May Day (16 page)

A short, solid woman in her late thirties with black hair cropped close to her ears, thick glasses, and a questioning smile came up from the back room. “Can I help you?”

If this was Bev, I bet she was always at the bottom of the cheerleading pyramids. They always stuck the chick with glasses at the bottom. “Are you Bev?”

“Ah-hunh. What can I do for you?”

I considered asking her what she thought of the name Norman’s Baits for a bait shop, but sometimes my humor only served to make people uncomfortable, which was the opposite of what I was after. “My friend Gina Sorensen said I should talk to you. I’m looking for some information on Kennie Rogers.” I figured I’d start out small.

Bev dragged a stool underneath her, plopped herself on it, and put her elbows on the cracked glass of the counter. She rested her chins in her hands and looked at me eagerly. “What do you want to know?”

I could tell this woman and I were going to get along just fine. “I’m not sure exactly. I’m doing a story on Jeff Wilson, and I know he and Kennie dated back in the day. I also know that he had some conflicts with Gary Wohnt and his coach back then, Lartel McManus. And people say Kennie and Gary are ‘together’ now. I just don’t know any details or how to piece it all together.”

Bev played with the masking tape holding one of the bigger counter cracks together and studied the reels in the case below her. They needed dusting. I could see a smile push at the corners of her mouth, and I knew she had been waiting a long time for someone to ask her this. She was going to tell it right. A waxworm peeked at me out of its sawdust container by the cash register and then tucked its shiny slug body back under. I looked away and pretended not to be nauseated.

“Where to start?” Bev asked the waxworms rhetorically. “Well, Kennie was a royal bitch. She had that perfect blond curled hair, perfect teeth, perfect blue eyes, perfect little body. That was fine—she couldn’t help what she was born with. She just let it go to her head, is all. First day of cheerleading practice, she told all the big girls that they best get used to being on their knees.”

Mmm-hmm, I said to myself. Big girls with glasses on the bottom. This is why I had avoided cheerleading in high school. I was never overweight, but I was never particularly popular either, and five pounds one way or the other could make or break you if you were in the fringe crowd. No reason to exploit myself even further by putting on a short skirt, tight sweater, and fake smile once a week. Part of me always bought into the myth of the cheerleader mystique, though. Thank God I could hide it under my natural sarcasm.

“But that was a long time ago,” Bev said, as if reading my mind. “I try not to hold grudges. Jeff, on the other hand, was the nicest guy in the world. I don’t know what he ever saw in her beyond her good looks. I think he saw a potential in her, some real person under all the makeup and hair, and figured he could help her. They just kind of fell in together when they were freshman and stayed together after that. It made sense, what with him becoming a star football player and her being the beauty queen.”

“Did she really do all that beauty pageant stuff?” I was grotesquely fascinated.

“You know it. Her mom carted her off to all the local contests. She had a regular makeup chest that she carried everywhere, and I hear she got real good at twirling a baton.” Bev let out a raucous laugh. “She did pretty well, too. Got as far as Miss Teen Minnesota the year before we graduated.”

“Did Kennie have any other admirers?” I asked, thinking of Lartel.

“Just every guy in school and most of the gals as well. Gary had a real thing for her, though, moping around after her, sending her ‘secret’ love notes.”

“Gary Wohnt?”

“But Gary ‘Will’ for Kennie,” she said, laughing again. “That’s what we always used to say.”

“So Gary and Jeff were rivals?”

“That’s just it. Jeff was too nice a guy for that. He always bent over backward to be nice to Gary, inviting him out and to parties or whatever. Shit, he even bowed out of the last high school football game of his life so Gary would have a chance to shine.”

“That’s why Jeff didn’t play for the state title in ’82? Because he wanted Gary to have a chance to play?”

“Gary would have played regardless. He was a real good running back, it’s just you couldn’t tell with Jeff doing everything better than right. Jeff knew he already had a full ride to college, he knew it was just a high school football game, so he pretended he was sick so Gary would have a chance to shine out of his shadow.” Bev tapped the side of the waxworm container and Sleepyhead, or it could have been Sleepybutt, looked out at her again. “Everyone knew he wasn’t sick, though. Everyone knew why he did it. McManus was furious.”

Ick. Hearing that name made me feel like I had just found a blond hair in the last bite of my supper. Make that a yellow toenail. With a piece of Band-Aid stuck to it. “So Lartel and Jeff weren’t real close at the end?”

Bev looked at me. “How much do you know about Lartel
McManus?”

“I know he was Jeff’s second cousin and football coach, and I know he is one weird dude.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” she said. “He’s related to Jeff, and really wasn’t much older than us back when he was coaching. He was our math teacher, too. He was hell on wheels as a coach, and I saw it when we would practice our cheers while the players were practicing. We used to call him ‘Lartel McMeanest.’ He just couldn’t control his temper, or his eyes.” She paused for dramatic effect.

“He had a wandering eye?”

“I wouldn’t say it wandered. It always landed pretty good on Kennie. After that last football game, he just lost it. They didn’t win, of course, not without Jeff. Lartel was furious and rode home alone. He stopped coaching and teaching end of that year. The official word was that he quit, but everyone knew he was let go. We just didn’t know why. It had something to do with Kennie and Jeff, though. Jeff moved away right after graduation, and Kennie stayed behind. She was supposed to go with him, to some cosmetology school out East, but she never went. She started hanging out with Lartel, of all the people in the world.”

“Kennie and Lartel?” I was incredulous. I had never once seen them together.

“Oh, that was a long time ago. Then something must have happened, because Lartel just dropped out of sight. No one saw him for over a decade. He showed up about five years ago and started work at the library. Him and Kennie don’t interact that I can see. He doesn’t interact with much of anyone, and if you have kids, you tell them to avoid Lartel McManus like the boogeyman.”

Sound advice, I thought. “So would any one of those three have a reason to kill Jeff?”

Bev sucked on her teeth. “Killing I don’t know about. This was just high school stuff. Who hangs on to high school stuff that long?”

The doorbells jingled behind me, and in strode a gruff-looking man. “Hey, Bev. How much for some large leeches?” Apparently he was used to interrupting women, because he didn’t even acknowledge my presence.

“Same as it was last weekend, Mike,” Bev said, laughing flirtatiously. “We don’t got no leech sales going on.”

Mike winked. “A man’s got to be ready. Why don’t you give me one large.”

Bev turned to the fridge and pulled out a see-through plastic container, the kind Chinese restaurants use for carryout soup. It was full of leeches dancing their worm dance, struggling over each other’s bodies to get to the top, just to end up on the bottom again. Ah, the life of the leech. There could be something philosophical about it if they weren’t so damn repulsive.

The worst part was that during walleye season, you could find a container in most fridges around here. If you were at a friend’s house and they offered you a beer, you let them get it or risked seeing black bloodsuckers squirming next to the margarine and eggs or, worse, next to the thawing hamburger.

Mike and Bev were chatting it up, so I walked over to the candy. Ben’s Bait is a treasure chest of unique candy. My favorite was the Lemonheads. I sucked the gritty, sour yellow coating off and spit out the tasteless white ball in the center. I grabbed two boxes of those and one bag of old-fashioned Tart-n-Tinys. When I got back to the front, Mike was on his way out.

“If you hear any new gossip, Bev,” I said, lining up my purchases on the counter, “can you give me a call over at the library? Otherwise, you can call me at home. I’m staying at Sunny Waters’s farm, and I haven’t changed her phone number.”

“I thought I recognized you,” she said. “Yeah, I can call. Don’t quit your day job, though. This town has gotten pretty quiet since the murder. Don’t anyone want to believe it was one of us.”

I nodded and slid her some cash. “Thanks for your time. Say, did you get
Snatch
in yet?” I asked, eyeing the racks of videos.

“Nope, one of the Christianson boys took it out and hasn’t returned it. I need to give him a call. We’re going to have to order another copy if we don’t get it back soon.”

“Have a good day, then,” I said, sliding into my best Minnesota accent. On the way out the door, I popped a Lemonhead in my mouth. If I just pierced the coating with the tip of my eyetooth, I could ration the sour bursts for nearly ten minutes.

“Hey, Bev,” I said, turning as I remembered one last question. “What number was on Jeff’s football jersey?”

“That I can’t tell ya. If you stop over at the high school, though, it’d be easy enough to find out. They have his jersey framed in glass in the trophy case up front. You can see a bunch of pictures of the team, too, if you’re interested.”

The sun was shining down on my car when I got outside, and I smelled a loud hint of summer despite the late frost this morning. It was going to be a warm day, warm enough to start my farmer’s tan if I had lunch outside. I felt pretty good as I drove the half mile to the library. Some pieces had fallen into place, and everything I knew was pointing at the class of ’82. This party tonight was going to be very
illuminating.

I pulled into the library parking lot, ready to devote my day to the reading arts and starting the article on Jeff. I had some backed-up paperwork and shelving that needed my attention. Plus, the library needed cleaning and the plants needed watering. Lartel had a thing for plants, as I had seen at his house, and he especially liked the high-maintenance ones that needed regular attention. I didn’t mind watering them.

I unlocked the door and strode straight to the windows, pulling up the shades with a zip. I returned to the door and flipped the sign to Open. I walked toward the computer and nearly tripped over a doll on the floor. I shook my head. The magazine inserts were bad enough, but now kids were leaving their dolls. I picked it up and turned it over, then dropped it like a burning book. It was the cheerleader doll from Lartel’s dark room, her expression bland and her hair impeccable. I backed up to a wall and surveyed the library. I couldn’t see down any of the book rows, and the back room was dark.

I could smell my sandalwood-laced sweat, and one word raced through my head:
Lartel
.

When the library door donged open, I squealed like a pig. Kennie Rogers strode in and chuckled. “Did I catch y’all playin’ with dolls?” She walked over and took the cheerleader from the floor. “Well, isn’t that the sweetest thing. Y’all takin’ up arts and crafts? These ain’t easy to sew, these little outfits. I am plum impressed with you, Mira.” She laughed again. The good-looking get a lot of slack in our society, and though Kennie’s looks had faded, the air of privilege they had given her had not.

I was sure my eyes looked like two fried eggs, sunny-side up, and my back was still pressed against the wall. “Some kid left it.” I willed myself to relax, which at this point consisted of breathing again and releasing the wall from the vise grip my ass had on it.

It didn’t matter, because Kennie didn’t seem to be paying attention. She sauntered behind the front counter and flipped the computer on. “Whoo, y’all got a bad smell gone worse down here. You might want to empty your garbage.”

She walked back around to the front of the counter, halfway between the children’s area and me. She stretched dramatically, her arms reaching toward the ceiling and her back to me. I eyed the wolf’s head airbrushed on the back of her denim jacket. Her wide behind was stuffed into Chic jeans, which were in turn stuffed into fringed white ankle boots covered in faux-southwestern metal studs. It reminded me of a cascading pork sausage in tight casing, and when she turned around, I was sure the front of her jeans would display a perfect camel-toe. I returned my eyes to shoulder level before I was called upon to verify that.

“I used to work here, you know, Mira. Used to be the head librarian back about a coon’s age. That was before y’all came to town, even before Lartel came back. Of course, I’ve moved on to bigger and better things.” She turned back to face me with a dramatic flip to her hair. “I will just be skinned alive, Mira, you look like you seen a ghost! You keep starin’ at me like that, I’m inclined to get the wrong message from y’all.”

I closed my mouth with a snap and went behind the counter to put some physical space between Kennie and myself. I set the doll on the counter. “You know anything about these dolls, Kennie?”

She strolled back to the counter like the aged beauty queen she was. “I know you can buy ’em at the five and dime. A kid’s toy.” Her eyes glittered at me.

“I suppose. I’ll put it in the lost and found.” I feigned nonchalance and tossed the girl-Chuckie into the cardboard box overflowing with widowed mittens and ratty hats. “What can I do for you, anyhow?”