Murder Grins and Bears It (7 page)

I scrunched my nose. “See any action
yet?”

“
Not yet, but somebody has.
Been hearing shots on and off all morning.”

BB grinned at Cora Mae. “How about some
lunch?”

Cora Mae and I settled in with turkey
sandwiches and cold Budweiser beers. We traded dumb bear stories
for a while before I got to the point.

“
A warden was killed out
this way yesterday,” I said.

“
Good riddance to bad
rubbish,” Marlin said with a nasty little smirk. His brothers
laughed.

“
You know the
guy?”

Remy chimed in, through a mouth packed with
bread. “Don’t need to, they’re all alike. DNR agents used to be
hunters, meaning once upon a time they thought like hunters, like
us. Now they’re all a bunch of tree huggers with fancy
degrees.”

I nodded. “Yup. The DNR’s been infiltrated
by those Sierra guys.”

“
And don’t ask the DNR
anything, or right away they want to arrest you.” BB Smith
added.

I glanced at him sharply. “Someone want to
arrest you?”

BB looked startled. “Uh, no.”

“
My grandson’s lost out
here,” I said, taking a bite of my turkey sandwich and noticing
Marlin frown at BB. “You guys see at kid about
nineteen?”

“
Some guy walked through
here coupla hours ago,” Marlin said. “Just said howdy and moved on
through, heading that way.” Marlin pointed down the path in the
opposite direction from Walter’s place.

I was excited. “Was he big and wearing
orange?”

“
Yep,” Marlin said, taking
a swig of beer. “That was him all right.”

I jumped up and pried Cora Mae away from an
eyeball stare she had going with BB Smith. “Come on, Cora Mae, I
know that was him.”

“
Half the men around here
are wearing orange. It could be anybody.” Cora Mae brushed herself
off, slowly running her hands over the front of her blouse. BB
actually drooled.

“
Gotta go,” I said heading
for the ATV with Cora Mae in tow. I thought of something and turned
back. “Has the sheriff been through asking questions?”

“
You’re the
first.”

Figures. I’m always one step ahead of my
son. He must be too busy doggy sitting to do any real
investigating.

“
I don’t know what it is
about you, Cora Mae.” I said as we thundered down a wide trail used
by snowmobiles in the winter. “You always manage to pick out the
dumbest one in the pack, quite a feat considering the limited
choices back there.”

“
Nothing at all wrong with
dumb,” Cora Mae replied.

****

The other two bait piles were pretty much
like the first. The Smith brothers had strung smelt buckets at each
of them, so it wasn’t any trouble finding them. We followed our
noses. The piles were deserted for the moment, since all the boys
were together and busy stuffing their faces. There was no sign of
Little Donny.

Cora Mae held a white embroidered hanky over
her nose and mouth, and mumbled. “Big and wearing orange isn’t much
to go on.”

“
It was him,” I insisted.
“I have a feeling.”

We drove past the last of Walter’s piles and
came to a fork in the trail. Normally we’d have to make a decision
about which way was the correct one, but in our case, it was
handled for us. The ATV conked out right at the fork, and refused
to start up again.

I jumped off and checked the gas. Bone
dry.

“
You’d think,” I said to
Cora Mae, “Walter could have made sure we had enough
gas.”

Cora Mae didn’t speak, just looked up at the
treetops and frowned. I followed her gaze and saw rain clouds
forming above us in dark, angry swirls. The birds were flittering
past, heading for cover.

“
You didn’t happen to bring
an umbrella?” I said, perching my Blublocker sunglasses on the top
of my head.

Apparently Cora Mae was giving me the silent
treatment, like it was my fault we were out of gas and stranded in
a thunderstorm.

The sky opened up and pelted us with large,
wet drops.

“
Head for the trees,” I
called, and we scampered for the canopy. I tried holding my handbag
over my head for protection, but almost clonked myself silly from
the weight of the weapons landing on my head. Almost broke my
sunglasses, too.

Cora Mae had on those strapped sandals with
high heels she’s so fond of, so I reached the trees ahead of
her.

That’s why I was first to spot the body.

I crammed four white knuckles into my mouth
to stop the scream rising in my throat. My knees buckled beneath me
and I leaned heavily against a tree for support. I slid down the
tree and sat there with my legs straight out in front of me.

Life passed before my eyes just like they
say it does when you’re near the end. Only it wasn’t my life
snuffed out.

Was it Little Donny?

I thought of my favorite grandson visiting
every summer since he was a little tyke, wanting to know everything
there was to know about hunting and fishing. Always was the curious
one, wanting to go back to the beginning, to his roots. He wasn’t
one for that fancy Milwaukee city life Heather forced on him. I’d
been hoping that one day soon he’d move to Stonely and live close
by.

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye
and Cora Mae came into focus. She brushed past me and walked toward
the body, which was lying face down partially covered by a pile of
leaves.

Two long arrows jutted out of the dead man’s
back.

Cora Mae floated in slow motion, blocking my
view, then she was hauling on his jacket from the back and moving
around to his other side and pushing, struggling to turn him enough
so she could see his face. She pushed and shoved for a long time.
To give her credit, she could be tough as toenails when she had to
be.

The whole time, all I could do was watch in
helpless terror.

Eventually, I saw him flop back down, the
arrows solidly planted. Cora Mae stood up and said something to me,
but it sounded garbled, like listening to the radio between two
stations. My ears felt plugged up and I had to grip my lower lip
with my top teeth to stop the shaking.

I blinked fast several times and that seemed
to help. “What?” I squeaked.

“
It’s Billy Lundberg,” Cora
Mae called.

“
Billy Lundberg, the
drunk?”

“
How many Billy Lundbergs
you think live around here?” Cora Mae had her hands on her hips,
dark mascara streaks washing down her cheeks with the
rain.

My knees were still weak when I pushed off
from the tree and stumbled over to get a good look to make sure.
Looking down, I felt a little guilty over the relief I was
experiencing that Billy was dead, not Little Donny. And I was
feeling giddy over being the first investigator at a crime
scene.

Billy had been the town drunk since way
back. He lived alone after his wife got disgusted with his bad
habits, packed up the kids, and disappeared. Billy might have been
socially dysfunctional, but he was a regular churchgoer. A
Catholic, if I remembered right.

Billy had seen his last confessional.

“
He’s not stiff yet,” I
noted. “Must have happened this morning.”

His head was turned to the side. I tried to
close his eyes for him like I’d seen on television, but they
wouldn’t go.

“
The eyes are the first
things to stiffen up,” I explained to Cora Mae, wondering if I was
right.

We were standing side by side over Billy,
both shocked and thinking about what to do next. The rain wasn’t
letting up, but it didn’t matter anymore. The two of us looked like
we’d just climbed out of Lake Michigan after a nice swim with our
clothes on. Cora Mae’s top was plastered to her chest and her
jet-black hair was hanging around her face in little dripping
curls.

A steady mixture of blood and rain slithered
away from the body.

“
Give me a hand, I said,
wiping water from my face. “We better search him.”

“
Touching a dead body gives
me the willies.”

“
You just about bear-mauled
him a few minutes ago.” Cora Mae’s been around more dead bodies
than anyone I know. She buried three husbands and every one of them
she found dead by herself.

“
All right,” Cora Mae
agreed. “I’ll check his pants.”

Figures.

Billy wasn’t carrying much – a ring of keys,
a wallet with two dollars and a driver’s license, and a
pocketknife. A travel mug tipped on its side lay next to the body.
I didn’t have to sniff too close to the rim to know it had been
filled with straight whiskey.

“
Wonder what Billy was
doing way out here?” Cora Mae said.

“
Probably got too drunk to
find his way out. He’s done it before.” I studied the two arrows
jutting from his back and walked around to try to follow traces of
blood. “Looks like he crawled for a while.”

I watched the rain begin to wash away the
trail.

“
Let’s get out of here,”
Cora Mae said.

We started down the path leading out of the
woods. I guessed it was going to be quite a hike. But we hadn’t
gone twenty yards when I heard thrashing in among the trees, a few
loud shouts, and a bone-chilling howl.

Blaze and No-Neck Sheedlo came stumbling out
of the brush, pulled rapidly by frothing Fred. Fred was straining
against the lead in the direction of Billy Lundberg’s body, and the
two fat boys were struggling to slow the beast down.

Blaze was too winded to say a word, which is
just how I like him. He leaned over and gasped.

“
Any luck?” I asked.
“Finding anything unusual out in the woods, son? You ought to have
the case almost solved, what with that smart dog and
all.”

I waited patiently for Blaze to catch his
breath. Sheedlo wrapped the end of the leash around a small tree
and knotted it. Fred, temporarily forgetting his mission, got busy
peeing on each side of the tree. When he finished marking the tree,
he apparently remembered why he was out here in the first place and
started lunging against the leash.

“
Haven’t found Little Donny
yet, if that’s what you’re asking,” Blaze managed to wheeze. His
wet pants clung to his chunky legs, which were splattered with mud
clear up to his knees. “What in the world are you two doing out
here, Ma?”

“
Visiting.”

“
Fred picked up Little
Donny’s scent and we followed it for awhile,” Blaze said, raggedly,
pointing vaguely into the woods. “Then he lost it. We were just
about ready to quit and call it a day when Fred let loose, howling
and carrying on.”

Blaze sat down on a fallen tree, and I
noticed the rain had stopped. I could see the squall moving away as
quickly as it had appeared, leaving us soaked and chilled.

Blaze took off his sheriff’s hat and wiped
his face with his arm.

“
This is too much like work
for me,” he said. “Never been much of a runner.” Or a walker,
swimmer, or exerciser, I thought. Anything requiring calorie loss
scared Blaze.

I heard a rifle shot in the distance. Then
another.

Fred began making more racket than an
uninvited raccoon in a coop full of chickens.

“
We came from down the
road,” I said, studying the lunging dog. “No sign of Little Donny.
But that’s the least of your problems right now. I think you’ll
need that…” I pointed at the cell phone attached to Blaze’s belt. I
paused for effect. “You’re gonna want to call for help with poor
Billy Lundberg, who’s lying in the leaves back that
way.”

“
Dead drunk again, I
suppose,” Blaze said.

“
Something like that,” I
said.

chapter 5

Deputy Dickey arrived with his entourage,
wearing the same jacket he’d worn yesterday. His hair looked one
day greasier too. Dickey managed to drive down the trail followed
by a sheriff’s pickup truck. Volunteer deputies hung out of every
window and came swarming out of the truck bed when it stopped. A
dead man in the woods brings out the entire community.

Cora Mae and I gave statements while the
pickup truck tried to back down the trail to find the Detroit boys
for questioning. Later, BB and Marlin appeared, each driving an
ATV. They wandered over to watch.

Deputy Dickey strutted over to them. “This
is a containment field. Important evidence is being gathered.
You’ll have to move out.” He gestured to a volunteer, who stepped
closer to let the Smith boys know they meant business. The boys
went back to their ATVs and Cora Mae and I followed them.

“
Cops are all over our
camp,” Marlin said to Cora Mae, “like flies on duct tape. You
wouldn’t believe how many questions they asked us.”

Cora Mae put her hand on BB’s shoulder. “How
about a ride out of here, Big Boy?”

Cora Mae’s been watching too many old
movies, but BB appreciated it. He smiled wide.

“
Hop on.”

Cora Mae snuggled behind BB on his ATV and I
climbed up behind Marlin, clutching my weapon handbag tightly
between us. One false move from the Detroit boy and he’d be rolling
on the ground, zapped with my trusty stun gun. “We’re going home,”
I called to Blaze.

“
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?