by P. B. Ryan
“I don’t know about that stray bullet business,” I said. “It seems too convenient to me. What do you know about Chester?”
“Kept to himself.” George had Barney’s chain saw between his boots and began rubbing oil in the joints with a rust-colored rag. “He’s got a son who lives east of town. The son got married last month—a blonde from down south someplace. Chester wasn’t happy about it. Marrying an outsider and all.”
Chester wouldn’t have been happy about that.
We don’t have Blacks, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, or Asians in Stonely. Finns and Swedes settled the area. Culturally diverse to the people here means some fool sold his property to a Pollack or a Kraut.
I’m more German than anything else, which I guess makes me one of those cultural diversities, and the word Kraut has been dropped one or two times within my hearing. My maiden name was Miller. I met Barney in Washington, D.C., after arriving from my family farm in rural Ohio and finding work as a bookkeeper for the State Department. He was a marine stationed there and I fell in love with him the minute I laid eyes on him. I always loved a man in uniform.
Anyway, I came home with him to Stonely. People weren’t too happy about that, either. Times never change, and some haven’t forgotten that I don’t really belong. Forty-some years in the U.P. doesn’t give you automatic citizenship. You need three or four generations for that.
“I ran into Chester at Ray’s last week,” George said, working the oil around the metal of the saw.
Ray owns the general store on Main Street and sells hardware, gun supplies, gasoline, and he has a pretty good stock of essential grocery items. “Chester told me he was thinking about getting a winter home in Florida.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “When toads fly.”
Chester was dirt poor. His house wasn’t much bigger than that hunting blind they hauled him out of. In fact, the hunting blind was built better. “He must have been kidding with you.”
“No, he was serious.”
“Sounds suspicious to me and worth checking out.”
“Everything sounds suspicious to you. I suppose you think Chester was murdered.” When I didn’t answer, George looked up from greasing the chain saw and raised his eyebrows. Here we go again, his eyebrows said. I noticed he couldn’t do that one eyebrow thing that Cora Mae’s so good at.
“It sounds like Chester came into some money all of a sudden.”
George shrugged.
“What was Chester buying at Ray’s?”
George thought it over. “I don’t know. It was already bagged.”
George didn’t know it, but he was sitting this very minute right on top of my buried treasure. After Barney’s funeral and burial in the Trenary cemetery, Blaze drove me over to the Escanaba bank, and I hauled out every penny I own. Barney and I were savers our whole life so it amounted to quite a stockpile. I made Blaze wait outside so he wouldn’t find out what I was doing and try to interfere.
The teller had to get the manager to approve the whole thing. He tried to talk me out of closing our account, but I stood firm. When I make up my mind, nobody can change it. I filled a grocery bag with the bills as the teller counted them out, then stuffed an old shirt on top to conceal the money.
Never trust the federal government, I say. They’re out to get you. That crooked president, the IRS, all of them, a bunch of thieves waiting to pounce on good, law-abiding citizens the minute you turn your back.
Barney didn’t see eye to eye with me on this issue, but once he was gone I went and rescued our money. I buried it in a steel box right under where George had his tight buns parked, right under the apple tree Barney and I planted the first year we were married. I know it’s safe and I don’t need it right now anyway. My Social Security is enough to live on, but it’ll be waiting for me when Social Security runs out of money one of these days, when that bunch of thieves in Washington steals it all.
The cold from the plastic lawn chair numbed my thighs and sent chills shooting down my legs. I stood up and shook them out. Flecks of snow swirled in the breeze and the ground was crunchy with frost. I wore wool socks with my boots and long underwear under my hunting jacket, but George sat casually in a white long-sleeved t-shirt and an unbuttoned red flannel. His nipples stood out in the cold like bird dogs pointing.
Not that I noticed.
“Time to put on a jacket, George.”
“Not till January, Gertie. You know my rule. No coats till January.”
I can live with that.
o0o
Bear Creek snakes around Tamarack Township, passing through the boundary line of my back forty. It also meanders through Chester’s land. I left my chauffeur, Little Donny, in the truck and trudged through the low spot between the blind and the creek, looking for clues to Chester’s death. I carried my twelve-gauge shotgun just in case. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, so I kept my eyes sharp.
Chester’s blind was perfectly situated, a few yards off a series of deer paths heavily traveled by herds of deer. City folks think deer leap every which way through the woods, but they don’t. They have their own road system and this is one of their superhighways.
The path wound through marshy low land with reeds and old cattails poking up, and ahead I could see young tamarack trees framing the ridge. My boots crunched through a thin layer of ice as I went. It was slow going because if I stepped in too deep, I would have water over the top of my boots. I tested each step and occasionally looked back at my sunken footsteps.
Eventually, I reached the ridge and continued following a deer path down the other side to the creek. The creek water still flowed, with a thin crust of ice beginning to form on the surface. A Tom turkey, startled by my presence, rose in the air and, with enormous effort, cleared the top of the trees. I’m always fascinated watching those big birds fly.
When I could no longer feel my nose from the cold, I headed back, taking a narrower deer path this time. It veered west of my original trail and crossed over the ridge. Reaching the low marsh, I spotted broken ice patches leading toward Chester’s blind. The same kind my boots made coming out, only I hadn’t come through this way.
I followed the broken ice, trying to match my footsteps with the broken patches, but whoever had come through had a wider stride than I did. About fifty yards out, the footsteps lengthened as though the owner began to hurry, perhaps running. I paused and looked around. From here I could see Chester’s blind. With a high-powered scope, I could easily hit it. I considered giving it a try with my shotgun, but the weight of it was making my arm feel like it was wrapped in concrete. Besides, I would have a hard time explaining to Blaze why buckshot was plastered in the side of the blind. I already would have some explaining to do if Blaze found out I tromped all over potential evidence, but it couldn’t be helped. Someone had to investigate.
Looking down, I saw something shiny lying under a thin patch of ice. I broke through with my boot and picked it up. It was a spent rifle shell. My heart started to pound in my ears. When the pounding subsided, I rummaged in my jacket, found a tissue, gently wrapped the shell, and tucked it into my pocket.
Little Donny was sound asleep in the truck, his head thrown back on the headrest, his mouth wide open. I took the opportunity to snitch the girly magazines out of Chester’s blind to show to Cora Mae. There were some hot male bodies in there, too.
o0o
“What the hell were you doing back there in the first place?” Blaze yelled. “And you, why were you helping her?” Now he was glaring at Little Donny and jabbing his index finger at my grandson’s chest. “Keep your hands off my pa’s truck, Little Donny, if you can’t keep her out of my business. Next time I see you behind the wheel of that truck and her sitting next to you, I’m pulling you over and arresting you for obstructing justice. Do you understand?”
“Okay, okay, I get it.”
“And the next time….”
“You can’t do that,” I interrupted. “That’s my truck and you can’t arrest
him for driving it.” I turned to Little Donny and patted his knee. “Don’t worry. He can’t do that.”
“I’m the sheriff. I can do anything I want.”
“But you didn’t let me finish before you started getting mad. Look at what I have.” I pulled the tissue out of my pocket and carefully unwrapped the shell. “Evidence.”
But Blaze wasn’t looking at the shell. He seemed to notice me for the first time. “What the hell happened to your hair?”
He was sitting at my kitchen table sucking down all my sugar doughnuts. His eyesore yellow truck was still running in the driveway and a cloud of smoke-like exhaust hovered over the truck, a sure sign that it was cold outside.
I ignored that last question and explained where I found the shell and about the footprints in the ice. Blaze didn’t look happy but it didn’t stop him from continuing to stuff his face.
“And I want you to test it for fingerprints,” I finished, pleased with myself. I thought about having DETECTIVE JOHNSON printed on the side of my truck.
“You’ve been interfering with my work again.” Blaze wiped his hands on a napkin. “Did you ever think that maybe I was going to check back there using proper police procedures? Did you ever think to check with me first?”
“No, I didn’t. Knowing you, you already closed the case, calling it an accident.” That was Blaze’s style and we both knew it.
“Did you ever think that maybe you screwed up a crime scene? Anywhere else you’d try a stunt like that, you’d be arrested for interfering with a police investigation.”
“Then you’re admitting it was a crime.”
Blaze’s nostrils spread out and his face turned the color of an overripe tomato. “Floyd Tatrow came by for a lie detector test last night,” he said. “I suppose you don’t know anything about that?”
“Not a thing,” I said, but we both knew that was a big lie.
“What have I done to deserve you?” Blaze shouted, throwing his arms up in the air. I could tell he was getting ready to go into all my past sins against him. He was the most paranoid person I ever met. “Why do I put up with this?” he continued, rising from the table. “You know what you are? You’re the family curse.”
I settled in for a go-around, which, I could have reminded Blaze, I always win. I stood up next to him and leaned in close.
“You put up with it for a lot of reasons, Doughnut Boy. You put up with it for those freebies you’re stuffing in your mouth, for one. You put up with it for the free rent, for another.”
This was one of those times I was talking about earlier when I don’t appreciate the close family ties quite as much as usual.
Blaze reached for the rifle shell and gave me an angry scowl.
“Be careful with that,” I said. “I don’t want your fingerprints fouling up the works. And I need the name and address for Chester’s son.”
There was a long glaring silence, then, “Why?”
“I’m going to interrogate him. See what I can turn up.”
“I’ll arrest you if you do.”
There was a loud bang as Blaze slammed out the door.
o0o
“Blaze is still mad about the horse thing,” Star said over the telephone when I called her. “He sure does hold a grudge a long time.”
My baby, Star, and I used to talk on the phone every day, but lately she hasn’t been around much. She swore off men after her good-for-nothing husband finally ran off, but it looks like she’s getting back in the saddle. She’s being coy about it, though.
“He says he changed his name to Brian,” I told her. I was washing dishes trying not to clang pans while I talked. I had the phone on my right shoulder, wedged between my head and shoulder.
“Ma, nobody takes him seriously. Sometimes they call him Bucky or Bronco to tease him. But he’s tried to change it to Brian for years. Where have you been?”
“I’ve been busy.”
My other kids never complained about the names I chose for them. Star and Heather were happy, so I couldn’t figure Blaze out. Blaze is a nice name—original, manly. “He has a John Wayne name,” I said.
“He has John Wayne’s horse’s name,” Star said.
At least I should get points for originality. I didn’t name them Barney Junior, Barney Senior, and Barney the Third.
“Do you know the name of Chester’s son?” I asked Star, steering the conversation in the right direction. “I heard he lives on the east side of Stonely toward Trenary.”
“Wasn’t it terrible what happened to Chester? I think his son’s name is Bill. Bill Lampi.”
“Thanks, Sweetie. I just wish Blaze and I were more simpatico.” I pronounced it slowly, reading from my scrap of paper.
“What?”
“It’s my word for the day,” I explained. “Blaze must be under a lot of stress. He threatened to arrest me today.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it. Just don’t give him a reason.”
o0o
Cora Mae almost fell off her high-heel boots when she came out and saw me driving Barney’s truck up her driveway. “Whee! You can drive!”
I didn’t tell her that I rammed a big hole the size of a meteor in the side of the barn when I accidentally shifted into forward instead of reverse. I was starting to get the hang of it, except for braking. I silently thanked Cora Mae for her circle driveway. I wouldn’t have to try to back down.
“Hop in.”
Cora wore a black turtleneck sweater, black stretch pants, and a fake fur vest jacket, also black.
“I told you to wear orange, Cora Mae. Out-of-town hunters are creeping all over the place. You look like a black bear. One of them is going to shoot your buns off.”
“Honey, orange just isn’t my color, but I can see it’s yours.”
Another hair joke. And from the woman who did it to me.
I was working on a quick comeback when I accidentally slammed on the brakes at the bottom of Cora Mae’s driveway instead of the gas.
Cora flew forward.
“Better put on your seatbelt till I get the hang of this,” I said, starting up again.
Chester lived in a cracker-box house about a quarter mile from his hunting blind. He wasn’t much of a handyman because the house was an eyesore - peeling green paint, rotting wood porch, bare windows.
Cora stepped gingerly over a gaping hole in the porch and peeked into the front window. “No one’s home, Gertie. We’ll have to come back another time.”
“Of course no one’s home. Chester’s wife’s been in her grave for years, and since Chester’s dead, we can safely assume he isn’t going to answer the door.”
“But why are we standing here if you knew no one was going to let us in?” Cora Mae’s penciled eyebrows were shaped like a question mark and she looked at me like I had ruined her day. I would have thought the ride over with me driving for the first time would have been excitement enough.
I grinned and held up a screwdriver and a hammer from Barney’s toolbox. “We have work to do on the back door. Come on.”
I planned on prying between the doorjamb and the lock with a screwdriver, but peeking in, I noticed the lock was a deadbolt. It’s impossible to pry a deadbolt. I found that out last time I locked myself out of my house after losing my keys.
I tried turning the knob to see if the door was unlocked, which probably should have been my first step, but it didn’t matter since the door really was locked.
I tried tapping gently on the glass with my hammer. Then I hauled off and smacked the window a sharp blow. Glass shattered at our feet. I said, “Oops,” as Cora Mae and I looked down simultaneously. I knocked the rest of the glass out of the doorframe with the hammer, stuck my hand through, and unlocked the door.
We began searching in the kitchen. The place was a mess. Piles of litter overflowing from the garbage can, six weeks of dirty dishes stacked on the counter and scattered throughout the house, clothes tossed over chairs.
I made notes in a spiral notebook in c
ase something might be important later. My eye for detail is dead on, but my memory gets fuzzy now and then. I was careful to include everything, since clues to solving the case could be anywhere.
In the living room, I noticed three guns resting in the gun rack next to the television and an old sofa with a dirty blanket draped over it shoved against a gray wall. I also noticed things that weren’t there. There weren’t any drapes or shades on the windows, and there weren’t any more smut magazines.
We pulled out every drawer and went through every closet without finding anything unusual. I took a broom from the kitchen and swept up the glass and removed the shards still embedded in the frame of the window. I dumped the whole mess in a cardboard box and decided to haul it home with me to dispose of it.
“If all the window glass is gone,” I reasoned out loud to Cora Mae, “it might take longer for it to be discovered. Nothing like a pile of glass on the floor to draw attention where you don’t want it drawn.” I reached through the window and relocked the door.
I hit Chester’s mailbox with the bumper of Barney’s pickup truck on the way out and bent the post a bit, but likely he wouldn’t mind even if he were still alive.
After dropping Cora Mae at her house, I headed home. The hole in the barn wall was a gaping reminder of my driving skills, and now guinea hens ran around the yard squawking angrily.
Guinea hens are useful for ridding your yard of wood ticks and deer ticks, which is quite a mission considering the diseases ticks carry. Guinea hens cluster together and move around the yard looking for bugs to eat while making a lot of noises. Since I brought home these twelve guineas, I haven’t had a single tick slip through.
They’re a lot of work in the winter months, though. The raccoons like to snack on them, so I have to be careful to keep them inside at night and I have to buy feed for them.
I looked at the sky, which was darkening rapidly, and studied the guinea hen situation. I crossed the drive and looked for Little Donny in the house, but he wasn’t there.
Hauling the hens two by two, one under each arm, into the house, I shut them in the bathroom. It took a while because they started running from me after I caught the first two, probably thinking they were going to be tomorrow’s dinner.
