Too Dead To Dance (17 page)

Marty stood up straighter,
took a deep breath and said, “Look, Jennifer, Edwin’s not here.
Can’t you just wait for a few days until I’m out of here before you
come back? I’ll be gone soon.”

“Marty, I don’t know what
you’re talking about. Why are you leaving?”

“Oh, crap. Come on in.”
Marty opened the door wider and turned. She walked down the hall to
the kitchen where I had spent so much time in the past four
years.

I peeked into the rooms as
we passed them. The dining room looked the same as always, but the
living room was different. It held the same furniture but it had
been rearranged. In fact, I had to admit, it looked better with the
sofa on the outside wall and the armchairs cozying up to the
fireplace. I had never been able to make that room look comfortable
and Marty accomplished it by just moving the furniture around. I
was impressed.

I sat down at my ‘50’s
style red and white kitchen table. Marty sniffled. “Edwin and I had
a terrible fight. He accused me of taking advantage of him. I only
put a few things on his charge card and if he didn’t want me to use
it, he shouldn’t have left it on the counter. Then he accused me of
sneaking around behind his back.”

“I’m sorry Marty. I don’t
want Edwin back. I’m here because my best friend is being accused
of killing your ex-husband. Is there anything you know that could
help us clear her?”

“Why should I care about
your friends? Wes was a bully. Maybe she did us all a favor. Where
the hell am I going to live? I gave up my apartment to move here.
Damn. I should’ve known better. Men are such
nincompoops.”

I did my best to keep a
straight face as I returned the conversation to the reason we had
come here. “What were you and Wes arguing about the night he was
killed? I heard you talked to him at Polka Fest.”

“So, it was you who told
Edwin that I didn’t come right home from Jazzercise. He’d just
gotten the Visa statement and it put him over the top. Now I have
to find a job and a place to live. Thanks a lot.”

“Was Wes involved in the
bank robbery where David Baumgartner was killed?” As long as she
hadn’t thrown us out, I figured I may as well ask.

She heaved a big sighed and
then her shoulders relaxed. “I don’t know. I always thought Wes had
been in on that bank robbery. He wouldn’t admit it and I sure
didn’t see any of the money. But he was acting real crazy. He’d
peek out the front window while standing behind the curtain. He’d
jump a foot if the phone rang and wouldn’t let me answer until he
checked the caller ID. He got locked up about two months later. I
thought that it was because of the stalking that made him so
crazy.”

I was about to ask another
question when she started talking again.

“When he was sent to St.
Cloud Penitentiary he told me to wait for him and all of our
problems would be over when he got out. He kept hinting that when
he was paroled we would’ve a great life together. That’s when I
started to connect him to the bank robbery. And that’s what I was
talking to him about Thursday night. If he had some money, I
deserved my share for putting up with him. But he was still mad
because I didn’t wait and divorced him while he was in prison. What
a jerk.”

I decided not to tell her
she had a habit of falling for jerks. Before I could think of
anything else to ask her, she stood up and told us goodbye. We
followed her to the door and before I could thank her, she shut the
door. At least she didn’t slam it.

“Wow,” said Megan. “That
was sure gutsy. Sweetie, I didn’t know you had it in you. Way to
go.”

I walked over to the
attached garage and peeked through the window. “What are you doing?
Let’s get out of here before she decides to call the
cops.”

“She’s not going to call
anyone. She drives a navy blue Blazer. She could be the one who ran
me off the road last night.”

We walked back to my Civic.
I leaned down to open the door and pain streaked up the back of my
neck. I hadn’t needed any painkiller since before Mass this
morning. I cried out and Megan grabbed my arm.

She helped me into the
passenger seat of my car.

Megan slid behind the wheel
and backed out of the driveway.“We’re going to the
hospital.”

“Don’t be silly, it’ll go
away. I just need some ibuprofen.”

“You need more than that.
For starters, you need an x-ray.”

Against my protests, Megan
drove to Hermann Hospital. While we waited on stiff green chairs,
Megan suggested that we make a list of suspicious
people.

“A suspect list? What a
great idea!” I fished around in my purse and came up with my new
little notebook.

Megan looked at the
notebook and I saw the sides of her mouth turn up. “Leave me
alone,” I said.

“A regular little Nancy
Drew, aren’t you?”

“Shut up.” At least she
referred to me as a young detective and not Jessica
Fletcher.

We started the list off
with the band members. “I don’t know if anyone besides Bobby had a
gripe with Wes, but they all knew him. And the Fest Meister said
that the band is up to something.”

“What does that mean?”
asked Megan.

“I don’t know but I plan to
find out. It was something between Ray and Clara and Vic. I think
Wes and Bobby were excluded.”

“Who else?” asked
Megan.

“I don’t know. The Fest
Meister said that Wes was a stinker and lots of people had it in
for him. I think we need to find out who some of those people
are.”

Of course, we happily added
Marty.

“Who else? We can’t add Al,
you were with him. How about Bobby? Maybe Bobby and Sally were
together but they both could’ve… What am I saying? Sally is too
sweet to hurt anyone.”

Megan took a deep breath
and said, “About Al…”

"Go in there and a nurse
will help you,” the receptionist said, interrupting our
conversation. In this small hospital, there were only three
examination areas. The curtains were open on two of them. My feet
dangled as I sat on the gurney assigned to me. My head pounded
while electric shocks shot up and down my neck. Soon Lisa Vetter
came in, closed the curtains around Megan and me and stuck a
thermometer in my ear.

“Are you the one who sent
the cops after my husband this morning?” she asked, clicking the
thermometer, and then reading the results a few seconds
later.

“I’m so sorry, Lisa. But I
had no choice. The police wanted to know what happened last night
and Randy was Bernie’s alibi.”

“No he wasn’t. The police
think Randy helped her kill that guy.”

“Did they say that?” I
asked.

“No, but I could tell
that’s what they were thinking. I don’t like Randy being involved
in something as nasty as murder.”

“I don’t like my friend,
Bernie, being a suspect either. I thought Randy would help the
police stop accusing her and look for the real killer.”

“Well, it didn’t work out
that way, did it? You can bet all the neighbors were checking out
the police car in the driveway. Is this what he gets for being nice
to a nun? I guess no good deed goes unpunished.”

Megan looked up from the
magazine she was paging through. “How can they think Randy is
involved? He was with you when it happened. He fixed her car on
Friday morning, didn’t he?”

“No. He went over on
Thursday night and aired-up the two flat tires, then called Bernie.
She asked him to pick her up and bring her over to the Fest
Grounds. She didn’t want to leave her car there all
night.”

“Okay,” I said. “So, Randy
followed her home and can vouch for her whereabouts,
right?”

“Wrong.” Lisa sighed then
shook her head. “Randy wanted to follow her home. But she said that
she needed to check out something and that Randy should go ahead
and go home. He offered to go with her but she refused. She said it
was something she had to take care of herself.”

“What time was this, do you
know?” I asked.

“I don’t know. No, wait.
Jim said that when he pulled out to leave he got caught up in the
traffic from people leaving the parking lot. So, it must have been
right after the closing ceremony at the big tent. That’s when most
people leave, isn’t it?”

“Why on earth would Bernie
be going to the Fest Grounds when everyone else was leaving?” I
asked.

No one answered.

I apologized again and Lisa
said it was okay but I could tell she was still in a snit with me
for getting her husband involved.

17

Almost two hours later, we
walked out of the hospital. Megan drove because I couldn’t move my
neck without twisting my whole torso. The foam neck brace helped
the pain and Lisa promised the medications the doctor had
prescribed would do the trick. In my hand, I held a prescription
for thirty tablets of Tylenol 3 with codeine. We stopped to get the
prescription filled at Richter’s Drug Store.

While waiting for the
pharmacist to fill my prescription, we sat down on the cold plastic
chairs. Megan started digging in her enormous black purse, even
bigger than mine. She leered wickedly at me and pulled out a
sweating bottle of blue wine cooler.

“Where did you get that?
Put it away before we get in trouble.”

She cracked the twist cap
and took a long swig then handed the bottle to me. “I swiped it
from Edwin’s fridge. He’ll never miss it. I was going to drink it
at the ER but I thought someone might try to detox me or send me to
A.A. Go ahead, take a swig.”

“We can’t drink here,” I
protested.

“Why not? I don’t see a
sign with a martini glass and a red line through it.”

“We could get arrested,
Megan. Put it away.”

“Oh, bull. There’s no law
against drinking at the drug store.”

Laughing, I took a swig. It
felt so naughty, but fun. No wonder I loved Meg so much. She always
got me to do inane things I would never have thought of
myself.

Medications in hand, minus
the two pills I had swilled down with the last of the wine cooler,
we pulled out of the parking lot towards the Fest Grounds. We
didn’t get far. Three sawhorses blocked the road and we could hear
the sirens in the distance announcing the beginning of the
parade.

When we realized this side
of town would be at a standstill until after the parade, Megan
turned the car around and pulled back into the parking space we had
just vacated.

Leaving the car parked at
Richter’s Drug Store, we pulled a couple folding canvas chairs out
of the trunk, a staple in most cars in Minnesota in the summer. We
walked around the corner and found two young men to help us put up
our chairs before they sat back down on the curb.

We settled in right before
we had to stand for the color guard and the beginning of the
parade. After they went past, I gratefully sat down feeling
light-headed and woozy from the pills and the wine.

Like most small town
parades, it started with all the fire trucks in the area driving
along with sirens blaring, which made my head hurt all over again.
Next came several convertibles carrying the elite of Hermann—the
mayor, and other city dignitaries.

I waved at them and called
out the names written on signs pasted to the side of the cars.
Megan tried to shush me, saying “You probably shouldn’t have mixed
the meds with wine cooler. It’s making you goofy.”

“Like it was my idea. Leave
me alone, I’m just having fun. You sound like Edwin.”

Megan laughed and shook her
head. “You go, girl. Have fun.”

Several businesses followed
in their vehicles, including the Metzger’s Meat Market red panel
truck with a fat little butcher holding a string of sausages
painted on the side. “There’s your sweetie, Al,” I told Megan and
everyone else within earshot. “Did you know he almost ran me down
at the Fest Grounds Friday morning?”

Megan was trying to shut me
up, or at least quiet me down when I was smacked in the side of the
head with a Dum-Dum Sucker. “Ouch!” I hollered, picking up the
lollipop. “Grape! My favorite.” I ripped the wrapper off and stuck
it in my mouth.

Most of the entries in the
parade, including Frank and Al Metzger, had several kids walking
along side of their vehicle or float, throwing candy to the delight
of the plastic bag bearing children who ran to grab their share. Al
Metzger, looking as cute as he did last night when he was flirting
with me, waved and called out to people by name,
laughing.

Megan and I looked at each
other and shrugged our shoulders. I still didn’t approve of her
cheating on Don but she was my friend, no matter what. Al’s
brother, Frank sat shotgun waving at the folks on the other side of
the street. Behind him was Ben’s Furniture Barn delivery truck,
followed by Pizza Palace’s drivers in cars with the lighted
triangular logo stuck to the top.

The Hermann Carnegie
Library’s Book Cart Precision Drill Team has always been my
favorite entry in all our town parades. I clapped my hands as I
watched them march down the street toward us. The book carts were
decorated with swaying silver tinsel and signs announcing the
library’s web site—www.hermannlib.org.