Murder Grins and Bears It by Deb Baker Page B

My ears felt plugged up and I had to grip my lower lip
with my top teeth to stop the shaking.
    I blinked fast several times and that seemed
to help. “What?” I squeaked.
    “ It’s Billy Lundberg,” Cora
Mae called.
    “ Billy Lundberg, the
drunk?”
    “ How many Billy Lundbergs
you think live around here?” Cora Mae had her hands on her hips,
dark mascara streaks washing down her cheeks with the
rain.
    My knees were still weak when I pushed off
from the tree and stumbled over to get a good look to make sure.
Looking down, I felt a little guilty over the relief I was
experiencing that Billy was dead, not Little Donny. And I was
feeling giddy over being the first investigator at a crime
scene.
    Billy had been the town drunk since way
back. He lived alone after his wife got disgusted with his bad
habits, packed up the kids, and disappeared. Billy might have been
socially dysfunctional, but he was a regular churchgoer. A
Catholic, if I remembered right.
    Billy had seen his last confessional.
    “ He’s not stiff yet,” I
noted. “Must have happened this morning.”
    His head was turned to the side. I tried to
close his eyes for him like I’d seen on television, but they
wouldn’t go.
    “ The eyes are the first
things to stiffen up,” I explained to Cora Mae, wondering if I was
right.
    We were standing side by side over Billy,
both shocked and thinking about what to do next. The rain wasn’t
letting up, but it didn’t matter anymore. The two of us looked like
we’d just climbed out of Lake Michigan after a nice swim with our
clothes on. Cora Mae’s top was plastered to her chest and her
jet-black hair was hanging around her face in little dripping
curls.
    A steady mixture of blood and rain slithered
away from the body.
    “ Give me a hand, I said,
wiping water from my face. “We better search him.”
    “ Touching a dead body gives
me the willies.”
    “ You just about bear-mauled
him a few minutes ago.” Cora Mae’s been around more dead bodies
than anyone I know. She buried three husbands and every one of them
she found dead by herself.
    “ All right,” Cora Mae
agreed. “I’ll check his pants.”
    Figures.
    Billy wasn’t carrying much – a ring of keys,
a wallet with two dollars and a driver’s license, and a
pocketknife. A travel mug tipped on its side lay next to the body.
I didn’t have to sniff too close to the rim to know it had been
filled with straight whiskey.
    “ Wonder what Billy was
doing way out here?” Cora Mae said.
    “ Probably got too drunk to
find his way out. He’s done it before.” I studied the two arrows
jutting from his back and walked around to try to follow traces of
blood. “Looks like he crawled for a while.”
    I watched the rain begin to wash away the
trail.
    “ Let’s get out of here,”
Cora Mae said.
    We started down the path leading out of the
woods. I guessed it was going to be quite a hike. But we hadn’t
gone twenty yards when I heard thrashing in among the trees, a few
loud shouts, and a bone-chilling howl.
    Blaze and No-Neck Sheedlo came stumbling out
of the brush, pulled rapidly by frothing Fred. Fred was straining
against the lead in the direction of Billy Lundberg’s body, and the
two fat boys were struggling to slow the beast down.
    Blaze was too winded to say a word, which is
just how I like him. He leaned over and gasped.
    “ Any luck?” I asked.
“Finding anything unusual out in the woods, son? You ought to have
the case almost solved, what with that smart dog and
all.”
    I waited patiently for Blaze to catch his
breath. Sheedlo wrapped the end of the leash around a small tree
and knotted it. Fred, temporarily forgetting his mission, got busy
peeing on each side of the tree. When he finished marking the tree,
he apparently remembered why he was out here in the first place and
started lunging against the leash.
    “ Haven’t found Little Donny
yet, if that’s what you’re asking,” Blaze managed to wheeze. His
wet pants clung to his