Dead Poor

by M. K. Coker

  “Here’s your Frisbee.” Karen handed over the offending flier.

  “It isn’t a Frisbee,” he told her solemnly. “It’s a flying disc.”

  She kept her mouth straight—with effort. “Of course. Sorry.”

  “You need a ref,” someone said from the crowd.

  But he shook his head. “There’s no refs in Ultimate.”

  “Sounds like it could get out of hand.”

  Again, the solemn shake of the head. “No, the players ref themselves. Fair-play rules.”

  Karen wished more people would do that, but in her world, she was the ref when it failed. As she turned, Kurt’s rather harried expression finally sank in to her consciousness. He’d been riding herd on this crowd since dawn. Maybe she should have put Walrus at the campground instead, but she’d wanted Kurt’s meticulous attention to detail in the statements. Hopefully, he wouldn’t quit on the spot as soon as she released the tourists to wherever their travels led next.

  A florid man in a Hawaiian shirt stepped up, accompanied by a thin woman with cheekbones as sharp as her nose. Despite the rustic setting, she wore silver-and-gold jewelry draped over a white twinset.

  “High time you people got here.” The man nodded at Marek, his jowls quivering like a bulldog’s. “Sheriff Mehaffey, you’ve kept us waiting far too long. Not to mention, you should arrest that kid as a danger to person and property. I told the park manager that I didn’t pay good money to have dings put in my rig.”

  Tired of being taken as an underling to Marek, Karen took a pace forward to look down at Mr. Florid from—she checked the license plate—Florida. Figured. “I am Sheriff Mehaffey. And I am investigating a suspicious death, not property damage. I appreciate that you’ve been delayed, and you will be allowed to leave shortly, but I need to assess the situation before I do.”

  Hugh’s mother intervened, putting her arms around her boy. “That poorly aimed throw came from my clumsy husband, not my son,” she said, looking straight into Florid’s face. “And you couldn’t put a ding in that tank of yours with a sledgehammer.”

  Looking torn between arguing the point and what was obviously a point of pride, Florid appeared stymied. Instead, he turned on Karen. “We gave our statements. We saw nothing, heard nothing, know nothing. We’re from Sarasota, on our way to Seattle.”

  From her perfectly coiffured hair, his wife picked a piece of browned leaf and dropped it to the ground with the distaste usually reserved for spiders or bird poop. “For our daughter’s wedding. We can’t be late. I planned out the route, and we had reservations made at a luxury resort in the Black Hills, but we had a wheel go flat after hitting a curb”—she glared at her husband, who also flattened—“and so got thrown off course and had to settle for this... unruly thicket on a hill that I won’t dignify with the term ‘park.’ Further delays are unacceptable.”

  So, thought Karen, was murder. “Kurt, do you believe that we need to speak personally to any of these good people beyond their statements?”

  Her deputy straightened from where he was trying to repair the damage to his trousers—and his dignity. “Yes, three of them. The Farleys, Akio Miles, and Mary Redbird.”

  Karen raked the crowd that had gathered, respectfully back but still within earshot—though a few probably couldn’t hear a train’s whistle blown in their ear. None of the rest of the crowd had kids with them, which wasn’t surprising, given that it was October. She’d guess the Canucks were homeschoolers. The day-trippers had fortunately been turned back at the barricade.

  Once she let this pool of suspects go, most of them would be in the wind, even if Kurt had collected their contact information. If their killer was amongst them, they were screwed. Unless he or she—or they, God forbid—were among those staying.

  Karen glanced around, looking for Marek, and found he’d stepped back into the woods and was taking photos of the crowd and their vehicles with his phone. A good idea. At least they’d have that as evidence, even if someone lied about their identity. Too bad she couldn’t fingerprint them all, on the off chance one had a feces fetish. Wasn’t smearing feces a kid-against-parent thing? Did Bunting have any kids? Something to find out.

  Pocketing his phone, Marek walked back to her.

  “Any reason to keep them any longer?” she asked him.

  He took one last long look then shook his head. A cheer went up from the majority, but a few looked vaguely disappointed, as if a garage band had been substituted at the last minute for the headliner act they’d bought tickets for. If they were looking for drama from Dakotans, they’d come to the wrong state.

  Mrs. Florid said, “About time, given we pay your salaries and that of the park manager, who wasn’t even on the job when we pulled in. You can be sure I’ll be writing to the state parks board or whatever you have in this godforsaken county to complain about this false detainment.”

  Karen winced as she thought of Jack Biester’s hopes to get state sponsorship. As for her own salary, she wasn’t being paid by Florida taxpayers. She had a very hard time keeping her mouth shut instead of pointing that out. As a consequence, she got nothing out at all. But Marek saved the day.

  “The park is run by the county, not the state,” he informed the woman with the gravitas that came with his deep voice—and his deep well of patience. “If you’ll wait, I can give you the contact information for the county commissioner so you can—”

  But Mrs. Florid of Florida gave him her back. She frog-marched her husband into the RV. Thirty seconds later, they were gone, the huge rig farting its last insult into the crowd.

  Mrs. McGurdy waved a hand... to swipe away the exhaust. “People like that are the bad apples in a good American pie. We’ve been on the road for five months now, and there’s always one, it seems. It’s small of me, but I hope that their daughter gets jilted at the altar. Save the young man a lifetime of regrets with his future in-laws. They’ve done nothing but complain since they pulled up last night and took over our spot.”

  That made Karen blink. “Yours?”

  “Yes, we played nice and moved over for them, though they more or less demanded it, as our rig is just a Class C, not an A like theirs.” Her hands on her hips, she surveyed her son and husband. “Well. It’s been... interesting. I’ll say that for this park, which by the way, is quite nice. Deputy Bechtold has been very clear that he can’t say anything about what happened, but I’m dying to know. I mean, he asked us if we knew a man named Bob Bunting, who died at the overlook. I’m assuming it wasn’t an accident, given everything?”

  “The way his body was left at the scene wasn’t an accident,” Karen hedged. “But the autopsy has yet to be performed, and it would be premature of me to tell you more than that.”

  Mrs. McGurdy shivered. “Well. Always heard it was more violent in the States, but I guess I got lulled into complacency these last months. People have been so friendly.” She blew out a breath. “Here I was concerned about pedophiles in this park, not killers.”

  As Kurt frowned, Karen decided the woman hadn’t relayed that tidbit before. “Care to expand on that, Mrs. McGurdy?”

  She flushed. “Oh, it’s nothing, I’m sure. Just an overdeveloped sense of maternal paranoia.”

  Her son rolled his bright-blue eyes up like pinballs. “She freaked just because I told her that I saw some guy with a long beard and old camos in the woods with a boy a little older than me when I went to get one of Dad’s bad throws. Probably just taking a piss... a leak,” he corrected at his mother’s glare. “We meet lots of people like that, with beards and old clothes and everything.” He darted a look at his mother. “Grownups don’t have to take showers or brush their teeth or wear new underwear everyday just ’cause. Being a kid sucks.”

  His mother blipped him. “Someday, some pretty young woman is going to thank me.”

  “Yuck,” he said, rubbing his head, then catching her glare, he grinned up at her. “The only pretty young woman in my life is you, Mom.”

  Her lips twit
ched, then she laughed, as did her husband. They walked together, arm in arm, back to their Class C, whatever that was, as their son ran with his flying disc before them. Karen guessed that, in the scheme of things, they weren’t rich—except in everything that mattered.

  Moments later, the stubby RV with a prominent maple leaf logo on the side meandered past with a honk and a wave, returned by pretty much all of the crowd.

  Karen wished she were going with them. Playing Frisbee—correction, flying discs—aced murder any day. Heck, she would even take Old Dan Sanderson’s weekly call-ins to dispatch about flying saucers. Anything but having to delve into the life, and death, of Baby Bunting.

  Alas, she was going a-hunting.

  CHAPTER 7

  Marek hated the closed-in feel of the campground. Like many others raised on the Great Plains, he didn’t feel cosseted and protected but penned in by the tree cover, which was made up of assorted pines, oaks, and maples. A windbreak, sure, a nice, orderly row of trees around the farmhouses and barns that dotted the ex-prairie, but a forest?

  No thanks.

  He doubted that Gus and Marlene Farley of Chelsea, Vermont, held the same opinion, though. They were sprawled contentedly in their lawn chairs in front of a vintage Airstream trailer pulled by an aging Dodge Ram. With his white hair plastered in swirls on one side, Gus had apparently seen no need to take a comb to it after rising.

  “We don’t see leaving yet, just because something bad happened,” the seventyish man told them from his chair. “Probably safer now than it will be for some time to come. We spent last week over in Yankton near the dam, saw the aquarium and took the tour, but it was just too crowded. You’ve got some nice spots here, hidden away from the beaten path.”

  Gus nodded his swirled head toward the stand of maples bleeding from yellow to red in the light, unfiltered, as they towered over more humble offerings. “Nothing like our own neck of the woods for sheer brilliance—that little stand there multiplied by hundreds of thousands when we got good color—but that’s why we travel, so when we go home again, we’ll appreciate it all the more.”

  His wife, wearing a baggy sweatshirt that proclaimed Don’t Take No Gus From Me and denim capris that showed a tangle of gnarled blue veins down to the orthopedic shoes, shifted in her lawn chair. “Leave off your jawing, Gus. These people are busy. Tell ’em what you heard last night.”

  “Right enough,” he responded without apparent rancor. “Well, my old plumbing ain’t working like it used to—went on the fritz about the same time I gave up my plumbing business, which is mighty odd, don’t you think? But it was time. Sold our house to the kids, bought the Airstream on the cheap, and put our Social Security checks together. Never regretted it for a minute. We’ve been on the road for twenty years now last Independence Day, but—”

  “Get to the point,” his wife interrupted.

  “She’s the Yankee,” he informed them in a faux whisper. “Met her when she taped up my bum in ’Nam.”

  “Shoulda taped your mouth shut while I was at it,” she countered. “They don’t want your life story. They want to catch a killer.”

  Marek shared a sidelong glance with Karen. At this point, they could stand here waiting for the rest of the story until they were covered with snow, which might be as soon as Halloween or as late as Christmas. You could never tell in the Dakotas.

  “All right, I’m getting there. Got up in the night. Don’t know when, like your man asked me. No reason to know. Went over to the restrooms over there.” He waved at a squat concrete building, much newer and bigger than the one-holers at the overlook. “Nicer than our own and saves having to dump the tanks. Full moon, so no need for any light. I took care of my business then decided to take a stroll. Nice cool night. I could just see the tip of Orion’s belt from the top of the road. The Hunter, that’s what they call him.”

  “Mr. Farley...” Karen began.

  “Now, just hold your horses, young lady. I’ve got a point to make. I used to hunt, long ago in the woods of Michigan, so I recognized the sound of an animal thrashing in a snare. Don’t hold with that myself. Quick kills, that’s what it should be. Wondering if I could find the poor thing in the dark, use the pocketknife I carry, when I hear some yelling down the road.”

  Marek visualized the park and felt a letdown. “Down? Not up?”

  “Down toward the picnic shelter by the river,” Gus confirmed. “Not up at the overlook. Anyway, my hearing, it ain’t the best—”

  His wife snorted. “Talked his own ears off.”

  “But I’m pretty sure it was a man and a woman. He’s bellowing, she’s screeching. My better half and I, we’ve got our set-tos on occasion, but mostly, we rub along okay. These two? Admit I don’t know what they was carrying on about, but I hear a slap, and the woman yells, ‘You always were a piece of shit.’ Pardon the language. Show was over at that point. At least for me.”

  From the outset, this homicide had seemed personal. But Marek doubted a woman, no matter how strong, could heft a man who hit three hundred pounds, into the john. Though she could’ve had help, like from that bruiser Karen had told him about after her call with Nails.

  Gus reached over and grasped his wife’s hand. “Thanked my lucky stars I had a warm bed to go back to and went there pronto.”

  Though Marlene huffed, she turned her hand to grasp her husband’s, weaving their fingers together. Karen thanked them for their time and headed to the vehicle that Kurt had pointed out as the temporary abode of their next witness. On the way, they nodded at Donahue, who’d apparently not been scared off, taking a spot left by those less sanguine about their chances of ending up as compost.

  “You know,” Karen said as they walked to the far end of the campground, “I had a message on my answering machine, before the election, from Bunting’s ex-wife. Nadine Early. She promised plenty of dirt on Bunting.”

  Marek blinked. “What was the dirt?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t return the call.” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Believe me, I was tempted, but I didn’t want the job enough to stoop to Bunting’s level. I didn’t want to stop looking at myself in the mirror in the morning.”

  How did Marek tell her how much he wildly admired her for that? He jingled the keys in his pocket. “Yeah, that’d be a hardship.”

  “Now you make me sound vain.” She socked him on the arm then, looking down at her less-than-spiffy attire, readjusted her badge on her belt as they approached a van that looked more industrial than recreational.

  Akio Miles bounded out to meet them, his black hair as sleek as his Lycra-encased body. He was probably the same age as Lori but looked far younger. “I’ve been waiting for hours, it seems.” Unlike the Florids of Florida, the young man said that with eagerness, his white smile dazzling in his tea-colored face. “I wanted so bad to post to my blog, but I don’t want to cause you all any trouble.”

  Karen pursed her lips. “And how would you do that?”

  Some of his excitement dimmed. “You mean cause trouble or upload?”

  Marek smiled reassuringly. “Both.”

  “Oh. Well.” Akio pointed at a dish set up behind the van. “I’ve got satellite. I need it for my work.”

  “Which is?” Karen asked sharply.

  Akio hunched his shoulders. “Blogging and coding.”

  “That’s a relief,” she said, relaxing. “I was afraid you were going to say reporter.” But she poked her tongue in her cheek. “Isn’t that taking a working vacation to the extreme?”

  The faintest of laugh lines appeared. “I’m always on vacation. And never. I chucked my job in Los Angeles five years ago and never looked back. All I need is an internet connection. I don’t need much to live on, staying at cheap parks and boondocking on BLM land for free. I can travel with good weather and choose million-dollar views for little to nothing. Can’t beat that.”

  “Until you get married and have kids,” Karen put in.

  He just beamed at her. “I met a girl on
line last year who’s got her own rig. She’s a photographer and online instructor. We’re meeting up again at Quartzite in Arizona at the end of the month. You gotta be nimble these days. We like working for ourselves, without a big mortgage, going into debt. If we have kids, we’ll homeschool. You gotta think outside the box these days to survive.”

  At not quite forty, Marek felt old. He’d done some world traveling, thought of himself as cosmopolitan, despite his current residence, but he’d still gone the traditional route. Marriage, house, kid—and lost two of the three already. And right now, Marek wanted to get back to the kid, the new-old house, and the new girlfriend. “You met the man in the picture that Deputy Bechtold showed you?”

  “Bunting? Yes.” Akio’s curious gaze rested on Karen. “You must be Sheriff Mehaffey. I read all the news articles while I waited. Talk about a motive for murder. He did a number on you.”

  She grimaced. “The internet needs to die.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. You came off golden in the end. And I’m a travel blogger, not news. No worries. But I wasn’t going to upload video until I got the okay.”

  Video? Out here? Marek contemplated the dish. “Isn’t that expensive?”

  Akio shrugged. “Not cheap, but technology makes my life possible—out in the boonies, connected to the world. Pretty weird contrast, isn’t it. But when I was sitting in a cubicle in a high-rise in LA, I was going crazy. I hated the traffic, the long hours, all just to pay for a tiny studio apartment that barely allowed me to tread water on my student loans. Not to mention having zero time to do any hiking, biking, anything in the great outdoors. I stumbled over a blog one day of a guy with basically nothing, living in a van.”

  “Seems like an extreme solution,” Karen said.

  “Well, I did it in stages. At first, I moved out of my studio and into the van that I fixed up myself, but they’re making it illegal to park on public roads or stay in your vehicle overnight, which is unreal. Homeless sleeping under their cars, in the trunks, instead of in the cars. Just because some are bad eggs doesn’t make us all that way. It’s like banning people living in houses because of drug flops. Target the drugs, the trash, whatever. Eventually, it became too stressful, trying to stay off the radar. So I decided to go on the road. People make fun of living in a van down by the river, but that’s what I did. My parents, they thought I’d lost my mind, but then they saw how much happier I was. And then they met my girlfriend. Thumbs-up.”