by Deb Baker
“Might as well,” Blaze said. “We’ll let you know if we need you.”
I thought my boy looked tired. Working on a case involving his own nephew was wearing on him. It was starting to wear on me too.
We drove along the trail to Walter’s place to pick up my truck, and I found myself worrying about Little Donny’s safety. Was he hungry and wet from the rainstorm? He’d disappeared twenty-four hours ago, and the only thing to show for my efforts to help him was another dead body. My muscles knotted in tension around my heart. What if Little Donny turned out to be the killer’s next victim?
We pulled into Walter’s yard. I was shivering from the wet clothes and windy ride. The temperature had dropped since noon.
Cora Mae eased off the ATV. “What does BB stand for?”
“Bazooka,” BB said, puffing up his chest. “A bazooka launches rockets, like in those war movies.”
Marlin snorted. “Don’t believe him. He was named for those little bitty shot pellets you shoot rabbits with.”
“Was not.”
“Was too.”
I walked away shaking my head. I knew exactly what BB stood for – Bottom of the Brain Barrel.
They were still arguing when I went up to Walter’s door. Walter met me with his sawed-off shotgun hanging loose from his arm.
After giving him directions on where to pick up his ATV, we headed out. I was plumb tuckered out, physically and emotionally.
****
My friend, Kitty, stood on her front porch Wednesday morning wearing a tent-sized, yellow housedress that exposed her dimpled knees. Her pin-curled head bobbed as she waved one slab-of-beef arm over her head. At least ten years younger than Cora Mae and me, she was ten years ahead of us in the falling apart department.
Kitty thinks of herself as my part-time bodyguard whenever it suits her. I don’t really need a bodyguard and I don’t pay her. The bodyguard job is her way of finding a reason to hang around with us. Not only is she the town gossip and knows everything going on, but I discovered she also has worthwhile connections in surrounding towns.
Kitty’s yard looks like the town dump. Whenever something wears out she opens the front door and heaves it into the yard. The town’s after her to clean it up, but so far nothing has changed.
I stepped over a plastic bucket and followed her inside.
Cora Mae helped herself to a sugar doughnut from a plate on the kitchen table and plopped down.
“How’s Heather holding up?” Kitty wanted to know.
“Okay, considering.”
“I made a nice carrot cake for you to take home. You have enough to worry about without having to cook for the whole bunch. Is anyone helping you?”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. Heather will pitch in.”
Kitty sat on a kitchen chair and I braced for the collapse I was sure would follow. The chair held, but she spread her chunky legs, exposing more than anyone would care to see. I looked away. “Let’s go over what we know,” she said. “This certainly is a kerfuffle.”
Her eyes slid to me.
Kitty and I have an unspoken but ongoing word battle raging. Ever since she discovered my word-for-the-day routine, she’s been throwing big words around. When I realized I wouldn’t remember most of the new vocabulary I was trying to learn, I decided to abandon that daily routine even though I love discovering new words. But Kitty won’t quit baiting me.
Sometimes it’s fun, other times I’d like to pitch her off a Lake Superior cliff.
“I have one important question that has me fomented,” I said, zinging one right back at her. “What was a warden from Marquette doing way down here?”
“Maybe they wander all over,” Cora Mae suggested.
“You’d think they have their own territories to cover.” I blew on my coffee and took a sip. “Like sheriffs or firefighters. I don’t think this one just woke up early yesterday and decided to drive south to visit Carl’s bait pile.”
“Maybe he had a tip,” Cora Mae offered.
“So,” I said, feeling the sharp heat of uncontrollable tension. “Carl and Little Donny were in cahoots on something illegal. Is that right, Cora Mae?” Cora Mae opened her mouth to say something. I barreled on. “The warden surprises Little Donny, who is caught holding the bag. Little Donny blows the warden’s head off and escapes. Then just for fun, he pops a few arrows into the town drunk’s back. Is that pretty much it?”
Cora Mae looked at me with wide eyes. I realized my nerves were showing and I was taking my stress out on my best friend, but I couldn’t stop.
“Of course I don’t think that,” she said, sounding hurt. “I’m just trying to help.”
She had her hands cupped around her coffee. I reached over and squeezed them to let her know I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. She smiled. It’s hard to keep Cora Mae down.
I leaned on the table and rubbed my face with both hands. I voiced my fears. “What if Little Donny’s dead?”
Kitty took over. “Don’t be ridiculous. He witnessed a murder, is my bet. He probably ate too many sweet rolls and took a snooze in the bushes. The killer didn’t even see him. Probably walked up and saw Little Donny’s rifle leaning against a tree and used it. The bang woke up Little Donny, he panicked, then ran off. He’s good and lost by now, but we’ll find him.”
I was feeling better. Kitty’s theory made sense. It would be like Little Donny to run away and get lost. After all, he’s a city boy and they can’t tell directions.
“Why didn’t he run right to Blaze? I asked.
“Because he’s lost.”
“What about Billy?” Cora Mae put in her two cents. “Who would have shot him full of arrows?”
That made no sense to me either. We both looked at Kitty like she had all the answers.
“I don’t know,” Kitty said. “But we’ll find out.” She grinned, her teeth gleaming. Kitty’s teeth are the whitest in the county.
That reminded me.
I dug the red tooth from my pocket and laid it on the table. “I found this in the brush at Carl’s bait pile.”
Kitty picked the tooth up, studying it. “What is it?”
“An Indian arrowhead?” Cora Mae guessed.
“Looks like a tooth to me.” Kitty handed it to Cora Mae. “But why’s it red?”
“Berry stains,” Cora Mae said, indifferently. “Bears eat berries, don’t they?” She handed the tooth back to me. “No big deal.”
“You eat berries, too,” I said. “Are your teeth red? And what is a bear tooth doing in the brush? A bear will generally keep his teeth in his mouth from what I hear.”
“Don’t lose it. We’ll put on our thinking caps and come up with something,” Cora Mae said.
“Oh. I have a surprise for you.” Kitty rubbed her hands together with glee. Her arm blubber bounced. “I’ve got us a meeting at the morgue in Escanaba tomorrow.”
“With the coroner who worked on Robert Hendricks?” I squealed.
“Well not exactly the coroner, but someone who can get us in.”
“How’d you do that?” Cora Mae asked.
“I keep trying to tell you. I have men chasing me around all the time. I met him at a social a while back.”
I looked at Kitty’s enormous body and pin-curled hair, which she rarely combed out, and I wanted to hug her to death.
My main goal was to get Little Donny back in one healthy piece, but discovering the killer might lead the way to Little Donny. We had to cover all angles and chase every clue.
****
Blaze pulled into Kitty’s yard behind my truck, blocking my plans for a hasty escape. Big Donny sat next to him.
“How’s Heather?” I asked Big Donny when he jumped down.
“The doctor prescribed a sedative for her. She’s resting. We’ve been looking all over for you.”
I couldn’t help noticing Blaze was circling my truck like a turkey vulture homing in on fresh meat. His face was tomato-red. That’s what happens when he gets worked up, which i
s just about always.
“How did you manage to find this piece of junk?” he roared, referring to his old sheriff truck - the one I now legally owned.
“I bought it at the auction in Escanaba and fixed it up a bit. Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?”
He read my company name on the side of the truck out loud and shook his head. “The last time I checked, you didn’t even have a driver’s license. If you’re driving illegally, I’m confiscating your vehicle.”
“I’m legal,” I lied.
“I’m checking right now.” Blaze ran back to his truck, yanked the door open, and reached for the radio.
“Blaze,” Big Donny called. “We have more important things to do right now. Tell her.”
“Tell me what?” I asked, searching their faces. Big Donny looked like he’d swallowed rat poison, his face pasty white like dough, the lines of his mouth twitching.
“Is it about Little Donny? Have you found him?”
“Warrant’s been issued for Little Donny’s arrest,” he said grimly.
We gasped. Cora Mae’s was the loudest. Kitty flung her Amazon arms into the air and howled like a gust of forty-mile-an-hour wind.
“WHAT?” I shouted at Blaze.
“His fingerprints were the only ones found on the rifle,” Blaze continued. “His footprints were everywhere. Pa’s cap was found in the brush near Billy Lundberg…”
“Orange cap with Budweiser across the front?” I asked, fear eating at my stomach. “Barney’s old cap?”
Blaze nodded. “Carl said he was wearing it.”
“Doesn’t seem like much evidence against him,” I said. “Fingerprints on his own rifle, footprints at his own bait pile, and a cap in the woods. Seems to me you’re reacting too hasty.”
“And his fingerprints were all over the two arrows they pulled out of Billy Lundberg’s back.”
chapter 6
“Carl,” I said over coffee at his house, “I have to ask you a few questions.”
“Go right ahead. If it helps git Little Donny out of this mess, I’m willing.”
I pretended to sip my coffee. If I drank one more cup of coffee, my knees would go and I wouldn’t be able to climb into my truck. I noticed my hand holding the cup was shaking from large doses of caffeine. I set the cup down.
If it’s true that you can tell someone’s honest by the look in his eyes, you’d have a hard time pinning Carl’s eyes down to study them. They shifted around the room, left and right, up and down, and never rested on my face once. But that’s Carl.
He swung his head to the right of where I sat and scratched his chin.
I pulled a notepad out of my jacket and asked the first question. “Did you know that dead agent?”
“Nope.”
“What do you think he was doing there?”
Carl shrugged.
“Maybe you were mixed up in something you shouldn’t have been in and didn’t know it.”
“Nope.”
“Were those your arrows they pulled out of Billy?”
Carl nodded. “Yep. Blaze showed them to me after I realized mine were missing from our stake-out.”
“Was Little Donny fooling with them?”
Carl shrugged.
We sat through a long pause. I watched my hands do the caffeinated jumping bean tap and Carl studied the ceiling. I waited to see if Carl might pick up the conversation on his own.
I couldn’t think of anything else to ask him and he wasn’t volunteering. I shoved back in my chair.
“I have one question for you, Gertie.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Blaze told me they found that warden’s vehicle parked at the DNR office in Marquette. How’d he git to my pile?”
My mouth fell open. Carl finally looked me full in the eyes with a smug smile. He’d one-upped me and felt pretty good about it.
This was another example of how much I have to learn about my new career. I’d never admit it out loud, but sometimes I act like a real rookie.
What else had I overlooked?
****
“That’s the second Mitch Movers truck I’ve seen today,” Kitty said as she ripped down Highway M35 driving the Trouble Buster. The morning sun zapped through the windshield and bounced against my Blublocker sunglasses. “Seems like everybody’s moving.”
She had the gleam in her eye that she gets when she’s driving. Ordinarily I won’t ride in a car Kitty is driving, because she gets insane the minute she slides behind the wheel, but circumstances forced me into a tight spot.
“Blaze just drove by in his sheriff’s truck,” Cora Mae had said when we pulled into Kitty’s yard. “And he parked right up the road. You can see a speck of his truck through the pines over there.”
I glanced in the direction of the road, squinting through the trees. Sure enough, there he was. “Well, trade places with me. Quick.”
“I don’t have a license either.”
“I forgot that,” I said, rolling down the window when Kitty thundered down the steps from her house. “Come around this side.” I motioned to Kitty and slid to the middle of the truck. “You’re going to have to drive us out of here. Blaze is after me.”
And that’s how she got behind the wheel. We waved to Blaze as we drove by and he pulled out and stayed with us till we were well out of Stonely.
“Pull over,” I said when he finally turned off. “He’s gone now.”
I felt the truck’s acceleration. Cora Mae and I clutched the dashboard and both of us stomped on an imaginary break.
“No, he’s not,” Kitty said. “I just caught a glimpse of him and you know how duplicitous he can be.”
“He can’t be back there, or he’d have pulled you over by now for speeding and reckless endangerment of innocent passengers. Enough of this rigamarole.”
Rigamarole was the biggest word I could come up with to counter Kitty’s duplicitous, considering the kind of pressure I was under.
Kitty made a right turn on two wheels.
“Holy cripes,” Cora Mae said, which is the closest she ever comes to swearing.
I pulled my stun gun out of my purse and threatened to use it on Kitty.
“You wouldn’t,” she said.
“Try me,” I said, turning it on.
And that’s how I got my truck back.
****
I drove down the bluff, around the outskirts of Gladstone, past the train station, along Lake Michigan, and crossed the bridge over the Escanaba River as it flows into Escanaba.
Kitty guided me through the big-city traffic and pointed out a parking space across from St. Francis Hospital on Ludington Street.
“I’m waiting in the truck,” Cora Mae announced. “This is too creepy for me.”
“No way,” I said. “An investigator can’t wait it out in the car anytime things get messy.”
“I can’t do it,” Cora Mae insisted.
“You go on ahead, Kitty. We’ll be right behind you.”
“Don’t take too long,” Kitty called. “You have all the questions in your little notebook.”
Kitty had already tracked down her source by the time Cora Mae worked up the courage to enter the building.
“Johnny here is going to help us,” she said, pointing at a thin, hairless man holding a broom. The janitor. Just great. I needed a medical analysis on two dead bodies and Kitty gets a janitor to help us.
“Hey, Kit,” he said with a big smile. “Come on back.”
We followed him down a long, narrow hallway, rode the elevator to the basement, and turned into a room that smelled of disinfectants.
“Want to see the bodies?” One eye winked at Kitty.
She looked at me. I wondered if the bodies were naked and had been stitched up after the autopsies or if their insides were in a bag somewhere leaving body cavities exposed.
I shook my head, clutching Cora Mae’s arm so she couldn’t escape. “That won’t be necessary. Just tell us what the medical examiner learned.”
“Well,” he leaned closer in a conspiratorial gesture, the fluorescent lights of the morgue reflecting off his scalp. “One had his head blown off and the other one’s lungs were punctured by arrows.”
I looked at the janitor. “We already know that.”
“Well that’s the whole thing then,” he said, slapping his hands together. “I can’t tell you anymore.”
I glared at Kitty. I could be searching the woods for Little Donny instead of wasting my time here.
“Might be something you could use in his belongings,” he said, watching Kitty.
Now you’re talking, I thought.
“But I could get in a whole lot of trouble. If you know what I mean.”
Kitty, pin-curls and all, weighing three times more than Johnny, licked her lips. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
Cora Mae and I slipped to the other side of the room while negotiations continued between Kitty and Johnny. A few minutes later, Kitty waved us over.
I already knew what Billy Lundberg had with him because Cora Mae and I had searched his pockets in the woods. So I went right to the warden’s bag, and I pulled out his clothes and shoes and glanced at the items that had been removed from his pockets. Nothing unusual.
I picked up his shoes and turned them over. Noticing a small downy feather imbedded in the deep crevices of one of the soles, I carefully pulled it out.
“A baby bird feather,” Kitty whispered in case I didn’t know what it was.
Kitty’s janitor friend guarded the door making sure no one was coming down the hall, so I slipped the feather into my pocket. My first possible clue, I thought, grasping for straws, or in this case, feathers.
Coming out of the building, I sucked in deep breaths of fresh air, grateful to be alive and well.
****
I’d never been to the motor vehicle department before, so I wasn’t prepared for the foul dispositions I encountered. According to Kitty, they’re always like that.