Murder Grins and Bears It (16 page)

Cora Mae leaned on the bar with one elbow
and one Wonderbra’d boob spilled over her arm. Every man along the
bar leaned forward, too. “We didn’t get far. It’s a long way from
Carl’s bait pile to Walter’s house. Kitty got tired.”

“
Me!” Kitty exclaimed. “I
thought you were the one complaining all along the
trail.”

“
I was up for
it.”

“
You were not.”

By this brief glimpse into my partners’
afternoon hours, I was able to deduce that nothing at all had been
accomplished.

“
Tell us your theory,”
Kitty said, sipping her beer and coming up with a foam mustache.
“What do you think happened?”

“
I’m convinced that someone
is stealing or raising birds and selling them, and Warden Hendricks
must have found out.”

“
Do you think a local is in
on it?” Kitty asked.

“
What about Rolly?” Cora
Mae suggested.

“
Rolly Akkala couldn’t
handle a cooked goose,” I said, remembering his fight with the
Cooper’s hawk. “Walter Laakso is a possibility. His place is next
to the spot where the ATV was discovered, but I didn’t see any
signs of trapped birds when we were there the other
day.”

“
Marlin, Remy, and BB are
from Detroit,” Kitty said. “You know how it is in that city. They
might be up to more than hunting bears.”

“
We’ll keep an eye on
them,” Cora Mae said, sweeping her head around the room looking for
fresh meat.

The door opened, the noise in the room
stopped abruptly, and the customers at the bar eyed Onni Maki
coming in. Then everything started up again.

Onni Maki was shriveled up like a dried-out
puffball mushroom and considered himself the most eligible bachelor
in Stonely. There aren’t a lot of available men living in the north
woods, but I’d rather kiss a porcupine than consider letting that
old coot get near me.

“
Hi, Ladies,” he said, with
his typical leer, dripping gold chains and cheap
cologne.

“
Not now, Onni,” I said.
“Ed, I’m buying Onni a beer. Set it down over there.” I pointed to
the far end of the bar.

Helmi Salo called out to him and he
redirected, slinking away.

“
That white van was coming
down M35 from the north,” I said.

“
Marquette?” Kitty
said.

I nodded. “Or just this side of Marquette.
Maple County.”

“
What’s next?” Cora Mae
said, leaning in. “Do we have a plan?”

“
We’re going to spread
out,” I replied, lowering my voice. “Start up conversations and see
if anyone in here knows anything about suspicious moving vans or
illegal birds.”

The three of us spent the next two hours
interrogating everyone in the bar. Aside from a few pointers on the
best bear bait and several bear facts that I didn’t need to know,
nothing much came of it.

“
I’m tellin’ ya they can
swim right across Lake Superior,” someone said. “Or Lake Michigan
for that matter.”

“
Naw, no way. How many
beers you had?” someone else said.

“
How much you want to bet?
I’m tellin’ ya the Coast Guard picked up a black bear eight miles
out and he was swimmin’ the other way.”

“
Naw, no way.”

Multitasker that I am, I had my clipboard
and a list of names, and I knocked off three more census stops
right there at the bar while keeping my ears open for worthwhile
news.

Cora Mae came up empty-handed and Kitty
locked in a date for next Saturday night.

****

Johnson family dinners are like shootouts at
the OK Corral. Grandma Johnson pumps her semi-automatic venom
through her new snapping teeth, Blaze tries to hog-tie me to the
kitchen sink since he’s in competition with me and seems to be
losing, and Heather and my baby, Star, run blockade.

But first we eat.

Heather had put out quite a spread, whipping
up a meal from my family recipe box – creamed rutabaga, mashed
potatoes with creamed corn scooped on the top, and pan-fried
chicken.

I should include the creamed rutabaga in my
future cookbook. I thought it tasted better when someone else made
it.

“
Where’s Mary?” Star asked
Blaze. “I haven’t seen her for a few days.”

“
She’s still feeling
poorly.”

I was sure she was making up excuses in case
Grandma Johnson decided to cook another one of her roasted
chickens.

Blaze looked a bit haggard from putting in
so many hours.

After the meal, I cut everyone a thick
square of apple crisp, made with juicy apples right from my own
tree. Blaze poured heavy cream over his and pushed his expanding
belly back from the table to make more room.

Star, wearing a cute pink fuzzy sweater,
started what I call the family hum, and we all joined in.
“Hummmmmm…” we all intoned.

Grandma Johnson, as usual, ruined the mood
and I wondered for the umpteenth time how she managed to move into
my house right under my nose without more of a fight from me.

Blaze keeps talking about selling her house,
but that’s where I draw the line. If she isn’t going into a nursing
home, she’s going back to her own house someday. I’m viewing this
as a temporary situation.

“
Why don’t you ever make my
Spam casserole?” Grandma Johnson said, winding up to fire a few
rounds now that dessert was on the table.

“
I’ll make it tomorrow,”
Heather said quickly, when she saw me open my mouth to reply. “Or
that meat loaf you make that won the prize at the fair.”

“
That’s good, too,” Grandma
admitted, and I could have jumped up and kissed Heather for
redirecting Grandma.

I’d rather eat her raw chicken than the Spam
casserole any day.

“
Someone thinks they
spotted Little Donny in Newberry,” Blaze announced. “Deputy Snell
and Deputy Sheedlo are checking it out.”

Heather clapped her hands together and I saw
a hint of the first smile since she arrived in Stonely. “That’s
wonderful news.”

“
Probably running away on
foot,” Grandma Johnson clacked. “To get as far away as he can. That
rascal never should have shot the sheriff.”

“
That was a warden,
Grandma,” Star said. “And he didn’t shoot him.”

“
Gertie
put him up to it,” she insisted. “Or
that
woman
.

“
Cora Mae has nothing to do
with this,” I said. “Blaze, why would he be in Newberry? That’s a
lot of miles east of here. Nothing’s up there.”

Blaze shrugged. “We have to follow every
lead.”

“
Who’s your
source?”

“
Don’t know. Someone called
the sighting in and hung up.”

“
I wish you’d take care of
it yourself instead of sending Dickey.”

It would be great to get rid of Blaze for a
while. If Little Donny was in Newberry, which I doubted,
cat-hair-crusted Dickey and his no-neck cohort could trip right
over him and never know it was him. Especially since they retired
the only one in the trio with any brains.

“
I asked you to quit
calling him Dickey, Ma. That’s disrespectful.”

“
You better stay in town
and watch this place,” Grandma advised him. “The British will be
here any day and we’ll need all the reinforcement we can get. I’ll
cover the front of the house and you take the back. Anyone know
where my weapon is?”

Too bad Mary wasn’t here to witness more of
Grandma’s slippage, since she’s Grandma’s most ardent defender.

Just for the record, I taped the
conversation with my new micro-recorder.

****

Kitty blew through Stonely’s one and only
four-way stop sign like she was Otis’ train with a broken brake
system.

“
You’re supposed to obey
those signs even after dark,” I said, pretty sure of my facts. I’d
been studying the driver’s-testing booklet. I didn’t remember any
mention of the proper procedure after dark, but common sense would
tell you that the same rules applied as during the day.

Unless, of course, nobody was around to see
it. Which in this case, there definitely was.

“
You almost sideswiped Onni
Maki,” I said, a little louder, noting the surprised look on his
wrinkled face when we careened past him with only an inch or two to
spare.

Kitty had that crazed look she always gets
when she’s behind the wheel, and I thought, briefly, of belting up.
Ordinarily Yoopers don’t wear seat belts because most of us aren’t
in any hurry and we’re driving nice and slow. Besides, seat belts
make us feel confined. But Kitty had me reconsidering.

I glanced back to see how Fred was handling
this from the Lincoln’s back seat. He had his head turned, and
while I watched, he opened his mouth wide and yawned, slow and
relaxed. That dog is made of reinforced iron.

“
You think they’ll be on
the road this late?” Kitty said. “I don’t see any vestigial
evidence that the truck is still around.”

I sighed. It was my turn and I didn’t feel
like playing anymore. “Time out,” I said, making a football ‘T’
sign with my hands. “You win this round.” I didn’t have any idea
what vestigial meant, but in a few days I’d come back stronger than
ever.

Kitty nodded an acknowledgment but didn’t
rub her win in my face. “How far north should we drive?”

“
I don’t know,” I said.
“The moving van I saw by the restaurant could have come from any
place to the north. We’ll need a little dumb luck to find
it.”

“
We’re seen it several
times in the last few days, so I think our odds are pretty
good.”

I glanced at the speedometer. It said
eighty-five, but we were on a straightaway so I kept calm and
devised a plan to save all of our lives.

A private detective lives by her wits.

“
I have a better idea,” I
said, slyly. “Why don’t we turn down a side road and wait there.
Then we’ll catch them coming or going.”

“
Brilliant,” Kitty said,
slamming on the brakes until the car was practically doing a
handstand. I reached out for the dashboard with locked elbows and
could hear Fred scrambling for solid footing.

Kitty whipped the car to the right and did a
U-turn on two wheels, with gravel flying everywhere. She stopped on
the edge of a narrow side road where we had a good view of Highway
M35.

I hunted around on the floor to find my
weapons purse and its scattered contents. It took all my willpower
not to zap Kitty with the stun gun, which had rolled under the seat
during her stunt driving.

Two hours later we were still sitting tight.
Kitty had fallen asleep, her head against the headrest, her mouth
wide open, and the oddest collection of snorts and gulps emanating
from her cavernous mouth. I didn’t mind because the noise kept me
alert. Fred dozed in the back, occasionally rising to peer out into
the blackest night I’d ever seen. Not a single star beamed down on
us, and the moon didn’t offer even a slice of light.

I wish I’d remembered to bring snacks along.
Usually on a surveillance run we have an entire picnic basket –
fried chicken and all the trimmings. Tonight’s run was impromptu
and therefore without all the fringe benefits associated with a
planned event.

I gave Kitty a little nudge and her eyes
flew open.

“
Let’s call it a night,” I
said once her face lost that cloudy, confused
expression.

Kitty reached forward to start the car just
as a white moving van shot by, heading north toward Marquette and
Maple County. She jerked her head in my direction.

“
I saw it,” I screeched,
excited to have a plan that was finally panning out. Most of our
stakeouts are exercises in futility, but this one was going to pay
off.

We ripped out onto the two-lane M35 and
turned toward the taillights fading in the distance. I didn’t have
to suggest to my partner that we were in need of speed. Kitty
accelerated and the G-forces snapped my head against the
headrest.

About a half mile down the road we caught
up. Kitty pulled out into the other lane and came alongside the
van. The driver did a double take and I slammed my new sheriff’s
badge against the window and motioned him over.

He held up one particularly offensive finger
and continued driving.

Kitty laid on the horn.

The driver reached onto the dashboard and
flipped open a cell phone.

“
He’s calling for
reinforcements,” I shouted. “We need to stop him right now before
his backup shows up.”

An oncoming car forced Kitty to take evasive
action. She let up on the gas, pulled in behind the van until the
approaching car passed, then roared alongside again.

This time she gave his front bumper a little
tap with her own rusted-out front bumper. That’s the beauty of
driving a junker. You can let your creativity flow without
expensive consequences.

After the second love tap, the driver slowed
the van and pulled over. Kitty’s Lincoln hugged his bumper all the
way.

“
Are you nuts, lady,” he
shouted, jumping out of the van and wrenching my door
open.

Fred growled menacingly, showing a
collection of large sharp fangs. While the driver was wondering
what to do about the devil dog in the back seat, I took the
opportunity to hit him in the chest with my super-charged stun gun.
He went down hard and fast, like a boulder flung from Lake
Superior’s high shoreline. Once down in the dirt, he started
twitching.