Murder Talks Turkey (7 page)

And the cold! I should be in bed with the covers pulled up over my head, with Fred snoring away on the floor. The house had been toasty warm when I left. Next time, I’d drop off Cora Mae and she could hang out on the forest floor.

I waited.

A while later when I couldn’t feel my frozen feet anymore, Tony tromped in with a shotgun, set out a turkey decoy, and settled behind the straw piles. I heard a shot in the distance and a few turkey calls. Whether they were turkeys or hunters, I didn’t know.

A roosting flock of turkeys could make a variety of sounds besides gobbles—yelps, clucks, and kee-kees. A lot of hunters don’t know the first thing about their prey, which works in the turkey’s favor.

Turkeys roost in trees. They like to travel with other turkeys. If the flock is scattered, they will regroup in the same spot within fifteen or thirty minutes.

This morning I didn’t expect to see any. They might not be the smartest bird around, but they can outmaneuver a human. What does that tell you about our intelligence? Those birds were on vacation in parts unknown.

The sun rose higher in the sky, warming me up some. Once in a while, a shot went off. A squirrel jumped across the tops of the trees. A small DNR plane soared overhead, looking for illegal activities. I hunkered into the surrounding environment in my leafy garb and stifled a yawn. Thinking it must be afternoon by now, I checked my watch and found it was only nine o’clock. I laid my head on my arm and closed my eyes.

I must have dozed off, because when I raised my head there were voices coming from behind the straw pile. Tony wasn’t talking to himself. He had company.

“Quiet down,” Tony said, harshly. “Sound travels in the woods. Did anyone see you coming in?”

I heard mumbling after that, but couldn’t make out the words. The only thing I was sure of was that the other voice belonged to a woman. At last! Action!

Their voices hummed across the windless and frosty morning like buzzing mosquitoes, but I couldn’t make out any more of their words. I’d have to get closer. I dug my elbows into the forest floor and scooted forward, the micro recorder in my gloved fist. The woman’s voice sounded angry, rising like flames.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

“I’ll take care of it. We’ll be together soon.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

Tony’s partner in his illicit affair was listening to the same old lies told to gullible woman since the beginning of time. You’d think women would get a clue after generations of toilet paper promises.

Anger turned to soothing coos, soft giggling, and other sounds. I couldn’t believe I was stuck in the woods in this position. I had some time to kill while they hanky-pankied, and I had a really full bladder. I scooted backwards until the wild brush screened me from view. When I was sure it was safe to change positions, I did my business, took a sip of Tang from a small bottle, readjusted myself, and slunk back.

I was just in time to see the back end of the woman, retreating in the opposite direction. She had on woodsy colors and wore a cap that hid her hair. I wouldn’t even be sure it was a woman if I hadn’t heard her talking to Tony

I quickly shuffled the binoculars from my hunting vest.

But it was too late.

I’d broken the first and most important rule of surveillance. No potty stops. That’s exactly when the target will decide to move, according to my beginner’s manual. And it had happened exactly that way.

I wanted to rush after her, throw caution to the wind, and collect on the Trouble Buster’s manicures. But part of my job was to accomplish my mission quietly and discreetly, without alerting Tony. My professionalism kicked in and I held back.

I put adult diapers on my mental grocery list.

An hour later, Tony collected his decoy and whistled while he walked down the trail leading home.

The hours in the woods among the Jack pines and tamarack trees hadn’t been a complete bust. I had the two lovers recorded on tape, and most importantly, I knew Tony was cheating on Lyla. It was a start.

__________

“That dirty dog,” Kitty said from my kitchen table. Fred slid his nose onto the table at the “dog” word and wagged his tail.

“I never would have guessed it,” Cora Mae said, giving Fred a pat on the head.

We had polished off six freshly fried sugar doughnuts, two each. Kitty reached for a third. “We have the rest of the day off from following Tony,” she said. “Lyla said he’d be puttering around the house.”

“What if the woman in the woods was Lyla?” Cora Mae suggested.

I shook my head. “She knew I might be out there.”

“Maybe she’s a voyeur,” Cora Mae said.

“A voyeur is someone who likes to watch sex acts,” Kitty said. “The voyeurese would be Gertie, not Lyla.”

“Believe me,” I said, “I didn’t enjoy it one bit. Besides, I know Lyla’s voice. It wasn’t her.”

“Tony had his little breakfast love fest,” Cora Mae said. “Good thing you were watching him, Gertie, or we would still be wondering about Lyla’s accusations. I’m really disgusted with him.”

“People aren’t always what they seem,” I said, knowing that true enough. I looked at Kitty. “Where did you hide the Glock?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“I’m sure. No one’s going to hook me up to a lie detector while I’m still alive and kicking.”

“It’s all wrapped up in plastic and buried down inside my compost heap.”

“Yuck,” Cora Mae said. “That pile really stinks.”

Composts are beds of rotten garbage that we use to fertilize our gardens. They need a perfect mix of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and water to decompose properly. We toss in all of our leftover kitchen scraps - except for meat and dairy, because those things attract vermin to the pile. We also add coffee grounds, horse manure, grass clippings. You name it. It goes in.

“You need to keep the proper balance of wet and dry,” I said. “It smells bad because it’s waterlogged. Right now, I’m glad it stinks, so no one will go near it. After this is over, you should add some paper and cardboard to soak up some of the water.”

Grandma shuffled cautiously down the hall and plastered herself against the wall when she saw Fred near the table. “Get that thing outta my home,” she said, forgetting who owned the house.

I flipped on the micro recorder and hit play to drown out my mother-in-law’s crabs. Everyone listened to the few sentences I had captured on tape.

“Nothing but smut,” Grandma said, edging warily around Fred and pouring a cup of coffee. “Who brought the doughnuts?”

“I did,” Kitty said.

“Are they safe to eat?”

“’Course they are.”

I snapped off the recorder since Grandma was determined to talk right over the voices.

Pearl, whose fifteen minutes of fame ended with the news of the second death, pulled into the driveway at about two miles an hour. I watched her do a jerky park between my truck and Kitty’s rusted out Lincoln.

“Pearl, get your hinder in here,” Grandma called as Pearl walked in wearing a little pillbox hat on her head. “We have a porno tape going.”

“Goody,” Pearl said, stepping it up a bit. Grandma set down a cup and saucer in front of her, sloshing most of the coffee into the saucer.

“What’s the commotion?” Blaze said, rushing down the hall in his boxer shorts. He had his sheriff’s hat on top of his head and an empty holster across his bare shoulder.

“We’re holding ’em off,” Grandma said to get him going. “Where’s your weapon?”

She’s the meanest woman I’ve ever known.

“Sit down,” I told him. “We’re eating doughnuts.”

It’s a good thing I have a big kitchen table. The six of us perched around the table like a bunch of monkeys. Once everyone had sugar fixes and coffee, I rewound the tape. We all listened again.

“That’s Sylvester Stallone,” Blaze said, piping up. “He’s doing his Rocky character.” It was going to be one of those days.

“You’re right,” I said to keep him happy. “Blaze won the first prize. Now, who is the woman?”

“Play it one more time,” Pearl said. “I’ve heard that voice someplace before.”

“Is it a porno star?” Grandma said. “Because if it is, I don’t know any of them by name.”

“You don’t know any by sight either,” Pearl said.

“She’d sit up and fly right if I caught one. I wonder where my gun went.”

“It’s someone from around here,” Cora Mae offered. “She got a part playing the lead with Sylvester.”

“I didn’t hear anything about a movie star being in town.” Grandma clacked her teeth.

“Shhh, everybody.” I turned the volume up and replayed the tape.

“Not much to go on,” Kitty said. “She said a total of eight words.”

“They teaching you to count in that online class?” Grandma sneered. My friend and bodyguard had signed up for an online law degree class. Her goal was to get her state certificate to operate as a lawyer. The woman was book smart, no question about it.

But she didn’t have a ready retort for Grandma. The old woman threw so many balls from left field, it was easier to ignore her than to participate.

“Where’s my prize?” Blaze asked, looking around the room for a wrapped present.

“Have the last doughnut,” Cora Mae said. “That’s a good prize.”

“That’s one higgledy-piggledy tape,” Kitty said, sliding her smug and competitive eyes over to me to catch my reaction.

“Got me again, Kitty,” I conceded.

Chapter 10

MY AGENDA FOR THE DAY was to interview the people involved in the credit union heist. Pearl didn’t have anything new to add to her original sock-it-to-him story. I sent Kitty and Cora Mae to find Dickey in hopes they could pry information from him regarding the dead guy with the Kromer hat.

My two partners pulled out of the driveway with Cora Mae in the driver’s seat. “Good luck,” I called from the porch, hoping they survived.

Fred and I headed for the Trouble Buster truck, but we make it only halfway before being detected by the yard patrol. Guinea fowl flapped through the backyard like a carpet of locust, running as fast as they could on their scrawny legs. They circled Fred, pinning him in the center of the group and pecking his toes. He howled.

Last year, my first squawking flock consisted of six little guys, fluffy day-old keets with orange legs. They weren’t all little “guys,” since they’ve multiplied several times. They like to hide in tall grasses with their broods, depriving me of fried eggs. Instead, I get more of them to feed. It doesn’t seem fair.

Guineas coined the term “free-range.” Nothing can keep a guinea confined. They come and go as they please, roosting in trees or the barn, and they eat up weed seeds and bugs. Guineas like to dine on Japanese beetles and deer ticks. I’ve even seen one peck and swallow a yellow jacket and go on hunting like nothing unusual happened.

They have their faults, though. With a machine-gun-like alarm call, they are the noisiest creatures on earth.

And they hate Fred.

He howled again while I waded in, swinging my arms and legs, parting a path to the truck where the enormous black coward was only too happy to hide. I had to leave the driveway at a rolling crawl to keep from running my guineas down.

Ruthie’s Deer Horn Restaurant was on Highway M35, across from the railroad tracks. The train ground to a screeching halt as Fred and I stepped down from the truck.

“Hey, Otis,” I called to the train conductor, who liked to stop at Ruthie’s for coffee and tall tales. Otis Knutson’s appearance meant Carl should be along shortly. Sure enough, Carl pulled in with George, and they watched me tie Fred to a post in the front of the restaurant where he could keep me in his sights.

My dog dislikes waiting in the truck by himself. When we’re at Ruthie’s, he settles for hanging around outside as long as I bring him a treat afterwards.

The four of us took seats at the counter, lined up like a row of turkey targets. Ruthie swung out of the kitchen with a pot of coffee in her hand. She poured a round without having to be asked.

In the U.P. we take our coffee seriously.

The men ordered mounds of eggs and bacon and potatoes. I stuck with the coffee since all those doughnuts had sunk to the bottom of my stomach like lead weights. Spending a thoughtful moment covertly eyeing George’s hunky body, I
had
to stop sucking doughnuts.

George winked. I smiled at him, feeling shy and self-conscious. Then we told Otis and Carl about the robbery and the dead guy at the dance. Carl, who lives about a mile from me, already knew most of it. Otis hung on every word. So did Ruthie.

When we finished, Otis leaned his tall, slim body forward and slapped the counter. “Holy Wah! What a story! Too bad Blaze is laid up. He’d get ’em.”

I didn’t mention that Blaze had been more interested in slinging his feet up on the desk than chasing criminals - that he chalked most everything up to kid pranks. And that was at his best, when his brain was at peak capacity.

Ruthie went into the kitchen and came out carrying three brimming plates. She set them down in front of the men.

“Where has Dickey been?” I asked.

Ruthie answered. “He has his nose to the ground like a bloodhound. He’s accused every one of us by now. He had the nerve to suggest I might know more than I’m telling. Deputy Snell isn’t welcome in my restaurant until he apologizes.”

“Otis is right,” Carl said. “We need Blaze back quick.”

“Ruthie,” I said. “When we were lying on the floor in the credit union, I saw the shooter on the roof. I’m sure the man George and I found behind my truck was the same guy.”

“Was he wearing orange shoes?”