Murder Grins and Bears It (19 page)

“
In the meantime, watch
where you walk,” Walter said. “It’s dangerous if you don’t know
what you’re doing.”

Studying his expressionless face, I couldn’t
decide whether or not I’d just been threatened.

I beat it out of there before the Detroit
boys vacated the premises. No way was I going to get trapped alone
with Walter.

****

I drove home, mulling over the new
developments.

An experienced private investigator solves
the crime through a process of elimination. I’d been practicing by
solving sudoku logic puzzles in our local newspaper. They require
patience and the ability to reason, using different variables and
different patterns. Guessing and scribbling down a random number
doesn’t work in sudoku and it doesn’t work in my business.

Once I locked onto Walter as a probable
suspect, I went through the elimination exercise. Assuming Walter
killed the warden to prevent him from arresting his current source
of income (aka the Detroit boys), I was faced with some logistics
problems. The most obvious involved the vehicles. If the warden
rode one and Walter rode another, how did Walter get rid of the
warden’s ATV once he killed him? He couldn’t ride both of them at
the same time.

And I still couldn’t explain how the warden
had gotten himself in our woods when his truck was parked back in
Marquette.

Did someone drop him off? If so, why didn’t
that person come forward? Warden Burnett said the ATV had been
stolen. Why would Hendricks steal an ATV when he could take one any
time he wanted to?

Did the men come together?

Maybe one of the Detroit brothers helped
Walter. That would take care of the ATV problem. The brother would
have driven with Walter and moved the warden’s ATV afterwards.

But Little Donny never mentioned a third
person.

And the Detroit boys weren’t the swiftest
bunch. One of them would have slipped something incriminating to me
today or to Cora Mae and Kitty when they double-dated. In spite of
Cora Mae’s hormonal imbalance and Kitty’s turtle-like shuffle, both
women were quick witted and would have picked up on some
inadvertent remark from a horny guy trying to impress a date.

Little Donny’s accounting of the
conversation between the killer and the warden about personal
integrity and duty certainly pointed at Walter. He could have tried
to talk the warden out of arresting the violators and killed him
when he wouldn’t back off.

Another troubling thought entered the
equation. Little Donny had met Walter last year. Granted, it was a
brief encounter, with my grandson taking a dive in the dirt when
Walter beaded him with his shotgun. Also Walter had lost another
tooth or two since then. But Little Donny should have recognized
him.

He hadn’t mentioned that.

If Walter really was our man, I’d wasted an
entire week chasing bird feathers just because the dead man
happened to have one stuck to his shoe.

Birds of a feather flock together.

I was about to follow that free-association
thread of thought when I realized that I had driven all the way
home without being aware I was even driving, proof that my skills
were improving. I must have put the Trouble Buster on automatic and
zoned out.

Fred jumped down from the truck on the
lookout for the flock of guinea hens, off doing their business
someplace else. After sizing up the house, which he knew was
guarded by the old fly-whacker. he loped around the back where
George was still working. Smart dog to choose George.

Heather was in the kitchen, looking a wreck
since her son had vanished in the forest. She’d forgotten the
basics of life like bathing, grooming, and sleeping.

I gave her a big hug and
couldn’t help whispering the good news about Little Donny in her
ear. I hadn’t planned to - I had decided just the opposite,
not
to tell her. It just
bubbled over and spilled out before I could stop it up.

“
He’s alive?” she whispered
back, searching my eyes for confirmation that she wasn’t imagining
our conversation. I nodded.

“
It’s our secret,” I said.
“You can’t tell Blaze yet.”

Heather clamped her hands over her
mouth.

“
You can’t say anything to
anyone,” I repeated. “And you can’t barrel over there either. Play
it close to your chest until I have a chance to work this case
through. Otherwise he’ll be in a jail cell instead of the comfort
of your Grandma’s house.”

I clamped my hand over my
mouth. I
really
hadn’t planned to tell her where he was.

She sat down hard on a kitchen chair and
rocked back and forth, hugging her arms, while big buckets of tears
ran down her face.

“
Now what did you do?”
Grandma Johnson said from behind me.

“
She didn’t do anything,
Grandma,” Heather said through the tears.

Grandma humphed. “You need to keep busy
instead of weeping around all the time. What are we having for
supper? Shouldn’t somebody be starting it?”

“
Chicken,” Heather said,
wiping her face with a handful of tissues. “I’m making
chicken.”

“
Again? I’m not eating
chicken four nights in a row.” Grandma clacked her new teeth. “I
made chicken the other day although nobody hardly ate any and we
had it last night and in-between we eat chicken leftovers. I’m sick
of it.”

“
I made pasties on
Thursday,” I reminded her. “There might be a few left we could heat
up.”

“
Tasted like road rock.”
Grandma looked out the window, craning her neck. She swung her head
around and beaded in on me with one cocked eyebrow. “I bet those
guinea hens are good eaters.”

“
You leave my guineas
alone,” I demanded. In her day, Grandma was a sharpshooter in more
ways than one. She had her rapid-fire snake tongue even back then,
and she could really shoot a rifle. Chances are she’d lost her
edge, but just to be sure, I thought about hiding her
glasses.

“
Once I find my pistol, I’m
taking one of ‘em down. Don’t know how I could misplace it, but I’m
on the lookout. It’ll show up.”

Annie Oakley shuffled off down the hall.

My home used to be my retreat from the
world, but all that had changed.

These days I hated coming home.

chapter 15

My two partners ambled in wearing their
Sunday best, while I was listening to my police scanner and
cleaning up the kitchen.

“
Don’t you look great,” I
said, standing back and taking in the sight. Cora Mae had on a pair
of black stretch pants and a silver and blue camisole that should
be illegal outside of a bedroom. Kitty wore blue jeans and a silver
baseball cap emblazed with a blue lion that was several sizes too
small for her head. “Pin curls and ball caps. What’ll they come up
with next?”

“
We’re going over to
Walter’s to watch the game with the Smith brothers,” Cora Mae said.
“Want to come?”

“
As tempting as that is, I
have work to do.” I’d rather eat Drano than spend the day warding
off bacterial infection over at Walter’s house.

“
The Detroit Lions are
playing the Green Bay Packers,” Kitty said. “It’s their first game
together this year. I’m a closet Packer fan, though. It’s going to
be hard to cheer for the Lions.”

“
BB and his brothers are
from Detroit. It’s only polite,” Cora Mae said. “It’s Sunday,
Gertie. No one works on Sunday.”

“
Maybe next
time.”

“
We ran into Blaze at the
gas station,” Cora Mae said. “It’s a shame they didn’t find Little
Donny in Newberry.”

“
I knew they wouldn’t
before Dickey and No-Neck left to go there,” I said, feeling hurt
that Blaze hadn’t shared his recent findings with me. Instead he
felt perfectly fine divulging police information to my friends.
Then I remembered my big secret about Little Donny. I had no
intention of confiding in Blaze, so I guess we were
even.

Chatter erupted from my police scanner and
we listened until we were sure it wasn’t anything interesting.

“
That detective and his
partner drove by your house when we pulled in,” Kitty said, helping
herself to coffee. “Detective Dickey is a piece of work.” She shook
her head. “Nebbish.”

“
Bumptious,” I
agreed.

“
An icky schmo,” Cora Mae
added, jumping into the contest.

“
I’m your bodyguard,” Kitty
said to me. “If you’re working the case today, I’m coming
along.”

“
I don’t want to go to
Walter’s by myself,” Cora Mae whined.

Heather trotted out of her room and I
couldn’t believe the transformation. She’d cleaned herself up,
combed her hair, and applied make up. She had her purse in her
hand.

“
I’m going for groceries,”
she said. “Do you want anything special?”

I eyed her glowing face. “Only what we
agreed on before,” I said slowly, to remind her to stay away from
Grandma Johnson’s house. “You remember, don’t you?”

“
Oh, sure. Bye.” And
Heather bounced out, leaving me less than assured.

“
Sit down,” I said to Cora
Mae and Kitty. “I have good news.”

I told them about Carl and my suspicions and
about finding Little Donny. Kitty jumped up and gave me a
congratulatory embrace that almost cracked my ribs.

I broke free, or rather she released me, and
I took a step back. In the north woods we don’t go in much for
public displays of affection, but Kitty tends to be dramatic, which
is why I think she should become a lawyer and put all that pent-up
energy to good use.

“
Kitty, you have to stay
with Cora Mae today,” I said. “She might need protection more than
I do.”

I told them about the stinging nettle.

“
You think Walter did it?”
Kitty said. “It’s possible that one or more of the Smith brothers
could be in it, too. I see what you mean, Gertie, about being
careful.”

She glanced at Cora Mae. “We’re sticking
together as long as they’re around.”

I felt relieved. Kitty was a formidable
opponent, both intellectually and physically. I didn’t envy the
fool who tried to cross her.

“
We should stop by and say
hi to Little Donny,” Cora Mae said, standing up and stretching her
lean legs.

“
Stay away from Grandma’s
house,” I said. “We don’t want extra traffic on Porcupine Trail.
Blaze isn’t the brightest, but he might catch on. My plan is to
solve this crime before he finds Little Donny.”

The police scanner cracked into action,
spitting static. “Code seven,” someone said over the airwaves.

“
That sounds like Blaze,”
Cora Mae said. “What’s a code seven?”

“
Lunch.” I consulted my
police radio manual. “He’s out to lunch.”

Kitty chortled and I grinned. “Out to
lunch,” she said. “That’s a good one.”

“
Ten four,” came another
voice.

“
The rest of the day is
free and clear,” I announced, sure that Blaze would flop on his
couch for the Lions game and scarf down enormous bags of peanuts
and multiple packages of pre-cooked brats.

Cora Mae wandered over to the window and I
could tell she was getting antsy to go.

The police scanner crackled again and
Blaze’s voice came on. “Are you moving?”

“
Code three,” someone
said.

“
Geez, Deputy Sheedlo,”
Blaze complained for all to hear. “You have to study up on your
codes. Code three is lights and sirens. Is that what you’re trying
to tell me? That you’re in pursuit? I thought this was a routine
observation.”

“
He’s talking to No-neck,”
I said. “Dickey must be around someplace close, too.”

“
Yes, sir, affirmative, I
will and no, sir, I’m not,” No-Neck said. “I’ll work on the codes.
We’re keeping our distance. Over and out.”

Kitty clapped her hands. “I want one of
these scanners. Where’d you get it?”

“
Cora Mae gave it to me for
my birthday.”

“
What’s that yellow thing
on your tire?” Cora Mae asked, still standing by the
window.

“
What yellow thing?” The
three of us shoved our heads against the glass.

Everything in my yard looked normal. The
hens were still in the outer field. Fred was sprawled in the grass,
snoozing in the sun. I could hear George hammering away.

Everything looked the same as always except
for my truck.

“
What is it?” Kitty wanted
to know. “Looks like some kind of yellow hubcap trim.”

I knew exactly what it was because I’ve been
scrutinizing the law enforcement buyer’s guides I’d swiped from
Blaze’s house.

I’d seen a picture.

I shrieked and rushed outside. Kitty and
Cora Mae were right behind. “How did he do this right under my
nose?” I shouted. “He must have crawled up the driveway on his
belly, the coward.”

George appeared, holding a hammer loose in
his hand. “I told him not to do it,” he said. “But you know
Blaze.”

I kicked the tire.

“
What is that thing?” Kitty
repeated.

“
A tire lock.” I kicked it
again with the other foot.

“
She’s been booted,” George
said.

“
Look at this,” Cora Mae
called from the front of the truck. “A warning sticker. ‘Warning,’
it says. ‘Your car has been immobilized. To arrange for removal,
present the proper driving credentials and vehicle registration to
your local sheriff.’”