Murder Passes the Buck

by Deb Baker

SIX

  Word For The Day

  MALAISE (ma LAYZ) n.

  A vague feeling of physical discomfort

  or uneasiness.

  MOST OF THE SNOW had melted on Saturday, but by Sunday morning a cold snap settled in and the remaining snow turned to ice. I wrapped a scarf around my face and started the truck. The ice on the windshield peeled off in sheets under the blade of my scraper.

  I hustled inside and while the truck warmed up, I called Blaze.

  “I want you to stop this court thing right now,” I said without bothering with any small talk first. “I’m a busy woman. I don’t have time for this.”

  “I tried to talk to you, but talking to you is like talking to a cement truck.”

  “If you ever had anything interesting to say, I might listen.”

  Blaze dropped his voice to a soothing level like he was talking to a child or to someone who is deranged. He sounded patronizing and false. “You haven’t been yourself since Pa died. I’m worried about you and just want to help.”

  “So you want a court to say I’m incompetent to manage my own affairs and that I’m a danger to society. That’s how you want to help?”

  “Be reasonable,” he said. “You run around thinking everyone’s been murdered, you spray painted my truck yellow, and—and this is the best one—the bank says you took all the money you and pa saved out of the bank in a paper bag. Where’s all the money, ma?”

  “None of your business.”

  “If you tell me where the money is and let me help you manage it, I’ll drop the hearing.”

  “See you in court,” I said before slamming down the receiver.

  __________

  Cora Mae came out to the truck when I pulled up. She had on a black pillbox hat and dangly black earrings. She was wrapped in black fake fur.

  I looked her over. I wore snow bibs under my hunting jacket, Blue Blockers to cut the glare of winter sun on snow, my hunting cap with the flaps down, and snowmobile mittens.

  “This isn’t church we’re going to,” I said. “You never know where an investigator’s work will take her. We might have to track someone through the woods where a near-sighted hunter is going to think you’re a bear. that’ll be the end of you.”

  “I always dress up to go calling.” Cora Mae looked me over. “And it wouldn’t hurt you once in a while. We talked about the way you dress yesterday. If you want to make a good impression in court, you better change your attire soon.”

  I decided not to tell her about my conversation with Blaze. My best friend might agree with him.

  We drove over to the far side of Stonely without incident, unless you count the dip into the ditch when I over-steered and lost control pulling onto Crevit Road.

  I backed easily, if not exactly straight, out of the ditch and glanced at Cora Mae. She straightened her pillbox hat and cleared her throat. “That was a tricky corner,” she said.

  We pulled up in front of a house shingled with asphalt roofing tiles that were peeling loose. A Toyota sat in the driveway, which I figured must belong to Barb, since no one from around here would ever buy a foreign car. Detroit’s reputation as the capital of car country has nothing to do with it. It’s leftover bad feelings from World War II. Stonely folks drive Fords, sometimes GMs, but never a Japanese car or a German car. Grandma Johnson says, “Remember Pearl Harbor?” She checks labels and tags before buying clothes so she doesn’t accidentally buy something made in Japan. “Remember Hitler? No one in this family better ever buy a Kraut car,” she says.

  She always looks me straight in the eye when she talks about Hitler, like he was my fault. At least she hasn’t called me a Kraut right to my face. Although she serves me sauerkraut ever chance she gets.

  Barb answered the door in a pink robe, her hair uncombed and make-up smeared around the bottom of her eyes. She woke up fast when she recognized me.

  “Yes?” Her tone sounded suspicious, her speech thick and slow in that Southern manner.

  “We came to pay our respects,” I said, waving to include Cora Mae.

  Barb eyed Cora Mae up and down, and Cora Mae eyed her back, and I could feel the sparks boomeranging and whizzing overhead.

  “Well, you’ve paid them,” she said and began to close the door.

  I stuck my boot in the doorjamb and said, “Wait a minute, there. We need to ask Bill a few questions.”

  Barb leaned on the door, trying to close it. “Like what kind of questions?”

  “I’m investigating his father’s murder. I need his help.”

  Barb opened the door, and, and caught off-guard, I almost fell in. She wrapped her fist around my arm and squeezed, and I could feel the muscle in her grip, her surprising strength.

  “Listen, you busybody,” she said. “Get off my porch and don’t come back.”

  “Or what?” I asked. It appeared to me that I was being threatened, a daily occurrence lately. Barb’s throaty voice reminded me of a smoker. I sniffed her robe and thought I detected stale smoke.

  “Or I’ll call Sheriff Johnson to come and get you.” Barb still had a grip on my arm. She twisted it, forcing me to step back out on the porch. I hoped I wouldn’t embarrass myself by dropping to my knees in submission.

  “What’s the trouble?” I heard from inside the house.

  “Nothing at all. Just a saleswoman and she’s leaving.” Barb released my arm.

  “Bill,” I called out. “I’d like to have a word with you.”

  “I’m calling the sheriff.” And Barb shut the door.

  “Did you see that?” I said to Cora Mae when we were back in the truck. “She assaulted me. And where were you when I needed help?”

  “You looked like you were handling things just fine.”

  “You’re kidding right? She almost broke my arm while you stood there watching.”

  “I can’t believe you stuck your foot in the door like that,” Cora Mae said. “That was aggressive behavior, exactly what you’re supposed to be working on controlling. I’m just pointing it out to you.”

  “Cora Mae, an investigator has to do what needs to be done.”

  “Just pointing it out.”

  __________

  We had time to kill, since our visit with the Lampis was cut short. Cora Mae wanted to go to the cemetery to check on the graves of her three dead husbands, all buried in a family plot Cora Mae bought right before husband number one hit the dirt. She bought four plots, thinking maybe they would have children and eventually might like to be buried together. One big happy family.

  But Cora Mae never had children and she loaded up three of the gravesites with dead husbands. Life turns out funny. Not ha ha funny—funny as in weird and unexpected.

  Stonely doesn’t have a cemetery. You have to go to Escanaba or Trenary to rest in eternity. Most folks around here prefer the Trenary cemetery because it’s closer, and because nobody cares what you put on the graves for decorations. The Escanaba cemetery is fussy, and they’ll yank off whatever you put down as soon as your back is turned.

  When I go, I want to be gussied up in my old hunting jacket and cap for a showing at Lacken’s Funeral Home, and I hope the whole county comes and gets good and drunk afterwards at Herb’s Bar. Then I want to be cremated and have part of my ashes buried with Barney and half scattered to the wind on Bear Creek behind my house.

  When I told Blaze my plan, he said it was against the law to scatter ashes. Littering, he called it, in his righteous, sheriff voice. Cora Mae and Star know what I want, and it’s going to be done like I say. I even wrote my request down, had it witnessed by Cora Mae and Star, and Cora Mae locked it in her safe deposit box.

  Of course, those plans are a long way off.

  I thought about how much I missed Barney as we headed toward the cemetery. A car approached and Cora Mae waved.

  “Who was that?” I asked, snapping out of my daydream.

  “Bill Lampi.”

  “The same Bill Lampi we just left?” I yelled.

 
Cora Mae almost launched from the truck when I slammed on the brakes and accomplished a perfect U-turn.

  “Hold your hat,” I called to her. “Who was Barb talking to back at the house if Bill wasn’t home?”

  Cora Mae didn’t answer. She clutched the dashboard as I slammed on the brakes again. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  The magenta sedan, the same purple car that had spied on me at the river, streaked past us heading the opposite way.

  “That’s the car,” I shouted. “The one that followed me to the river.”

  I didn’t know which car to chase.

  I made a quick decision and swung around again to pursue the purple car. My U-turn wasn’t quite as perfect this time.

  Cora Mae screamed as we headed for the ditch.

  __________

  “There’s a piece of barbed wire stuck on your front bumper,” Little Donny said when I pulled into the drive. He was headed to the shed with George, but he stopped and removed the wire.

  “Can’t imagine where that came from,” I lied.

  “Gonna help George,” Little Donny said. “Grandma Johnson’s in the house.”

  “How’d she get here?”

  “Blaze dropped her off.”

  The battle between Blaze and me had entered the second round, and he was hitting below the belt.

  The house smelled like old-lady-dried-out-prune-skin odor hiding out under cheap flowery perfume. From the smell of the house, Grandma Johnson had been waiting a while.

  “Where you been while I been sittin’ here all day?”

  “I went visiting with Cora Mae. You should have told me you were coming.”

  “Didn’t know I was coming,” Grandma huffed. She was sitting in the rocker with her arms folded across her chest, her face scrunched like she was sucking on a lemon. “Blaze just dumped me off.”

  I sat down and looked helplessly at the woman with the snake tongue.

  “I’m glad he did,” she continued, “because me and you have to have a little talk about your behavior. You’re embarrassing our family left and right and we can’t stand for it anymore.”

  “I’m embarrassing the family?” I couldn’t believe it. Grandma Johnson’s front yard has a toilet filled with plastic flowers, and in her garden are wood-carved people bent over picking vegetables. Their underpants are showing. Grandma would win a most-embarrassing-relative contest hands down.

  “Traipsing around with that Cora Mae, who’s a disgrace to Stonely, and causing all kinds of commotion. I hear that poor deceased man’s son and daughter-in-law were attacked right there at the funeral home by ‘that orange-headed woman.’ Who ya suppose they were talking about?”

  I touched my hair with my hand. I was getting used to my orange curls and toying with the idea of keeping the color, if for no other reasons than to annoy certain relatives.

  Grandma Johnson went on and on, and after awhile I managed to tune her out without her knowing what I was doing. Outside, a squirrel intent on stealing every last kernel of birdseed in the feeder made six trips back and forth carrying seed away before Grandma ran down. I hope I learn to shut up better when I’m ninety-two.

  I excused myself, found Little Donny in the barn, and informed him that Grandma Johnson could be taken home, and right now. I would have liked to stay out there and talk to George awhile, but in my hurry to get away from Grandma, I had run outside without my jacket, and I was freezing.

  “I enjoyed our little talk,” Grandma Johnson said while Little Donny helped her out of the house. “Maybe we should make a point of doin’ this every Sunday. Sorry our visit was cut short on account of you feeling under the weather.”

  “Malaise,” I muttered under my breath using my word for the day.

  “What do you mean ‘my legs’? If your legs hurt so much, you better take an aspirin.” She peered into my eyes. “You don’t look so good. Worse than usual even.”

  As I watched Little Donny and Grandma Johnson pull away, I had a face twitch I couldn’t control.

  After I slipped into my jacket I took a jar of Vaseline out to the birdfeeder and greased up the pole real good. There’s nothing I hate more than squirrels stealing bird food. Raccoons and grackles are right up at the top of my list too, but squirrels are the worst nuisances.

  I filled up the feeder, then sat at the window to watch two of the little rodents take turns jumping up and sliding down the pole. When a squirrel clamps onto an idea, he never quits. They must have slid back down that pole ten or twelve times until the Vaseline wore away. Then, triumphantly, one sat on top of the feeder stuffing his face and grinning at me.

  __________

  At dusk, Little Donny came in from the blind, deerless again. Soon after, George arrived, looking dapper in his tight fitting jeans, blue flannel shirt, and snake-trimmed hat.

  “Joining us for Poker?” he asked me, while Little Donny wolfed down half of a pot roast and three pounds of mashed potatoes.

  “Whose house this week?”

  “Blaze’s.”

  “He and I aren’t getting along. Think I’ll pass.” I watched Little Donny dip into the apple pie.

  “Since when did you two ever get along, and since when has it ever kept you away from a good card game?” George tilted his hat back before delivering his challenge. “You’re letting him win.”

  That did it. George had a point. Why should I let Blaze drive me away?

  Which reminded me of my off-the-road experience and the two cars that escaped. I couldn’t believe my bad luck. I touched my tender temple lightly with my fingers. I never realized before that driving was hazardous to your health. I’d have to call Cora Mae later and check on that knee she banged up.

  “Count me in,” I said to George. “But Poker isn’t my game.”

  __________

  “Rummy,” I said to the group, fanning my last cards across the table and grinning. “That’s it. I won again.”

  Little Donny counted his cards. George shoved back in his chair and stretched his legs. Sourpuss Blaze scowled and studied his own cards.

  “I called no cheating, Ma. At the beginning of the game.”

  Sometimes, just for fun when the kids were young, we would allow cheating. It had to be called at the beginning of the game, agreed on by all players, and you lost points if you were caught. I miss those days.

  “I heard you call it.”

  “Then why,” Blaze said, “is the last card you played from another deck of cards.” He reached over and turned the card over. Sure enough, it didn’t match the other deck. “I can’t believe you cheated.”

  “Don’t know how that card got in there,” I lied.

  “Have you been cheating from the start?”

  “Yup,” George said, grinning at me.

  “Well if you knew it all along, why didn’t you tell us?” Blaze complained to George.

  “I’m through playing, anyway.” I gathered the cards in front of me into a neat pile. “Go ahead and play Poker. I’m walking home.”

  “I’ll drop you off,” George offered. “It’s pretty dark out.”

  “I think I can manage to make it down the road without help. I’ve been walking this road my entire life and I need the exercise.” The spare tire around my middle needed some work, but I didn’t say that.

  Swinging a flashlight ahead of me, I walked through the brisk night air enjoying the sounds of nature. A pack of coyotes howled in the distance. An animal scampered across the road beyond the beam of the flashlight, and I could smell fallen leaves, oaks and maples, crunching underfoot.

  I sensed something wrong when I put my foot on the first porch step. I knew for sure something was wrong when I opened the door and saw the destruction. What I didn’t know for sure was whether or not the intruder was still inside.

  Fear rippled up and down my spine as I backed quietly down the steps and stumbled through the dark toward the safety of Blaze’s home.