Murder Bites the Bullet: A Gertie Johnson Murder Mystery (7 page)

Anyway, what I really needed was leverage. Frank needed an incentive to open up about what he knew and what he might have seen. The man was holding out. I needed a bargaining chip.

This could be it.

And I couldn’t discount him as a suspect, either.

I heard something off to my right, up ahead, and it wasn’t an animal sound. More like a clanging of metals coming together. I crept on.

Then I smelled something horribly foul. Disgustingly, incredibly awful, like rotten eggs that were past rotten and into putrid. Piles and piles of really rotten eggs. The smell was so overpowering, I switched to breathing out of my mouth.

And in spite of the fumes, I couldn’t help feeling a little smug about my detective work.

I’d done my homework ahead of time as any good investigator would. That meant I’d questioned Grandma Johnson in depth. And Grandma’s friend Pearl, too. Pearl cooperated better than Grandma and even confessed that her family once had their own illegal moonshine operation going.

“It’s a mix of cornmeal,” Pearl had said, “sugar and yeast with just the right amount of water. That’s why shiners like to work near water.”

Then I spotted them in a clearing right next to a small creek, illuminated by a camping lantern. And they were surrounded by equipment that the federal government allows anyone to own as long as they don’t actually use it. The stars helped give me a good view of big oak barrels with hoses running from them into a large central metal canister.

I’d found Frank’s still.

Not only that, I was about to identify his partner, who at the moment had his back to me and was peeing into the creek. That’s one of my pet peeves--men urinating into bodies of water. Why are they so obsessed with polluting every single river and lake they get their hands on? Or in this case their extremities on? Marking their territory like a dog, that’s what. They ought to have to drink out that water after they’re done with it.

Anyway, this guy had a full bladder, judging by how long he was taking.

Frank was sitting next to the brew, looking off into the trees. I didn’t know how he stood the smell night after night, but figure he must have gotten used to it by now.

Another observation from this investigator - they must have been sampling their own toxic firewater, because the guy at the stream was swaying in place, taking a step back, then abruptly righting himself before swaying again.

Something wasn’t quite right about this scenario. I could feel it in my bones. And suddenly I didn’t feel all alone in the woods.

*

I hit the ground faster than the speeding bullet. My heart was pumping blood so fast I could hear it rushing through my body. I should have ordered a night vision man-killer weapon instead of a pansy beanbag gun, which I had been dumb enough to leave in the truck anyway. So, of course, it was totally useless to me the minute I really needed it.

I flattened out, hoping the shooter hadn’t spotted me. Which would have been tough since everything about me was black – black pants, dark jacket, matching knit hat, charcoaled face. And I wasn’t wearing the blonde ponytail. At least I’d done something right.

I stayed where I was, trying to listen for sound over the drumming of my overzealous heart. If I was next on the hit list, as long as I stayed flat on the ground the shooter would have to get up and come for me.

When I heard rustling up ahead, I gulped and raised my head, surveying the scene. Frank had pitched over one of the barrels, taking it down with him. He wasn’t moving.

Gus Aho was nowhere in sight.

Then an enormous pile of leaves directly in front of me rose up from the ground like a volcanic eruption. It started moving off to my left. For a few seconds I thought I was losing my mind. Or the dark was playing tricks on me.

Then I thought,
Tornado!
Only the wind blew lightly and the air didn’t smell like storm weather.

The leaves kept moving away fast. I sprung up, not sure what to do. A fatal shot had come from that pile of debris, and I didn’t have matching fire power to protect myself. If I made any noise and the thing turned around, I was a dead woman.

Next, it broke into a run, heading away from me. Since I was still alive, I deduced that my presence had gone undetected. I didn’t want to change that precious fact.

I followed a little while, because that’s what investigators are supposed to do, but I was relieved when I realized I was alone in the woods. I’d lost the trail.

Earlier, when I’d decided to use the classic investigator’s process of eliminating suspects one by one, I hadn’t meant removing each of them individually from the earth. But apparently somebody else thought that was a sound method.

At the moment, the score for both sides was one and one. One Aho down. One Hanson down. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That thought came much later after I got up the courage to make my way back to Frank’s house and place the emergency call from his phone.

I remembered my deer camera just in the nick of time and retrieved it before the posse arrived.

*

Blaze wanted to negotiate.

“I’m willing to share information,” he said, hiking up his sheriff’s pants, which were riding dangerously low across his overextended stomach.

We were standing in front of Frank’s house next to the car he’d never drive again. He’d never get around to fixing those flat tires now.

For the record, my son has never, ever shown any desire to work with me. Ever. And now he was willing to share? That meant he had to be up to something. Or the lasting effects of his meningitis were taking a turn at that steering wheel inside his mind. Although he seemed lucid to me.

“Okay,” I said, swiping at the charcoal coating my face. Any lie I might concoct was going to seem mighty weak with that stuff all over it. I looked like a cat burglar. “Negotiate away.”

See, he was threatening me already. He whipped out a camera and took a picture of my stunned face. Then he showed it to me. “Your mug shot,” he said. I have to say it was
not
one of my most photogenic grandmotherly photographs.

I spilled. “Harry Aho’s kids hired me to investigate Chet Hanson. They think he killed their dad. And since Frank Hanson was at the shooting range the day Harry died, I had Frank under surveillance. I didn’t expect bullets to fly. And I wish I could have helped Frank, but it was over before I knew it. And I couldn’t risk becoming a target too.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Blaze said. “That was a perfect head shot. Frank probably died instantly, never even knew what hit him.”

“I’m not giving you everything all at once. We’ll take turns. Your turn. Tell me something useful.” I watched his lips tighten. I’d raised the boy, I knew the signs. He wasn’t going to leak a thing.

“I’m working this case,” I added. “We need to stick together on the facts.”

“No, Ma, I’m in charge, and this isn’t show and tell. Because of what happened here, I’m back to square one. Frank Hanson was my prime suspect in the Aho case.”

“You’re not back to square one,” I said to him. “If Frank killed Harry, that case is closed. Now you’re after an Aho.”

Frank really had been the perfect perp – opportunity, considering he was right there on the premises when Harry took the hit. He’d also had a rock solid longtime family feud motive
and
the means to plug his enemy. All those Hansons can shoot a dime off a fence post.

Blaze muttered something to himself as he turned to go back inside Frank’s house.

I called after him, keeping my tone neutral even though he hadn’t told me one single useful thing about either of the recent deaths. I couldn’t help feeling taken advantage of. “Would you believe me if I told you that Gus Aho was out at the still with Frank when the shot was fired?”

“No, I wouldn’t. Those two families have a long history of conflict. That’s just nuts talk.”

“Fine then.”

That’s how Blaze didn’t find out about Gus Aho being Frank’s partner from me. If the big buffoon wanted to play games, I held the world championship. He should know that by now.

Although in regards to Gus, how did I know he was partnering with Frank. All I’d seen from him was a steady stream of urine and some unsteady posturing. And they hadn’t seemed to be arguing, which wasn’t typical of that bunch.

My son had been a good cop at one time. And he’s still okay when all he has to do is deal with a couple local kids breaking into a deer camp and drinking up the booze. He handles these cases in his usual plodding way and sometimes even figures out who did it.

But I had a business to run, and I was on the clock. I couldn’t waste my client’s money by lollygagging around. Anything I told Blaze would be used against me anyhow. Like the deer camera? Was what I’d done even legal?

That’s also why I didn’t tell Blaze about lifting a notebook from a drawer in Frank Hanson’s kitchen. With a bit of luck it might turn out to be his moonshine distribution list, all his paying customers’ names written down in a little spiral notebook that fit into my pocket perfectly.

*

Word For The Day

SHELLACK (shu lak)

A sealant – varnish;

To clobber an opponent in a sadistic way.

The next morning Grandma and I did the two-step in the kitchen after I let Fred outside. She was using a butter knife to scrape the black part from a piece of toast she’d burnt to a crisp. She wielded the knife like that might stop me. Right as she opened her trap to dish dirt at me, both of us heard a car pull in. While she snooped out the window, I managed to pour a cup of her muddy coffee.

“I heard what happened,” Kitty said, not even bothering to reply to Grandma’s dirt comment, which is the best way to handle her. “It’s all my fault for not keeping a better eye on you. Dang, you could have been killed out there.”

“I told her to button up,” Grandma said. I could tell by her eyes, this wasn’t going to be one of her better days. “The thermometer says it’s fifty below. But will she listen! No!”

Kitty looked over at my mother-in-law, then at me. She shrugged, because she’d been around for some of Grandma’s other episodes. If this kept up, I’d get my way about that nursing home. Grandma went on crabbing about the snow and ice when anybody with the worst possible vision could tell it was a nice warm summer day.

At her insistence, I helped Grandma into her winter coat and let her lean on me to get her boots on. Then I called Blaze and told him to stop by and check out what was happening.

“I don’t get it either.” I poured coffee for Kitty and while we went over business, I watched Grandma out the window to make sure she wasn’t hurting anybody or anything. Fred stood at a healthy distance from her, watching the broom swish.