Deb Baker - Murder Talks Turkey

Simple, right?

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

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.

The shades were still drawn and the door jamb was still pried loose where Tony had allegedly come in with the Orange Shoes. Nothing had changed at Shirley’s house since the last time I’d been there. Dirty dishes still cluttered the sink. Not a single thing more had been packed up – almost as though Shirley had abandoned her life here all together.

I turned on Shirley’s television but it only had rabbit ears on the top of it and my limited channel surfing didn’t produce anything newsworthy.

After that, I rummaged through cupboards and boxes and found what I needed. A shower later and the beginning of a second pot of coffee, and I felt human again. I even found workout clothes that fit me in one of the boxes. A dream come true for someone in my situation.

What even made it better? A working phone. Shirley hadn’t turned off her utility services. Yippee. The tide was finally turning my way.

The hospital had Kitty listed as a patient, so she was still alive. No one would tell me anything more than that. I cursed the federal government for all its so-called privacy measures, when all of us knew we didn’t have a bit of privacy from them.

I called Lyla next. “I’m going after the person who killed Tony,” I said, quickly before she realized who she was talking to and hung up. “It won’t cost you a dime. I need to clear my name.”

“Everybody says you killed him, Gertie.”

“You know I didn’t. If I had, I would have shot him, not fixed it so he left the road above the river. You know that stretch of road isn’t my favorite. Down below is where I lost Barney. Besides, I didn’t even know where Tony was at the time he died.”

Heck, I hadn’t known where he was most of the time when I was supposed to be trailing him. Catching him in Ruthie’s Restaurant had been a fluke. I had stumbled over him in one big accidental moment.