by Duffy Brown
I passed the blacksmith shop, workplace of Smithy, another Bunny casualty. He had to resent the mother-in-law from hell, but how much? Did he just bitch and complain about her at the Stang over a few beers, or was it more I’m getting rid of the old broad ’cause she’s got it coming?
The doors to the blacksmith barn were pulled together and locked tight, the shop and tour hours posted on the white plaque in front. Curls of smoke puffed from the stone chimney, the deep woody aroma wafting through the air suggesting the blacksmith was indeed in. Since I wasn’t here to get shoed or branded or whatever else got done in such shops and I just wanted to talk with Smithy, I took the path around to the side to see if I could find him.
“Hello,” I called out, knocking on the screen door. “Anyone home?” I stepped inside to find coals glowing deep red in the hearth, the heat radiating all the way to where I stood. Tools I didn’t recognize but that looked like something from the Old Testament hung on wood pegs, a buggy was parked in a stall and a black-and-white cat slept on a bench. Smithy couldn’t have gone far—there was a fire blazing. “Hello?”
Steps that were split half logs trailed up the side of the barn and I took them into a big loft with arched doors wide open letting in warm sun and a cool breeze. Smithy wasn’t here either, but he did have herbs and berries drying on big, flat screens held up on two-by-four sawhorses. The herbs smelled fresh and earthy and sweet, and there was a stack of little plastic baggies for storing them when the time came. I knew oregano from rosemary, and could pick out mint because I’ve had more than my share of mojitos over the years, but that was the extent of my herb awareness.
I gazed out of the loft, standing on top of the world, telling myself I didn’t miss honking horns, the Chicago skyline and deep-dish pizza. I could see all the way to the bridge and beyond now, and it was very picturesque, if you liked picturesque, and—
I got shoved from behind. Hard! My neck snapped back and I lost my footing on the old boards. Arms flailing, I grabbed for something, anything, till the bushes below rushed up to meet me.
I blinked my eyes open and saw Nate Sutter hovering above me. “Jail?”
“Not yet.”
Another guy walked up. It was that hippie on Scooby-Doo, except bigger and with a silver stud earring and chewing gum. “What were you doing up in my loft?”
“Looking for you,” I wheezed. I forced my eyeballs to work and gazed up. “Somebody pushed me.”
“Why would somebody push you?” Sutter glanced at the loft. You got too close to the edge. Smithy said he watched you fall into the bushes and didn’t see any badass characters standing around applauding the occasion. Can you move your arms and legs?”
I gave everything a test drive, then levered myself into a sitting position.
“Maybe you should visit Doc Evers,” Sutter said. “If not for the fall, at least for the poison ivy. You’re a mess.”
“Cat allergy.”
Smithy pointed to the red, blotchy back of my arm. “Leaves of three let them be? Sound familiar?”
“I live in Chicago. We count train stops.”
Smithy shook his head. “Good luck with that allergy. I’m getting ready for the morning tourists, I’ve got to go.” He stood and adjusted the strap on his worn overalls and tied his left boot, which had burn spots across the toe. Being a blacksmith wasn’t for the puny. He grinned down at me. It was one of those nice-guy grins that made you want to buy the guy a beer, but when Sutter turned the other way, Smithy’s smile died a quick death. “Stay out of high places, Chicago,” Smithy added, steel in his eyes more than in his voice. “It’s bad for your health.”
Smithy sauntered off, my brain in a fog as much from the fall as the bad health crack. What happened to good old Smithy the brownie guy? I started to get up, except Sutter held me in place; this time it was his turn to give me the steely look. “What in the heck do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting a double scoop of cherry chocolate chip to celebrate being alive?”
“You show up here and now my mother’s suddenly blonde.”
“She looks good blonde.”
“She’s wearing jeans.”
“You’re wearing jeans.”
His brows knit together, and did he just growl? “What did you say to her?”
Don’t light that match. “Your mom needed a little change, a makeover, updating—her idea, not mine. She’s got a new spring in her step and really held her own in that fudge fight.”
“What fudge fight?” Sutter ran his hand over his face, muttering a string of vivid Detroitisms, and ground his teeth, probably chipping a molar.
Okay, I got that Irma was embarrassed about Dutchy, and she had obviously kept it from sonny boy, for which Dutchy should be eternally grateful. If Nate Sutter had an aneurysm over jeans, contacts and hair, then stealing the cherished family recipes would land Dutchy in the bottom of Lake Huron. Of course, if sonny boy knew Mom and I were hunting a murderer, I’d be in the lake right beside Dutchy.
“You’re not getting her involved in this Bunny thing, are you?” Sutter asked, as if reading my mind.
“What Bunny thing?”
“If you go upsetting everyone around here with your stupid ideas that Rudy’s innocent, I’m pulling the plug on Doud’s freezer. I’ll end this hide the body mess we got going, and I don’t care how much business we lose. You understand what I’m saying?”
Screw you, is what I wanted to say back, but mouthing off to a city cop was never a good idea even if the cop wasn’t in his big city. “Got it.”
I wobbled to my feet, staggering, and Sutter grabbed me, his arm solid and strong and macho. Macho? Where’d that come from? My fall to Earth, or maybe a latent hormonal buildup due to being single and maybe not loving it as much as I thought?
“Are you okay?” Sutter asked, holding my shoulders in a firm grip. “You look weird.”
“You look weird, like you’re trying to catch your breath. Is that what happens at middle age?” He deserved that crack for calling my ideas stupid.
“Stay out of trouble, and get something for that poison ivy. You’re scaring the fudgies.”
He tromped across the street to the Lucky Bean, and I headed for Rudy’s Rides at a much slower pace. Just when my knees had started to scab over, I’d bruised every bone in my body. Except I didn’t do the bruising—somebody else did. Hey, I knew a push when I felt one. After years of mass transit rush hour Chicago commuting I knew all about pushes.
“What’s cooking?” I yelled to Rudy. I limped past three more primed bikes in front of the shop that seemed to look more dingy by the day. I snagged Bambino from the pool table, petting his cute, fuzzy head and followed my nose to the kitchen. Rudy stood beside Ed stirring some concoction on a cookie sheet, the onion garlic smell making the shop more Chef Boyardee than Rudy’s Rides. Neither guy said boo about my red, oozing skin, making me wonder what I looked like usually.
I put Bambino on the windowsill and got the cat treats from the cupboard as Rudy said, “We’ve been fooling around with this recipe since Ed talked me into retiring here when he did. We used to be poker buddies, and now it’s euchre, and this is our secret lucky snack mix that we’re passing off as trail mix to go along with biking.” Rudy added handfuls of nuts. “I was thinking a bag of snacks with a bike rental is a gimmick just like you said. I’m going with BOGO Week to get our name out there like you see on TV all the time. Buy one get one.”
“Rent a bike and get a bag of trail mix? Not bad,” I said.
“More buy the trail mix and get a bike,” Rudy laughed. “Twain says, Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. Ed here had that hanging in his office in Chicago for years.”
Personally I thought that was asking a lot of trail mix, but I just fell out of a barn, so what did I know? But why did I fall out, and why did Smithy go all Je
kyll and Hyde on me? And how could he not have seen someone else up in that loft? Smithy didn’t want me up there for some reason, but what was it? I pinched up a bit of the trail mix and set it in front of Bambino and Cleveland, then plucked up a cat treat and popped it in my mouth trying to make sense of what happened at the barn.
“Holy cow, this mix is terrible!” Drool pooled at the corners of my mouth, my tongue shriveling into the back of my mouth.
Rudy grabbed the bag out of my hand. “You just ate Friskies Seafood Sensations. The good news is you won’t have urinary problems or hairballs.”
“Herbs,” I blurted. “A perfect addition.”
“You didn’t even taste it,” Ed groused.
I tossed a handful of mix in my mouth. I needed to take another look at that loft and wanted an excuse to go now before any evidence got destroyed, and I didn’t want to tell Rudy what was going on. “What about an upscale adult taste—throw in some rosemary or sage? Bet Smithy would sell us some. You know how everyone loves things homegrown.”
I opened the back door. “I’ll go see him right now.” Not that I intended to chat it up with good old Smithy, who clearly didn’t want to talk to me. It was Smithy’s barn, but someone could have easily followed me. I had been admiring the scenery and not paying attention, so anyone could have pushed me.
“Stop at the medical center, get something for your poison ivy,” Ed called, leaning out the door, knowing to avoid the broken step. “See if there’s a psychiatrist hanging around. Think therapy. You’re eating cat food.”
I turned the corner onto Main thinking about my header into the lilacs and jumped back as Irish Donna whizzed right in front of me on the red primer bike she’d rented. Her hair streamed out behind her while horses reared and fudgies dove for the sidewalk, Donna screaming, “Whoa, Paddy, whoa.”
The street leveled out, Donna dragging her feet, the bike slowing, then bouncing off a black-and-white porch post in front of Millie’s Pub. Donna flopped over onto the street facedown, the bike toppling on top of her, fudgies gathering, staring, snapping pictures.
“Say something,” I called out to Donna, people parting like the Red Sea when they caught a glimpse of my splotchy arms and face. I picked up the bike and helped Donna to stand. Squaring her shoulders, she sniffed in a lungful of air, shoved her red curls off her forehead and snatched her purse from the bike basket. She pushed a fudgie out of the way, then yanked open the pub door.
“Pour me a pint, Brad me boy,” Donna bellowed to the barkeep. “I’m a woman in need.” She sank into a booth, grabbed the hot sauce off the table and gave a big squirt directly into her mouth, smacking her lips in satisfaction. “Faith and begorra I’m restored!”
“What happened?” I asked Donna after I added an order of fried green beans—vegetables my way—to the beer request and took the seat across from her. Millie’s was vintage island decor with a stamped tin ceiling, a mirrored bar reflecting liquor bottles stacked in front and those little black-and-white tiles like Grandpa Frank had in his downstairs bathroom right here on Millie’s floor. A picture of Millie, the family hunting dog, hung on the wall. Around here everything was named after someone, and the pub was no exception.
“Ye know that saying like riding a bike, meaning folks don’t be forgetting how it’s done no matter how old ye get?” Irish Donna slapped her hand on the table. “’Tis a big load of horse manure.” She gulped down the Guinness and let out a burp that warranted a round of applause from the next table over. “So where ye be headed this fine day?” Donna asked. She tackled Guinness number two, the dark brew taking the edge off her bike encounter and putting color in her cheeks and reddening her nose.
“I got pushed out of Smithy’s barn loft and I’m trying to figure out why and who did it,” I said between bites of green bean.
Donna’s eyes rounded, and she leaned across the table, hooking her finger for me to do the same. “It’s the meddling about the Bunny Festival, it is. I’ve heard talk that ye not be thinking Rudy did the deed, meaning someone else around here did. Gets people jumpy as a pea on a drum. If ye ask me, ye got the black cloud to thank for things not going your way one bit.”
She rolled her eyes upward and wagged her head in worry. “I can feel it this very minute, I can. It be growing around you getting bigger and bigger.” Her hands made the outline of a cloud, and a chill snaked down my spine. She slid the gold chain with the shamrock from around her neck, kissed it and slipped it over my head. “For protection, me dear. Ye be needing more than me these days.”
“Gee, that’s really sweet.”
“We can’t be having any more occupants over there at Doud’s with the place getting in a shipment of frozen juice and pies this very morning.” Donna helped herself to the green beans. “Bunny’s already squashed under the pizzas and tater tots, and another addition would be a true inconvenience to the store.”
“God forbid we inconvenience the store.”
“Amen, dearie.”
We split the bill, and I followed her out to the porch. “Well, let’s get on with it then,” she said to me. “The afternoon tea fudgies will be arriving at the Blarney Scone, and Shamus never puts the doilies out right, and he flirts something fierce if I don’t step in and put an end to it. The man has a roving eye and a weak brain.”
“You want to go with me to the loft?”
“You’re young and have your wits about you”—Donna studied my blotchy face—“well, most of the time you do, and you’re not the sort of lass who falls out of barns. I’d say someone was up there who followed you and is trying his best to scare you off from poking around the Bunny Festival. The question is, me dear, are you letting them get away with it and Rudy gets sent up the river for something he didn’t do?”
My bones ached, I had massive poison ivy, probably from climbing up Dwight’s trellis, I was on hit lists, the local cop wanted me behind bars but hey, my urinary tract was in good shape and I didn’t have hairballs. What more could a girl ask for. “I work for Rudy’s daughter back in Chicago. If I don’t straighten this Bunny mess out, she’ll fire me, and like you said, we can’t let Rudy get sent up the river. He’s a good guy getting a rotten deal.”
Donna slapped me on the back, adding to the bone ache. “Then let’s be getting on with it.”
“What about your bike?”
“If luck be with us, it’ll get pinched and we’ll not be seeing it ever again.”
Donna started off, and I fell in beside her. “There’s a little problem you should know about. Smithy was not happy about me being up in his loft and told me to stay away.”
“Well, he’d be drying his herbs up there this time of year, and the man’s fussy about his plants; says it’s his healing therapy for Constance leaving him like she did.”
“There’s another possibility other than the herbs why Smithy wants me to stay away: Bunny killed Smithy’s marriage and it could be that Smithy wanted to return the favor. Maybe he wouldn’t like that I’m trying to get Rudy off because the guilty path might lead right to him.”
Irish Donna stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, a crowd of fudgies nearly tripping over her. Eyes narrowing, she yanked me to the side. “What are ye thinking? Smithy’s a dear boy, he is, not a mean bone in his body, everybody knows that. I cannot believe you’re thinking he’s the one who did the pushing. There are lots of others out there having it in for Bunny and not wanting to get found out.”
Okay, this was going to be a real problem. Friends. Everybody around here knew everybody and couldn’t believe the boy or girl next door was a killer.
“And why would Smithy be framing Rudy of all people? Tell me that, would you?” Donna added. “There not be a cross word between the two of them as far as I can tell. Ye gone daft in the head, girl, and I’ll be no part of pinning a murder on a perfectly innocent boy like Smithy.”
“I’m not pinning, but you
have to admit that Smithy didn’t like Bunny, and maybe he’d had enough of not seeing his daughter and blamed Bunny for the whole situation.”
Donna snorted, wrinkled her nose and stormed off.
Being a nosy outsider would never compete with being a longtime friend, and I respected that, but Smithy was way up there on my who knocked off Bunny list. I strolled past the barn, the steady clang of hammer hitting metal vibrating into the fillings of my teeth. How did he stand the racket? Small wonder why he raised nice, quiet plants.
I turned for the side entrance I had gone in before and stopped at the screen door. Now I needed a distraction to get inside and up the steps to the loft without Smithy seeing me. Maybe I’d find a footprint or a gum wrapper or whatever up there to lead me to whoever wanted me out of the way. Heck, they found clues like that all the time on TV, right?
Red-faced, with sweat clinging to his forehead, Smithy swung the mallet, all his attention focused on the red-hot iron and the giant tongs holding it. Where I came from, we used tongs to snag the last olives out of the jar. I slipped off my shoes, waited for the hammer to hit the metal again then opened the door. The wood floor felt cool and smooth against my bare feet as I tiptoed up the well-worn steps as Smithy gave the iron rod another whack.
When I got to the top, the loft doors were still wide open, with the warm breeze drifting through them. The drying herbs and berries sat to one side, and I crept across the heavy floorboards to where I’d been pushed. The racket below suddenly stopped. I froze and waited a beat for the pounding to start up again, but instead felt someone come up behind me. Every hair on my body stood straight on end as I felt a hot breath against my neck.
Smithy was strong with a big hot forge to cook me to ashes; least I wouldn’t itch anymore. I spun around, throwing my hands in the air with Don’t kill me; I have a cat to support on the tip of my tongue, and Irish Donna slapped her hand over my mouth to squelch my scream.
