Geared for the Grave (A Cycle Path Mystery)

by Duffy Brown

  Grabbing a trail mix baggie, I headed outside, where there was a horse-drawn carriage filled with the fashionably dressed trotting down Main and Fiona just ahead on the sidewalk.

  “Nice dress,” I said, falling into step, the carriage just ahead of us. “Hot date?”

  “My mother says enough novenas that it should be. Instead I’m on my way to the Grand to cover the kickoff for the jazz festival and get some pics of Speed accepting his award.”

  “Always the hat?”

  Fiona rolled her eyes up toward the purple sequins. “It’s a warning so people know they need to smile when they see me coming and not be in the middle of a screaming match. The Crier is all about smiles. Inside Scoop was all about the smut.” We followed the carriage onto Mahoney with clapboard houses and colorful window boxes.

  “Do you miss L.A.? The excitement?” We turned onto Cadotte, which was congested with other equines heading up to the Grand perched up on the hill like a giant wedding cake.

  “Like a toothache. I went there to do investigative reporting and ended up sneaking pics of stars and their sexual exploits. Bad job, worse boss. Peephole Perry had enough dirt on people to sink half the town; I’m surprised he’s still alive. But L.A. doesn’t have a monopoly on dirt.” She gave me a sassy grin. “We’ve got a ton of our own. All the talk tonight’s going to be about the Bunny Festival. You need to be there, girl. Maybe you’ll hear something that will help Rudy. And the food’s to die for.”

  I could so do with the food part. I pulled at my shirt and nodded to the drivers in top hats guiding carriages up to the staircase, the band playing “Mood Indigo” on the two-football-fields-long front porch. “The fashion police would have me in chains and leg irons.”

  “They’ve got to catch you first.” Fiona stopped by the stone steps that led down into a wooded area. “Bat cave entrance. Follow the path and it takes you up the side of the hotel. Blend in like you’re a gardener; gardeners always look splotchy and have poison ivy.”

  “You’ve done this.”

  “Not the poison ivy, but Julia Roberts and Ron Howard, to name a few, show up here once in a while. Smithy and I were celeb stalkers at an early age. I think that’s how I got the L.A. bug.”

  “The L.A. bug’s been squashed?”

  “Flatter than a frog on a four-lane, if we had a four-lane around here. With a little luck I’ll never lay eyes on Peephole again. There’s sure no reason for him to come here. Find a shovel and you’ll do great. Good luck.”

  I trotted down the steps. The wooded area came out at a greenhouse, tool shed and compost pile, a huge swimming pool and tennis and bocce ball courts just beyond. Thanks to Grandpa Frank and the gang at Sleepy Meadows Retirement, I kill at bocce ball.

  “There you are.” I was turned around to face a huge guy in jeans and a maroon polo with Grand Hotel embroidered on the sleeve. “HR said they were sending you over, and—Jeez, tuck in your shirt and do something with your hair, will ya? This is a classy place.”

  He draped an industrial-strength apron over my head, then jabbed a shovel, big bucket and thick gloves at me. “We got the uniformed guys cleaning up the front road; you take the rear where they make deliveries. We can’t have the staff stepping in it and tracking it into the hotel, making the whole place reek. Get a move on.”

  “It?”

  I got the oh for the love of God look. “Horses? The fragrant gifts they leave behind? The reason you were hired. Take the back steps, and you better do a good job or you’re on the next ferry out of here.”

  This was all Fiona’s doing with that find a shovel crack. She cursed me. Okay, I looked bad, I realized that. My hair truly was a disaster, and I’d slept in my clothes and I still had the red plague look and red primer splotches—but a human pooper-scooper? Really? How did I keep getting into these messes? Easily—oh, so easily that I scared myself.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  For a beer, burger and fries, but since that wasn’t happening anytime soon, I slid on the gloves that came up to my elbows and headed for the side steps lugging a big shovel and bucket. I could cut and run, but this joyful little experience might give me a chance to catch some conversations. At least I hoped so.

  No one would pay attention to the local scooper, and they’d keep on talking, right? Plus, if I took off now, Mr. Crabby might alert Sutter that someone with poison ivy and painted clothes was MIA and roaming around the hotel grounds where they didn’t belong. Not too many individuals on this island fit that description, and I didn’t need Sutter hunting me down and delivering another mind your own business and stay out of trouble sermon.

  I cut around the side path of the hotel, avoiding the pretty people up on the porch. I took a sharp corner and came face-to-face with Smithy dressed in his work clothes right there on the path in front of me. We both stopped dead. “Why were you really in my loft?”

  “Cell phone, just like I said. What are you doing here?”

  Jaw set, Smithy took a step toward me and grabbed my shoulders in a tight grip. “Stay away from me and my business or you’ll be sorry.”

  I swung my bucket, catching Smithy in the gut, which resulted in a solid oomph, then darted into the bushes, shovel and bucket banging into my legs. I tripped, landing on my hands and knees, and scrambled to my feet running like a scared little girl, because that’s exactly what I was. What was that about Smithy, the dear boy? Ha! Strip off the overalls, plaid shirt and folksy leather apron and you got a lot of ugly white flab and one big scary dude. I wound my way up the side of the hotel to where the work drays and drivers were parked and I was never so glad to see people and animal excrement in my life.

  “Jeez Louise, ’bout time you got here,” a woman in a white uniform yelled from the doorway. “Start cleaning; this place is disgusting. If it tracks into the kitchen, the chefs will have a conniption and I’ll get to hear about it and that means you’ll hear about it, you get what I’m saying?”

  I stared at the piles on the drive. Lindsey made partner today and was celebrating right this very moment with champagne and caviar. I’d just had the liver scared out of me by the local psychopath and was about to scoop the unmentionable. And to think my reason for coming here in the first place was to impress my parents. Yeah, this would impress the heck out of them.

  I slid the shovel under the first present and gagged, the odor bringing tears to my eyes, my nose running onto my upper lip, my throat burning. Taking a deep breath—which was a really, really big mistake—I shoveled, choked and dumped.

  “Ya better make sure you get it all up,” Watchdog barked from the door as I moved on to the next pile. I must have aced scooping, because Watchdog went back inside as a waiter hurried out. He headed for the far delivery dray, a guy in a captain’s hat and week’s worth of scruff climbing down from the driver’s seat.

  Huffy’s dad? He and the waiter seemed to know each other; they did the guy-ritual fist bump. Waiter guy said something about Huffy and Dwight and I stopped mid-shovel as the captain nodded in agreement. Agreement about what? What was this about Dwight and Huffy? Maybe that the two of them knocked off Bunny for her money?

  I hoisted my bucket, kept the smelly shovel at arm’s length and eyed a present over by the dray. Head down, I did the inconspicuous pooper-scooper shuffle, shoveling piles and picking up pieces of the conversation. Something about Huffy and Dwight being happy now and my little girl finally getting what she deserves with Bunny out of the way.

  This kind of brought a tear to my eye, or maybe it was the surrounding fragrance bringing on the tear—hard to tell at this particular point in time. I scooped again, the shovel scraping across the blacktop. The captain may be a little rough around the edges, but he was a really good dad. Maybe he was too good? Just how much did he want to get Bunny out of the way so he could have a happy Huffy?

  The server slid off his white jacket, the rite of p
assage to all things in and out of the hotel, and draped it over a bench. He heaved two boxes from the dray and headed inside. The captain grabbed three boxes and turned my way, our gazes colliding for a second through the darkness. Did he recognize me? Heck, I barely recognized me. He headed inside.

  With only the horses for company—and they didn’t look in a gossipy mood—I ditched the bucket, shovel, apron and big yucky gloves behind the bench and snatched the jacket. It covered me to my knees—thank you, big tall server dude—and I made my way to the runway-size front porch, the band now playing “Ain’t Misbehaving.” Wanna bet?

  I snagged a discarded wood skewer from an abandoned plate, plucked off the uneaten shrimp and tossed it in my mouth since I never did get dinner, twisted my hair into a bun and speared the skewer through it, holding it in place. So I smelled a little fishy—better than the smell I had before. I didn’t have a black tie like the rest of the staff, but in this hip-to-hip crowd no one would notice, especially if I had a tray of something delicious to pass—all eyes would be there, and not on me.

  A waitress put down her silver tray laden with little dishes of ice cream covered in pecans drizzled with chocolate sauce to help a woman who’d spilled her drink. Another waitress parked her offerings of asparagus puffs to lend a hand. Asparagus versus chocolate, nuts and ice cream? No-brainer. I snapped up the ice cream tray, then scurried off, blending into the throng.

  “Evie? Is that really you?”

  So much for blending. I considered ignoring the greeting, but Irma wasn’t the ignoring type, at least as long as I’d known her. These days she was more I’m making a scene till I get what I want, proven by the fact that she had on fake eyelashes, rhinestone earrings and a sapphire blue dress that plunged.

  Well dang! “You look hot,” I said as she tottered over to me on spiked heels. She giggled, blushed, then stopped in her tracks, eyes watering.

  “What in the heck is that god-awful smell?” She fanned her red sequined chili pepper–shaped purse in front of her nose and took a step back.

  Uh-oh. I took a whiff and got nothing; my smeller was on strike from the assault of the horse presents. I hitched my chin at the French doors, wide open on such a lovely, festive night to let people mingle about. “Must be coming from inside. Some kind of accident?”

  “Well, it sure can’t be on purpose.”

  I shuffled over a few steps, getting to the railing and angling myself downwind. “Those are great shoes,” I added for distraction.

  Irma fluffed her hair, which was curled, set and shellacked. “I’m knocking them dead tonight. Good old Dutchy fell down the steps when he got a look at my girls here.” Irma arched her plunge. “Guess I showed him what I got—or, in this case, two things I got—and he’d never get again.”

  Irma winked, then plucked a dish of ice cream from my tray. Three other guests eyed the desserts and approached from the upwind side. They got within sniffing range, paused, then hurried off in the other direction. Irma took a bite, total euphoria spreading across her face. “No one does pecan balls like the Grand,” she said around a slurpy mouthful, a dribble escaping that she expertly caught with the tip of her tongue. “I hear they serve fifty thousand of these things every year.”

  She took another scoop. “I didn’t know you got a waitress job up here.”

  “More of a volunteer position.” I angled myself a little to the left. “Ed and Helen Levine are over with Fiona getting their pictures taken, and I don’t want them to see me. Ed will tell Rudy and then he’ll worry that I’m snooping.”

  “Snooping? You?” Irma gave me a wink. “Ed and Helen are fat cats from Chicago; bluffies through and through, though Ed’s not as bad as Helen. The Queen of England isn’t as uppity as Helen Levine. Ed and Rudy are euchre buddies, and Ed talked Rudy into moving here. Enticed him with the fact that there weren’t cars and he wouldn’t be spending his days staring at carburetors and pistons. Rudy used to be Ed’s mechanic.” Irma nodded to Irish Donna and some handsome older guy at her side. “That’s fast-hands Shamus,” Irma offered. “And that pretty blonde he’s got his arm around is not his daughter.”

  Irma licked chocolate sauce from the back of her spoon. “He had a fling with Bunny years ago that Donna doesn’t think any of us know about but of course we all do, and just last week I caught him over at the post office making eyes at Winnie Bartholomew in her yellow polka-dot halter top.”

  Shamus’s arm dropped to the pretty blonde’s waist, giving a little squeeze followed by a seductive wink.

  “I saw that,” Donna yelled, loud enough for us all to hear. She pushed the buxom blonde out of the way and decked Shamus right there in front of the crowd, his carcass flipping, ass over appetite, across one of the big white rocking chairs on the porch.

  “Donna has some temper,” I whispered to Irma.

  “And she has a shotgun.”

  The band played a loud ta-da, drawing attention to an elevated podium instead of the marital drama at the Grand. Andrew Doud tapped the microphone to get everyone quiet. I recognized Andrew from the Bunny Ice Capades at his store. He welcomed guests and islanders and went on about Mackinac and business and the Jazz Festival. He introduced Speed Maslow as Entrepreneur of the Year and presented him with a framed picture of Speed in Sports Illustrated, on his bike, hands held high in triumph as he crossed the finish line, winning the Tour of Texas.

  Speed looked surprised—or was that stunned? Guess he wasn’t expecting the framed picture, and he didn’t look too thrilled about it. Fiona snapped pictures, everyone applauded, women drooled and Irma put her empty plate back on my tray and grabbed another. “Brace yourself, Evie. We’re in for one of Speed’s I am the greatest speeches that he does for prospective investors, and there are a bunch of them here on this porch tonight with fat wallets.”

  Speed smiled, but it was more forced than real as he accepted the framed picture and put it behind the podium. He said the race was a team effort and that he was honored and humbled to be here with so many friends, and he thanked everyone from the bottom of his heart. Speed had a heart? Who knew? He waved, then hurried off into the hotel without stopping for one single photo op.

  The crowd stirred; it had been expecting more James Franco than Tom Hanks. “Who was that man?” Irma garbled around the spoon in her mouth. “And what have they done with big-mouth Maslow? Looked like he was having some kind of an attack up there.”

  “Maybe he’s sick?”

  “Being embalmed and six feet under wouldn’t keep Speed from getting his picture taken and doing a sales pitch; he’d find a way.”

  To get things going again, the mini orchestra struck up Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train,” which I recognized right off thanks to Grandpa Frank, a turntable and a stack of something he called his thirty-three and a thirds. A thirty-three and a third of what was a complete mystery, but I didn’t care, ’cause the music rocked.

  “Well, gee, look who’s here,” Irma said, a big smile on her face as she stared off into the crowd. “I had no idea Nate would be coming to something like this—a shindig at the Grand isn’t exactly his cup of tea.” She snagged another ice cream dish off my plate and held it up. “Yoo-hoo, Nate. Look what I got for you, dear.”

  What! My gaze followed Irma’s to the main staircase leading up from the driveway below where the carriages left off passengers and saw sonny boy hustling right for us—for me.

  “He’s not smiling,” Irma said, a worried mother edge to her voice. “Must be trouble on the island. I wonder what’s going on now? Hope it’s not something at the hotel.”

  “About that trouble.” I put down the tray. “I have to go. My shift just ended. Give Nate some ice cream; lots of ice cream. It’ll cheer him up.” And slow him down so I can get the heck out of here.

  * * *

  “Why do you keep looking down the street, Chicago?” Rudy asked as I craned my neck around th
e corner of the shop for the ten-hundredth time. “Are you hoping for more customers? We already rented eight bikes and we’ve only been open an hour. Business is picking up—but what in the heck is that smell hanging around here? It’s like something died.” Rudy sniffed the air. “Or worse?”

  Crap! Literally. I did the wash, rinse, repeat cycle five times last night and was down to the ep of my epidermis and still . . . “Maybe something washed up on the shore?” I leaned out the door again, giving it a little push, as it kept sticking.

  “You wouldn’t be looking for Sutter, now would you?” Rudy asked behind me.

  I spun around to Rudy, who was stirring primer. The Twain smile was in place, but his eyes didn’t sparkle this morning like usual and there was a bank notice on the workbench. It didn’t look like one of those we love you as a customer letters but more you owe us money and we want it now notices.

  “Sutter? Why would I be looking for him?”

  “’Cause he’s looking for you. Woke me out of a sound sleep right there in my very own TV room. Said you were posing as a server up at the Grand and they weren’t happy about it. I told him it must have been another brunette with long hair, poison ivy and red paint on her jeans.”

  “Was he pissed?”

  “He’s a cop; they’re always pissed. I gave him a cat.”

  Cat! I counted . . . Cleveland, Bambino, Little-bit. Ohmygod! Where was Little-bit?!

  Rudy continued, “I don’t know where the other cat came from, and Sutter looked like he needed to calm down before he popped something vital. Cats are good for calming. So tell me, what’s the latest on Bunny?”

  “That she’s one cold, cold woman,” Sutter said from behind us, obviously having come in from the back door. He pointed to me, dead serious in his eyes, jaw set. “We need to talk.”