Murder Passes the Buck by Deb Baker Page B

lifting my gun, and George nodded.
    The air smelled like burning wood, my favorite smell. It was nippy out and I could see my breath fogging around my face. I wore long underwear under my hunting clothes, and I turned down the earflaps on my hat when I felt my ears begin to sting. I could hear my feet swishing through the fresh snow as I approached the shack. Apples and corn that I had thrown in a pile had been whittled down to next to nothing, and deer tracks crisscrossed everywhere.
     
    I leaned the gun in the corner of the shack and started the propane heater, then settled into the worn La-Z-Boy to watch. I could hear wind whistling against the shack and the propane heater popping into high gear. Within minutes it was toasty warm inside the shack.
    When I woke up, the last of the apples and corn had been eaten and half the day was gone. I stood and shook out my stiff joints, and admitted to myself that I wasn ’ t a spring chicken anymore.
    I replenished the apples and corn from a well-stocked barrel in the corner, closed up, and trudged back to get ready for Chester ’ s funeral.
    At three o ’ clock, I picked up Cora Mae and headed for Lacken ’ s Funeral Home on the outskirts of town.
    “ I told Kitty we ’ d pick her up, ” Cora Mae said.
    “ No problem, ” I said, wondering how we were going to stuff her into the cab.
    Kitty still sets her hair in pin curls, which went out of style a hundred years ago, and for good reason. Her short gray hair sticks out under bobby pins every which way like it ’ s spring-loaded. She always has her head wired up to come visiting and I couldn ’ t
     
    help wondering who was going to get to see the final product if not Cora Mae and me. Thinking back, I remember only a handful of times seeing Kitty without pin curls — weddings and funerals, mostly.
    Since this was a funeral, we were in for a treat. Kitty waddled out without her bobby pins. She had combed through the front of her hair, but when she turned around to close her door, I noticed she had forgotten to brush out the back.
    Kitty ’ s overweight, always has been, and gravity ’ s winning. Blubber hangs from her upper arms, and the front of her knees are dimpled. She wears housedresses and never learned to keep her legs together, so you can see her garter straps where they connect to her stockings. Most people look away. It ’ s not a pretty sight.
    We were all dressed in burial black. I hoped for two things tonight. One, to find the opportunity to talk to Chester ’ s son, Bill, and two, to see how Ed Lacken hid the hole in Chester ’ s forehead. Because Ed Lacken did the burying for everyone in the county, I hoped his work was still high quality. I wanted to be done up right when the time came. I know he did right by Barney.
    Cora Mae was hoping for something entirely different.

 

     
     

     
    “ I heard that Onni Maki is some stud muffin since he ’ s taking Viagra, ” my friend said. She sat between Kitty and me and had her knees and arms crushed tight against her body. Kitty was a tight fit in any truck.
    “ Onni Maki ’ s an old has-been, ” I said, watching the road carefully in case I missed something in my first drive after dark. “ Who ’ d want to see him naked? ” I shuddered at the thought. We were all getting old and falling apart, but Onni Maki was falling apart faster than most of us.
    “ He looks like a plucked turkey, ” Kitty added, and I laughed.
    “ That ’ s not true, and I aim to get some of the action, ” Cora Mae insisted. “ Doesn ’ t come around these parts often. ”
    “ There used to be a lot of rumors floating around about him when he was younger, ” Kitty said, shifting her weight. “ Onni ’ s always been a wild one. Fist fighting, drinking heavy, women. ” Kitty frowned in concentration. “ I ’ ll remember it all eventually. ”
    I shook my head. “ Kitty, you know everything about everybody. Where do you get your information? ”
    Kitty snorted. “