by Jess Lourey
The offer was tempting. Mrs. Berns had already worked alone at the library once and had not burned it down or gotten the chairs sticky in any after-hours orgy. Besides, I was itching to talk to Jed, and I also needed to walk Luna and then run home and mow my lawn before it became a wood tick sanctuary. That would give me time to talk to Leylanda tonight to see if I could make any connections between Peyton’s disappearance and the other strangeness in town.
I just didn’t know about leaving Mrs. Berns with the keys. She had a history of raucous and racy behavior. “I only have the one key, Mrs. Berns, and the city council gave me strict instructions not to lend it out when they gave me the job.”
Mrs. Berns dug around in her white plastic purse, which was lying on the counter, and came out with a rapper-sized key ring. She methodically clinked through the metal passports. “Municipal liquor store, high school, cop shop . . . here it is! The Battle Lake Public Library. Looks like we’re set.”
I was astounded. “How’d you get keys to all those places?”
Mrs. Berns winked at me. “A woman’s wiles. Plus, it’s sort of a hobby of mine.”
The realization that Mrs. Berns had probably already spent a lot of time alone in the library was oddly liberating. “It’s a deal. Close it up at the top of the hour, and I’ll meet you back here tomorrow morning at opening so we can draw up your schedule.”
“It’s a deal, homey.” Mrs. Berns grabbed my hand in some sort of gangsta handshake and headed back to the stacks. I snatched my purse from behind the counter. It contained the tape and tape recorder I had used last night, and I wanted to listen to it again to see if I had missed any clues.
A short car drive brought me to West Battle Lake and the Last Resort. I took in the rundown look of the place, noticing for the first time that one of the cabin’s roofs was sagging and that the boats tied to the dock were pretty banged up. Sal directed me to the hammock tied between two trees on the beach, where I found Jed snoozing, wearing nothing but bright aqua Bermuda shorts. He had a fresh bandage wrapped around his knee. I prodded him gently.
He snorted, stretched, and opened one eye. “Whaddya know for sure?” His wide smile was sincere.
“Not much these days, Jed. Your knee looks a little rough. How’d you say you hurt it again?”
He pushed himself to a seated position and rubbed the swollen area around the bandage. “I scraped it on a rock, diving.”
“On Sunday, you said you twisted it unloading a boat and that you hadn’t been diving in a while.”
He looked at me once, quickly, and his cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “Yeah, I musta forgot. You know, it’d be great to find that box.”
“It sure would be nice to have some extra money to fix up this place, wouldn’t it?” I asked. “Business has been kinda slow here, according to Sal.”
Jed nodded solemnly, and then his face brightened. “But it’s already getting better, Mira! What with that fake dead body in front of Shangri-La, and then the shooting, no one wants to stay there anymore. We’re full up for the first time in three summers.”
I shook my head sadly. Jed was pretty transparent. “Jed, I know you planted that body that I found in Whiskey and another one last night. I saw you.”
Jed’s eyes grew big like fried eggs, and I could see the wheels turning behind them as he struggled to find a way out of this. Unfortunately, all the pot had rusted his cogs. A big, shiny tear formed at the corner of each eye. “Mira, I feel so shitty about that. I really do, man, and I know my karma is going to be sub-groovy. But I had to help my parents. I had to! I suppose you’re gonna turn me into the Man?”
“What do you know about Jason Blunt?”
“Nothin’, except he was a supreme toker back in high school. That man would do any drug you passed him. A little bit of a temper, but otherwise fun.” Jed smiled happily at the memory.
“Is he involved in any of this?”
Jed looked puzzled. “Planting those two bodies to scare people off Whiskey Lake was my own idea, Mira. Nobody else even knows I did this.”
Except for me and Nikolai. Jed wouldn’t be earning the adjective “stealthy” anytime soon. “Why’d you tell me that Jason rented some dive suits from you?”
“It was the only name I could think of when you asked me. How’d you figure out it was me underwater surfin’ the bodies?”
“Mostly dumb luck, Jed. I’ll make a deal with you. You stop selling pot, stop planting bodies, and stop hanging out with actors and carnival folk, and I won’t tell on you.”
“Can I still smoke pot?”
“Until your head starts on fire.”
“Deal!” He shook my hand enthusiastically and was wiggling like a puppy. He had been harboring guilt about his dead-body missions, and I had absolved him.
“I gotta go mow my lawn now. You stay out of trouble.”
He tried to pull himself out of the hammock but winced when he attempted to bend his bad leg. “I can mow your lawn, Mira. I do all our grass here.”
I’ll bet. “That’s okay, Jed. I need the downtime to think through some things. You get that cut looked at, all right?”
“My mom’s taking me to the doctor this afternoon.”
“Good. Oh, one more thing. You don’t have a criminal record, do you?”
“Not me, but I do think I’m being watched. I can feel it. Makes my baby hairs stand up sometimes.”
I sighed. He was just high, dopey Jed. He hadn’t arranged for anyone to pretend to get shot. He couldn’t even arrange to bring himself to the doctor. “Thanks, Jed. Bye!” I waved at him and trotted back to my car. One mystery solved. I loved tying up loose ends, although I still didn’t have the jewels or know where Peyton was, and I had a nagging hunch the two were connected somehow.
I splayed my fingers outside my window as I drove, riding the air like waves. My radio was cranked and crackled out a passable version of 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up.” I chanted along in my tinny, off-key singing voice and felt empowered and capable. I loved it when meteorological forces converged to send me a decent radio signal. First, I stopped at Gina’s and tended to the animals. Leif had already walked Luna when he got off work, but I took her out again and made her promise to play nice with Tiger Pop.
After I showered cat and dog with attention, I hopped back into my brown Toyota and cruised the three miles home. I pulled into my driveway and quickly checked my house for more vandalism or excrement. I had about four hours of daylight left, and I had a lot to do. My house seemed untouched, so I quickly watered my plants and checked my caller ID. No one had called, not even a telemarketer. I felt a little bit sorry for myself, and for a second I was grateful that I had all this excitement in my life. It was better than being lonely. I quickly dismissed that thought, though. I wasn’t lonely, I was alone, and there was nothing wrong with that.
Not that it hadn’t occurred to me more than once that a government-sponsored dating program wouldn’t be a welcome addition to the tax rolls. I was a cynic about men, but I never stopped hoping that there were some good ones out there. I just didn’t have the time or patience to sift through the chaff looking for them.
I had a theory that if Big Brother got involved, the whole process could be streamlined. When a person turned eighteen, s/he would sign up for the Selective Service. (The military would have to get a new name for their deal, since “Selective Service” is too perfect for a dating organization.) Entrants would have to enter and keep current basic information—education level, one joke they think is funny, profession, where they stand on performing oral sex, whether or not they like or want kids, why their last relationship ended, et cetera. They would also have to come up with at least three previous relationship testimonials, unless they had never dated or had dated fewer than three people.
Not only would this hold us more accountable in how we acted in current relationships—because we would know the person we were with could be writing a dating reference for us tomorrow—it would also provide a dat
abase of people who are single and looking not to be, thus broadening our search area. After all, what are the odds of your soul mate living within sixty miles of where you are now, and of accidentally running into him or her in some leg of your daily routine? I wondered how one would go about getting legislation like that passed. I’d have to add it to my to-do list.
Meanwhile, I had some lawn to mow. I had always liked cutting the lawn. The hum and snort of the engine was soothing, and the results were organizationally breathtaking, particularly on this property with the rolling hills and sprawling trees. It would give me some downtime to riffle through my thoughts on the jewels and Peyton.
I switched to jogging shorts and a tank top and trotted down to the leaning red shed where I housed the mower. I gassed up the old Snapper rider, checked the oil, and cleaned out the area around the blade. I also loop-knotted my purse to the square handlebars so I could grab the tape of Nikolai and listen to it once I found my rhythm. I revved up the mower and started juicing grass, missing the familiar form of Luna jogging alongside. I couldn’t wait to get me and my animals back here.
I jostled and purred around the lawn in front of the house for about an hour, being careful to reverse direction when I rode close to my gardens so I wouldn’t shoot weed seeds into them. While steering, I held the tape recorder up to my ear and listened to the interview again. Nothing caught my attention except the confirmation of what I already knew—that Jed was the body planter and neither he nor Nikolai knew what had happened to Peyton. I regassed after about an hour and a half of mowing and moved to the area between the barn and sheds.
When I finished, the mosquitoes and gnats were starting to circle like sharks and the sun was setting, drawing shades of lavender across the horizon. I puttered the mower back into the shed and stretched, my legs shaky from three hours on a vibrating vehicle. I started to untie my purse when it occurred to me that I hadn’t mowed the little patch of lawn down along the shoreline that led to Shangri-La. I hated backtracking, but it would be a nice feeling of completion to have it all freshly mown.
I left my purse untied on my lap and cruised down the driveway, bumping along the gravel. The trees formed a natural archway, and the fairy light of dusk shimmered through the leaves and made the path surreal. I could smell pollen in the air, and I was happy to be outdoors, tending to the earth.
When I reached my destination, I killed the motor so I could pick up some Diet Coke cans and candy wrappers that had been tossed onto the patch of grass. I glanced back into the deepening woods, away from Shangri-La, to where I had been carried during the magic show on the island. I was curious to see whether the bongo that had been my transport was still there, so I switched off the mower and tracked through the trees and brush, prickly ash and raspberry branches grabbing at my skin like hungry children.
I realized I was still holding my purse and the pop cans, so I shoved the cans down in the hobo bag, crinkling a stack of construction paper. It was the pictures Peyton had given me—one of the house, one of the animal, and one of the math lab. Tears burned in my eyes as I was reminded of her, and something scratched at the back of my head. I was overlooking a clue, I knew it, but I couldn’t quite get at it. It was a dancing finger pointing at an ever-moving fog, and I could only catch brief glimpses of the image it was trying to show me.
I shook my head, stashed the drawings back in the purse, and slid the strap over my shoulder so my hands were free to push aside branches. When I reached the spot where first I and then the ringmaster had been deposited, there was no sign that we had ever been there. I only knew it was the right spot because it was at the base of the intertwined elms, the ones that looked like two people making out. Then I realized it: I was looking at the kissing tree that Regina had referred to in her code!
I dug around in my purse and pulled out Ron’s translation, my hands shaking with excitement:
With your back to the kissing tree walk seven steps northwest kneel 23 left 12 right 11 left.
I backed against the kissing tree and shimmied around until I was facing halfway between the campground on the north side of the lake and the setting sun. I walked seven long steps and knelt. On my right was an oak tree and on my left was a rise covered in rotting leaves and poison ivy. Shit. For all I knew, there was nothing but dirt under there, or maybe a rusting piece of farm machinery, a common sight in Minnesota woods. Were the potential jewels enough reason to dig in a nest of poison ivy?
My best bet would be to go back to the house and fetch a long-sleeved shirt and some gardening gloves so the ivy wouldn’t smack me, but I didn’t have the patience for that, and it would be dark soon. I scoured around for a nice long stick and went back to poke at the pile. I heard the scrape of wood on metal. At least I knew that the pile was more than just dirt. I hooked an arm of the branch on the base of a poison ivy plant and pulled, hoping to remove enough so that I could get at what was underneath. I managed to pull up the ivy, along with about twenty feet of root spreading in each direction. The bastard was here to stay.
I dropped the branch and calculated how long it would take to reach the lake to rinse the poison off me if I just dug in real quick and peeked at what was buried there. I had the trip clocked at about three minutes if I used sand to scour the poison oil off my skin once I reached the water. I knelt down and stretched out my hand into the glistening leaves of three. That’s when I heard voices coming down the road from Shangri-La. It was Sam and Jason, and they were headed straight for me.
I had three options: run, hide, or stroll out and act like hanging out in the woods was no big deal. I didn’t think I could outrun Jason, and I figured I could always try the strolling thing if hiding didn’t work, so I darted away from the kissing tree and toward the lake, crouching down and hugging my back to the wide base of an oak. My heart was hammering like a hummingbird’s, and my fear level rose as I heard Jason’s voice coming close enough to make out what he was saying.
“What sort of dumb bitch leaves a lawn mower out? She could at least finish the job.”
“Maybe she just stopped to take a leak.”
“Maybe I’ll put a leak in her head if I come across her.”
I bit my lip and felt my eyes get hot. That’s when I remembered I had my purse, which meant I had my stun gun. I reached in, careful not to disturb the cans and paper and draw attention to myself. I felt the hard plastic and slowly drew out my weapon. I looked down gratefully and was shocked to see I had grabbed the tape recorder. I almost tossed it back in, but instead set it on the ground, timing my movement with Jason and Sam’s footstep so I could hit the record button on a downfall.
If they were going to maul me, at least it would be on tape for some savvy police officer to find. Maybe, in an absurd punch line to my life, Ody and Gary Wohnt could stumble across it in some flurry of teamwork and talk about what a lousy date I was while they listened to it.
I set the recorder down, turned the volume knob as high as it would go, covered the non-microphone part of the small unit with some rotting leaves, and dug my hand back in my purse. This time I found the prize: the Z-Force, which had worked so well on Jed and his accomplice when they first carried me back here. I cradled it in my hand and concentrated on making myself disappear.
“So who told you that’s what the code said?” Jason’s voice sounded about twenty feet away. Judging by the intensity of his tone, he was excited.
“Some old couple staying on the island. I saw them doing a crossword puzzle and asked them if they’d solve a puzzle I had. They knew right away what it was.” I sensed pride in her voice, but it was lost on Jason.
“A bunch of bullshit nonsense is what it is. What sort of dumbass leaves a heap of jewelry in the woods for eighty years and then leaves some secret message to find it?”
Sam’s tone was defensive. “She wasn’t a total dumbass. She was just a little wacko. What’s a rich lady supposed to do with a bunch of stolen jewelry, anyhow? She couldn’t wear it, and she couldn’t sell it with it
being so hot. She just never got around to coming back for it. Leaves more for us.”
They were about fifteen feet away now, and they had stopped walking. I guessed they were near the kissing tree. I prayed that
Jason knew which way was northwest and didn’t accidentally lurch across me. Outside of the woods, the sun was still halfway above the horizon, but in here, there was more shadow than light. I tried to calm myself with the hope that the darker it got, the harder I would be to see, but the more I focused on breathing, the harder it was to breathe at all.
“Okay, walk seven steps northwest. I’m sure it’s seven girl steps.”
“Which way is northwest?”
I could almost hear him point, the tension dripping in the air. He was trying to be stern, but he was desperately excited.
“You see anything?”
“Gawd, Jason, you’re right behind me. You see anything? Huh?” She sounded angry, and her gum snapped in the air. “Like that big pile under the weeds? Duh?”
There was the smack of hard skin on soft, and I heard Sam squeak. He must have slapped her. “Hold this,” he growled. I heard the thump of someone heavy dropping to the ground and then the sound of roots being pulled and dirt being moved. He apparently didn’t notice that the plants he was ripping up were poison ivy.
“Do you see anything?” Sam’s voice was overly eager as she tried to compensate for upsetting him.
“It’s a goddamn safe the size of Fort Knox.” He laughed, more startled than happy. “How did the old bag get this out here?”
“She said the Addamses ordered it when all the jewelry was disappearing but decided to sell the whole damn place instead. Her husband and some workers she paid to keep quiet moved it and buried all but the front of it, but she never told me where.”
“Crazy bitch.”
“Yeah, crazy bitch.” Sam laughed childishly.
“It’s a good thing you got that job nursing her, honey. That was a good thing. Can you shine that light over here? I got the lock uncovered.”