by Jess Lourey
“I don’t know. Sometimes things come easier if you don’t force them.” That had never been my experience, but it seemed like an appropriate comment to make.
“Maybe.” Her voice came out small and sad. “But you’ll keep taking me to inspirational places, right? Just in case?”
“Right. But for now, I need to get back to Battle Lake and make a phone call.”
———
Hallie didn’t pick up right away. Her answering machine clicked on, and I was about to leave a message when her voice cut in. “Hello?”
“How’re you feeling?”
“Mira, good to hear from you. I’m fine. I got out of the hospital yesterday. There’s still tests to run, but there always are.” Her breath sounded labored on the other end. “Do you have any news?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid it isn’t good. It seems that your employees know I’m investigating Tom’s death.”
A long pause on the other end of the line. “I might have something to do with that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mentioned it to Jean in HR. I’ve just felt so isolated. I needed to reach out to someone, and she and I have been friends for years.” She continued, her voice contrite. “She might have told a few other people since I’ve been in the hospital.”
I bit my tongue. “You know this’ll make it harder for me to find out anything.”
“I’m sorry.”
I sighed. “There’s nothing to do about it now. Is there anything else I should know?”
“Not that I can think of. Let me know the minute you discover anything, okay?”
“You’re the boss.”
I hung up and got to work. The first half of my library shift was a maelstrom of activity. I attributed it to the nice weather that was still holding. The blue skies felt so plump and close that they reminded me of a dam wall about to break and unleash a frozen flood on us. I wasn’t the only one muttering about an impending snowstorm, either. I overheard patrons second-guessing the weatherman, who’d claimed we were in for a week of above-average temperatures and no precipitation. A storm was coming, no question. We just didn’t know when.
I nuked last night’s untouched chili for lunch and ate it while I dialed the hunt club.
“Deer Valley.”
I was glad it was a woman who answered instead of Mitchell. She was probably the person who had saved me from the worst of Mitchell’s wrath in the smoking room. I’d guessed from the intimacy in their interaction that she was either his longtime employee or his wife. It didn’t matter. “Hi. I’m calling about the temp job. For the Christmas banquet?”
“Do you have banquet experience?”
“No, but I do have five year’s waitressing experience.”
“That’ll do. You’ll need to bring black nylons and heels. We’ll supply the uniform.”
“Gack.”
“Excuse me?”
“Heels? To waitress in?”
She harrumphed. “It’s tradition. Our wait staff wears Santa baby outfits. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Your top is covered and the skirt comes to just above your knees. Plus, you get to keep the hat.”
I glanced at my “to do” list that I’d slid next to the phone. “Break into secret room at hunt club” was the next item. Damn, curiosity is a tough mistress. And I didn’t own a pair of heels. As a matter of fact, wearing cobbling, uncomfortable shoes went against everything I respected about myself. Still. We were talking about sneaking into a secret room. “What do the male wait staff wear?”
“We don’t hire any.”
“Perfect,” I said dryly. “Where do I sign up?” As she filled me in on the details, I scratched off “break into secret room” and replaced it with “buy heels.” I hung up the phone. While I was on the topic, I decided to write my hunt club article, since the deadline Ron had set was approaching.
Deer Valley Hunt Club Celebrates
Tenth Annual Christmas Hunt
Deer Valley Hunt Club, located just south of Millerville, is celebrating its tenth annual Christmas Hunt on Friday, December 15. “There won’t be any reindeer,” joked Mitchell Courier, third-generation owner of the hunt club, “but we’ll do our best to provide a good time. The event is open to the public, and food, drinks, and entertainment are included in the price of the ticket.” The humiliation of female wait staff comes at no extra charge.
Mr. Courier’s grandfather, Tobias Courier, built the hunt club’s main lodge in 1923 out of hand-hewn white pine. The structure was initially intended as a summer home for the mining family from Duluth. However, when their mines went dry, Tobias relocated his family to the summer “cabin” and turned it into an operable hunting lodge. Tobias used his connections in the mining industry to quickly establish Deer Valley Hunt Club as the go-to getaway for the post-World War II upper-crust.
Tobias’ son Michael picked up where his father left off. He purchased an additional 100 acres on the west side of the existing property and added hand-carved wood furniture to the décor. When Mitchell took over the family business in 1988, it was the largest wild game hunt club in the Midwest, and it remains so to this day.
“We offer our guests a unique experience,” explained Mitchell. “They can escape their hectic lives and return to an easier time, when men hunted what they ate to provide for their family. We have deer, grouse, turkeys, and pheasants, and even ducks on the private natural lake on our property. It’s a true haven here.”
Unless you’re a deer, grouse, turkey, pheasant, or duck. More information on the Christmas event is available on the Deer Valley Hunt Club website (www.dvhc.com) or look for their ad in this edition of the Recall.
I figured Ron might edit out a sentence or two, it was hard to say. That’s why he earned the big bucks. I saved the file and emailed
it to him as an attachment just in time to lock up the library and head to my appointment with the mechanic.
The roads to Lyle’s paralleled the roads to the Deer Valley Hunt Club, only instead of turning right on County Road 87, I kept the Toyota pointed east on County Road 38 toward Parkers Prairie. Man, that town needed an apostrophe.
The bitter cold followed by a relative warm-up gave the roads a black ice frosting. I took the curves slowly. I’d already kissed enough ditches in my life. The trick, if you ever find yourself careening into one, is not to stop, by the way. The same undirected power that pulls you in can boomerang you out, if you keep your wits about you.
Lyle’s shop was on the north side of town. It consisted of a green and white-striped metal pole barn with a little wooden hut marked “Lyle’s—Office” attached to it. The parking lot was home to cars in various stages of de- or reconstruction. I couldn’t tell for sure which, but the healthy dose of snow covering all of them suggested it was the former. I parked my girl in front of the garage door, turned off the fish house heater, and entered the office. The unmanned room was a mess of dot matrix-printer paper under which was hidden a metal desk, the world’s oldest computer, a front counter, two musty candy dispensers—one half-full of peanuts and the other topped off with Mike and Ike’s cheerful sugar suppositories—a pop machine that dispensed glass bottles of soda, and a row of plastic chairs. I dinged the bell and glanced at the pile of papers nearest me. They were bills for work done two years ago.
“Just a sec!” The door to the shop was half-open, and by craning my neck, I could see legs sticking out from under a Dodge Neon.
“No hurry.” I slipped around to the desk behind the counter and rifled through some more papers. Just bills, a lot of unpaid, outgoing bills. At the bottom of the stack was a desk calendar surprisingly open to December. Of this year. Today’s date featured a scribbled shorthand of times followed by letters. My initials served as my Rosetta stone: 5:30/MJ-OC. Oil change for Mira James at 5:30. A whir of dolly wheels alerted me that the mechanic was on his way. I scurried back to my proper location in front of the counter.
Lyle, according to the namepatch sewed on his jumper, ap
peared, wiping his oily hands on a rag. He was in his late fifties, with salt and pepper hair and a pleasantly creased face. “Can I help you?”
“I called the other day. I’ve got the Toyota needs an oil change.” I bent my head in the direction of my car.
“Keys in her?”
I liked that I felt comfortable in a small space with him. “Yup.”
“Shouldn’t take more’n a half an hour. There’s magazines.” He indicated the stack of Outdoor Life on one of the plastic chairs.
“Thanks.” I sat and pulled out my copy of Private Investigation for Morons while he left to drive my car into the open stall of the garage. I was on the chapter covering online research. I skimmed it, happily realizing that I already knew all of it. I closed the book and reached for an Outdoor Life. The pictures were nice.
Lyle poked his head in the office. “Your thermostat is bad. I have one’ll work. Want me to change it?”
I drew in a sharp breath. “I thought you didn’t work on foreign cars.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “A car that old is easy to fix. No computer to worry about.”
“How much is a new thermostat?”
“The part is three bucks. Labor’ll run you another $10.”
My eyes were watering. I’m sure it was just the accumulated fumes of years of automotive work and not gratitude-coated relief. “Yes, please.”
He disappeared back into the shop. Fifteen minutes later and my car was ready to go. The total bill was $43.95.
“You’re not going to get rich charging people those prices.”
His lips moved, but I wouldn’t call it a smile. “I’m not one who was meant to be rich.”
I pulled out my checkbook. “I make it out to Lyle’s?”
He pushed a stamp and a pad over to me. “Use this.”
“A person would drive a long way for prices like that. Is that why Tom Kicker always brought his car here to get fixed?” I risked a glance at Lyle. A nerve in his jaw jumped but his eyes stayed easy.
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m a friend of the family.” I finished the check and ripped it out so he could see my name. “I knew Tom always brought his cars here and figured I’d find out why. Now that I see the prices and service, I think I know.”
Lyle didn’t even look at the check. His eyes were fixed on a faraway point over my right shoulder. “He won’t be coming here any longer, will he?”
“His funeral was last week.”
“I read about it.”
“Did you consider going?”
He ran his hands through his hair. A chunk stayed pointed in the air, giving him a strangely vulnerable look. “We weren’t friends, no offense to you or his family. It was a business relationship. He had a debt to pay off, and it could only be paid with time.”
“What do you mean?”
Lyle focused his eyes and locked them on mine. “I did time for him, and then I made him do time for me.”
Twenty-two
The mood in the office grew distinctly chilly after that. When it became clear Lyle wasn’t sharing any more details, I thanked him for his work, took my keys, and left. I reached for the fish house heater’s “on” dial out of habit. Realizing what I was doing, I yanked my arm back and kept my eyes on the road. Dare I try my heater? It’d been a couple weeks since I’d considered it. My breath was starting to fog the windows, so I needed to make up my mind soon. If it didn’t work, I was no worse off than before. No biggie, right? Before I could talk myself out of it, I shot my hand to the heater fan dial and turned it up full bore. Blessed heat poured forth from all the vents, clearing the fog from my windows with bionic force. And unicorns everywhere kicked their heels and fairies wept with joy.
“I love you, Lyle Christopherson!” At least for his automotive skills. His comment about doing time for Tom raised other concerns. He’d suggested jail time was involved, and that he believed he’d taken a fall for Tom. I wondered if that jail time was tied in any way to the scandal Julius had mentioned, and what kind of time Lyle made Tom do for him, other than bring his car out there. The new information made it all the more urgent that I uncover some facts from Tom’s ex tomorrow. I was tempted to stop by the library on my way home to research Lyle Christopherson’s criminal past in my schnazzy new database, but it was already late, and I had promised Jed and Monty that I’d stop by the grand opening of the Glass Menagerie tonight.
On a whim, I picked up Peggy on my way. I found glass figurines captivating; maybe she would, too. If nothing else, she’d appreciate the significance of me having normal heat in my car again. I found her home and wearing the largest pair of footie pajamas I’d ever laid eyes on. It took some coaxing, but a half an hour later, we found ourselves in the Glass Menagerie.
The place was packed to the rafters with what seemed like every citizen of Battle Lake, the sound of their combined conversation a constant roar. It was crazy to have this many people gathering this time of year—the weather lent itself to hibernation for all but the hardiest—and the air had a celebratory, slightly manic feel. Peggy backed toward the door, but I pulled her off to a less noisy corner so I could steal a better look at the figurines.
The center of the main room held two large tables. People set their drinks and finger food on these, but respectfully, for the most part, because Jed’s beads and abstract shapes filled both tables. They’d also built shelves to display their wares and lined the walls with them. Monty’s delicate dancing creatures and multicolored vases owned the shelves. I walked to the nearest one and touched a pea-sized fish, its body clear, its fins blue-tipped, and its face dominated by sweet pink lips. Next to it was a larger version, and then a larger version, until at the end, there was a kissing fish as big as a cantaloupe. I wished I could buy everything in this place.
“Partial to the aquatic life?”
I spun around. “Hi, Monty. These are gorgeous. Did you make all of them here?”
He adjusted his rainbow cap. He’d thrown on dress slacks and a button-down shirt, but the hat, apparently, was non-negotiable. “Most of the ones on the shelves, though Jed is getting good at puffer fish, so he made those on the bottom shelf.”
“They’re lovely,” Peggy said in a hushed voice. She looked enchanted by the glass magic, and her childlike focus made me smile.
“Thank you. Jed has a present for you, by the way. He’s back in the work room.”
I left Peggy to ogle the art and threaded my way through the crowd. I found Jed waving his hands animatedly in a conversation with the Nordmans. When he saw me, he rushed over.
“Mira! How totally sick is this? Do you see how many people are here?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I saw your puffer fish, too. I like them!”
“Oh.” His eyes fell. “Then you probably don’t want this.” He reached into his low-slung jeans and pulled a plum-sized ball of wrinkled paper wrapped with cellophane tape out of his deep pockets. When he handed it to me, I realized it had a solid center. I peeled back the paper gently, revealing a lopsided orb shot through with waves of burgundy and deep blues. It looked like a precious gem and fit perfectly in the palm of my hand.
“I love it.”
“Naw, it’s all googly. It was my first ornament, you know. It’s not any good.”
He reached to pluck it out of my hand, but I closed my fingers firmly around it. “I’m honored that you gave me your first ornament. If I could pick one thing in this whole store, I’d pick this.”
He blushed and pushed a straggly hair back from his face. “You mean it?”
“Yup.”
His smile was dazzling. “Whoop!”
I let him return to his conversation with the Nordmans and held my treasure close. I was happy for his and Monty’s success, but I’d had enough human company for the day. I tracked down Peggy with the intention of bringing her home. She was in a conversation with Monty about his travels to Turkey.
“Hey, Peggy. Sorry to interrupt, but it’s been a long d
ay. Mind if we head out?”
She pushed her glasses up her nose and took a messy bite off the tray of cheese and crackers Monty had brought over. “I suppose.”
“Monty, thanks for having us. You’ve really got amazing work here.” I offered my hand, but before he could take it, another guy butted into the conversation.
“Did I hear her call you Monty? Monty Dunham?”
“That’s me.”
“We went to high school together.” The interrupter tapped his chest. “Phil Kramer. We graduated the same year. How long have you been back?”
“Not quite half a year.”
“I remember reading that your mother passed. Damn shame. She was a good woman. Have you hooked up with the old gang since you got back?”
I inserted myself back into the conversation. They could reminisce all they wanted once I was out the door. “Like I was saying, Monty, thanks. See you later.” I shook his hand and led Peggy out.
———
The sky was gray and overcast the next morning, which made for even warmer temperatures. I slept in and skipped breakfast to play snow Frisbee with Luna before cruising to town to grab Peggy for her morning’s inspirational retreat. Nancy and Sid had mentioned in passing last week that their church was having Friday morning services in the weeks leading up to Christmas. When I remembered, I slapped my forehead. Why hadn’t I taken Peggy to church already? What a perfect place to find her brand of inspiration.
“Actually,” she said, blushing, “church never has done much for me. In terms of inspiration, that is. At the end of a service, all I can write are limericks.”
“You’re serious.”
“Don’t tell the pastor. And while your car’s heat is lovely, I hope it doesn’t dry out my sinus cavities and make them more vulnerable to infection.”
I rolled my eyes, but quietly. We both sat through the service, and afterward, I introduced her to Pastor Harvey Winter. He was a generous man with white hair and smile crinkles all over his face. He was Sid and Nancy’s spiritual leader and had helped me uncover a murderer in August. Peggy was immediately enamored of him, I could tell, and he also informed her that he was a great fan of her work. After they got their mutual praise fest out of the way, I pulled Peggy away so I could open the library.