Murder Grins and Bears It (5 page)

I had to find Little Donny.

****

In all the excitement, I forgot that supper
was at my house and Grandma Johnson was cooking. I remembered while
Blaze was driving me home after dropping Carl at his little shack
of a house.

I groaned.

Grandma Johnson is famous for her cooking,
and I don’t mean in a popular way. Most of us eat before we sit
down at one of her meals.

Grandma Johnson is ninety-two and her tongue
is poisonous, like a rattlesnake. She’s also my mother-in-law. I’ve
never forgiven Barney for dying and leaving me to deal with her.
The two of us get along like milk and orange juice. Mix us together
and we curdle for sure.

“
I have to go home and get
Mary and her potato-and-cheese casserole,” Blaze said, dropping me
at my front door. “I’ll bring her, but she’ll need a ride home from
somebody later.”

“
Aren’t you coming,
too?”

“
Not with a murder in our
backyard and my nephew missing.”

I didn’t feel too much like eating, either.
My body felt as if every organ was tied in double knots.

After Blaze drove off, I stood on my porch
and assessed the damage that my tromping around in the woods all
day had done to my grooming. I swatted some of the dog hair off my
pants and patted my own hair once or twice. I wasn’t sure why I was
bothering, since Grandma Johnson was about to work me over, no
matter what.

I opened the screen door and walked into the
living room. The door snapped shut behind me with a bang like my
twelve-gauge shotgun going off, but Grandma didn’t hear it. She was
watching the local news on television and had the volume cranked up
as high as it would go.

Little Donny’s high-school class picture,
smeared across the television set bold as brass, reminded me that
he hadn’t changed much in the last year. The announcer finished up
as Grandma spotted me at the door.

“
Can’t nobody come by and
warn me when something like this happens?” Grandma crabbed.
“Breaking news bulletin, they say, and so I run in here from the
kitchen, and what do I see? A dead man being hauled out of the
woods and my great grandson wanted for questioning. You…” Grandma
shook a crooked finger in my direction. “You will be the death of
me just like you were the death of my boy.”

Grandma’s comments are outrageous, figments
of a warped imagination. I’ve learned to ignore them.

All the while she was complaining, she gave
me the evil eye. I helped her get up from the sofa after watching
her rock back and forth trying to get momentum on her own. She
gripped my offered hand with her own, cold and bony like the
remains of a scaled fish.

“
It’s all a
misunderstanding,” I shouted over the television noise. “I’m
helping with the case and so I’m in on some information that the
general public doesn’t have. Trust me, Little Donny’s not in any
trouble. Ask Blaze, if you don’t believe me.”

“
I would if I could find
him. At least he’d tell me the truth.”

Grandma Johnson is shriveled up like an old
apple you’d find in the back of your refrigerator when you finally
decide to clean it out. One that’s so old and moldy it takes a few
seconds to identify it. And she smells like a nursing home, which
is where I keep suggesting we put her. No one else agrees with me.
Yet. That’s because they aren’t the ones having to deal with her
all the time.

I don’t know why Grandma showed up on my
doorstep with her suitcase. Unless she planned to drive me
crazy.

The only thing that looks new on Grandma
Johnson is her dentures, which really are brand-spanking new. She
wore an old faded housedress with an apron tied around her waist
and she snapped her new teeth.

“
I better go check my
bird,” she said, “before I go burning it up. Almost forgot in all
the excitement.”

She sent one last glare my way and headed
for the kitchen. I shut off the television, then followed her and
watched as she opened the oven door. Holding hot pads in both
hands, she carefully pulled the roasting pan out of the oven. My
mother-in-law set it on top of the stove and removed the cover.

“
See there,” she said. “I
did almost burn it.”

I looked over her shoulder and couldn’t help
noticing the chicken was so rare it could almost fly away. I also
noticed that she had forgotten to turn on the oven. I made a mental
note to buy a microwave for times like this.

Maybe after the family digs into this
chicken, they’ll agree with me about the nursing home.

****

The supper table was quiet for a change.
Star, my youngest at forty-one, sat next to me looking as pretty as
a bouquet of pink four-o’-clocks. Even her lipstick and toenail
polish were pink to match her outfit. I look out for her the best I
can since I still think of her as my baby, so I was sharing the
plastic bag I held on my lap. She and I were tossing raw chicken
into it and watching the others work on figuring out what to do
with theirs.

“
Take a big bite of
Grandma’s chicken,” I said to Mary, the chief opponent to placing
Grandma in a nursing home but the last to offer to take her in.
“It’s real good.”

Grandma was crabbing as usual and forgetting
to eat.

“
It’s a disgrace to our
family,” she said, “and I want it fixed right now. Someone better
fix this mess Gertie made.”

I wasn’t sure why I was getting the blame
for Little Donny’s problems, but I kept quiet.

I smiled at Mary and Star, who nodded and
shook their heads in unison whenever appropriate. I missed Blaze at
the table. His cheeks would be filled with potato-and-cheese
casserole. Between bites he’d be pontificating, mostly rubbish and
self-important blab, but occasionally he’d drop bits of information
I could use.

“
I don’t know why we’re
sitting here, stuffing our faces. Shouldn’t we be out looking for
Little Donny?” I said to no one in particular.

“
He’ll turn up. Soon as he
gets hungry,” Star said.

“
He’s probably lost in the
woods by now,” I said, pushing away my full plate.

Grandma Johnson clicked her new teeth at me.
“Barney must be turning over in his grave, what with you carrying
on, causing trouble everywhere you go. Are you still associatin’
with that man-hungry woman?”

“
Cora Mae isn’t man-hungry.
She’s just spunky.”

“
In my day a woman like
that would’a been drove out of town loaded down with hot tar and
turkey feathers.”

“
Have a bite of chicken,” I
said to her. “It’s real good, the best you ever made.”

****

Everyone had gone home and Grandma Johnson
was in bed when I walked outside and turned my face to the starry
sky. A flash of metal drew my attention earthward. A sheriff’s
truck was attempting to hide on the side of my driveway under a
tall pine tree. Deputy Sheedlo peered out at me from the driver’s
seat when I approached.

“
You go ahead and take a
nice nap,” I said to him. “If Little Donny shows up, I’ll wake
you.”

“
My shift’s over in a bit.
I’ll make it.”

Back inside, I almost expected to find my
grandson snoring away in the spare bedroom. I fought the urge to
call his name through the house. His room didn’t appear to have
been touched since morning.

Wondering how to tell my other daughter the
bad news about her son, I decided to wait one more day in case
things straightened out. Chances were, Heather wasn’t getting
Michigan news way down in Milwaukee. She might as well have one
last good night’s sleep before I had to tell her that her son was
missing and a man had been murdered.

I didn’t have a clue where to start looking
for Little Donny. When I couldn’t stand the quiet any longer I
picked up the phone.

“
Cora Mae, we have work to
do tomorrow,” I said. “You need to come by with my new truck. We’ll
take it over to George’s for some rewiring.”

I knew that mentioning George would work.
Cora Mae would love to get her man-hungry--I mean spunky--hooks
into that hunk of a man.

“
What about George?” she
asked, coyly. “You two going out?”

Once, George and I went to a movie in
Escanaba, and it felt awkward and uncomfortable. We were best
friends, but all of a sudden we didn’t know what to say to each
other.

“
It’s way too early for me
to think about dating, Cora Mae.”

“
It’s been over two years.
Time to move on.”

“
I don’t want to ruin my
friendship with George. If we go out and it doesn’t work out,
things will never be the same.”

There was a pause on the other end of the
line, then Cora Mae said in a sweet, confidential voice. “Mind if I
give him a try?”

“
Go ahead,” I said, but I
didn’t mean it. I wasn’t a sexy woman like Cora Mae. What could
George see in little old me that he couldn’t find more of in my
friend? Unless he appreciated brains over beauty.

Because I didn’t want to be alone with my
thoughts I kept Cora Mae on the phone as long as I could, going on
about small things that didn’t really matter in the face of Little
Donny’s disappearance.

Eventually, Cora Mae hung up, and I spent
the night listening for the sound of a door opening.

It never did.

chapter 4

Tuesday morning, after a sleepless night, I
found Little Donny’s mother, Heather, and her husband, Big Donny,
pounding on my door. It was long before the sun was up. The moon
was still visible over the horizon, and the guinea hens were still
roosting in the trees. Usually they hear when someone pulls into
the driveway, and they come running, squawking up a storm. You have
to be up early to beat those hens, and Heather was.

My daughter blew into the room like a
tornado and threw herself at me, sobbing and wailing. Big Donny
blustered after her, bogged down with enough suitcases to last the
winter.

I unwrapped Heather’s death grip from my
neck and deposited her on a kitchen chair with a box of tissues
while I made coffee and popped frozen cinnamon rolls into the
oven.

“
Milwaukee’s five hours
away,” I said. “You must have started out before
midnight.”

“
Blaze called and told us
about Little Donny.” Heather’s sobs were turning into hiccups. “I
couldn’t sleep from the worry so we packed up and started driving.
Is there any news?”

“
Not yet.”

Big Donny dove into the cinnamon rolls with
the same determination as his son would have. After he’d swallowed
three without chewing, I put two on a plate for Heather for when
she felt like eating again, and took one for myself. I handed mine
to Big Donny after I noticed him eyeing his empty plate.

“
I’ll pop a few more in the
oven,” I said. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”

Big Donny wasn’t big, just like Little Donny
wasn’t little. Big Donny stood about five-foot-five in his brown
wingtips, but he made up for it in girth. He’s almost as wide as he
is tall, with a short guy complex the size of his white Lincoln
Continental. A carnivore, he absolutely loves meat and potatoes as
long as they don’t touch each other on the plate. He looks down his
nose at those who hunt and tend gardens for their survival.

He’s a stockbroker in downtown Milwaukee,
and his meat has to come from the grocery store, preferably from
one of those specialty stores, and his oversized suits have to be
Italian.

Little Donny, on the other hand, appreciates
his Swedish, backwoods heritage, and when I get done with him,
he’ll be shooting the knobs off clothespins on the clothesline.
Even though I don’t hunt, I know how to hold a rifle, and I can
shoot straight if I put my mind to it.

“
You don’t look the worse
for wear,” I observed, watching Donny pound down my share of
cinnamon rolls.

“
Heather was so worked up I
had her drive. I slept most of the way. No use both of us suffering
from lack of sleep.”

Big Donny always has been an insensitive
oaf.

Heather looked a mess. Her eyes were just
about puffed shut and her hair looked like a rat’s nest. I helped
her get comfortable while Donny dragged in more suitcases from his
fancy Lincoln.

The guinea hens eventually discovered the
Lincoln intruder and shouted and flapped around the car. I threw
some feed behind the shed and told them to scat, but they ignored
me.

The guinea hens and I have learned to get
along, but it took awhile. At first I thought they were like
chickens, but guineas are much more independent, which is why I
like them so much. They don’t take well to confinement and neither
do I. We have an understanding. They’ll hang around and eat bugs,
especially wood ticks, which I hate, as long as I don’t try to coop
them up inside chicken wire.

Guinea hens take their chances in the
treetops through the night, and occasionally a conniving raccoon
will outsmart one of them, but it’s rare. During the day when they
aren’t snacking on bugs, they stand guard in the front yard against
automobiles attempting to encroach on their territory.

I was out in the driveway having my “bug
off” conversation with the hens when Blaze’s sheriff truck pulled
in, followed by another truck full of deputies. A slew of uniforms
piled out and I noticed Devil Fang’s cage in the truck bed.

The guineas must have spotted the dog too,
because they cleared out.

I groaned as Deputy Sheedlo hauled the
animal out under Dickey Snell’s supervision.

“
What are you planning on
doing with that pathetic excuse for a search dog?” I
asked.