Murder Talks Turkey by Deb Baker Page B

backwards until the wild brush screened me from view. When I was sure it was safe to change positions, I did my business, took a sip of Tang from a small bottle, readjusted myself, and slunk back.
    I was just in time to see the back end of the woman, retreating in the opposite direction. She had on woodsy colors and wore a cap that hid her hair. I wouldn’t even be sure it was a woman if I hadn’t heard her talking to Tony
    I quickly shuffled the binoculars from my hunting vest.
    But it was too late.
    I’d broken the first and most important rule of surveillance. No potty stops. That’s exactly when the target will decide to move, according to my beginner’s manual. And it had happened exactly that way.
    I wanted to rush after her, throw caution to the wind, and collect on the Trouble Buster’s manicures. But part of my job was to accomplish my mission quietly and discreetly, without alerting Tony. My professionalism kicked in and I held back.
    I put adult diapers on my mental grocery list.
    An hour later, Tony collected his decoy and whistled while he walked down the trail leading home.
    The hours in the woods among the Jack pines and tamarack trees hadn’t been a complete bust. I had the two lovers recorded on tape, and most importantly, I knew Tony was cheating on Lyla. It was a start.
    __________

    “That dirty dog,” Kitty said from my kitchen table. Fred slid his nose onto the table at the “dog” word and wagged his tail.
    “I never would have guessed it,” Cora Mae said, giving Fred a pat on the head.
    We had polished off six freshly fried sugar doughnuts, two each. Kitty reached for a third. “We have the rest of the day off from following Tony,” she said. “Lyla said he’d be puttering around the house.”
“What if the woman in the woods was Lyla?” Cora Mae suggested.
I shook my head. “She knew I might be out there.”
“Maybe she’s a voyeur,” Cora Mae said.
“A voyeur is someone who likes to watch sex acts,” Kitty said. “The voyeurese would be Gertie, not Lyla.”
“Believe me,” I said, “I didn’t enjoy it one bit. Besides, I know Lyla’s voice. It wasn’t her.”
    “Tony had his little breakfast love fest,” Cora Mae said. “Good thing you were watching him, Gertie, or we would still be wondering about Lyla’s accusations. I’m really disgusted with him.”
“People aren’t always what they seem,” I said, knowing that true enough. I looked at Kitty. “Where did you hide the Glock?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“I’m sure. No one’s going to hook me up to a lie detector while I’m still alive and kicking.”
“It’s all wrapped up in plastic and buried down inside my compost heap.”
“Yuck,” Cora Mae said. “That pile really stinks.”
    Composts are beds of rotten garbage that we use to fertilize our gardens. They need a perfect mix of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and water to decompose properly. We toss in all of our leftover kitchen scraps - except for meat and dairy, because those things attract vermin to the pile. We also add coffee grounds, horse manure, grass clippings. You name it. It goes in.
    “You need to keep the proper balance of wet and dry,” I said. “It smells bad because it’s waterlogged. Right now, I’m glad it stinks, so no one will go near it. After this is over, you should add some paper and cardboard to soak up some of the water.”
    Grandma shuffled cautiously down the hall and plastered herself against the wall when she saw Fred near the table. “Get that thing outta my home,” she said, forgetting who owned the house.
    I flipped on the micro recorder and hit play to drown out my mother-in-law’s crabs. Everyone listened to the few sentences I had captured on tape.
“Nothing but smut,” Grandma said, edging warily around Fred and pouring a cup of coffee. “Who brought the doughnuts?”
“I did,” Kitty said.
“Are they safe to eat?”
“’Course they are.”
I snapped off the recorder since Grandma was