Murder Grins and Bears It (8 page)

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
is 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.”