Murder Bites the Bullet: A Gertie Johnson Murder Mystery (8 page)

Then I gave her the details of my surveillance mission. While I filled her in, Blaze pulled into the driveway and was having some kind of conversation with Grandma.

“The camera behind Frank’s didn’t give me a thing,” I said, starting with the small stuff before moving on to the big stuff. “It showed Frank coming out of his house and walking past it toward the state forest, but I already knew that.”

“Nobody was with him?”

I shook my head. “But I saw the shooter in real live action.” Then I described what happened, finishing with the pile of leaves.

“That was a ghillie suit,” she said, a lot of awe in her voice. “It’s like a monkey suit or a clown outfit, only with leaves. Snipers wear them to blend in.”

“This one sure did. I almost ran right into it.”

I watched Blaze help Grandma out of her winter coat. Then he took the broom and her arm, and brought her back inside. It wasn’t cold outside like Grandma thought, but I shivered anyway at how close I’d come to a bad end last night.

That always shut him up. And this time was no exception. Why is it that certain people are so critical of everybody else when they don’t know the half of it? Blaze should walk in my shoes for a day or two. Then he’d understand.

He sat down next to Kitty at the table and grimaced when he tasted the coffee.

“Welcome to my world,” I said, sitting down too. “What I told you yesterday about working for the Hansons is classified information. Don’t spread it around. My clients wouldn’t appreciate it.”

“Diane’s alibi doesn’t check out,” Kitty said to Blaze in a senior moment, letting him know we were hard at work on the case. I sent her a warning glance, but it was too late to stop her. “Nobody at the IGA remembers seeing her.”

Blaze looked from Kitty to me, thinking it over. His nostrils threatened to flare. Then he said, “How the hell are you getting people to talk to you? If a nosy biddy came around asking me questions that were none of her business, I’d tell her to get lost.”

“What’s your plan for the day?” I asked Blaze. “You should interrogate Diane, find out where she really was during that period of time when Harry was killed. And while you’re at it find out where she was last night.”

My son raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Now why would Diane Aho shoot her own husband, then turn around and gun down Frank Hanson?”

“That’s a really good question. So find out. And talk to Gus, too. He knows something.”

It might sound like I was leading Blaze right to the water, but I knew he would never drink from the well if I suggested it. Or at least, he’d hold off till he was about to keel over from dehydration first. Instead he’d go in an entirely different direction just to prove to himself that he was the boss of him.

*

Kitty and I hit the road with Fred in his usual place in the middle. He’d eaten something nasty that didn’t agree with his digestive system, so we had to drive with the windows wide open.

“I’m not so sure. The same person shellacked both Harry Aho and Frank Hanson,” I said, getting in my word for the second time in one day.

I’ve never been able to figure out how Kitty gets a hold of the words I pick for my word of the day. I used to write them down on paper and thought she was finding them that way, but these days, they are all in my head. I don’t leave a trace of a clue for her to follow.

“Shellacking,” she said with a snicker.

“That is NOT my word for the day,” I lied. “Getting back to business, I’m not convinced that Frank killed Harry. Although it sure does look like the Hansons were getting payback.”

“I took the liberty of calling the Ahos,” Kitty said. “To see if they still wanted us working on Chet. Martin said yes.”

“Same killer both times,” I announced.

“What makes you so sure there’s only one killer?” Kitty said over Fred’s head, rolling down her window a bit more. Fred turned and slurped her cheek.

“Then we better find a connection between the Hansons and Ahos, other than their ongoing feud. The only thing that could possibly bring them together would be money.”

“You’re a smart woman, Kitty.”

By then we were at Chet’s place. Cora Mae came trotting out with a big satisfied smile on her face. We managed to cram her in between Fred and Kitty. Good thing she’s a little thing and doesn’t take up much space.

“We want details,” Kitty said to her the minute the door was closed. “And I don’t mean the personal stuff.”

“You’ve had more of my personal information than you deserve,” Cora Mae said, putting some huff into her voice, but too content to really pull it off. “I think I’m in love.”

“He’s the killer for sure,” Kitty said to me.

Cora Mae was my all-time best friend and, as I mentioned before, she was always scouting for possibilities, but I’d only heard her mention love the three times she’d actually married the guys. The black widow had her sights on a possible keeper. I hoped he’d already lived a long, full life for both of their sakes. And I also really hoped they didn’t spend their lives together communicating through prison bars.

“We better find a different suspect,” I said. “And fast.”

“I didn’t say I was in love for sure. But I might be.”

Then I told Cora Mae about last night, which she’d already heard about when Blaze came early in the morning to inform Chet. But now she had my side of it, a whole lot more information than she’d had before.

I didn’t point out that Cora Mae slept like a hibernating she bear. Once she went to sleep, she was out for the night. A bomb couldn’t wake her. Instead I probed in a roundabout way, “Did you two get any sleep last night?”

*

While Kitty complained about how crowded the truck was and why couldn’t we drop Fred off at home, I headed for the IGA to follow up on where the heck everybody really was when Harry and Frank met their maker. At this point, the only one who had a solid alibi for at least one of the murders was Gus Aho, who I knew hadn’t shot Frank because he’d been peeing in the river at the time and had his hands full of something other than a killing machine.

Besides, the shot came from in front of me, not anywhere near Gus.

Kirby’s IGA is locally owned and operated just like all the IGAs and it’s been in the same family for three generations. Kirby isn’t around anymore. His grandkids take care of business and provide jobs for a lot of friends and neighbors and their kids.

Marcy Linden was out in front of the store, standing behind a booth that was covered in red and white checkered oil cloth. I’d known Marcy my whole life. After all of us made the proper greetings and passed through the obvious weather observations, Marcy asked, “Did you sign up for the Hometown Sweepstakes yet? You could win a thousand bucks. The winner will be announced on Sunday.”

“I better,” Cora Mae said, grabbing up a piece of paper and a pen and writing down her name.

“Write the date, too,” Marcy advised. “One a day is all you get and you have to buy something. You’re going in to shop, right Cora Mae?”

“I need a few things,” she said, pushing the paper through a slit in a box. And with that, we lost our most problematic business partner to the hair and beauty aisle.

Kitty signed up next.

There’s something about freebies that has them running from all directions. Not to be left behind, I scribbled down my name and today’s date, gave it a kiss for luck, and stuffed it into the box along with the rest.

I cut to the chase. Since everybody in the whole county knew exactly when and where the two murders occurred, thanks to a pipeline better than anything you’d find in Alaska, I didn’t have to cover old ground with Marcy. Frank’s death occurred during the night, after the store closed, so I left him out of the equation for now.

Marcy squinted in thought. “I saw Gus Aho. I even asked how his family was doing and he said everybody was fine.” She shook her head, sadly. “And right then, at that exact minute, everybody was
not
fine.”

Gus might be a river polluter, but now he was crossed off my suspect list. He’d had a legit alibi when his dad died. And I’d seen with my own eyes that he hadn’t shot Frank.

Kitty was eyeing up the sweepstakes signup sheets like she wanted to sneak another one in. Marcy glanced at her and knit her brows as though she could read Kitty’s mind. So Kitty said, “What about Chet Hanson? Did you see him?”