Knee High By The 4th Of July Part 6

"There you are! How long have you been here?"

Gina wore a shapeless, patriotic T-shirt, blue-jeans, and flip- flops. Her thin blonde hair was pulled back in a pony tail, and her bright green eyes smiled at me.

"Just got here. So, what's your big news?"

"Let's walk and talk." Gina hooked her arm through mine and navigated me around the jostling crowds over to a choice spot on the banks of Molly Stark Lake.

"We're walking, but we're not talking." I was studying the crowds, trying to catch a glimpse of Dolly, but I wasn't oblivious to the fact that Gina was unusually quiet.

She stopped dead in her tracks and faced me. "OK, Mira, don't be mad at me, but I'm pregnant."

My initial thought was ohmyG.o.d, better her than me, but my sporadically effective social filter managed to click down in the nick of time. I grabbed her up in a big hug. "Mad? Why would I be mad? You're going to be a fantastic mom!"

Gina laughed and pushed me off. "I know how you feel about Leif, but he's changed. He swore he'll never cheat again, and he's changed. He's excited for the baby."

My eyes misted over. I didn't know whether or not Leif had or would change, but I knew that Gina was a whole lot braver than I would ever be. I had decided that being single was like being fat; if society let me get away with it, it'd be my preferred method of existence. I'm not talking "need to remove a wall from your house to heave you out when you die" fat. I'm talking "eat until you're full and then have a piece of cake with ice cream" fat. A girl could dream.

"I'm sure he is excited. I hope this is everything you want it to be."

Gina squeezed my hand, sniffing at the air. "Did someone spill a beer on you? You reek."

"New shampoo."

"You know, Mir, they say pregnancy is contagious. Once one friend gets it, they all do." I could hear the teasing in her voice. "You're on birth control, right?"

"Ha! That'd be like wearing a parachute while you're driving. Is that Leif over there?"

We wove through the crowd to the blanket Leif had set out for the three of us. I said my greetings and allowed myself to be introduced to the two couples Gina and Leif came with. From what I could tell from an initial glance, both were from the heavy-drinking and TV-watching stock, the women sporting 80s claw hair and the men condescending and dumb. It was only an odd combination if you'd never been west of the Twin Cities. I'd tolerated this type of people when I had to, but when one of the guys, who was coincidentally sporting a Long Hard Johnson Fishing Poles T-shirt, asked Leif if he'd ever heard the joke about how you can't rely on a woman because you should never trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn't die, I decided it was time to look for greener pastures.

I stood, brushed myself off, and said goodbye to Gina. It was going to be hard to find Dolly among the crowd since it had grown dark. There were hundreds of blankets covered with couples and families dotting the sh.o.r.eline. No alcohol was allowed within the park limits, but people were openly swigging beer. I decided it would be the best use of my time to hit the far end of the lakesh.o.r.e and work my way back in an inward pattern, walking along the beach and then backtracking one layer in, until I had worked myself between every group of people. Of course I'd only find Dolly if she had situated herself in this prime firework-viewing location. If she wasn't on Molly Stark, or if Les had knocked her over the head and dragged her into the woods, I was SOL.

I caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation as I walked through the crowds, punctuated by the first, sparkling fireworks lighting up the sky.

"Oooh! That looked like a purple mushroom!"

"When I was a kid, the fireworks blew up in shapes, like flags or George Washington's profile."

"Did you bring the Boone's Farm?"

"You gotta emphasize the Boone's, not the Farm, man, or it just sounds gross."

"Wow! That lit up the whole night!"

"Think they'll have one shaped like Chief Wenonga?"

I was at the far end of the crowd, trying not to get distracted by the beautiful rainbow reflections of the fireworks shimmering on the lake. It was when I was pulling my gaze away from the water that I caught sight of a couple, thirty feet up the sh.o.r.e on a little stretch of beach almost too narrow to stand on, the water on one side and marshy reeds on the other. I waited for the next explosion to light up the sky before I could see who it was. In a flash of brilliant red, white, and blue, I clearly made out Dolly's signature reddish-blonde hair and the dark silhouette of a tattoo on her right wrist, but the person standing next to her was obscured in shadows.

It was a masculine figure, taller than Dolly, leaning down to talk to her. Whether his hair was light or dark, I couldn't tell. Either way, Dolly was happy to have him close, so I was pretty sure it wasn't Les, who was shorter than Dolly anyway. I casually strolled closer, dropping down on my haunches when Dolly looked my way. When I reached the edge of the reeds, about twenty feet from where the couple was standing and away from the bulk of the fireworks crowd, I could make out bits of conversation floating over the water.

"... for another week or so."

"You sure that's right?"

"I'm positive." Dolly's deep chuckle. "You think I have what it takes?"

"... up to you ..."

I risked a peek around the reeds. Dolly's back was to me, but her companion was looking in my direction. I quickly darted back behind the reeds, but not before Johnny Leeson's eyes locked on mine. He was out with Dolly, and he had seen me spying on them.

"Mira?" he called out, but I was already jogging toward my car.

I was p.i.s.sed. Off. I was mad at Johnny for not being in love with me, even though he was turning out to be a sneak, and I was furious at Dolly for horning in on my territory. The argument could be made that she didn't know I was interested in Johnny, but I wasn't in the mood for generosity. Mostly, though, I was mad at myself for falling for another guy. Love always ended badly for me. I couldn't even fall for a fibergla.s.s statue without it ending poorly, for the love of Betsy.

I was so caught up in my dark mood that I didn't notice Brando stroll out of the woods, and I walked smack into him.

"Oh! Sorry." This was my first face-to-face encounter with him, and based on the carnivorous once-over he gave me, he seemed to be enjoying it a great deal more than I was.

"Not a problem. Where are you going in such a hurry?" He grinned and winked.

"I'm not a big fan of fireworks."

"Mmm." He beckoned over my shoulder. "See anything interesting back there?"

From where we stood, I could see the outlines of hundreds of people staring up at the sky over by the beach, but there was no foot traffic near us, and the closest blanket of people was a few hundred yards away. Feeling slightly uneasy, I swatted at a mosquito and went from defense to offense.

"Just bright lights in the sky. What about you? What are you doing back here?"

He laughed and held out his hand. "I don't think we've met. I'm Brando Erikkson. I'm in town for the festivities."

I shook his hand reluctantly, noting his smoothly manicured nails and strong fingers. "Mira James."

A light of recognition flared in his eyes. "Sure. You've got that column. Kennie mentioned you."

I'll bet. "So, you see anything interesting back there?"

"Not much. There's a path down to the lake, but some young lovers were making the most of the night, so I turned back."

Ouch. "Well, it was nice meeting you."

"Some of us are having a party after the show. You should join us." He laid a light hand on my shoulder. "Maybe you could do an article on me."

"Yeah, maybe." I pushed his hand off my shoulder and stomped off. The party would probably be a good place to gather more information on the missing Chief, but I was in no mood. I located my car without spotting any law enforcement and rolled home.

I fell into a funky sleep right away and awoke to a bright, shining fifth of July, my head pounding from a broken-heart hangover. I didn't feel like eating breakfast, or cleaning, or watching TV, or gardening, or doing anything else I normally do to pull myself out of a dark mood. That left only mowing the lawn, all one and a half acres.

I don't enjoy the actual act of mowing the lawn, but I love the clean smell of fresh-cut gra.s.s and the soft, trimmed carpet of green afterward. I strolled down to the outbuilding where I stored the mower, listening to fuzzy b.u.mblebees the size of peanut M & Ms buzzing against the petals of my summer flowers. I ga.s.sed up the old Snapper rider, checked the oil, and yanked the whipcord. The engine fired immediately, and I began the b.u.mpy job of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the gra.s.s. I divided the lawn into segments. First, I mowed the area between the silo, barn, and two sheds. Then, I trimmed the strip running parallel to the mile-long driveway and the tiny beach area down by the lake, and I finally cleared off the wide section circ.u.mscribing the house, ducking low to avoid the branches on the far perimeter.

As I mowed, I let my mind drift. My world had been turned upside down in less than a week. The strangeness had come with this intense, portentous heat, and there was no end in sight. First, Kennie had come back from hush-hush training the middle of last week, which I now knew had been her radical cheerleading camp. Then, at the planning meeting the next day, Dolly and Les interrupt the proceedings with their crazy talk about getting rid of Chief Wenonga. Lo and behold, the next morning the Chief disappeared and someone left behind a b.l.o.o.d.y chunk of head. That very day, an angry Gary Wohnt showed up at the library looking for me, a first.

Throw into that mix a missing Native American impersonator from yesterday's parade, and it all became too weird for words. Dolly and Les were the most likely suspects, but I didn't like the smell of Brando Erikkson on the scene, especially since he was somehow connected to Les. I knew where those two were at the time the Indian mascot disappeared, though, so that put Dolly on the hook as suspect number one. I experienced a cheap thrill at the idea of pinning her as the culprit, but it was too easy. If you're going to steal two Native American representations, why announce your position at a very public meeting? If it were a publicity stunt, she would have claimed it by now-unless she had something else planned, like an Indian-stealing trifecta.

I returned to my other burning question: how does a twenty-three-foot statue disappear under the cover of night? I knew that the Battle Lake police officers trolled the main drag at least once every hour, so whoever took Chief Wenonga must be a pretty quick statue dismantler, which would point the finger squarely at Brando. But why would he steal the statue? He had a whole pile of 'em back in Wisconsin. It made more sense that Les, who made a name for himself flouting authority, would have removed the Chief. He certainly had access to the big equipment I would imagine was necessary-his brother owned a construction company in Perham.

Two hours of mowing, and I had a hot-sticky body but no answers. It wouldn't be easy, but I would have to find the Chief to find his abductor, and that's all there was to it. A good place to start would be to interview the people who lived in the handful of houses around Halvorson Park to see if they had seen or heard anything suspicious the night the Chief was stolen. That would be my next step. After that, I would visit Johnny's cabin, though the idea unsettled me. What game was he playing, asking me to watch his cabin, lying about leaving town immediately, and meeting up secretly with Dolly at the fireworks?

I parked the mower and walked on shaky legs back to the house. I considered taking another shower before I left but decided there was no point. Johnny had moved on. The Chief was gone. Who was I trying to impress? I hosed the gra.s.s flecks off my legs, turned the spray on the garden to refresh my vegetables, rinsed my face and hands in the chute of water, and hopped on my bike. The smell of gasoline lingered on me and became cloying in the concentrated heat of the midday sun, but I couldn't pedal fast enough to escape it. By the time I reached Halvorson Park, I was sweaty and flushed. The good news was that the 5K race was scheduled for today, so there were a lot of sweaty and flushed people around as well as a crowd to provide me cover.

When I strolled up to the house nearest to Halvorson, my bike at my side, I realized my luck was holding out. The tiny, 1950s square blue box of a house was having a garage sale. I parked my bike, sauntered up the driveway, and rummaged through a pile of old record alb.u.ms, pausing to admire the bright cover of Engelbert Humperdinck's After the Lovin'. Next to me were two older ladies I didn't recognize.

"Isn't this your cookbook?" The white-haired woman nearest me held out a worn Doubleday Cookbook roughly the size of a wheelbarrow. She used a lot of her face when she talked.

"My name on the inside cover?"

The second white-haired woman opened it up. "Yup. Trudie Johannsen, 1952."

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned. I sold that at last year's all-town garage sale."

"You want it back?"

"How much is it?"

"Two dollars."

"Christ on a cracker! I can't hardly pa.s.s up a deal like that. Give it over."

The secret of the all-town garage sale was laid bare. Everyone was just recycling their stuff around town, year after year after year. I knew the high school was even selling old trophies they didn't have room for anymore.

I grabbed a frizzed-out hair tie with a nickel sticker on it and walked up to the scowling lady sitting at the card table, a steel box full of change in front of her. "Can I buy this hair tie?"

"If it's got a sticker on it, you can buy it."

I handed her a nickel and shoved the band into my pocket. "It must be weird not having Chief Wenonga to look at anymore." I gestured toward the park.

The woman glanced over at the Chief's former home, then back at me. She adjusted herself on the chair, one enormous polyester-clad thigh creating a sucking vacuum against the other. I noticed her eyebrows were overplucked and hung over each eye like a long gray toenail clipping. "You want to buy anything else?"

I looked around and reached for a half-full bottle of perfume next to her. "How much is this?"

"Fifty cents."

I gave her a dollar and waited for change. "I don't suppose you saw what happened?"

"Don't suppose. By the time I looked out, all there was to see was a girl standing there, her hands on the post." She jabbed her thumb in the general direction of where the Chief statue had been as she stared down into her change box. "Looked an awful lot like you."

I sucked in a quick little breath. "Really? Wouldn't that be hard to tell from this far away?"

"I got eyes like an eagle. You wouldn't want to buy that Vikings helmet, would you? Chris Carter wore it in 1996."

I looked at the beaten-up purple and gold football helmet and sighed. "How much?"

"Twenty dollars. Chris Carter wore it in 1996."

"Mmm hmm. There's a lot of women who look like me around, don't you think?"

"I think it depends on whether or not you want that helmet."

"Sold." I traded her a twenty for a helmet full of a stranger's sweat and high-tailed it out of there before she extorted any more cash out of me.

I didn't have any more luck at the next house over, or the next. At the fourth house I stopped at, I learned that the owner had seen a car leaving Halvorson Park early the morning the Chief disappeared. My heart soared until I was told the car was a small brown Toyota. Two people had seen either my car or me at the scene of the crime. Now I knew beyond a doubt why Gary Wohnt was after me.

Since no clues were forthcoming in this neighborhood, I hopped on my bike and pedaled out to Johnny's cabin, which was on Silver Lake, a mile and a half north and a little west of Halvorson Park. The lake was small and clean, but the west side was swamp so only the east side had cabins and houses on it. I had never been to Johnny's cabin, but last night at Stub's he had a.s.sured me that his name was on the mailbox, and there's only one way to go around a lake. I pedaled the flat stretch to Silver Lake, coasting when I reached it so I could read the mailboxes. Sweat raced down between my shoulder blades, and I vowed to invest in some aluminum-laced, heavy-duty deodorant and anti-perspirant next time I was in the Apothecary. This sweltering heat wasn't gonna let up.

I pedaled the winding lake road once and didn't see Leeson printed on a mailbox. It was on the second pa.s.s that I noticed the dirt road snaking up into the woods to my left, at a spot where the tar road was veering away from the lake. I followed the dirt trail that led to a handful of tucked-away rustic cabins, so close together and similar that they looked almost like an abandoned resort. The cabin farthest from the entry road and closest to the lake had a black mailbox at the end of its driveway with "Leeson" painted in bronze on it.

I parked my bike and trod carefully toward the leaf-covered mud puddles in the center of the driveway. As I drew closer to the cabin, a hot breeze kicked through the treetops, making a scary whisper in the popple leaves. It was otherwise spooky quiet back here, except for the distant drone of an Evinrude. The other cabins must be summer retreats and looked unoccupied from where I stood. I stripped off my T-shirt and used it to wipe the sweat off my neck and chest, and, standing there in a sports bra and shorts, I wondered if it was a good idea to continue. No one knew where I was, and Battle Lake hadn't been a safe place as of late. I stood with my hands on my hips, T-shirt tucked in my waistband, and forced myself to get up some nerve. It was daylight, bright as a new penny, and nothing bad happened when the sun was out.

Seven long strides and I was at a low spot in the driveway. If it rained, this would be where the puddle would form. Right now, though, it didn't look like it had rained in this spot. It looked like a deer had been gutted and dressed out. There were brown winter leaves, probably carted in from the woods by Johnny, and they were smeared in crusty red. I grabbed a stick and poked at the pile until I dug up a white piece of rubber, stained red-one of the balloons, and when I pulled my stick back, it was also smeared with red. Whoever had driven over the balloons had done so within the last day. Judging by the amount of splatter, Johnny's plan had worked. The paint was still wet in spots. Whoever had been out here now had paint on their car.

I followed the faint red tire tracks leading toward the cabin, careful to keep to the clear, dry sections of road. My senses were hyper-tuned. I was sure that whatever kids had been out here messing around were gone, but I didn't know what they had left behind. The cabin itself looked small, maybe two big rooms inside, and the door must be facing the lake because I couldn't see it. The outside was covered in stained wood siding with a brown shake roof. It blended in nicely with the forest and was probably a great place to sneak a party if a person didn't know that Johnny was coming out here regularly.

I peered through the window closest to me, facing the driveway, and saw that there was in fact one big room inside, with a small kitchen, a bed, and steps to a loft. There was one door off the main room, and judging from the cabin's dimensions, it could only be a small bathroom. The bed looked rumpled and muddy.

More pressing, however, was the amount of light being let in through the wide open door on the lakeside of the cabin. Johnny had been right to worry. Some kids had broken in. I made my way around the building through the raspberry brambles, wondering why it was that people never did for themselves-landscapers had the messiest yards, chefs rarely ate at home, and carpenters' houses were never finished.

When I made it to the side of the cabin facing Silver Lake, the condition of the door startled me. It hung out, only one hinge left to secure it to the frame, and its lock and handle had been obliterated. Splinters of wood lay on the ground. I picked a chunk up, noting that it was quality wood, not the type I had in the double-wide. A pine scent laced with sawdust, mildew, and something disturbing that I couldn't quite place washed out of the cabin. The trespa.s.sing partiers had probably peed in a corner.

I wiped at the mosquitoes I had stirred up, and took a deep breath before going in. The inside of the cabin was surprisingly neat, except for the lumpy bed in the shadows. The central room was maybe twenty feet by twenty feet, and all the kitchen cupboards were closed and there were no dishes in the sink. I figured the smell must be coming from the bathroom, but when I pushed open the door, careful not to leave prints, only a simple toilet, cover up and water clean, and a pedestal sink stared back at me.

I sighed. The smell must be coming from the bed. I had avoided looking too closely at it because my fear was that Johnny's cabin bed had become the local lover's lane, and I didn't want to see that up close. I had come this far, though, and I might as well see her through. The rotten, coppery scent became overwhelming as I strode to the bed, and when I reached it, my brain didn't know what to make of the sight.

The sheets and blankets were rumpled like waves on the ocean, and pools of maroon so dark it was almost black marred their soft green surface. Was this more paint? I walked to the far side, where a nightstand stood between the bed and the wall. A blanket had fallen in this s.p.a.ce. When I leaned in, I saw that the blanket was wearing a blood-crusted T-shirt, blue jeans, and one shoe. The other foot was bare and stiff from death, it's sheer whiteness the most disturbing sight. I couldn't look at the head, my eyes unable to let go of the image of that icy pale foot, sprinkled with wiry black hair on the toes and top.

I covered my nose, trying to stem the tide of nausea surfing on the musty smell of cabin and woods mixed with the heavy iron scent of violent death. The room fell sideways, and I caught myself from falling by lurching the other way. The buzzing in my ears made it impossible to think, and I stumbled out of the cabin, swallowing furiously to keep from throwing up. I could not leave any trace of me in this butcher shop.

Outside, I gulped in the fresh air of the forest, tears streaming down my face. Had Johnny and Dolly set me up?

I biked home in a daze, showered, scrubbing my skin until it was raw, and drove to my pay phone of choice for making 911 calls. I called in the body at Johnny's cabin, giving the location but no details, not even my fake name. Afterward, I cruised to Gina's house, no longer caring if Wohnt saw me. She wasn't home, so I let myself in and helped myself to a gla.s.s of vodka on ice. That had been my dad's favorite drink, minus the ice. I could see where a person could get used to it. The slightly antiseptic taste felt good going down, disinfecting your memories and blotting out dark thoughts.

By my second gla.s.s of vodka, I was beginning to feel in control again. So what if Johnny and Dolly had killed a guy, hid the corpse in his cabin, and set me up to take the fall? I had outsmarted them. No one knew I had been to the cabin, and now, the police were going to find the body and nail those two. You couldn't really blame them for choosing me as their patsy, anyhow. Finding dead bodies had so far been one of my recurring occupations in Battle Lake, so I had good references. And what did I care? I didn't need anybody. I was just fine being alone. You don't get hurt if you're alone.

I dozed off for a while and was awakened by the fierce growl of my stomach. Now that I had my life in order, going to the Fortune Cafe for a late lunch seemed like a grand idea. I stumbled out the door, wondering when it had gotten so d.a.m.n hot outside. Certain that my car ignition had turned into the bake switch on an oven, I decided to walk. I had traipsed almost to the front door of the cafe when I felt an ominous presence loom behind me, blocking out the sweltering July sun. I turned to see a steely-eyed Gary Wohnt staring me down.

"I've been looking for you."

I swayed slightly, then fixed him with an icy stare. I had to squint one eye a little to do it. "Gary."

"Where are you going?"

Answer nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations. "Where are you going?"