Murder Talks Turkey (21 page)

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I was backing out of Shirley’s driveway when George pulled in behind me, blocking my escape. I stayed where I was, palming my pepper spray, while he strode up to the truck window. If he yanked the door open or made any other aggressive gesture, he was getting it full on, no holds barred.

“Dickey got a call-in tip a few minutes ago,” he said through the crack I’d made in the window. “He’s rounding up his volunteers and then he’ll head over here.”

“You came to warn me?” I could have cried. What a wonderful man. And I was about to assault him with my pepper spray!

George nodded. “I’ll have to circle around and come back over with them, or else they might suspect something’s up.”

Laura hadn’t wasted any time calling in the troops after she found out where I was. “I don’t have any place to go,” I said.

“Is it time to turn yourself in, Gertie? I’m sure we can find the truth.”

“Never! Dickey’s a dope. And I have a few loose ends that might tie up the entire case, if only I can work them.”

“We don’t have much time then. You need to go. Do what you have to do and meet me at my place later.”

“I have a habit of ruining my friend’s lives. I’m a curse. You don’t want to get involved with me.”

George grinned. “I can’t wait to get involved with you. Now go.”

“What happened to Fred?” I called out the window as he ran back to his truck.

“Fred’s back home with Grandma.”

“Look out for him. He’s in hostile territory.”

George backed up, clearing the way for my escape. One more time, I’d lucked out, turning away from the sound of sirens and blowing a cloud of dust up behind me. It would settle before they arrived. And Dickey would spend the rest of the day combing the neighborhood and lifting useless clues from Shirley’s house.

As it turned out, I spent the rest of the day doing the same thing I suspected Dickey was doing. But instead of combing the woods, I was searching Escanaba for Laura Deland. She wasn’t at her house or at work. Either she was out on assignment, or she had skipped town.

After hours of wasted effort, I put myself in her shoes. Mentally, of course. What would I do if I were her? Where would I go? Then it hit me. She’d be in Stonely driving right behind the sheriff, getting first dibs on a breaking story and killing two birds with one stone. She’d tipped off the cops to my whereabouts, now she got to reap the rewards by writing the wrap-up story. Both a personal and a professional coup.

And I used to think she was sweet.

If I ever got out of this mess, I’d have to improve my people analytical skills. My character judgment needed an overhaul. That’s what being on the run does to a person. Before my criminal career, I took trust for granted. Now, I couldn’t find any reason to believe in anyone.

How could I have misjudged George so badly? He’d been a friend for years and years, and in one minute at Ruthie’s restaurant, with one misinterpreted look from him, I had been ready to count him out as a true friend. Had I seen only what I wanted to see? Was I afraid of him, of my feelings for him, of closeness?

Driving back to Stonely to spend the night with George, I thought I understood Barney’s words better. I didn’t want to let go, like he’d advised me to do when we chatted at Tony’s blind. Barney had been my life, and I was still hanging on with all my might. But he was right. I didn’t have to forget him. And as he said, maybe I
did
have a lot of love inside me. I just had to release a part of my life that would never come back, that was gone for good. I had to move on. Start living and loving again.

Tonight I was going to do it with the only other man I ever cared about.

George had a big pot of chili simmering on the stove. Its wonderful aroma would have bowled me over, but Fred beat it to the punch. What a surprise! George grabbed me as I fell backwards while a two-ton black shepherd tackled me with slurpy, sloppy dog-breath kisses.

“Thank you, George,” I cried, happier at that moment than I’d been in a long time. Both of my favorite males together, at least for this moment.

We settled at the kitchen table, and I ate two bowls of George’s chili. It took a while because between bites I told him everything that had happened so far. I have a tendency to intentionally leave out facts when I tell a story, but this time, with George, he got the full text. We recorded our conversation on a fresh tape as a backup, in case anything happened to us. Neither of us wanted to think about what could happen.

George suggested putting the tape in the mail and sending it back to his house. That way we could use it as leverage, just like in the movies. And no one could get their mitts on it in the meantime.

George and I worked out a plan from the cushions of his leather sofa, side by side, holding hands and speaking in whispers while soft music played in the background. The drama of the situation made for heady sensations and impulses on my part. I kept glancing at George’s muscles. He wore a white T-shirt, the sleeves riding just above his biceps.

I was sixty-six years old! Married to the same man for over forty years! I couldn’t believe what was going through my mind. And through the rest of my body. Barney was my first and I thought he’d be my last.

“I’ll drop the tape in the mail first thing tomorrow,” George said. “You better stay out of sight and let me be your eyes and ears and legs.”

I felt like I’d come home. To stop running and have three square meals a day, hanging out with George and Fred. I gave a big, contented sigh and could almost forget I was a hunted woman.

“You’ll pick up Laura for me?” I asked. “So I can get some answers?”

George ran a finger down my arm, sending shocks of electricity through all the right places. Until now, I hadn’t realized how much I missed a good man’s touch. “I’ll bring her to your doorstep,” he said.

“I have a better idea,” I said.

“You want me to bring her someplace else?”

Could I go through with it? Maybe we could keep the lights off so he couldn’t see. I gulped. Then I remembered how George’s wife had run off at Christmas time all those years ago, leaving a letter on the kitchen table. As far as I knew, he hadn’t been with another woman since, not that I didn’t understand. After what she did!

George might be just as nervous as I was. What if he said no? Shouldn’t I wait for him to make the first move? Doubt crept into my thoughts. What was I doing?

If I thought about it much longer, I’d end up running out the door.

“Laura has nothing to do with my better idea,” I said, standing up and leading him through the living room toward the bedroom. George scrunched his brow like he was trying to understand a foreign language without a single lesson to make it easy. By the next look on his face, I knew he’d caught on to my plan. When he didn’t pull back, I knew he approved.

All I’m saying about that night is that Fred slept on the floor.

The rest is between me and George.

Chapter 31

WHEN I WOKE UP, GEORGE was gone. It was ten o’clock in the morning. I hadn’t ever slept that long before. It must have something to do with the straw bed I had to sleep on Tuesday night, and…well…George and I hadn’t slept much through the night either.

I stayed in bed for awhile, replaying the night in my head, over and over like my mini recorder tape. What a man!

A fresh pot of coffee greeted me along with Fred. I let him out and he disappeared around the corner of the house at a trot, heading for an outbuilding. George is our local dog catcher, along with everything else he does. He rounds up strays and keeps them in roomy kennels in the outbuilding until he can find their old homes or new ones for them. Fred must have a new girlfriend out back to get him fired up like that.

More coffee, a shower, and I was set to go. George and I were meeting at noon with or without Laura in tow. The tape would be in the mail. After checking on Fred and finding him nose to nose with a cute Irish setter, I snuck off without him. He didn’t mind at all. Last I checked, the two of them were wagging their tails like crazy. Fred’s ears were at an awkward angle, slicked back with romance.

Love does crazy things! Don’t I know it!

Close to my home, I left the road and drove through a field into the pines. When I was sure no one could see the truck, I parked and walked in to the deer blind Barney built years ago on our back forty.

We have so much land in the U.P. we referred to it in forty-acre parcels instead of single-acre lots. I have two forties left after giving a forty each to Blaze and Star. Heather, my Milwaukee-dwelling other daughter, didn’t want anything to do with living in the woods, or I would have given her one, too. Maybe someday her son, Little Donny, will want one of my two.

My hunting blind hadn’t been used since November when deer hunting season ended. I used it as a retreat when my family got to be too much for me. I’d lay back in the La-Z-Boy with my feet up, listening to the crackle from the propane heater while watching deer come along to eat apples and corn I’d throw out for them.

It was a haven for me and for the deer. Shooting wild animals is a part of life here, a necessity for survival, since jobs are scarce and money is tight. But I let others take care of that. I couldn’t look an animal in the eyes and then end its life.

Today, the going wasn’t easy. In early spring, the ravines are marshy. I slopped through water up to my shins in some places before climbing to higher ground. The door to the blind squeaked when I opened it. I surveyed the inside of my mini home-away-from-home. Other than a few nuts stuffed into the corner of my chair and a couple flies buzzing at the window, nothing had changed in the last five months. I started the heater, hoping to dry out my pant legs.

George and Laura came walking in from the opposite end, right when I expected them. They’d missed the fun of tromping through the wetlands. I wished I’d thought of that.

I don’t know how George got Laura to agree to meet, but she didn’t have a weapon pointed at her back. She hadn’t been physically coerced. I watched them approach and smiled. George looked great. Maybe that’s why Laura came willingly. George used his sex appeal to bewitch her in the same way he’d lured me in. For a sixty-year-old, he was dynamite.

I gave George my favorite chair and opened two folding chairs for Laura and me. We sat down, my pant legs as near to the heater as possible without starting them on fire.

“George said it was important that we talk,” Laura said. “I brought my recorder. Is this about another story?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “You’ve had all the stories you’re going to get.”

“I’m really sorry the last one didn’t run.” Laura looked like a spring tulip, all rosy and fresh. “I’m still working on my boss.”

“George,” I said, hauling my stun gun out of my purse. “Will you watch for intruders while Laura and I have a little conversation?”

“Sure,” he said, right on cue like we’d discussed last night. “But screams might be heard by somebody. Sound carries quite a distance in the woods.” He looked at Laura. “No screaming.”

“What are you talking about?” Laura said, eyeing George, then my weapon. From the look on her face I could tell she wasn’t sure what it was.

I turned it on for effect.

“You said you lost my cattle prod,” George said to me. It was the truth. I’d borrowed the prod from him and liked it so much, I kept it.

“I found it again,” I lied, making my eyes into what I thought were dangerous slits. “Laura, I want to know why you were having an affair with Tony Lento. I want all the facts, every last one.”

“What are you talking about?” Laura said with wide, innocent eyes. I could almost believe she was innocent. She was that good. “I never met the man.”

“But you know who I’m talking about?”

“Of course I do. I’m a reporter. His death was all over the news wires.”

“My trigger finger is starting to tremble. This thing might get away from me.” I moved toward her. She jumped up.

“You’re crazy! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Touch me with that and I’ll start screaming.”

“No screaming,” George warned from the door like he was telling a dog to stop barking.

“Look,” Laura said. She had her cool attitude back. “Let’s work this out. Okay. Tell me why you think I was involved with Tony Lento.”

So I did. She listened without interrupting me. Then she said, “I didn’t have a conversation with you on the phone yesterday. I was in Munising on assignment. If you don’t believe me, we can call the paper and verify it. I didn’t know Tony Lento personally and I didn’t give away your hiding spot. I didn’t even know where you were.”

“There’s only one way to get the truth out of you,” I said.

Laura was ready to fight me and my weapon. She still stood, tense and alert. “Sit down,” I said, turning the stun gun off and returning it to my purse before George could lay claim to it. “I have a truth serum. If you’re innocent, you don’t have a thing to worry about.”

“I’m not drinking anything,” Laura said, holding her ground.

“Nothing like that.”

I made her repeat what she’d told me into the tape recorder, but I already knew the answer. Her voice, once I listened carefully to her, wasn’t the same one I’d heard on the phone.

The tape confirmed it.

Once Laura realized the tables were turned, she let her indignation show, sputtering and complaining about false pretenses and physical threats. Maybe reporters in the U.P. don’t get much of that, but they should be prepared for anything.

“I’m going to give you an exclusive,” I said to appease her. “Once this case is solved, you get my story.”

That quieted her down while she thought about the possibilities.

“I had to have been talking to Shirley on the phone,” I said. “She lied to me, and I’m going to find out why.”