A Murder of Crows

by Jan Dunlap

  Boo nodded. “Right. So to keep Arlene quiet, Sonny kept devising ‘plans’ to disqualify our land, but none of the plans panned out, which finally tipped Arlene off to the fact that Sonny wasn’t going to fix the deal for her folks.”

  “So she figured, worst case, she could blackmail him with their affair,” I filled in.

  “Right again,” Boo said. “But when she heard that Sonny was killed, she wasn’t about to share any of that with the police because she was afraid she’d be arrested for blackmail, if not as a murder suspect herself.”

  “You got all that out of Arlene just because she didn’t want your dad to coat her pickup in tomato juice?”

  “No,” Boo confessed. “Although she did tell me that she just got the truck back yesterday after it was in the repair shop for the last week.”

  “So she wasn’t in Chanhassen, at the Arboretum, last Sunday morning, then,” I surmised.

  “No, I guess not,” he agreed. “But that’s no surprise. Arlene may be a blackmailer, but I don’t think she’s capable of planning a murder, let alone committing one. That woman can hardly plan her way out of a paper bag, and even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut about it. Case in point: Arlene told Clarissa about the phone call to Sonny’s place.”

  “And Clarissa told your mom.”

  “And probably every other woman in Spinit,” Boo speculated. “There are no secrets in a small town, Bob.”

  “So how did you get her to confess to the blackmail?”

  Boo cleared his throat. “I told her that I had some aerial photos of her truck out on the property early in the morning, and it was amazing the kind of detail you could get these days with good camera equipment. Some lenses can see right through the tarps you use over your truck bed.”

  He slid me a sly smile. “And then I said it sure would be embarrassing to have everyone and his mother looking at what was going on in the back of your truck on YouTube.”

  I let out a low whistle. “You are heartless, Boo Metternick. I never would have thought that of you. Murder, maybe,” I added, reminding us both of my earlier, terribly misplaced, suspicions, “but complete humiliation? Never.”

  “I’m also a liar,” he admitted. “Those aerial shots I have of her truck don’t show a thing, and besides, I wouldn’t dream of making Arlene Weebler a YouTube sensation. She’s obnoxious enough already.”

  “I thought you hated liars,” I said.

  He’d certainly impressed me with that trait the other day in my office. When he’d leaned over my desk, I’d been tempted to whip out some pepper spray in defense, just in case he decided to literally pound that little detail into me.

  “I do,” he said. “But sometimes, you’ve got to think—and act—like a liar to catch one.”

  “And what about a murderer?” The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  “What about a murderer?” Boo asked.

  I followed Sara’s car through the last turn towards the Metternick farm.

  How was I going to tell Boo that I had recognized his good friend Noah as the man I saw on the Arboretum trail just minutes before stumbling over Sonny’s body? Granted, that fact alone didn’t prove anything, but it did provide a very good reason for a close examination of Noah Knorsen as a possible murderer.

  “I know you said you don’t think Noah is—responsible—for Sonny’s death, but what if there was evidence that he was involved? You said yourself that Gina was concerned about Noah being possibly involved, and that she was really upset after seeing him on Sunday morning.”

  I put the car in park in front of Boo’s home. Sara and Vern were already out of their vehicles, heading towards a small barn that sat a little way back from the house. From what I could see, the two were carrying on an animated conversation. I wondered if Sara had ever shown that much interest in any classroom at Savage. We obviously weren’t offering the right subjects to our students. Instead of Art and Family Science, we should have been thinking Nuclear Devices and Vegetable Weaponry.

  Boo sat in the car and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Gina wasn’t upset about something that Noah had done, Bob,” he explained. “She was upset about something he wanted to do, which was quitting his job. She told him she’d walked away from her past mistakes and that he needed to move on, too. He told her to mind her own business. Gina took it real hard, and I took her home. Noah didn’t kill Sonny, Bob.”

  “So what was he doing on the path at the Arb on Sunday morning,” I blurted out, “less than five minutes away from Sonny Delite’s body? I saw him, Boo. I was there, and so was he.”

  Silence filled the car.

  And lingered.

  I swear I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he processed what I’d told him. Then, his blue eyes slowly went icy, and his face filled with dark anger.

  For a split-second, I debated who he looked more like: a furious Hulk on the verge of turning green, or a fair-haired Thor getting ready to rumble.

  Either way, I didn’t think it was going to be good.

  Seconds passed, and then a still-human and very angry Boo was out of the car and storming up the front porch steps.

  I stepped out my side of the car and called after him.

  “Was it something I said?”

  Tillie appeared on the porch a moment later.

  “Are you going to be joining us for a nice lunch, Bob? Boo says that Noah’s coming over, and I could heat up some ham. It wouldn’t be any trouble,” she added.

  Easy for her to say.

  After Boo’s implosion in my car, I wasn’t sure who he was angrier at—me for suggesting that Noah was a murderer, or Noah for possibly committing a murder. Regardless, the idea of sitting down at the table with both of them sure sounded like trouble to me.

  “Thanks, but I don’t know that Boo wants my company right now,” I excused myself. “I think he’s got a bone to pick with Noah.”

  “Oh, he’s just in a little snit,” she said, dismissing her son’s anger with a wave of her hand. “He gets like that sometimes. He’ll be fine once he has some lunch in him. He and Noah have their own way of working out their differences.”

  For some reason, that didn’t give me a lot of confidence. I really doubted that Boo just needed a slice of ham to calm his fury. When he’d slammed out of my car, he looked like he was ready to kill someone.

  And I’d really rather it wasn’t me.

  Especially on my day off.

  On the other hand, if it was Noah that Boo wanted to murder, I should probably stick around as a witness. For once in my life, I wouldn’t have to figure out who the murderer was.

  “That sounds great, Tillie,” I accepted. “I’d love to have lunch.”

  Boo’s mother smiled happily and then pointed at the small barn where Vern and Sara had disappeared.

  “And what about that young lady I saw my husband take into his museum? Would you go ask her if she’d like some lunch, too? That is, if she can stand to be around Vern any longer after getting the tour of his collection,” she added. “Those war relics are his passion, but I’m afraid they put our visitors to sleep, nine times out of ten.”

  I looked in the direction of the small structure beyond the house. As an avid birder, I was familiar with the passion that could transform a hobby into a life-long love affair. I’d been birding for three decades, and I still got just as excited—maybe even more—about seeing a new bird as I had back when I was six years old. If birding—my passion—made me feel like that now, I could only imagine how Vern must have felt every time he stepped into that little barn and surrounded himself with his collection.

  I bet it felt like heaven.

  “It’s a museum?” I asked Tillie.

  She nodded. “All the memorabilia you’d ever want to see,” she said. “I told Vern that as long as he keeps it out of the house, he could collect as much as he wanted. At the rate he finds things, though, I think he’s going to have
to expand that museum of his pretty soon. He’s got all kinds of stuff in there.”

  “Does he, by chance, have any body armor?” I asked.

  Not that I expected to take any blows myself during the confrontation I was sure was coming, but considering how big Boo and Noah were, and how small the dining room would feel with both of them in it, I decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to dress a bit more pro-actively for lunch.

  It never hurt to be prepared, right?

  “I don’t know what all he’s got,” Tillie said. “He might have a couple of those spiked helmets. Just be sure you yell out before you walk into the museum so he knows you’re coming, or you might get hit with an antique grenade.”

  Grenade?

  Tillie caught my look of concern and laughed. “They’re all duds, Bob.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the barn.

  Tillie’s voice followed me. “So far, that is.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Heeding Tillie’s instructions, I loudly announced myself before I opened the door to Vern’s private museum.

  Not getting any answer, I took my life in my hands, grabbed the door handle and pulled it wide.

  “I’m a friend!” I yelled, bracing for any impending impact.

  Vern and Sara looked up from a glass display case in the middle of the room.

  “Tillie told you I had grenades, didn’t she?” Vern asked.

  I nodded sheepishly. “Yes, she did.”

  “That woman is such a tease,” he said. He nudged Sara with his elbow and winked at her. “It’s why I married her, you know. She was quite the catch.”

  Sara smiled back at the old man. “I bet you were, too. Women love fireworks,” she said with just the right hint of flirtatious innuendo.

  They both burst into laughter.

  I stood rooted to the spot.

  Sara Schiller had a sense of humor?

  When had that happened?

  Not only that, but it was clear she was enjoying Vern’s company. I didn’t know if I should be glad … or worry. Sara could only benefit from having the influence of a good man in her life, but if she started skipping school to drive to Spinit to spend time around Vern, I was going to have more than her teachers waiting by my office door.

  I would have the pleasure of Sara attending—sort of—Savage High School for more than four years.

  Perish the thought.

  “You’ve got to look at this stuff, Mr. White,” Sara said, tapping her finger on the glass case. “They’re pictures of the decoy tanks and airfields that England used in World War II to fool German bombers and keep them away from their real targets. They painted big pieces of canvas to look like hangars, and then laid them down on the ground, so it would look like a real airfield from the air. Sometimes they put old jeeps, and fake fuel stores, and dummy aircraft around it, too.”

  I walked over to the display while Sara continued to enthusiastically report on the case’s contents.

  “Vern’s even got a rubber tube that was used to hold up a dummy tank. Look at this!”

  I peered down into the case that stretched a good eight feet across the top of a sturdy wooden stand. Inside it were black-and-white photos of fake bunkers and aircraft mockups, along with uniformed men posing beside the structures. A piece of aged painted canvas sat next to a wooden slat that had been part of a “tank” made of wood. Beside a photo of what looked like a Sherman tank was a rubber tube that had been a section of the inflatable dummy tank’s skeleton. Leaning against the fake tank were two very dashing soldiers dressed in World War II battle fatigues. The big grins on their faces made it plain that they were tickled by the successful results of their campaign of deception.

  “And get this, Mr. White,” Sara said. “A lot of the guys who designed and built these decoys were actually from a film studio in England. They knew how to make fake stuff look real with lights and props for movies, so the government asked them to make decoys as part of their war strategy to trick the enemy into bombing the wrong things. They even faked burning buildings and explosions! These guys started out making movies, and ended up saving people’s lives because of the decoys.”

  She paused to take a breath, and I glanced at Vern, who was grinning ear-to-ear. He’d clearly found a great audience in Sara, not to mention someone who shared his enthusiasm for explosives. My problem child virtually glowed with joy.

  Funny, my grad school instructors never mentioned ordnance training as an effective approach to dealing with truants.

  “Having trouble with keeping kids in class? Give ’em grenades, and you’ll be thrilled with the results.”

  Oh, well. The good news was that I’d know who to start looking for if anything blew up at the high school next week.

  “So these film guys were really good at using decoys, Mr. White!” She glanced at Vern to make sure she was getting her facts right.

  “In fact, you could say they were,” she paused for effect, “masters of deception.”

  She tapped her chest with her two index fingers.

  “I could do that! You’re always saying I’m your Mistress of Deception, so I would be really good at this stuff,” Sara insisted. “I could make fake explosions for movies, or do it for real in the army!”

  “You sure could,” Vern jumped in before I could pick my jaw up off the floor.

  A terrifying picture formed in my head: Sara Schiller, demolitions expert. I had the sinking feeling I’d just discovered the one thing that could frighten me more than creepy scarecrows at Halloween.

  Where was my kindergarten teacher when I really needed her?

  “Of course, you have to do well in your classes at high school,” Vern advised Sara, “A good ordnance officer has to take responsibility and be accountable. No whining or crying when things don’t go your way.”

  “And no driving to Wisconsin, either,” I tossed in.

  Sara threw me a dirty look, but I could tell she was sucking up Vern’s every word. In fact, from where I stood, I would have banked on the persuasiveness of Boo’s dad over the hypnotic talents of even the illfated Amazing Mr. Wist any day. Vern’s hold on Sara’s attention—and imagination—was nothing short of miraculous.

  “And it might be a really good idea to take some basic physics classes,” Vern finished lecturing her, “because it doesn’t hurt to understand some of the principles behind weaponry. You ever shoot off a bottle rocket in class?”

  Sara shook her head.

  “You need to take a class from my son, young lady. He’s an ace rocket-launcher.”

  Sara’s eyes lit up, but I wasn’t sure if the source of her excitement was the idea of bottle rockets or the prospect of sitting in a class staring at Boo’s biceps for a semester. Her newfound interest in explosions seemed genuine, but knowing the tenacity of teenage female hormones, I doubted that Sara’s interest in males had suddenly vanished.

  Memo to me: remind Boo to keep wearing those loose-fitting dress shirts to work and leave the snug tee-shirts at home.

  “I’m sure if you set your mind to it, Sara, you could be a whiz-bang explosives expert,” Vern encouraged her. “Pardon my pun,” he added for my benefit.

  “You think so?” Sara asked Vern, her voice filled with hope.

  “Absolutely,” he assured her. “You just take all that fire and passion inside you, and put it to work, young lady. You’ll be amazed at what you can do.”

  Sara smiled again, and Vern threw me a wink.

  I gave him a little salute in gratitude.

  Vern Metternick was one heck of a motivator, I had to admit, and not too shabby at off-the-cuff counseling, either. I had a graduate degree and years of experience in a high school student services office, but I’d gotten nowhere with Sara Schiller for the last few years. Given less than an hour, though, this World War II veteran and ordnance officer had clearly succeeded where I had repeatedly failed: Vern had made an impression on Sara.

  No wonder he and his cronies were honored as
the Greatest Generation.

  They got the job done.

  “Mission accomplished,” I said to Vern.

  “What mission?” Sara asked, her eyes shifting from Vern to me and then back again to Vern.

  “Lunch time,” I brightly announced to Sara. “Mrs. Metternick is setting a place at the table for you.”

  She turned to Vern. “You guys eat at the table? At our house, we usually just eat at the kitchen counter. And we never eat at the same time, either.”

  I noticed Vern wince, even as he quickly covered it with a big smile.

  “Then you’re in for a treat,” he promised her. “Lunch at the Metternicks’ place is a real event.”

  Vern got that right, although I doubted he knew just how much of an event it might turn out to be today, with his son and Noah facing off across Tillie’s fine china and her hot ham platter. For an awful second, I imagined food flying along with accusations. I made a mental note to myself to be sure I got enough to eat the first time the dishes were passed around.

  Shoot.

  I might have to break up a food fight, and I wasn’t even at work.

  I followed Vern and Sara out the door of the museum just in time to see a freshly-washed pink pickup truck pull up in front of the Metternick home.

  Noah hopped out of the driver’s side and came around the car to open the passenger door. Arlene Weebler—missing the green facial mask and ugly salon apron—stepped out.

  “Arlene,” Vern called to her. “Your folks know you’re out here consorting with the enemy?”

  Arlene put her hands on her hips and shot him an insolent glare.

  “As a matter of fact, I have come out here to bury the hatchet, Vern,” she informed him. “The wind farm development group told my parents just this morning that they are putting a hold on the whole project until they have a proper site evaluation completed by a survey team from the university in Morris.”

  “Well, hallelujah,” Vern replied. “It’s about time they figured out they ought to call in the experts who are specially trained to make those kinds of decisions. My tax dollars have been funding that wind turbine operating at the Morris campus for how many years now? Those professors and researchers ought to have this wind energy thing boiled down to an exact science by now.”