Free Murder Grins and Bears It by Deb Baker

at
Blaze.
    “ His fingerprints were the
only ones found on the rifle,” Blaze continued. “His footprints
were everywhere. Pa’s cap was found in the brush near Billy
Lundberg…”
    “ Orange cap with Budweiser
across the front?” I asked, fear eating at my stomach. “Barney’s
old cap?”
    Blaze nodded. “Carl said he was wearing
it.”
    “ Doesn’t seem like much
evidence against him,” I said. “Fingerprints on his own rifle,
footprints at his own bait pile, and a cap in the woods. Seems to
me you’re reacting too hasty.”
    “ And his fingerprints were
all over the two arrows they pulled out of Billy Lundberg’s
back.”

    chapter 6

    “ Carl,” I said over coffee
at his house, “I have to ask you a few questions.”
    “ Go right ahead. If it
helps git Little Donny out of this mess, I’m willing.”
    I pretended to sip my coffee. If I drank one
more cup of coffee, my knees would go and I wouldn’t be able to
climb into my truck. I noticed my hand holding the cup was shaking
from large doses of caffeine. I set the cup down.
    If it’s true that you can tell someone’s
honest by the look in his eyes, you’d have a hard time pinning
Carl’s eyes down to study them. They shifted around the room, left
and right, up and down, and never rested on my face once. But
that’s Carl.
    He swung his head to the right of where I
sat and scratched his chin.
    I pulled a notepad out of my jacket and
asked the first question. “Did you know that dead agent?”
    “ Nope.”
    “ What do you think he was
doing there?”
    Carl shrugged.
    “ Maybe you were mixed up in
something you shouldn’t have been in and didn’t know
it.”
    “ Nope.”
    “ Were those your arrows
they pulled out of Billy?”
    Carl nodded. “Yep. Blaze showed them to me
after I realized mine were missing from our stake-out.”
    “ Was Little Donny fooling
with them?”
    Carl shrugged.
    We sat through a long pause. I watched my
hands do the caffeinated jumping bean tap and Carl studied the
ceiling. I waited to see if Carl might pick up the conversation on
his own.
    I couldn’t think of anything else to ask him
and he wasn’t volunteering. I shoved back in my chair.
    “ I have one question for
you, Gertie.”
    “ Okay,” I said.
    “ Blaze told me they found
that warden’s vehicle parked at the DNR office in Marquette. How’d
he git to my pile?”
    My mouth fell open. Carl finally looked me
full in the eyes with a smug smile. He’d one-upped me and felt
pretty good about it.
    This was another example of how much I have
to learn about my new career. I’d never admit it out loud, but
sometimes I act like a real rookie.
    What else had I overlooked?

    ****

    “ That’s the second Mitch
Movers truck I’ve seen today,” Kitty said as she ripped down
Highway M35 driving the Trouble Buster. The morning sun zapped
through the windshield and bounced against my Blublocker
sunglasses. “Seems like everybody’s moving.”
    She had the gleam in her eye that she gets
when she’s driving. Ordinarily I won’t ride in a car Kitty is
driving, because she gets insane the minute she slides behind the
wheel, but circumstances forced me into a tight spot.
    “ Blaze just drove by in his
sheriff’s truck,” Cora Mae had said when we pulled into Kitty’s
yard. “And he parked right up the road. You can see a speck of his
truck through the pines over there.”
    I glanced in the direction of the road,
squinting through the trees. Sure enough, there he was. “Well,
trade places with me. Quick.”
    “ I don’t have a license
either.”
    “ I forgot that,” I said,
rolling down the window when Kitty thundered down the steps from
her house. “Come around this side.” I motioned to Kitty and slid to
the middle of the truck. “You’re going to have to drive us out of
here. Blaze is after me.”
    And that’s how she got behind the wheel. We
waved to Blaze as we drove by and he pulled out and stayed with us
till we were well out of Stonely.
    “