to meet Helen and the most boring house guests on the planet Earth for a sunset cruise. They’re Ed Junior’s potential clients. They do some big ads on TV and Lord knows he needs the business. And this is one way we can keep writing off that boat as a business expense.”

  Ed patted Rudy on the back. “It’s going to be okay, pal. I didn’t get you out to this rock to wind up visiting you in the slammer. We’ll figure this out together.”

  Ed headed for the docks, Donna went off to make an apple-walnut scone delivery up on the West Bluff and Rudy did his worry, thump step pace with Bambino perched on his shoulder. “I should have stayed in Chicago,” he said. “I never had all these problems in Chicago.”

  I packed up the toolbox. “You had wind, dirt, noise, crowds. And if you’d stayed there, you wouldn’t have met Irma.”

  “Or broken my dang leg, though I like your take on the situation a whole lot better than mine.” Rudy absently petted Bambino and nervously bit at his bottom lip. “So what do you think I should be doing about Irma? I’m not too good at this courting thing.”

  “Uh, you’re talking to someone whose fiancé chose a baseball game over the altar. Now, if you want ideas on how to totally tick people off, I got that one covered.”

  A few more customers frequented the bike shop to pick up trail mix and not rent bikes. With no business, Rudy closed early to watch Big Brother and see if Alex finally got kicked off. I volunteered to make a cat food run, since we were running low—and I wanted to take a bag to Sutter’s house as a reminder that yes, he did have a cat!

  A big harvest moon hovered at the horizon, casting a wavy ribbon of gold across the lake, and Fiona wobbled out of the emporium glassy-eyed, blouse untucked, sequin hat in hand. “How’s the great fudge challenge going?” I asked.

  “After two glasses of peach brandy anything tastes good. That stuff is gross. Hope it tastes better in the fudge we made up and I can redeem myself with Irma.”

  Fiona leaned against the lamppost, gulping in fresh air, and Sheldon beeped from my back pocket, heralding a text message. My gut clenched, my jaw tightened and the little hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. “It’s my boss,” I said to Fiona. “I can feel her vibes all the way out here. I think the woman sleeps at the office and eats from the vending machines.”

  I pulled out my phone and read, Ev, need Clawson files.

  “She calls you Ev?” Fiona asked, reading over my shoulder. “Least Peephole knew my name.”

  “That she remembered the first two letters of who I am is a huge improvement. Usually I was hey, you. Think I should tell her that Rudy’s doing great and not to worry?” I weighed the options of my being struck by lightning for lying my ass off versus Abigail coming here to check on her dad. “I’ll chance it.”

  Fudgies and locals were sitting on blankets at Marquette Park to enjoy the view while a jazz quartet at the gazebo did a decent version of “Moon River.”

  “It’s a perfect night,” Fiona sighed, a breeze drifting off the lake. “Except for the little fact that there’s a killer on the loose and the wrong guy’s set up to take the fall. Got any ideas what to do about that problem?”

  “I can’t imagine that Sutter is absolutely positive Rudy did the deed when I have so many doubts. Sutter has to know more than he’s letting on, don’t you think?”

  “I could poke around at the police station and see what’s going on,” Fiona offered. “Molly the desk clerk’s got a weakness for strawberry smoothies.”

  “Maybe I should poke around his house.”

  Fiona’s eyes widened to cover half her face. “Now that’s a really great idea. I’m in.”

  “What happened to talking to Molly?”

  “Are you kidding?” Fiona straightened her hat. “This is investigative reporting right here in front of me. Who would have thought? Sweet. So what are we looking for?”

  “For openers, a cat Sutter doesn’t know he has. If Sutter’s around, we’ll try reasoning with him about Rudy. If Sutter isn’t there, we’ll snoop and see if he has any suspects he’s not telling us about. He’s hiding something, and with his office at the police station not really being his, I think he’d keep notes or whatever at his house till he was sure.”

  “There’s something I don’t get,” Fiona added. “What’s a Detroit cop—a detective, no less—doing here for months on end? Usually we get retired cops wanting a free vacation to fill in when we need it.”

  “Maybe Sutter just wanted to visit his mom for a while?”

  “You really think that’s it?”

  “Heck no.”

  Fiona and I stopped at Doud’s and bought two bags of cat food, two slices of pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza, two flashlights, and two bottles of OPI nail polish—that’s Berry Daring and Flashbulb Fuschia. We paid at the cash register, ogled some hottie’s cute behind, then headed out into the night.

  We dropped one bag of cat food and the nail polish off at the bike shop, then started for Sutter’s house, which was really Bernie’s house.

  “Best I can remember,” Fiona said as we started up Church Street, the dim streetlights casting our shadows onto the uneven sidewalk, “is that HighSail is that big faded blue house with the overgrown bushes and dirty windows over there.” She pointed.

  “It’s got a nice mansard roof and widow’s walk.”

  “If the gutters and railing weren’t falling off.” Fiona shook her head. “No wonder Sutter doesn’t know he has a cat; it probably got lo
st in rotting floorboards. Either Bernie was one crappy housekeeper, or he was in the middle of fixing up the place.”

  I knocked on the front door. There were no lights on inside and no Detroit cop telling me to get lost. I put the cat food on the front porch by the door, handed Fiona a flashlight and followed her around back to a version of wild safari invades Mackinac.

  “Can anyone say ‘lawn mower’?” Fiona stepped around a low branch with thick cobwebs catching the moonlight.

  “If anything fuzzy or crawly with beady eyes slithers across our path, I’m out of here,” I said with a little shiver. “I don’t do bugs.”

  “Girl, if Sutter catches us, bugs will be the least of our problems.” Fiona tried the back door. “Locked.”

  “Island boy left the window open.” I slid out the screen and we stepped into a tidy but tired fifties kitchen with scuffed tan linoleum, matching Formica, a wood table and two chairs and dishes drying in the rack and a packet of Baby Ruth candy bars in the fridge. I just had to look. I tossed Fiona a Baby Ruth. “Dessert.”

  “Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” Fiona sang out around a mouthful of chocolate, caramel and peanuts.

  “I’ll look down here,” Fiona said. “You take the upstairs.” She put the flashlight on the counter and pulled open kitchen drawers.

  I took the steps to the second floor, the old wood creaking with each footfall. Four rooms were in various stages of repair and repaint, with a toppled ladder in one, plus a splash of green paint across the floor. Looked like playing This Old House is how Bernie messed up his back.

  I tore open the Baby Ruth and went in the next room to a hand-carved dresser and a humpbacked trunk with rusted locks, weathered straps and probably doubloons inside. Bernie had some interesting furniture. The floors were bare wood, and moonlight fell across a massive four-poster bed with its sheets and blankets tossed, an indent in one pillow and a robe at the bottom that was obviously all Sutter.

  I stopped dead, swallowing a whole bite of candy in one gulp. My ex’s bedroom smelled of dirty socks and gym shorts. This room smelled warm and woodsy with a touch of spicy aftershave and a hint of danger. Not gun kind of danger, but more who was this guy and what would I do if I ever found out? I couldn’t breathe, and my heart was doing a slow, heavy thud, perspiration slithering between my boobs and other private areas I forgot I had.

  This was the personal side of Sutter, the sexy side, the all-male side and more about the man than I wanted to know. Yeah, right. I backed out of the door and into the hall, then felt something brushing my ankles. I screamed, jumped, lost my balance and bounced down the steps like a hundred-and-thirty-pound bowling ball, landing at the bottom in a big, round heap. “Crap.”

  “Don’t pass out! Don’t pass out!” Fiona pleaded as she smacked my cheeks. “We can’t have Sutter finding us in his house. He’ll kill us dead.”

  My side hurt, my head hurt and I tasted blood. “Do I have all my teeth?” I asked Fiona, giving her a toothy grin.

  “Split lip but no gaping holes. What the heck happened?”

  “That’s what happened.” I aimed Fiona’s flashlight up the steps to Little-bit sitting in a pool of moonlight at the top.

  “I think he’s laughing at you.”

  “One day with Sutter and the furry little cretin’s turned into mini-Sutter.” I slowly unfolded myself, Fiona helping me up.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “You made a heck of a lot of noise.”

  We headed for the door and Fiona handed me a napkin from the kitchen table so my split lip wouldn’t dribble telltale blood. We stumbled out the back door into the night, through the cobweb branch that had us swiping at our faces and whining like little girls. We rounded the corner to Church Street.

  “Why, there ye be,” Irish Donna yelped, drawing Paddy to a stop. She scooted to one side of the cart and patted the empty space beside her. “You best be getting in, my dears, there’s a commotion at Rita’s Fudge Shoppe and Sutter be asking around for Chicago here. He’s wonderin’ where she be.”

  “Why doth Thutter think I dith anything?”

  “When things be going haywire these days, ye always seem to be in the thick of it. And what happened to your mouth?” Donna held up her hand, looking from me back to the house. “Never ye mind, there are some things I don’t need to be knowing about, but if you and Fiona here show up together, Sutter might get suspicious you two were into something you shouldn’t be.”

  Fiona helped me into the cart. “Evie has a split lip, talks with a lisp and looks like she was shot out of a cannon—the suspicious ship has sailed.”

  Donna hit the horsey accelerator by flicking the reins. I waved to Fiona while every bone in my body tried to fit back in place where it belonged to make an upright person.

  “Hoth you know I wath here?”

  “Mira Brindle be living next door for fifty years now and watching with her telescope. Her Herman used to be staring at boats out there in the bay. ’Tis my guess he did a lot more staring at Jeannette Holloway’s bedroom, but that’s another story. Since Herman sailed off to that great harbor in the sky, Mira’s seen fit to be taking over telescope duties. CNN and Joan Rivers all in one, she is, and at times she sees things we all wish she didn’t. She said you and Fiona were in Sutter’s bedroom looking around. She heard a thump over there and then she gave me a jingle on the phone being as that you and I’ve been spending time together.”

  “I wath trying to see what Thutter knoths about the killer.”

  Donna patted my hand. “No need to explain; we all be looking around a man’s bedroom one time or another, dearie. It’s when you stop looking and start doing that gets ye in trouble, mark my words.” Donna pointed down Main Street. “All the commotion must be in back, and I think there be a hint of burning in the air.”

  She parked Paddy at the curb, and we headed for the alley behind Rita’s Fudge Shoppe, where the back doors were propped open wide. Rita and Dutchy and a gathering crowd stared wide-eyed into the smoke-filled kitchen as the stink of burned sugar filled the air. Sutter, Shamus, Smithy and nurse Jane Porter coughed and choked and sprayed the kitchen area with giant fire extinguishers, killing all the flames in sight with clouds of white foam.

  “You did this,” Dutchy yelled at me, his face red, hair standing on end, finger pointing. “You called that attorney guy and you tried to burn us out ’cause you don’t like me and you don’t like Rita. You should be in jail,” Dutchy went on. “You’re a public nuisance. You should be off the streets. You’re ruining this island. Nothing’s been the same since you got here.”

  “Thath’s crazy,” I said, my mouth still a mess. As I looked around, I could see that no one believed me and everyone believed Dutchy . . . except for Huffy? She stood in the front of the gathering, balanced on her bicycle, arms folded, glaring daggers at Rita and Dutchy and not me? I was not public nuisance number one in everyone’s eyes?

  “That’s it. Everyone go home,” Sutter bellowed as he came out of the kitchen smudged with soot. “Fire’s out. Looks like papers were set too close to the stove and ignited some towels and aprons is all.”

  “It’s arson, I tell you.” Dutchy pointed to me again. “And that Chicago girl did it. We’re not cooking fudge this time of night; the stove’s not in use. She came in and set the fire while Rita and I were out front closing up for the day. And you really think I’d leave papers by my stove?” Dutchy kicked at the dirt. “I’m not that stupid.”

  “Accidents happen,” Sutter said, holding up the charred papers. “Get some help to clean up the place, and you’ll be up and running by noon.”

  Dutchy started another rant, then stopped dead, his eyes now focused on Huffy. He looked back to the scorched papers in Sutter’s hand, then back to Huffy and swallowed.

  “Fine.” Dutchy’s voice dropped several decibels and sounded a lot more reasonable than it had seconds a
go. He held on to Rita, never taking his eyes off Huffy. “We can fix this,” he said. “It’s all going to work out just as it should. We got the message.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Sutter cupped my elbow in a tight grip. “And you and I need to talk. Now.”

  “You’re arrethting me?”

  “What happened to you?”

  “I’m innothent.”

  “You should put that on business cards and hand them out.” Sutter’s mouth pinched together tight, drawing the soot on his face into hard lines. He fast-trotted me out of the alley, every cell of my body screaming to slow down, just like when we were on the dang horse. With no crowds to slow us down and not bothering with chitchat, we headed for the white clapboard building with the courtroom on the second floor and the police station below. Sutter barreled through the Police Only door and past the night clerk Molly, who was sipping a smoothie, and took me down the hall into a small office that was probably his.

  “Sit.” He nodded at a plain wood, really uncomfortable-looking chair. “Do not go anywhere. Do not touch anything.”

  He slammed the door, leaving me alone for the moment feeling cranky ’cause my mouth hurt and there were no folders on his desk to rifle through. On TV there were always files on the desk that had great info and they were lying out in plain sight for the hero . . . somebody like me . . . to find. Clearly Sutter needed to watch more TV.

  At least my lip had stopped bleeding; but the front of my shirt was dotted in stained-forever red. I wadded up the napkin Fiona swiped off Sutter’s table and tossed it in the trashcan by the desk. A list of scribbled letters on the napkin stared back at me: first t-t-a, then e-l-o and a-l-l. The rest of the letters were folded underneath where I couldn’t see them. I’d gotten this napkin off Sutter’s table at his house. Maybe it was a phone message and he didn’t have paper so he used a napkin? Been there, done that. It meant something if he wrote it down, and the biggest somethings right now were the Meatball mob and the Bunny business. That, or Sutter was into Words with Friends.