by P. B. Ryan
I let myself out and stood on the porch, scanning the property. I avoided looking at the truck where Little Donny sat fuming. Big cities squeeze the ability to be patient right out of people. Life becomes too frantic and rushed. It’s a sad thing. He needed to spend more time in the woods with me learning the art of slow and simple.
I strolled over to the sauna and yanked the door open.
There sat Floyd, naked as a blue jay and not half as pretty. He had the largest head I ever saw on a man, and was wearing a Ford baseball cap that was three sizes too small. Men around these parts don’t take off their hats unless they absolutely have to.
“Gertie Johnson,” Floyd exclaimed. “What are you doing?”
The difference between men and women is this—if you catch a woman butt-naked, she tries to cover the private parts with her hands. A man will sit there just like you found him even if he doesn’t have much to be proud of.
Floyd sat like that, not moving.
“Put your drawers on,” I said, looking away too late. “I’ll wait outside.”
Floyd took his sweet time coming out. I sat in the truck with Grumpy until Floyd opened the sauna door and walked toward the truck.
The Finns like their saunas. They usually build them around the back of the house for privacy because they roll in the snow when they’re done sweating it out. Afternoon is their favorite time. It takes all morning to fire the sauna up and get it steaming hot. Sometimes a Finn will invite his friends over for a sauna, and if it’s mixed company, the men go together then the women go together, and everyone tries to peek when the snow rolling begins. Especially if the moonshine has been going around.
Floyd has six or seven old geezers who share the sauna with him, and I was grateful that they weren’t over today. One naked old guy is enough for any woman. I shook my head to clear the image and rolled down the truck window.
“You found Chester this morning,” I said. When Blaze let it slip that Floyd found Chester, I was pretty certain he meant Floyd Tatrow. There weren’t any other Floyds around Stonely.
“What?”
I remembered that Floyd couldn’t hear well and repeated the question, loudly.
“It was an awful shock,” he said.
“What happened?” I shouted.
“What’s that?”
I looked over at Little Donny wedged into the driver’s seat and our eyes met. Little Donny, who can’t stay mad long, grinned at me.
“Is that thing turned on?” I leaned out the window and pointed at Floyd’s hearing aid.
Floyd dug the hearing aid out of his ear and made an adjustment. “Sorry,” he said, screwing it back in. “Blasted thing was turned off.”
“What happened to Chester?”
“Shot in the head’s what happened to Chester. I walked up to the blind, calling out so he wouldn’t accidentally shoot me. I was going to tell him to stop over for a sauna, you see. I could tell he was past saving, but I ran back to his house and called for an ambulance anyway. Then I called the sheriff.”
“What do you think happened?” I said. “In your own opinion.”
Floyd leaned against the truck. “I already told you. Chester was shot in the head. That’s what happened to him.” He said it loud and clear like he thought I was the deaf one.
“No, I mean, do you think he was murdered?”
“Murdered! Lord, no! This is a Christian, law-abiding community, and if Chester’s dead it’s because God called him. When Eva could still talk she used to say ‘The Lord will provide’ and that’s it in a nutshell, you see. God’s bullet took Chester and He must have had a good reason.”
Okay.
o0o
Cora Mae, my all-time best friend, was waiting for us at my house with a fresh pot of coffee and a plate of sweet rolls. In all the excitement, I forgot she was giving me a hair rinse today.
Cora Mae has been my friend since I moved to Stonely. I remember Barney calling Stonely “God’s Country” and I’d thought he meant a paradise, like the Garden of Eden. Then we arrived and I found out it was God’s Country because nobody else wanted it. No jobs worth mentioning, cracker-box houses clumped together in towns so small you missed them even though you knew you hadn’t blinked, and bugs the size of pumpkins.
Cora Mae saved me. She’s three years younger, making her sixty-three, and she’s buried three husbands. Cora Mae never could stay away from men; they’re in her blood--she’s always on the lookout in spite of her bad luck in the past.
“Onni Maki’s hot with the widows around here. I hear he’s taking Viagra to keep up, or rather to keep it up,” Cora Mae said, pouring two cups of coffee. “Sure would like to give him a whirl.”
“You’ll have to take a number and stand in line,” I said, pulling out a kitchen chair and sitting down to tug off my hunting boots. I used to be able to take my boots off leaning against the wall, but it’s been a few years now. I can do it only if I absolutely have to, using all my concentration.
I hung my hunting jacket on a peg by the door and pulled off the hunting cap, running my fingers through my bob-length gray hair. Only mine wouldn’t behave like a bob. It sprang in any directions it pleased.
Little Donny took his rifle down from the gun rack, shoved a box of ammo into his jacket, and headed for the door. “Onni Maki is the only available male within fifty miles, especially since Chester’s dead,” he said to Cora Mae.
“What about George,” I reminded him. “George is available.” I chewed my lip after realizing my mistake. Cora Mae stalks any single man who breathes air and I don’t want her rushing off after George, who is a good friend and doesn’t deserve to be worked over by Cora Mae.
Glancing sideways, I saw her reading the directions on the hair product box, paying no attention to me.
“Well, good luck,” Little Donny said to Cora Mae.
She peered over the top of the box and fluffed her hair with one hand. “I don’t need luck, honey. I got sex appeal.”
Cora Mae did look good for her age. She was wearing black stretch pants, a black long-sleeved tee, and pointy boots with two-inch heels. Her man-hunting outfit, she calls it. Last year Cora Mae discovered Wonderbras and now her boobs are always in the lead. They’re the first things you notice about Cora Mae.
I must look pretty drab and nondescript next to her. Cora Mae has style. Here I am—barely five feet, a hundred and twenty pounds, with a head of gray hair and a roll of fat starting around my middle.
I saw Little Donny heading for the door. “Where you going with my car keys?”
“Hunting with Carl. Remember? I already asked you if I could take the truck.”
“Oh. Ah… I remember now,” I said, not remembering at all.
“See you later.” Little Donny slammed the door shut behind him.
“He’ll be back in a minute or two,” I said, chuckling. “He forgot something important.”
Thirty seconds later, Donny stomped through the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and grabbed a pile of sandwiches I’d made earlier. He had to use both pockets to stuff them all in.
“Let’s get started,” I said to Cora Mae after Little Donny was loaded up and gone. I clipped a towel around my neck.
Normally, I have a rinse to take the yellow out of my gray hair. Gray hair doesn’t scare me. Neither do flabby muscles, or liver spots, or strange little wart-like bumps. All of which are cropping up here and there on my body like clumps of weeds. I’m slowly losing my hearing, my eyesight, and yesterday I noticed I’m losing my eyelashes. I’ve stopped being afraid of age since it doesn’t do any good anyway. You can’t stop the march of time and the sooner you accept it, the sooner you can focus on the important things in life.
Cora Mae likes to play the role of hairdresser, and although I know how to take care of my own hair, I humor her. She waved the box containing my rinse in front of my face. “You’re full of surprises, Gertie.”
I looked at the box and screeched. “Strawberry blonde? Oh, no. I must have pi
cked up the wrong box.”
“I think it’s time for a new look,” Cora Mae of the black-as-tar hair said when I attempted to grab it away. After a brief struggle, she won.
I filled her in while she worked. She knew about Chester’s death because I’d called her earlier while I was waiting for Little Donny. Now I went through the graphic details.
Two hours later I stared into the mirror in disbelief and horror. My head was covered in a brassy orange mess. I grabbed the box and read the directions.
“Cora Mae, I told you it was on my head too long. It says fifteen minutes, not fifty. Now what am I going to do?”
“The clown show’s coming to Escanaba. Maybe you can apply for a job.” Cora Mae was holding her left side from laughing so hard, while tears streaked with mascara slid down her face. “I never saw hair take color like that before.”
“Well, at least I won’t need to wear my orange hunting cap.” I checked my watch. “I wanted to search Chester’s property but it’s starting to get dark. It’ll have to wait until morning.”
Cora Mae had that look in her eye. The here-she-goes-again look, and I knew I was going to hear it whether I wanted to or not.
“Gertie, every time someone dies doesn’t mean it’s murder. Remember when Martha fell in the tub, hit her head, and drowned. You said that was murder.”
“Might have been. It was poorly investigated.”
“And when Ted Hakanen drove his car into the tree on the side of Peter Road, dead drunk. You said that his car had been tampered with.”
“Probably was.”
“Blaze sent that old Buick to Escanaba, mechanics went over it, and the only thing they found was an empty bottle of Jim Beam.”
“That’s what a smart killer would want you to believe. Maybe Martha and Ted died in accidents but it’s a numbers game, Cora Mae. One of these days it really will be murder.”
We cleaned up the kitchen and polished off the bag of sweet rolls. Since I’d missed lunch, I shared a liver sausage sandwich with Cora Mae.
The thought of investigating Chester’s death appealed to me. The more time I spent listening to my police scanner, the more I thought I’d make a pretty good investigator. After all, I had three kids to practice on while they were growing up. If nothing came of my efforts and it was a stray bullet that killed Chester like Blaze and Cora Mae thought, I’d chalk it up to on-the-job training.
At the moment, I knew three things. One: based on television shows I’ve watched, the person who finds the body sometimes turns out to be the killer. He should be the first name on a suspect list. Two: a detective has to move fast. As the murder ages, it gets harder and harder to solve. Three: Floyd Tatrow’s phone number was in the telephone book.
“This is the sheriff’s office calling,” I said into the phone, holding my nose lightly with my fingers. “You need to take a lie detector test.”
“Why would I have to do that?” Floyd wanted to know.
“It’s standard procedure. You found the body, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but….”
“It’s perfectly voluntary, of course, but you’ll clear yourself right away if you agree to it.”
“Clear myself of what?”
“I can’t answer that. It’s confidential police business. Can you be there in twenty minutes? Sheriff Johnson has the equipment at his mobile home.”
“I suppose. All right, but I never heard of anything like this before.”
“You never found a dead body before.”
Cora Mae giggled.
“And don’t eat or drink anything before the test,” I finished.
“What is going through your mind?” Cora Mae asked when I hung up.
She’s a perfect example of the difference between an investigative mind and a regular mind, if you can call Cora Mae’s mind regular. Regular minds rarely have brainstorm ideas that catch killers.
I flipped on the spotlight next to the drive leading past my house to Blaze’s mobile home and started gathering the supplies to make popcorn.
“If Floyd shows up, he probably didn’t murder Chester,” I reasoned. “The killer isn’t going to willingly walk into the town sheriff’s house to be hooked up to a lie detector.”
I finished making the popcorn, turned off the inside lights, and waited in the dark by the window, eating popcorn. Cora Mae held the bowl. “The beauty of the whole plan,” I bragged, “is that Blaze and Mary aren’t home. I saw Mary drive out half an hour ago and Blaze is still working. If Floyd shows up, he’ll find an empty house, take off his little cap, scratch his big head, and go on home. Blaze will never know what happened. But I’ll know Floyd didn’t kill Chester.”
I was tossing kernels of popcorn in the air and trying to catch them in my mouth when Blaze’s sheriff’s truck turned onto our road and passed my house. “Oh, no,” I muttered. Pretty soon Floyd’s blue truck went by. When he passed under the spotlight, I could see his large, pale head peering over the dashboard.
“How are you going to explain to Blaze?” Cora Mae asked, crunching popcorn.
“I’ll deny any involvement,” I said, disappointed that Floyd showed up. “What makes you think he’ll suspect me anyway?”
Cora Mae raised one eyebrow, which isn’t an easy thing to do.
A few minutes later, Floyd drove out and Cora Mae flipped the house lights on. I crossed Floyd’s name off my list of suspects and stared at a blank page.
“When is Little Donny going back to Milwaukee?” Cora Mae asked.
“I don’t know. He’s not in any big rush, since he’s between jobs.”
Between jobs is what Donny calls it. I call it canned, fired, let go, but I’m not saying anything. Little Donny’s had more jobs than a rabbit has bunnies.
Cora Mae picked up her purse.
“Little Donny should be back any minute,” I said. “It’s too dark to hunt. He must have stopped for a beer. If you wait a bit, he can drive you home.”
Neither one of us drives a car, which some people from other parts of the country might consider strange but it’s not so unusual in the U.P. Things are spread out here but we don’t go out that much and when we do there’s always someone willing to drive us. Once a week Blaze or his wife, Mary, drives me to the grocery store and, along with my own groceries, I buy a few things for Cora Mae from a list she gives me.
I’m now starting to see the complications of finding chauffeurs to drive me around to investigate crimes.
“Nah, it’s only down the road.” Cora Mae swung her purse and eyed my midriff. “Exercise is good for you.”
I found a flashlight in the closet, handed it to her, and watched her walk down the side of the road. Then I plunked down in front of the television to wait for Little Donny.
Chapter 2
Word For The Day
SIMPATICO (sim PAHT i koh) adj.
gets along well with or goes well
with another; compatible.
“WHERE WERE YOU LAST night?” I asked Little Donny the next morning when he staggered to the kitchen table.
I finished writing my new word on a scrap of paper and included the pronunciation since it wasn’t an easy one to say—it sounded Italian.
Little Donny looked like he’d partied too hard and smelled like stale beer and probably would have stayed in bed if I hadn’t rolled him out.
“Herb’s Bar.” Little Donny rubbed his red-rimmed eyes and squinted at me through narrow slits. “What time is it?”
“Way past time for you to drive me over to Chester’s house. I have some investigating to do.”
“What happened to your hair?” Little Donny’s eyes were peeling open. He had his elbow on the table and his hand held his head up, keeping it from flopping on the kitchen table. I stuck a bowl of cornflakes down so if his hand gave out he’d have something soft to fall into.
“I’ll be waiting outside.” I ruffled his hair as I passed.
George Erikson sat in a plastic lawn chair under the apple tree. I walk
ed over to talk to him, since Little Donny was moving slow and I had a wait ahead of me before he could pull himself together and come out. Wasting time with George wasn’t exactly a hardship.
George’s father, Old Ben Erikson, and Barney developed a close friendship in spite of their age difference, and after Barney died, Old Ben told me he’d promised Barney he would look after me if anything ever happened to Barney. I thought he needed more taking care of than I did, but nothing could dissuade him. He’d made a promise and he’d keep his promise, but that’s a Swede. Loyal to the last.
So Old Ben sent his son around every day to do odds and ends and when Ben died in the spring at the ripe old age of eighty-nine, his son kept coming round.
I have a small Christmas tree business that brings in enough money to pay the property taxes. George trims the trees twice a year, then cuts and wraps them for sale in late November during hunting season. This year, I plan on sharing the profits with him even though he’s refused in the past.
George is a few years younger than I am, sixty, give or take a few years. He wears flannel shirts, colored t-shirts, and his trademark cowboy hat with a rattlesnake wrapped around the crown. You can see its fangs like it’s about to strike.
Oh, and his buns are still tight. I may be getting older, but my eyes still work just fine. He looks great in blue jeans. George used to be a construction foreman but quit to go into business for himself as a carpenter. He’s a lean, mean construction machine.
George and I are simpatico; we have the same view of life: Take it easy, but don’t forget to grab the gusto.
“What happened to your hair?” he said, amusement shining in his eyes.
“Celebrating hunting season.” I stuffed the hunting cap back on my head and tucked the loose strands under it. I sat down on a chair next to him and could feel the cold of the plastic working into my legs and thighs.
“I hear Chester Lampi took a bullet yesterday,” George said, adjusting his cowboy hat. He still had a full head of hair under the hat, dark brown with a touch of gray at the temples. “A stray bullet, they say.”
