NINE
Word For The Day
EGREGIOUS (ee GREE juhs) adj.
Outstanding for undesirable qualities;
remarkably bad; flagrant.
THE NEXT MORNING, I stayed in bed longer than usual, even though I was wide-awake. Blaze and Mary’s sleeper sofa was comfy and warm. It felt good to stretch and wiggle my toes and think about the case. I could hear Little Donny’s steady sawing from the living room as events marched through my head like wasps in and out of a hive.
I was learning a lot about being a detective, but I knew I had so much more to learn. There’s nothing like the actual experience to teach you the finer points. Like what happened last night. It wasn’t Little Donny’s fault our cover was almost blown—I take full responsibility for it. Next time I go on a surveillance mission, I won’t leave my truck smack dab in the road for everyone to see. All my life I’ve had to learn things the hard way, or so it seems.
The photograph of the three service men intrigued me: Chester—dead, with a bullet in his head, owner of a large parcel of property, Onni—one-time owner of the mineral rights for said piece of property, and in my book, an undesirable. As Grandma Johnson would say, Onni was from the muddy side of the pasture. Then we have Floyd, the bible belter who found Chester’s body in the hunting shack. The fading photograph reminded me that life was precious and too short and that I should make every minute count.
By the time I arrived in the kitchen ready for the day, Blaze and Mary were nowhere in sight. I made a fresh pot of coffee and ate a doughnut, careful not to wake my personal bodyguard.
__________
I poked around in my barn for things to add to Kitty’s rummage pile, and a few minutes later George pulled in. His snake-trimmed hat grinned at me and so did he.
“Get rid of that stray dog yet?” George asked. I noticed he had put on a brown wool sweater. The weather had been unseasonably cold, even for the U.P., and I wondered if George would hold out until January without a jacket.
“What stray dog?” I said, trying to wrestle an old bike out of a tangled heap.
“You know, the one with the yellow eyes.” George pitched in and the bike came loose, the tires flat, rust corroding the handlebars.
“George, you sure are starting to drink early in the day. Better watch that. It’ll ruin you.”
George leaned his shoulder against a support beam. “Thought so,” he said under his breath.
Then I remembered about the stun gun and the fib I’d told George. “Oh, he’s around here all right but he hasn’t got near enough to zap.”
An amused grin spread over his face as he looked at the junk pile. “What are you doing with that bike?”
“Kitty’s having a rummage sale,” I said. “I thought I’d donate some of the family’s old things. She could use the money. Make sure you stop and buy something. This though…,” I gestured at the bike, “should go to the dump.”
George nodded. “I’ll drop it off. The reason I came by was to remind you about tonight. The Lion’s Club is having its annual pasty dinner and dance. The Lionesses are doing the cooking.”
“That’s right. I forgot all about it.”
“Thought I could escort you over there.”
My mind was working a mile a minute. Everybody in the county goes to the pasty dinner, which meant Bill and Barb would be there, which meant an empty Lampi house and the possibility of tying up a few loose ends. Although this case had more than a few ends flying loose.
“That would be nice,” I said, “only you go on ahead and have fun. I’ll meet you there. Cora Mae and I have something to do first. It’ll make us a little late.”
“Sure, fine by me. How about a game of cards this afternoon.”
“I have to go to court,” I said. “Today’s the day.”
George shuffled his feet and, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought the expression flickering across his handsome face resembled disappointment. What was that all about?
I dug an empty cardboard box out of the corner and began to fill it. George helped me load the boxes for Kitty’s rummage sale into the bed of my truck. Then he loaded a pile of things for the dump into the back of his truck. What a man, I thought, watching him close the back end up, stroll to the driver’s seat with a tip of his hat, and drive off.
I pulled a drill and a box of wood screws off of the tool cart and headed back to Blaze’s.
The night before when I got ready for bed, I noticed that some of the floorboards in Blaze’s mobile home were squeaky, especially in the hall. Living in a small trailer and listening to creaks and groans from loose boards could drive anyone absolutely crazy, a theory I’ll have to explore regarding Blaze’s recent behavior. He must be too busy trying to get out of work to notice when his own home needs repair. He never was handy with tools.
Never wait for a man to do a job that’s important to you, is my motto, because the job will never get done. Or he’ll mess it up something awful and you’ll have to either fix it yourself anyway or learn to live with it worse than it was before. A woman can do anything if she has the proper tools. And Barney had left a barn full for me.
I plugged the drill into a hall electrical socket and began drilling the screws into the floor using the screw attachment. I ended up using the whole box. It was a good thing the floor was bare wood instead of linoleum or tile. That would have been harder.
Little Donny came out of the bathroom in his boxers and a white undershirt, toweling his damp hair. He squeezed down the hall past me, shaking his head. Mornings are especially rough on him.
My repair job ended up looking pretty good, and when I tested it the floor was as quiet as one of Grandma Johnson’s cooked noodles.
__________
“What the hell happened to my maple floor,” Blaze hollered when he came home a little later. “Mary, come and see what she did now. Oh, my God.”
He clamped his hands on the sides of his face and squeezed like he had a migraine headache.
“It doesn’t look a bit worse than it did before,” I said. “And it’s quieter like it should be, and Mary’s not home yet. She’s visiting with Grandma.”
Blaze had one hand over his mouth, and he was that red tomato color again. It figures that Blaze wouldn’t appreciate what I did for him. He’s always been that way, but I’m not a quitter. I’ll keep it up till one day he says thank you and means it.
“Maybe you have too many clothes on,” I said to him, remembering how I’d overheated at Bill’s because I had on so much. “Dress lighter and maybe that red coloring will go away. Wouldn’t hurt to try. And once it gets walked on a bit,” I added, “the shine on those screws will wear away.”
__________
“The bullet that killed Chester was from his own weapon,” Kitty said while riding shotgun with Cora Mae scrunched in the middle. “He was killed with a rifle from the gun rack at his house.”
“How do you know for sure?” I said, so excited I almost drove the truck into the ditch. I pulled over and slammed on the brakes. “Who told you?”
“I have sources in Escanaba,” Kitty said, smugly.
“Does Blaze know about this?”
Kitty nodded. “He must. He’d get the report as soon as it was ready.”
“You’d think I’d be the first one he’d share it with since I was the first one with the murder theory. Figures he’d know and not even tell me. The killer made a mistake putting the murder weapon back,” I reasoned. “If he had dumped the rifle, nobody ever would have known it was Chester’s own rifle.”
“If you hadn’t noticed the extra rifle in the gun rack Blaze never would have had it checked,” Kitty said. “You’re a hero.”
I was starting to like Kitty more and more all the time. “I thought he ignored pretty much everything I said. I’m expecting a full apology from him. A public one. Frowning, I decided it didn’t make sense. If I planned out a murder, would I use my victim’s rifle? “Why would a killer use the victim’s own weapon to
murder him?”
“Smart, I think,” Kitty said. “Impossible to trace to the killer. All evidence would point back to the victim.”
“Get back on the road,” Cora Mae said to me, “or you’ll be late for court. And didn’t I say to dress up nice. You’re just asking to lose your case.”
I pulled back onto the road.
“What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?” I could sense Cora Mae and Kitty making faces at each other. I wore a brown work jacket over black pants and a green sweatshirt. I had on my hunting boots since the forecast called for more snow.
Cora Mae was dressed like she was going to hang around the downtown lamppost. She had on purple high heels and a fluffy, quilted red coat that barely fit in the truck considering the space reserved for Kitty’s bulk. At least she wasn’t wearing her funeral black.
Kitty wore some kind of tent thing over her housedress and hadn’t bothered to take out her pin curls. Apparently, in her mind, a court appearance didn’t warrant a comb-out.
“What’s going to happen in court today?” Cora Mae asked.
“They’re going to dismiss the case,” I said. “Blaze doesn’t have a case. He’s probably waiting for me to arrive so he can apologize for doubting me. Then he’ll change his mind about taking me to court.”
We approached Escanaba, driving along the shore of Lake Michigan, waves pounding onto the rocks, seagulls cruising the wind current overhead.
“Don’t you want to know about my date with Onni?” Cora Mae cooed.
“Every last detail,” Kitty said.
“Only the part about the land,” I said quickly before Cora Mae could start in on more details than I’d ever want to know.
“Here’s what happened in a nutshell. Way back when, years ago, Chester’s dad won the land from Onni’s dad in a poker game.”
“Over three hundred acres lost in a card game.” Kitty squealed. “And we play for pennies and match sticks. Imagine that.”
“But Chester’s family didn’t win the mineral rights because Onni’s dad wouldn’t bet them away. No one knew why, although Onni said there was a rumor going around that traces of gold were discovered back by Bear Creek and if it turned out someday to be true, owning the mineral rights would be important.”
“Gold,” I straightened up at that. “Gold in the U.P.?”
Kitty leaned over Cora Mae. “Haven’t you ever heard of Old Ropes Gold Mine over by Ishpeming? That underground mine produced gold for fourteen years. Some folks think Tamarack County is the next hotbed.”
“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said. “If someone had discovered gold, all of Stonely would be hunting for gold instead of hunting for Big Buck.”
“Keep your eyes on the road,” Cora Mae said to me in a loud voice as the right tire hit the gravel on the side of the road. I corrected quickly.
Kitty shook her head and the vibration traveled through Cora Mae and rippled against my side. “Rumor has it some people around here are making their living from secret locations of gold.”
“Who? And Where?” I wanted to know. “Who do we know? Everyone around here is poor as a wet-rot potato patch. If your theory is right, they must all be hiding their wealth behind broken-down houses. Besides, if that was true, Onni never would have turned the rights over to Barney.”
“That’s right,” Cora Mae said. “Onni didn’t believe it either.”
“Why did he give it to Barney in the first place?” I pulled into the courthouse parking lot and crawled along scanning for an empty spot.
“He traded it for that old Ford tractor you used to have.”
“Not the one he had to tow off because it had two flat tires and wouldn’t start?”
“That’s the one.”
“Dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
__________
The Escanaba courthouse is imposing, impersonal, and the last place on earth I wanted to be at the moment. Our footsteps sounded like thunder, our whispers echoed ahead of us, heavy doors cracked close in the distance, and people with suspicion and pain in their eyes sat on uncomfortable benches, waiting and worrying and watching.
“The ugliest people in the world are in this courthouse,” Kitty said, the harsh florescent lights turning her teeth an unhealthy yellow and enlarging her pores. “Gives me the creeps.”
We sat outside the courtroom, stuffed together on a bench until Blaze arrived, surrounded by a group of people. They stood across the hall, heads together, and my hopes of a peaceful resolution dissipated like fog at dawn.
Blaze and I entered the courtroom like complete strangers, without acknowledging each other and without eye contact. Our entourages followed: Cora Mae and Kitty pressed tightly together like Siamese twins, and Blaze’s two attorneys. Apparently one was not enough. He needed two devious legal minds to help him beat down and assure the complete defeat of one helpless woman.
A hearing was concluding so we slid into more hard benches, Blaze and council on one side, Cora Mae, Kitty, and myself on the other.
An older woman, who I guessed to be around eighty-five years old, rose from a table at the front of the courtroom and confronted the opposing side, a quiver in her lips, moisture gleaming in her eyes.
“You can’t keep me from going back to my home,” she said, angrily. “You can’t stop me.”
I studied the two women she addressed with her comments. They had many of the woman’s same features, her daughters I presumed. The attorney seated next to them, wearing a gray suit, smirked like she’d just crushed her opponent.
“How can you think this is funny?” the old woman said to the attorney.
I wondered what she could have possibly done to deserve this kind of treatment from her daughters. I wondered what I had done to deserve it from Blaze. I couldn’t see his side of the picture at all.
The old woman’s attorney hustled her out of the courtroom before she could cause a scene, and we moved up to the two tables in front of the judge’s bench. The plan was for me to sit alone at one of the tables, and for Cora Mae and Kitty to sit right behind me. At the last moment as my name was announced, Kitty plunked down in the seat next to me at the table.
The judge, a little bitty man buried in an enormous robe, wore his hair in a military style cropped cut and looked about twelve years old.
“This is a preliminary hearing to determine whether the case will be contested and to set a court date if necessary. Are you Mrs. Johnson’s attorney?”
He looked at Kitty’s pin-curled head.
“Yes, your Honor,” Kitty said, like she spent every day fighting courtroom crime.
Blaze whispered to his attorney, who then jumped up and informed the court that Kitty couldn’t represent me.
“That’s fine,” I said into the microphone on the table. “I don’t need to hire an attorney to tell you I’m not insane. I can tell you myself.”
“Are you contesting the hearing?” the judge said to me, his expression unreadable.
“Absolutely.”
“Then we will set a court date, and I advise you, Mrs. Johnson, to consult with an attorney. This is a serious issue, one an attorney can advise you best on.”
One of Blaze’s legal schmegals rose. “Your Honor, we are asking the court to set a date as soon as possible since there is some immediacy.”
“The calendar is very full.” The judge shuffled papers.
“Your Honor, Mrs. Johnson appears to be in need of immediate supervision. She has squandered her life savings, damaged the plaintiff’s home and vehicle, and has allegedly vandalized her own home. In view of the new facts surrounding this case, we would like to request placement as well.”
I looked at Kitty.
“That means,” Kitty whispered, “they want to decide where you will live. They want to put you away in a nursing home.”
I began to feel faint, a hot flush creeping up from the pit of my soul and scorching my face. If I slapped myself, maybe I’d wake up. “This is a greg
arious act on my son’s part,” I shouted, leaping up.
Kitty leapt up also. “She means egregious, your honor.”
I stared at her, remembering my word for the day, a remarkable feat considering the circumstances.
Kitty smiled.
“We insist on speed,” the other side demanded.
“Very well,” the judge said. “We’ll put it on the calendar for three weeks from now. That’ll give Mrs. Johnson time to retain council, and I’m also ordering a psychological evaluation for Mrs. Johnson.”
“We want a jury trial,” Kitty shouted.
“We demand a psychological evaluation for the plaintiff, too,” I shouted.
__________
Kitty had to drive me home. I was too upset to drive. “If I ever speak to him again, it’ll be too soon. This is it, the last straw. He’s totally disowned. Don’t ever mention his name again.”
“Now, now,” Cora Mae clucked. “Blaze really believes in his own mind that you need his care. Try to look at it from his point of view.”
“Whose side are you on? His?”
“No! But I don’t think he’s intentionally doing it to hurt you. And the placement thing doesn’t necessarily mean he wants to put you in a nursing home. Maybe he wants you to live with him.”
Wallowing in self-pity isn’t my style, but I was settling in to do a fairly good job of it until I noticed Kitty was driving about a hundred and twenty miles an hour and had taken the last corner on two wheels.
“Kitty,” I said, “slow it down.”
“This is one kick-ass truck,” Kitty exclaimed. “Bet I can bury the needle.”
She glanced over and I could see fire in her eyes. Pin curls were popping and the flab hanging from her arms bounced with the truck as it tore up the road. Cora Mae clutched my arm.
“Kitty,” I shouted. “Pull my truck over to the side of the road. Now!”
“Okay, okay, just trying to take your mind off your troubles.” And she slowed down to a few volts under the speed of electricity. “Where are we going next?”
“We are dropping you off at your house.”
“No way. I’m your bodyguard. You’re stuck with me till this case is solved. We can hang out at my place and you can pick out the things you want to buy before the rummage sale starts.”
We argued over her role in my life until she pulled into her junkyard. “You aren’t going anywhere without me,” she said.
“Out.” I whipped the stun gun out of my purse.
Cora Mae’s eyes bulged. “You had that thing in court?”
“Out,” I said again, poking it in Kitty’s direction. “You work for me and you take orders from me, and I don’t need you anymore today. Go find clues. Work with Cora Mae. Between the two of you, you ought to come up with something on the case.”
“I can’t believe you had a stun gun in court,” Cora Mae said.
“You, too.” I poked threateningly at Cora Mae. “Out.”
The two of them rolled out of the truck and as I drove out of the driveway I could see Kitty running for her car.
I parked the truck inside Blaze’s barn, closed the doors, and spent the rest of the afternoon hiding out in my hunting blind.