What The Critics Say About Gertie
"Quirky and most enjoyable characters...A pleasure to read." - Mystery Scene Magazine
"Laugh-out-loud funny." - Crimespree
"Gertie is a lot like Evanovich's Granny Mazur, but with more freedom to misbehave." - Deadly Pleasures
"Gertie Johnson...steals the show. She's one heroine you can really cheer for." - Steve Hamilton, Edgar Award winning author of A Cold Day in Paradise
"A hoot with a heart." - Cozy Library
"A delight to read. In addition to the engaging mystery, it's a wonderful story of the love of family and friends.” – Mysterious Review
"Deb Baker has perfectly captured the spirit and lifestyle of those who dwell above The Bridge." – Traverse City Record-Eagle
"Gertie Johnson…one of the most memorable heroines in recent crime fiction." - Lansing State Journal
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Murder Trims the Tree
A Gertie Johnson Christmas Mystery
by
Deb Baker
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SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
D.B. Publishing LLC at Smashwords
Murder Trims the Tree
Copyright © 2011 by Deb Baker
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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(Part of the story you are about to read is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
Word for the Day
SCALAWAG (SKAL uh wag)
A Scamp; rascal
“Earl Chaney was a real scalawag,” Grandma Johnson said, her false teeth snapping about someone else besides me for a change. “I haven’t seen him for ages. He’s a year or two younger than me. Around eighty now, is my guess.”
“In his late eighties and counting,” I said. My mother-in-law is ninety-two. I swear that woman is aging backwards. At least in the behavior department she is. At the moment, Grandma was wearing clip-on elf earrings, a blood-red pillbox hat, her best visiting dress (hoping to impress Earl), and her usual cranky, demented attitude.
That’s why, when the judge ordered The Trouble Busters (which is my investigative service) to perform community service for what he inaccurately called “obstructing justice”, I piped up and suggested to my cohorts that we work off our hours at the assisted living home over in Trenary. For non-Yoopers unfamiliar with our part of the country, Trenary is located in the heart of the Michigan Upper Peninsula, a little northwest of center.
There was a method to my madness. First, Trenary is close to my home in Stonely, about fifteen miles away, what the old-timers call a stones-throw. Second, Cora Mae, another of my business associates and my best friend, has three husbands buried in the cemetery there, so I knew she wouldn’t complain, because then she could visit them as often as she wanted. My sweet Barney is buried there too, so I was with her on that visitation advantage.
Being a widow isn’t so bad anymore. But when I first heard Barney had drowned in the Escanaba River while trout fishing, I almost died right along with him. I’ve finally adjusted. But why, oh why did he have to go and leave his crackpot mother behind for me to deal with? That’s the only unanswered question I have left for him. And he’s getting an earful when we meet up again.
Anyway, getting back on track and to the real point - another reason for choosing an assisted living facility was because I’ll do anything to get Grandma into one on a permanent basis. If she sees how much fun she can have - visiting funeral homes every day if she wants, playing bingo, cheating at cards, eating macaroni and cheese, and having lots more people to gossip about - she might just decide voluntarily to stay on.
Our court-ordered destination, Applegate Senior Living, caters to all levels of care. The assisted living section is in a special building with a dense row of cedars as a shield between it and the nursing home part, so residents there don’t have to see what’s looming ahead of them in their future. That’s what I had in mind for Grandma, the assisted living part.
Being a big bunch of procrastinators, we waited until almost Christmas to tackle our sentence, which was somewhat of a mistake since our deadline for compliance was the end of the year. With flakes the size of cotton balls dropping out of the sky and snowbanks intent on climbing to the top of the electric lines, we had no choice but to be out on the road. Otherwise, it would be jail bars for us come December 31st. We couldn’t even visit the cemetery like we’d originally planned. It was buried in snow until spring.
But what better way to spend our time than helping out those in need over Christmas, I thought, feeling a burst of holiday spirit. Not everybody appreciates this time of year as much as I do.
“Yup,” Grandma went on right next to me in the backseat, “A real scamp, that Earl. I dated him, you know. He had three nipples.”
I was afraid to question her further, so I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the scenery, which was zooming by at a frightening speed in spite of all the snow.
Since all three of us got the exact same sentence, and I had enticed Grandma into accompanying us on our first day by reading the list of residents to her and scoring a win when I hit on Earl’s name, we couldn’t all fit in my pickup truck. Even without the heavy winter coats taking up valuable space, we couldn’t fit. That’s how Kitty got behind the wheel of her banged up old Lincoln. Her driving us is something we try to avoid at all cost. The woman has no regard for herself or her passengers.
Cora Mae was riding in the death seat. We’d tossed a coin. She’d lost.
Fred, my companion German shepherd and most capable member of the investigation business, had a window seat. Grandma and Fred don’t see eye to eye on most subjects. She had refused to sit next to him. That’s how I got the hump seat.
“Dang,” Cora Mae yelled from the front. “I forgot the shampooing cape. Turn around. We have to go back.”
“Use a towel,” Kitty said. “We’re already late.” She punched the gas pedal even more, causing Cora Mae to squeal. At least the Lincoln had brand new snow tires.
It hadn’t been hard to figure out what each of us would do to help out at Applegate. Cora Mae considers herself a top-notch beautician and she has all the necessary supplies, so she wants to offer free shampoos, cuts, rinses, and perms. I don’t have it in me to tell her how bad she really is as a hairdresser. Besides, my whacked off spot is growing back in nicely and I like the accidental red dye job she gave me a while back. I’ve even been able to return the wig I’d had to borrow from her after the last close encounter with her scissors.
Cora Mae has been my friend as long as I can remember, right through all those husbands and even before. She dresses in various shades of black (the black and multiple deceased husbands earned her the unofficial title of Black Widow), wears Wonderbras to keep her boobs where they belong, and doesn’t care if a man is eighteen or eighty. Which has me thinking she’s going to love this assignment.
Kitty, number two detective and also a good friend, has been taking online law school classes. She’s completed several already and knows how to read contracts and statutes. Even though her interests lean more toward criminal law, Kitty’s idea is to spend her service time giving advice regarding health insurances in case residents have issues. You know, act like an advocate for them, protect their rights.
Kitty isn’t much to look at. She runs around all day with her head full of pin curls and rarely combs them out. When she does unravel them and swipe a comb through her hair, she always misses the back ones, leaving them to bounce in loose springs, reminding me of a nest of baby Slinkys. Not only that, she wears baggy housedresses and sits with her legs spread apart like a man, giving us unwanted crotch shots. But she’s sharp as a tack in the head department.
Fred and I plan to do some joint therapy work, which I hear is really good for old people. Fred has all the qualifications – he’s affectionate, friendly with strangers, patient, and doesn’t mind being mauled by all age groups.
From the driver’s seat, Kitty craned her head backwards to look at me. Cora Mae had her arm extended to grab the wheel if we started for the ditch. “I’m advising you one more time,” she said in her lawyer voice. “You have to have a special certificate to bring in a therapy dog. And he has to be insured.”
Since her law school classes started, Kitty sure can be a pain in the you-know-what, telling me this is wrong and that is wrong. But only on some topics, mostly those that involve action on my part. When she’s in control (like now), she behaves however she wants (as in driving too fast for conditions).
“I’ve got the papers all filled out,” I said back to her, not bothering to tell her I’d made them up myself.
“A real scalawag,” Grandma said, still in her own little world.
Scalawag is Grandma’s word for the day. She found out I was improving my vocabulary with new words, and she decided to do the exact same thing. Although her way is the wrong way, because she already knows her words and has used them before. Grandma goes through the dictionary, finds words from her past (ones she’s forgotten all about), and then she recycles them.
Me? I have my word for the day hidden away where fancy-pants Kitty can’t find it out. I used to write them on scraps of paper so I’d remember. Somehow or other she’d get her mitts on them and use my word before I got a chance to. This time, nobody’s going to have my word until the moment it shoots from my lips. Kitty’s one-upmanship days are over.
The Lincoln plowed into the nursing home parking lot, slid sideways on the snowy drive, and did a complete three hundred and sixty degree doughnut.
After the screaming died down, we got out of the car.
I glanced at the overhead sign – a big red apple logo over the name of the place, Applegate Senior Living.
In hindsight, the joint should have been called Hellsgate.
*
Living with another person is never easy. Just ask me. I’m Gertie Johnson, sixty-six-years old, and having to get used to it all over again. After a lifetime of learning to live with my husband, he up and died and left me to deal with his sourpuss, battleax mother. Whoever the other person might be, wherever the living together happens, adjustment is tough. So imagine eight inmates…uh…I mean residents having to coexist without the added benefit of handpicking their housemates. They don’t have one or two other oddballs to get used to, they have a bunch of them, plus a staff of caregivers. Suddenly, it’s worse than day care for little kids because nobody can even leave if they don’t like it. Talk about stuck!
We walked through the main door into a cheery living area with colored holiday lights strung everywhere. The layout of Applegate wasn’t half bad. Off to the right, a dining room had tables with bright tablecloths, each with a red poinsettia plant in the center. The kitchen, front and center wasn’t one of those open designs, but it had a large carved out window facing the entryway where the cooking staff could keep an eye on visitors and residents. To the left was a great big living area with several sofas, overstuffed chairs, a piano, and a big screen television.
A group of employees were in the entryway wrapping up for the weather.
“A snow day!” one of them exclaimed to us, acting like school kids. “We get to go home before the weather gets too bad to leave.”
“Who’s going to take care of the residents if all of you go home?” I asked, thinking that was a fair question.
“They’re pretty easy to manage,” the same one said. “And two aides offered to stay behind to serve meals. Lunch is all set to go. Besides…” she looked us up and down, “you look pretty capable. All of you do.” She hadn’t seen my tiny mother-in-law screened from view behind us, looking just like the elf earrings she wore.
The staff didn’t waste time. I blinked and they were gone.
Nurse Shrank ran the place, and she let us know it the second her radar picked us up. “Papers for the animal,” she said, looking at us over a pair of bifocals. She had a turned up nose and narrow eyes. “And there were supposed to be three of you, not four, and certainly no dog.”
“I’m here to manage these scalawags,” Grandma said, overusing her word, but following through on what I had told her to say in case somebody questioned her on her own special skills, of which she had none. “And somebody on the phone approved the dog.”
I’d fed Grandma that small falsehood for just this exact situation. As an investigator, I have to be prepared in advance. Even when that means stretching the truth.
“I’m the only one around here who has the authority to approve anything,” Nurse Shrank said. She began to scrutinize the trumped-up document. “A therapy dog, you say?”
I could tell from her accent, or lack of one, that she was a troll, meaning she didn’t come from the Upper Peninsula, but rather from below the bridge. That’s lower Michigan, which is under the Mackinaw Bridge, and has no relationship to the upper except through the statehood none of us wants. If we had our way, we’d cede from that union, and create our own. Or maybe join Wisconsin since they have the Packers.
Yoopers – that’s us. Outsiders like to poke fun of our speech patterns. Some of us talk just like everybody else. And some of us end our sentences with “eh?” which could mean a lot of things - what? or yes! or whatever.
Holy wah! is a popular Yooper expression too.
Youse guys think we all talk like diss.
But you’re wrong. Even though our slogan is Say ya to da U.P., eh?
Moving on.
Before the troll boss had time to question the authenticity of my forged documentation, we heard a commotion down the hall where I assumed the residents’ private rooms were located. “I’ll be right back,” she ordered us. “Stay right where you are.”
While we waited, we admired the Christmas decorations in the common area. A big balsam tree was in one corner, strung with popcorn, garland, and colored lights. Someone had handcrafted a paper star for the top. A woman in a wheelchair had her back to us and was stringing silver icicle tinsel. She must have had a zillion of those long, thin strings draped over one hand, and she was carefully adding them with the other hand. I couldn’t help noticing she was covered in tinsel, wearing more of the stuff than the balsam.
“Nice tree,” Kitty commented.
“It’s not real,” I said, knowing real trees were off limits for some state regulated businesses. My main man George Erikson and I operate a tree farm together. In our neck of the woods, fake trees are frowned upon. Do-gooders from other parts of the country squawk that we’re stripping our forests, when in actuality we really do farm them. For every row we cut, we plant another.
Thinking of the tree farm reminded me of George and how our long-term friendship had evolved after Barney passed. I used to feel guilty, but finally realized Barney would have approved of George. They’d been good friends all the way up to the end.
An image of George wearing his cowboy hat and not a stitch more flashed through my newly awakening smutty little mind. Lately, since we’d made our relationship official, I’ve been having more and more of these daydreams.
Outside the window, big fat snowflakes landed in piles, already covering most of Kitty’s car, making me wonder if I’d see George later today, or if we’d be snowed apart until morning.
“Might as well make ourselves comfortable,” Grandma said, starting to wiggle out of her winter coat. We hung our outerwear on hooks by the entryway and changed from our snow boots to shoes.
A geezer came down the hall and started adding some kind of wrapped things to the tree branches. First he’d take a hook, then he’d stick one end through the end wrap of a piece of what I guessed was some kind of candy. Then he’d hang it. The woman in the wheelchair seemed ultra-focused and hadn’t even noticed us, but the old guy did. He slowly made his way over with a plate of treats in his hand, individually wrapped in red cellophane with gold twist ties on the ends. He could have filled in for Santa Claus with those suspenders and bristly white chin whiskers, exactly like Santa if he was having a bad beard day.
“Want a piece?” he said to Grandma. “It’s chocolate. I made the stuff myself.”
“See there,” I pointed out to her, eyeing up the wrappers. “Sweets waiting for you right by the door. And since he made the chocolate candy himself, it must be okay to use the kitchen whenever you want.” Let someone else deal with Grandma in the kitchen, I thought to myself. I’d handled more than my share. Who knew before she came to live with me that kitchens can be so dangerous?
“Earl?” Grandma said, squinting at him. “Earl Chaney, is that you?” Grandma got up close and personal to get a real good look. “It is you! We went to school together. It’s Letty. Remember me?”
Earl’s eyes got wide when he recognized Grandma. “Sure, I remember you. We used to mess around in the janitor’s broom closet.” Then he smiled brightly and stuck out the plate. “Have a homemade chocolate. I call them holiday chocolate bombs.”
“I’ll take one,” Kitty said, moving in so fast she almost beat Grandma to the dish. They both came away with pieces at the exact same time.
“Stop!” we heard shouted from down the hall. “Stop immediately!”
Quick as a flash, Nurse Shrank raced up, reached out, and made a grab for Earl’s plate of treats. “You know better,” she barked at him.
He jumped away just in time and smirked at her.
Just then Grandma made a sour face. “What’s that smell?” she wanted to know.
“Fresh as they come,” Earl said, proudly.
Nurse Shrank made another lunge at him, a successful one this time. Nurse Shrank wasn’t displaying her best behavior by acting so unprofessional in front of a potential resident.
“Earl’s just trying to share,” Kitty said, eyeing up the chocolates in the nurse’s hand, like the plate might sprout legs and run away. In that case, she’d be right behind it.
“Poop!” Cora Mae shouted after a few sniffs right along with Grandma. At first I thought she was using one of her mild swear words (the only kind she utters). But then she said, “Those are balls of poop!”
Grandma and Kitty dropped their ‘bombs’.
We all took a bunch of steps backwards.
And that was only the beginning.
*
Under Nurse Shrank’s disapproving glare, Cora Mae set up shop in a corner of the kitchen where she would be close to the main water supply. I spotted a fire extinguisher hanging on the wall, a good backup in case she set somebody on fire.