Deb Baker - Murder Talks Turkey

The third book in the Gertie Johnson Murder Mysteries series, 2008

Word For The Day

BOONDOGGLE (BOON dahg’uhl) n.

A pointless project. Work of no value, done merely to appear busy.

Alternate Word

ICKY (IK ee) adj.

Very distasteful; disgusting.

IN THE MICHIGAN UPPER PENINSULA we love our guns. There’s a lot of talk about how the federal government is plotting to take our weapons away. Nobody, but nobody, is going to get our guns, even if it means burying most of them in the ground and taking a final stand with our legs spread wide and our favorite firing power nestled in our arms.

I have a perfect example of why upstanding citizens need weapons. If I’d had a gun with me in the Stonely Credit Union, none of this would have happened. I’d have had a bead on the masked bandit before he could say boo.

Instead of boo, he said, “Everybody freeze.”

How original is that? He might as well have said, “Stick ’em up.”

Michigan’s tall conifers and wide stretches of unpopulated land must have had him thinking he was back in the Wild West.

He swept a quick glance over his hostages, and our eyes locked. I stared back at him through the round holes in the mask he wore.

I’d bet my bottom dollar I knew him. Around here everybody knows everybody.

My name is Gertie Johnson. I’m sixty-six years old with three grown kids-Heather, Star, and Blaze-all named after the horses I wanted but never had. My son, the local sheriff, is on temporary leave from work with a full-blown case of brain swell. And I don’t mean that figuratively. He’s recovering from bacterial meningitis. He went through a fight for his life before miraculously beating the odds. He should be in a rehabilitation center instead of home causing trouble, but he’s half Swede and his wife is Finnish. You can’t tell them anything.

If Blaze had deputized me like I wanted him to do, I could have worn the Glock I swiped from him on my hip in full view.

Instead, I was in line at the credit union, weaponless, waiting to cash my social security check and minding my own business. That’s when the robber decided to hold up Stonely’s small-town version of a bank. Just my luck, he’d pick now.

We all stared at the unexpected interloper while he waved his gun. It was one of the cheapest excuses for fire power I’d ever seen, but at close range it could still do plenty of damage to a person’s internal organs.

I could see thin, hard lips through the mask hole.

“I SAID, everybody freeze! And I want to see empty hands up in the air, right eh?”

I heard people’s belongings-key chains, wallets, and such-clatter to the floor as we reached for the ceiling, all pretty much in unison: a new teller from Trenary, the credit union manager, Ruthie from the Deer Horn Restaurant, Cora Mae, and me. Oh, and Pearl, who was right up by the teller getting her money counted out. She let out a squeal that almost pierced my eardrums, but she quit making noise when the gunman threatened to bop her with his pistol.

Pearl’s cash was the first dough the robber took, stuffing it into a pillowcase he pulled out of his jacket pocket.

Just before the thief interrupted us, Cora Mae, my best friend and partner in the Trouble Buster Investigative Company, had been filling me in on the latest events regarding our first paid job. Since we were in a public place, we were careful to keep our client’s identity and our mission top secret. We communicated in Cora Mae’s version of code, although I didn’t know it yet.

“Kitty’s going to Hell,” she said before blowing an enormous bubble gum bubble.

Kitty acts as my occasional body guard when she’s looking for an excuse to hang out, and she’s the third partner in our investigative business. Kitty pulls goofy stunts every once in a while, but I never considered her fire and brimstone material.

“Since when did you get so judgmental?” I said, thinking of some of Cora Mae’s more risqué adventures.

She sucked in the bubble and rolled her eyeballs to express frustration with me. Then she whispered, “I said Hell, but I meant Paradise.”

“Ahhhh,” I said, catching on, sort of.

In Michigan you can go to Hell or Paradise, depending on your mood. Or you can veer off from either location and visit Christmas, where you can gaze at the world’s tallest Santa and decorated houses even at this time of year: mid-April, the first day of turkey hunting season.

I glanced at Ruthie, who was in front of us in line, to see if she was listening in, but she was busy greeting the manager, Dave Nenonen, who stood behind the new teller watching her every move.

“Wait until we’re in the truck to tell me the rest,” I said, scowling while I tried to figure out what Cora Mae was really trying to convey. Apparently I hadn’t had enough coffee this morning.

I was still scowling when the big dope stuck us up.

I risked a good look at him while he pushed Dave toward the back room. He was dressed like everybody else in Stonely-camouflage jacket, leather gloves, black winter ski mask.

The mask should have been a dead giveaway. While it can be a bit nippy in April, we generally don’t wear face coverings when the temperature rises above freezing.

If we hadn’t been yakking in line, someone might have noticed the seasonable mask faux pas.

Then I glanced down at his feet. The robber was either one of the dumbest criminals alive, or he was the craziest. Who wears bright orange high tops to rob a credit union?

Granted, orange is our favorite color in Stonely but we don’t wear it on our feet. Jackets, gloves, hats, orange suspender pants. But not orange boots and definitely not orange sneakers.

“Hurry up,” the robber snapped at Dave. “And the rest of you…” He waved the gun. “My partner is outside, ya know, eh? Anybody try anything and you’ll be leaking blood on the pavement.”

Pearl squealed.

Dave, tough guy that he is, trotted right over, sorted through a string of keys, pushed a few buttons, and gave the thief open access to the credit union’s reserve cash. “Stay where you are,” our captor said, head swinging to encompass everyone in the room. “Anybody move and my partner opens fire.” The robber disappeared inside the vault.

He must have had Dave in his sights because the manager didn’t move a single hair on his head, didn’t even blink.

I glanced quickly out the window. Nothing unusual struck me, no movement at all other than a pickup truck going by on Highway M35. If he really had a partner outside, the guy was well hidden. While I had the chance, I eased my stun gun out of my purse.

Either the credit union manager or the teller must have pressed a button under the counter at some point, because when I glanced toward the window again, I saw Dickey Snell running in a crouch from an unmarked car. His backup of deputized locals arrived right behind him, squealing into the parking lot, making enough noise to wake a teenage boy on a Saturday morning.

The masked marauder was doomed, and he knew it, judging by the way he bolted out of the back room. He jumped behind the counter and tried to smash the drive-thru window with the butt of his gun. When that didn’t work, he clocked the teller on her forehead instead. Her eyes rolled up until the whites showed, then she went over backwards.

Someone yelled, “Everybody down,” and it didn’t come from the robber. It came from outside the building. In the Upper Peninsula, or the U.P., as we call it, “Everybody down” means only one thing when guns are involved.