Bury the Hatchet in Dead Mule Swamp (31 page)

“It’s a deal.” Mavis said
through clenched teeth. She stuck out her hand.

Jerry shook it solemnly and
looked my way. I nodded in silent agreement, and earnestly hoped
making anonymous calls was Mavis’ only secret.

Chapter 49

Clearly the audience
expected the play to begin soon. They were starting to become
restless, and someone called out, “Move things along.”

Jerry nodded in the
direction of the voice. “My next announcement has to do with the
fundamental purpose of this event. Please humor me for just a few
more minutes.” He wasn’t about to be hurried.

I looked around the room.
Harold and Claire had now joined Mavis, and they were huddled
together, whispering. Sherri Sorenson brushed past me, wearing a
barn coat exuding odors of warm horses and cold air. She sat on the
floor next to her children, leaned over and squeezed their
shoulders. Ruthie scrambled into her lap. Farther to my left, Cora
was still on the bench with Tom, but she looked fidgety, near the
end of her social patience.

“Cora Baker, will you come
up here, please?” Jerry’s voice boomed through the sound system.
Was this question really louder, or did it just seem that way to
me?

I saw Cora jump and glance
from left to right, as if she were looking for a different Cora
Baker. Then she composed herself and with a dignified air, rose and
walked to the stage. She raised her face to Jerry and said
something, but she was so much shorter the microphone didn’t pick
up the words.

“She says I’m very good at
wasting everyone’s time,” Jerry explained with a wide grin. There
was scattered clapping and laughter, but people weren’t sure if
this was some new joke, or something more serious. The interchange
with Mavis had been tense, and now it appeared there was to be
another public conversation spoken in riddles with a threatening
undercurrent. Children were squirming and becoming
restless.

Jerry raised a hand to
still the clapping and whispering which had begun. He took a second
mic from a stand and handed it to his diminutive stage partner.
“Cora, I have two questions for you. I’m certain of the answer to
one of them but not so sure of the other.”

“Get to it,” Cora said
tightly. For this attempt to hustle the proceedings, she received
applause. She had donned her no-nonsense persona, and didn’t waste
a moment before saying to the crowd, “Settle down, and let the man
speak his piece.”

The audience quieted,
charmed by the feisty little woman. I had no idea she would be so
comfortable behind a microphone. There seemed to be a lot about
Cora I didn’t know.

Jerry couldn’t hide his
delight at the repartee. His eyes sparkled. “Cora, I’ve heard you
have quite a collection of local history memorabilia. In fact,
you’ve brought some of it with you tonight.”

“You know I do. Everyone
here knows I have it. If you’d come to the point, there might be an
interesting skit that features some of the pieces,” Cora snapped
back.

“I’d like you to leave this
furniture here permanently.” Jerry pointed to the set
stage.

“Whatever for?” Cora
questioned, perplexed.

“This building is to be the
new Forest County Museum, and my first question is, will you be the
curator?”

Now it was my turn to grin.
Cora was non-plussed. She looked up into Jerry’s face, perhaps
searching for motives. She looked into the audience, scanning for
someone. I wondered if she was hunting for me. Everyone seemed to
be holding their breath.

“Are you serious?” she
managed, her voice cracking.

“I am quite serious,” Jerry
answered. “It’s yours if you say yes.”

“Yes, oh yes!” Cora said,
reaching out for something solid to steady herself, and grabbing
the footboard of the historic bed. When she had regained her mental
and physical balance she continued, “But you said you had two
questions.”

“It’s true. And I won’t
waste any time getting to this one.” His voice softened. “Cora,
will you marry me again? I miss you.”

The audience was stunned
into the complete silence of expectation. I thought Cora’s reaction
to this question would be even more extreme. Perhaps she would need
to sit on the bed. Much to my amazement, she raised herself quickly
to her full height and looked directly at Jerry. But she spoke into
the microphone so everyone could hear the clear enunciation of her
response.

“Why you arrogant, pushy,
son of a flea-bitten dog! Gerald Richard Caulfield, you’ve been
dating Ana Raven for a month and now you have the nerve to pose
this question to me?”

Jerry looked contrite. He
stuck his free hand in his pocket, and I saw the insecure little
boy again. Curious faces turned toward me and my neck reddened. I
realized what I needed to do and hurried to the stage.

Taking the mic from Cora, I
said to her, and everyone else, “It’s all been a ploy so we could
prepare the building for you.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it
was close enough. I handed the microphone back to her, nodded
solemnly to reiterate the point, and backed up into the set for the
play.

Jerry’s eyes were full of
pleading. “Will you think about it?” He asked gently.

“I don’t need to think
about it at all,” Cora snapped. “Of course I will. Someone needs to
keep you from trying to manage the world. And anyway, I can’t run a
museum from sixteen miles away.”

Jerry leaned over and
pulled Cora to his side. The audience broke into applause once
more, and I emerged from the shadows and tried to embrace Cora and
Jerry at the same time.

Cora broke free and poked
Jerry in the ribs. “Introduce the play, for heaven’s sake. People
have been waiting long enough.”

From deep in the wings I
heard Chad’s voice. “Finally.”

Chapter 50

More door prizes were
awarded, and then Jerry announced the reenactment of the murder of
Judge Reuben Pierce Oldfield, which had occurred on November 23,
1924. He read the names of the students who had traveled from
Michigan Tech just to participate in the Harvest Ball. The
townsfolk seemed impressed. I only hoped the kids would do a good
enough job to meet Cora’s standards of history
preservation.

He explained that the cast
of characters, in order of appearance, were Dieter Volger, founder
of Volger’s Grocery and grandfather-in-law of Adele; Nora Bradley,
the young wife of Zeke Bradley, who worked at Keto Brothers Oil and
Service (now Aho’s). John waved his hand, grateful for the
recognition. The lawyer, Arnold Schoenbrunn, and finally, there
were Judge Reuben Pierce Oldfield and his wife Winnifred. That was
six characters and four actors. I didn’t know who had multiple
roles.

Clearly, the kids had
coordinated with Mick, the sound and light guy. The play began, not
in the bedroom, but in front of a painted flat which was handily
carried from behind, so the stagehand couldn’t be seen, and placed
near center stage. The backdrop was a general store, simply
painted, but it created the atmosphere. A beam of light from a
Fresnel lens focused people’s attention on the scene. Dieter Volger
dusted a shelf of canned goods.

I chuckled at the portly
German man with his hair slicked and parted in the middle. The
butcher’s apron tied around his waist served to keep the padding in
place which Chad had stuffed beneath oversized shirt and
pants.

From stage left, a thin
young woman, whom I recognized as Brittney, carrying a basket,
entered the store and greeted Dieter, who went back to his dusting.
She pantomimed a careful examination of goods on an imaginary shelf
near the front of the stage, occasionally slipping something under
a cloth in her basket. Finally, she carried one more item to Dieter
and indicated she wanted to make her purchase. “Just the one bag of
sugar today, Mrs. Bradley?” Dieter asked.

“Yes, please,” Nora lied,
not mentioning the concealed goods. After she left, Dieter put his
hands on his hips and shook his head. The stage light
dimmed.

When the light came up,
Dieter was bent into a large pickle barrel, with his head out of
sight. Ryan, dressed in modern clothing, walked across the stage
bearing a sign that read “two weeks later.”

Essentially the same scene
was repeated several more times, with Nora paying for one or two
items, but pilfering several more in the bottom of her
basket.

Finally, Dieter walked to
the front of the stage and asked the audience, “Vat am I to do? She
is a nice girl,
ja
? Her Zeke, he fixes my car. He fixes all the cars. I do not
vant to make him angry.” He raised his arms and
shrugged.

For the next scene a small
table was added to the set, with various cuts of meat displayed.
There was a turkey, several plucked chickens (which I hoped were
rubber), and a paper maché ham. Dieter once again was scrubbing the
pickle barrel. Nora entered, and seeing Mr. Volger’s face hidden
she grabbed the ham and scurried away.

Dieter gave a yell. “Aha! I
haf caught you. I see you through this knothole.”

He grabbed her by the arm
and Nora began to protest and cry.

“Nein
. No more. You vill go to police vit me. I cannot lose a ham
to save my Sunday drives. You vill pay for this crime.” He led her
off stage and the lights dimmed again.

When they came up next, a
cloth had been draped over the flat, and because the store shelves
had been ingeniously painted, the backdrop looked like a window and
the cloth became the curtain. We were seeing the inside of a house.
Nora and a thin man wearing a greasy coverall were
arguing.

“You’ve gone and done it
now!” the man said.

“Zeke, I didn’t mean any
harm. I just wanted us to have a nice dinner for our
anniversary.”

Zeke began to pace back and
forth, and then said, “Well, you have to go before the judge
tomorrow. They released you into my custody until then, but I don’t
know what to expect next.”

“They won’t do anything
much just for wanting a little old ham, Sugar,” Nora
whined.

The scene ended.

Again the lights came up,
and now the cloth had been draped to completely cover the backdrop
in vertical folds. In front of that was a desk on a raised
platform. Judge Oldfield sat there, holding his gavel. I nearly
cracked up. Chad had been transformed by means of a wig, fake beard
and sideburns, and even more padding. He wore glasses and a dark
suit, making it almost impossible to tell he was the same boy who
had played the grocer. But I was his mother. I knew.

Zeke and Nora appeared
before him, and he handed down a sentence of thirty days in the
county jail. Nora was distraught, and Zeke was not
pleased.

The play continued with
various scenes through Nora’s release, the theft of the more
expensive objects, and her sentencing to a year in prison. The
lawyer who recommended counseling for Nora was played by Audra, her
already round frame easily believable as a well-fed professional,
when dressed in a suit and sporting a false mustache.

At last the lights came up
on the bedroom which had been brought in for the occasion. There
was a slight rustling as the audience shifted to view this scene,
which was farther stage right, to the audience’s left.

The judge was sitting on
the edge of his bed and wearing a long, striped flannel nightshirt.
Winnifred, Audra again but now in a nightgown and ribboned cap,
bustled around the room, setting a glass of water on the
nightstand, and fluffing pillows. The judge removed his slippers
and swung his feet into the bed. “Now, Winnie, stop your fussing,
and come to bed,” the judge said, gently shooing her away as she
tried to tuck him in. This got a laugh from a fair number of
people, and Winnie hammed it up. I suspected the next line was
improvised.

“Oh, shut up, you old fool.
Just because you’re in charge in the courtroom doesn’t make you
king here.” With this she climbed into bed and gave him a peck on
the cheek.

Again the lights dimmed,
and a silvery crescent moon floated above the scene, arcing from
one side to the other, suggesting the passage of time.

A yellowish light began to
glow softly. Winnifred rose from the bed and spoke to the judge,
who continued to snore. “You just rest yourself, dear. I’ll start
breakfast. It’s cook’s day off.” She patted the large lump beneath
the covers and left the scene. The yellow light grew
brighter.

From the far side of the
stage, Zeke Bradley approached the Oldfield “house” in a crouch,
looking left and right. When he neared it, he raised the butt of
the gun he carried and smashed an imaginary window. I had to admit
the actors were doing a great job. The sound of smashing glass was
heard at just the right moment.

The judge roused himself
from sleep, looking confused, while Zeke climbed in the window and
delivered his famous line. “If Nora’s going to prison, I’m going
with her. She’s the best dad-gummed cook I’ve ever lived
with!”

Then he lowered the pistol
and fired a shot. The judge looked startled and placed a hand over
his chest. When he lifted it away his fingers were covered in
blood. There were gasps from the audience, even though almost
everyone knew the local story by heart. Reuben Pierce Oldfield
looked at Zeke, and opened his mouth as if to speak, then fell back
against his pillows.