by P. B. Ryan
o0o
We arrived at the pasty dinner as the Lionesses were beginning to clear away the food. The pasties were still out so we helped ourselves. A lot of people who aren’t from the U.P. don’t know what pasties are. Little Donny’s city-slick father thought they were something strippers wore on their boobs. I wanted to ask him how he knew what strippers wore, but Heather was sitting right next to him at the time, and since I’m the last one to make trouble in our family, I kept my mouth shut.
Pasties are a staple of life in the U.P., like bread or rice, and the Lionesses make the best found anywhere. A small wad of dough is rolled out like a piecrust, only smaller, then it’s filled with chopped carrots, potatoes, onions, ground meat, and a little salt and pepper. Fold the crust over, crimp the side closed with a fork, and bake it for an hour or so. Of course, everyone has a secret ingredient they add to the mix to make theirs special. The Lionesses are sworn to secrecy and not one of them has spilled the beans yet. I’m thinking of joining just so I can find out what they do to make theirs so good.
Little Donny stacked three on his plate and sat down with a cup of coffee at an empty table. Cora Mae and I took one each and followed him over. I noticed the long metal tables were cleared of people, everyone gathered on the opposite side of the room next to a barrel of beer.
I could see Star across the room hanging on a short stocky fellow with dark wavy hair.
“Who’s that with your Aunt Star?” I asked Little Donny.
“Some guy she met in Rapid River.”
No wonder I hadn’t seen much of her lately. Star’s enjoying her freedom, but it sure took awhile. I’m proud of her for not jumping into a steady relationship with the first guy who paid her a little attention. A lot of women would do that, but Star’s taking her time. “He looks like a young one. How old do you think he is?”
Little Donny shrugged his shoulders. He packed the last of a pasty in his mouth, picked up his plate, and went off in the direction of the kitchen to find more.
I saw Bill Lampi standing next to Floyd, sipping a glass of beer. He wore a proud smile like Barney used to wear when one of his kids did something special, like winning a spelling bee or scoring the winning basket in a basketball game. Only Bill smiled at the crowd of guys gathered around Barb. His smile seemed to say, “That’s mine, fellas. Pretty great stuff, hunh?”
A lot of men wouldn’t like their wives getting the kind of attention Barb was getting. Maybe somewhere in Bill’s mind he felt lucky to have her. He probably didn’t do too much dating when he was growing up.
I just hope he didn’t have more than he could handle.
I could hear dishes clattering in the kitchen and a swelling din from the other side of the room.
“Little Donny must be eating his way through the kitchen,” I said to Cora Mae when he didn’t return. “Let’s go mingle. And keep your ears open.”
We left our plates at the kitchen window and joined the crowd. The first person we saw turned out to be Kitty. She wore a housedress covered with pink flowers the size of watermelons, and I caught a glimpse of her dead-white lumpy inner thighs, although I tried hard not to. She had taken the bobby pins out of her hair, but as usual forgot to comb them out. Tight corkscrew curls bounced on her head as she leaned into a group of women.
I recognized them as Kitty’s card bunch. They got together every Friday night for rummy. Should be playing Old Maid, I thought. Not a one of them had ever been married except Pat, and that lasted only three weeks so it didn’t really count.
Kitty looked directly into my eyes. Then she bent over and said something to Betty, who had taken time out from busy-bodying at Chester’s door to see who else’s husband she could try to steal.
Betty gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, and the group all began to giggle and glance over at me.
“Hi, Kitty.” I ambled over. “Hi, girls.”
Kitty turned her head away.
I had managed to make Kitty mad at me and now I had to pay the price as the central topic of gossip. Great. “I’m sorry about earlier, Kitty. I don’t know what got into me,” I said, certain that a public apology would do the trick. I tacked on the clincher. “I’ll get you something to eat from the kitchen. Would you like that?”
Kitty beaming face swung back. “I’m okay. I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”
“No hurry. Take the night off. I don’t need a bodyguard in a crowd like this.”
I nudged Cora Mae and nodded in Onni’s direction. “Look. There’s Onni Maki.”
Cora Mae barely glanced at him. “I’ve changed my mind about Onni. He’s not what he appeared at first. Besides, he’s a murder suspect and a cheater. I’ve heard more stories about his cheating than I care to. Believe it or not, I have my principles. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
Cora Mae was making love eyes at someone behind me. I turned to look and saw George talking to old Ed Lacken.
“Good God, Cora Mae, not the undertaker.” Just the thought of Ed touching a living woman made me feel sick.
“Of course not. I mean George. Isn’t he cute?”
Well, doesn’t that beat all? Cora Mae is a living wonder, and I can hardly keep up with her. George better watch his goods, because once Cora Mae sets her sights, it’s usually too late to get away. I felt a twinge inside, not sure I liked this new development.
Cora Mae wrenched loose from my grip and slithered over to him, finding her way through a clearing in the mass of people crowded around the beer. I joined her next to George.
Ed Lacken wore the same bow tie he wore for his funeral services and every hair on his head was slicked straight back. I wondered how he kept his head from sliding off the pillow at night. He ran his fingers around the bow tie as though it pinched his neck.
Cora Mae batted her eyelashes, laid a hand on George’s arm to get his attention, batted her eyes some more, and said, “I need some advice on repairing my fence. I’d appreciate it if you’d stop by tomorrow and take a look at it.”
I couldn’t believe anyone could be so bold and obvious. Plus, now we have to break Cora Mae’s fence.
“Sure,” George said innocently. “I’ll look at it first thing in the morning. Then I’m heading to Gertie’s place to work on a few things.” He smiled at me and I felt my face heating up.
The sound of laughter caught our attention, and we all looked over at the gang gathered around Barb.
“I think,” George said slowly, “Bill has a wild cat by the tail.”
While we focused on the tight circle around Barb, Onni Maki walked up and stood next to me, wearing the same green disco suit he’d worn to Chester’s funeral. He wasn’t standing there three seconds before I felt a hand on my rear end. I jumped and moved forward a step. The hand followed. Glancing over my shoulder, I couldn’t help noticing it was Onni’s hand. We looked at each other. He had a blank dumb expression on his face. I could feel his fingers spread out over one whole cheek.
I slowly opened my purse, passing up the stun gun with a pang of regret and wrapping my hand around the can of pepper spray. Then I sprayed it in Onni’s face.
It was a direct hit.
He blew back like he’d been hit full force by a tornado. When he hit the floor, he covered his face and started screaming. Boy, that stuff really works.
I didn’t choose the stun gun because I didn’t want to cause a big scene, but with Onni screaming and the whole place turning and heading over, I might as well have. I eased the pepper spray back into my purse and edged away from the group forming around Onni, where he was still on his back. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Blaze rushing through the crowd, and I got myself tucked back behind George just in time. I peered out.
“What the hell happened?” Blaze asked the crowd. Everyone looked at each other. I looked at Kitty, who had plowed through to stand beside me, and shrugged along with the rest of them. Blaze bent over Onni and helped him up.
“I’m blind,” Onni screamed.
&nbs
p; “There, there,” Blaze said. “You just got a little something in your eye.”
Onni continued screaming as Blaze guided him to the men’s room. I wandered in the opposite direction before the crowd started comparing notes and looking around for the perpetrator.
I leaned against a pile of jacket in the coatroom and closed my eyes. When I opened them, Barb sashayed in like one of those fancy New York models on a catwalk, her hands on her hips and a sour look on her face.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
“Suits me.”
“I want to know why you’re bothering Bill and me? I know you were sneaking around outside our house spying on us, but I don’t know why.”
I never liked the word “sneak,” but I let it ride. And I didn’t like her tone of voice. Up close I noticed a tired edge to her face, like she’d been losing sleep. I decided to cut to the chase, hit her with both barrels, as they say.
“Someone broke into Chester’s house,” I said. “And tore it apart looking for something, and I’m pretty sure it was you.”
Her face crumpled and her voice went limp. “That’s why you’re snooping around? You think I did that?”
“That’s right,” I said.
Barb looked around. No one was nearby. “Promise you won’t tell Bill what I’m going to tell you, or anybody else, for that matter. Promise and I’ll tell you.”
She wrung her hands and chewed the bottom of her lip.
“I promise,” I said. We used to call them “toilet paper promises” because they were the kind of promises that lasted about as long as one piece of toilet paper at deer camp.
“Chester found out something about me that Bill didn’t know about, and after he died, I worried that Bill would go over and discover it.” She paused and glanced at the door. “I went there, but I didn’t have to break in. The back door was standing open and someone had already searched through everything. Chester’s belongings were thrown everywhere. I looked around but whoever was there ahead of me must have taken the thing I was looking for, because I couldn’t find it.”
Her voice started to crack and I thought she was about to cry, but she didn’t.
“What were you looking for?” I asked, but of course I knew—the magazines I had discovered in Chester’s blind.
“I can’t tell you that. It’s too embarrassing, something foolish I did years ago and regret every day of my life. Chester told me he had it and threatened to show it to Bill if I didn’t go back where I came from.”
“Sounds like a motive for murder to me,” I said.
Barb narrowed her eyes, back to her old self.
“Where were you opening day of hunting season around dawn?” I asked her.
“You just don’t quit, do you?” she said.
Little Donny wandered into the coatroom sucking on a toothpick and Barb used his presence as an opportunity to escape.
I called to her as she strutted out, “Don’t leave town until this matter is resolved.”
I’ve always wanted to say that.
o0o
Not one to put all my guinea hen eggs in one basket, I knew it was time to expand the scope of my investigation. There was a distinct possibility that Barb wasn’t the murderer. I wanted her to be my prime suspect because she wasn’t a local and because I didn’t like her. But the evidence wasn’t stacking against her.
If Barb told me the truth, Chester’s place had been searched three separate times the day after he bought the big one: by Cora Mae and me, by whoever trashed his place, and by Barb. At least I knew Barb hadn’t wrecked my place, or she would have taken the magazines.
I looked around for Kitty and finally found her in the ladies’ room washing her hands.
“Barb didn’t do it,” I said. “And Onni didn’t do it because he didn’t have anything to gain.”
Kitty studied me in the mirror. “Sounds reasonable.”
“That leaves Bill. Or we are barking up the wrong tamarack tree altogether?”
“They just took Onni to the hospital in Escanaba,” Kitty said, still watching me in the mirror.
“What’s wrong with him?” I squirmed, wondering how a little shot of pepper spray could require hospitalization. Those cans should have warnings.
“No one knows. Ed Lacken said Onni was standing by you one minute and screaming the next. Funny thing.”
Kitty watched me in the mirror. My curls were beginning to flatten to my head. I fluffed them with my fingers and said, “Little Donny’s going to need a ride home tonight. Ask George to take him and meet me by the door. I’ll get the truck.”
Kitty nodded.
o0o
The emergency room desk attendant was solid, like a refrigerator. She wore a fuzzy black mustache over her lip and thick black eyebrows.
“Only next of kin beyond this point,” she said.
“I’m his wife.” I tried to look worried.
She scanned a clipboard. “Doesn’t say he has a wife on his intake sheet.”
“He’s not thinking right. I’m definitely his wife, though.”
“Okay, but they…” Refrigerator pointed at Cora Mae and Kitty, “will have to wait here.” Cora Mae shrugged and took a seat by the television. Kitty positioned herself for a view down the hall, leaning against the wall, a hint of garter protruding below her housedress.
I walked down a long corridor with Fridge leading the way. She wore hospital white shoes and white stretch pants that showed the lines of her panties. Worse, the panties were black.
We entered a room with three beds partitioned by curtains. She pulled aside the first one, waved me through, and thundered away to man the fort.
Onni was lying on an examination table still wearing his green suit and paisley shirt. The shirt, unbuttoned halfway, exposed his plucked-chicken wrinkly chest. He held a white cloth over both eyes.
I peeked out of the curtain to make sure no one was coming, then said in the gruffest voice I could manage, “Onni Maki, I have a few questions for you before the doctor comes in.”
Startled, Onni began to lift the cloth. I quickly shoved his hand back and said, “Better not open ‘em yet.”
“Who are you?” Onni asked from under the cloth.
“FBI.” I improvised as I went. “We’re investigating the death of Chester Lampi, and this assault on you might be tied in.”
“No,” Onni began, “that lunatic Gert..”
“Let’s not go pointing fingers yet,” I broke in. “This is way more complicated than it seems, and it involves land and mineral rights and greed.”
“I don’t have any stake in the land anymore,” Onni said. “Wish everybody would leave me alone about it. I don’t take to threats.” Sweat glistened on his chrome-dome and a long strand of cover-up hair had slid down the side of his face.
“I’m not threatening you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Have you noticed any unusual activity over there?” I asked.
“What? Where?”
“On the land next to your place. Chester’s land.”
Onni seemed surprised. “That’s vacant land and it’s November. What kind of stupid question is that?”
Interrogation work is harder than it looks. The interrogatee might know valuable information without even knowing it. It’s the interrogator’s job to ask the right questions, even though the questions might seem stupid to someone not acquainted with the procedure.
“I’m asking the questions here, remember?” My throat was getting sore from keeping my voice low. “Who else has been asking about the land?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Onni said, “I don’t have anything to do with the land or the mineral rights anymore.”
“We need a name for our records.”
“Well, to begin with, Barb Lampi wanted to buy the rights from me, but I told her I didn’t own them anymore, that I’d traded them…”
Just then the curtains parted and the doctor entered, followed by Blaze, who sipped from a cup of co
ffee.
“Ma,” Blaze said, “what are you doing here?”
Onni screamed, threw the cloth aside, and tried to open his eyes. “What’s she doing here? Get her away from me!”
“That’s no way to treat a visitor,” I said. Blaze had me in one of his elbow lock and we headed down the hall.
“Bye, Mrs. Maki,” Fridge called when we walked by. I waved.
Blaze stared hard at me and said, “Mrs. Maki? You impersonated a dead woman? Where’s Little Donny?”
“He was having such a good time, I let him stay for the dance.”
Cora Mae came trotting over. “I’m keeping an eye on her,” she said. “And so is Kitty.” I could see Kitty attempting to launch herself from a waiting room chair.
“Oh, good,” Blaze said. “Now I won’t worry anymore.” He towered over me. “Onni said you squirted something in his face.”
“Don’t know where he got that idea. Viagra must be affecting his mind. I read that stuff can make everything look blue. Imagine what it’s doing to his mind.”
“I’m staying to make sure he’s okay,” Blaze said. “You better hope he doesn’t want to press charges.”
On the way out the revolving door Cora Mae said, “spraying Onni in the face sure isn’t going to help your case. Can’t you save outrageous behavior till after the hearing?”
“Good point, Cora Mae, but I wasn’t thinking about the case while Onni pawed me up. It was pure instinct.”
We waited outside for Kitty to catch up. I filled them in on my conversation with Onni. “Barb’s back on my list.”
“I thought women didn’t murder men with rifles.” Cora Mae said. “Didn’t you say that?”
“She must have an accomplice,” I reasoned. “That’s the only explanation.”
“Bill,” Cora Mae and Kitty said in unison.
Chapter 11
Word For The Day
CHTHONIC (THON ik) adj.
Designating or of the underworld of
the dead or its gods or spirits.
THURSDAY MORNING BROUGHT A warm spell. As I woke up in Cora Mae’s guest room I could hear melted snow running in the gutters on the roof of her house. It sounded like a waterfall as it emptied with a rush onto the side lawn and traveled toward an irrigation ditch next to the road. An icicle broke loose from the roofline and sailed past the window.
