Murder Bites the Bullet: A Gertie Johnson Murder Mystery (6 page)

“Will we still get paid?” Cora Mae asked, now that compliments were over. “Even if Chet Hanson didn’t do it? Which I know he didn’t. He’s a very gentle man.”

Images of a naked Chet stampeding after my friend, popped into my head. Gentle wasn’t an adjective I’d have used to describe him. But Cora Mae knows him way better than I do and I have to go with her assessment.

I wasn’t sure of the answer to Cora Mae’s question. Would we get paid if Chet was innocent? “We’ll find out soon enough,” I guessed. “I told Gus and Martin I’d look into it. We probably should commit one way or the other. I’ll stop and tell them we’ll take the case.”

What’s next?” Kitty asked.

“I pointed out Frank’s flat tires to him. He hadn’t tried to go anyplace, but that might change soon. Why don’t you two watch him for awhile. I’ll reset the camera in Chet’s backyard and pay a little visit to Diane.”

“Camera?” Cora Mae sounded confused. “What camera?”

Kitty snorted. Even I was getting tired of listening to her make that sound. “I’ll tell you all about it on the ride over to Frank’s,” Kitty said to her.

“And if you get a chance, set up the other camera over there like I asked you to do last night,” was the last thing I said before they took off.

Fred insisted on going with me. No way was he waiting in the truck again. So I crept through the woods and replanted the camera while Fred tracked down a red tailed squirrel and ran it up a tree. Chet was easy. Next time I had to do Frank’s I was going to loop more in the trees. My mistake had been trying to sneak past the house.

After taking care of the camera, I went over to visit Harry’s widow.

Diane had put chains across the drive to discourage anybody who might think they could still go in and shoot up targets, so I had to walk into her house. Fred loped along, happy to be out and about and away from the hens and Grandma. Since he was a lifelong police dog, investigation is in his blood, and I’m proud that I’ve been able to give him some work on the side. Total retirement isn’t for either one of us.

Diane was in the kitchen again, making me wonder if she was imprisoned there by some invisible chain I couldn’t see. She sat at the table eating a salad. Since I’ve developed an eye for detail, I noticed it was iceberg lettuce, two tiny tomatoes, no salad dressing.

“No, thanks,” I said when she offered me part of her food. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

Diane shrugged.

I sat down across from her. In the killing chair again. “That sure is rabbit food on your plate,” I piped up and said. Diane wasn’t exactly wispy. She had the build of a hardworking northern woman.

Frank had been at least partially right. Whether Diane hoped to kill Harry through his stomach, or if he demanded that she serve the stuff, remained to be seen. “Tell me about Harry’s quarrel with Chet Hanson,” I said.

“Does this mean you’ve decided to work for my boys?”

I nodded.

“That’ll make them happy,” she said. “I wasn’t there when Chet and Harry argued over the rifle range. Martin was. My sons can be impulsive. I tell you, I suspect Frank Hanson killed Harry, not Chet. But you think my boys will listen? They’re just like their father, get an idea in their heads, and they just won’t quit.”

“Chet’s the one with the adjoining property. He must have been real mad,” I said.

“They’d been battling it out ever since Harry applied for the rifle range permit. The Hansons got their way in the end. The shooting range isn’t going to reopen.”

“We know where Frank was. Right here at the range. Any idea where Chet Hanson was when Harry died?”

Diane looked up from her salad, which she had been picking at. Her gaze shifted over my head, to the window above the sink. “Why are you asking me where Chet Hanson was? It’s not my job to keep track of him.”

I nodded and thought that over. I’d check out her alibi later. I had one last question for the time being. “Do you really think Frank Hanson would commit murder for his cousin?”

“Second cousin,” Diane corrected me. “Family sticks together.”

What she said had some truth to it. Chet and Frank shared great-grandparents. That meant they had different parents and grandparents. The intricacies of blood relatives are an important part of our culture. Because the Finns and Swedes settled this territory, most of our residents are related somehow.

First cousins, half-cousins, step-cousins, cousins once or twice removed, cousins-in-law. They all count as close family or extended family.

“We’re assuming his death was the result of the feud over the shooting range,” I said. “But did Harry have any other issues? Anybody else he wasn’t getting along with who might have wanted him out of the way?”

“Harry got along with everybody.”

That statement was as far from the truth as Diane could get. Even I knew that. Harry was a stubborn old coot and didn’t care who he walked all over. Starting a public rifle range right next to his neighbor’s land was only one example of some of the things he’d pulled.

Right now we weren’t in the midst of an important hunting season but, knowing Harry, he would have kept the range open right into it and scared all the game into the next county. Not that I’m a big fan of sport hunting, but most of the locals count on wild game to make ends meet in this tough economy.

“Was he involved in any side businesses?” I asked Diane.

She shook her head. “Not that I know about.”

*

“Harry wasn’t easy to get along with,” Kitty said when we met back at my kitchen table, which was turning out to be our headquarters in spite of the annoying kitchen elf. “Remember when he ticked off everybody by dumping garbage in the Escanaba River?”

“Or the time he brought forty pounds of fireworks to a Fourth of July party,” Cora Mae said. “And blew up Finley’s garage, then refused to pay for the damage.”

Grandma was making homemade noodles to go into a pot of soup brewing on the stove. Flour was everywhere. Pearl was helping her so at least I knew actual edible food was going into the pot. Grandma has been known to empty an entire bottle of vegetable oil into a soup thinking it was chicken stock.

George watched the activity from a stool as far away as possible. He had flour all over his face in spite of his distance and an entertained expression on his face. I went over and gave him a peck on the cheek and wiped some of the flour away.

“I like the look,” he said, studying my head, then going on to tell a whopping lie. “Reminds me of
Grease.
You’re as hot as Olivia Newton-John.”

“Stay outta my kitchen,” Grandma snapped back with her false teeth clacking. She raised an uncooked noodle like she might throw it like a spear.

“I’ll make coffee,” Pearl said, realizing she was the only one on the right side of Grandma, in the trenches, fighting a battle as comrades in arms.

“Everybody is staying low,” I said, getting back to business. “All the Hansons are hanging at home, not doing a single suspicious thing.”

Kitty nodded. “I planted that other camera at Frank’s,” she said, waving her camo-covered arms. “I floated into the back like leaves blowing in the wind.”

“So?” Grandma said. Since she’s as old as dirt, she was around for prohibition. To her generation making alcohol wasn’t a big deal. “Hooch is good stuff.” That is one of Grandma’s terms for moonshine. Sometimes she calls it creek water, depending on quality.

“This moonshiner is selling it though,” Pearl explained. “And that makes it illegal. One hundred proof stuff. Total rot-gut, but he has a large network of buyers according to my sources. I bet the shiner is Frank Hanson.”

“Let’s get in on it,” Grandma said. “I haven’t had good hooch for years.”

“Where is the still?” I asked. Not that I cared much about a distilling operation going. I was into bigger things, like murder and who waxed Harry, but I couldn’t afford to overlook a single important detail.

Pearl didn’t have any idea where the still was. But George did. “Probably in the state forest. That way if it’s found, nobody gets arrested.”

“Frank’s place butts right up to the state forest,” I said. No wonder he hadn’t noticed his truck had flat tires. He was busy working across his property line in the dead of night. All he had to do was walk to work. The illegal moonshine business was what had him nervous enough to shoot at me just for being in his yard. That explained a few things.

“Kitty,” I said. “Go down to the IGA and make sure Diane Aho was buying groceries around the time Harry died.”

“You suspect his widow?” George asked.

“Who knows at this point. But a good investigator eliminates suspects one at a time. After a while, only one person will be left standing.”

*

Later, long after dark, with a sky full of stars riding high above the treeline, I slithered through Frank’s woods on a one-woman surveillance mission. I could have waited for morning and recovered the camera, but my intuition was kicking in, and I never ignored it.

Earlier, I hadn’t thought much about Frank’s bootlegging activities. But then I decided to check it out. Tomorrow Kitty would make her report on Diane, and Cora Mae was working over Chet right now in more ways than one. I wanted to bring something to the table, too.

The most exciting thing to me was that my mark’s car was still parked where it had been earlier and, and judging by the lack of lights and activity, Frank wasn’t inside the house. He had to be out in the great beyond.

The woods were teeming with critters, big and small, short and tall. I heard rustling close by, but didn’t see a thing. Then coyotes started howling to each other. A few twigs snapped as a further reminder that I wasn’t as alone as I thought I was. I didn’t expect trouble from any of our wild creatures. But the last thing I wanted to do was surprise one with bigger and sharper teeth than mine.

Black bears liked to roam at night, and wolves had been spotted more than once in the vicinity. I felt my body tense and forced myself forward.

I didn’t know the exact location of the line that separated Frank’s land from the state forest but after a certain amount of creeping deeper into the woods, I suspected I had left Frank’s acreage.

He might be working tonight, brewing his hooch. I didn’t really care about Frank’s extracurricular activity. None of us did. Residents of the Michigan Upper Peninsula are united on our stance against government interference. If we want to drink alcohol that tastes like gasoline that rots out our guts, that’s our prerogative.