Roadkill (Double Barrel Mysteries Book 1)

by Barbara Ellen Brink

  “Wow,” Blake said, his voice low so the old man wouldn’t hear. “I had no idea. I knew it was old and would take work, but…” he trailed off and shook his head.

  “Hello!” A woman clomped down the stairs in high-heeled cowboy boots, red hair tied back with a pink ribbon. Her voice was as bright and welcoming as her cheery, freckled face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were waiting.”

  “I yelled fer ya,” Mr. Booth mumbled from his chair. “Are ya goin’ deaf?”

  “No, Dad. I’m not going deaf.” She leaned over his chair and kissed the top of his head. “I was up in the attic looking through boxes, seeing what we can throw out and what we can sell.”

  He gave a snort. “Who’d want to buy any of that old junk? We ought’a burn the place to the ground. It’s like me… worth more dead than alive.”

  “Dad, don’t say that.” She turned to face them, embarrassment stealing into her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m Alice. Were you two here for a room?” she asked.

  “We called yesterday,” Blake said. He gave her a smile. “I’m Blake Gunner and this is my wife, Shelby.”

  “Wait a minute!” She covered her mouth with one hand for a second and shook her head back and forth, eyes wide with excitement. “Mrs. Davies took your call when I was out getting groceries. She comes over to keep an eye on my father sometimes. When I saw the note by the phone, it never dawned on me that you were the Blake Gunner.”

  Shelby laughed. “The Blake Gunner? Sounds like you’re a celebrity, babe.”

  “Your husband was the star of our football team back in high school. They still talk about the record number of touchdowns he made his senior year.”

  Blake looked adequately embarrassed. “I haven’t been back since I was eighteen, so I apologize if my memory is…”

  She waved a hand in dismissal. “Oh no. You have no reason to remember me. I was three years your junior and completely invisible to boys at the time. Especially popular senior boys with plenty of female company to be had.”

  “That’s the second time since we hit town that someone has mentioned my husband’s ability to charm the high school ladies,” Shelby said, linking her arm with his and smiling at their hostess. “Please don’t revive his massive ego. It’s taken me four years to get it under control.”

  “Hey.” Blake’s blue eyes narrowed pointedly. “My ego has never been out of control. I can’t help it if the ladies are drawn to me like bees to honey.”

  Alice laughed, “Said the spider to the flies.”

  “Exactly.” Shelby held out a hand. “I’m very glad to meet you, Alice. I feel you may be a kindred spirit.”

  The other woman clasped her hand warmly, but there were questions in her eyes. “Time will tell. Are you planning more than a two day visit?”

  “Time will tell,” Shelby repeated.

  <<>>

  Alice took them upstairs and presented them with a corner room. It had two large, square windows with nautical themed curtains, pulled open and held at the sides by red tasseled ropes. “This is The Lake Room. It has a private bathroom with a tub and shower,” she said, as though such amenities were unheard of elsewhere. She waved a hand toward the open door to their right. Shelby glimpsed plain white fixtures and bright blue towels. “If you need anything else let me know, but I can’t promise I’ll have it. This isn’t the Hilton, after all,” she said and grinned.

  “It looks wonderful,” Shelby said and plopped on the edge of the standard-sized bed, covered in a matching nautical themed coverlet. She bounced slightly to gauge the firmness of the mattress. Definitely needed an upgrade.

  “We seldom have more than one room booked at a time these days, so most of our guests end up in here. The other rooms could use an extreme makeover, but that’s not going to happen now.” She sounded like she hadn’t quite come to terms with the fact that the place was for sale. At the door, she paused. “Breakfast is served in the dining room at 8:30 each morning. Except Sundays when it’s served at 8:00. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

  Their hostess pulled the door shut, and they listened to the sound of her boots scuffing a retreat down the hall. Blake sighed tiredly and glanced around the room. “The other rooms need an extreme makeover?”

  “Don’t be a Downer Douglas, babe. A little paint and some imagination, and we can get this B&B on the hottest places to visit list.”

  “Who’s the Pollyanna calling the Douglas down?” he asked, a smirk in his words.

  She wandered over to look out one of the windows. The east side of Port Scuttlebutt was visible from this vantage point. A church steeple rose above trees, roofs and telephone poles, clearly the easiest building to find in town. The road they’d taken up the hill was hidden from view, but she could see a few vehicles below, parked along the main drag, like Matchbox cars all in a row. Set away from the house, across the driveway, and nearly invisible behind overgrown trees and giant hydrangea bushes was a separate storage building. It appeared big enough to be a garage, but didn’t look as though anyone had used it for a long time.

  Blake stood at the other window, hands in the pockets of his jeans. His cane now leaned against the wall beside him. “Everything looks pretty much the same,” he said, his voice quiet and introspective. “The town’s a little smaller than I remember, but other than that, it feels like I just stepped through a time portal.”

  “Is that good or bad?” she asked, as she moved behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “I’m undecided at the moment.”

  She rested her chin on his shoulder. “I can’t imagine returning to where I grew up, but you obviously have good memories, so…”

  Through the window, they gazed out at Lake Superior. The huge body of water stretched into the horizon. Below the house, at the back of the yard, was a hilly drop off. Steps had been built into the side of the hill with timbers that wound down to the beach. Snugly situated between the cliffs and the water was another structure that obviously belonged with the B&B. The long, low structure was built with a dock on one end and the other faced directly toward the lake. Was it a boathouse?

  “A storm is coming,” Blake said.

  Waves moved relentlessly toward shore, crashing against an outcropping of rocks and sending up spray every few seconds like an intermediate sprinkler. The wind had picked up since their arrival, forming little whitecaps over slate grey water.

  “I’m starving, and Alice doesn’t serve food until tomorrow morning,” she reminded him. “Let’s drive back to town and get a late lunch.”

  Chapter Five

  When they stepped out of the Bronco in front of The Port Café, Shelby felt multiple pairs of eyes following their every move. Down the street outside the antique shop, two women openly stared. She stared right back, and they instantly became mesmerized by something in the display window.

  Blake held the door of the café, and she hurried inside. It couldn’t be any worse than out on the street, right? Two older men sporting scruffy beards, sweat-stained caps and dirty sweatshirts occupied one of the six booths. Their stares were curious but held a touch of suspicion as well. Shelby gave them a friendly smile, but she felt like a specimen under a microscope.

  Blake waited for her to choose a booth and slid into the seat across from her. He reached over the red and white checked plastic tablecloth and gave her hand a light squeeze. “Still love being the star of the show?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows up and down.

  “You’re incorrigible,” she whispered. She opened her purse and took out the package of bacterial wipes she carried. Glancing at the men in the nearby booth, she began wiping down her area.

  The seats of the booths were covered in worn and scratched red vinyl. They appeared clean enough, but you couldn’t be too sure. If fishermen were regular customers at the café, then fish guts could also be regular customers.

  “We spray those with disinfectant three times a day, ma’am.”

  Shelby looked up to find a petite, middle-aged
woman standing at their table. Her long black hair, liberally streaked with white at the sides like the Bride of Frankenstein, was pulled up at the back of her head with a giant clip. Unlike the bride, she wore jeans and a canary yellow t-shirt under a white cook’s apron. Serious gray eyes stared back at Shelby from behind wire-rimmed glasses as the woman handed them each a plastic menu. “I wiped those down as well,” she said, a touch of asperity in her words.

  “Thank you,” Shelby said, not sure how to pull herself out of the doghouse. Apparently, she’d offended the woman by assuming germs would have the audacity to enter her establishment. She tried a lame excuse. “I’m a little over cautious since I got food poisoning a couple of months ago.” The woman’s lips tightened even more, and Shelby hurried to explain. “Certainly not anywhere near here! It was in Minneapolis. Those four star restaurants are so over-rated.”

  The woman adjusted the apron around her waist, attempting to hide a grin, but she failed and burst out laughing. Shelby realized that her husband was laughing too. He stood and pulled the strange woman into a hug.

  “I can’t believe you thought you could sneak into town and I wouldn’t find out, Blake Gunner.” She stepped back, wiping damp eyes with the sleeve of her t-shirt. “You ornery little brat! I ought ’a smack you upside the head!”

  Blake actually looked ashamed. “I’m sorry, Luanne. I really am. But you know how this town is, and I just wanted to slip in under the radar this once.” He put out a hand and pulled Shelby up beside him. “This is my wife…”

  “Nice to meet you, Shelby. I’ve heard all about you from a thin fellow at the Ben Franklin store.”

  “Strangely enough, I’ve had the opposite experience. My husband has told me nearly nothing about this town or the people who live here. I’m sorry I wasn’t better informed. I might have avoided offending someone.”

  “You didn’t offend me, young lady. You crack me up! I haven’t had anyone around here scrub these seats without at least being paid minimum wage. I’m always looking for hard workers. You got any waitressing experience?”

  “Well, I played a waitress once,” she said.

  Luanne cocked her head to the side. “Excuse me?”

  “My wife is an actress,” Blake said, smiling down at her. “Sometimes she even pretends to know how to cook, but she can’t hold a candle to you, Luanne.”

  “I can’t help it if cops are never home on time. After four years, I was beginning to think you liked burnt food.”

  Luanne shooed them back into their booth, and when Blake sat heavily, without the use of his cane for leverage, her brow furrowed with concern. “That isn’t an old football injury cropping up, is it, hun?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

  Luanne didn’t buy it. She waved her hand for Shelby to scoot over and plopped down beside her. “You might as well tell me. Least this way, it’ll be straight from the horse’s mouth and not some tale those two concocted on a slow fish story day.” She hooked a thumb toward the two men.

  Blake cleared his throat and played with the napkin rolled flatware as though unsure how to begin.

  “My husband was with the Minneapolis Police Department for eight years. He’s been in physical therapy for the past year, but he’s improving every day.”

  “As good as I’m going to get.” Blake shrugged. “Last year I was shot during a bust. Left me a little gimpy and out of a job.”

  “I’m so sorry, Blake. That’s terrible. I bet you were a terrific policeman.”

  “Homicide detective,” Shelby said, pride in her voice. “And he was the best.”

  “So what are you doing here? Not many jobs to be had in this area. I’m sure there are a lot more opportunities in the twin cities.”

  Two silver-haired ladies entered the café. They wore matching pink and blue checked dresses with white pinafore collars that were probably the height of fashion for ten-year-old girls in the 1960s. They smiled and nodded to the fishermen and then sat behind them so they would have a perfect view of the strangers across the aisle.

  Luanne grimaced. “We’ll have to finish up this conversation later. The Bailey twins always come in for their afternoon coffee and rolls, and to dish the latest news.” She stood up and smoothed her apron. “Now, what would you two like? We don’t have any of that fancy stuff with foam on the top, but my coffee is pretty popular around these parts.”

  “Coffee would be great. That’ll give us time to look over the menu,” Shelby said, flipping the plastic-coated menu over and back again.

  Blake laughed. “No need for that. Has anything changed since I’ve been gone, Luanne?”

  “Heaven forbid! We don’t allow change in the U.P.,” she said, her voice deadpan, but a slight smile lifted the corner of her mouth.

  “Great! Then bring us your roadkill special of the day.”

  After Luanne gathered up the menus and hurried off to the kitchen, Blake sat back with a contented sigh. He flashed a bright smile at the two women staring at them from across the aisle. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

  Shelby leaned forward, elbows on the table, and whispered. “What exactly does that mean? I’m starving, not desperate. Starving means it’s been over four hours since my last meal, not that I’m ready to eat raccoon.”

  “Luanne doesn’t cook raccoon. They’re too gristly. She prefers the fresh catch of the day, which is usually white fish around here. But her roadkill special is a meat and vegetable pasty that would make a lumberjack green with envy.”

  “Pasty?” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll love it.”

  When the pasties arrived from the kitchen, Shelby poked at the crust with the tongs of her fork, releasing a mouth-watering aroma of roast and onion scented steam. Crimped along the edges like a pocket, it was baked to a golden brown. “So, it’s basically a pot pie with beef instead of chicken?”

  Blake was already cutting into his pasty with knife and fork. He raised a chunk to his lips, blew gently over it, and stuck it in his mouth. “Mmm. It doesn’t get better than this.”

  “I’ve made beef stew before. This is just beef stew in a pocket.”

  “Actually, it’s not.” He pointed his fork at a chunk of meat. “That there is venison. Hence the name. Roadkill.”

  “You mean…” She suddenly felt a little less hungry and a lot more queasy.

  “It’s perfectly good meat. There are so many deer around here you’re lucky if you don’t hit one.” He lowered his voice and leaned toward her. “Actually, Luanne has the venison shipped from a deer farm, but when she runs short or the price goes up, she has been known to take a fresh kill. Her cousin works for highway carcus cleanup. He gets her fresh meat. She gives him free meal passes. A few of the regular hunters around here know the deal too, so if they don’t want to process the meat, they bring in their kill and get free meals in exchange. I don’t think her freezers ever go empty.”

  “How very industrious of her.”

  “It’s a bit unorthodox, so don’t spread it around. But you don’t have to worry. She only takes it from reliable sources. The deer has to be dressed out within an hour or she won’t accept it.”

  Shelby had no idea what he was talking about, but she couldn’t fault the food. It was delicious.

  Blake raised his cup of coffee. “To the best pasty chef in the state!”

  Luanne took a bow from behind the counter, and one of the older men grinned and raised his cup as well. “Amen to that!” he bellowed, sounding like an old foghorn that hadn’t been used in a while. Their outspoken cook turned a bright shade of pink and disappeared back into the kitchen, followed by a clanging of pots and pans.

  “Well I’ll be,” Blake said softly, his eyes narrowing with interest. He glanced from the swinging kitchen door to the man across the aisle. “Looks like Luanne has an admirer.”

  Shelby shook her head and forked another chunk of savory venison. It did smell really good. “You fit right into this town, babe. An
other couple days, you’ll be gossiping with the old ladies down at the post office.”

  “Where do you think I learned my keen sense of observation?”

  “Noted.”

  They both watched closely as the men stood to leave. Luanne’s admirer left a ten-dollar bill under his empty coffee mug and headed out the front door. The other man plopped down two one-dollar bills, then eyed the ten and snatched his up again, pushing it into his sweatshirt pocket. He smirked when he saw them watching and slowly ambled out after his partner.

  Luanne hurried out of the kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee and refilled the twins’ cups before turning toward them. “More coffee, kids?” she asked, as though they were still in high school.

  “I think we better get going. The pasty was superb,” Blake said, kissing the ends of his fingers like an actor on a pasta commercial.

  Shelby couldn’t help laughing, but she agreed. “It was delicious, Luanne. Care to share your recipe, or is that a family secret?”

  “Straight from Cornwall it is,” she said, attempting a Cornish accent that probably set her ancestors giggling in their graves. “Of course they used beef or mutton instead of venison, but I’m afraid divulging the recipe would put me in hot water with my granny.”

  “Your grandmother still alive?”

  “She turns one-hundred-years-old this Saturday.”

  “Is she a first generation American then?”

  Luanne nodded. “She came over on a ship from Cornwall when she was ten years old. There were six of them. Her parents, a younger brother who later died of influenza, and a married sister with her husband, all stuffed into a tiny cabin meant for two.”