Murder Grins and Bears It Read Online Free PDF Page B

animal
abruptly let go. I flew face first into the seat of Blaze’s truck,
catching a blast of Carl’s pungent chicken-clothes.
    I thought about digging my stun gun out of
my purse and zapping Devil Fang till he was knocked silly, then
starting in on Dickey Snell, but I didn’t want them to take my stun
gun away. It was my chief line of defense until I could get a Glock
pistol like a real detective.
    I straightened up and adjusted my pants,
noting the tear in the suspender. At least I wasn’t missing chunks
of cloth. Or skin. “Who’s in charge of this vicious animal?” I
demanded.
    No-Neck Sheedlo dragged him away but it was
clear that Devil Fang wasn’t giving up easily. He fought the leash
and ground his fangs, all the time glaring at me with those beady
red eyes. He struggled against the leash until Deputy Dickey
stepped in and helped haul him off.
    “ What is going on here?” I
asked Blaze who rushed up and had me by the elbow.
    “ You okay, Ma?”
    “ No, I’m not okay. Do I
look okay? A rabid police dog has just attacked me for no apparent
reason.”
    “ Sit down in the seat and
take it easy for a minute.”
    He helped me up into the truck seat next to
Carl. I leaned my head back against the headrest.
    “ Boy, Gertie,” Carl said.
“That was something to see.” Waves of putrid grease slapped against
the air.
    “ I’m waiting to hear it,” I
said to Blaze. “Why is every deputy in the U.P. here and what’s
with the dog? Since when does the sheriff’s department use dogs to
hunt people?”
    Blaze sighed. “The main suspect right now is
Little Donny. I know he must have a reasonable explanation for
everything, but he left the scene of a crime, his rifle was the
murder weapon – at least it looks that way, and his footprints are
running every which way through the pools of blood.”
    “ How do you know they’re
his footprints?” I wanted to know.
    “ Size
fourteens.”
    “ Oh.” Not many men have
size fourteen feet.
    But the smoking gun left at the scene of the
crime sounded fishy.
    “ A set-up,” I offered.
“Little Donny couldn’t kill a horsefly even if he set out to do it,
and you know it. Somebody’s setting him up.”
    “ Then Little Donny needs to
come in and tell us what happened. I’m his uncle. Why wouldn’t he
come to me if he needed help?”
    “ What if Little Donny’s
dead?” Carl said.
    Blaze glared at him. “Well, Carl, that’s
quite an idea you have there. But wouldn’t his body be right out in
the open for us to find?”
    “ He’s probably at my house
watching television right this minute,” I suggested.
    “ He’s missing,
Ma.”
    “ He’s nineteen years old, a
teenager.” It wasn’t too long ago I was changing his diaper and
wiping burp-up off my blouse. ”What if he’s hurt in the
woods?”
    “ We tracked him quite a
ways into the woods before we lost trace of him. He wasn’t
bleeding, or at least he wasn’t bleeding hard enough to leave a
trail.”
    I didn’t say anything. We had to find Little
Donny. It was the first thing Blaze and I had agreed on in a long
time.
    “ Until he shows up, he’s
the most wanted man in the Upper Peninsula,” Blaze
finished.
    The image of Little Donny’s chubby, grinning
mug plastered on the walls of every post office in the country
flashed through my mind. My eyes filled with tears and I looked
away before Blaze noticed.
    Little Donny’s mother, Heather, was going to
have a heart attack if we didn’t clear this up right away. The boy
needed me. His future, maybe his life depended on locating him
fast.
    I had to find Little Donny.

    ****

    In all the excitement, I forgot that supper
was at my house and Grandma Johnson was cooking. I remembered while
Blaze was driving me home after dropping Carl at his little shack
of a house.
    I groaned.
    Grandma Johnson is famous for her cooking,
and I don’t mean in a popular way. Most of us eat before we sit
down at one of her meals.
    Grandma Johnson is ninety-two and her