“Poor Lyla,” Ruthie said. “Either way, dead or living in Brazil, Tony’s gone and it’s going to be painful for her. How’s she going to keep that big house on a manicurist’s salary?”

  George came in at that moment, did a double-take, and sat down at the table with Otis and me. After getting George coffee and pie, Ruthie sat down, too. I told George what I was up to.

  “I guess it’s for the best,” George said. “I’ll get you a good lawyer, try to get you out on bail. I’ll even put my house up for you if that’s what it takes.”

  “You’re a good man, George.” I held his hand then, right in front of Otis and Ruthie. If I was going to jail, it might be a long time before I had that warm, comforting hand in mine again. “Take care of my dog for me while I’m gone.”

  “Maybe after all this is cleared up,” George said, “we can talk about us and where we want to go from here.”

  Ruthie’s eyes got wide. I blushed.

  “Look at that!” Otis shouted suddenly, knocking his chair over and rushing behind the counter to turn up the volume on the TV

  As it happened, Tony wasn’t stepping off an airplane in an exotic country with a suitcase filled with cash. Diver’s working close to the Escanaba dam brought him up to the surface right about noon.

  Tony Lento really had turned up dead in the water.

  The news got even worse from there. According to the breaking-news anchor, undisclosed evidence collected at the scene of the accident suggested foul play. Everyone at the table turned away from the television and stared at me. Even George.

  They thought I was responsible?

  I could see it in their eyes.

  I kicked back from the table and ran out the door, almost blinded by the tears flooding my eyes. I heard George calling my name, but I didn’t turn back. He chased me to the truck, but I was quick, slamming and locking the door against him.

  I kicked up gravel leaving the restaurant parking lot, nearly running George down. By the time I chanced a look back, he was a small dot in my rearview mirror.

  Chapter 28

  I’D SEEN THEIR FACES AFTER hearing the news. The unspoken questions.

  I’d threatened Tony’s life in front of a restaurant filled with witnesses. I’d pulled out a handgun and planted it on the side of Tony’s head. One irrational moment of tampering with evidence by taking the Glock on the ground by the dead guy had led to this.

  Friends and acquaintances I’d known for almost a lifetime were turning against me. I saw it happen before my eyes. If my friends no longer believed me, who would? It was too late to turn myself in and hope for the best. I felt like Thelma and Louise all rolled into one, with exactly the same option staring me in the face.

  Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  Tampering with evidence, aiding and abetting in the murder of Bob Goodyear, breaking out of jail, destroying government property (Dickey’s truck), threatening Tony with a weapon, and murder one for the killing of same. Had I left anything out? Anything at all? I might as well take the rap for the robbery, too.

  Michigan didn’t have the death penalty, but if they did, I’d be tried in a court of law, found guilty, and put to death like an old dog. Why had I messed everything up so badly? I should never have done any of the things I’d done. Kitty wouldn’t be almost dead if it wasn’t for me. My family would be sitting down in a few hours to a nice hot meal. I wouldn’t even mind listening to Grandma Johnson crab, if I could only have things back the way they were.

  Twenty miles outside of Stonely I pulled over and cried my eyes out in the back lot of a truck stop. I cried for all of us – especially for Kitty and Blaze. After I stopped hiccupping, I felt better, splashed water on my face in the restroom, gassed up the truck wearing my disguise, and even found a phone, where I called the hospital to check on Kitty.

  All they would tell me was that she was still in ICU.

  I drove to Escanaba, scolding myself aloud for feeling sorry for myself. “You’re tough as tacks,” I said to me. “You’re smart and brassy and you’re supposed to be solving crimes, not committing them. Get a grip on yourself.”

  Flashing police car lights ahead had traffic backed up. The line edged along, moving slowly across Ludington Avenue, a few blocks from the motel. An accident of some sort? I craned my neck to see. A police officer waved traffic around what looked like a police convention up ahead. The truck I’d borrowed from Walter edged along with the rest until I was abreast of the motel.

  My hole-in-the-wall was crawling with state troopers.

  ____________________

  “Turn on the TV quick,” I ordered Grandma Johnson when she finally picked up the phone. I was two blocks from the motel, in the back of a place called Chuck’s Bar.

  “I have it on,” she said. “This is better than soap operas. I’ve been glued to it so bad I almost wet my pants rather than miss something. I always told you she was trouble, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Blaze was a good boy until he hooked up with her.”

  “Mary? What did Mary do?”

  “Not Mary. That Cora Mae. She sweet-talked my grandson into a life of crime.”

  “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s on the TV right this minute. That boy news reporter with the cute hair is telling us about it. A motel manager got suspicious about certain activity in one of the rooms, so he called the authorities. They found Blaze and Cora Mae inside one of them. Can you imagine that? Mary’s gonna just die.”

  “Cora Mae’s strictly a friend.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Grandma said, dripping sarcasm. “That’s why she wore a blond wig and busted him out of the jail. She was Bonnie. And she’s made him Clyde.”

  The wig! I’d left it in the motel room. The cops must think she was the one who was wearing it. Could this get any worse?

  “What about Fred?”

  “He ran off. I was watching him good just like I promised, but he kept running over by Mary. She musta fed him better. Then he disappeared. You have to believe me. I didn’t hurt him.”

  “I know that. Wasn’t he in the room with Cora Mae and Blaze?”

  “Why would you worry about that rabid animal when your own son is in a heap of trouble?”

  Someone up front by the bar flicked on an overhead screen. “You can go right out in the street and watch it,” someone called out. Someone else raised a beer. “But I’d have to leave my Bud behind.”

  “I’ve gotta go,” I said to my mother-in-law.

  I hung up while Grandma was still talking and I settled in for a hard lesson in friendships. The anchor flipped back and forth, replaying the capture of Blaze and Cora Mae, then panning to another TV6 crew that was running around Stonely interviewing residents.

  I found out who my friends were.

  Sometimes what you discover surprises you. For example, Walter’s my friend. He might be a tad eccentric with his shotgun greetings and morning happy hours, but he didn’t tell the cops about the truck I was driving. They’d have me by now if he had.

  Cora Mae and Kitty are at the top of my friend list. George, I can’t even think about. I saw the uncertainty in his eyes, the doubt cast at me right along with Ruthie and Otis. Even Grandma came through when she had to.

  I also found out who never really liked me, because those were the first ones to line up for the TV cameras. I could see Dave and Sue Nenonen in the background, waiting for the news reporter to introduce them. Sue was fussing with her hair to get it just right for her interview. Onni Maki, scrawny self-proclaimed stud muffin, was at the microphone paying me back for the time I zapped him with my stun gun.

  “Gertie Johnson was always a little off in the head,” Onni said, trying for a seductive grin for any available women who might be watching. It made him look more like a convicted sexual predator than Romeo. “You can’t do nothin’ about bad genes,” he said into the microphone. “Poor Blaze didn’t have a fighting chance from the day he was born. They oughta take it easy on him cuz of his upbringing.”

  It was Dave’s turn. “Every time she came into the credit union, I’d watch her close,” he said. “She had a sneaky look about her, like she was looking for trouble. Well, she found it this time.”

  Sue stood next to her husband, stiff as a statue, her face frozen in terror. She was fighting a losing battle with a bad case of stage fright.

  “Tell ‘em, Honey,” Dave said. “Tell them what she did.”

  Sue shook her head. Dave just stared at her until she said, “I…I can’t. You do i…it.”

  “Okay,” he said, turning back to the reporter. “When Sue heard on television about that blond wig, she put two and two together and came up with five. Someone came to our house impersonating a law enforcement official. Isn’t that right, Honey?”

  Sue was stricken. She couldn’t even nod. Even her eyelids were frozen as she stared at the camera.

  “Anyway,” Dave said. “She’s pretty sure it was Gertie Johnson under that wig, not Cora Mae. But they both could have used it for their own concerns. Can you believe it? Gertie’s got a lot of brass to come right up to my house and question my wife like she did.”

  “What kind of questions?” The newsman wanted to know.

  Dave didn’t bother letting Sue have the floor since she wasn’t doing anything with it. “Gertie Johnson came over and impersonated a police officer. She said she was an officer from Sault Ste. Marie following up on the murder of that one guy.”

  There was another charge to add to my growing list of criminal offenses. Impersonating a police officer. I wondered how much time I’d get for that one.

  “Anything else?” the reporter prompted.

  “She made insinuating comments about my wife’s million-dollar inheritance.”

  That sparked a reaction from Sue. Her head swiveled around to her husband and she frowned. “We weren’t going to tell anybody that,” she said to him. “And now you said it right on television, in front of the world. What’s wrong with you?” She moved closer to him. If I was Dave, I’d start running. Sue had forgot she was in front of a camera.

  “But, Honey.”

  “Don’t honey me.” The camera operator must not have wanted the program to turn into some bawdy reality show, because he panned away from the dueling duo, following the news guy as he moved away from them.

  “Thank you for coming forward,” the news reporter said to Onni, who trailed behind him. “One last question. Do you have any idea where Gertie Johnson might have gone? It seems that she’s disappeared from the face of the earth.”

  “I don’t know where she’s gone, but I know where she’s going.” Onni glared into the camera for effect. “Gertie Johnson is going to Hell.”

  The reporter gave a weak laugh for the camera and said, “I assume you’re talking about Hell, Michigan, otherwise we might have to censor you.”

  “You know exactly what I meant. She’s goin-“

  The story ended there. At least for me. I’d seen enough.

  When I left the dark, smoky bar, the sun was still shining. I thought for sure it must be the middle of the night. So much had happened.

  From the driver’s seat of Walter’s rusted-out truck, I considered the circumstances and my options. There weren’t any choices available to me that I could readily see. I was almost out of cash, I didn’t have anything to wear other than the man-hunting outfit Cora Mae duded me up in, and my spirit was gone.

  How was I going to prove Tony had killed Bob Goodyear if Tony was murdered? He couldn’t confess, which seemed to be the only way I could possibly get out of this mess.

  Wait a minute!

  What was I thinking!

  I had been so busy feeling sorry for myself and my friends that I overlooked a glaringly, obvious question.

  Why had Tony been murdered? It was looking more and more like he had been part of a scheme, a ring of criminals. I had assumed Tony was the kingpin, but maybe not. Whoever murdered Tony knew the truth, and that truth could set me free, right along with all my friends and family that I had managed to get into such major trouble. Now all I had to do was locate that person and force a confession.

  Simple, right?

  Well, no, but it gave me direction and something even more important that I thought I’d lost. It gave me hope.

  Chapter 29

  I HAD A WILD IDEA THAT I might find clues at Tony’s turkey hunting blind. No real reason. It just popped into my head. “Go to Tony’s hunting blind,” my head ordered. I was back in private investigator mode, back to believing in intuition and luck.

  When I came into the clearing, a flock of turkeys trotted for cover, all screeching the call they make when they’re frightened. Turk-turk-turk. Tony’s blind had a few creature comforts behind its exterior of straw bales. I sat down on a hunting stool and opened a small cooler. I found homemade jerky and one beer inside, and made hasty work of them both, since I was famished.

  The forest was alive with bird chatter this late afternoon. A blue jay landed close by, looking for seeds. I saw one of the turkey scouts poke her head out from behind a stand of fir trees, one enormous, superwoman telephoto lens. She stared at the blind while I watched from a tiny hole in the straw. After a minute, she ducked back in the woods and disappeared.

  The Upper Michigan backwoods is my favorite place to be. It’s so alive. Aside from deer and turkeys, we have black bears, gray wolves, an occasional moose, red foxes, coyotes, cougars. And that’s only a list of the large mammals. I could go on all day.

  The air was warm, birds sang, and I stretched out on some loose straw to rest and think. That’s when my husband Barney decided to visit me again. I was so glad to see him, although I wished he’d show up the times I called out to him for guidance. He always did whatever he wanted, and that hadn’t changed even with death.

  Barney looked exactly the same as last time, he hadn’t aged a bit in two years. More than I could say for myself. I’m surprised he recognized me in the clothes and wig I wore. But he sat down beside me, got comfy, and placed his hand on the side of my cheek like he used to do.

  We didn’t say anything for awhile. I was afraid he would vanish if I uttered a single word. Finally, he spoke. “Everything is going to be all right,” he said. “It’ll work itself out like it always does.”

  “Can’t you help me?” I said, as quietly as I could, so I wouldn’t jar away the dream. “Give me some direction. A place to start. A glimpse into the future.”

  “You have to let go.”

  “Of you? Never.”

  “Of fear.”

  “I have quite a lot to be fearful about. Have you been paying attention to what’s been happening lately?”

  He smiled and I saw the old twinkle in his eye that he used to get when I amused him in some way. “You have so much love in you,” he said. “Let it out. Trust your friends and family. They’re all you have, but they’re precious, the most important part of your life.”

  “These days it’s hard to tell who’s who.”

  “Inside you know.”

  We stayed together like that. I could feel real warmth radiating from him even though I knew he was only a dream.

  When I sat up he was gone. I remembered what he said to me, but I didn’t understand a single word of it.

  Night moves in fast in the forest. One minute the world was a soft gray. The next minute everything went dark. I heard the flapping of large wings, a rush of air, and an entire gang of gobblers and hens settled in the maple tree above me for the night.

  What was Tony thinking to put his blind right under a roost? No skilled turkey hunter would do that. Turkeys like to roost together in the same spot every night. At first dark, when their eyesight starts to go, the whole bunch takes to their favorite tall trees.

  A hunter needs to find out where they spend the night, then set up about a hundred yards off, hoping that when morning comes, they’ll fly in that direction. He doesn’t set up right under the roost.

  That got me thinking about the whole point of Tony’s turkey hunting blind. If he wanted a secure love nest, wouldn’t he have picked something a little more comfortable, like a motel? I answered my own question. Maybe not. There’s something exciting and romantic about the call of the wild. Maybe the woods brought out the animal in Tony. Besides, if someone had spotted his car in a motel parking lot, it would have been all over town within minutes. The only prying eyes out here didn’t speak our language, so they couldn’t tell on him.

  Who was Tony seeing behind Lyla’s back? That answer was important. I had to find out.

  It was too dark to find my way out of the woods, which didn’t matter much, since I had no place to go. If I wanted a safe house for the night, this was as good as any. And the price was right. I heard wings flap in alarm overhead when I rearranged some of the straw to keep warm, but they settled in again, confident that they were safe from predators for the night.

  I slept well, knowing I was safe for at least a little longer, too.

  ____________________

  At the first sign of dawn, the woods woke up. My turkey friends spotted me and left the tree in a hurry. I kicked around under a dead grove of elms and found a few morel mushrooms. They aren’t quite as tasty raw and gritty with dirt, but I was hungry. Usually I like them sautéed in butter, but an investigator, aka the hunted, has to make do.

  What I really needed was a shower and a change of clothes. I debated stopping at home for a few creature comforts, but rejected the idea. My home would be watched. My friends would be followed. That is, they might have been under surveillance, if they weren’t all in the hospital or in jail.

  What I couldn’t do without was my morning coffee. I had the start of a caffeine headache, and it threatened to take me down harder than any flu virus could. I stumbled out of the woods, climbed into my truck, and drove to the only place I could think of going to.