A Lonely Way to Die: A Utah O'Brien Mystery Novel (Minnesota Mysteries Series Book 2)

BOOK: A Lonely Way to Die: A Utah O'Brien Mystery Novel (Minnesota Mysteries Series Book 2)
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A Lonely
Way to Die

A Utah O’Brien Mystery

 

Jonni Good

 

 

Wet Cat Books, Hendricks, MN

 

Copyright © 2016 Jonni Good

 

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are the product of the author’s imagination. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

ONE

 

 

It was just after sunrise on the second Saturday in November. Six inches of snow fell during the night, our first snowfall of the season. The wet snow clung to every tree branch and every blade of tall grass on the abandoned field at the edge of town.

I saw black and white stripes moving behind a wild hazel bush, and my dog smelled skunk.

“Jocko! No!” I lunged for his collar, but I missed, and fell face down in the snow. Seconds later, my Border collie found his skunk, with the usual result.

I struggled to my feet and brushed wet snow off my aching knees and elbows as Jocko slunk back to me, his ears and tail hanging low in shame. The cloud of sulfurous stink that rose off the yellow stain on his chest was thick enough to taste. At least the spray didn’t get in his eyes.

“Third time this month, Jocko. What is the matter with you?”

I waved my arm in the general direction of the river. “Go rub it off on the snow.”

He tried. He hates the smell as much as I do. He rubbed his chest against snow-covered weeds and wildflowers, and wiggled through a stand of high grass. When that didn’t work, he put his head down and tunneled through the deeper drifts, with nothing but his ears and tail showing above the snow.

That’s how he found her. She was completely hidden beneath hazel branches that arched protectively over her snow-covered body.

Jocko whined and started pawing at the snow, and uncovered her hand.

I dropped to my knees and shoved my dog aside. I frantically swept the snow off the body, searching for her head. Maybe the emergency techs could save her.

When her face came into view, I was flooded with relief. She was a stranger, someone I’d only seen one time before.

I pulled off my gloves, ran my hand across my eyes to clear away the tears, and used two fingers to find her carotid artery. I held my fingertips against her neck for several minutes, but I didn’t find a pulse.

 

I stood up and pushed Jocko away with my leg so I could breathe a little easier. Then I pulled my flip phone out of my jacket pocket with my cold, shaking hand.

My first call was to Mort Schwaab. He’s a retired sheriff, and he was eating breakfast at Angie’s Diner with my mother, two blocks away. The volunteers who drive the fire truck have emergency medical training, too, but Mort was closer.

The call went straight to voice mail. Of course it would—Mort always turns his phone off when he eats.

I tried again, this time calling the number for the restaurant. Angie picked up.

“Utah, I’m busy.”

“Tell Mort to turn on his phone. I found a body at—”

The phone went dead. It rang before I could dial Mort’s number again.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Webb’s land. Southeast corner.”

I didn’t want to look at that frozen face any more, so I closed my eyes and imagined Mort scooting his wide rump out of the red Naugahyde corner booth at the back of the diner. He would pull his short blue jacket over his denim overalls. The coat’s zipper would give him trouble until he stretched the fabric over his ample belly. Then he would lean down to give my mother a kiss on the forehead, stand up again, and pull his dark blue watch cap over his bald head. Now he would be striding down the full length of the diner, and wink at Angie as he passed.

He would push through the glass front door and walk about ten feet to Sam Two Hawk’s snowmobile, which he ‘borrowed’ that morning to drive himself and my mother one block from her little vintage trailer to the restaurant.

When I pictured him reaching the machine, I heard the whine of the engine as he turned the key. It would take him less than two minutes to reach me.

Now that help was on the way, I let out my breath and opened my eyes.

 

I could tell by the way the snow was mounded over her body that the woman was curled up into a fetal position, with her back pressed against the multiple trunks of the hazel bush. When Jocko first found her, a flock of small birds flew out of the bush, but now they were back again, chattering and hopping from one branch to another while I stood only a few feet away.

On the eastern horizon, one small section of the sky was clear. The rising sun was brilliant red, surrounded by bright orange light. As I waited for Mort, the dark clouds pulled together again, and the sun disappeared.

The sound of the snowmobile came closer. I flipped open my phone one more time and called 9-1-1. The call didn’t take long. The dispatcher in Randall, thirty miles away, would call Louise Martin, who lives next door to the fire station here in West Elmer, Minnesota. A switch on her kitchen wall turns on the siren. Three volunteer firemen would drop whatever they were doing as soon as they heard it. They would bring the big truck, because that’s where they store the emergency medical kit. One of them would follow with the ambulance.

After calling Louise Martin, the dispatcher would notify the sheriff.

The woman’s eyes were closed. Flakes of snow still clung to her dark eyelashes, and her straight black shoulder-length hair pressed against the cold flesh of her cheek and neck. She had freckles and wore dark red lipstick. Her skin was blue from the cold.

A niggling memory tried to make its way through my over-excited brain. I saw her the day before, at the diner, but even then she seemed familiar. Maybe I saw her on TV. No, that wasn’t it …

I heard the first notes of the siren.

The snowmobile slowed, and Mort drove around the no-trespassing sign at the end of the river walk. Then he sped up again, bouncing across snow-covered weeds and tall grass. As he passed a clump of willow, two does and a faun jumped up and bounded away. Jocko and I walked right past the willows a few minutes earlier, and we didn’t see the deer.

The noisy machine stopped ten feet away from the body, with a dramatic turn at the last minute that sent snow flying.

When the engine turned off, Mort’s nose wrinkled and his lip curled in disgust. “Holy crap. He stinks. What is this, the third time this month?” He waved his arms to make Jocko move back. Jocko thought Mort wanted to play.

“No! Go away! Jocko, sit! Utah, do something. Get him away from me.”

Jocko’s ears fell. He moved back a few feet, and sat. I pointed to a spot farther away, near a cottonwood sapling. My dog went where I pointed, and sat again, pouting.

The old lawman swung his leg over the back of the long black snowmobile seat, and his heavy felt-lined boots sank into the deep snow. He walked to the body, knelt, and pulled off his right glove. He felt for a pulse while looking at his watch. Finally, he pulled his hand away and shook his head. He relaxed and sat back on his heels.

“Three minutes, no pulse. The snow started around ten o’clock last night, and there’s no snow under the body. She’s been here a long time, nine hours at least. No way to tell when she died, though.” The hound-dog creases on his face were even deeper than normal as he looked down at her. He shook his head, grieving for this stranger.

“She was at the diner yesterday,” I said. “I thought I recognized her, but I don’t know why. Conrad Krueger was there, too, and another man at the counter. I can’t remember who, but Angie will.”

He stood and took a deep breath. It made him cough. He frowned accusingly at Jocko, and shook his head again. “How can such a smart dog—?”

“Too many skunks. They’re after the hazel nuts, same as the deer. It’s not entirely his fault.”

“What were you doing out here, anyway? For a mayor, you’re setting a bad example, trespassing on somebody else’s land.”

“I like to watch the sun come up. It’s peaceful out here.”

“Not so peaceful this morning, is it? Go on home,” he said. “Wally can talk to you at the museum, if he needs to.” Wally Adamsen is our county sheriff, and an old friend.

I didn’t move. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t he need to talk to me? Do you think this was an accident?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know yet. I’ll let the EMTs brush off the rest of the snow, but nothing I can see points to foul play. It looks like she laid herself down and let herself freeze. It was below 20 last night, but it would still take some time. Maybe the coroner will find something, once they get her to the morgue.”

That reminded me—the volunteer crew would need to carry the body down the river walk, and it was still covered with six inches of snow. I pulled out my phone one more time and called Billy Mack. Billy clears the driveways and sidewalks around town for people who can still afford his help, and he always starts out at the crack of dawn. He agreed to come right over.

I put the phone back in my pocket and turned to stare at the body. “The way she’s curled up,” I said, “It’s weird, like she’s hiding from something. And she isn’t wearing her coat—she has a dark red one, same color as her lipstick. I saw the coat yesterday at the diner. It was nice, like something you’d wear in the city.”

“Hypothermia,” he said. “You do strange things at the end, without thinking. Taking off your clothes is one of them. The coat’s probably close by.”

“But why is she hiding under the bush if she wasn’t trying to get away from someone?”

“Instinct. Doesn’t mean anything.”

I let this sink in for a moment. “You think she might have done this on purpose? Suicide by hypothermia? That’s insane. Besides, how could a stranger even find this place in the middle of the night?”

“It happens, but it’s a hard, lonely way to die. Most people have more sense. But I’m not saying that’s what happened. It’s not my call.”

He pulled off his watch cap and gave his head a good scratch. “You know, she looks vaguely familiar to me, too. Maybe she has family here in town. I don’t want to search for ID until the emergency guys get here, though. They have a right to mess up the scene, and I don’t.”

Mort turned away and ran his eyes over the body again, dismissing me. There was nothing left for me to do, so I started back across the field, following the tracks of the snowmobile.

 

 

TWO

 

 

Jocko and I reached the edge of the field and stepped around the no-trespassing sign. We were a few feet down the paved river walk when I stepped into an opening in the hazel hedge to let Billy Mack’s snow plow go by. Jocko sat close by my side, smearing more skunk juice on my jeans. I covered my nose with one hand and used the other one to wave as Billy drove by on his tractor.

The plow couldn’t get around the barrier at the end of the walk, so Jocko and I stayed put, waiting for Billy Mack to turn around and drive back towards the diner. I waved again as he passed the second time, going the other way. It’s a big tractor with an eight foot blade on the front, but it moves fast. He would clear Angie’s lot, too, for the fire truck and ambulance.

I stepped back onto the path. The hazel hedge on the right and the snow-covered branches overhead on the cottonwood and ash trees turned the walkway into a snowy tunnel. The river was still flowing, sluggishly, except for a rim of ice along the bank.

The siren on top of the volunteer fire station turned off, and the siren on the fire truck turned on. The siren started to move.

My phone rang. It was Sam.

“Did I hear my snowmobile drive by a few minutes ago?”

“Probably,” I said. “Where are you?”

“Old Randy Johnson’s place. I went to John Meecham’s place first. His furnace wasn’t working. I got the call around three-thirty this morning, but you didn’t wake up.”

Sam’s low, rumbling voice and his slow, deliberate cadence calmed me. I could feel my blood pressure dropping.

“You sneaked out so quietly. That’s why I didn’t hear you,” I said.

“Yeah, sure. Randy Johnson called while I was at Meecham’s, same problem. So, what excuse does Mort have for stealing my machine?”

For a retired sheriff, Mort does have a fairly loose definition of ownership, but I knew Sam didn’t really mind.

BOOK: A Lonely Way to Die: A Utah O'Brien Mystery Novel (Minnesota Mysteries Series Book 2)
13.89Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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