Murder Grins and Bears It (9 page)

“
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.

I was treated less than subhuman, and if I
ever run into that woman in a dark alley, watch out.

“
You can’t just have a
license,” she snorted with disdain. “You need a vision test, a
written test, and then you get your temporary license. If you pass.
After that, you take a road test.”

“
I’m ready for the first
step,” I said. “Kitty, stay close by, I might need
help.”

“
If you cheat, you have to
wait six months before you can try again,” said Miss Foul
Personality.

Kitty moved off into the waiting area.

I passed the vision test with flying shapes
and colors. The written test was the problem.

After looking over the questions I asked the
woman “How am I supposed to know all this stuff?”

“
Didn’t you read the
booklet?”

“
The booklet? Oh, never
mind. I back-seat drove for Barney for forty-some years, I can pass
this test.” I filled it out and handed it in as if I was still in
grade school.

“
You failed the test,” she
said, throwing a booklet in my general direction.

“
When we were back in the
truck, Cora Mae hooted, “I can’t believe you failed the test for
your temps. That’s the easiest part.” Hee, hee, haw,
haw.

“
It was the signs,” I said,
putting on my directional to turn toward Stonely. “Those shapes are
very confusing. I don’t know how Lead-Foot Kitty managed to
pass.”

“
I’m a good driver,” Kitty
said. “I can teach you because when you finally manage to get your
temps, you can’t drive alone.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
You have to have someone
with a permanent license in the car with you.”

The rules the government manages to come up
with! “I wouldn’t have to do this in the first place if Blaze would
pay attention to his job and leave me alone. His priorities are
mixed up.”

I dropped my partners at their homes and
pulled into my driveway.

Detective No-Neck Sheedlo was still planted
in a car on the side of the house, but I didn’t see the savage
tracking dog.

Star had offered to entertain Heather, Big
Donny, and Grandma Johnson at her house for the afternoon, so I had
my place to myself for a few hours.

I pulled out a police catalog I’d snitched
from Blaze’s house last time I visited. Using my credit card, I
called in an order and requested overnight delivery.

“
A detective badge,” I said
into the phone, noticing they weren’t cheap. “And a voice-activated
micro-recorder.”

For the first time in days I took a nap on
the couch. When I woke up, I rubbed my neck and realized I was
still sitting up. That’s one thing I seem to be doing more and
more. Sleeping upright is becoming easier.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the
woods looking for Little Donny, walking down deer trails leading
away from Carl’s bait pile, stopping once in a while and calling
out his name. I followed trail after trail, calling and calling
until my voice became hoarse and my legs grew heavy and weak.

Little Donny had been missing since Monday.
Lost without food or water or shelter for three days. How long
could he last? Was he still alive?

****

“
How can you sit here
stuffing your face with scrambled eggs when Little Donny might be…”
I hesitated and glanced at Heather and Big Donny, who were staring
back at me with wide, terrified eyes. “Hungry too,” I
added.

“
Now, Ma,” Blaze answered.
“We’re doing everything we can to find him. Didn’t you see the
planes going over? We’re searching on the ground and from the sky.
What else can we do?”

“
I suppose you’re using
that useless excuse for a tracking dog?”

“
Deputy Snell is retiring
him. After he confused you twice with Little Donny, he decided to
put him out to pasture.”

“
Where’s he going?” I
wanted to know.

Blaze shrugged.

I felt bad. Fred had been fired for
incompetence, and a certain portion of it was my fault. He’d done
the right thing chasing me around, but no one else knew it, and I
wasn’t about to inform them.

Grandma Johnson shuffled out of her room,
her black hair net pulled down over her brow and her new teeth
clacking. She proceeded to make a fresh pot of coffee, forgetting
to add the ground coffee beans to the filter. But we’ve all done
that.

Heather slumped on the couch with large dark
circles under her eyes, adding a damp crumpled tissue to the pile
scattered on the end table.

“
Little Donny didn’t do
it,” she said, a chant we’d heard several times in the last few
minutes.

“
Of course not,” I said.
Again.

“
Deputy Snell wants all the
family members to go down and get fingerprinted,” Blaze said.
“Unless your prints are already on file. I think it’s a good
idea.”

“
I’m a stockbroker,” Big
Donny puffed. “Mine are already on file.”

“
Heather, you and Ma have
to go down.”

“
Why would Deputy Dickey
think we have to do that?” I demanded.

“
Seems there were
unidentifiable prints in Little Donny’s car. He just wants to clear
up a few details, and if he has your prints, it’ll help. And he
doesn’t like to be called Deputy Dickey. We’ve been over that
before. His name is Deputy Snell.”

I thought about my prints all over Little
Donny’s car, which wasn’t a big deal, but this was clearly an
infringement of my privacy. I thought about superglue. If I dried
it on my fingers, would it alter my prints?

I decided I wouldn’t cooperate. Let Deputy
Dickey arrest me.

“
Why don’t you bring me
that dog,” I said to Blaze. “I’ve been thinking about getting one
for awhile. He’d do fine.”

The entire family stared at me, including
Grandma Johnson, who almost dropped her uppers into the coffee
pot.

****

“
There isn’t room for him
in the truck,” Cora Mae complained when she saw Fred sitting next
to me. He had already slobbered up the passenger side window and
was working on the front window. Long, wet, sliding nose and tongue
drool oozed and began drying in streaks. I’d have to start carrying
paper towels in the truck.

His tail pounded against the seat as he
checked out Cora Mae, nudging her with his nose. She shrunk away,
intimidated by his black bulk and red devil eyes. After spending a
few hours with him she would figure out, just as I had, that he’s a
harmless baby underneath his fierce exterior.

“
He looks like a killer.
Vicious, mean, and look at those teeth.”

“
He and I didn’t have a
very good start,” I said. “But, in this case, first appearances
don’t count. He isn’t working right now, so he’s a lamb. Once he’s
on the job, he takes it very seriously.”

“
What’s this?” Cora Mae
held up a canning jar filled with water.

“
That’s Fred’s travel
mug.”

“
How’s Kitty going to fit?”
she said, scrunching up against the door.

“
She’s not coming along
today,” I said, dodging Fred’s tail. Kitty barely fit in the truck
with just Cora Mae and me. With Fred, no way. “But she gave me
directions.”

We rattled down a gravel road with craters
the size of basketballs scattered across it. I weaved through,
trying to miss the holes.

Ernie Pelto was out back of his house in an
open field, watching the sky. As Cora Mae and I walked out to join
him, I could hear Fred crying. It been a struggle just to get out
of the truck without him, and now he was making such a racket he
could be heard in the next town.

“
I was expecting you,”
Ernie said. “Kitty called.”

He wore a thick glove on his right hand.
“Stand back,” he warned us.

A large hawk flew toward us and landed
gracefully on his raised arm. He smiled and rubbed the bird’s
back.

We followed Ernie and the bird to the house,
where the hawk hopped to a perch. Ernie, a big, round Finn with an
easy grin, removed the glove.

I held out the feather I had found on the
dead warden’s shoe, my one and only clue.

Ernie studied it. “A brancher,” he said.
“Probably a red-tailed hawk. It hasn’t molted into its adult
plumage yet.”

“
A brancher?” I asked,
aware that I was revealing my lack of worldly experience to my
business partner, Cora Mae.

“
A brancher is a young
hawk,” Ernie explained. “We like to get them young and raise them
ourselves. This is a young one.”

“
Where would the warden
have picked up this feather?” I wanted to know. “It was on the
bottom of his shoe, in the creases.”

“
Wasn’t likely he ran
across it in the woods, although it’s possible. Walking through a
field maybe, since he was a warden and they go all over.” Ernie
looked doubtful.

“
But…?” I
prompted.