Stuffed

by Brian M. Wiprud

  “I can’t explain it,” I muttered. “But that’s what it looked like. It was brown, and it was up against the driver’s side window. Maybe it wasn’t a flipper. It happened very fast. I dunno.”

  Phil gestured at me like a trick dog. “See? He’s doing his best to tell you what he saw, Danny. What more do you want?”

  “What more do I want?” Danny slapped the police report down on the table and started twirling his glasses by the earpiece again. He fumbled them and they fell to the floor. He ducked out of view, below the table. “What I want is to see what comes up on the gun, that’s what I want. And I want to see the autopsy.”

  “Autopsy?” Phil snorted. “Bret’s cause of death seems pretty obvious. When are they gonna get around to this autopsy? My client’s supposed to sit in jail all that time? The arraignment’s this afternoon.”

  “We’ll see” came from under the table.

  And we did. Basically, the crusty old guy in judge robes was confused. He kept asking about the bear and if it was in season. By the time he had it all straightened out, the judge blew his nose thoughtfully and said, “The fool should have looked where he was going before he crossed the street.” His gavel banged, and he turned toward the bailiff, saying, “Never should have canceled that show Flipper. I like fish.”

  See? The justice system does work. I walked, pending further hearings and more hard evidence—like the truck-as-murder-weapon.

  Angie drove us to some German brathouse just off Interstate 91 where the waitresses wore lederhosen. Our zaftig server accessorized with a two-pound wooden tag that read Hallo! HELGA. Willkommen!

  “For the last time, Angie, I was trying to protect you. Sure, if I’d been thinking only of me, I’d have dragged you out of bed and put you in harm’s way so that you could go to jail too.” I looked up at the woman in leather shorts. “I’ll have a Bud, Wiener schnitzel, no kraut.” Helga frowned.

  “Gimcrack!” Angie sniffed.

  “Gimcrack?” I winced back at her.

  Angie ignored me and handed her menu to the waitress, sighing away our running argument. “Helga, I’ll have the bratwurst, a Dinkel Acker, and I’ll take his kraut, please.” Helga smiled and left.

  Gimcrack was a new one to me. Angie is physically incapable of cursing and so substitutes some of the most absurd exclamations for the old Anglo-Saxon standards. She once told an irate bus driver to go splint a leg. Worse yet, I can only exercise my profanity muscles when she’s not around, lest I be subjected to bench-pressing the full weight of her indignation and disappointment. Her current displeasure was trifling by comparison, a mere dumbbell of disappointment.

  “You know, Garth, I really resent that, like I’m a silly female who needs the protection of a big, strong man. I can take care of myself, you know. And we’re supposed to be a team, you and me.”

  “Angie, I’m not saying you’re silly or stupid. What I am saying is that I love you and feel responsible for you almost getting killed twice now. Last night would have been the third time, the unlucky time.”

  She gave me a scowl, like the one I got for offering her a squirrel Frisbee back when we met. This one was for keeping her in the dark.

  “Look,” I continued, “what would you have said last night if I wanted to set up that booby trap?”

  Her mouth squirmed. “It was stupid, if you really want to know. I was cold and sleepy and probably wouldn’t have helped you anyway.”

  “You might even have talked me out of it.”

  “Maybe not. But you’re on notice, Garth. You owe me one for leaving me out.”

  “One what?”

  “One, that’s all.” She threw up her hands and closed her eyes, Angie’s body language for The Matter Is Now Closed. “So what now?”

  I trained a bloodshot eye on darling Angie. “Now? Now we sit in a motel room, keep our noses clean, and wait for the DA to say we can leave the state.”

  “What about—”

  “No, I’m not going to go looking for Slim and Scotty.”

  “They were really like that? A cowboy and a Scotsman?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I’d only seen them, I could have—”

  “Angie, these guys are killers. Right before my eyes they ran Fletcher into the asphalt.”

  “But you said—thank you, Helga.” Our beer arrived with a thud, and Helga left. “You said you didn’t see who was in the truck.”

  “I think Helga might just be Otto’s type.”

  “The truck?”

  “I just know it was them, that’s all. Were they holding flashlights to their faces? No. But I caught a glimpse of Slim’s hat.” My Bud was tepid, and I suspected Helga wasn’t too broken up about it.

  “And what about that other thing, the—”

  “Don’t say it! Don’t say the F word.” Again we got stares, and I lowered my voice. “I bitterly regret even mentioning it to Constable Bill. I feel like enough of an idiot as it is. I have no idea what it was I saw.”

  “Again, if another pair of eyes were there . . . Anyway.”

  I could see Angie’s mind was elsewhere. “What are you thinking? If you’re thinking this is one of those situations where I’ve gotta clear my name with the cops, forget it. Once they do the autopsy, once they find the truck, once they—”

  “I just thought you might give your old friend Pete Durban a call, see what he makes of all this. He might know why someone would steal a white crow.”

  “Nah.”

  “He might. You might even call around, do a little networking with all your cronies, like Rodney. You know, you’re always telling me how you saw some piece or other in Brimfield, then saw it later at the Boukville show or in an antiques store.”

  I paused, musing. “There’s this really nasty—and I mean downright ornery—raccoon that’s been turning up for years. Thing looks like it’s choking on a tapeworm.” I looked Angie in the eye, and I suppose she knew she had me.

  Chapter 11

  Needless to say, we had moved out of the Maple Motor Court and into some utterly unremarkable motel just outside Brattleboro and near I-91. I wanted a clear shot at the interstate when I heard we could leave Vermont.

  Strangers in a strange town, we sought out my pal Rodney—the troika, carriage, and sea-chest collector—and his bride for dinner. I had some pleasant restaurant in mind, with decent wines, a good carbonara sauce, hot crusty rolls, a passable tiramisu, potent cappuccino, and competent, unobtrusive service. The kind of restaurant common in New York, but also the kind I keep forgetting doesn’t really exist outside major metropolises. Not that there aren’t a lot of pretenders, places that have the look. But overcooked spaghetti, garlic salt on a hot-dog bun, and a “bottomless cup” of Sprite don’t measure up.

  “Won’t ’ear of it, Garth!” Rodney bellowed into the phone, and then yelled off into the house, “Lorrie! Company for dinner!”

  So Angie and I wended our way out to Dogville. As usual, I got a little lost on the dirt roads but found his house all the same. It was Angie’s first visit, and she got out of the Lincoln hesitantly.

  “Three, two, one . . .” I pointed to where hounds stampeded around the dilapidated house in our direction.

  “Gads, you weren’t kidding, Garth. You sure this is the place? If the lawn weren’t cut, I’d say this house was vacant. Or a dog pound.”

  The front door wiggled, and I could hear Rodney cursing.

  “Lorrie, the blasted doorknob is off again!”

  “Window!” Lorrie hollered from somewhere.

  Fortunately, Angie loves dogs, because a moment later she was surrounded by ten or so, alternately announcing our arrival in their hoarse howl, the one that means they’re purebred bloodhounds.

  I saw Rodney struggle with one window but then manage to open the next. He got one foot over the sill trying to climb out but couldn’t squeeze the rest of his beery bulk through. As we stood watching, he gave up.

  “Come ’round back the house,” he hollered, trying
in vain to shut the window he’d just struggled to open. “Lorrie!”

  There’s a porch in back of the house, along with the kennels and the smell of too much dog. Lorrie met us there, strands of gray-black hair hanging in her face. “Away, beasts!” She shooed the dogs, then pointed at us. “Not you two—come on in!”

  Their house was cozy, neater than the outside, and it smelled mainly of wood smoke and cedar. The decor was heavy on Americana, like patchwork-quilted toaster covers, Shaker-style chairs with cushions, and cedar chests at every turn.

  “Why, this place is lovely,” Angie said, with more than a little surprise in her voice.

  Rodney immediately wrapped Angie in a bear hug.

  “How’d you get mixed up with this scrounger?” He tilted his shaggy head at me and held her at arm’s length. “Couldn’t you see he was gonna be such a bit o’ trouble?”

  “I understand you can be quite a handful too, if you’re half the lout you were in college. I’ve heard that story about you stealing the squad car, oh, maybe a hundred times?”

  “Aye!” Rodney winced. “Garth, ’ow come you don’t broadcast my finer qualities? I’m not without some refined tastes, Angie.”

  “Well, I’m a sucker for a man with taste,” Angie sighed, batting her eyes.

  “Me too,” Lorrie groaned, “a man with a distilled taste for Old Milwaukee. Ouch, Garth, that’s a nasty bruise—”

  “Speakin’ of which . . .” Rodney interjected, two Old Milwaukees in his outstretched paw. “Did you hear the one about the woman who went to the doctor? She says: ‘Doctor, every time I sneeze I have an orgasm.’ The doctor shakes his head, worried-like, and says, ‘Well, what have you been taking for it?’ The patient replies: ‘Black pepper.’ ”

  Never fails to open with a ribald joke, no matter the audience. He’d caught Angie off guard. She blushed, then she burst into a peal of laughter. Lorrie and I rolled our eyes.

  Rodney roared with laughter at his own jocularity and led me from the kitchen to the living room. I could still hear the cascade of Angie’s laugh in the kitchen.

  While the women got acquainted as Lorrie minded the meal, Rodney and I went through “how’s business” preliminaries and our beer before dinner was served. And I can’t say I’ve had better meat loaf and mac n’ cheese. Dogs, antiques, fairs, and jewelry were all topics of conversation, it being tacitly understood that my legal problems were dessert and coffee talk.

  Angie and I had some instant coffee and crumb cake, while Rodney had another beer. Lorrie made no apologies about spreading out some newspaper and scraping shutters next to the couch as we talked. She’d removed all the shutters from the house and stacked them in the living room. Some women knit. Lorrie peeled paint.

  They listened attentively to our story. When I was finished, Rodney brought me an after-coffee beer.

  “A white crow, y’say?” He scratched his stubble, winked, and stomped off into the other room. We chatted with Lorrie about puppies and weaning for fifteen minutes while Rodney rummaged through drawers full of crumpled paper. He found one he liked, came over, and spread it out on the table in front of me.

  “Mind you, I ’aven’t seen this bird. But I reckon it does sound like the bit you described, don’t it? Look, here at the bottom.”

  Rodney poked a stubby finger at the flier for an auction that had been held last March in the town of Remington, New Hampshire.

  Angie leaned over and read aloud: “. . . rocking chair, mission bed, tractor seat, bamboo fly rod, white raven—Rodney, it was a crow, not a raven.”

  Rodney suppressed a belch. “There a difference?”

  “Damn right there is.” I smiled. “But Gunderson didn’t know the difference either. I wonder if Poe did?”

  “We gonna check it out, Garth?” Angie brightened.

  I gritted my teeth and turned away in thought. Lousy white crow. Still, there was the distinct possibility that understanding the crow’s past might provide information to help capture Slim and Angus. Not exactly Black Bart and Macbeth, but let’s face it, they were murderers who knew who I was and knew where I lived. Angie and I wouldn’t be safe until they were apprehended, and I didn’t have a lot of faith in the State of Vermont effecting their capture. I don’t think the DA even thought they existed.

  “Okay, we’ll check it out.” I stood. “Thanks, Rodney.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He clapped me on the shoulder, guiding me doorward. “Tho’ I suppose the Chinese food’ll be on you come my next visit to New York, what?”

  “This pans out and I’ll even buy the Tsingtao. Assuming I don’t find myself back in the hoosegow.”

  “Better not.” He clapped me on the back. “I’ll be in New York next week to deliver some sea chests. And to drink your Tsingtao.”

  Chapter 12

  The next morning Angie visited a local specialty jewelry tool manufacturer, and I took time out to make some calls.

  Yes, about my predicament . . . but since I’m self-employed and don’t get any paid time off, I have to keep the training wheels of capitalism turning back at my industrial hub. So I called my office manager.

  “Otto?”

  “Yes, of course, Garv! Vere you are, Garv?”

  “We’re in Vermont. We’ve had some trouble and have to stay, maybe a week at most. Can you stay at our place for a few days, keep an eye on things? Take the mail, deliveries, you know . . .”

  “Oh my Got! Trouble? Yangie, how Yangie is?”

  “We’re okay, Otto. Angie is fine, and I’ll tell you all about it when we get home. But we need you to help us.”

  “Garv, I very happy.” I heard him inflate his chest. “Otto is friend and make all looking. All very nice. I tell my vife, Luba, that Garv and Yangie need Otto.”

  While I was sure his hulking and by all accounts disapproving wife, Luba, could use a break from winging plates and shouting at him, the thought of leaving him in charge of our apartment was daunting. But I had little choice on such short notice. Some other friends who were a tad more reliable, like Dudley the bird taxidermist, I couldn’t reach.

  “I’ll call every day to make sure . . . Otto? Otto?”

  He’d hung up. Russian phone etiquette. You never knew when he might think the conversation was over.

  I checked my messages and found I had a call from the Freezy Cone people and from the Network Theater about Jilly. Nothing from the Elks.

  I was relieved to find that my squad was unharmed and that the Freezy Cone shoot was a wrap. The same could not be said for the wrangler’s live squad. One of the little guys, Reggie by name, had swallowed an errant felt-tip pen and met an untimely end. The wrangler wanted to know if I’d like to have Reggie, more or less compensation for the last time when I lost Sneezy. After expressing my sorrow for Reggie’s passing, I said yes indeedy. Put him on ice. (Sorry, but I don’t think there’s any way of asking someone to freeze a dead penguin that doesn’t sound somewhat flip. At least I didn’t follow that up with He would have wanted it that way.) I told them I’d have Otto come get him and my squad in the next day or so. I have a chest freezer in my basement for just such mortuary moments. I’m sure my birdman Dudley would love to take a crack at mounting a penguin.

  I called about Jilly but the party wasn’t in. But I knew what the call was about. Since she wasn’t on the program the last two nights, they wanted to extend the rental. Fine. The Elks and the elk head could wait.

  Now down to the important stuff: no, not accepting the job. And not not accepting the job. I couldn’t even add that problem to the mix. My brain was like a pinball machine that releases ten balls at once.

  I called my public defender, Phil. Found out from his coworker that they still had no word from the DA’s office on my status. I said I was going to be out all morning but that I’d call again that afternoon. In the following half hour, I worked my connections looking for leads on the white crow. Spoke with three message machines, two dealers, and an auctioneer to put out feelers.

/>   Then Angie returned. She was shaking her hands in the air like they were wet, but I knew it was because she was excited.

  “Garth, guess what?”

  I thought about it a second. I like to try to guess.

  “Van Putin?”

  She clapped her hands.

  “I checked my messages from a pay phone. He called, wants me to bring in some of my work to show him.”

  She got a thumbs-up from me. “Way to go. Foot solidly in the door. Wanna go for a drive?”

  “Now, let me guess. To Remington, to check on that white crow?”

  So we drove through Brattleboro, which, if it weren’t for my predicament, would have seemed a much more pleasant burg. It’s perched on the side of a hill overlooking the Connecticut River, the main drag cutting diagonally through a quaint red-brick shopping district dotted with restaurants, too many of which were still fixated on pitas and sprouts. At the bottom of the hill is a trestled bridge, which took Angie and me to New Hampshire and about forty minutes later due southeast to the town of Remington. Yeah, I know we weren’t supposed to leave the state, but I don’t think anybody really differentiates between Vermont and New Hampshire. Let’s just say we were prepared to play dumb.

  Not much to Remington, just four corners really, one of which had a brief strip mall. All but the tattoo parlor dealt in junk. One shop was an auction house, and the sign on the door said SORRY! WE’RE CLOSED! I always wondered why those signs had exclamation marks. Were they shouting at me? Or were they just cheerful that they weren’t open?

  But a man in a sweater and bifocals was mucking about inside, and I motioned him over. He started speaking even before the door was open.

  “(blah blah blah) . . . until Wednesday night, like it says on the door. You show up an hour early to preview. Now—”

  “We were looking for some information on a white raven in a bell jar you auctioned in March,” Angie said cheerfully.

  The man checked his pocket watch like an unhappy train conductor.