Murder Grins and Bears It (20 page)

I kicked the tire again, softer this time
because the toes on both my feet were beginning to cramp up. “He
can’t do this right in my front yard. Doesn’t he need a warrant to
come on my property?”

“
I’m making a few phone
calls,” Kitty said, lumbering for the house, sounding more like an
attorney every day. “We’ll know if he’s within his rights in a
minute.”

“
He’s disowned,” I
said.

“
You say that every time he
does something that makes you mad,” Cora Mae said.

“
I mean it this
time.”

“
You say that,
too.”

“
These things are designed
to intimidate you,” George said. “It isn’t absolutely foolproof,
you know. I could get you back on the road in no time.”

I calmed down when I considered that
possibility. “Okay, let’s do it.”

“
Wait for Kitty to research
the law,” George advised. “It’s a criminal act to remove one. Blaze
could arrest you.” He smiled. “At least then I’d know right where
you were and that you were safe.”

I grinned back and ignored Cora Mae, who
stuck her tongue out behind George’s back, then put her finger in
her mouth and pretended to gag.

Kitty marched out of the house like a woman
on a mission. By her smug expression, I ventured a conclusion.
“Illegal,” I said.

“
Right,” Kitty said. “But
if he catches you driving on the road or parked in town without the
proper registration, he can clamp one on. Didn’t you transfer the
registration from your other truck? The one you rolled and
totaled?”

“
I haven’t gotten around to
it yet,” I admitted. “George, how does it come off?”

George bent down. “If the jaws are loose, we
can deflate the tire and slide the tire lock off.” He shoved on the
lock. “However, it’s tight.”

“
Now what?” I
said.

George glanced at Cora Mae. “You like tools,
right?”

“
Right,” she agreed,
rearranging herself into a sleaze pose.

“
Get a chisel out of my
toolbox. It’s around the corner of the house. Gertie, do you have a
spare tire for the truck?”

“
Sure.”

“
I have to get to the lug
nuts by taking off this plate.” He pointed to a metal sheet clamped
across the lug nuts.

Cora Mae sashayed off on her assigned
mission, returned, and lingered over handing him the chisel. George
went to work. He gave the tire lock several powerful strikes, while
the three of us watched his muscles ripple. Another smack and a pin
popped out. George jiggled this and that, then peeled the plate
away, exposing the lug nuts. While he changed the tire, the Trouble
Buster gang had a conference.

“
You need to get over to
Walter’s house for the game,” I said to my two cohorts. “Keep your
eyes and ears open and don’t get separated from each other. Ask a
lot of questions and see what comes up.”

Kitty and Cora Mae nodded in unison.

“
Whatever you do, don’t let
Walter take you stinging-nettle hunting.”

“
Okay,” Kitty said. “We’ll
stay together. What about you? If Blaze sees your truck on the
road, he’ll take it away permanently.”

“
I already thought of that
after George started removing the lock,” I agreed.

“
Let him finish,” Cora Mae
said. “He likes to help. Right now you don’t have any other way to
get around, anyway.”

“
I have to find some other
means of transportation,” I said, chewing my lip. “Something
nondescript to throw Blaze off my trail.”

An idea formed.

I knew exactly where to find my interim
wheels.

****

Little Donny’s Ford Escort had been
flat-bedded to the back of Ray’s General Store, where it had joined
a multitude of worn-out, broken-down beaters. They’d been collected
over the years by our local law enforcement and its contracted
towing service, owned by Ray and his son.

Ray, happy to have an additional source of
income and unconcerned by the junkyard appearance out back, also
leased an outbuilding to the sheriff’s department, just in case
Blaze ever managed to nab a lawbreaker needing temporary
confinement.

Several local residents had occupied the
establishment at one time or another, mostly binge drinkers who
couldn’t remember where they’d parked their cars and needed a place
to bed down without freezing to death on the streets.

It had a holding cell with a cot and basic
plumbing, and a little desk where Blaze could heft his feet for a
snooze when he wanted the town to think he was actually
working.

Deputy Dickey hadn’t been able to drive
Little Donny’s car once he finished dusting for prints because I
had the only key that started the car, and I wasn’t about to raise
red flags by handing it over.

Thus the tow.

After stopping at Ray’s for several cans of
black spray paint and a roll of duct tape, I parked my truck at the
back of the junk heap where it couldn’t be seen by anyone entering
the makeshift jail. Then I crawled under Little Donny’s car, ran a
few strips of duct tape over the worst holes in the muffler to
deaden some of the sound, and moved the car behind the junk heap a
good distance from my new truck. I went to work.

I’d learned a few tricks about directional
spraying from the mistakes I made on the Trouble Buster truck that
used to belong to Blaze. But I couldn’t worry too much about doing
a perfect job. I was in a hurry. So if a little white paint showed
through the black, I couldn’t help it. Little Donny wouldn’t be too
happy about it, but if I got him out of his current pickle, he’d
have to forgive me.

Less than an hour later, I pulled out of the
back of Ray’s General Store in my grandson’s newly disguised car. I
had to get used to the gearshifts all over again, but no one saw me
stall out at the four-way stop. Everyone in Stonely had their eyes
glued to the Lions and Packers football game. Other than Herb’s
bar, where the game was playing on an overhead television screen to
a lively crowd, the town was dead.

chapter 16

Once I mastered the clutch, I found myself
driving toward Crevice Road. I couldn’t get the “birds of a
feather” phrase out of my head. A private investigator learns to
trust her instincts, and mine were telling me to follow the
flocking birds. Cora Mae and Kitty were checking out Walter and his
paying guests, so I headed for the raptors.

Ted Latvala, falconer, red-tooth county
resident and hostile gun-totter, had threatened to shoot me, so I
planned to avoid him as much as possible rather than present myself
again as a willing target.

I wished I had brought Fred along instead of
sneaking out when his eyes were closed. I hadn’t abandoned him
altogether, though. Assuming that Grandma would get him if the
guinea hens didn’t, I’d left him in George’s care with a firm
promise from him to protect Fred from all directions and by any
means necessary. George had also agreed to move the Trouble Buster
truck back to its spot in my driveway, with Carl’s help, before
Blaze noticed it missing.

Once on Crevice Road, I passed Latvala’s
house and pulled into the drive of the first house on the opposite
side of the road. As I approached the house with my clipboard, I
heard the game playing inside.

No one came to the door when I knocked.

I pounded until my hand hurt, then shuffled
over to the window and peered in, my free hand cupped around my
eyes to eliminate the glare.

I could see the game playing on a
television. It looked like the Packers were ahead, but no one was
in the room. After pounding one more time, I gave up and headed for
the Ford.

The front door squeaked open as I was
getting in, and a girl about seventeen peeked out. I hustled back
and showed her my census identification and went through my
introductory spiel.

“
My parents are watching
the game at someone else’s house. You’ll have to come back later,”
she said.

“
You can answer the
questions. They aren’t hard.”

A guy about her age walked past the door
behind her with a guilty look on his face. I realized they were
taking advantage of the absent parents and foregoing the football
game for a more interesting sporting event.

In my opinion, kids need their parents more
in their teens than when they were younger, and that’s exactly the
time parents think their jobs are done and stop paying close
attention.

A ten-year-old has more common sense than
four sixteen-year-olds put together. Hormones begin shooting every
which way, and teenaged nervous systems malfunction, causing them
to lose their reasoning abilities.

“
Oh, I don’t know,” she
said, hesitantly. “I’d rather not. I’m a little busy.”

I bet. I decided to play my hunch.

“
If you don’t answer my
questions, I’ll have to find your parents and tell them.” I managed
a clear tone of implied threat and leaned to the left so I could
stare behind her. “You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

Her eyes shifted away. “No. I guess I
wouldn’t. What do you want?”

We went through the family basics and I
wrote her answers down for effect. “Now,” I said. “I need some
information on your neighbor across the street.”

“
You can go over and ask
them yourself,” she said, beginning to close the gap in the door by
a few inches. I edged my foot closer in case she tried to slam it.
I never had so many doors slammed in my face as I have since
landing this census job.

It’s a good thing I have a thick skin and
refuse to take rejection personally.

“
Where did you say your
parents were?” I asked, again looking behind her suggestively. Now
I could add one more experience to my growing repertoire of private
investigator tactics. Intimidating children.

We’ll stoop to anything to solve a case.

“
I don’t know them,” she
answered, resigning herself. “They keep to themselves.”

“
How many people live over
there?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. We just moved
in last month.”

“
Do you notice anything odd
about them?”

“
Odd like how?”

“
You know.
Unusual.”

“
No. Can I go
now?”

“
What about his
birds?”

“
What birds?”

Reluctantly, I let her go back to whatever
she was doing and spent the next ten minutes figuring out how to
put Little Donny’s beater in reverse. Every time I switched gears
and eased my foot off the clutch, I jumped ahead another foot. The
car was close to bumping up against the garage door when I finally
found the proper gear and backed out of the driveway.

I had a livelier reception at the next house
down Crevice Road.

“
Come on in, Sweetheart,
and meet Joe the Man.” Joe the Man flattened himself against the
wide-open door so I could enter. Then he leaned into me as I
passed.

The leer on his face wasn’t encouraging.

“
It’s halftime and the
missus won’t be home for another two hours,” he said, staggering
over and plopping down on a worn sofa. He patted the cushion next
to him. “I can make all your dreams come true with time to
spare.”

Another leer. He had the unfocused eyeballs
of someone who’d had one or two too many. The proof was scattered
on the coffee table. I counted thirteen empty beer bottles, not
including the one in his hand, and the game was only half over.

He patted the cushion again.

I sat on the arm of an easy chair instead
and tried to look businesslike. I had my weapons purse slung over
my shoulder and a pepper pen in the penholder of my clipboard. It
looked exactly like a pen but it was guaranteed to spray any target
up to six feet away. There was a good chance I’d get to try it out
today.

My next catalog order would include a pepper
spray pager, designed to look exactly like a pager, but with enough
Habaneros pain-inflicting attacker-protection to stop a rhino dead
in its tracks. It also had a clip included so it would attach to my
purse or belt for easy access.

“
Then I’ll come over there
by you,” he said when I didn’t move to join him. The beer must have
settled in his bottom because he was having a tough time getting up
from the sofa.

“
No,” I said, sharply,
fingering the pepper pen and watching him sink back down. “First
you have to answer questions.”

“
Ah, coy, are you? Okay.
Bring ‘em on.” He leaned back, tipped the bottle, and took a long
chug, then tried to focus on me with vacant eyes.

I decided to skip the census introduction
and all the fake questions that preceded the real ones since my
interviewee could pass out at any time.

“
Tell me about your
neighbor, Ted Latvala.”

Joe the Man lost the thread of our
conversation when the band finished marching across Ford Field and
the second half of the game was about to begin.

“
We better hurry, My Little
Football,” he said. “We need to kick off.”

His Little Football wasn’t too worried. He’d
never make it off the sofa.

“
Ted Latvala.” I raised my
voice and spoke slowly. “What’s he up to?”

“
I should report him,” Joe
the Man blustered, refocusing, and working himself up. “Running a
business out of his house without the proper license. Day and
night. And the riffraff coming around…”

I’m sure Joe the Man could define riffraff
for me on one of his sober days.