FOUR
Word For The Day
PICAYUNE (PIK uh yoon’) adj.
Trivial or petty, small or small-minded.
FRIDAY DAWNED COLD AND crisp, with a fresh blanket of snow on the ground. Little Donny was as good as new. He ate half a pound of bacon and three fried eggs, and was on his second cup of coffee when he remembered Carl’s station wagon. He scrambled up and ran outside, forgetting his coat. He stood there a while staring at the car, then came in, stomping his boots on the rug, and collapsed at the kitchen table cradling his head in his hands.
“What am I going to tell Carl?”
“I called him last night and told him you’d bring his station wagon back today,” I said. “You can clean it up some.”
“The whole thing’s a blur.” Little Donny had a knot on his forehead the size of a baseball where he’d hit his head on the car window.
“That big old buck kicked you in the head,” I lied. “That’s why you can’t remember much. What do you remember? Anything at all?”
Little Donny didn’t answer. He groaned and went back to rocking his head. If Little Donny didn’t remember getting zapped, I was home free. George would never tell.
“It happens sometimes. Nothing to be ashamed of. You fire at a deer,” I explained, “and you don’t know it, but the bullet just sort of grazes him, and then he plays possum or he’s just stunned. Could have happened to anyone.”
I instantly regretted saying stunned. It might trigger Little Donny’s memory.
Little Donny looked at me through his fingers, then went back to rocking.
“Your Grandpa Barney lost one that way,” I continued. “A nice eight-pointer he shot out at the blind. He went to get the tractor to pull it out of the woods, and when he got back it was gone. Just up and ran off.”
Little Donny wasn’t taking in anything I said.
I felt tired and stiff from cooking and entertaining company and tromping around on the investigation trail, and decided to head to my deer blind behind the house.
I use the blind as a retreat rather than for hunting. When the kids were little, I’d pull my gun from the rack and trudge out there while Barney babysat. No one ever thought to ask me why I never shot anything, but I think Barney knew. Old habits die hard, and so I still spend time there whenever I feel a need to get away from the rest of the world.
I needed to wind down and do some thinking about Chester’s murder and my approaching court date.
George was working on the hole in the barn. His rattlesnake cowboy hat was all I could see as I shuffled by.
“Hey, George.”
He raised his head and tipped his hat.
“I’m going to take a shot at Big Buck,” I said, lifting my gun. George nodded.
The air smelled like burning wood, my favorite smell. It was nippy out and I could see my breath fogging around my face. I wore long underwear under my hunting clothes, and I turned down the earflaps on my hat when I felt my ears begin to sting. I could hear my feet swishing through the fresh snow as I approached the shack. Apples and corn that I had thrown in a pile had been whittled down to next to nothing, and deer tracks crisscrossed everywhere.
I leaned the gun in the corner of the shack and started the propane heater, then settled into the worn La-Z-Boy to watch. I could hear wind whistling against the shack and the propane heater popping into high gear. Within minutes it was toasty warm inside.
When I woke up, the last of the apples and corn had been eaten and half the day was gone. I stood and shook out my stiff legs, wondering how many of nature’s creatures had been in the eat while I napped.
I replenished the apples and corn from a well-stocked barret in the corner, closed up, and trudged back to get ready for Chester’s funeral.
__________
At three o’clock, I picked up Cora Mae and headed for Lacken’s Funeral Home on the outskirts of town.
“I told Kitty we’d pick her up,” Cora Mae said.
“No problem,” I said, not exactly sure how we were going to stuff her into the truck.
Kitty still sets her hair in pin curls, which went out of style a hundred years ago, and for good reason. Her short gray hair sticks out under bobby pins every which way like it’s spring-loaded. She always has her head wired up to come visiting and I couldn’t help wondering who was going to get to see the final product if not Cora Mae and me. Thinking back, I remember only a handful of times seeing Kitty without pin curls—weddings and funerals, mostly.
Since this was a funeral, we were in for a treat. Kitty waddled out without her bobby pins. She had combed through the front of her hair, but when she turned around to close her door, I noticed she had forgotten to brush out the back.
Kitty is overweight, always has been, and gravity is winning. Blubber hangs from her upper arms, and the front of her knees are dimpled. She wears housedresses and never learned to keep her legs together, so you can see her garter straps where they connect to her stockings. Most people look away. It’s not a pretty sight.
But people like Kitty. She has what others refer to as an inner beauty.
We were all dressed in burial black. I hoped for two things tonight. One, to find the opportunity to talk to Chester’s son, Bill, and two, to see how Ed Lacken hid the hole in Chester’s forehead. Because Ed Lacken did the burying for everyone in the county, I hoped his work was still high quality. I wanted to be done up right when the time came. I know he did right by Barney.
Cora Mae was hoping for something entirely different.
“I heard that Onni Maki is some stud muffin since he’s taking Viagra,” my friend said. She sat between Kitty and me and had her knees and arms crushed tight against her body. Kitty was a tight fit in any truck.
“Onni Maki’s an old has-been,” I said, watching the road carefully in case I missed something on my first drive after dark. “Who’d want to see him naked?” I shuddered at the thought. We were all starting to get old and falling apart, but Onni Maki was falling apart faster than most of us.
“He looks like a plucked turkey,” Kitty added, and I laughed.
“That’s not true, and I aim to get some of the action,” Cora Mae insisted. “Doesn’t come around these parts often.”
“There used to be a lot of rumors floating around about him when he was younger,” Kitty said, shifting her weight. “Onni’s always been a wild one. Fist fighting, drinking heavy, women.” Kitty frowned in concentration. “I’ll remember it all eventually.”
I shook my head. “Kitty, you know everything about everybody. Where do you get your information?”
Kitty snorted. “Here and there. I keep alert. Call it self-preservation. The more you know about a person, the better your position is. Information is like gold bullions; it pays for itself.”
“Kitty,” I said, “you watch too much T.V.”
__________
The parking lot was packed when we pulled in, so we had to park on the road. We left our coats in the cloakroom, which was almost full. A funeral warrants a big turnout. This was a big event.
“I can’t help noticing you’re wearing a red dress,” I said to Cora Mae when she peeled off her black wool coat. “I thought black was your color, and since this is a funeral, it stands to reason you would wear black.”
“Not if I want to stand out in a crowd,” she replied, squeezing past Kitty. “You don’t know anything about snagging a man, do you?”
With Cora Mae in the lead we headed down a short narrow hall to the Green Room, where Chester was laid out. My second hope for the evening—getting a look at Chester—was dashed when I spied the closed casket. My first hope stood at the head of the casket next to several flower stands, bawling his eyes out.
I headed over, but the room was filled with people I knew and I slowed down to greet them. Most of these people had been at Barney’s funeral—Elma and Waino Latvala, the entire Sheedlo family, Lila Carlson, and all of them were hoping for a little extra information about Chester’s death. After all, as the
sheriff’s mother, I might have some extra juicy tidbits to pass around.
I wanted to talk to Chester’s son before I shocked everybody with the truth of the matter. “I’m not at liberty to discuss it right now,” I told each of them.
People buzzed around, spreading my mysterious comment to those who hadn’t heard. Kitty piped up and said, “You’re causing quite a stir.”
“I hate it when I do that.”
By the time I finished fending people off, Bill Lampi wasn’t hiding out behind the flower arrangements any more. I looked around for him.
I saw Onni Maki slither by. He grinned like a cat that had just swallowed the canary. He wore a green suit that matched the walls of the room, a paisley shirt, and a thick gold chain around his neck. His thinning hair was wrapped around the top of his head to hide a large bald spot, and when he swept his hand through his hair to make sure it was in place, I noticed a gold ring on his pinky finger.
Cora Mae was gaining on him from behind, her Wonderbra pointing the way. She had a grin on her face, too, like a timber wolf closing in on a bunny rabbit.
I wasn’t sure which one to feel sorrier for.
Ed Lacken, the funeral director, stood by the door, looking stiff and proper, his face pinched and red like his bow tie was on too tight.
I poured pink punch into a paper cup and wandered into the bathroom. I set the punch on the sink and went into a stall. I needed to be alone.
Barney had died fourteen months, ten days, and sixteen hours ago, and standing in the funeral home remembering his funeral brought back some of the pain I was trying to forget.
My sad secret—that Barney hadn’t really died of a heart attack like I’d told everyone at his funeral—weighed heavily on my heart. The few people who knew the truth, Cora Mae, Blaze, and the funeral director, were sworn to secrecy. It’s the way he would have wanted it.
The truth is, Barney drowned in his waders. He went out trout fishing on the Escanaba River, and his body was found floating downstream six hours later. He must have stepped into a deep hole, the waders filled up with water, and he sunk like a boat anchor.
After discussing it with Blaze, we decided Barney wouldn’t have wanted people to know he went that way. Sure, he was doing what he loved, but he also prided himself on his outdoor skills, and stepping in a hole wasn’t a dignified way to end a great fishing career. Barney would have considered stepping in a hole a stupid thing to do.
I’ve relived what I imagine were the last few minutes of his life over and over and over again, and I was trying not to go there right now.
I gave myself a few minutes, then came out of the stall, splashed cold water on my face, and rejoined the group.
Bill Lampi, dwarfed by the flower arrangements, stood alone at the foot of the casket, so I hurried over.
He was a small man, about five foot five, wasted-away thin like he had chronic wasting disease. A pair of oversized coke-bottle glasses magnified his eyes so they appeared owlish, three times larger than they really were. He wasn’t big and strapping like most Finns.
I offered my sympathies to him, and he broke down. He didn’t take his glasses off, just wiped the tears away as they slid through the frames. His father obviously meant a lot to him.
I put a hand on his bony shoulder and said, “I’m going to do everything I can to catch the maniac who did this and bring him to justice.”
Bill Lampi continued to cry until his brain processed my comment, then he stiffened and abruptly quit crying. “What do you mean?”
“I mean whoever killed your father is going to be sorry. I’m after him.”
“There was no suggestion of foul play. No one told me Pa was murdered.” His voice was shrilling up, hitting high notes. “Was Pa murdered?”
A tall blonde with legs that ended pretty near up to my neck appeared from nowhere and wrapped her arms around Bill. His face slid into her cleavage, which was monumental. All I could think was, wait till Cora Mae gets a load of this woman.
She turned to me. “I’m Bill’s wife, and I want to know what you think you’re doing?” In spite of a soft southern lilt, she managed to give the words a frosty northern edge.
Friendly would not be the word that came to mind if I had to describe her. “Just offering my condolences to the family,” I said.
“Oh, Barb,” Bill’s voice was muffled down in the valley. He raised his head and bellowed, “She says Pa was murdered.”
The room went dead quiet starting with the Elma and Waino Latvala corner of the room because that group was closest and had been eavesdropping on me all night. The silence spread like one of those football stadium waves. Waino stuck one finger in his ear and with a turning motion adjusted the volume on his hearing aid.
“Your pa wasn’t murdered, sweetheart,” She said, warning me with eyes as cold as icicles. “Just a busybody, trying to make trouble where there isn’t any. Don’t you pay any attention.”
I studied Barb. She was a beaut for around here, if you like obvious dye jobs and makeup plastered on with a trowel. Apparently most of the men in the room did, because I began noticing the entire room was craning one giant neck in our direction, and the men weren’t looking at me.
Blaze pushed through the crowded room, scowling as usual, the smell of his cheap cologne swirling around him.
“Figures you’re involved,” he said. He took my elbow and moved me away.
Looking back, I saw Barb watching me. If looks could kill, I’d be six feet under. Then the voices started up again, louder than before, filling the room with speculation and anticipation. This was bigger than any of them could have ever hoped for. The phone lines would be burning up tomorrow.
Ed Lacken came by before Blaze could chew me out and asked us to take our seats for the service. I wanted to sit up front because I had a speech to make, but Blaze had a grip on me that I couldn’t shake. “The front row is for family,” he said. “You sit here.” He pointed to an empty seat next to Little Donny. Sitting behind me, Cora Mae swiveled her body in Onni’s direction. Kitty took up two seats, her legs spread wide.
Ed Lacken started out by saying what a fine man Chester had been and what a loss to the community. Then he asked if anyone wanted to say a piece. Floyd rose from his seat with a bible and headed up.
Great. A sermon.
“Chester was a God-fearing, law-abiding, upstanding family man,” he thundered. “And we should all be proud we got to know him.”
As far as I knew, Chester hadn’t been to church once in his whole life. If he had a relationship at all with God, he kept it to himself. As far as law-abiding went, he made moonshine in his cellar and sold it to the neighbors, and spit on the federal government and its interfering ways just like the rest of us. I wasn’t sure about the family man part; Floyd may have got that right.
Floyd paused with an arm raised to the heavens and shouted to the funeral director. “How much time I got to say my piece?”
“Whatever you need.” Ed shouted back at him because everyone knows what a defective hearing aid Floyd wears. Personally I think if he’d remember to change the batteries, he’d be fine.
Floyd blah-blahed until I feared he’d never shut up, but eventually he sat down with a winded huff.
I glanced over my shoulder searching for Blaze. Cora Mae and Kitty turned around to see what I was looking at. Blaze, standing in the doorway, seemed in deep conversation with someone in the hall so I trotted up to the front.
“I didn’t know Chester all that well,” I began. I needed to talk fast to get it out before Raging Bull could react. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him snorting his way down the aisle. “But I know he didn’t deserve what he got, and I know he wasn’t shot with God’s gold bullet like Floyd thinks. He…”
“…will be sorely missed,” Blaze finished for me, arriving at my side.
“I’m not quite done,” I whispered to him.
Blaze grinned out at the crowd. Through clenched teeth he said, “Ma, you’re done.??
?
“Thank you,” I said to the crowd and walked back to my seat as gracefully as possible considering Blaze’s arm grip.
“That sure was a fine funeral,” I said after the service as Blaze helped me into my coat. Everyone was milling around drinking coffee and eating ginger cookies. “I’d like to stay a little longer.”
“I’m putting you out in the truck while I round up your partners in crime. Thanks to you I’ll be working overtime tonight.”
“Doing what?”
“Damage control.”
__________
Blaze found Cora Mae and Kitty, loaded them into the truck, and planted himself well away from the side until I pulled onto the road. He didn’t say a word about my driving, which was a relief.
“Is his hand actually on his gun?” Cora Mae asked, squinting to see in the dark. “He looks like he’s ready to draw and fire.”
I leaned around Cora Mae to take a look. “Showing off, I guess.” Leaning back I said, “I didn’t get to talk to Bill Lampi long enough to find out anything. Blaze comes along every time I’m getting somewhere and ruins it. Did you get a load of Bill’s wife?”
“Sure did,” Cora Mae said. “She’s wearing falsies. I’m sure of it.”
“I didn’t think to look. Leave it to you to latch on to the important things.” If Cora Mae’s eye for detail extended past the subjects of sex and lust, she’d be an integral part of our investigation team. I’d have to work on developing it.
“Do you know anything about her at all?” I wanted to know. “I mean, besides the falsie thing.”
Kitty leaned into the center of the truck cab, scrunching Cora Mae over into the steering wheel. It was all I could do to keep my hands on the wheel and the truck on the road.
“Bill got her a job over at the Highway Department where he works,” Kitty said. “She’s the one waves the little flag at cars when they’re doing road construction. Guys can’t keep their minds on work, I hear. I can’t understand a thing she says. That southern accent, you know.”
“Changing the subject,” Cora Mae continued, “guess what lucky guy has a date for next Tuesday night with yours truly?”
“Got him, hunh?”
“Piece of cake. Onni didn’t stand a chance. He’s coming to my place and I’m going to make him something to eat and we’re going to rent a movie.”
“Sounds like a cheap date to me. I’d make him take you out,” Kitty suggested. She shifted her hips and everyone in the truck had to readjust. “Either of you have anything for my rummage sale?” she asked.
“Who has a rummage sale in November? That’s what I want to know,” Cora Mae said.
“I’m desperate for cash. It’s the only way of making some quick dough. You know I lost my job. Gertie, did you put together a few boxes like you said you would?”
“They’re in the shed, mostly books, odds and ends. I’ll drop the stuff off.”
Then I told them about Blaze and the guardianship hearing. I remembered too late that Kitty is Stonely’s walking newspaper and there’s no way this isn’t going to be all over town.
“Impose harm on others?” Kitty hooted. “Where is he coming up with that?”
Cora Mae was angry. “How your own son who lives on your land free could do this… makes me glad I never had kids.”
Aren’t friends wonderful? They always stick up for you and say just the right things. Sharing my problems with them made me feel better instantly.
“We have to fix you up before you go to court,” Cora Mae said next.
“What needs fixing up? I’m fine just the way I am.”
“Oh, Gertie, you’re a little…” Cora Mae was struggling for the right word.
“A little what?” I wanted to know.
“Aggressive.”
“Aggressive!” I shouted. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve never been aggressive a day in my life.”
“Keep your eyes on the road.”
What do you think, Kitty? Am I aggressive?”
“Nothing’s wrong with being outspoken,” Kitty said. I glanced across Cora Mae and saw Kitty’s pin-curl-less corkscrews bobbing.
“But you need a wardrobe overhaul,” Kitty added.
“Something soft and pink with ruffles to wear to court,” Cora Mae agreed.
“I’ll eat rabbit pellets before you get me into something pink with ruffles,” I said.
I dropped Cora Mae off first. As soon as she slammed the truck door and walked away, Kitty said, “I know why you did that back there.”
“What? Back where?” I turned around and looked out the back window of the truck.
“The scene you made with Chester’s son. I think you did that on purpose.”
I opened my eyes wide in mock surprise. “Now why would I do that?”
“Maybe to flush out the murderer. You think he’ll sit tight as long as everyone thinks it was an accident. You think if he knows you’re starting to nose around, he might get scared and do something foolish.”
“A picayune act,” I said, pleased I had found an opportunity to use my new word.
“On the contrary,” Kitty said. “It was a fulgent act and very apropos considering the circumstances.”
I stared at her. She didn’t seem to notice. Fulgent? I cleared my throat “Do you think he was murdered, too?”
“Probably not, but I’d really like to ride with you.”
“Ride with me?”
“I hear you and Cora Mae are starting an investigation business and I’d like to join.”
I thought about having to stuff Kitty into the cab of my truck every time we went to interrogate a suspect. A private eye has to blend into the woodwork. Kitty is like a semi coming down a logging road with the logs flying off the back end. You can’t miss her.
“I’ll think about it but this isn’t a club,” I said in my least aggressive tone of voice. “You can’t just join anytime you want to.”
Besides, I didn’t want to have to start carrying a dictionary around with me.
Show off.