Part 8 (2/2)
”Hold on.” There was a little more static, and then his voice came through like a crystal. ”I came to Stevens Point to find out what I could about Dolly Castle. Last night when you saw us at the fireworks? I was trying to find out where she teaches. I think she's behind the disappearance of Chief Wenonga, and I wanted to go to where she works and lives to see what I could find out.”
My heart warmed a crack. Was it possible Johnny was just as interested in getting the Chief back as I was, and really had a legitimate reason to lie and hang out with Dolly? ”And you found out she vandalized a McDonald's?”
”Not the building, the Ronald McDonald statues out front. A whole chain of them in India. Apparently, she was over there for study abroad in some place called Shatrunjaya Hills, and her group went activist and spray painted messages on the Ronald McDonalds, cut off limbs, added horns. Dolly was arrested and extradited to the United States. She ended up paying a hefty fine.”
”So what does that tell us?”
”I don't know. That she knows how to mess with fibergla.s.s? That she's not afraid of breaking the law? You sound mad. I thought you would think this was good news.”
My thawing heart ached. Johnny really did sound like he wanted to impress me. The one important point he had failed to address was the dead body in the cabin he had asked me to watch for him. ”Is there anything else you called about?”
”... can't hear you ...”
”IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO TELL ME?”
”... reception ... of nowhere ...”
”THERE IS A DEAD BODY IN YOUR CABIN. DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT?”
”... body in my dad's cabin? What are you talking about?”
I lowered my voice to normal range. ”The police found a dead body in your cabin today. Now they're looking for you. Whose body is it?” The other end of the line was absolutely quiet. ”Johnny? Whose body is it?”
His voice came out hushed, and it wasn't the connection. ”I have no idea, Mira.”
Tears stung my eyes. ”Don't lie to me. Please don't lie to me.”
”I have no idea whose body it is. I'm on my way back. I'll go straight to the police station and ...”
There was a snap on the line, and it went dead. I held it to my ear for several seconds longer, and then hit the ”end” b.u.t.ton on my phone. My caller ID registered only an ”Unknown Name, Unknown Number” for the call. I sat tensely on my couch, wis.h.i.+ng I had brought Gina's bottle of vodka home with me.
I squared my shoulders. As much as I wanted to believe Johnny knew nothing about the dead guy, I was not going to let myself be played the fool again. I tried to shove pictures of Johnny out of my head, but in the sultry heat of my living room, I couldn't escape the images of him smiling at me as he helped me landscape in June, ignoring the bruises discoloring my face, or the image of his strong hands digging into black dirt, or even the picture of his sweetly shy smile as he dropped me off after supper last night. These hot thoughts pulsed through my mind as a mosquito whined around my head. I slapped at it and missed, and it was soon joined by a second.
I checked my front door, and it was locked tight. I couldn't find a hole in any of the screens, either. I fixed myself a cold cheese and pickle sandwich and scarfed it down. I rinsed the plate, stacked it in the sink, and made myself a gla.s.s of ice water. The gla.s.s fogged up immediately, and drips of water glided down the sides and over my fingers. By now more mosquitoes had joined the first ones, their telltale humming promising a miserable night.
I tried to outrun them by das.h.i.+ng into my bedroom and slamming the door. I set the sweating water gla.s.s next to my bed and flopped down, a fan pointed on my body. I wanted to think, but whenever the breeze from the oscillating fan moved from my head, the mosquitoes returned, buzzing and keening with a vengeance. It sounded like a bona fide swarm, but I couldn't seem to kill them. When I pointed the fan so it was aimed only at my face, one of them bit my ankle and escaped scot-free.
Frustrated, I tried lying under the sheets to escape the mosquitoes, but I could still hear their vibrations. They were hovering, just waiting for me to relax and expose my soft and vulnerable skin. I tossed and turned and wondered what Gary Wohnt would do to Johnny. Throw him into the county jail in Fergus Falls, certainly, and how would they treat him there? He was too pretty to be in jail. I was bitten again, this time on the tender flesh of my wrist, and I jumped out of bed and returned to the couch. The whine of the mosquitoes was driving me crazy. I couldn't think a clear thought and I certainly couldn't sleep between the heavy heat and the bloodthirsty flying knives invading my home. My choices were either to stay here and go insane, or go into town and see if the Battle Lake Motel had a vacancy. I could fix whatever c.h.i.n.k in my double-wide armor they were coming through tomorrow, in the light of day.
Before I started to fret about the money I'd be wasting, I scooped up a toothbrush, change of clothes, and a hairbrush and headed out the door. I made sure to let Tiger Pop and Luna out to spend the night in the hay-filled barn, where they would be much cooler and where they had fresh water. I could still hear the whining insects as I got in my car, so I rolled down all the windows and sped down County Road 83. Only when I finally reached the outskirts of Battle Lake did I feel bug-free.
When I pulled into the motel parking lot, I spotted Dolly's black Honda and, a few cars down, Brando's red Humvee. When I had questioned him at his shop after the parade Indian disappeared, Les had said Brando was staying in a cabin north of town, but I had no reason to trust him. Brando could be staying at the motel, for all I knew, or maybe he was visiting Dolly, confirming my earlier hunch. Was the motel his destination when he tailgated me a couple days earlier, on the day I had discovered the missing Chief?
A little window peeking was clearly in order, but first, I was going to stop by and visit Chief Wenonga's post to see if there was anything I had missed when I had first found the scalp. Heat lightning flashed across the gla.s.s-flat surface of Battle Lake as I stepped out of my car, and it gave me chills. A storm in this heat would be fierce. I sniffed the air for ozone but only smelled lake and country. I reached back into my car for my flashlight and headed to Wenonga's former home. The half-full moon offered enough illumination that I didn't click on my light as I walked, listening to the tinkle of gla.s.ses and muted laughter floating across the lake.
The base was just as I had left it, two days and a million years ago, minus the blood. The four posts had been scrubbed clean and pointed angrily toward the night sky. They were cool to the touch, as was the four-foot-high cement stand. Clicking on my flashlight revealed nothing new on the stand, and the gra.s.s perimeter was also scrubbed clean-not even a cigarette b.u.t.t marred the trampled gra.s.s. That gave me pause. Footprints were the only thing that had been around Chief Wenonga's base on Friday when I discovered him missing, as well. If the Chief-stealer had used a wrecking ball, as Brando had said they would have had to, there would have been Chief shrapnel everywhere. Instead, the ground had been as clean as a hospital floor.
I got on my knees and ran my fingers through the stubbly gra.s.s to make sure I wasn't missing something.
”What're you doing?”
The gruff voice made me jump up so quickly that I lost my flashlight. I couldn't make out anyone in the light of the half-moon. ”Who said that?”
”I am the night. I am swift justice. I am-”
”Les, is that you?”
He shuffled out from behind a tree, a set of night-vision goggles perched on his head. I reached down for my flashlight, sending a crazy strip of light down the park, and s.h.i.+ned it on Les. He was dressed head to toe in Realtree camo with black mud or grease paint smeared across his cheeks.
”What're you doing out here late at night?”
”I could ask you the same thing, Les.”
”I'm hunting.”
”For what?”
”The truth.”
”I guess I am, too. You find any?”
”Not yet, but I just started.” The front office door to the Battle Lake Motel opened, spilling a rectangle of yellow light out into the parking lot. Les. .h.i.t the ground and pulled me with him. ”Get down!”
I had no choice but to hit the gra.s.s next to Les. ”You wouldn't happen to be searching for this truth at the Battle Lake Motel, would you be?”
”Perhaps.”
A thought struck me. ”You know where Brando is staying?”
”I already told you. A cabin north of town.”
”So what's his Humvee doing at the motel?”
Les broke off eye contact with me. The motel door closed and we both stood up, brus.h.i.+ng the dirt off our knees.
”Les?”
”Could be he's visiting someone.”
I decided to come at this from behind. ”Say, Les, how would you take down the Chief Wenonga statue if you had to do it?”
He eyed me suspiciously. ”I didn't steal the statue.”
I sighed. ”Look, I saw you following Dolly at the fireworks, and now you're spying on her outside her motel room. If I tell Gary Wohnt what you're up to, you're going to have an uncomfortable lot of surveillance in your life. How about you cooperate with me now, and I'll keep quiet about your illicit activities?”
He started to puff up, his bowling-ball face glistening under the blackness, and then, just as quickly, he deflated. ”I'm just guessing, you understand? I didn't take that statue, but if I did, I'd take it down with a blowtorch and a cherry picker, lickety split. No mess, and you could get it done in under forty-five minutes. That's just a guess, mind you.”
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