A Murder of Crows (24 page)

That was me, all right—Bob White, flying by the seat of his pants.

As usual.

“I worked a summer on the construction of a wind farm. Boo and I did,” Noah explained. “Putting up a wind farm involves a lot more than just assembling turbines. You’ve got to do feasibility studies and assess weather conditions before you can even begin to think about actual project installation.” He turned to Vern. “The wind industry is changing just about as fast as the wind does.”

“Excuse me for interrupting,” Arlene huffed, her words blatantly unapologetic, “but I’m really pressed for time here, thanks to the tomato rinse you gave my car, Vern.”

“I got it cleaned off for you,” Noah reminded her.

She ignored his comment, along with the rest of us.

“Anyway,” she said to Vern, “the wind people told my mom and dad that there’s a good chance they might want to use parts of both of our properties, and so we’d all get a piece of the leasing pie, after all.”

Hallelujah, indeed. With enough lease money, Vern and Tillie could move into town, and Boo could stop worrying about his parents’ financial future. Who knew? Guaranteed a solid income, maybe even the apparently incorrigible Arlene Weebler would clean up her act.

“Anyway,” she said again, “Momma and Poppa want you and Tillie to come over for dinner tonight, Vern. They really miss playing cards with you two every Thursday night since the wind farm people came to town.”

She glided her left hand up Noah’s arm and looked up at him through her thickly mascaraed eyelashes.

“Momma says we should all just be friends again,” her voice low and husky. “What do you think, Noah?”

“I think he’s a lying piece of dirt,” Boo announced from the house porch steps, just before he launched himself across the front path to tackle Noah to the ground.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Arlene got knocked away from Noah’s side and landed on her rump in the gravel next to her truck’s right front wheel. Boo and Noah rolled in the opposite direction, both men pummeling away at each other’s heads and bodies. Muffled grunts and the scrambling sound of sliding gravel filled the air.

“So, Arlene,” I said to the woman on the ground. “How’s that ‘let’s all be friends’ thing working for you at the moment?”

She gave me a sour look and stood up, brushing dust and dried grass from her jean-clad legs and backside. Without a word, she moved around the front of her pickup to the driver’s door, climbed up into the cab, and with hardly a glance to the rear, put the truck into first gear and spun off in the direction of the nearest county road.

The wrestlers, in the meantime, had moved their contest onto the grass lawn that wrapped around the side of the house. Vern followed the writhing bodies at a safe distance, Sara slightly behind him. The sound of fists hitting flesh was hard to miss.

“Do something, Mr. White!” Sara cried back to me.

I caught up to her and Vern and took stock of the situation.

Boo and Noah rolled over each other, muscles straining as each tried to pull the other down. Their grunts and muffled yells sounded like a soundtrack for a street brawl. I heard the rip of clothing.

I turned to Boo’s dad. “Are you going to break it up?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I may have my crazy moments, but I’ve still got some brain cells working,” he told me.

Sara threw me a look of despair. I could hear Mr. Lenzen’s voice in my head from our back-to-school faculty meeting: “Never allow a student to witness a teacher beating someone to a pulp.”

Okay, that probably wasn’t exactly what he said, but I admit I was only semi-conscious at that point in the meeting. It had been a long, warm August day in the Savage High School cafeteria, and not even Mr. Lenzen’s stern instructions about appropriate faculty behavior could keep me alert.

Let me reword that: Mr. Lenzen was putting me to sleep.

“Mr. White!” Sara pleaded.

“Those two boys were state wrestling champs back in high school,” Vern noted, nodding at the two grown men grappling on the grass. “You’d have to be nuts to want to get in the middle of that.”

I took another look at Sara’s distraught face.

“That would be me, then,” I muttered.

I took two steps forward and reached out for Noah’s flailing arm.

“Hey, you two! Knock it off,” I yelled in my cafeteria duty voice.

And man, did they knock it off.

Unfortunately, the “it” they knocked off was my arm, followed by the rest of my body.

I landed with a jarring thud on my rump in the grass. The next thing I knew, Boo and Noah were locked together, hurtling my way. Since I’ve never wondered what it would feel like to be hit by a moving wall—make that two moving walls—of muscle, I dove to the side and narrowly missed becoming the very flat Mr. White.

I decided that the counselor voice wasn’t going to do the trick here.

I called to Vern. “Have you got any stun guns in that collection of yours?”

“None charged up,” he responded. “You’re on your own on this one, Bob.”

That was so not what I wanted to hear.

I took a quick look in Sara’s direction to make sure she was clear of the wrestling match and learned a very important safety lesson about watching two big wrestlers having a free-for-all within arm’s reach.

Do not look away, even for a second.

“Oof!”

I hit the grass again. Boo had backed into me, sending me sprawling once more, just as he tried to put a headlock on Noah. I scrambled out of the reach of Noah’s swinging arms and came to the conclusion that Vern knew what he was talking about.

You’d have to be certifiably crazy to try to break up this fight, and since the only certification I had was my state counseling license, I was sitting this one out.

Thankfully, though, the two former champions were beginning to lose some of their steam. They gripped each other’s biceps and spun in a circle, dropped to their knees and then, covered in dust and dirt, Noah finally let loose a colorful curse as Boo immediately flipped his opponent over on his stomach and pinned him motionless to the ground.

“Get off of me!” Noah shouted at Boo, his cheek pressed to the dirt. “What in the world are you trying to prove, you idiot!”

Boo didn’t move a muscle, keeping Noah caged beneath him.

“What am I trying to prove?” Boo hissed back at his old buddy. “What are you trying to prove? I’m not the one who killed Sonny Delite after you swore to Gina you wouldn’t do anything stupid!”

“What are you talking about?” Noah yelled, spitting grit out of his mouth.

“Don’t lie to me, Noah. Bob is the one who found Sonny’s body at the Arboretum, and he saw you there.” Boo tightened his grip on the back of Noah’s neck. “Gina told me how you said you’d kill him if he ever came anywhere near her again.”

“I would have!” Noah yelled. “The man was a predator! But I didn’t, Boo. I didn’t kill him!”

“And why should I believe you?”

“Because, you moron, I love Gina as much as you do, and as much as I would have loved to wring his neck, I refuse to cause my sister any more grief on account of him. She’s had more than enough. I gave her my word, Boo, and I keep my promises. You, of all people, should know that.”

Sara turned to look at me, her eyes wide in surprise. “Mr. Metternick is in love with Ms. Knorsen?”

I gave her a noncommittal shrug and kept my mouth shut. An ache traveled up my arm where I’d hit the ground.

“Too much information,” she said. “Teachers aren’t supposed to … you know …”

“Date?” I supplied for her.

Sara cleared her throat. “Yeah. Right. They’re not supposed to … date.”

“That’s none of your business,” I cautioned her. “But if I were you, I’d make sure not to say anything to anyone about Mr. Metternick’s private life, especially if you want to take a class from him. He might be… sensitive … about that sort of thing, Sara, if you catch my drift.”

She looked over at Boo, who had rolled off Noah and then stood up. His shirt was torn, he was breathing hard, and he was covered in grass, but he was still as impressively sized as ever. To be perfectly honest, the last thing he looked was “sensitive,” but I wasn’t going to point that out to Sara.

“What happens in Spinit, stays in Spinit,” Vern suggested. “Discretion is the better part of valor, Sara.”

She gave him a blank look.

“I’ll explain it over lunch,” he told her, offering his arm to lead her into the house. “Shall we?”

They went up the steps and into the house, leaving me with a pair of big, dirty wrestlers, both of whom stared at me with distrust.

“You said you saw him, Bob, right?” Boo questioned me. “You saw Noah near Sonny’s body.”

“Making me guilty until proven innocent?” Noah asked, a distinct tone of menace in his voice. “Isn’t that backwards?”

“Yes,” I agreed, standing my ground, literally. “Yes, it is.”

I studied the man in front of me.

Up close, Noah Knorsen was even bigger than Boo Metternick. Not only that, but he exuded a tough, “don’t mess with me” attitude that would have most people crossing to the other side of the street when they saw him coming. I didn’t know what Noah had been teaching at the Arb’s Education Center, but if anyone ever asked me for a great Intimidation 101 instructor, I now knew who to recommend. As far as I was concerned, Gina’s brother was downright scary.

“You’re right,” I told Noah, hoping that honesty truly was the best policy, and not the quickest route to a black eye in this situation. “It is backwards, and I was wrong.”

I was also injured. I rubbed the growing ache in my arm where I’d landed on it after my first attempt at peacemaking failed. I’d totally forgotten to ask Vern for body armor.

“But in my defense,” I continued, “I only told Boo the truth—you were the man my wife and I passed on the trail just before I found Sonny’s body. And you were carrying a thermos.”

Noah swiped a clump of grass off his shirt. “I walked that trail twenty times a day when I worked at the Education Center—that was part of my job. I was a program interpreter. I always carry a thermos at work. The coffee at work’s lousy. I always bring my own.”

“You drink coffee,” I said.

Noah tilted his head to the side and frowned. “Yes. Is that a problem?” he asked, his voice thick with sarcasm.

“It is if you work at Savage High School,” Boo noted. “The coffee in the teacher’s lounge will kill you.”

Boo froze as he realized where I was going with my comment.

“Sonny Delite was poisoned, wasn’t he?” he asked me. “The news stories never mentioned how he died, and you were asking me if I could identify hemlock on our way up here.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Somebody gave Sonny Delite poisoned coffee to drink.”

I shook my head. “Not coffee. Tea.”

“He was poisoned? With tea?” Noah echoed. “That should prove to you I didn’t kill Sonny right there, Boo. I would have strangled the man. And you know I won’t touch tea.”

“Look, Noah, I’m sorry,” I apologized, knowing full well that my excuse was going to sound totally inadequate. “One of my best friends is suspected of killing Sonny, so I’m trying to run down any leads that might help him out by pointing to the real murderer. I did see you at the Arb really close to where I found Sonny, and when I remembered you’d had a thermos, too, I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I found a straw in you and I grasped at it for Rick’s sake.”

Noah gave me a long look and finally nodded.

“I understand about wanting to help your friend.”

He turned to Boo and punched him in the arm. “What’s your excuse?”

“Don’t have one,” he admitted, rubbing the spot that Noah had just hit.

I suspected it wouldn’t be the only place he’d be bruised tonight. He and Noah hadn’t seemed too concerned about pulling their punches during their wrestling match.

“Yes, you do,” Noah corrected him. “You’re still so crazy about my sister that you’re hell-bent on being her champion, even if she doesn’t want you. You’d do anything for her, including turning in her own brother for murder if he was guilty. If she asked you to take a bullet for her, you’d do that, too.”

He wiped away a thin trickle of blood dripping from his nose.

“Read my lips, Boo,” he said. “Move on.”

Boo studied his friend’s face, which was already beginning to show signs of swelling in a few places.

“And then what?” he reluctantly asked Noah.

Gina’s brother grinned. “Then you find some other sweet woman to put Gina’s hold on.”

His hand shot out like a whip and grabbed Boo’s neck with the same tight grip Boo had used on Noah when he’d been on the ground.

“It worked for Gina on the circuit, Boo,” Noah said. “She never lost a match. Not that any woman is going to want to walk away from you, but if they do, you know how to pin ’em down.”

Noah gave Boo’s neck a quick squeeze and then slapped him on the back of his head. “Move on, buddy,” he repeated. “Now let’s go get some lunch. I’ve been craving a fresh tomato ever since your dad lobbed that first volley at Arlene’s truck.”

I grabbed Noah’s arm as he started to walk by me.

It was rock-hard.

“Gina wrestled?” I asked incredulously. “On a circuit?

“No, Bob, you didn’t hear that right,” Boo interrupted before Noah could answer. “He meant that—”

“Yeah, she wrestled,” Noah said. “Didn’t you know that about her? She was the first female on a high school wrestling team in the state. She taught both Boo and me her best moves when we joined the team at the university. She didn’t wrestle in college, though. The division wouldn’t allow it.”

I vaguely recalled the story. I’d been in college at the time, but with my best friend and future brother-in-law Alan Thunderhawk as my athletics-obsessed roommate, I got to hear all the state sports news on a daily basis. Professional, amateur, high school, college, Little League—you name it, if someone in Minnesota was playing a sport, Alan followed it and repeated it all to me.

This particular story was about a female high school student out in a rural district who had fought the state athletics association for the right to compete on her school’s wrestling team. Back then, wrestling teams were still boys only, but because she attended a small high school, and her dad brought in a big city lawyer to pressure the school board, the girl got on the team.