November Hunt

by Jess Lourey

  The spy mission had taken more time than I expected, so I scrambled to get ready for work. I also wanted to make time to ask Jed if he knew that Clive grew and presumably sold weed. If anyone would know the dealers in the county, Jed would. I had only time to comb my hair, grab a change of clothes for tonight’s library benefit, feed my animals, and snatch a banana and a can of Cuban rice and beans for lunch before dashing out the door.

  Cursing, I remembered I’d also reluctantly arranged a booksigning for noon today. The author had recently relocated to Battle Lake and had introduced herself as a writer of inspirational religious aphorisms. If that description didn’t make me want to take up drinking again, I didn’t know what did. The woman—Peggy McMillian was her name—had built a thriving career as the writer of the little sayings that appear on church signs, like “Don’t give the Devil a ride and expect him to wear his seat belt,” and “The Ten Commandments are not multiple choice.”

  Her work was so popular that she’d been offered a book contract. A Penance for Your Thoughts had immediately gone into a second and then a third printing and was one of the most popular books in the Battle Lake library’s collection. Spiritual soundbites weren’t my cup of tea, but I was a librarian, and all books must be equal in my eyes. That didn’t mean I had to like them all, just pretend equally.

  I stopped at Larry’s Supermarket to pick up assorted cookies and apple cider for the event. Today’s break in the weather had people out laughing and stocking up on groceries before the next cold snap, but I managed to weave in and out of the giddy crowds. At the library, I had just enough time to fill the hot beverage tureen and arrange the cookies before the first knock came at the door. I looked up to see Peggy herself, a dark-haired, frog-shaped woman in her fifties who’d sported crumbs on her clothing both of the previous times I’d interacted with her. She’d also been twitchy and inclined to talking about her medical conditions. I didn’t expect today to be any different. Her only apparent redeeming quality was her voice. It clicked and sang like a handful of glass marbles tossed up into the sunshine.

  I strode over and unlocked the door. “Hi, Peggy. How are you?”

  “Fine, fine,” she said, stepping in and setting a box of books on the counter before removing her scarf. “This cold plays dickens on my joints, and I think my eyesight is going, though. I have a doctor’s appointment on Monday.”

  I studied her for a second. Yup, only in her fifties. I wondered how long she’d been a hypochondriac. I tried putting a positive spin on the conversation. “At least you got nice weather for your book signing.”

  “Nice weather if you’re a germ.” She looked over my shoulder. “Are those cookies?”

  I stepped to the side. “Help yourself. Do you want me to help you set up your books?”

  “Yes, but make sure to arrange them spine out along the back of the table, leaving only enough room for me to lean forward to sign copies but not so much room that people can come around and stand close. The last thing I need is to pick up a flu bug. Then, display three books on each side, standing up and partially open but so that the cover can be read. You’re very kind. Thanks for having me, too.”

  I mumbled something about it not being any problem and began unpacking her books and arranging them as per her instructions. I glanced at the spine of one. Her publisher was Inspiration Industries. How nice that capitalism and spiritual enlightenment had found yet another spot to merge. At the bottom of the book box, I discovered a hard-backed poster of Peggy, which I set at an angle. When I turned back around, she’d polished off three Oreos and a macaroon, judging by the crumbs on her chest and holes in the cookie tray, and was holding my copy of Private Investigating for Morons in her hand.

  “This yours?” she asked.

  “It’s a library book,” I said, evading the question.

  “But are you reading it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, thank God.” She fell into the nearest chair, an upholstered swivel computer seat, and moaned and swayed. She had sweat circles encroaching on the pinched white fabric under her arms. “Hallelujah! He always provides.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She reached over for the Morons book and fanned her face with it, still humming and amen-ing in between her words. “My inspiration left me. It up and fled as soon as my book was published. It was pride, I know it. I wasn’t humble, and I made money off my gift. Don’t you see?”

  I looked uncomfortably over my shoulder, smelling a freshly baked restraining order. I’d hosted authors before, and while they weren’t a bunch you’d typically take life management lessons from, they seemed to play well with others and generally behave respectably in public. Peggy, however, was sweating like a Lutheran at the Inquisition, her glistening eyes staring greedily at me as she continued to fan her face.

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” I said. “Do you need some fresh air?” I figured all I had to do was lead her outside, lock the door behind her, and call the police.

  “Are you deaf ? I lost my mojo. I can’t write these any more.” She reached over to a carefully arranged row of A Penance for Your Thoughts and shoved my display to the floor, where the books landed with a slapping thump. The effort slid her glasses down her nose. She pushed them back up with her pointer finger. “My greed got the better of me, and now I can no longer parse the words that inspire millions to seek the Light. They used to come to me as easily as breathing, right up until this book came out and I cashed my first royalty check. Once it was no longer a labor of love, the well dried up. Now I can’t write anything more creative than my own name.”

  I relaxed a lick. What I was witnessing was writer’s block with a splash of religious fervor, not a psychotic break. “Oh, you can’t write your aphorisms any more?”

  “They weren’t my aphorisms. They belonged to the faithful. I was merely their vehicle.” She reached for a fistful of cookies and popped them like aspirin.

  I kneeled to pick up and reorganize the books. I paged through one as I stacked it. “Maybe there’s enough here to last for a while?”

  She talked around a mouthful. “There would be, if I hadn’t signed another contract. I owe them a second book in a month. That’s why it’s a sign that we’ve crossed paths! You are a detective. I am going to hire you to locate my mojo.”

  I shook my head. The woman was an emotional train wreck, and I liked drama a little more than pap smears and a little less than ill-fitting jeans. “It’s just a book on private investigation. I’m not licensed, and even if I were, PIs don’t look for mojo. You need a career change maybe, not a detective.”

  “No. This is a sign. I firmly believe in signs.” She held up a copy of her book, which, in fact, featured a photo of a church sign on the front, the book’s title inserted into it. “You’ll help me, won’t you?”

  “Nope.” I’d already taken on one too many cases for an unlicensed PI. Besides, this woman screamed high maintenance. I rearranged the cookies to cover the massive gap she’d created and began to switch on the computers. That’s when I heard her sniffling and turned to see her batting her eyes like a toad in a hailstorm.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s why I moved to Battle Lake, you know.

  I thought if I got away from it all, I’d find my way back into the Lord’s good graces. When my friend Lynne asked me to housesit here, it was just the perfect opportunity. You know, a sign.”

  I felt the shot of premonitory fear and pity through my stomach. “You came to Battle Lake to housesit?”

  “Yes.” She blew her nose into a large purple handkerchief she’d pulled from her purse. “Just for a couple months. Then I return to Kentucky.”

  Just for a couple months. I knew how that story ended: six dead bodies, an overused detachable shower head, and a ring of belly fat shaped oddly like Tator Tot hotdish later, she’d still be here, maybe working for the newspaper, maybe at the library, possibly volunteering at the nursing home. I sighed from the depths of my soul, my cynical side war
ring with my human side. My human side won, but grudgingly. “Look, I’m not a detective, but I’d be happy to show you around while you’re here. Maybe you can pick up some inspiration from the environment.”

  She became fidgety again. “Okay, that’s a start. How much will it cost?”

  “$49.95.”

  She nodded, suddenly distracted. “Do you have an air filter on the furnace in here? I think I’m coming down with something, and dirty air is the last thing I need.”

  The front door chimed, and in walked the mayor of Battle Lake. She was wearing a pink, fake-fur-lined ski parka, matching snow pants, and high-heeled boots, which I guessed were about as climate-appropriate as tiaras. Underneath a jaunty pink beret, she wore make-up that looked as though it had been applied with a spatula.

  “There’s worse things than dirty air,” I muttered under my breath. Kennie had been my worst enemy when I’d moved to Battle Lake. She was a self-involved, calculating Mary Kay of a woman with no loyalties. Since May, however, the Fates had contrived to throw us together on more than one occasion, and she and I had struck an uneasy truce. She was now like the skin tag you couldn’t afford to remove so made the best of.

  Kennie sailed past me and held out her manicured hand to Peggy. “I hope I am the first one to welcome you to our lovely town.” As always, Kennie’s Southern drawl was out of place in the Midwest, especially from a woman who’d never been farther south than Albert Lea.

  Peggy recoiled. “I’m afraid I don’t shake hands. Viruses, you know. I’d be happy to sign a copy of my book for you.”

  Kennie appeared nonplussed, but quickly recovered. “I get my inspiration from actions and not words, honey pie. Has it been a busy day for you?” She asked, indicating the empty library.

  As if on command, a line of women burst through the door, each of them carrying at least one copy of A Penance for Your Thoughts. I stood aside so Peggy could begin her signing, her troubles lost for the moment amid the clamor of fame and attention.

  “I come down here personally to welcome her to town and get pushed aside like day-old bread,” Kennie grumbled, appearing beside me. “I could write a book too, if all it took was making up a sentence or two. How about this: ‘a closed mouth catches no flies, and a closed fly catches no mouths.’ Look, I’m an author.”

  “You’d be drawing on a whole different crowd with that one,” I said, strolling away from her and toward the book return bin. “Sorry this was a wasted trip.”

  “Not a waste at all.”

  I recognized that tone of voice, and it struck a fear chord. Kennie fancied herself an entrepreneur and regularly invented new business ideas. Her scams were an eclectic mix, from home bikini waxings to coffin tables, and they never ended well for either of us. Usually, it was worse for me. “What do you mean?”

  “Funny you should ask.” Kennie strolled next to me, unzipped her coat, and flashed me, revealing a row of pills encased in light brown jars that were hanging off hand-sewn hooks like cheap Rolexes. “I’m selling good stuff.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “Oh no wait, I mean the opposite of that.”

  “Amazing, right?”

  “Tell me those are vitamins.”

  “Actually, they are.” She plucked out a bottle of horse-sized pills. “See these? They make your skin as clear as a baby’s bottom and your hair as thick as a lion’s mane.”

  “When I think ‘baby’s bottom,’ I don’t think ‘clear.’”

  “What comes to mind when you see this?” And she plucked the pink beret off her head to reveal thick, wavy tresses where before had been over-dyed, brittle platinum hair.

  “That’s a wig.”

  “Pull it.”

  “But then I’d have to touch your head.”

  “Pull it.” She grabbed my hand and stuck it to her head. At first repulsed, curiosity got the better of me and I tugged. No movement. I tugged again. It was real hair.

  “The vitamins did that?”

  “Yup.”

  “What’s in them? Hooves and Rogaine?”

  “Does it matter? They give you the hair of a Brazilian supermodel in under a month.”

  My mind raced. I’d always been cursed with thin hair, and I had a date with Johnny tomorrow. What if my hair was thicker by then? Even a little bit? They were just vitamins, right? God help me, I was considering it. But there was a catch. There had to be. “All over?”

  “What?”

  “Do they make you hairy all over?”

  She paused. “No.”

  I knew that tone of voice. “Let me see your arm.”

  “No.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “I’m going to post a flier informing everyone that your vitamins make people grow nipples on the backs of their hands if you don’t show me your arm.”

  Reluctantly, she doffed her pink jacket. Behind us, Peggy’s line was growing longer as merry church ladies jostled for a chance to meet the new local celebrity. We could have been invisible for all the attention they paid us.

  “It’s not the hair and skin vitamins that did this,” Kennie said, peeling away the gloves. “It was the Viag-min.”

  I leaned in close for a better look and couldn’t silence my hoots of laughter. Although she had only a normal, modest dusting of hair on her arms, every single brown hair was standing erect, straining toward some unseen destination. “It’s a hair army!”

  She glared at me and brushed them down, but they popped right back up again. “It only lasts four to six hours. Then all the hairs lie flat again. Or if they don’t, I have a 1-800 number to call.”

  I was still giggling. “A cold shower might be quicker.”

  She sniffed and pulled her gloves back on. “I guess you don’t want to see what I have to offer.”

  “I was just teasing. Don’t take it personally. I might want to buy the hair vitamins.”

  She was still miffed at me laughing at her hair-on. “I’d imagine so. I can see your scalp clean through your meager population up there.”

  “Now you’re just being mean.”

  “All I’m saying is that there are plenty of women waiting in line to snatch up Johnny Leeson if you don’t thicken your sparse offerings. You’re one windy day away from a combover.”

  “Fine,” I said, snatching the bottle out of her jacket. “I’ll take your stupid hair vitamins, but not because I care what I look like. I’m just trying to get rid of you.”

  “Mmm hmm. Twenty dollars. And take one in the morning and one at night, with food. At least that’s what the bottle says. I took a few more to get my hair to this state.” She fluffed her waves, which was all the encouragement they needed to spring to attention like a fright wig. She must have felt the lightness because she hurriedly shoved her cap back. I handed her my last twenty, which had been earmarked for groceries and spent the next two hours forgetting about the vitamins as I helped Peggy sell her books and decorated the library for tonight’s Love-Your-Library gala.

  Peggy ended up staying much later than scheduled, right up until I closed the library in fact, because of all the people clamoring to see her. Her books were long gone and she appeared exhausted but content when I scooted the last fan outside and locked the door behind him.

  “You’re very popular,” I said.

  She nodded wearily. “That’s what it’s all about, you know. Inspiring the masses. Giving people hope. I need to get back to that.” She reached in her purse for Purell and pushed up her sleeves past her elbows so she could douse herself.

  “Let me show you out.”

  “Wait! Remember you promised you were going to help me find my … erm, show me around. When?” Those batting eyes again.

  I glanced at the clock. “Can I call you? It’s looking to be a busy week.”

  She returned the Purell to her purse and stood. “How about tomorrow?”

  “It’s my only day off.”

  “Monday?”

  I sighed. I was suffering from empathizer’s remorse. “M
onday is the deadline for the local newspaper. I do freelance work for them, and I have a standing promise with the editor that I’ll keep Mondays mostly free for last-minute articles.”

  “Tuesday?”

  She was relentless. “When did you say your deadline was?”

  “In two weeks.”

  “Fine. Tuesday morning. I’ll pick you up before I open the library. How’s 7:00 sound?”

  She clapped her hands. “Perfect! And you’ll take me to somewhere inspirational to look for my mojo?”

  “I’ll try.” I was motioning her toward the door when the desk phone rang. “Battle Lake Public Library.”

  “Mira. It’s Ron. I need you to write an article on the hunt club.”

  “Hi, Ron. How are you?”

  “I need it by Thursday.”

  “Have I ever mentioned what a pleasure it is conversing with you?” He’d always been a terse man, but he was outdoing himself.

  “Deer Valley Hunt, over by Millerville. The owner will be at the library tonight. He’s rich. We’re running a feature.”

  It took me a moment to locate the real meaning underneath his words. “Oh! He’s a donor, and we want him to be more of a donor. You’re having me write an article to benefit the library. Just when I thought you were nothing but a Scrooge.”

  “Don’t get too happy. I didn’t call with good news. Hallie Kicker is in the hospital.”

  Eleven

  Ron didn’t know the details, so I shooed Peggy quickly out the door, assuring her that we were still on for Tuesday, and strode back to the phone to call the Alexandria hospital, where Hallie’d been brought in by ambulance. After being assured that she was not in intensive care but also not available to talk, I requested the visiting hours, glancing at the clock and calculating as I scribbled them down. If I could get rid of tonight’s guests by a reasonable hour, say eight-thirty, which was a half an hour after the Love-Your-Library event was scheduled to end, I’d have time to run to the hospital and make sure she was okay.