November Hunt (18 page)

I prayed three long strides had already taken Mitchell out of the smoke room. I held up my hands like I was jumping out of a cake, my slingback heels still laced through the fingers of one hand. “Surprise!”

“I'll say. Jerry, come here. This room has a secret center!”

The other guy poked his head in. They were both variations on a theme—the sandy-haired, beer-bellied, small-town guy with bland features and a big heart, if you asked his wife and kids and if they didn't know he was visiting a porno room.

“What can I get you two to drink?”

Whiner smiled. “Coors light. One for Jerry, too. You'll come right back?”

“You betcha,” I said. I felt a little sorry for them, despite the proclivities that had brought them to this room. I bet they felt as out of their element at the party as I had. From what I'd caught of their conversation, they were hometown guys calling in a favor, not hunt club regulars.

I couldn't hide the surge of relief I felt when I exited the secret room. I wasn't safe yet, but I let my breath trickle more naturally. The Men's Smoke Room reeked of freshly lit cigarettes, and a partially extinguished ember glowed orange in the darkness. I tried to walk naturally, heels in my hand, but all the paper crowding my nylons was chafing against my skin. I didn't dare to move fast until I was at the door, when I dashed out. Free at last.

“What the hell were you doing in there?”

My eyes shot to the right. Maggie was barreling down the hall toward me, looking mightily displeased.

“Ah, getting drinks for a couple guests.”

Her eyebrow raised. “They're in there now?”

“Yes.”

She wasn't entirely buying it, but her options were limited. If I was telling the truth and she went in there to check, she ran the risk of embarrassing a client. If I was lying and I'd been in there snooping or stealing, I was out now, and there weren't many places for me to hide stuff. “Get back to work. I'll wait for them to come out.”

“Thanks,” I said. And I walked directly to the changing room, swapped out heels for Sorels, grabbed my clothes, and jogged to my car.

Thirty-four

“Those are bookie sheets.”

Curtis sat across from me, the steel-gray sky of the storm finally on us. His window blinds were open, but there was little light to allow in, even though it was only 4:00 in the afternoon. I'd had Peggy watch the library for me so I could run to the Battle Lake Senior Sunset during visiting hours. If anyone would know what the number-scribbled sheets I'd pinched from the hunt club meant, Curtis would. He was the town's memory. Many people wrote him off because he was pushing 100 and fished off the roof of the nursing home whenever he could sneak out, but one look into his ice-blue eyes and you knew he was fully in possession of his faculties.

“Gambling? What kind?”

“Can't be sure. Looks like football based on the numbers, but it's all in code. It'd be impossible to say.”

“Is it legal?”

“How many of these sheets did you see?”

“At least fifty, I'd say.”

“Gambling on that level would get a person in a lot of trouble in Minnesota. If any money is changing hands, that is. You see the initials in this first column?”

I nodded.

“Those are likely the gamblers. These here numbers are the teams—VKS could be the Vikings and SKS might be the Sea-hawks—and these are the points. This last column covers the amounts. This appears to be a profitable business. These sheets alone are worth tens of thousands of dollars.”

I ran my finger down the first column of the three pages I'd stolen. It wasn't until the third that I saw it: FCM, Frederick Craig Milton. “What would you do with these sheets if you were me?”

“You friends with the people they belong to?”

“Nope. I'm actually feeling a little poorly toward them.”

“Then I'd bring them to the police. That is, if I wanted to answer a lot of questions about how I acquired them.” Curtis winked at me and then cocked his head toward the window. “You best run home and pick up some candles and nonperishable food on your way. I've seen a lot of storms, but none with teeth like this one. Once she bites down, she's not going to let up for days.”

The slate of the sky reflected off his eyes, turning them as gray as mercury. I shivered. “That's good advice. Thanks.” I stood and kissed him on his forehead.

I was almost out the door when he stopped me with a question. “When is Mrs. Berns coming back?”

“Soon. Next Wednesday.”

“Good. It gets too quiet around here without her.”

I smiled and left him by the window, shaving wood off a stick with his pen knife. I knew he'd hide both if a caregiver poked her head in.

Outside, the weather was a sterling haze, thick with unshed snow. I sniffed the air. The clean pre-scent of a blizzard was strong. Curtis was right. All smart people would go home and wait this one out. I couldn't do it, though. I sensed I was close to something big, but I didn't know how to string all the clues together. Was the gambling operation tied to the two murders? If so, how? It didn't help matters that I was hungover from three shots of schnapps. Like a bad one-night stand, I was trying to put it behind me, but I was ashamed. I needed someone to make me feel better about my bad choices. I cruised to Sid and Nancy's, but they'd closed up early. The sign on their door said, “Snow Coming. Stay Safe.”

I could go around the back and ring the bell wired to their living quarters on the second floor, but I didn't want to bother them. They got so little time off together. With Mrs. Berns gone, that left only one option. The Glass Menagerie. A light was on in the front window across the street. The first snowflake fell as I crossed. It was huge, as puffy as a pillow and trembling with the news: a storm was coming.

Mrs. Berns had once said of Jed that he'd have a hard time stacking boxes to reach a banana. He wasn't the most linear thinker
, that was true, but maybe that was exactly what I needed right now, someone to help me tackle this puzzle from an unconventional angle. The sign in the storefront window said “Closed,” but the front door was unlocked. I let myself in, accompanied by the fairy song of door chimes. I made a beeline toward the shelf of glass sea creatures.

“Can I help you?”

I turned, startled. “Hi, Monty. I stopped by to see Jed. Is he here?

“Naw.” He wiped his hands on a towel streaked with bright colors and dingy black ash. “He's working. Battle Sacks.” The acrid smell of the furnace dominated the air.

“Shoot! That's right.”

“Something I can help you with?”

I took in his ever-present rainbow pompom hat, worn flannel shirt, and frayed jeans. His hands were scarred and dirty with hard work. “How good are you with puzzles?”

He smiled. “Not very. I'm better with sandwiches. You eat yet?”

I considered lying, but my stomach mutinied and let out a growl. “Not yet. I don't eat red meat, though.”

“You're in luck. Neither do I. How does a hummus on pita bread with lettuce, tomato, and black olives sound?”

“Like the best proposal I'll get in this lifetime.”

He chuckled. “Good enough. I just have to shut down my work in back.”

I followed him to the rear door, fascinated and yet repelled by the hellish glow of the furnace. When Monty leaned in to adjust the knobs, it cast his face in red. “Storm coming,” I commented, to get my mind off the vision.

“This'll just take a minute.” He turned, closed the nearest canisters, and returned tools to drawers before leading me upstairs.

“Do you live here, too?”

“Yup. One half is a one-bedroom apartment. The other half is an efficiency. I get the efficiency.” He led me into his one-room living space, a neat arrangement with a bed, a bookshelf, a tiny kitchen with a table and four chairs, and a door to what I presumed was a bathroom. “Have a seat.”

I obliged and watched him whip up the best sandwich I'd ever eaten in my life. It was the perfect mixture of creamy and crunchy, sweet and salty, with a solid umami flavor in the hummus. “Did you make this yourself ?”

“From scratch. I even boil the beans. Care for a beer?”

Outside, huge snowflakes were scratching softly at the window, pausing to take in every view they could before they fell to the ground forever. Although it had left me feeling guilty, the schnapps last night had tasted good. A beer with this sandwich would be even better. I could schedule time next week to think about the implications of both. “Do you have potato chips?”

“Only plain rippled, lotsa salt.”

Shame is for sissies. “I'm in.”

He leaned back in his chair, grabbed a silver bag from the nearest cupboard, and tossed it to me. Then he stood to pull two Heinekens out of the fridge, popped their caps with the edge of a lighter, and passed me one. I took a deep swallow, letting the rich, bitter liquid coat my tongue before swallowing.

“I see you're a fan of beer.”

I opened my eyes. “Haven't had one in a while.”

He nodded as if he understood, and went back to his sandwich. He'd done a lot for me. He'd saved me from an ice cubing when we'd first met and nurtured Jed's creativity and responsibility. I popped a potato chip in my mouth. “When you were in high school, do you remember hearing about a group of guys who called themselves the Four Musketeers?”

“Sure.” He drank an inch of beer. “Everyone knew about the Musketeers. Tom Kicker was one of them. That why you're asking?”

“Yeah. What were they like?”

He considered my question, playing with his beer cap. “Young. Entitled. All of them except for Clive was the son of a rich man. Nothing special in any of them, that I saw. I suppose none of them moved very far away from here. This area's been good to them.”

“You know where Clive and Tom ended up. Mitchell inherited his dad's hunt club over by Millerville. Frederick ended up a lawyer in Fergus.”

Something flashed in Monty's eyes. “Frederick? You mean Freddy ‘Fingers' Milton?”

“I suppose.”

“He added some respectable syllables to his name to distance himself from his shoplifting days, then.”

“He's running for county commissioner.”

Monty sighed. “That's the way that works. Let's hope he's a changed man.”

“I'm not sure,” I said, the beer warming my belly pleasantly. “Were you around in 1962 when the girl was raped?” I recounted the story and filled him in on my belief that three of the Four Musketeers had been responsible for the attack, and that Clive was now dating the woman they'd assaulted. The more I talked, the quieter Monty grew. When I finished, he was gripping his green bottle so tightly I was afraid it'd shatter.

“You need to warn Carla. Now.”

The urgency in his voice tripped my panic wire. “You think she's in danger?”

“Your theory has a hole. A hole big enough to drive a truck through. Clive was no innocent to that attack. They didn't call them the Four Musketeers for nothing.”

“But that makes no sense. Why would he date a woman he'd attacked?”

“You've met Mitchell, Clive, and Freddy. Right? And you know of Tom and Lyle. How would you describe the first three?”

“Mitchell and Frederick make my skin crawl. Clive may be a good guy, but he's made a lot of bad choices.”

“Would you call him easily influenced?”

I thought back to what I knew of him. “I'm not sure. You probably know him better than me.”

“Then neither of us knows him well. What's your take on Tom and Lyle?”

“Tom was a saint, by all accounts. Lyle was rough around the edges, but he didn't send up any red flags.”

“Exactly. From what you've told me tonight, Clive, Tom, and Lyle were the weak links. If someone wanted to make sure the story of the rape was buried forever, say someone running for county commissioner who had to make sure his ugly past didn't find him, he'd need to deal with those three. He bribes Clive to shoot Tom and then Lyle. Once Clive's in that deep, he'll never talk. That leaves only one person who could ever damage Frederick or Mitchell.”

My stomach tightened into a fist. “Carla.”

“Do you know where she lives?”

“No, but she's probably at work.” I glanced toward the window. The snow was swirling as thick as fog. “Can I use your phone?” I dialed Bonnie & Clyde's. It rang, and rang, and rang. There was no answering machine. I wasn't surprised that Ruby didn't own one. If she was too busy to answer, she'd figure the person could call back. I hung up after the twelfth ring.

“No answer?” he asked.

I shook my head and looked toward the window again. I could no longer make out the street lights.

He grimaced. “You want me to drive?”

“It'd save you from pulling me out of the ditch later.”

We both bundled up and headed to his old Ford pickup, the safest tank in the Minnesota arsenal. The drive to Bonnie & Clyde's was tense. When we arrived, the parking lot was jammed with snowmobiles fast becoming drifted over with hungry snow. Inside, the place was crawling with sled riders, bulky in their snowsuits open to their waists, drinking with the fervor of someone who doesn't think they'll need to drive home. I elbowed my way through, ignoring the greetings from those who recognized me from the library. The smell of melting snow and two-stroke fuel was strong. When I finally caught Ruby's attention, she said Carla had the night off and gave me directions to her house.

Monty barreled along the dirt roads. I held on to his dashboard to keep from flying against the passenger door. I loved my Toyota, but she wouldn't have stood a fighting chance in this white-out. We already had over two inches of snow accumulation, and the storm hadn't even tuned its piano. The swirling white was disorienting, blanketing everything equally so the unplowed road blended with the ditch.

Carla's was the last house on a dead end road, an ugly single-wide trailer in a copse of scraggly elms. Her rusted Buick was a car-shaped snow sculpture leading to the front door. I felt a respite from the panic that had been riding me here. There were no footprints in the snow, no tracks in the driveway. Carla could be home safe, riding out the storm.

I hopped out of the pickup and waded through the snow to the front entrance. I had to kick aside a drift to yank open the screen door. No one answered my insistent knocking. I tried yelling, but no response.

“No.” Monty peering through the front window, hands cupped around his eyes.

I jumped off the steps and waded over next to him, disregarding
the scratching skeleton of a rose bush. I had to perch on tiptoes to spot what he saw. All around the main room was the evidence of a struggle—a plant fallen to the floor, its black dirt spread out like a fan, a broken glass, a shelf tipped over. In the middle of the mess sprawled Carla, motionless, her arm twisted underneath her.