Deb Baker - Murder Talks Turkey

“That dirty dog,” Kitty said from my kitchen table. Fred slid his nose onto the table at the “dog” word and wagged his tail.

“I never would have guessed it,” Cora Mae said, giving Fred a pat on the head.

We had polished off six freshly fried sugar doughnuts, two each. Kitty reached for a third. “We have the rest of the day off from following Tony,” she said. “Lyla said he’d be puttering around the house.”

“What if the woman in the woods was Lyla?” Cora Mae suggested.

I shook my head. “She knew I might be out there.”

“Maybe she’s a voyeur,” Cora Mae said.

“A voyeur is someone who likes to watch sex acts,” Kitty said. “The voyeurese would be Gertie, not Lyla.”

“Believe me,” I said, “I didn’t enjoy it one bit. Besides, I know Lyla’s voice. It wasn’t her.”

“Tony had his little breakfast love fest,” Cora Mae said. “Good thing you were watching him, Gertie, or we would still be wondering about Lyla’s accusations. I’m really disgusted with him.”

“People aren’t always what they seem,” I said, knowing that true enough. I looked at Kitty. “Where did you hide the Glock?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“I’m sure. No one’s going to hook me up to a lie detector while I’m still alive and kicking.”

“It’s all wrapped up in plastic and buried down inside my compost heap.”

“Yuck,” Cora Mae said. “That pile really stinks.”

Composts are beds of rotten garbage that we use to fertilize our gardens. They need a perfect mix of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and water to decompose properly. We toss in all of our leftover kitchen scraps – except for meat and dairy, because those things attract vermin to the pile. We also add coffee grounds, horse manure, grass clippings. You name it. It goes in.

“You need to keep the proper balance of wet and dry,” I said. “It smells bad because it’s waterlogged. Right now, I’m glad it stinks, so no one will go near it. After this is over, you should add some paper and cardboard to soak up some of the water.”

Grandma shuffled cautiously down the hall and plastered herself against the wall when she saw Fred near the table. “Get that thing outta my home,” she said, forgetting who owned the house.

I flipped on the micro recorder and hit play to drown out my mother-in-law’s crabs. Everyone listened to the few sentences I had captured on tape.

“Nothing but smut,” Grandma said, edging warily around Fred and pouring a cup of coffee. “Who brought the doughnuts?”

“I did,” Kitty said.

“Are they safe to eat?”

“’Course they are.”

I snapped off the recorder since Grandma was determined to talk right over the voices.

Pearl, whose fifteen minutes of fame ended with the news of the second death, pulled into the driveway at about two miles an hour. I watched her do a jerky park between my truck and Kitty’s rusted out Lincoln.

“Pearl, get your hinder in here,” Grandma called as Pearl walked in wearing a little pillbox hat on her head. “We have a porno tape going.”

“Goody,” Pearl said, stepping it up a bit. Grandma set down a cup and saucer in front of her, sloshing most of the coffee into the saucer.

“What’s the commotion?” Blaze said, rushing down the hall in his boxer shorts. He had his sheriff’s hat on top of his head and an empty holster across his bare shoulder.

“We’re holding ’em off,” Grandma said to get him going. “Where’s your weapon?”

She’s the meanest woman I’ve ever known.

“Sit down,” I told him. “We’re eating doughnuts.”

It’s a good thing I have a big kitchen table. The six of us perched around the table like a bunch of monkeys. Once everyone had sugar fixes and coffee, I rewound the tape. We all listened again.

“That’s Sylvester Stallone,” Blaze said, piping up. “He’s doing his Rocky character.” It was going to be one of those days.

“You’re right,” I said to keep him happy. “Blaze won the first prize. Now, who is the woman?”

“Play it one more time,” Pearl said. “I’ve heard that voice someplace before.”

“Is it a porno star?” Grandma said. “Because if it is, I don’t know any of them by name.”

“You don’t know any by sight either,” Pearl said.

“She’d sit up and fly right if I caught one. I wonder where my gun went.”

“It’s someone from around here,” Cora Mae offered. “She got a part playing the lead with Sylvester.”

“I didn’t hear anything about a movie star being in town.” Grandma clacked her teeth.

“Shhh, everybody.” I turned the volume up and replayed the tape.

“Not much to go on,” Kitty said. “She said a total of eight words.”

“They teaching you to count in that online class?” Grandma sneered. My friend and bodyguard had signed up for an online law degree class. Her goal was to get her state certificate to operate as a lawyer. The woman was book smart, no question about it.

But she didn’t have a ready retort for Grandma. The old woman threw so many balls from left field, it was easier to ignore her than to participate.

“Where’s my prize?” Blaze asked, looking around the room for a wrapped present.

“Have the last doughnut,” Cora Mae said. “That’s a good prize.”

“That’s one higgledy-piggledy tape,” Kitty said, sliding her smug and competitive eyes over to me to catch my reaction.

“Got me again, Kitty,” I conceded.

MY AGENDA FOR THE DAY was to interview the people involved in the credit union heist. Pearl didn’t have anything new to add to her original sock-it-to-him story. I sent Kitty and Cora Mae to find Dickey in hopes they could pry information from him regarding the dead guy with the Kromer hat.

My two partners pulled out of the driveway with Cora Mae in the driver’s seat. “Good luck,” I called from the porch, hoping they survived.

Fred and I headed for the Trouble Buster truck, but we make it only halfway before being detected by the yard patrol. Guinea fowl flapped through the backyard like a carpet of locust, running as fast as they could on their scrawny legs. They circled Fred, pinning him in the center of the group and pecking his toes. He howled.

Last year, my first squawking flock consisted of six little guys, fluffy day-old keets with orange legs. They weren’t all little “guys,” since they’ve multiplied several times. They like to hide in tall grasses with their broods, depriving me of fried eggs. Instead, I get more of them to feed. It doesn’t seem fair.

Guineas coined the term “free-range.” Nothing can keep a guinea confined. They come and go as they please, roosting in trees or the barn, and they eat up weed seeds and bugs. Guineas like to dine on Japanese beetles and deer ticks. I’ve even seen one peck and swallow a yellow jacket and go on hunting like nothing unusual happened.

They have their faults, though. With a machine-gun-like alarm call, they are the noisiest creatures on earth.

And they hate Fred.

He howled again while I waded in, swinging my arms and legs, parting a path to the truck where the enormous black coward was only too happy to hide. I had to leave the driveway at a rolling crawl to keep from running my guineas down.

Ruthie’s Deer Horn Restaurant was on Highway M35, across from the railroad tracks. The train ground to a screeching halt as Fred and I stepped down from the truck.

“Hey, Otis,” I called to the train conductor, who liked to stop at Ruthie’s for coffee and tall tales. Otis Knutson’s appearance meant Carl should be along shortly. Sure enough, Carl pulled in with George, and they watched me tie Fred to a post in the front of the restaurant where he could keep me in his sights.