November Hunt

by Jess Lourey

  I exited that page and returned to my search. After twenty minutes, I decided the purity pledge movement was predicated on a mixture of peer pressure and wishful thinking. I liked the emphasis on creating a relationship built on friendship, love, and romance instead of hormones, but none of the hits explained what to do once you had all that and still longed to get biblical with your boyfriend. Several pages offered a purity ring, but unless it slipped around both thighs at once, I didn’t see how it would do me any good. Sigh. The day was getting worse. I closed the purity pledge sites and cleared my computer’s history before ringing Lyle again. Still no answer. He must not be working today, and I wasn’t willing to drive the 45 minutes to be sure. I’d try him again tomorrow.

  Not knowing made me antsy, though, and I kept pacing the library in between helping patrons. It was during one of these stalkfests to the front door that I noticed Clive’s silver Mercury Cougar, a boat of a car, parked in the lot. Clive was behind the wheel, staring intently at me through the glass doors of the library. I pulled back, my heart racing. I’d never seen him in the library before, outside of the party he’d crashed last week. I made like someone was talking to me and turned away in imaginary conversation, scrambling to the computer as soon as I was out of sight of the door. A quick search proved that Clive Majors did not possess a Battle Lake Public Library account.

  I glanced back toward the door, my mouth dry. Only one patron remained in the library, an older woman who was looking through the Westerns for her husband. Once she was gone, I’d be alone.

  She set five paperbacks in front of me. “Is this all the Louis L’Amour you carry?”

  “Let me see.” I searched, saw that it was, and then pretended to scour the database for another five minutes.

  “Are you finding it?”

  “Computer’s slow.” I didn’t want her to leave.

  She pushed her library card toward me. “That’s okay. This will be good for now.”

  “We have a lot of Western authors. Would you like to look at those, too?”

  She shook her head. “He probably won’t even open these. I keep hoping, but he’s not much of a reader.”

  “Maybe I could help you find something. What do you like to read?”

  Her smile drew tight. “Just these.”

  “You sure?”

  “I have to get going.”

  I couldn’t push it anymore without making her uncomfortable. I reluctantly checked out her books and then watched the cold-frosted front door. Five minutes passed, then ten. It was later in the afternoon, I began to think. Even if Clive did storm through that door, we wouldn’t be alone for long. Not on a Saturday. It was our busiest day, even in this weather. Heck, maybe Clive had already gone home. Might as well check. I forced myself to the door in time to see him striding toward the library, his eyes burning, arms hidden behind his back.

  Twenty-seven

  I was trapped. I rushed behind the counter to put furniture between me and him but that’s all I had time to do before he ripped the door open so far the hinges made a scraping noise. He entered with such force that he pushed the icy blue smell of winter ahead of him.

  He marched to the waist-high desk and leaned forward into it, his lips trembling and flecked with spit. “What are you sticking your goddamned nose into?” A greasy hank of hair fell into his face. He looked like a man unraveling.

  I kept my voice steady. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You were at my place.” He slammed his hands on the counter.

  The relief at finding out he was unarmed left my knees weak. “I told you that at the Love-Your-Library event that I was there. I was walking Luna and got lost. I stopped by again the other night to drop off cookies, but you weren’t there that time, either.”

  He reached across to grab at my shirt and then drew back inches shy of my collar. His hand was shaking with whatever internal battle he was waging, and the smell of cheap whiskey and sweat poured off of him. “Goddamn it, that’s not true! You looked in every window I own.”

  He must have more than one camera. “I’m nosy.”

  “You’re stupid.”

  I couldn’t disagree at the moment. And the situation was too dangerous to risk a lie. “I saw your pot operation, if that’s what you’re worried about. I didn’t rat you out, and I’m not going to.”

  His eyes looked like sunken tar pits. I guessed it’d been a very long time since he’d slept. His voice slunk low into a snarl. “Because dead girls tell no tales?”

  My fight kicked in and I leaned toward him across the desk, forcing him back a few inches. “Fuck you, Clive.”

  He nodded as if I’d commented on the price of potatoes. Then he looked away. His eyes couldn’t settle on any one object, so they returned to my face. “You ever kill anyone?”

  Under the counter, my hand had located a stapler, its cool metal riding in the curve of my palm. It wasn’t much, but if I could shove it into his throat, it might be enough to get me free of the library.

  “I have. I killed my goddamned best friend.” His rabid eyes grew wet, and tears streamed down his face. “You fall asleep with that every night.” He strode back out the door, across the parking lot, into his car, and drove away.

  I watched him from the door, hot juice pumping through my adrenal glands. I forced myself to breathe deeply, but I couldn’t stop the shaking. Clive was on a razor’s edge, and he had targeted me as an enemy. I glanced at the clock. I had two hours left in my shift, and I didn’t want to be alone. I ran back to the phone. I couldn’t reach Jed or Kennie, and I wasn’t going to call Gary or Johnny, so that was how Peggy ended up learning the ropes of the library system.

  She came right away, for which I was grateful. I brushed off her question about whether I was feeling well and welcomed her self-involved chatter about her mojo, her medical conditions, her life. It kept me from needing to think my own thoughts. After I locked up the library, I agreed to walk with her to the Art of the Lakes, Battle Lake’s eclectic and dynamic art gallery, because I wasn’t ready to go home yet. Both she and I enjoyed the watercolors and fiber art, and I was happy to see one of Monty’s glass swans on display, but Peggy still refused to be inspired. Since she agreed to watch the library for me on Monday so I could run to Fergus, though, I counted it a good use of the early evening. I was still too tense to eat, so I declined her offer of going out for supper, and we parted ways.

  I considered cruising home for a night of mindless TV, but placing myself that close to Clive didn’t sit well. I decided I could race over to Parkers Prairie and back in little more than an hour on the off chance that Lyle would be in. If he was, I could satisfy my curiosity about the identity of the Musketeers. If he wasn’t, I’d hopefully have a better idea of where I was going to take Tiger Pop and Luna to spend the night.

  When I arrived at the edge of Parkers Prairie it was nearly seven, and the handful of streetlights were shining a diffuse, silver glow. They each held either a Christmas wreath or a giant red and white candy cane strung with green garland, alternating one and then the other. The decorations gave the small town a cozy, welcoming feel. At Lyle’s, the light was on in his office, but no customer cars were parked in the lot. I let myself in, noticing the usual disarray in the front room.

  “Hello?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I’d only said it out loud to be polite. I shoved my way through the door to the garage, the stress of today making me aggressive. “Lyle?”

  I saw his legs pointing out near a brown van and stomped over. “It’s Mira. And I’m not leaving this garage until you tell me who the Musketeers were. I can find it out myself, but it’d be easier if—”

  The words caught in my throat and choked me. Lyle wasn’t under the van. He was lying on his back next to it, two syrupy, brackish holes staining his jumpsuit. A pool of coagulating blood spilled out from underneath him like a lily pad. Both eyes stared up at the ceiling of the garage, filmy and unblinking.

  Twenty-eight


  I scrambled backward and tripped over a dolly. I fell to the floor hard, twisting my left wrist. I whimpered. I was now on the same level as Lyle’s corpse, and I was staring at the uneven tread of his work boots. One of his hands appeared relaxed, wading in a pool of his own cooling blood, but the other was clenched except for the pointer finger. It was aimed skyward. The coppery, salty smell of so much fresh blood gagged me. I turned away, retching, and vomited by the garage door. Shaking, I ran my mittened hand across my mouth.

  I pushed myself off the floor. My eyes fought between pinning themselves to Lyle’s dead body and scouring the cavernous garage for the killer. Every molecule in me hummed and bounced. My instinct to escape was strong, but I forced myself to grab a rag and wipe up my mess. Even though my hands were shaking so hard it made it difficult to grasp the cloth, I knew I couldn’t leave my own bodily fluids at the scene. There was little more than foam to wipe up. I bunched the rag into the pocket of my coat and turned once more to look at Lyle. The rictus of his mouth suggested he’d died yelling, or maybe begging for his life. His skin was blue-tinged, and I knew it’d feel like marble if I touched it. My stomach turned again.

  I backed toward the office, my eyes darting, trying to see everywhere at once. I had a horrible vision of Lyle’s body rising, accusing me of leaving him last night to be murdered by the driver in the Jeep. His black-booted feet didn’t so much as twitch, but that didn’t calm me. The light in the office felt too bright, exposing me to a murderer who might be lurking just outside the door. I kept my back to the wall, feeling along the outdated candy machines, toward freedom.

  RING.

  The squeal of the phone made me jump and pee, one more than the other. The sound pinned me to the pop machine.

  RING. RING. RING.

  The silence that followed was terrifying. I was paralyzed. I felt shadows crawl toward me, inky oily fingers grabbing at my neck, slipping down my spine, pulling me into the grave. “Get out,” I whispered to myself. “Get out of here.” But the words wouldn’t leave my throat. I felt a ridiculous safeness where I was, pinned in the light. Behind me was a dead body. Outside was maybe a killer. Here was safety.

  But here I was an easy target. I pushed off the wall and toward the phone. I still had my gloves on. I picked up the handset and dialed 911 before the suffocating fist of fear gripped me entirely. “I’m at Lyle’s in Parkers Prairie. Lyle’s been shot. Dead. Send an ambulance and police.”

  I dropped the phone and ran for my car, but not before I saw the desk had been cleared to expose a single line of scribbling in today’s box on the calendar: “5:00 FCM/$.”

  Twenty-nine

  I made a bed in the corner of my closet and slept like a person who has made a bed in a corner of her closet. I knew I should have been a responsible citizen and stayed on the scene until the police arrived, but I couldn’t. Once I had made it into my car and slammed the locks tight, my instincts drove me all the way home with only a stop at a gas station to deposit the smelly rag into the garbage.

  The next morning, I was fuzzy-headed and blurry-eyed, but no longer cold-blood terrified. It helped that Luna and Tiger Pop were both attentive and reassuringly present. I ran a comb through my hair, splashed some water on my face, and drove to the Battle Lake Police station.

  I’d spent more than my share of time in the squat brick building behind Lake Street. The windows were barred, ostensibly to retain the dangerous prisoners. The inside was sparse with one main room that visitors entered, a conference room to the right, a break room in back, and several holding cells off to the left. I was less than happy to find Police Chief Gary Wohnt bent over the keyboard at the main desk. Why couldn’t one of his deputies have been working? He glanced up when I entered and immediately returned to what he was typing. Behind him, the Fleet Farm calendar was open to December, a photo of a horse-drawn sleigh featured above the dates. On the far side of the room, a Charlie Brown Christmas tree guarded three poorly-wrapped gifts, probably props. The soda machine hummed.

  I figured I’d best start on neutral ground. “When do we get the grant checks?”

  He continued to type. For some reason, his refusal to acknowledge my presence enraged me. It was the combined stress of my recent nearness to death and being stretched too thin. I strode to the filing cabinet off to the side of his desk. It was partially open. I yanked it out the rest of the way and began rifling through the files.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Gary flew out of his chair and grabbed my hand as I was pulling out Anderson, Charles’ file. His angry breath on my cheek smelled like peppermint and aftershave.

  “Oh, you can see me. I wasn’t sure.” He was gripping my left wrist, the one I’d twisted last night. The pain was excruciating. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from showing him how much it hurt.

  “Put that back,” he growled.

  “I can’t. You’ve got my hand.”

  Without letting go, he reached across with his free hand, plucked the file from mine, and reinserted it. “What do you want?”

  I twisted so I could push a sharp elbow into his stomach. He neatly sidestepped my move but released my arm, returning to sit behind his desk.

  I followed, sitting across from him. “I heard Lyle Christopherson was shot last night.”

  He flared his nostrils. His body was otherwise dangerously still. “Who’s Lyle Christopherson?”

  My heart thudded to a stop and the backlash of blood flooded my face. I forced myself to breathe. Either he was bluffing or this was all much larger and much more malignant than I had imagined. I chose the route of least screwed. “The guy who’s dead body is in the county morgue in Fergus. The mechanic from Parkers Prairie. I heard it on the police scanner last night.”

  I really should get a police scanner. I bet I could pick up all sorts of interesting bits.

  He selected a navy blue pen from the cup on his desk and click clicked the end. His eyes traveled like steel wool from my chest up to my face. “You don’t look like you slept very well last night. Are you here to confess?” A taut muscle in his jaw jumped.

  “I was at Lyle’s recently. He put a new thermostat in my car and changed the oil.” I watched for a reaction. I’d given the facts I thought Gary would uncover on his own without offering any information I hoped he wouldn’t. Had I given him too much or not enough?

  “That’s a long drive for an oil change.”

  “The price was right.”

  Gary’s eyes gleamed and the pen continued to click click. We’d been here before. He couldn’t accuse me of withholding information without inadvertently uncovering some of his own.

  The door opened behind me, letting in a cold sweep of air. I tensed, then shot a quick glance at Gary before turning to see who had entered. I see how scared you are, make no mistake, his eyes said. I wanted to tell him that this was actually progress because my pants were dry, but the agitated woman who blew through the door consumed my attention. She was older than me, close to Hallie’s age by the dim of her hair and lines on her face, and her face looked puffy from crying. She acted like she’d been here before.

  “My dad here?”

  Gary stood. “You know he can’t get out yet, Melissa. The judge hasn’t set bail.”

  I looked from one to the other. I could tell by the set of his shoulders that Gary sorely wanted me to not be witnessing this.

  “I’m not leaving without him.”

  I walked toward the holding cells. I knew going into that off-limits area would get me in a lot of trouble. Something about seeing a bloody corpse and peeing your pants resets the rules. The first cell was empty. So was the second. I didn’t make it all the way to the third before Gary’s arm clamped onto my shoulder like a metal vise, but I made it far enough to spot Clive Majors, both eyes blackened, slumped over on a bunk.

  Thirty

  Gary literally kicked me out of the police station. I didn’t fight it. I’d seen enough. I drove directly to Kennie’s house, six blocks from the
station. She was home, no longer orange or mustachioed, and looking like she’d just danced out of a beauty salon.

  “Do you sleep in make-up?” I asked crossly, pushing past her. I’d never been in her house before and halted my forward charge in shock. The interior was done in shades of pink, the furniture was overstuffed, and the white shag carpet was thick enough to lose a hamster in. The air was redolent with a flowery perfume. The walls were covered with framed posters of kittens and butterflies. It was like being inside a Barbie dreamhouse.

  “Do you brush your teeth?” she said acidly, directly behind my shoulder.

  I considered. I actually hadn’t that morning. That left me without a snappy comeback and even angrier for it. “How’s your hair problem?”

  “You wanna start over?” She indicated the door.

  I collected myself. I technically was being an asshat, and that was supposed to be her responsibility. The role switch was uncomfortable. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s been a bad 24 hours.”

  She fluffed her hair. “Just cuz someone stuck you in a toilet doesn’t mean you should act like a turd.”

  “You ever take your own advice?”

  “Rarely. Can I offer you some coffee, or did you just come to insult me before church?”

  I took a deep breath. “Church isn’t such a bad idea. I might be in the market for soul insurance, though it’s a little late in life to take up another bad habit. In the meanwhile, any idea why Clive Majors is in jail?” Part of me didn’t want to hear the response. If he’d been accused of Lyle’s murder, that implicated me because I hadn’t reported his crazy behavior earlier in the day.

  She piffed. “The usual. DWI. It’s his second since Tom died. His daughter should be down to bail him out any time now.”