Murder Grins and Bears It (24 page)

I made my way to the casket for my last look
at Billy. He’d spent years bellied up to the bar at Herb’s, never
causing a ruckus or uttering an unkind word. He was like background
music you didn’t really hear until someone turned it off. Then you
noticed the silence. Most of us could remember back before the
booze got him when he still had a wife and kids who would speak to
him.

Standing by the casket, I reflected on his
life.
Then my thoughts turned, as they always did at times like this, to
my Barney and our time together.

I knew exactly what the families of Billy
Lundberg and Robert Hendricks were going through with their
unexpected losses. After Barney drowned in his waders in the
Escanaba River, I didn’t think I could go on without him.

Everybody has secrets and mine came back to
me while standing in Ed’s funeral home next to Billy’s casket. When
Barney died, I told everyone he had a massive heart attack while
fishing, but that wasn’t true. Blaze and Cora Mae are the only ones
who know the truth about the drowning.

Barney, expert fisherman and all-around
sportsman, wouldn’t have wanted to go out with an embarrassing
splash, so I concocted my own ending.

The old familiar pain of loss shot through
deep inside of me and I shook it off by telling myself I’d have
time later to let memories overtake me. Right now, there was work
to do.

The Detroit boys walked in as I was leaving.
They’d slicked their hair down with something greasy for the
occasion and they’d shaved away the hunting growth accumulated in
the backwoods. I noticed that they cleaned up well.

After a quick greeting, I got right to the
point. “Where’s Walter?”

“
He visits his brother
every Monday morning,” Remy said.

“
Like clockwork,” BB
said.

My ears perked up at this because the warden
was killed last Monday morning. “I didn’t know he had a
brother.”

“
He’s in a nursing home in
Escanaba,” Remy explained. “Walter never misses the visit. He left
before seven o’clock to have breakfast with him. After that they
play poker with a group in the home.”

“
Walter said he hasn’t
missed one of their card games since his brother went in,” BB said.
“And he wasn’t going to miss today even for Billy’s funeral. He
said anybody that dies drunk, dies happy, and there isn’t any need
to cry over it.”

That sounded just like something
bourbon-brained old Walter would say.

“
Tell me about the warden’s
accent,” I said, switching gears. I’d ponder the new information
later. “You didn’t say a word about an accent to me when I asked
you for details, but that’s what BB told Cora Mae.”

“
What accent?” Marlin
asked.

“
He had an accent,” BB
said. “Like he came from someplace else.”

“
I didn’t notice,” Remy
said. “I don’t think so.”

BB nodded. “From down south, or New Jersey,
or…”

“
What did it sound like?” I
said, annoyed all over again by BB’s lack of experience with
regional dialects.

A look of comprehension crossed Marlin’s
face as BB fumbled through his version of the warden’s accent.
Marlin gave BB a light punch in the arm.

“
That wasn’t an accent,
BB,” he said. “That was a stutter.”

“
Are you sure?” I said,
remembering Warden Burnett’s speech impediment.

“
Dead sure,” Marlin
said.

I shuddered at the thought of a renegade
warden. I could take on any local Joe the Man resident without a
quiver in my hand or a moment’s hesitation. I had a weapons purse
filled with an arsenal of reinforcements like my trusty pepper
spray and a cattle prod that could zap your socks off.

But a legally armed DNR agent with ties to
the government was another matter.

What was Burnett doing out in the woods that
day and what did it mean?

I didn’t like the possibilities.

chapter 19

While I waited for Kitty and Cora Mae to
finish at Billy’s funeral, I leaned against the Lincoln, feeling
the warmth of the sun on my face. I was trying to watch the road,
watch Fred, and sort through a jumble of disconnected ideas
involving Warden Burnett.

Fred sniffed around the vehicles in the
parking lot and selected a Ford pickup with fancy rims. He lifted
his leg on the tire. Taking his sweet time, he chose again and did
the same thing on Dickey’s Chevy. He seemed to like to spread his
authority around.

I whistled after tire number three, and he
ran over and jumped into the back seat. I glanced back at the road
just in time to see the Mitch Movers truck roar past, heading
south.

I didn’t have time to blow the horn and wait
for my partners to dawdle out. At the truck’s missile-launching
rate of speed as it zinged past, I’d have a tough time catching
up.

The key was in the ignition, which saved me
a second or two of precious time. I cranked the engine and almost
ripped the gearshift off when I jammed it into drive.

The only thing I hadn’t anticipated was that
Kitty would have the seat pushed all the way back. I could barely
reach the pedals, but I scrunched down, stretched out, and buried
the pedal against the floorboard.

At times like this I really need Kitty and
her NASCAR driving, but I’ll deny ever saying it if I get through
this chase in one piece. I’m a rookie and I’ve proven it with
several dips into the ditch. My biggest mistake of all was when I
rolled and totaled Barney’s truck. Then there was the mailbox
disaster and the hole in my garage door when I mistakenly thought I
was in reverse.

Let’s face it. I can’t even pass a written
driving test.

No way could I pull off the stunt Kitty had
managed when she forced the van to stop the last time. Pulling
alongside a moving vehicle and strong-arming it off the road is
best performed by movie stuntmen and large, overly aggressive
women.

A tiny speck in the distance reassured me
that I hadn’t lost my target yet. I never let up on the gas, and
the car’s speed climbed steadily until the Lincoln’s frame began to
shake. I had to ease off or risk ripping the car apart.

I continued to gain while I tried to
formulate a workable plan. The problem with impromptu car chases is
the lack of a foolproof prearranged plan. I had to make it up as I
went, and nothing was coming to mind.

I couldn’t believe my good luck when the van
crossed the four-way stop in Stonely and pulled into the Deer Horn
Restaurant’s parking lot. The driver strode into the restaurant as
I pulled up behind him.

I ran to the van and peeked through the
window into the driver’s seat, but the tinted windows obscured my
view. I glanced at the restaurant, then opened the driver’s door
and stuck my head inside. He hadn’t left the truck running and he’d
pulled the keys.

After pressing my ear against the van’s side
and hearing nothing, I marched into the Deer Horn. I’d have to
think of some way to grab the keys away from him and steal the
truck so I could discover what this important shipment
contained.

Ruthie looked up from the counter. “Hi,
Gertie,” she said.

The driver, standing at the counter, turned
and glanced at me. Then he did a double take. It was the same guy
Kitty had run off the road in our overzealous hijacking attempt.
The same one I’d zapped with my stun gun.

He frowned as if he was trying to remember
where he’d seen me. If he placed me, I was in trouble.

“
What can I get for you,”
Ruthie said to him, and he turned his attention back to her and
away from me.

“
A coffee and whatever
sandwich you already have made up,” he said, digging in a back
pocket for his wallet. “To go.”

No sign of the keys on the counter. They
must be in his pocket.

“
I’ll see you later,” I
said to Ruthie, turning away so the driver couldn’t study my face.
I didn’t want to refresh his memory. “I thought Carl might be in
here.”

“
Haven’t seen him,” she
replied, tallying the driver’s bill.

“
I’m leaving my dog out in
the car. If he howls will you check on him?”

“
Sure,” Ruthie said behind
me, sounding puzzled.

By the time the driver returned to the truck
and started off, I was lying in the back of the van where he
wouldn’t find me unless he threw open the back and dug around.

I couldn’t believe I had the bravery, or
stupidity, to pull off this stunt, but here I was, wedged between
stacks of crates.

There wasn’t a bird or an egg or a feather
anywhere in the moving van. Granted, it was dark inside and I
couldn’t see very well, but I also couldn’t smell anything, hear
anything, or sense anything moving. Therefore, no birds.

I was disappointed.

The only explanation I could come up with
was that they had two trucks that looked alike and they used the
other one to transport the birds. I’d bummed a ride on the wrong
van.

By the time I realized my mistake, we were
gathering speed and leaving Stonely far behind us. But my eyes were
adjusting to the darkness, and I peered at my surroundings.

All around me were piles of boxes. Long,
wooden, coffin-like boxes stacked one on top of the other.

The van’s shocks needed replacing. I felt
every bump in the road. Whatever was inside the boxes rattled
continuously. If I didn’t go right to jail for this caper, I’d
complain to the highway department about the condition of its
roads.

I could see part of the back of the driver’s
head up front as he ate his sandwich and sipped coffee from a
Styrofoam cup.

I really should find a way to inspect the
boxes. A private investigator doesn’t overlook any opportunity to
check things out, even if they don’t seem to pertain to the
business at hand. But how was I going to open the boxes without the
driver noticing? Better yet, how was I going to get back to the
Deer Horn Restaurant to pick up Fred and Kitty’s car?

What if our destination was Chicago or
Detroit? I didn’t have time for an extended vacation until after
Little Donny was cleared of all charges and the real murderer was
put away.

Easing the stun gun out of my purse, I crept
along the top of the boxes until I was right behind the driver but
still protected from view by a partition. I waited for my
chance.

Ideally, I didn’t want to zap him while he
was barreling along at sixty-five miles an hour. No way could I
wrestle for control of the wheel at a high speed. I really didn’t
have a death wish in spite of some of the situations I get myself
into.

Although I knew this area of the country
like the back of my liver-spotted hand, I’d said the same thing
about the woods, and ended up walking in circles. This time I was
sure of where we were. I’d traveled this stretch of road thousands
of times on my way into Escanaba.

The van driver would soon come to a stop
sign and make a right turn. That could be my last chance to take
over until we arrived in the city, where we’d run into traffic and
pedestrians and cops in squad cars. A little voice inside advised
me against waiting too long.

I saw my opening looming ahead. Time slowed
to a crawl as the moving van approached the stop sign. It took the
driver forever to slow and finally stop.

His right turning signal clicked on.

Head check both ways just like in the
instruction booklet.

In one fast motion, I turned on the stun gun
and touched it to the back of his neck.

His body began to twitch and his hands flew
from the steering wheel. His foot must have left the brake because
the van started moving forward, edging through the stop.

I jumped through the opening into the front
seat on top of him and grabbed the wheel, steering toward the side
of the road while my foot floundered for the brake.

It was some task with his body in the
way.

He reached out for my arm and I zapped him
again as my foot found the brake and the van jerked to a halt a few
yards off the road. I threw the gearshift into park.

Now what?

I couldn’t drive with him hogging the
driver’s seat and me practically in the passenger seat. And he was
far too heavy to move. I zapped him again for good measure and did
the only thing I could do.

I reached across his limp body, opened the
driver’s door, and pushed him out. He rolled out face first and
fell like a sack of Michigan potatoes.

There wasn’t a car in sight when I pulled
away and made a U-turn back toward Stonely. I looked in the side
mirror and saw him stagger to his feet.

After a while when I had some distance
between us, I turned onto a side road and parked on a soft shoulder
along a line of tamaracks.

The boxes in the van were loosely sealed
with a few nails. One of the wooden tops came away easily to expose
a sheet of packing paper.

I grew nervous and stopped for a moment to
consider the consequences of what I was about to do. There was no
turning back now that I’d thrown the driver out and stolen his
van.

If what was under the paper were blankets
for the homeless shelter or teddy bears for a children’s hospital,
I’d have to start running for cover and stay there for the rest of
my life. Blaze would jail me for sure.

I leaned back on my heels and took a big
breath. Slowly I peeled away the layer of paper and peered
inside.

Living in the U.P. makes you an expert on
subjects that city folks don’t even think about. For example, we
know which tree leaves make the best toilet paper. We can tell the
difference between a chipmunk and a squirrel, and we know that deer
ticks are smaller than regular wood ticks. We also know our
weapons. We know the difference between a gun and a rifle.