SEVEN
Word For The Day
DINT (dint) n.
Force, exertion.
COLORED LIGHTS FROM BLAZE’S truck streaked through the night and the sound of the siren pierced the air. I couldn’t help wondering if stealth on our part might have been a better way to go. Why does law enforcement always have to warn the world they are coming? Doesn’t that give the bad guys time to pack up and mosey out?
Blaze and George went in first, guns drawn, cautious. Little Donny and I waited in George’s truck, strobe lights slicing through the windshield, exposing our frightened faces. Keeping Little Donny inside the truck wasn’t an easy task; he wanted to be with the men. But nineteen years old is too young for taking risks, and this was one area Blaze and I finally agreed on. So Little Donny and I sat.
Finally, Blaze and George trudged out, Blaze’s weapon holstered, George’s rifle pointed toward the ground, grim sets to their jaw.
Little Donny and I hurried over. “I’m going in,” I said.
George placed a hand on my shoulder. “It’ll keep for another day, Gertie. It’s a mess in there.”
But I had to see for myself.
The devastation was extensive—drawers upended, bedding slashed, lamps smashed, drapes ripped in shreds. The rage it took to accomplish such a violent act frightened me with its intensity.
“Who knew you were out for the evening?” Blaze wanted to know.
It was a good question, one I didn’t have an answer to. No one I knew could possibly be capable of such viciousness, such hate.
“Anything missing?” George asked, following me as I wandered, speechless, through the house.
I shook my head, nothing obviously missing. I was fleetingly grateful that I’d buried my money under the apple tree instead of in the box spring, which lay shredded in ribbons.
“No sign of forced entry,” Little Donny observed, studying the front door.
“Of course, it wasn’t forced. I didn’t lock it.”
Little Donny lives in a big city where you lock your doors and windows and have security systems tied into the police department. In the U.P. most of us can’t remember where we put the key to the door and don’t particularly care. The only time we even think about locking up is if we will be out of town for a while and we don’t want our friends and family borrowing things without our knowledge.
Blaze, unusually quiet, waited by the door with me. George straightened a chair and scooped pillows from the floor and tossed them on the sofa.
“You okay, Ma?” Blaze took my arm, his voice gentle, and I nodded, resigned. “You can’t stay here tonight.”
I already knew that, and my choices weren’t good. I couldn’t go to Star’s place. She has cats and I’m deathly allergic to cat dander. Just thinking of going to Grandma Johnson’s house made the nerve in my eye start twitching, and I’d rather eat nails than stay with Blaze.
“You take Little Donny with you,” I said to Blaze. “I’m going to Cora Mae’s.”
__________
The next morning I showered and wrapped Cora Mae’s black silk robe around me. She had a pot of coffee ready and was made up for the day, every hair in place, like a soap opera star. I bet she went to bed with her makeup and hair done up. She probably slept on her back with one of those little rolled pillows tucked under her neck and a black mask over her eyes to screen out light.
I had slept in a tiny spare bedroom on a day bed with a white comforter and ruffles around the bottom. On a shelf above the bed were two porcelain dolls decked out in wedding dresses.
While I sipped coffee I glanced around. Cora Mae lived in a dollhouse. Her home was tiny, but uncluttered and spotlessly clean, and everything was white—white walls, white sofa, white kitchen table. Cora Mae was sheathed in black armor in a pearly white house.
I’ve known Cora Mae most of my life. In the past, her tastes always ran white; white car, white fence, white rugs. The black clothes are a new addition, which I chalk up to her post-menopause phase.
“What are you going to do, Gert?” she asked. “You can stay here as long as you want, you know that. I have plenty of room.”
“Thanks, Cora Mae, but I don’t want to put you in danger.”
“Danger’s my middle name. I thrive on it.” Jane Bond put a plate of blueberry pancakes in front of me and I dove in. “Still think it’s the mob?” she said between bites.
I shrugged. “It’s pretty scary. I can’t figure it out. I must be getting too close to Chester’s murderer and someone’s getting nervous.”
“Maybe you should listen to them and back off. It isn’t worth getting hurt over.”
“We need to stock up on weapons,” I said. I refused to let anyone scare me away. “Someone’s playing rough. I need to go into Escanaba to the Assessor’s office. Then we can shop for ammo.”
“Gertie, why are you doing this? Don’t you want to hand it over to Blaze?”
“No, I don’t. He won’t do a good job.”
“So you’re doing this because you feel you have to?”
“Cora Mae, I’m doing it because I have to have a reason to get up every day. I’m doing it because I’m living alone for the first time in forty-some years and I can’t wake up in the morning and get excited about playing cards with the seniors or going to bingo.”
Cora Mae, who buried a lot of men and had to get used to living alone more than once, patted my hand and said, “I understand completely.”
I looked down at Cora Mae’s silk robe. “I need to get dressed”
“I threw your clothes in the washing machine, but never fear, I have just the thing and it’ll fit perfectly. I even have shoes for you so you can get out of those boots”
I scowled and shook my head, but gave in when I saw how disappointed she looked. “Okay,” I said, grudgingly.
Cora Mae clapped her hands like a big kid, delighted that she was finally getting the opportunity to dress me.
I squeezed into a pair of black stretch pants, which showed off my thigh lumps. Cora Mae didn’t own any flat shoes so I chose a pair of her black boots with the smallest heels and a gray cotton sweater. We found an orange moon necklace that matched my hair and Cora Mae pulled a blue and black plaid three-quarter-length coat out of a back closet.
I looked like I should be on a street corner. I almost refused to go out until my clothes were dry, but I didn’t want to hurt Cora Mae’s feelings.
The things we do for our friends.
__________
We were in my truck ready to go, when, in the rearview mirror, I spotted the magenta sedan pulling into Cora Mae’s driveway.
“Duck, Cora Mae,” I warned her, throwing my body across the bench seat and hauling her down. “Shhh… it’s the car that’s been following me. Stay down.”
A few minutes later we heard pounding on Cora Mae’s kitchen door, and I hazarded a peek out the side window. I jerked up straight, releasing Cora Mae, and jumped out of the truck.
“Kitty, what are you doing?” I demanded.
Startled, Kitty let out a shriek and raised a plump arm to her throat. “Where did you come from? I just walked past your truck and you weren’t in it.”
Ignoring her question, I pointed to the purple car. “When did you get that?” My eyes sighted down my extended arm where I realized she had a driver along with her. The driver was the same creepy character I’d noticed at the bar. “And who is that?”
“Jeff, get out of the car and come meet my friends,” Kitty called out, and he rose out of the car and walked forward, flicking ashes over his shoulder from a cigarette dangling between his fingers. “This is my third cousin on my father’s mother’s side. He’s visiting for hunting season.”
Cora Mae popped into the middle of the group like a tartlet and elbowed me aside. She had on her stalking pose, breasts forward, eyes rolled so the whites of her eyes showed beneath her pupils. I grabbed the back of her coat and pulled. She stumbled back, but didn’t break her gaze on Kitty’s cousin.
r /> “These two have been following me around,” I said to her. That’s the car I spotted at the Escanaba River.”
Jeff, apparently wanting no part of a confrontation, turned back to the car. “I’ll let you work this out, Kitty. I’ll be waiting in the car.” Then he coughed.
“That’s it,” I shouted. “That’s the voice of the guy who called my house and threatened to kill me and throw me to the fishes. That’s him. Call Blaze, Cora Mae. Go on.” I gave her a shove toward the house. Kitty blocked the way.
“Settle down, everybody,” she said. “It’s not what it looks like. We were only trying to help.”
“Help what? Help kill me? Go on, Cora Mae. Don’t let Kitty stop you. Call for backup.”
Kitty spread her legs in a firm stance. Cora Mae looked at each of us, but didn’t move. “We did follow you,” Kitty admitted. “It was all my idea. All I want to do is join the team and I thought if I followed you around and figured out what you were up to, I might have a better chance at the job.”
“What does he have to do with it?” I pointed at Jeff.
“He drove me around in his car because you would have noticed mine.”
“He called and threatened me.”
Kitty looked uncomfortable and her eyes shifted to the left. A sure sign she was about to make up something.
“The truth,” I insisted.
“Well…he did make the call. But only because I told him to. And I’m really sorry. I really am. I figured if you thought you were in danger, you might decide you needed me.”
I studied Kitty, and found myself believing her, as incredible as that seemed. What a desperate and lonely woman she must be to go to this extent to be included.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You and your cousin destroyed my house. You broke in and slashed and smashed my things. You went too far. Cora Mae, call for backup.”
Kitty’s eyes widened, her face the color of silly putty. She shook her head. “Oh no, I’d never do anything to hurt you. Neither would Jeff. Is it true? Did you really have a break in? Honest, Gertie, you have to believe me.”
“You didn’t break into my house?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die, I didn’t.”
A moment or two of silence ensured while I considered Kitty’s believability and my options. “I can’t pay you,” I said.
“I understand and that’s okay.” A broad smile lit up Kitty’s face. “I can work full-time now, but if I get a paying job I’ll have to cut back my hours to weekends and nights. You won’t regret this, Gertie. When do I start and what do you want me to do?”
“Tell Jeff to take off without you. Starting right now you’re my official body guard.”
The bear hug Kitty wrapped around me almost crushed me to death.
__________
“Where are you going?” Cora Mae asked. “Escanaba’s the other way.”
“Ray’s,” I said, pulling into the general store’s parking lot and parking between the yellow lines. I was getting pretty good at driving. “You coming in?”
“Naw, bring me some chewing gum,” she said. “Juicy Fruit.”
Kitty grabbed hold of the open truck door and with a shove from Cora Mae, stood up. I walked past several parked trucks, recognizing one as George’s. Glancing down at my clothes, I thought about saving this errand till later, but later isn’t a word I care for. It’s for slackers.
I marched in with my bodyguard in hot pursuit.
Ray’s daughter stood at the checkout counter waiting on customers. Ray was in the deli making hot sandwiches, wiping his hands on a stained white apron tied across the bulge of his belly. George lounged against the meat case, wearing his snake hat and a playful attitude.
He whistled when he saw me. “Where you off to today?” He looked me up and down. I hoped Cora Mae’s coat was covering most of my bottom. I’d rather keep my fat rolls to myself.
“Not letting the grass grow is all.” I tugged at the bottom of the short coat.
“Looks like Cora Mae’s been dressing you. That or you’re going through some new phase.”
“Ray,” I said, calling past George and his silly amused grin, “I need to talk to you for a minute.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kitty loading up a shopping cart.
“Sure, Gertie.” Ray stepped out from behind the counter. “What you need?”
“George tells me Chester was in here last week and I need to know what he bought.”
“Everybody in Tamarack County was in here last week getting supplies for hunting, and you want me to remember what one of them bought?”
“Yep.”
Ray scratched his chin, thought for a spell, then said, “Don’t remember.”
“I was in here too,” George said to Ray. “Chester had a little bag, like a paper lunch sack, and came out of the back room.”
The back room was stocked with hardware and gun supplies. It was the most popular part of the store with the men, a social gathering place where they stretched stories.
“Maybe I do remember.” Ray sounded surprised at his own memory. “He bought buckshot, and that seemed funny ’cuz Chester never used buckshot. Buckshot’s for folks who can’t aim so good, and Chester was the best there was. I kidded with him about it.”
Someday when I have time, I’ll set Ray straight concerning buckshot, which I use all the time and it isn’t because I couldn’t shoot straight. It’s for better coverage.
“Chester said he didn’t want to kill the varmint hanging around pestering him,” Ray continued. “He said he wanted to scare it off. And he seemed mad, real mad.”
“Chester usually kills an animal if it hangs around too long,” George said, adjusting his hat. “He doesn’t hesitate especially if he thinks it might be rabid.”
“Maybe when he said varmint,” I offered, “he meant something entirely different.”
“I have to agree with you, Gertie.” Ray ran his hands across the front of his white apron. “He said someone was pestering him, not minding their own business.”
“Their own business?” I repeated. “Ray, can you remember exactly what he said? Did he say their own business or his own business?”
Ray scratched his chin. “Don’t know.”
“Did he say someone wasn’t minding her own business?”
“No, I’d remember that.”
Ray got testy after I wouldn’t let it go. “I don’t remember, Gertie, because I mind my own business.”
Minding your own business is the number one rule if you want to get along in the U.P., or at least appearing as though you’re minding it. Busybodies are welcome additions because they bring fresh material into an otherwise routine day, as long as they don’t throw their two cents in with it. In other words, gossiping and rumoring are permitted, personal opinionating on the topic of gossip isn’t.
“Maybe kids have been hanging around his property or his hunting shack,” Ray offered, “and he just wanted to dig up some dirt around their feet. That happened to me once. Kids were sneakin’ into my strawberry patch, eatin’ my strawberries. I waited around the corner of the house until they showed up. You should a seen ’em scatter when that shotgun went off.”
Ray started laughing and decided the story was funny enough for a second go around. While he was telling it again I wandered off, hunting for Juicy Fruit gum. Ray was still laughing over his story while I paid up.
My new bodyguard was nowhere in sight.
George walked me out to the truck. He grinned when I handed Cora Mae her chewing gum and she squealed. She’s like a kid in a candy store.
“Wait up,” Kitty called, rounding the corner with a cart bulging with bags. “Thought I’d buy us a few snacks.”
“There isn’t an inch of extra room up front,” I said. “Put them in the back.”
I needed Kitty’s bodyguarding techniques about as much as I needed a hole in my head, no disrespect intended toward Chester.
__________
The ride to Escanaba,
forty miles away, took more than an hour. Cars whizzed past, all in a big hurry to get someplace else, and the drivers seemed overly combative. One low-life character even flipped us the raspberry for no good reason.
I tried to stay as far to the right side of the road as I could so the nuts had a lot of passing room. Sixty-five miles an hour seemed unreasonably fast to me so I tried to keep it around forty. You could enjoy the scenery that way.
Since I had a hard time seeing over the dashboard, Cora Mae let me sit on her purse. That made a big difference.
Kitty polished off six powdered doughnuts, leaving most of the powdered sugar on her shelf-like bosom and on Cora Mae’s lap. “Who would break into your house?” she wanted to know.
“Same person who broke into Chester’s,” I said, making a conscious effort to keep my eyes on the road rather than on Kitty’s food fest. “Wipe your mouth, Cora Mae. You have sugar everywhere.”
“But to slash your furniture and break up things,” Kitty continued. “It’s a warning. Someone’s scared or worried.”
Which was my take on the situation exactly.
At the Register of Deeds I had to drive around the block six times before I found an easy place to park. I figure I’m not ready for parallel parking between cars.
Cora Mae swiped powdered sugar from her lap as Kitty headed for the door. I made a feeble attempt to brush the excess from my truck seats.
“No more eating powdered doughnuts in my truck,” I called to Kitty’s disappearing back, and had to hurry to catch up.
“Howdy.” A large, round-faced woman worked a mouth full of gum. “What you need?”
“I’m representing Chester Lampi’s family,” I said, business-like. “He’s dead, and I need to look at his property records. For the family. These are my associates.”
“Records are public property. Anyone can look through ‘em,” she chomped. “We ain’t computerized though. There’s the books.” She waved at a room full of blue bindings. “Help yourself.”
It took a while to figure out the filing system, property listings in one section, deeds in another.
“Looky this,” Cora Mae shrilled over my shoulder. “This says Onni Maki owns one lousy acre. I didn’t think that was possible in Stonely. I’m sure he said he owned a ton of land. This can’t be right.”
I looked it over. “One acre’s what he’s got.”
“One miserable acre.” Cora Mae was obviously disappointed. If she was expecting a hot date and wealth she was looking in the wrong town.
“No wonder he’s taking Viagra,” she said. “Doesn’t have anything else going for him.”
“Who owns all the woods next to him?” Kitty said from a chair across the table.
“Let’s see.” I scanned the printout, surprised at what I saw. “It appears that Chester Lampi owns, or owned, the woods.”
“But Chester’s place is at least five miles from Onni’s.”
Getting used to the columns of numbers, I cross-referenced several pages, wrote down a few numbers and added them up. Then walked over to Bubble Gum.
“Could you come and check my numbers,” I said. “I must have made a mistake. I need you to tell me.”
Cora Mae slumped in her chair as if her ship had just come in and it was filled with cow manure. Bubbles sighed heavy, like I’d interrupted something way more important than this. She got up slowly, walked over to the files, and studied the page. Looking at my chicken scratches, she said, “Nope, you didn’t make a mistake. That’s right.”
“You’re telling me that Chester Lampi owned four hundred acres of land around Stonely? And we didn’t know about most of it?”
“Yeah,” said Bubbles, “but they ain’t connected. See, eighty’s right here.” She pointed to a map on the page.
“That’s the two forties he lives on,” I pointed out to Cora Mae, who was recovering and regaining interest in our project.
“And three hundred and twenty is over here,” Bubbles finished.
“Next to Onni.” I was talking to myself out loud. “He sure owned a lot of land; a regular land baron.”
I mulled over this new information, feeling it was connected somehow. This wasn’t exactly prime real estate property on the outskirts of Chicago. It was in God-forsaken country where you can get a lot of land for your buck. Even though four hundred acres is a lot of acres, it shouldn’t be worth killing over. I couldn’t see Chester’s son, or anyone else for that matter, killing him for his land.
Which led me to new questions. Why didn’t Bill live on some of this land? Instead he lived on a small patch of his own. I checked the records. Bill Lampi owned the property and house we visited. Forty acres to be exact, and he’d owned it for seven years.
“What’s this part of the deed mean?” I asked Bubbles, who was having a bubble-blowing contest with Cora Mae. Cora Mae’s Juicy Fruit lost the contest.
Bubbles popped the winning bubble across her face, sucked it in, and studied the document. “Title’s not free and clear. Mineral rights are owned by someone else.”
“Who owns them?”
“You have to look in that other book.”
I opened another thick binder and paged through. “I need help. I can’t find it.”
Bubbles sighed heavily and found the page for me. “Onni Maki owns the mineral rights to Chester’s land,” I announced.
Kitty leaned over the table. “That’s odd. Chester owns the land and Onni owns the mineral rights? How did that happen?”
“I’d like to know that, too,” I said. “Cora Mae, your date with Onni’s tomorrow. You have to pump him for information.”
Cora Mae groaned. “I’m not interested in Onni anymore.”
“It’s not all rich rewards,” I said to both of them. “Being an investigator means making sacrifices.”
We finished up and I teetered across the street to an army surplus store, my associates outpacing me. Cora Mae’s teensy boots were killing my feet.
Glass cases framed the service desk and held the goodies we needed. A young boy with a large red pimple on the end of his nose and a mouth full of metal braces stood at the case.
“I’d like to look at those handcuffs,” Cora Mae said to him, pointing.
“What do we need handcuffs for?” I said.
“I’m just looking. Can’t I look?” Cora Mae ran her fingers along the handcuffs like she was stroking a man’s hairy chest. “I didn’t know you could buy handcuffs.”
“We’ll take three pepper sprays,” I said to the clerk, “and where are your stun guns? Cora Mae, you need a stun gun. You, too, Kitty.”
“Don’t carry stun guns,” the clerk said.
“Why not?”
“Illegal.”
“Oh,” I said, clutching my stun gun-loaded purse tight against my body. “Three of those whistles on a rope then.”
He rang our order up and put our purchases in a bag.
“You can throw these in too,” Cora Mae said, handing him the handcuffs. “Never know when you’ll need a pair.”
__________
On the way out of town, I spotted a sporting goods store and we stopped in for ammo. I bought more buckshot and a few slugs, then spotted a fly fishing vest with all kinds of little pockets, and bought that, too.
When we got back to the truck, I took off Cora Mae’s plaid coat and put on the vest. Then I filled the pockets with ammo and the pepper spray, and put the rope with the whistle around my neck. With Cora Mae’s coat back on, you couldn’t tell that I was a walking arsenal.
__________
I dropped Cora Mae at her house, but couldn’t get rid of Kitty. She was with me like an insect stuck on flypaper.
“How can I protect you if I’m not with you,” she reasoned.
I had to figure out a way to ditch her soon.
We drove over to check out the damage to my home. Blaze’s sheriff’s truck was parked in my driveway. I parked behind his truck and walked around it.
Kitty whistled. ?
??What happened to his truck?”
In the light of day the paint job didn’t look as good as it had in the barn. That’s the trouble with working without natural sunlight. I should have pulled the truck out into the sun instead of spraying it inside. I noticed that I had sprayed too much in some areas and the paint had dripped down the side of the truck. The rust spots were a deep yellow, the color of a pumpkin just starting to ripen, while the rest of the truck was canary yellow.
The whole thing reminded me of an overused paint rag. I wasn’t about to mention it to Blaze in case he hadn’t noticed. He isn’t very observant. Maybe a darker yellow paint would fix it right. When I found time away from my investigation work, I’d have to work on it.
Once this court stuff was dropped.
The damage inside my house looked worse in the light of day, too. I stood in the doorway wondering how it could ever be cleaned up when Blaze came around from the back of the house.
Looking pale and tired, he said, “I’ve installed new deadbolts.” He handed me a set of keys. “You’ll have to fill out an insurance claim, Little Donny and Mary offered to help you clean up.”
The only good thing I could see in having my house vandalized was it gave Blaze something to do. It would keep him out of my way, off chasing burglars while I investigated Chester’s murder.
I packed enough clothes for an extended slumber party at Cora Mae’s. I noticed Chester’s smut magazines on the top shelf of the hall closet and stuffed them into my suitcase. Tonight’s entertainment.
“Keep Little Donny a few more nights,” I said to Blaze. “I’m not ready to move back in yet. Besides, I like sleepovers.”
Blaze carried my suitcase out to the truck, looking down at the ground while he walked and not saying anything. He opened the door and helped me up, loaded the suitcase in the passenger seat, heaved Kitty up, then stood and watched me try to back down the driveway straight. I didn’t look back as I drove away.
__________
Cora Mae isn’t much of a cook. The blueberry pancakes she’d made earlier this morning were store-bought frozen pancakes, not the real McCoy. I should have picked up food supplies at Ray’s general store, but I forgot how she is.
We had skipped lunch so I was starving, and the lettuce salad she put in front of me didn’t fill me up. The down side of staying with Cora Mae was going to be food. I made a mental note to whip up a few casseroles in my spare time.
When Kitty called her third cousin and he appeared in the driveway with a big serving bowl filled with beef stew, I could have hugged her, but I refrained. We aren’t over-eager to show affection in Finn country, at least not publicly. No hugging, kissing, or hand holding in public: that’s pretty much a standard rule.
After Cousin Jeff roared off, Kitty plunked into a kitchen chair and spread her legs. I tried not to look.
“Thought you might like some decent grub so I whipped this up earlier,” she said, glancing at Cora Mae. “No offense, Cora Mae.”
“None taken, dear,” Cora Mae said as she warmed up the stew.
Kitty was still huffing from the exertion of climbing down the steps to meet Jeff and then mounting them again. I hope if I ever need Kitty to defend me that it doesn’t involve physical movement on her part or I’m as good as dead.
Cora Mae set cups of coffee in front of us and sat down herself.
“Why isn’t Bill living on some of his father’s property?” I asked. “All that land, it stands to reason he’d live there.”
“Bill and his old man never got along much,” Kitty said, between bites of stew. “Bill couldn’t be the macho man Chester wanted him to be. Bill’s little and skinny, and when he started doing office work for a living, Chester said it was a girl’s job. They’ve always been at each other’s throats. When he took up with the Southern blonde, Chester really went nuts.”
“I can’t picture Bill killing Chester,” I said.
“Nah,” Kitty said. “No way. Bill’s against guns, you know. Won’t have them around. Another reason his pa was ticked. Bill wouldn’t even hunt.”
“I wonder how we can find out if anyone had an insurance policy on Chester,” I said.
“Ask Blaze,” Cora Mae said. “Maybe he has some ideas.”
Oh, right, Blaze would tell me.
Kitty stayed to watch the news on television, then rocked herself up from the couch with help from Cora Mae and stood several feet inside my comfort zone. I instinctively backed up. She followed me.
“Jeff’s picking me up out front,” she said. “You stay in tonight with Cora Mae. No investigating without your bodyguard.”
After Kitty left, Cora Mae set her hair in big rollers and spread cream on her face while I unpacked my suitcase.
“Look what I found out at Chester’s blind,” I said, holding up the magazines.
Cora Mae clapped her hands. “Sex magazines! I’ve always wanted to look at one of those.”
We settled on the couch and each of us paged through a magazine. Every once in a while Cora Mae would giggle and show me a picture she thought was special. We weren’t interested in the women, but the men were butt-naked, too.
Suddenly Cora Mae screamed in my ear.
“Ouch,” I said, holding my ear. “That really hurt.”
“Cripes,” she said. “Look at this.”
She shoved the magazine in front of my face, too close to see. I took it from her and held it out. There, in all her glory, was Barb Lampi. Two full pages had been devoted to her. The staples binding the magazine together sliced through her belly button. She had the biggest boobs I’ve ever seen.
“Guess those weren’t falsies after all,” I said to Cora Mae, whose mouth was frozen open like the mounted trout at Herb’s bar.
“Implants,” she managed to mutter.
I searched the caption. “It says her name is Thelma Thompson.”
“Maybe that’s her stage name,” Cora Mae said.
“I doubt she’d change her name from Barb to Thelma. It’d be the other way around. No, I think that’s her real name, and I bet Barb is an alias.”
Cora Mae stared at the page. “Chester must have found these magazines and confronted her. Then she snuck out to the blind and killed him.”
“Women don’t shoot people,” I said, shaking my head. “They run them over with their cars or poison them. When’s the last time you heard of a woman murdering a man with a rifle?”
Cora Mae shrugged. “Maybe she hired someone.”
We paged through the rest of the magazines and found Barb in each one, although she received top billing only in the first one.
It was time for a little talk with Barb.
“It’s time for a little dint,” I said.
“Dint?”
“Dint.”