Stake & Eggs (28 page)

In the stall next to Mocha, she could hear Grommet shuffling about. “Hey, nobody’s
leaving you out,” she told him. She stepped sideways and gave him a pat as his big
ears flicked forward. “Nice guy,” she told him. “Love you, too, you big galoot.” She
didn’t ride Grommet, but he made a dandy companion for Mocha.

Taking a step backward, Suzanne glanced around the barn. Her eyes had gradually become
accustomed to the dark, and now she could make out different shapes. The tack hanging
on the wall, an old wagon, bales of hay and straw stacked ten high.

Then her eyes moved to the narrow ladder that led to the hayloft.

Could Colby be up there? Hiding out in the hayloft? He said he’d spent a night there
before. Maybe he’d come back. With the body heat from the animals and a warm blanket,
he could easily be comfortable up there.

“Colby?” she called out. Then she called his name a little louder, a little more insistently.
“Colby?”

She waited, but heard nothing.

Still, Suzanne had a funny feeling that Colby might be nearby. Doogie would scoff
at her intuition, make man jokes about it, but she knew it was real. It was the same
intuition most women possessed. That edgy feeling that a person or situation might
be a little dangerous. A knowingness that it was always better, as a woman, to be
safe than sorry.

Stepping out of the barn, Suzanne spotted Ducovny’s snowmobile. She didn’t recall
seeing it when she first arrived. Huh? Had she missed it? She walked slowly toward
it, wondering if it could be the one that had terrorized her tonight.

She crept closer and stared at the Plexiglas windshield. It was completely intact.

Wait a minute, didn’t Ducovny have two snowmobiles? Where was the other one? Hidden
somewhere away from prying eyes? Or just sitting in one of the sheds, needing a new
carburetor?

Suzanne gazed at the farmhouse and wondered: Was Ducovny a danger? Could he be the
killer after all?

She didn’t think so. At least she hoped not.

T
WENTY
minutes later, Suzanne was safe and sound in her own home.
Finally.
She’d put on gray sweatpants, a pale pink sweater, and UGG slippers, and was sipping
a glass of milk. She’d poked through her CD collection and picked out a Lady Antebellum
album. Now, Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now” was playing, and she was humming along
with the heartfelt lyrics.

“It’s a quarter after one, I’m all alone, and I need you now…”

A knock sounded at the front door, startling Suzanne. She doused the living room light
and padded to the
entryway. Carefully, slowly, she peered through the tiny window in the front door.

Letting out a squeal, Suzanne pulled open the door and stepped into Sam’s arms.

“Need a hug?” asked Sam.

“Need you now,” said Suzanne.

R
ED
and green peppers sizzled in Petra’s big cast-iron skillet along with chicken-and-apple
sausages, the Cackleberry Club’s lighter, healthier alternative to the pork fat and
cracklings normally ingested by their customers.

It was Saturday morning, and they were only serving breakfast today. An abbreviated
menu that included pepper frittatas, pancakes, English muffins, and the sausages.
The plan was to close at eleven so Suzanne and Toni could head out to the big ice-fishing
contest. Petra was going to stay behind and supervise the snow plowing of the parking
lot, the erection of a large open-sided tent, and the installation of a cauldron,
all necessities for their Winter Blaze party tomorrow night.

“What am I gonna tell folks if they ask for pork sausage?” said Toni. She stood in
the kitchen, a pencil poked behind one ear, wrapping the ties of her apron around
her narrow waist.

“Tell ’em we’re fresh out,” said Petra.

“Permanently?” said Toni. “Cause some of those farm boys do love to chow down on their
real-deal sausage links.”

“Tell them to please give our chicken-and-apple sausages a chance,” said Petra.

“I’ll tell ’em,” Toni muttered in a singsong voice, “but they won’t like it.”

“Suzanne,” Petra called, “have you found my unsalted butter yet?”

Suzanne backed out of the cooler with a stack of boxes. “Yup, got it right here.”

“That’s another thing they’re not going to like,” said Toni.

“Unsalted butter?” said Suzanne. “Why? It’s what some of the finest chefs use. It’s
practically a staple in French cooking.” She’d recently found a small local creamery,
Sun Vista Creamery, that specialized in artisanal butter.

“
Foreign
cooking,” said Toni.

“You sure have a case of the grumps,” Petra said to Toni as she poured her egg mixture
into a baking pan. “What’s that all about?”

“Aw, I’m just…” Toni’s eyes slid over to Suzanne. “Should we tell her?”

“Tell me what?” asked Petra.

Toni bit her lower lip. “About last night.”

Petra stopped pouring batter. “This isn’t about the play, is it?”

“I’m afraid it’s après play,” said Suzanne.

“Oh dear,” said Petra. “What happened?”

And so they told her. About snooping around Claudia’s house, deciding to hunt for
the treasure medallion, then being terrorized by a crazed snowmobiler in the dark
of night.

“Snowmobiler,” said Petra, practically spitting out the word. “You think it could
have been the same nutcase who strung that wire out back?”

Toni shrugged. “Probably not.”

“If you say no, it probably was,” said Petra. She let loose a deep and reluctant sigh.
“You guys really go out of your way looking for trouble, don’t you?”

“It all just kind of…happened,” said Suzanne. She felt bad that Petra was so unsettled
about it.

“Have you related any of this to Doogie yet?” asked Petra.

“Lot of good that will do,” said Toni.

“Tell him anyway,” said Petra, “and let the chips fall
where they may. He’ll either blast you to kingdom come or use the information to figure
things out.”

“Maybe,” said Suzanne.

“No maybe,” said Petra. “Just do it.” She gazed at Toni, who was edging toward the
door, trying for a clean getaway. “You make sure Doogie hears about all this stuff,
okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” said Toni, finally making her exit.

“P
ETRA
’
S
really crabby, huh?” said Toni. She was stacking glazed donuts and strawberry muffins
in the pie saver while Suzanne brewed a pot of English breakfast tea.

“She’s just worried about us,” said Suzanne.

“We can take care of ourselves.”

Suzanne thought about last night, how frightened they’d been out on the ice.
Maybe, maybe not.
She waited a few moments, watching the tea leaves slowly unfurl. “Sam came over last
night.”

“Did you tell him what happened?” asked Toni.

“No. I wanted to, but…no.”

“Good girl,” said Toni. “I bet we figure this mess out yet. Maybe even before Doogie
does.”

“There are just so many strange pieces to this puzzle,” said Suzanne. “The murder,
the affair, the attacks on Joey, and…”

Toni held up a finger. “But we’re not going to worry our fuzzy little heads about
any of that today, are we? Because today—we ice fish!”

Suzanne couldn’t help but laugh. Toni looked so serious and gung ho. “When did you
turn into such a confirmed angler?”

“When I found out first prize was a hundred bucks,” said Toni. “I tell you, we’re
all set. Junior gave me a couple of spincast rods and a bucket of minnows.” She glanced
out the window at her car. “That’s if they haven’t frozen solid. Aw heck, they’ll
thaw out. It’s not like they’re fancy filets or anything, they’re just itty-bitty
things.”

“Very appealing,” said Suzanne. The last time she’d tried to bait a hook was at Bible
camp when she was ten years old. She’d ended up in tears with a worm stuck down the
back of her blouse.

“And we’ll take the Jungle Cruiser, so we can drive all over the lake.” The Jungle
Cruiser was Toni’s nickname for her old Chevy. “We’ll motorvate, as Junior calls it.
He even put on a set of studded tires for super traction.”

“Aren’t those illegal?”

Toni held a finger to her mouth. “Shhhh.”

“Suzanne, Toni!” called Petra. “What’s going on out there?”

B
REAKFAST
slipped by fast. Toni did most of the order taking and serving, while Suzanne hunkered
at the old brass cash register, making change and dashing out to clear tables and
pour refills when the need arose.

They worked quickly and efficiently, with Toni only taking thirty seconds off to listen
for her fourth treasure-hunt clue, chewing on her eraser once she’d finished writing
it down.

By eleven fifteen, they were on their way, bundled into warm gear and humping along
in Toni’s Jungle Cruiser as it spewed black clouds of oil and telegraphed every rut
and pothole.

“I’ve been thinking about last night,” said Toni as she downshifted, grinding her
gears.

“Okay,” said Suzanne. She cracked open her side window, fearing Toni’s car was dispensing
a lethal dose of carbon monoxide.

“Do you think Claudia and George saw us?”

“Why would you think that?”

Toni slammed a cassette into an old-fashioned player from which red, yellow, and green
wires stuck out, like a festive bowl of spaghetti. “I got to thinking, maybe George
Draper was the mad snowmobiler last night,” said Toni. “Maybe he’s the one who came
after us.”

“He seemed rather…occupied, wouldn’t you say?” suggested Suzanne.

Toni snickered. “Yeah, I guess.”

“But still, somebody was trying to send us a warning. To scare us off, or stop us.”

“Yes, they were,” said Toni. As they approached a four-way stop, she pumped her clutch
wildly and fought with her stick shift even as it continued to grind away, stuck somewhere
in the nether region between second and third gear.

“The question still remains,” said Suzanne, coughing slightly and rolling down her
window even more, “who was it? Who came roaring after us last night? That’s the burning
question.”

T
HEY
rolled past a faded green boathouse, all boarded up for the winter, and down an ice-covered
ramp. Ahead of them, covering some two thousand acres, was Fish Lake. It was a smaller
lake, known for yielding rough fish, like eelpout and carp. But the Department of
Natural Resources had stocked it with walleye fingerlings some four years ago, so
there remained a glimmer of hope for today’s ice-fishing contest.

“Holy lug nuts!” Toni exclaimed as they headed out onto the ice. “Will you look at
this?”

“It’s a veritable carnival,” said Suzanne.

And it was. An entire village had sprung up practically overnight in the middle of
the lake. There were popcorn wagons, a red-and-yellow-striped beer tent, a hot pretzel
booth, and various church-sponsored booths selling chili con carne, tacos, fried cheese
curds, buffalo wings, and pickles on a stick. And more than two hundred ice-fishing
fans dressed warmly in snowmobile suits, pac boots, camo jackets, and ski jackets.

But the most amazing sight was the proliferation of fish houses. There must have been
at least fifty of them, some
as large as a Winnebago, others the dimension of a small outhouse.

Toni chuckled. “Like the good book says, give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day.
Teach him to fish, and he’ll sit in one of those stupid little shacks guzzling beer
all day.”

“What book says that?” laughed Suzanne.

Toni touched a thumb to the front of her snowmobile suit. “My diary.”

Toni parked the car, then jumped out to unpack their spincast rods and bucket of minnows.
Suzanne pulled on a pair of pac boots she’d borrowed from Petra and pushed a woolen
hat down on her head.

“They’ve augered plenty of fishing holes,” said Toni, looking around, “so I guess
we just pick one and toss in our lines.”

“Works for me,” said Suzanne. Settling in, she baited her hook with a minimum of trouble,
then tossed the pathetic little minnow into their small bubble of water, where it
promptly sank. “Now what?”

“Now we kind of hunker down,” said Toni. “You see that red bobber?”

“Yup.”

“If it goes under, grab your line and start hauling like crazy.”

“Sure thing,” said Suzanne. She had some expertise at fly fishing, and had even caught
a few brook trout and rainbow trout. But this type of fishing, this kind of passive
fishing, was new to her. As she stared at her immobile bobber and shifted from one
foot to the other, she began to understand why fish houses were so well stocked with
beer and rigged with satellite TVs. Anything to alleviate the mind-numbing boredom.

“Hey!” said Toni, “look who just showed up. It’s the Doog-meister!”

Sheriff Doogie’s tan-and-cream cruiser crept past them. Doogie was surveying the entire
spectacle from behind aviator-style mirrored sunglasses. It was an affectation he’d
picked up from a friend who served with the highway patrol.

They watched as Doogie parked his vehicle off to the side, climbed out, hitched up
his pants, and wandered leisurely from group to group, nodding and shaking hands.
He was also, Suzanne decided, turning a blind eye to all the drinking that was going
on. Beer, sanctioned by the city and served by the local VFW, was okay. Hard liquor
was not. When Doogie finally sauntered over to join them, Suzanne jumped on him right
away, eager to pump him for information.

“Did you call the Minneapolis police?” Suzanne asked. “Did you get any sort of line
on Colby?”

Doogie looked at her like she was daft. “Are you kidding? They got dozens of missing
kids! They told me around sixty at last count.”

“And no one who meets Colby’s description?” asked Suzanne.

Doogie snorted. “They
all
do! They’re all skinny and waifish and wear dark clothes.”

“Colby is kind of Goth-looking,” Toni piped up. “Did you mention that?”

“I did not,” Doogie said, “because I have no idea what that means.” He frowned at
her. “Do
you
know what it means?”