January Thaw (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries) (18 page)

Forty-Three

Before we parted ways,
Mrs. Berns reminded me that Johnny’s band was playing that night. I knew she wanted to ask if I’d spoken with him since I’d spent the night at Bad Brad’s, but she was friend enough not to plant a direct question on me. I told her I’d think about Johnny tomorrow. In the meantime, I needed to get this gun to the one person on the outside who could help me dismantle it without destroying it: Curtis Poling. He was still in the hospital, though. I would visit him first thing in the morning, hoping for his sake and mine that he was awake.

Taunita and the babies were up when I returned home, so I kept the gun stowed in my car. I didn’t want to raise her hopes unnecessarily, so I didn’t tell her about our Prospect House break-in. Instead, we chatted about the day while I helped her to bathe Timothy and Alessa. The three of them had checked out the address where Maurice had stayed with his grandma in the summers of his youth. Their retreat had been on Silver Lake, though whatever modest structure had originally been there had since been replaced by a modern A-frame.

When I asked, she allowed that it was odd that his family of limited means would vacation on a lake so far from home, friends, and family. She said Maurice had never questioned it as a kid but as he got older, wondered about the connection between Orpheus and the area.

It was about the time she put Alessa and Timothy to bed that I noticed my house was spotless. Even the plant leaves had been dusted. The air smelled fresh and lemony, and the countertops gleamed. Taunita had been busy. I wanted to thank Taunita, but the door to the spare bedroom was already closed. I crashed shortly afterward, the post-adrenaline let-down hitting me like a cement truck. My plan was to get up at seven so I could make the hospital’s eight o’clock visiting hour.

I slept on my mattress.

Ron Sims, editor and owner of the
Battle Lake Recall
, beat my alarm clock the next morning. “James.”

He’d never been what you’d call loquacious. His wife was the voice of the operation, both their marriage and the
Recall
offices. They were a decent enough couple except that if you caught them in a room together, they’d inevitably start making out like two walruses with a limited mating season and only one chance to save the species. It meant a lot of people didn’t visit the
Recall
offices, myself included, unless absolutely necessary.

I scratched absently at my arm, standing in the middle of my kitchen and squinting against the promise of sunlight filtering through my blinds. I wondered if I should take the phone off the hook so I could finally land a decent night’s sleep. That, or put a line in my bedroom. “Morning, Ron. What’s the news today?”

“Need someone to cover last night’s break-in at the Prospect House. You in?”

I perked up like a gopher, the punch of his words knocking the air and sleep out of me. “Whoof.” I actually said that, out loud. It was all I could manage.

“James?”

I sucked in a bit of air. Ron knew the Prospect House had been tossed last night, which meant the police knew. “Yeah. Someone broke into the Prospect House?” My voice squeaked.

“Someone who was not very smart.”

Crap. Was he giving me a chance to confess?

“They left their mittens behind,” he continued.

The vision was so clear I could have stepped into it. The flashlight catching the glint of the graceful blue teardrop necklace, Mrs. Berns pausing to remove her mittens and never putting them back on.

“What’d they take?”

He grunted. “Impossible to know. It’d be like stealing from a church garage sale. Carter called it in this morning. Said last night he thought he heard noises coming from the house—he and Libby live in the carriage house on the next lot—and he went to check. Found the house sealed tight, everything normal except for the mittens in the basement that hadn’t been there when he’d locked up earlier. Plus, footprints leading into the woods.”

For the love of Betsy. Had he also spotted the little pee trails we’d probably left after the ghost scared us out of there? And since when was everyone a detective? Whatever happened to people minding their own business? I was going to jail.

“James?”

“Yeah, I’ll cover it. I need to run to Fergus to check on Curtis this morning, but I can stop at the House over my lunch break.”
If I’m not incarcerated.

“Probably just kids being kids. I’ll expect news by the end of the day.” Click.

It was now that much more urgent that I reach Curtis to see what was inside the gun barrel. If I returned it before Carter noticed that it was missing, I stood a chance of keeping me and Mrs. Berns out of the pokey. I speed-showered, told a sleepy Taunita that I’d be back that night, and was almost out the door before I realized I couldn’t exactly tote a Civil War musket into a hospital without drawing some unwanted attention. I hurried back to my bedroom closet but couldn’t find anything large enough. I ducked into Sunny’s office, where she had piled most of her belongings before leaving for Alaska, and dug through boxes until I uncovered an old hockey stick duffel bag. Perfect. Maybe today wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Maybe everything would fall into place.

Maybe pigs were right now flying through a frozen-over hell.

Forty-Four

“Curtis Poling.” It was
the third time I’d said the name, but still the flustered woman at the information counter couldn’t seem to locate him. The heavy black hockey stick duffel lay on the floor next to me like a neon sign.

“Is that with a C or a P?”

“Is what with a C or a P?”

“His name.”

I wanted to tap on her head to see if her melon was ripe. “First or last name?”

“Last name,” she said, as if it were obvious.

“It starts with a P. P-O-L—”

A deep voice behind me interrupted my recitation. “He’s in stable condition. Woke up last night, ate solid food. Still can’t have visitors.”

I turned so slowly that I could hear my neck creak. No way Gary Wohnt was standing behind me, right? Stolen Civil War musket in a hockey stick bag much?

“Gary! How’re you feeling?”

He was not in uniform. Instead, he was wearing denim jeans that fit him like a friend, a crisp blue oxford, and a green and gold patterned tie. He was leaning heavily on a cane, but somehow it made him look even more capable.

He aimed one pointed glance at the duffel bag.

I in turn stared at his cane, my eyebrow raised. It was meaningless, but he didn’t know that.

“What’s in the bag?”

Maybe he did know that.

“Curtis’s favorite hockey stick. I knew he’d want it.” Because what old guy doesn’t want a piece of wood when they’re recovering from a beating? “You said he’s alert?”

Gary let the silence fill the air between us. It did exactly that, sniffing around our heads, and it judged me lacking, and then it started pointing at me as if I were guilty. So I killed it. “I’m really worried about Curtis. Can you please tell me more?” I didn’t have to fake the pleading in my voice.

It did the trick. “He’s going to be okay.”

“Did he say anything more beyond the tattoo and the animal noise comment?”

Gary’s eyes narrowed. “What else do you know?”

“That’s it. I promise.” I raised my hand in what I assumed was Girl Scout’s honor. There’s nothing like squatting on a bag of lies to make you righteous about a single truth. “The nurse told me the other night that Curtis had asked about Mrs. Berns and me, and that he’d mentioned the tattoo and the same noise I’d heard when Mrs. Berns and I were harassed in the alley. I told Victor when I called the station the other day.”

Gary only nodded.

“Are you questioning anyone in Curtis’s attack?”

“What do you think?”

I thought it was time to beat cheeks. “I’ve got to get to work, that’s what. If you’re not going to tell me anything, I’ll be on my way.”

He stooped as if to help me hoist the duffel, but his cane drew him up short. I lifted the bag myself, trying to flex my muscles only as much as would be required of a hockey stick.

“That looks heavy,” he said suspiciously.

“Back in the day, they built their sticks to last.” I didn’t look back as I scurried out the sliding doors, but I could feel his eyes boring into me. I’d have to return tomorrow with the gun and hope to high heaven I didn’t run into Gary again. For the moment, though, all I wanted was to put as much distance between the stolen item I was carrying and the Battle Lake Chief of Police as I could. The icy cold scratched at my cheeks.

“Hey. Betty Fishbacher.”

I turned toward the hoarse voice, resisting the urge to clutch the gun like the weapon it was. “Eric Offerdahl.”

He had been standing behind a pylon but revealed himself when I passed. A lit cigarette dangled from his lip in a deliberate attempt at coolness. He kept running his hands through his hair and then patting his pockets like he was looking for his wallet. His eyes jittered, and his mask was gone, open anger laid across his face for all the world to see.

“How’s your friend?” he asked.

“You mean the Battle Lake Chief of Police whom you shot last week?” It was a blind stab. I knew he was talking about Curtis. The hit scored, though, and his face twisted even more darkly.

“Hmm. So you did shoot the chief. Why?”

He flicked his cigarette at me. I let it bounce off my shoulder. Gary was just inside the hospital doors, talking to the underskilled woman behind the information desk. I could yell for help, and he’d come. I ground out Eric’s cigarette with the toe of my winter boot.

“I didn’t shoot anyone,” he snarled. “I’m here to tell you that Ray was arrested. Tell Taunita to watch her back, ’cause snitches get stitches.”

He stared me down, shoving his hands into his pockets. My first instinct was to punch him in his throat, but then I thought of Timothy and Alessa. I did not want Eric any madder at us than he appeared. When Taunita had said she fed the justice machine, did she mean putting Ray in jail?

“What’s he in jail for?”

“Taunita knows.”

The automatic doors of the hospital slid open. A nurse wearing a winter coat pushed a man in a wheelchair forward. A van pulled up at the end of the sidewalk. When I looked back to Eric, he’d vanished. I realized it didn’t matter why he was threatening Taunita. He knew she was staying with me, and that meant she and the babies were in danger.

Forty-Five

Sid and Nancy were
happy to put up Taunita, Timothy, and Alessa in the spare apartment above the coffee shop. Taunita said it wasn’t necessary, that she could handle a dumb drug punk like Eric just fine, but I reminded her that the kids couldn’t. Once they were settled, I used Sid and Nancy’s home phone to call the hospital. They patched me through to Curtis, who sounded weak but like himself.

“What were you doing scrapping in alleys anyhow?” I asked him, my eyes clouding with tears. I couldn’t believe I finally got to hear his voice.

He coughed. “Gary told me to tell you not to mess with them. They’re rough people.”

I knew he had been beaten up badly, but that didn’t sound at all like something Curtis would say. “Is Gary there right now?”

“I told him you were smart enough to keep yourself safe.”

Gary must be in the room with him, or Curtis would have answered me directly. “Don’t let Gary know what we’re talking about, but do you know anything about Civil War guns?”

“Of course I like honey buns. I used to collect them.”

I could hear his wink through the line, and it felt like a weight being lifted. They could beat up Curtis, but they could never diminish his humor or wits. “I have one I need you to look at. It might have something to do with all of this, though I have no idea what.”

“Bring ’em by,” he said. “I’m sick of this hospital food. Now, I’ve got some people who want to talk to me. You won’t want to bring those buns until tomorrow because I’ll have a lot of company today.”

Message received. “Love you, Curtis.”

“That’s about right,” he said gruffly before hanging up.

I rubbed the back of my hand against my wet eyes. Curtis was going to be okay. Now, I had to make sure the same could be said about me. Next stop, the Prospect House to discover what they knew about the break-in—and the idiots who had conducted it.

Forty-Six

Turns out, Carter didn’t
know much, but he did know that the hanged man’s gun was missing. I had no choice but to play dumb as he showed me digital photographs of the footprints in the woods. He said the police had confiscated the mittens. The whole time we spoke, I could feel the gun burning a hole in the back seat of my car like only guilt and fear can do. At the end of the interview, I returned to run the library, type up the Eric Offerdahl report for Chuck Litchfield, and write a very brief article about the break-in.

After the library closed, there was nothing to do but go home and wait. Curtis had warned me not to bring the gun to him until tomorrow. My head was too busy to deal with Johnny or Mrs. Berns. I considered sketching what I knew, but it was so little. Hard drugs had infiltrated Battle Lake about the same time Eric Offerdahl had arrived. Maurice, Ray, and Hammer followed shortly after, possibly to help Eric distribute the drugs. However, Maurice had told Taunita he’d come for a different reason—to claim his inheritance. If that was true, if there was an inheritance, the proof had fallen into my lap through a convoluted web of history. An inheritance wouldn’t erase any illegal activities Maurice had engaged in, but it might help out Taunita and the kids. Also, Eric had most certainly shot Gary, which made me believe he’d shot and killed Maurice as well. He was a loose cannon who was now gunning for Taunita because she’d turned in one of his lieutenants for beating up Curtis.

It was danger and confusion, all tied in a bundle and set on fire. All I knew for sure was that I missed having the kids around. One of Alessa’s blankets had been left behind, a blue cotton square as soft as duck down. I smelled it. Sweet, clean baby. I couldn’t even clean house to pass the time because Taunita had scoured everything, even alphabetizing my seven spices. I finally read until I fell asleep.

Under my bed.

The next morning, I was up with the dawn, filled with a rare sense of purpose despite my shame at returning to my nest under the mattress. I was going to check on Taunita and the kids, then bring the gun to Curtis for help dismantling it. We’d find Orpheus’s final letter, which would lead us to the inheritance. I’d give it to Taunita, and I’d wash my hands of the entire ordeal.

I was outside the coffee shop by 6:02 AM. It was already open. I walked in. Nancy smiled up at me, her eyes tired but bright.

“No skolleboller today, but I’ve got coffee brewing.”

“Can I just buy some Long Johns? I’m going to visit Curtis in the hospital.”

She began packing them immediately. “Tell him these are on us.”

“Will do. Don’t suppose Taunita is up?”

“Wouldn’t know. She and the kids left with a friend last night.”

A cold ball of lead dropped into my stomach. “What?”

“Some old friend, he said. Looked like a punk with that barbell through his eyebrow, but who am I to judge?”

“She took the babies, too? They all left without a fight?”

“As far as I could tell. Taunita said she’d call you to let you know where she’s at. Everything okay?”

I ran all the way to the police station. My chest ached, my lungs like two frozen balloons when I finally reached it. I pulled the door open. Gary started to stand when he saw me, but his injury brought him up short. The bags under his eyes and the way his mouth was drawn suggested he had worked through the night.

“Taunita. The babies. Eric Offerdahl has them!”

I spilled the story of Taunita’s relationship to Maurice, and how she had narced on Stingray and maybe the whole gang and now Eric had taken her and her kids.

“They left without a fight?” Gary’s eyebrows were arched so close together they were almost touching.

“That’s what Nancy said.” I wasn’t going to cry in front of him.

“Then there’s not much we can do.” He turned from me.

“Offerdahl is crazy! I think he’s the one who shot you.”

He shook his head. “I’ll look into it. That’s all I can promise.”

Gary wrote down a description of Taunita and the kids and sent me on my way. Outside the police station, the cold air cut at my ice-burned lungs. I had no idea where to go. I certainly wasn’t going to drive home and wait. I could go to the microbrewery and search for Eric, but there was no way he’d hide out there with two little kids and a woman. I didn’t know where else to dig, so I decided to look online.

I took off on foot, the brisk air cauterizing my nostrils.

I was unlocking the library door when I felt the hand at my throat.

I whipped around to face a very angry-looking Eric Offerdahl, his pupils the size of pinpricks.