Murder Grins and Bears It (12 page)

The feather decorated the center of the
table.

“
We sure don’t have much,”
Kitty said, eyeing it.

“
If we could trace
Hendricks’ steps in the last few days of his life, we’d be way
ahead of where we are now.” I reached for another doughnut. To heck
with limits. “But DNR agents run all over the place. He could have
been anywhere.” I picked up the bird feather. “This feather is my
only lead.”

“
And he doesn’t have any
family around here at all?” Cora Mae held a minuscule doughnut
crumb between two manicured fingernails and touched it to her
tongue. Not an ounce of fat on that woman, but what she goes
through to stay that way isn’t worth it, in my book.

“
A brother in Florida and
an ex-wife,” I said. “But they divorced twelve years
ago.”

“
Ex-wives can hold a grudge
a long time,” Cora Mae observed.

“
This ex lives out west and
her whereabouts have been confirmed by Blaze’s storm troopers.” I
licked sugar from my fingers and watched Kitty polish off her sixth
doughnut. “We have to have a lucky break soon.”

“
Speaking of lucky,” Cora
Mae said, fluffing her hair. “Kitty and I are double-dating
tonight.”

I sucked sugar down the wrong pipe and
started coughing. Even though Kitty claims she’s a big, as in HUGE,
hit with the men, this was my first evidence of it. I wondered if
she would comb out her pin curls for it.

“
And we’d like you to go
too.”

I had tears in my eyes from coughing on
doughnut crumbs, or so I pretended. I shook my head violently. It
wasn’t even two years since Barney died, way too soon for dating,
and if I did decide to date again, it wouldn’t be a triple
date.

“
The Detroit boys,” Kitty
explained. “Cora Mae’s going out with BB, and I’m going out with
Marlin. That leaves Remy without a date. How about it?”

“
I’m working tonight at my
new census job,” I explained, with a hint of false disappointment
in my voice, grasping frantically for a valid excuse. “Any other
time and I’d really like to go along. You two have fun.”

“
I didn’t know you took a
night job,” Cora Mae whined.

“
It’s some days and some
nights, depending on what area I’m covering.”

“
You can set your own
hours,” Cora Mae insisted. “You don’t have to work
tonight.”

“
I want to make a good
impression.”

“
We’ll miss you,” Kitty
said, picking up another doughnut.

This new job was already coming in handy for
dodging unpleasant social situations.

****

My job was to visit every household in the
town of Stonely as well as the outlying areas, and gather
information for the government. I know in the past I’ve said some
pretty harsh things about our government and I’m not taking any of
my words back. Now, instead of giving them all my money, they’ll be
paying some of it back to me.

Our government is run by a bunch of crooks
and there’s no getting around it. But the job has some interesting
aspects that will enhance my private investigator business. For
example, I go out whenever I want to - days, nights or weekends -
and I interview household members. Besides the information the
government requires on its standard form, I can ask away on any
subject I want.

I have my own census worker badge, and I
think it will get me in the door better than my new detective badge
once I start testing it out.

At the first door I said, “You didn’t send
in your census form.” I’d barely completed my sentence before the
door slammed shut right in my face. I made a mark on my form the
way the trainer taught me.

The second door I knocked on was opened by a
large gorilla-like guy wearing a muscle shirt. He let me explain
who I was. Then without a word, he started to open the door wider,
and I thought I was being welcomed in. Instead, a Doberman the size
of Detroit passed through the widening opening and made straight
for me. The dog ran me off, snarling and barking at my heels.

I put another mark on my form with a huge
exclamation point and decided to discuss dogs with my trainer,
since she hadn’t mentioned one word about them as potential
problems. I wasn’t trying this one again without Fred as
backup.

Jackie Hoholik lived in the next house on my
list. She’d been raised by old man Gus, a Finn from the old school.
He even had a Finnish accent even though he’d been born and raised
in the United States. He must have picked it up from his parents,
who immigrated to America in the early 1900s and settled in
Calumet.

Jackie was the oldest of Gus’s six girls and
he brought her up as though she was a boy. Stocky built with short
dark hair, she could shoot an acorn off a stump from across a
field. She wins every shooting contest in Tamarack County and keeps
the men hopping, trying to outdo her.

She hunts every animal in every season and
always bags her limit. And I hear she can drink everyone at Herb’s
Bar under the table.

“
Hey, Gert,” she said,
studying my census badge and opening the door wide. “Come on
in.”

“
I’m working today,
Jackie,” I said just to warn her. “This is a business
call.”

“
I can see
that.”

“
You didn’t send in your
census form, so I have to ask you a few questions.” I braced for
her reaction. If it was anything like the last two, she was about
to heave me over her head and throw me out on my
backside.

Jackie smiled. “Want a cup of coffee?”

I smiled back with relief. “Sure.”

We ran through my questions quickly – how
many people live in the house, what are their ages, blah blah blah.
Since I knew she lived alone, it was an easy interview.

“
Sorry about your
grandson,” she said, refreshing my coffee cup. “Have you found him
yet?”

“
No. He didn’t do it, you
know.”

“
I’ve known your family my
whole life. You’re all honest and hard-working. I never knew a
Johnson to even steal an apple from a tree. I know he didn’t do
anything wrong.”

“
I need to find out where
that warden was the day before he died. All I have is this.” I
pulled the feather out of my purse. “Ernie Pelto, the falconer,
says it’s a feather from a young red-tail.”

I explained where I found the feather and
what Ernie told me about where bird feathers stick to shoes. “He
says it’s unusual for a feather to stick unless you’re walking in a
whole pile of them, and he says maybe it came from a falconer’s
place.”

She opened her eyes wide and stared at the
feather. “I have something to show you,” she said.

****

“
Put this on.” Jackie
handed me a helmet.

We were standing out on her cement driveway
next to a motorcycle. She slid onto the bike and revved it up. “Hop
on.”

“
It’s getting dark,” I
said, brightly. “Let’s do this tomorrow.” I’d never been on a
motorcycle in my life and I wasn’t excited about starting
now.

“
I think you want to see
what I have to show you. It’s out by my bear blind. You’ll be glad
you didn’t put it off once you see what I want to show you. Climb
on.”

I lifted a leg and swung it over the back of
the bike like I was heaving myself into a saddle. The helmet felt
heavy on my head and I worried about tipping over if I leaned too
far out.

Jackie turned on the bike’s headlights, and
we blew smoke down the dirt road with the G-forces tapping at the
helmet and my arms locked around Jackie in a death grip.

“
Lean into the turn,”
Jackie yelled over her shoulder.

She swerved suddenly and we began to bounce
down a trail, leaving the road far behind us. After a while, I
began to relax and re-evaluate my opinion about bikes. Instead of
parking and walking in to her bear blind like everyone else had to
do, we zipped along the tiny path and arrived in microseconds.

I lifted a leg over the back, stood, and
pulled off the helmet. Jackie was already substituting hers for a
headlamp, like miners used to wear. She flipped on its light,
illuminating the surrounding woods. Darkness crept at us from the
sides and behind.

“
I found it over here,” she
said, leading the way.

We passed her bait pile and walked down a
deer trail. She stopped and pointed her headlamp into the brush.
Stepping closer I noticed we were at the edge of an open field.
Something dark and shadowy loomed ahead.

“
What is it?” I asked as we
neared.

I was looking at a net attached to poles and
shaped into a dome. It must have been five feet in diameter. Mice
were running around in the netted bottom, scampering over each
other, their eyes glowing red in the artificial light.

“
It’s a raptor trap,”
Jackie said. “We’re looking at it from the back. Here’s how it
works - a hawk or falcon flying over the field sees the mice and
dives in, triggering those little nooses on the bottom. See them
there? The bird’s feet get tangled in the nooses and it can’t
escape.”

“
Is this legal?”

“
As long as you have a
license and approval by the DNR, you can trap birds. There’s a
limit on it, though. Maybe one or two each season and a certain
kind.”

“
Quite a coincidence,” I
muttered.

“
Since you’re looking for
falconers, maybe this is your guy. I found another one on the other
side of the field yesterday.”

chapter 9

The next morning dawned sunny and crisp,
with a fine layer of frosty dew covering the grass. The guinea hens
cackled around the yard, throwing a collective temper tantrum when
I let Fred out. They boxed him in, complaining loudly and pecking
at his toes, until he bolted from the circle and howled for help at
the door. For a big, scary dog, he sure is a sissy.

Blaze pulled in at nine o’clock with my
alarm hens announcing his arrival. He walked in a circle around my
new truck, shaking his head and swiping his feet at the hens.

“
You need to get rid of
those dirty birds,” he said when he came in and plopped himself at
the table.

“
Leave my birds alone.” I
poured him a cup of coffee.

Blaze hadn’t slept well. His eyes were red
and puffy and his face was the color of plaster paste. “This
doesn’t seem real important in the light of all our other
problems,” he said. “But I have to remind you not to drive that
truck. No driver’s license yet, I checked, and you can’t just stick
Pa’s old truck plates on another truck. You have to fill out
paperwork to transfer them and submit it at the motor vehicle
department.”

“
I know all that. But I
have a hard time dealing with the employees down there. I did make
an appointment for my test, though,” I lied.

“
Well, if you need to go
anyplace between then and now, I’ll take you or Kitty can
drive.”

If only he knew I was putting my life in
Kitty’s plump and racy hands every time I scooted into the
passenger seat next to her. I never saw anyone stand a vehicle on
end taking a corner like Kitty can.

“
Warden in Marquette said
an ATV was missing.” I refilled my coffee cup.

“
What were you doing in
Marquette?”

“
He’s my grandson,” I said
quietly.

Blaze considered that. “The ATV turned
up.”

“
Where? When?” I perked
up.

“
About a half mile from
Walter Laakso’s place the same day you found Billy. By the
road.”

“
Prints?”

Blaze shook his head. “None.”

I frowned in thought. “That still doesn’t
explain how Hendricks got to Little Donny’s bait pile. Walter’s
place is too far away. Hendricks wouldn’t have park the ATV by the
side of the road and walk to the pile.”

Blaze pushed back in his chair, drained his
coffee, and rose.

“
Well, I better get back to
it,” he said, putting on his sheriff’s hat and walking
out.

“
Is that killer dog loose?”
Grandma Johnson called from the other end of the hall.

“
Yup,” I called
back.

****

“
They were in the woods
together,” I said to Cora Mae as I dodged potholes, heading for
Jackie Hoholik’s house. I’d left Fred home to keep Grandma busy.
“The dead warden and the killer were traveling through the woods
together.”

“
How do you know that?”
Cora Mae had on one of her man-killer outfits. She hadn’t abandoned
the black motif but today she added a tight pink sweater with
little black bows all over it. Not exactly surveillance gear, but
just try to tell Cora Mae anything.

“
They were on the ATV
together. It’s the only thing that makes sense. And it looks like
Walter might be involved because Blaze found the ATV right down the
road from his house.”

“
Was it one of Walter’s?”
Cora Mae had the truck’s visor down and was reapplying her lipstick
in the tiny mirror, holding her arm steady and watching for
potholes out of one eye.

“
No. It belonged to the
DNR.”

“
Maybe,” Cora Mae said,
“the killer parked a truck near Walter’s, unloaded the ATV, and
they both took off on it. Then the killer murdered Warden
Hendricks, returned to his truck, and escaped.”

See. Cora Mae is as sharp as a new
knife.