Stake & Eggs (22 page)

“Like what?” Suzanne asked.

Wick lowered his voice. “For one thing, Ben and his wife, Claudia, weren’t getting
along all that well.”

“Is that so?” Suzanne’s heart started to pound a little faster. This was the kind
of information she wanted. She leaned in just a little closer to Wick, hoping he’d
tell her more.

“It’s more of a rumor than anything,” Wick said hastily.

“Uh-huh,” said Suzanne. “But rumors are so often rooted in truth.”

Wick continued to hem and haw as Suzanne kept cajoling him.

Finally, Wick spit it out. “The thing is…Claudia was having an…an assignation.”

Suzanne tried hard not to register surprise, because she didn’t want to spook him.
But her first thought was
That sneaky Claudia!
That little lady put on a darned good show this morning and again this afternoon.
“You mean she was having an affair?” said Suzanne. “Really.” She pondered this for
a few more seconds, then took the plunge. “Do you know who she was involved with?
Is
involved with?”

Wick’s eyes drifted toward the stage, then back to Suzanne. “I don’t really know.”

“Does anyone else know about this?” asked Suzanne.
Like Sheriff
Doogie?

“I haven’t said a word to anyone,” said Wick “You’re the first person I’ve mentioned
this to. And I don’t know why I did that, except that maybe I trust you. I’m not the
kind of man who spreads rumors. I’m in the Rotary Club, for goodness sake.”

“I understand completely,” said Suzanne.
But tell me more.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“With Ben gone…” said Wick. He stopped abruptly and licked his lips.

“With Ben gone,” Suzanne repeated. She put a hand on Wick’s arm and gave an encouraging
squeeze.

“Well,” said Wick, “there’s the insurance policy.”

“What insurance policy? Oh, you’re talking about Busacker’s policy?”

“That’s right,” said Wick. He pulled himself up straighter and said, “You realize,
I’m the go-to guy at the bank for insurance. I’m the one who handles the various policies
and annuities.”

“I know you are,” said Suzanne, letting a little admiration creep into her voice.

“So, the fact is,” said Wick, “I happen to know that Claudia stands to inherit a rather
tidy sum.”

“How tidy would that sum be?” asked Suzanne.

“Let’s just say seven figures,” said Wick.

“A million or more?” said Suzanne.

“A million five,” replied Wick, right on cue.

“Interesting,” said Suzanne, striving to keep her reaction to a bare minimum. But
inside she was thinking,
Hot dog! Is that the kind of money someone would kill for?
And as she watched Sam return with multiple cups of hot cocoa, her answer was,
Oh yes, it is. Most definitely it is.

S
UZANNE
moved her glass of beer in tight little circles as she listened to Sam. They were
ensconced in a deep, dark booth in Schmitt’s Bar. The aroma of grease and spilled
beer hung heavy in the air, and there was the reassuring rattle of billiard balls
being racked.

“Excuse me,” said Suzanne, “what did you say?” Suzanne couldn’t get that number, $1.5
million, out of her head. It kept bouncing around like the cue ball on the back pool
table, worrying her to death. And even though her exchange with Hamilton Wick felt
like some kind of strange dream hangover, she knew it had just happened. It had
really
happened.

“I said you haven’t heard a thing I said,” said Sam, taking a swig of his beer. “Here
I am going on and on about poor Mrs. Hillstrom’s hammertoe, and you don’t care a lick.”

Suzanne tried to focus. “I
do
care. Is that what you just said, really?”

“No, I was testing you. There is no Mrs. Hillstrom and there is no hammertoe,” said
Sam. He gazed at her affectionately. “But, sweetheart, you look like you’re worried
sick about something. Have been for the last ten minutes.” Sam reached across the
table and grasped her hand. “Now what gives? What
happened
?”

“I had a short conversation with Ham Wick,” said Suzanne. “When you were off getting
cocoa.”

“Ham Wick,” said Sam. “Sounds like one of your luncheon specials.”

“Wick’s the guy at the bank. The
other
guy. The one who’s still alive.”

“Oh, sure,” said Sam, scrunching his face, “the little guy with the bow tie who sits
at his desk staring at endless columns of numbers.”

“Bingo,” said Suzanne.

“What about him?”

“I was kind of buddying up to him,” said Suzanne, “and pumping him for information
about Busacker. And he let slip some fairly damning details.”

“Damning to who?”

Suzanne leaned in closer. “To Claudia, Ben Busacker’s widow.”

Sam held up a hand. “Stop right now.” He looked unsettled. “Do I really want to hear
this?”

Suzanne fought a rising tide of panic. “I have to tell
someone
!”

Sam took a deep breath. “Okay. Lay it on me.”

“Here’s the thing,” said Suzanne. “It seems that, in the wake—no pun intended—of Ben’s
death, Claudia is set to receive a one-point-five-million-dollar insurance settlement.”

Sam let loose a low whistle.

“Exactly,” said Suzanne. “So, you can see, that number’s just been added to what’s
already a baffling equation.”

“Sounds like a new suspect’s been added, too,” said Sam. He glanced sideways. Freddy,
the aging hippy bartender who owned Schmitt’s, was suddenly poised with his order
pad and pencil.

“Help you?” said Freddy. He wore blue jeans, suspenders, and a T-shirt that read:
I’m not Weird, I’m Gifted.

“Burger basket?” said Sam, looking at Suzanne. She nodded. “Two burger baskets,” said
Sam.

“Onion strings?” asked Freddy.

“Naturally,” said Sam. He generally ate healthy, but made an exception for Freddy’s
grilled hamburgers. Done on an old-fashioned cast-iron grill cranked up to about a
thousand degrees, they were like creosote on the outside, but pink and juicy on the
inside.

“Cheddar or blue cheese?” asked Freddy.

“Yes,” said Sam.

“Good man,” said Freddy, writing it all down.

“So,” said Sam, when Freddy had left, “are you going to tell Sheriff Doogie about
this mega insurance policy?”

“I think I pretty much have to,” said Suzanne.

“I think you do, too,” said Sam. “Unless he knows about it already.”

Suzanne sighed and leaned back against the cracked vinyl of the booth. She glanced
at the crowd, saw lots of familiar faces in the knotty pine-paneled bar with its displays
of softball trophies, tin signs tacked to the walls, and faded photos of Kindred bowling
teams in their glory days. Freddy had added a new sign to his collection, too: Our
Glasses Are Clean, But Our Martinis Are Dirty.

As the tinkling sounds of John Mellencamp’s “Pink Houses” spilled out from the jukebox
that hugged the far wall, Suzanne drained the last of her beer and smiled. She liked
this congenial little bar with its crazy collectibles. But her smile faded the moment
her eyes shifted and she caught sight of Charlie Steiner. He was hunched at the bar,
wearing overalls and a worn Carhartt jacket and drinking all by himself. The downcast
look on his face pretty much conveyed to everyone that he was disgusted with life
in general. And as he took a swig of beer, he smacked his lips, then practically slammed
his mug down on the counter.

“Hey,” said Suzanne, prodding Sam with her toe. “Look who’s at the bar.”

Sam glanced over. “Steiner,” he said. “Your prime suspect.”

“Maybe not anymore,” said Suzanne. She watched as Steiner muttered unhappily to himself.
“Do you think Doogie’s been nipping at his heels again, asking questions?”

“Probably,” said Sam. Then he reconsidered. “I don’t know, that’s kind of your territory,
isn’t it?”

Suzanne’s head snapped back and she stared at him. “What is?”

“Investigating. Though it pains me to say it, and scares the crap out of me to know
you’re running around questioning suspects.”

“I’m really not,” said Suzanne, trying to soft-pedal her own involvement. “They all
just seem to find me.”

“Except Claudia,” said Sam.

“Oh no, she showed up today, too.”

“Seriously? On the day of her husband’s funeral?”

“I invited her to the tea,” said Suzanne. “Told her it would do her good.”

“Okay,” said Sam.

“And when she did attend, I figured she was just looking for a little solace. But
who knows? Maybe she was really just trying to win friends and influence people?”

Five minutes later, Freddy was back at their table with their piping-hot order. “Here
you go,” he said. He set two cheeseburger baskets in front of them. “Get ’cha anything
else?”

“Maybe a couple more beers,” said Sam. “Schell’s if you got it.”

“Sure thing,” said Freddy as the front door swept open and about a dozen more people
tumbled in.

“Business is good tonight,” acknowledged Sam.

“Business is good every night,” said Freddy. He looked pleased as he paused to scratch
his ample belly. “Thing is, we’re gonna punch through the wall next week and add another
nine hundred square feet.”

“Big time,” said Sam.

Freddy grinned. “Gonna call our new addition the Boom Boom Room.”

“Good grief,” said Suzanne. “Please tell me you’re not going to add strippers to your
repertoire!”

“Why, Suzanne?” said Freddy, grinning. “Did you want to audition?”

*  *  *

B
UNDLED
up in their parkas again, Suzanne and Sam strolled back down Main Street. The lights
still twinkled merrily, and displays in the front windows of Kuyper’s Hardware and
Sherri’s Stationery looked cheery. But, for the most part, the center of town was
pretty much deserted.

“Everybody’s cleared out,” said Sam.

“Everybody’s in Schmitt’s Bar,” said Suzanne. She shivered. “Brrr. Where are you parked?”

“Another block down. By the bakery.”

“Good,” said Suzanne, “you can give me a ride to my—”

A muffled scream suddenly drifted toward them on the chill wind! Followed by sounds
of a scuffle—maybe around the corner? And then a loud metallic
thunk
, like someone’s car being clobbered with a shovel.

“What on earth?” said Suzanne.

There was the distinct sound of footsteps pounding down pavement; then they grew fainter.

“Come on!” said Sam, breaking into a sprint.

Rounding the corner, they spotted a dark shape, partly sprawled on the sidewalk, half
slewed up against the front bumper of a pickup truck. Some poor person had been flung
there like a discarded rag doll!

“Careful!” warned Suzanne. It was dark, and she couldn’t really see what was going
on. But Sam was down on his hands and knees by the time she caught up to him.

“It’s a kid,” said Sam.

Suzanne skidded to a stop and gazed down at the dark shape, which was making low moaning
sounds. Then she saw the purple skateboard turned upside down. “It’s Joey!” she cried.
“Joey Ewald!”

“Your Joey?” said Sam.

Suzanne nodded, her teeth chattering. Poor Joey lay sprawled on the cold pavement,
his black boots scraping the street as he made half-hearted motions. He was trying
to get up but failing miserably.

“Joey,” said Sam. “Can you hear me?”

Joey’s eyes half opened as his hands went to his stomach, his face, and finally his
head.

“I want you to lie still,” said Sam, “and let me take a look at you.”

“Oh man, he’s bleeding,” said a dismayed Suzanne as she knelt beside Sam. Dark rivulets
of blood seeped from a cut on Joey’s skull and smeared across his face, streaking
his cheeks like a Navajo warrior. “It looks bad.”

Sam ran a practiced hand across Joey’s head, peered into his eyes, checked his pulse
and respiration. “Head laceration,” he said. “We should transport him to the hospital.
He’s going to need stitches and maybe a head CT.” Sam pulled out his cell phone and
called 911, relayed instructions to the dispatcher, requested an ambulance.

Suzanne pulled off her scarf and gently wiped blood from Joey’s face. “I’m here,”
she crooned, trying to calm herself as well as the injured boy. “You’ll be okay. We’ll
take care of you.”

Joey moaned again, and his eyes fluttered. Sam took off his parka and draped it across
Joey, trying to keep him as warm as possible.

A few minutes later, the ambulance arrived, its lights flashing and siren blatting.
Which drew a small crowd out onto the street to watch Joey being placed on a backboard
and then carefully loaded into the back of the ambulance. Sam climbed in to be with
Joey; he’d get his car later, and Suzanne would meet them at the hospital.

As the ambulance pulled away into the dark night, Suzanne cast her eyes toward the
gathering crowd. And wondered,
Did one of you do this? Did one of you hurt this child?

O
NCE
Joey was safely lodged in a cot in a hospital exam room and had been cleaned up by
the nursing team, Sam put on his doctor’s coat and went to work. He injected Joey
with a syringe of lidocaine, waited a few minutes for the anesthetic to take hold,
then expertly made three small stitches in Joey’s skull.

Shortly after that, Sam came out to the waiting room, where Suzanne sat jiggling her
foot, nervously leafing through the pages of
Nursing Today.

“How is he?” she asked, when she caught sight of him.

“Resting comfortably. Took a few stitches.”

“Poor guy,” said Suzanne. She was still shaken up because she knew this wasn’t just
a routine skateboarding accident. Whatever had happened to Joey had been a vicious,
calculated
attack
. “Did somebody call Joey’s mom?”

Sam nodded. “Mom’s on her way.” He paused. “Now you can’t be mad at him anymore. For
giving the key to the Cackleberry Club to Colby.”

“I was never really mad at him.”

“You were a little spicy.”