The Woodpecker Always Pecks Twice

by J. R. Ripley

  “And Moire Breeder’s bed?”

  “It appears that way.” I waved my hand at him. “Let me continue.”

  “Go on.” Jerry turned his back on me and walked across the small space to the self-serve birdseed bins.

  I spun my tale. “McKutcheon has plans, big plans. He’s going to take over the diner. He’s got a bunch of innocent kids fixing up his house for him on the cheap. It costs him nothing but room and board.

  “Then he hatches this whole widow-in-the-lake scheme. Or maybe he hatched the scheme first and came down here to set things in motion. It’s quite a coincidence that he shows up just in time for her scheduled appearance, don’t you think?”

  Jerry frowned. “Mary McKutcheon has never showed up, not even once. She didn’t this time either.”

  I didn’t let Jerry’s negativity deter me. “Creating a buzz about the widow in the lake could lead to him lining his pockets. Look how popular the Loch Ness Monster is. It could lead to a whole cottage industry.”

  “Oh, brother,” Jerry said, reaching for a handful of peanuts straight from the bin.

  I couldn’t afford to have him eating up my merchandise nor my profits, but I could less afford having him stomp off without at least listening to my theory, so I let it go. “If the widow in the lake catches on, the diner will be busy, the house will fill up with paying guests, and McKutcheon will have it made.”

  “If,” Jerry said, between mouthfuls, “the ghostie shows up.”

  I could smell his peanut breath from my side of the counter. “And he was determined to make sure that she did.”

  Jerry grinned. “Sounds to me like you just proved Gus McKutcheon had plenty of reason to want Lana Potter alive to perform her Mary McKutcheon imitation, not kill her.”

  I thumped down on my stool. “Shoot.”

  Jerry laughed. “Face it, Simms. You’ve got nothing.”

  I felt my foundation cracking and crumbling beneath me but asked anyway, “Where was Gus when Lana washed up?”

  “Watching from a telescope in his house.”

  That explained why he’d come running. He had seen her wash ashore rather than rise from the lake as Mary McKutcheon’s spirit. My fingers wrapped around an ink pen. “So he couldn’t have murdered Lana.” I caught myself. “What am I saying? Lana drowned. It was an accident and I blame Gus for that, but still . . .”

  Jerry fidgeted.

  “What is it, Jerry?” I knew that move. Something was up.

  “Greely says the Potter woman might have had some help.”

  “Help?”

  “Could have been sabotage.” Jerry rubbed his ear. “Leastways, that’s what Mr. Foster over at the dive shop says.”

  “Do you suspect Ethan Harrow?”

  Jerry rolled his eyes. “Ethan’s a good ole boy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. And what reason would he have to want the woman dead? It’s only caused trouble for him, too.

  “Besides, Foster loaded the diving gear onboard himself at the dock. Of course, he didn’t know what they were planning to use it for.” He swallowed another fifty cents’ worth of nuts. “Might be sabotage, might be a malfunction. Who knows? I’ve asked the state boys to look into it.”

  “What about the jet pack?”

  “Ethan says Lana brought that aboard herself. Gus told me he ordered it off the internet.”

  “So Ethan’s role in this whole thing was simply to provide the boat?”

  “That’s what he got paid to do.” Jerry rested his hands on the sales counter and licked his lips. “You know, Simms, I never had this much work before you got to town. Now I’ve got dead people and missing people practically falling out of the sky.

  “To top it off, I’ve got Lance Jennings harping on me for a story. Why doesn’t that boy stick to covering supermarket openings and birthday parties?”

  “Don’t blame me!” I threw up my hands. I saw no reason to point out to Jerry that the Town of Ruby Lake only has one market and it was far from supersized. “What about the missing guy? He ever turn up?”

  Chief Kennedy shook his head no. “I just met up with the Garfinkles over at Ruby’s Diner. They haven’t heard a word. Not that I’m concerned. Fella’s probably in Florida, soaking up the sun.” His chest rose and fell. “I know that’s where I’d be if I didn’t have all this mess to deal with.”

  “It’s not my fault, Jerry.” I pushed back a lock of hair. “Where’s Kim, by the way?” Last I’d seen of her, she was comfortably ensconced in Dan Sutton’s Bronco, waiting for a ride back to town.

  “Off corrupting one of my deputies.” Jerry turned on his heels and left. He’d made that sound like my fault, too. I hurled a couple of the peanuts he’d dropped on the counter toward the door.

  “You okay?” Channing asked, coming toward me with an open case of dried mealworms in eight-ounce plastic tubs. Mealworms are a particular favorite of the bluebird. Mealworms aren’t actual worms at all. The small creatures are the larval form of the darkling beetle, which has a yellow-white body and an orange-black head. Bluebirds prefer live mealworms to the freeze-dried sort, but I’m too squeamish by nature to have wriggly larvae in my refrigerator case.

  “Can you handle things on your own a bit?” I went to the door and picked up the peanuts I’d thrown.

  “Sure,” replied Channing, though she didn’t look so sure. “I guess.”

  “I have to run over to Ruby’s Diner.” I gave her my cell number and told her to call if anything came up. I only hoped Moire Leora didn’t throw me out of Ruby’s Diner the way I’d thrown those peanuts at the door. Out on the porch, I tossed the nuts into the flowerbed. Something would eat them, bird or beast, and I jaywalked to the other side of Lake Shore Drive.

  The parking lot was nearly half full but, as I entered the diner, the change in mood hit me immediately. There was a cheerless, subdued pall to the place rather than its usual breezy and welcoming ambience. The wait staff and kitchen crew alike seemed dispirited and distracted.

  “Is Moire here?” I asked, pulling Tiffany aside.

  “Upstairs. In her apartment.”

  I laid a gentle hand on Tiffany’s shoulder. “Have you been crying?” Her eyes were streaked with red.

  Tiffany sniffed and wiped her nose with a balled-up tissue. “Sorry,” she said. “I barely knew Lana, I know, but still, I can’t quite get over the fact that she’s gone.” Her head turned in the direction of the lake.

  “I know how you feel.” I looked toward the kitchen. “Is Gus here?”

  Tiffany shook her head. “I haven’t seen him. He never showed up for work at all today.”

  No surprise there. “Did Moire know Lana well?”

  “I don’t think so. She came in one morning looking for a job and Moire hired her on the spot.”

  “Just like that?” I snapped my fingers. “No background check? No references?”

  Tiffany shrugged. “You know how it is. Wait staff come and go. Moire can’t afford to be picky. Or nosy.”

  “You said Moire’s in her apartment?”

  “Once the lunch rush was over, she went upstairs for little lie-down. Lana’s death has taken its toll on her. She’s upset. And confused.” Someone in the kitchen bellowed Tiffany’s name. Tiffany shuffled through her order book as she talked. “We all are.”

  I nodded. “Would you say Gus is good at his job?”

  “What can I say?” Tiffany waved goodbye to a customer heading out the door. “Working in a diner isn’t rocket science. I’m not saying he is or isn’t a great cook.” She smiled suggestively. “But the way Moire has been walking around here on a cloud for the past few weeks, he must be good at something.”

  I wasn’t so sure Moire would be walking on clouds anymore after today. Gus was going to have a lot of explaining to do concerning his relationship with the now deceased Lana Potter. “Did Lana ever mention any family?”

  “Not to me.” Tiffany looked past me. “Excuse me, table twelve’s waiting on their order.”

  I
stepped aside and watched Tiffany move expertly behind the counter to pick up her waiting dishes. As she passed by me again on her way to the customers, I tugged at the edge of her sleeve. “What’s he doing here?” Ross O’Sullivan was moving behind the counter. In his arms, he bore a battered cardboard box. A diner apron hung over the side.

  “Who?” Tiffany followed my gaze. “His name is Ross. He’s here picking up Lana’s things. Apparently, Gus sent him over.”

  I kept my eyes on Ross as he weaved through the diner with Lana Potter’s personal belongings. What was his hurry? Why had Gus sent him to retrieve Lana’s things so quickly? The body was barely cold yet.

  Not a minute later, the cardboard box was in the back of Gus’s pickup truck and Ross was gone.

  30

  My head was throbbing as I left Ruby’s Diner. I was playing an impossible game of connect the dots. Bessie Hammond and Lana Potter. One death by broken neck. One death by drowning. The two women, at least their deaths, had to be connected. But I couldn’t figure out how.

  I hesitated, one hand on the wood rail leading to Moire’s upstairs living quarters. What if Gus McKutcheon was up there, too?

  Before I gave myself time to chicken out, I marched up the steps and knocked on Moire’s door.

  “Yes?” Moire said tentatively as she pulled open the door. “Oh, it’s you.” Her hand gripped the knob. She was in her diner uniform.

  “Hi. How are you doing?”

  “This hasn’t been the best of days,” Moire said. “What do you want, Amy?”

  “Can I come in?”

  Moire hesitated, then stepped aside. “For a minute. I need to get back to the diner.”

  Moire’s small apartment was simply furnished with a Southern flair. The cozy space was tastefully done up with weathered antiques and what appeared to be heirloom collectibles. The color palette was all golds, reds, and greens. Eclectic pieces of folk art decorated the four walls. A framed American flag hung behind glass over the farm table adjacent to the kitchen.

  Moire invited me to have a seat on the sofa and took up a chair opposite. She folded her hands in her lap.

  I could have used a drink, but Moire wasn’t offering and I wasn’t asking. “First, I wanted to offer my condolences about Lana.” Moire made no reply. “Have you heard from Gus?”

  “What’s your fascination with Gus, Amy? Can’t you stay out of things? Mind your own business?”

  “Forgive me,” I said hurriedly. “I meant no offense. I only wondered if—”

  My ears caught a light tinkling sound. A moment later, a chubby beagle came prancing from the bedroom, its nails clattering across the hardwood floor. The dog laid itself at Moire’s feet.

  Her hand fell mechanically and she idly scratched the top of its head. “Gus makes me happy, Amy. Whatever it is you think, whatever it is you are trying to do: Let it go.” Her eyes bored into me and I pressed my back deeper into the sofa cushion.

  “I only want to help.”

  “You can help by leaving me alone.”

  “Did you know that Lana was living with Gus?”

  Moire jumped up and the dog bounced to its feet and barked. “I think you’d better leave, Amy.”

  I hesitated, then stood. “How did he explain that?” How did I tell Moire that I had seen Gus and Lana making out in his pickup truck?

  Moire threw open the front door. “Gus told me all about Lana. She was new to town and needed a place to stay. He helped her out. He wasn’t even charging her rent.” She motioned for me to leave. “The same way he isn’t charging anyone else staying at his house.”

  I stepped onto the landing, the beagle nipping at my heels.

  Moire clapped her hands and told her dog to stay. “He does things for people because he’s a nice man. He’s asked me to marry him and I intend to do just that!”

  With that, she slammed the door in my face. I stared at the door a moment, then started down. Was I wrong about Gus? Was he really the nice man Moire believed him to be?

  Did he do things for people? Or did he do things to people?

  I skirted across the diner parking lot in the direction of Lake Shore Drive. A vaguely familiar couple stepped from Otelia’s Chocolates and stood hand in hand on the sidewalk. It was the man and woman I’d run into at the police station. The visitors looking for the man’s brother.

  Feeling bad for them, I ambled over. “Any luck finding your brother?”

  “Not yet,” said the man. He extended his hand. “Bert Garfinkle. This is my wife, Danielle.”

  I introduced myself. Bert and Danielle Garfinkle were about my age, perhaps several years my junior. “We’ve been asking around some.” He jerked his thumb at the chocolate shop window. “The lady who runs the store said she might have seen him, but she couldn’t be sure.” He sighed.

  “It is the height of tourist season,” I said. “We get a lot of visitors.” Though I noticed the couple selling widow-in-the-lake merchandise seemed to have packed up and moved on to their next venture.

  “I simply don’t understand,” said his wife. “It isn’t like JJ and his wife, Cece, to disappear without a trace.”

  Her husband nodded. “We made plans. My little brother knew we were coming. It was his idea really.”

  “We were looking forward to meeting his wife,” added Danielle. “We’d been hoping to meet them when they flew into New York. Then we all agreed to meet here instead.”

  “What did your brother do?” I said with a sudden smile. “Elope?” It was beginning to seem to me that Bert’s brother was of an impetuous nature.

  “Nah.” Bert stepped aside as a woman pushing a baby carriage jostled past. “They got married over in Austria. We were supposed to meet up here, then drive back to Cleveland together.”

  Danielle took up the story. “JJ finally decided to settle down and join Bert there in business.”

  I asked him what he did for a living and he explained that he was a plumber. JJ would be apprenticing under him.

  “I suppose you tried all the hotels?”

  “Yep. We even showed them this picture. It was the only one I had on my phone. I had it printed.” Bert Garfinkle extracted a folded sheet of unlined paper from his pocket. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen JJ?”

  I studied the photo of Bert’s brother. The shot was a little fuzzy and showed only his upper torso and head. The man in the photo wore sunglasses and a baseball cap. I chewed my cheek. “I can’t be sure.” To tell the truth, the man in the photograph looked like one of a hundred such tourists walking around the Town of Ruby Lake on a daily basis. The only thing distinctive about the man in the picture was the thin silver nose ring piercing his left nostril.

  “We’re heading home tomorrow,” said Danielle. She tugged her husband’s sleeve. “We’d better get going, honey.”

  He nodded.

  I wished them luck and went back home.

  * * *

  I was upstairs alone in my apartment wondering where I’d gone wrong. Here it was, Saturday night. I had no date, it seemed half my friends were mad at me, and I was no closer to figuring out Bessie Hammond’s murder when Lana Potter turned up dead, practically at my feet, to complicate things even more.

  Mom was spending the next few nights with her sister because Aunt Betty’s husband was out of town for a few days. Aunt Betty doesn’t like to be alone. Maybe that explained why she was never long between husbands.

  I telephoned Lance and got his voicemail at the Weekender. I left a message asking him to call me so we could compare notes. He may have learned something further about Bessie Hammond or even Lana Potter.

  Feeling lonely, fragile, and frustrated, I dialed Karl Vogel’s number next. As our former chief of police, with an inside track to Jerry Kennedy, he’d be the man with answers. If there were any answers to be had. “Hi, Karl.”

  “Hello, Amy.” I could hear a country tune playing in the background. “Have you heard the latest?” Karl hadn’t waited for me to grill him and didn’t
wait for an answer to his question. “Lana Potter was pregnant.”

  “No!” I stared at the phone. “Who was the father?”

  “Who’s to say? Nobody’s come forward so far.”

  “My money is on Gus McKutcheon.”

  “You really don’t like that man, do you?”

  “Not even a little bit. Maybe it’s silly, but my intuition tells me that McKutcheon is bad news.”

  “Well, in this case your intuition isn’t wrong.”

  I asked Karl what he meant.

  “The man has been in trouble with the law on more than one occasion. No arrests, mind, but a man gets himself in that much mischief, some of it’s bound to be true.” Karl chuckled. “It’s all a matter of proving it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Jerry tells me your Mr. McKutcheon was married once before. About ten years back.”

  “Divorced?” I thought about what Moire had said about her and Gus getting married.

  “Nope. His wife slipped in the bath and cracked her head wide open. Left Gus a widower. A well-to-do widower.”

  “How well-to-do?”

  “One hundred thousand well-to-dos.”

  I whistled. “He doesn’t seem to be well-off now. I wonder what happened to all the money.”

  “In my experience, a man like Gus goes through his money like he goes through his women.”

  “Do you know if Lana Potter was one of those women?”

  “It’s hard to say. Both Gus and Ms. Potter had been living in Portland, Maine, prior to showing up in Ruby Lake. But Portland’s a fair-sized city. The police haven’t found anything linking the two of them so far.”

  “So far,” I repeated, pointedly.

  The poignant twang of Hank Williams’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart” came through softly in the background as Karl filled me in on Gus’s ne’er-do-well past. “McKutcheon left Portland behind in a wake of failed businesses and disgruntled investors.”

  “Do you think he killed his first wife?”

  “If he did, he did a good job of it. You can bet the police and the insurance company dug as deep as they could.”