Murder Grins and Bears It

Author:Deb Baker [Baker, Deb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Humorous, Mystery, Grandmothers, Upper Peninsula (Mich.), Johnson; Gertie (Fictitious Character), amateur sleuth, murder mystery, deb baker, Bear Hunting, yooper
ISBN: 9780738709840
Publisher: CreateSpace
Published: 2006-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

chapter 11

Crevice Road lay about a mile in from the main road. They named it that for a good reason. Michigan’s transportation department is in no hurry to repair our roads, so I weaved along, avoiding the worst of the potholes.

Gravel and dust kicked up behind me and I kept glancing in the back of the truck to make sure Fred was okay. He’d absolutely refused to abandon the back even after I pulled and pushed on him for a while.

Now he sat there, fat and sassy, like he rode in the back of trucks all the time, and maybe he did. He and I were in the early stages of getting to know each other, and so far he’d been full of surprises.

I pulled into Ted Latvala’s driveway and parked behind enough rattletrap, rusted-out vehicles to fill a junk yard. I counted three outbuildings and guessed there might be more behind the tree line, where I saw the beginning of a wide, worn trail leading into the woods.

Grabbing a clipboard, I gruffly reminded Fred to stay put, walked to the front door of the house, and rapped loudly.

Smoke drifted lazily from a chimney and I could smell the aroma from a woodburning stove. One of my favorite smells is burning wood. I sucked in a big breathful of it as the door jerked open.

The man glaring at me had more hair than any man I’d ever seen. A dark curly mop sprung from his head, whiskers cascaded down his chin, and more of it sprouted from the front of his red plaid shirt and crept up his neck to meet the beard. Even the back of his hands were hairy.

“What?” he growled.

I cleared my throat. “Yes, well, I’m with the census bureau and I-”

“You have ten seconds to get off my property.” He brandished a shotgun hanging loose from one of his hairy hands.

“And then?”

“And then I start shooting. I’ll blow your head off.”

In the space that read “Number of people living in dwelling,” I marked “one.” With all that hair and the nasty disposition, there couldn’t be anyone else in the house.

“Just a minute,” I said, because I could see he was getting antsy. “Have a little patience.” I shoved the clipboard between my knees and dug through the weapons purse on my shoulder. Triumphantly I held up my new sheriff’s badge.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions,” I said.

He scowled at the badge. Then his eyes took in my Trouble Buster truck, where Fred was beading in on us with rapt attention.

“That’s a fake badge,” he said, sneering at me.

I turned the badge around and studied it. “How could you tell,” I said.

“No cop would be caught dead driving in that truck. Trouble Buster? You crazy or what?”

I hadn’t used my stun gun yet today and was considering zapping him when I heard him cock the shotgun. There’s no sound like it in the world, and if you’re on the receiving end, nothing is scarier.

Fred and I hightailed it down the gravel road.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.