Deb Baker - Murder Talks Turkey

“I’ve been watching him,” Grandma said. “He’s doing a good job. Why don’t you two get yourself some ice cream and we’ll have a little party.”

My mother-in-law and my son looked just as normal as everybody else on this early April afternoon. The morning chill had disappeared, replaced by the warmth of the sun and a promise of spring peeking around the corner. They weren’t the only ones at the Dairy Flo lapping treats.

“Okay,” Mary said. “We’ll have a little party together. Then Gertie will drive Grandma back and I’ll drive you home, dear.”

“Gertie doesn’t have a driver’s license,” Grandma said, tattling on me. “I wouldn’t let her drive my lawn mower.”

“Well,” Mary said. “We’ll figure something out.”

While Mary and I waited in line, I kept a watchful eye on Blaze’s car. Our turn came. While we were ordering, right there under our very noses, Blaze backed out of the parking space and tooled away.

Mary and I had to abandon our already ordered ice cream and race to the truck.

“They’re headed for the lake,” Mary yelled, not at all as peaceful as she was on her arrival at my house.

We drove past the Gladstone Motel and sped around the curve onto Lake Shore Drive. “I don’t see them yet,” I said. We sailed past the yacht harbor and the lagoon. “There.” I pointed. “By the Beach House.”

“I don’t know what it takes to ditch you two,” Grandma crabbed when we forced them out of the car. I thought about slapping handcuffs on the old witch. “You sure can’t take a hint. I want to spend time alone with my grandson.”

Which was a blantant lie. Grandma’s idea of quality time tended to highlight the wonders of discipline. Blaze’s ears were lodged forward on his head more than they should be after all the ear twists he had to endure over the years. She’d still get a grip on them when he made her mad.

“I’m going to Kids’ Kingdom,” Blaze said, looking off to the right toward a playground with an enormous wooden fort. To our left, tall grasses waved in the breeze and a walkway led down to the waters of Little Bay de Noc.

“I’ll go with you,” Mary said to her husband.

Blaze took off with Mary in tow. I heard him say, “Grandma said my money’s hidden in the fort.”

“You don’t have any hidden money,” Mary said. “You’re still having delusions from the meningitis.”

“Spoil sport,” Grandma said under her breath. “Let’s go look at the waves.” She headed for a boardwalk.

The wind had picked up. Whitecaps the size of freighters formed in the open water, rolled toward us, then broke and slammed against the fine white sand of the beach. My hair blew this way and that, covering my eyes until I held it away with one hand on my forehead. Grandma shuffled through the sand, then stopped. She cast a complaint my way, but the wind picked it up and carried it off in another direction.

A man and woman sat with their backs to us, wrapped in a blanket. Several other people walked along the beach. A dog loped near the water with no owner in sight.

My eyes latched on two women with rolled-up jeans, wading out in the lake. One of them kicked her bare feet through the waves with angry thrusts.

April’s air temperature, in spite of the wind, was fairly comfortable because of the sun’s warmth. But stepping into Lake Michigan at this time of year had to be as cold as treading over ice cubes.

The great lake’s water never quite warmed up enough for an enjoyable swim. I’ve been in it when the water was so cold my ankles ached from wading for only a few seconds. And that was in July!

I pulled the binoculars out of my fishing vest and focused in. The tall one had hair almost to her waist. The sun caught it just right, giving her head a halo effect. She said something before they turned around and headed for shore. She must have stepped in a little too deep because her jeans were wet. The other turned and I recognized her.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Grandma. “I have to say hello to someone.”

Angie Gates didn’t see me approaching until I was almost beside her. When she did notice me, her eyes opened wide in surprise and she backed up into the waves.

The credit union teller’s face was blotchy, her eyes red from crying. Her hair whirled as the wind picked up, creating an effect which was the exact opposite of the halo I’d imagined moments before – more like something out of a horror flick.

I could see her mind working over the situation.

She took off running down the shoreline, pulling the other woman along, shouting at her to hurry. I knew better than to chase Angie. She was years younger and stronger than me, and whatever was happening to her to make her run away had given her added forward momentum.

The tall woman was beautiful, the kind that made me wish for one more go around in her body instead of mine. I never looked like that, even in my best year.

I glanced down at the waves near my feet.

Anyone who lives near the Great Lakes would know simple physics. Most things tossed into the waves wash back up on shore. Unless the object filled with water and disappeared under the lake’s sand carpet. Angie must have thought they would sink.

One did. I saw a flash of color before it vanished under the weight of water and sand. The other rolled toward me. With each new wave, it tumbled closer.

I kicked off my shoes, braced myself for the shock of cold water, waded in, and picked it up.

I held an orange sneaker in my hand.

THERE’S A GANG UNDER THE bridge,” Kitty said from the front porch of her dilapidated house. Kitty’s yard still looked like a junkyard, even after official town warning number three. But since she wanted to be a lawyer, I wasn’t about to interfere. “They call themselves the Orange Gang.”

Cora Mae guffawed. She had bobby pins stuck in her mouth while she wrapped Kitty’s wet head in pin curls. One of them flew out when she laughed. “The Orange Gang, what a name,” she said, talking out of the side of her mouth.

I sat down beside Kitty. It was the safest place to hide from the view up her house dress. I thought about the bridge Kitty had referred to, the Mackinac Bridge that connected the lower and upper peninsulas. “Tell me more.”

“All we got from Dickey was a name,” she said. “The dead guy behind your truck was Bob Goodyear.”

“Goodyear? Spelled like the Goodyear blimp?” I scribbled in a notebook, listing names and drawing arrows between possible connections. All the lines looped and crossed until my effort looked like toddler scribbling.

Kitty nodded.

“Quite moving your head,” Cora Mae complained. “Now I have to start that one over.”

“I got most of my information from an Internet search,” Kitty said. “In the 1920s, the Purples ran the rackets in lower Michigan. They were tough. Tough enough to stand up to Capone and Scarface. Goodyear’s gang comes from Grand Rapids and they’re trying to emulate the Purples-graffiti, symbols, tough talk, and a color all their own. Orange.”

“They probably picked orange because purple is its complementary color,” Cora Mae said.

“Blue is,” Kitty corrected her.

“Close enough,” Cora Mae said, smashing a strand of curled hair against Kitty’s head and anchoring it with two bobby pins.

“A gang,” I said, in awe. In the U.P. we know about gangs. As in “let’s take a picture of the whole gang in front of that wood pile.” Or “Let’s invite the whole gang over and polish off a case of Bud.”

One time, a motorcycle gang stopped at Ruthie’s on their way through Stonely. That scared a lot of residents that day, before moving on. Otis from the train is another gang member, the railroad gang.