Murder Bites the Bullet: A Gertie Johnson Murder Mystery (12 page)

If she’d murdered her husband to be with another man, imagine what she might do about another woman coming between her and Chet.

And Cora Mae was over at Chet’s right now all by herself.

I jerked the wheel to make a U-turn, but I misjudged. The truck slid sideways into the swampy ditch and got hung up at the base of a tamarack tree. The truck leaned dangerously, making me wonder where a vehicle’s tipping point really was. My heart thumped hard. I didn’t want to find out.

Fred was standing up on the seat, first looking at the ditch then back at me. He’s good at picking up on emotions, so he sensed our dilemma.

I tried calling Cora Mae. She didn’t answer. Worse, she never set up her voice message service, so she wouldn’t get my warning that way.

Fred and I abandoned the truck after a few more efforts to get out that only dug us in deeper. We ran along the road, racing for my house with Fred in the lead. At this point, my only choice was to start making phone calls and hope somebody else made it to Chet Hanson’s house in time to protect Cora Mae.

I have to admit, I’m not in the greatest shape for a marathon. Even a short one like this. But I kept moving, fueled by sheer adrenalin and panic. The first good news all day was that Blaze’s sheriff’s truck was in my driveway.

*

Maybe it was the lack of oxygen flowing to my brain. Or maybe I’d just had enough b.s. from my family and didn’t care anymore. Or maybe it was the only way I could think of to save my best friend.

At any rate, I ran back outside. What choice did I have? Blaze and Grandma were prejudiced against me and would never listen to reason until it was too late.

Blaze always leaves his keys dangling in the ignition when he comes over, and this time was no exception. So I commandeered his police vehicle. As I squealed out of the driveway, Fred came running from the back of the house, but I didn’t slow and wait for him.

I’d put enough friends in danger in spite of my promise not to do that anymore. If I could keep my four-legged buddy safe from harm, at least I wouldn’t be batting zero. I’d almost killed Kitty sending her on a heart-stopping mission, not to mention almost getting her killed during our last business gig. It’s possible that I’d already killed Cora Mae. Things couldn’t be any worse.

I hated to stop for anything, but this was too important. I pulled up next to my truck in the ditch, careful not to repeat my last mistake by getting too close, jumped out, ran over, and grabbed my bean bag gun from under the seat.

Then I opened the stolen vehicle up wide.

*

First, I had to disable Diane’s car in case she came back before I found her. She couldn’t get away. I really didn’t like what had to come next. I got back in Blaze’s vehicle, backed it up, put it in drive, and floored it, ramming right into Diane’s car and pinning it against a tree.

Regarding car damage, I have to admit I’ve done my share. Like the time my first truck hit black ice and spun out. Totaled. Or the time I drove off a bridge with one of Walter’s old beaters. Totaled too.

I was almost positive that Blaze’s was salvageable. I pocketed the keys, grabbed the bean bag gun, and headed for the trees. All kinds of emotions hit me – shock that my friend was in such trouble, fear that I might be too late, and a growing anger that I didn’t even try to keep under control. Nothing gets the adrenaline flowing like good old rage.

Sticks and dried leaves crunched underfoot, but I couldn’t help that. Moving quickly
and
silently was almost impossible. I stopped and listened. Nothing. No sounds at all other than my own breathing.

Where the heck were they?

Deeper into the woods now, I angled off toward the Aho property. The underbrush grew thicker and the going got rougher. I stopped to listen again. Just as I was about to try a different route, I saw a flash of color off to my right. A squeaky sound came from the same direction. Moving closer, I spotted Cora Mae. She was sitting with her back against a tree trunk, and she was tied up. Her mouth had tape across it, but she’d seen me and was trying her best to tell me something.

I started to charge in, relieved to find her all in one piece. But then I noticed her eyes kept darting off to the side like she had something really important to say.

When I looked over that way, an enormous pile of leaves erupted from the ground. I barely had time to aim and fire. Instead of a fatal impact, the sound of gunfire reverberated through the woods, hers
and
mine.

The pile of leaves moved off a few yards and dropped down into a heap.

I ran behind Cora Mae’s tree, ignoring her muffled mumbo-jumbo, then decided my choice of positions was a bad idea. I was supposed to lead Diane away from my friend, not put Cora Mae in the direct line of fire. I scooted to another tree, getting some distance between the two of us. I couldn’t help noticing that the leaf pile had disappeared into the rest of the forest’s floor.

That guerrilla suit was better than camo. If I came out of this alive, I wanted one.

Cora Mae was having a fit behind the tape. I was grateful that I couldn’t hear what she had to say, because she had to be really mad at me, thinking I’d abandoned her. I continued to move away, keeping trees between me and Diane, figuring that Diane would have to chase me. If I escaped, her little show was all over. If she ended up stopping me, she’d go back and take care of Cora Mae.

My goal was to make sure that didn’t happen. Staying alive and well was top priority at the moment. Even though I’d brought a non-lethal bean bag gun to a real killer gunfight, I had to stay hopeful.

By now, I couldn’t see Cora Mae anymore. I wished that I’d headed back toward Chet’s house rather than deeper into the woods, but I hadn’t been in a position to pick at the time.

Where was crazy Diane? Both times, when she’d killed Frank and now, I’d seen enough to know she blended into her surroundings better than any deer or turkey could. But if she intended to catch me, she’d have to take a risk and move my way. Piles of leaves didn’t usually do that, so all I had to do was watch for blowing leaves in a windless forest. Right?

Ground squirrels make all kinds of sounds, and if you live around them, you tend to learn to interpret the different calls. A rapid-fire chirping alarm was a signal to other ground squirrels, a warning that something had startled and frightened one, and that the others should go to ground.

I had to trust my instincts, and they were yakking at me louder than Cora Mae ever could. So I aimed the bean bag gun where I thought I’d seen the motion. I fired.

The ground squirrel gave a few more sharp chirps.

Then everything went dead again.

*

Nothing moved. Sweat ran in a steady stream down the side of my ponytailed head, a reminder that wigs can be super hot under stressful conditions.

I’ve never been a very good waiter, so I fired a few more rounds in the same direction, planting them into the ground. Then I started back for Cora Mae.

A branch snapped. The earth rose up again. This time I got in a direct shot, heard the thud, a moan. And the pile of debris keeled over backwards.

Carefully, I inched forward to see how much damage I’d done.

Diane had taken the hit right in the face. Her nose was squashed flat, which always means a bunch of blood. She was out cold and the blood was flowing.

I hustled back to Cora Mae and untied her, leaving the tape on her mouth until last. “Later, Cora Mae,” I said when she began flapping at me, “before she comes to. We have to tie her up with this rope.”

That shut her up good.

After trussing Diane, the two of us stumbled out of the woods just as several county sheriffs cars pulled in. Blaze got out of the passenger seat of the first one to arrive. He took one look at his damaged vehicle and read me my rights.

None of them would listen to a thing I was trying to tell them.

Cora Mae had to take over.

When that woman speaks, men listen. And these guys weren’t any different. They were doubtful, but willing to follow her into the woods.

Pretty soon two of them came back out with Cora Mae. I had to watch the whole thing from the back of a locked squad car, but the window was rolled down enough that I didn’t miss what happened next.

Chet Hanson pulled in behind the squad where I sat. He rushed up to Cora Mae, wanting to know what was going on. Then he spotted two cops escorting Diane Aho from the woods.

“She tried to kill me,” I heard Cora Mae say to him.

That fired him up but good. He stormed toward Diane. Blaze stepped in front of him, otherwise I think Chet would have attacked her.

Diane’s face looked like a bloody pulp, something right out of a horror flick. She gave him a really dirty look, and said, “Arrest that man. He killed my husband.”

“I can’t believe I missed the whole thing,” Kitty complained, standing on the other side of the bars in the Escanaba jail.

“You’re lucky,” Cora Mae told her, then for something like the hundredth time. “I never thought it was Chet.”

“I sort of knew,” I said, trying to save a little face. “Once we found out that Diane was sneaking over to Chet’s, it was easy to put two and two together.”

Kitty shook her head in disbelief. “At one point, I even said Chet must be the killer because Cora Mae was dating him. I was joking at the time.”

“I have the worst luck with men,” Cora Mae said.

I would have added that she was also the worst investigator I ever met, but she already felt bad enough. Not only had she been sleeping with a killer, she’d been his alibi when he murdered Frank. That woman sure could sleep.

Kitty went on, “I talked it over with Blaze.”

“He talked to you?”

“We get along. Anyway, thought Frank Hanson had killed Harry since he was on the premises at the time and had a motive, which was shutting down the rifle range. He also had a rifle in his possession, so he had means. And he had the opportunity. Then when Frank died, Blaze figured either Gus or Martin had taken their revenge. He was barking up the wrong tree all along.”

“They better not release that crazy woman on bail,” Cora Mae said.

“We’ll protect you, if they do,” Kitty said.

Diane Aho really was a nut job. She’d schemed with Chet to murder her husband. Only Diane and Chet had different motives. She thought if her husband was out of the picture, she’d finally be with Chet. But Chet, never one to back away from a full-blown feud, was just using her to get at Harry.

“Chet liked you a lot,” I said to Cora Mae when I saw tears in her eyes. “He wouldn’t have lost his temper and ended up in that big finger-pointing argument with Diane, if he didn’t care about you.”

“I know,” she sniffled.

Kitty had more, “Diane didn’t know a thing about Frank Hanson’s blackmail attempt or that Chet had murdered him. In fact, she thought one of her sons did it.”