George squeezed my hand like he knew my thoughts.
Barney didn’t offer an answer to my dilemma.
Cora Mae popped out of a parked car, giggling and adjusting her clothing. She didn’t see us, which was fine with me. I wanted to criticize her for playing instead of working, but wasn’t I doing the exact same thing?
“I wish Cora Mae could find someone to make her happy,” I said, after my friend and her mystery man walked away, clenched tightly together.
“She looks pretty happy right this minute.”
We walked toward my truck, still holding hands. “What the…,” George stopped abruptly.
That’s when I saw the dark form on the ground behind my truck.
And it wasn’t moving
Chapter 8
PEOPLE DO STRANGE THINGS SOMETIMES. The chance of me committing a weird, unexplainable act has risen exponentially with the passage of time. That means the older I get, the more likely it is that I will establish my own set of rules. For example, I really don’t think I need a driver’s license to get in my truck and tool around. Someday a cop will bust me and I’ll pay the price, but the young whippersnapper police officer will let me off easy because of my age.
So why bother going to all the trouble of proving I can drive when I already know I can?
The reason I did what I did when George and I found the body was…well, I can’t explain it, because instinct took over. I wanted more than anything to sleep in my own bed tonight. So when I saw my Glock lying off to the side of the lifeless man, I knew what the term ‘smoking gun’ meant. My fingerprints would be all over the weapon. Dickey would arrest me and throw away the key. I’d eat bread and gruel for the rest of my life.
So…while George checked the man for a pulse, I pocketed the Glock. George bent close to the man’s body. “He’s dead,” George said, confirming my fear. Now what? Once I stopped to think about disposing of a murder weapon after the fact, I realized that removing it from the crime scene isn’t that easy.
I couldn’t throw the gun in the woods. I was pretty sure even a ninny like Dickey would check the surrounding area. The garbage can wouldn’t work either for the same reason. I couldn’t put it back in my truck for the same reason.
I could drive away in my truck and throw it into the Escanaba River, but that would entail moving the corpse, which was in the way of a clear escape path. Also, I wasn’t ready to give up my Glock. I just recently acquired it and had grown fond of it. The Glock was my security blanket.
“I’ll go inside and call the sheriff,” I offered, walking away quickly. “I’ll be right back.”
The band was taking a break, so the room noise had subsided. The keg was still the most popular spot to socialize. Kitty had commandeered a corner table with the nosiest, gossipiest bunch of women in the entire county. She noticed me right away when I rushed at her. Eye contact, a nod, and she stepped in right behind me.
“I have a gun in my pocket,” I said, whispering in her ear inside the ladies room. “And there’s a dead man outside.”
“What do you need?” Not even a blink from her. I could have been talking about the weather for all the response I got. Someday I’d have to take the time to delve into her past. There’s more there than meets the eye.
“The gun has to disappear before the cops arrive,” I said, not quite believing that I was stealing the murder weapon and expecting my friend to help me. “It’s mine and it’s the murder weapon.”
That got more of a reaction. Her facial expression didn’t change, but her eyes widened.
“I didn’t kill him. You can say no to getting involved,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t. “You’re taking a risk.”
“Hand it over.” Kitty moved closer, opened her purse wide, and we made the transfer.
“Don’t handle it without gloves,” I said. “It’s bad enough that my fingerprints are on it. I’m calling nine-one-one about the dead guy in a minute. Go now.”
Kitty nodded.
I didn’t have time to tell her the rest. That my Glock wasn’t the only piece of evidence lying next to the dead man. There were two.
The smoking gun.
And the other?
A black Kromer exactly like the one worn by the credit union shooter.
____________________
“Someone’s setting me up,” I said to Cora Mae from the side of the gawking crowd of spectators. Word had spread fast. The music faded away and the beer keg wasn’t the center of attention any longer. Next door, I saw Grandma Johnson working her way carefully down the church steps, which meant the bingo group knew, too. Sirens wailed in the distance. “My Glock was under the front seat of the truck,” I whispered.
“Didn’t you lock the truck’s doors?”
“I thought I had.”
Truth was, I never gave much thought to locking doors. It wasn’t as much of a necessity as it was in a big city. Neighbors watched out for each other. We might be spread out, but our internal sensors go off at anything out of the ordinary. Try pulling over on one of our back roads and see how long it takes for someone to drive by and ask what you’re doing. Two minutes tops. That’s the most time you have.
Cora Mae couldn’t rip her eyes away from the body. “Who would do that to you?” she asked.
“Same person who would do that to him.” I pointed at the body.
Dickey, all puffed up like a rooster, strutted over, hitching his pants up and clearing his voice to get the squeaks out. He stared at the body like he didn’t know what to do next. Our acting sheriff was getting more action than he knew what to do with.
“We’re going to need to talk to everyone,” Dickey hollered, losing a little of his college education, “All of you who were outside any time during the evening. Come forward if that’s you.”
“We all came from outside,” a wiseacre from the back said. “How else could we park our vehicles and get inside.”
“Very funny,” Dickey said. “Let me rephrase that. Anyone who had any reason to be out here other than to park their vehicles. There. You happy?”
I didn’t have a choice, since George and I discovered the crime scene. I had to go up.
Cora Mae didn’t move a muscle. We locked eyes. “What?” she said.
“Weren’t you in the parking lot?”
“Yes, but…”
“You don’t want the whole town to know you were making out in a parked car?” I finished for her.
She nodded.
“I guess we both have a secret to keep.” I didn’t have to mention how much bigger mine was than hers.
Everyone was mesmerized by the body. In Stonely, we don’t often see something like this. But two in a row! First, the robber, who really was an awful robber. Now, this man.
He was the same guy who fired the killing shot from the roof yesterday. The shot that blasted through the window and pegged the robber in the head.
It was definitely him, I thought to myself, groaning inwardly when a state trooper pulled up right behind Dickey Snell’s truck. That’s all I needed, the state boys involved.
George walked over to talk to them, having helped take control of the situation prior to their late arrival. I hoped he hadn’t seen me pocket the Glock. Not that George would tell, but too many people knew already. And I didn’t want him thinking I was a crackpot, even though I was beginning to think I was.
The only way out of my murder weapon mess was to find the real killer before Dickey and the state troopers found me and the Glock.
Blaze pushed through the crowd. “What can I do to help?” he said, sounding sane for a change. My son had his ups and downs, but he also had brief moments of reality that were growing longer every day.
