OBIT by Dana M Anderson

Found off an old shareware disk I got off archive.org....

COPYRIGHT 1985 BY
Dana M Anderson                              
715 W. 4th St.
Northfield, MN  55057


OBIT

by Dana M Anderson



     The phone rang.  I answered it.  I couldn't  just ignore

the damn thing.

     Frank was dead, she told me.  Dead since last week.  It

looked like suicide, but she knew it couldn't be, and could I

please come up and find out what happened?  I was the only one

who could help her now.  Frank couldn't have killed himself.

There was no reason.  And, even if there was, he knew the

insurance would be voided if he did.  He wouldn't leave her alone

like that.  Please help me, Michael, she cried over the line.

She said I had to help.

     Dale Crary was right; I had to help.  That's why I packed up

my worn MG and headed her north out of Minneapolis toward the

snow covered farmland of northwestern Minnesota.  It's a long

drive.  I wouldn't have gone if I didn't have to.


     Sure, she did butter me up a bit with that crap about my

being the only one to help her.  And I'm sure she relied a great

deal on any old feelings I might have left for her -- so many

years after she married the wrong guy.  But, after all, I am the

only friend she has who plays private detective for a living.

And, as an old lover, I'd hate to see her lose the insurance

money just because they don't pay for suicides.

     Besides, Frank Crary was too much of a babbling optimist to

blow his head off.  Especially if it left Dale penniless.

                                #

     Northwestern Minnesota is a patchwork quilt of farms and

fields, stands of trees and occasional streams, squared off by

county roads and highways and telephone lines and shelter belts.

Every ten miles or so down any paved road you happen to be

traveling, you'll pass through another small town getting

smaller.  Decaying remnants left in the cold when the interstate

went through, they are still in the process of being destroyed by

the automobile.

     I was driving through the center of a quilt of fields in the

early hours of the cold December morning.  The road was straight

and empty.  The heater in my old car worked erratically, and my

toes and fingers were numb.  I kicked the old bucket up to

seventy and coughed past the scattered trees and barns and the

empty fields.  By two o'clock I could see the glow of

streetlights that could only be Harrison, Minnesota.

     I passed the storefront office of the Northwestern_Reporter ,

the weekly paper Frank and Dale Crary ran.  It was a good paper,

recent winner of the Minnesota Journalists' award for small

newspapers.  The best in the state.  Two blocks past the paper, I

turned right for one block and stopped before a small green house

with white shutters and a pine tree in the yard.  Light spilled

softly through the curtains of one front room.  I got my bag out

and shivered up the walk to the door.

     "Come in, Mike."  She grabbed by sleeve and hurried me in.

"You look half frozen."

     "Hello, Dale."  I kissed her cheek, patted her shoulder.

     She wore a pale green robe and matching fuzzy slippers.  Her

honey blonde hair was pulled back and ponytailed behind her.  I

couldn't be sure if time or the strain of her recent disaster had

traced the faint lines of worry on her forehead and at the

corners of her lovely eyes.  They were not unbecoming lines.  She

was a beautiful woman, but she looked empty, as if the life had

spilled out of her.  I took her hand.

     "Don't worry, Dale.  I'll find out who did this."  I spoke

with more conviction that I felt.  Suddenly, I felt less the

detective and more the stumbling family friend, meaning well but

unable to help.

     "I thought you could sleep in Billy's room.  He's staying

with my mother."  She smiled thinly.

     "That'll be fine."

     There was nothing more to say.  An awkward greeting and a

quiet smile was all we had between us.

                                #

     At eight o'clock the next morning I was awakened by the

smell of bacon and, yes, there were eggs and pancakes and orange

juice and strong black coffee to go along with it.  I decided

that I must be on another planet, one where people actually ate

before noon.  I found the custom a bit strange, but not

disagreeable.

     While I stuffed as much of the meal as I possibly could into

my mouth, I had Dale fill in the details of Frank's death.

     "Frank left here on Wednesday morning at nine-thirty.  The

paper comes out on Wednesday, so it's kind of our day off.  He

was going out to Elmer Bratten's farm to do a little target

shooting, and he said he'd be gone about an hour or so.  He went

there every Wednesday morning to shoot.  When he hadn't come

back by eleven-thirty I called Elmer too see if he had stopped in

to talk.  Elmer said he hadn't but he'd go out to see if Frank

was still shooting.  That's when Elmer found him.

     "Mike, it looked like suicide.  He was lying at the bottom

of a shallow depression where the targets are set up.  He had the

gun in his hand.  There wasn't any evidence of murder, and no

motive that I can think of, but I know Frank wouldn't have killed

himself.  So, no matter how dumb it may sound, it had to be

murder.  It just had to be."

     "Did they check fingerprints on the gun?"

     "Frank had gloves on.  There were no fingerprints."

     "What kind of gun did Frank own?"

     "I don't really know.  He said it was a magnum."

     "A big gun.  Do you know how long the barrel is on it?"

     "I'm sorry, I didn't know they came in sizes."

     "No biggy.  The Sheriff will know."

                                #


     Sheriff Bert Peterson was a large man, both in height and

width, a man seemingly built of steel with large, muscular hands

welded to the ends of his thick, powerful arms.  He crushed my

merely human hand in his grip and smiled down at me, then took me

across the street for coffee and conversation.  I liked him right

away.  He was a direct man, uncomplicated in manner.

     "Mr. Evans," he boomed across the small restaurant table.

"I should probably tell you to get out of town and quit poking

your nose into official business.  I should be hurt that the

widow thought so little of my capabilities that she called in

outside help.  But I won't because I'm not.  I don't blame her

for calling in the cavalry.  I'd do the same thing, and, to tell

you the truth," he said, lowering his voice to a confidential

roar, "I'm not very damn satisfied with that investigation

myself."

     "Why?"

     "I've known Frank for all of the nine years since they took

over the paper, and I've never known a happier guy.  Hell,

nothing ever got him down.  He was one of those guys who run

around calling half-empty whiskey bottles half-full.  A born

optimist."

     "So you aren't convinced of suicide."

     "Officially, yes -- for now, anyway.  Personally, hell no!

It just doesn't fit and I don't believe it."

     "Then why close the case?"

     "Ain't closed.  I just said it was to kinda clear the air.

There's no sense causing a commotion running around looking for

murderers."

     He said he didn't mind a little help on the case, in fact,

he thought I had a better chance of finding something than he

did.  I could nose around like the outsider I was and put some

extra pressure on the guilty party with the worry that I might

get the sheriff to open it all up again.  I told him I'd probably

keep it informal to start with and play the family friend in to

handle the crisis.  Mike Evans: Undercover Agent.

     Back at the cop house, he pulled out a file and we got to

work.  A couple facts jumped out in contradiction to suicide.

While they didn't make it impossible, they did make it damn

improbable.

     First of all, Frank was wearing lined, leather gloves.

Nobody I know would wear winter gloves while shooting.  They made

too tight a fit on the trigger.

     Second, his gun was a .357 Magnum, a double action Colt with

an eight inch barrel.  Have you ever tried to point a gun with an

eight inch barrel at your head and still have enough leverage to

pull the trigger?  Probably not.  I tried it with Frank's gun and

damn near broke my wrist trying to squeeze the trigger.  If the

gun had looser action, or I had used my thumb, I could have done

it easily.  But it was the index finger of Frank's gloved hand

that was stuffed into the trigger-guard.  So, it wasn't quite

impossible, but almost.

     "Looks like murder, don't it?"  The sheriff closed the file

and slipped it back into the drawer.

     "I'm a believer," I told him.  "Look, I'm taller than Frank,

and if I had that much trouble pointing that hog-leg at my head,

he wouldn't have been able to do it at all.  There's no

question."

     "Wait a minute, son.  I said it looked like murder, not that

it was.  The bullet didn't enter his skull from straight on.  It

went in more to the back and at an angle from front to back.

From that angle it's a lot easier to manage."

     "Not easy enough.  Besides, why was he shooting with heavy

gloves on?"

     "I don't know, son.  I surely don't know."

                                #

     The target range on the Elmer Bratten farm was located in a

cluster of maple trees on the west edge of a sugar beet field.

Paper targets hung on clips nailed to a tall wooden fence at the

bottom of a dried up creek bed.  There wasn't anything to look

at but the weathered fence and a huddle of naked trees.

     "He was laying down by the fence, kinda on his left side.

It looked like he rolled down the hill after he shot himself."

Elmer Bratten turned his creased face toward the window, looking

out to the trees.  He spoke with a rough, faded voice.  I judged

him to be about seventy, but I'm no judge of ages.  "He had a

kinda mad look on his face -- you know, angry.  The back of his

head was all blowed off.  There was blood and brains on the

ground about twenty foot up the hill.  Ain't much of a hill, but

a gun that size packs quite a wallop.  Plenty enough to get him

rolling good."

     That was all there was to say.  I went back to the newspaper

office.


     "What was Frank working on when he died?"  I asked Dale as

she hustled around the office completing the advertising layouts

for the next issue.

     "Nothing much," she said, trimming the edge of a photograph.

"Just his regular features, Community Corner, a year-end grain

price situation report and a photo essay on barns.  Why?"  Dale

eyed me across the table.

     "I'm trying to go about this all scientific and logical," I

drawled.  "Thought I might try to find a motive before I went

whooping after murderers."  I sipped my coffee and watched a

couple women scurry across the cold, wind blasted street from the

Coast to Coast store and into the dime store.  Puffs of drifting

snow swirled around their ankles as they slid across the street.

     "Have you found anything yet, Mike?"

     "Nothing that would convince the insurance company to pay

out your money, but it sure doesn't look like suicide."

     "Can't you prove it?"

     "We need a motive.  Why would someone want to kill Frank

Crary?  Did he make any enemies?"

     "No.  Oh, he might have rubbed a few people the wrong way at

one time or another, but not hard enough to provoke murder.

Everybody seemed to like him."

     "Yeah."  I drained my coffee and sat sliding the cup between

my hands on the table.  "He wasn't doing anything out of the

ordinary?  No investigative stuff?"

     "Frank wasn't a muckraker.  Our paper is dedicated to

reporting the local news and events and always looking for the

light side.  Frank and I felt there was enough bad news.  Our

readers have the Minneapolis_Star-Tribune for that."

     "He was quite a crusader in college, and when he worked for

the Trib."

     "Sure, he was.  That was in the Sixties and early Seventies.

There was a lot to crusade against, and crusading was the best

way to climb the rungs of a big city newspaper.  Not here.  Our

paper is a weekly, sold for thirty cents in grocery stores.  The

people want to know who had a baby and who went to heaven.  They

aren't in the market for scandal.  We'd report it, but we don't

go out looking for it."

     "Anything controversial in that barn story?"  I smiled.

     "No," she laughed.  "I'll shoe you the pictures."

     She walked back past the paper strewn desk and around to the

side of the press.  In a moment, she was back with a handful of

black and white glossies.

     "Here.  You can see it's just a bunch of barns."

     There were twenty-one pictures of old barns in various

states of disrepair.  Most were standing alone, but some were in

farm yards with machinery parked beside them.  Instinctively, I

discarded those containing anything but a lone barn.  That left

sixteen.

     "You'd make a good photo editor, Mike.  You threw out the

same ones that Frank did.  Too much clutter."

     "Did he toss this one out, too?"  I pointed to a shot of a

rickety old structure tilted about thirty degrees against the

weakening support of its aging wood.  There was a white car

showing its front end out from the far side of the barn.  License

number CZD-938, Minnesota plates.  It looked like an Oldsmobile I

once owned.

     "Oh, yes, that's the other thing he was going to do on the

day he died.  That's such a nice old barn, but the car ruined the

shot.  He was going to have Ronny move the car."

     "Ronny?"

     "Ronny Hamilton.  A local kid.  He helps us print the paper

and deliver it to the stores sometimes.  The barn is on his

father's farm."

     "Did he talk to Ronny about it?"

     "Tuesday afternoon, while we were printing.  Ronny said he

didn't have a car parked out there, but he'd check in the

morning."

     "I think I'll take this picture with me.  Where is the

Hamilton farm?"

     "Straight south five miles and turn east for a mile.  It's

the first farmstead.  You can't think he has anything to do with

Frank's death."

     "Probably not.  Where's the barn?"

     "It's another mile east, then turn south to the old

farmhouse."

     "Thanks.  I'm going to check it out.  See ya."

                                #

     I lunched at Edward's diner on hot beef and pie, then went

back to the cop-shop.

     "Sheriff Peterson is out.  May I help you?"  She was a

stocky woman, about thirty.  Her uniform strained slightly at the

buttons.


     "Maybe," I answered.  "My name is Mike Evans.  I'm a P.I.

from Minneapolis working for Mrs. Crary.  Perhaps the sheriff

mentioned me."

     "Yes, Mr. Evans.  He said to help you if you came in while

he was gone."

     "Fine."  I pulled out the photograph.  "I'd like a check on

a license number.  Here, CZD-938.  Could you do that for me?"

     "Sure thing.  Just a second."  She went back to the

communications console and punched out something on a keyboard.

it took a minute for a reply, then the teletype started

clacking.

     "That's a hot car, Mr. Evans."  She smiled happily at her

discovery.  "A white, '75 Olds Cutlass Supreme.  It was stolen in

November in Fergus Falls."

     "Thank you."  I turned to leave.

     "Wait a minute!  Where was that picture taken?"

     "Don't worry about it, the car is probably gone by now."

                                #

     Straight south five miles and one mile east brought me up in

front of a large ranch house looking small and lonely under the

canopy of dirty clouds that hung overhead.  A German Shepherd

barked at my car.  Braving the dog and the frigid wind, I walked

up to the door and rang the bell.

     A weather-worn man in blue jeans and a flannel shirt

answered the door.  He was totally bald, about fifty years old.

     "Yes?"

     "I'm helping Mrs. Crary out at the paper and I wanted to

know if it was all right to go out and get another picture of

your old barn.  She's doing a photo feature on barns.  There was

a car parked beside it when Frank shot it the first time, and

we'd like to get a picture without the car.

     "Come on in," he said.  "You don't look like a newspaper man.

More like an athlete.  Football?"

     "Hockey, but not for a few years now," I told him.  "I'm not

a newsman, just an old friend and weekend photographer helping

out."

     "I see.  Coffee?"

     "Sure."  We walked back to the bright, modern kitchen, and

he poured out two cups from his Mr. Coffee.

     "It's too damn bad about Frank.  He was a good man."

     "Yes, he was."

     "You know them long?"

     "We went to college together."

     "You go back a ways, then.  I didn't know him that long, but

he didn't strike me as the type to kill himself."

     "You never know, Mr. Hamilton.  You just never know."

     "No."  He stared silently out the window for a minute.

"What's this 'bout a car by the old barn?"

     "Yeah, a white Cutlass Supreme."

     "Ain't mine.  Never owned an Oldsmobile, just Buicks.

Course, I used to drive Fords.  You know, I bought a brand new

Edsel when they first came out.  Went and sold it.  Be worth

money now."

     "A shame.  Maybe it was you son's car, or one of his

friends?"


     "No, Ronny bought himself one of those Trans Ams last year.

All his friends drive fast cars.  No Oldsmobiles."

     "Well, maybe Dale was mistaken.  It doesn't matter."

     "No, I guess not.  You go ahead and take all the pictures

you want.  If you get a good one, maybe you could make me a copy.

My old man built that barn in the Twenties.  I don't think it'll

last many more seasons.  From the look of the weather, it might

not last the night.  I think we're going to get some snow."

     "Sure, Mr. Hamilton.  I'd be glad to blow up a print for

you."  I rose to go.  "Thanks for the coffee."

     The barn and farm house stood alone at the end of an

overgrown road.  A few mangled trees twisted in the wind and

slapped against the sides of the house, thrusting branches

through broken windows.  The barn seemed to lean even more

precariously than the picture indicated, but it didn't sway.

It stood solidly defiant against the wind.

     The barn doors were chained and locked shut.  On closer

inspection, I saw that the doors had been cut down on the bottom

to allow them to swing against the barn's undesigned slant.  I

shook the chain and tried to widen the gap between doors enough

to see inside.  My hands were damp and stuck to the cold metal,

but I pulled hard and held an eye up to the crack.  The car was

inside at the far end, just sticking out of a stall and partially

covered with hay.  Curiouser and curiouser.  I tore my hand free

from the chain and turned to go.  A red Trans Am was parked

beside my old MG.

     A small kid, about twenty, got out of the car.  His hair

whipped into his eyes as we approached each other across the

brown grass and crunching snow.

     "This is private property."  His voice was high and it

strained against the blast of the rising wind.

     "You must be Ronny."  I held out my hand, but he didn't take

it.  "Your dad said it was all right if I came out to take a new

picture of the barn.  It's for the paper."

     "Mrs. Crary didn't say anything about finishing that

article.  I could have taken the picture."

     He was about four inches shorter than me and was more

lightly built all around, yet he stood as though he was ready for

a fight.  He brought his hands out of his pockets slowly, long,

thin fingers clenching and unclenching nervously.  We squinted at

each other in the wind.

     "Where's your camera?" he asked, defiantly.

     "In the car.  I'm all done."

     "So, why are you looking in the barn?"

     "Curiosity."

     "Nothing in there but mice and sparrows."

     "I see.  I'll be going now."  He moved slightly, as if to

block me, but let me pass.  He didn't say anything more.

                                #

     The sun had set when I got back to town and pulled up in

front of the court house.  The sheriff was on his way back to

town.  Back by eight.  I went over to Dale's house to be greeted

by a note saying she was at the paper and I should have some of

the cold roast beef in the fridge.  I had a sandwich and a glass

of milk before going downtown.


     The front lights of the Reporter office were out, but I

could see a glow in the rear.  I pounded on the door and huddled

myself up against the driving wind.  It was beginning to snow

heavily; hard projectiles of ice bit into my face.  I pounded

again.

     The light remained on, warm and inviting beyond the glass.

It seemed brighter than before.  It seemed to flicker.  Then I

saw the smoke piling up against the high ceiling, rolling up from

the back of the room.  I stepped back and kicked my foot through

the glass door.

     A rush of hot air hit my face as I reached around to open

the broken door.  I ran back to the glow beyond the press.  The

stacked newsprint was pushed over into a pile and lit on fire.

Two bottles of clear liquid sat near the fire -- too near.

     Dale's purse lay on the floor; her coat hung over a chair.

     "Dale!"  No answer.

     Unless she was beneath the pile of burning paper, she wasn't

in the room.  A stack of photographs near the bottles caught

fire, curling rapidly against the emulsion.  The liquid in the

bottles began to bubble.  I ran.

     The explosion made a loud thump behind me and hot air pushed

me out the door.  The plate-glass window cracked and slid out

onto the sidewalk.  I stumbled blindly to my car.

     A big guy in an Air Force parka stepped out from a van

parked in front of my car.

     "Mr. Evans!" he called, grabbing my arm.  He held a gun out

for me to look at.  "Come with me!"  He had to shout against the

rising fury of the storm.  The gun wasn't pointed at me but at

the ground.  That was his mistake.

     I twisted and brought my knee up hard into his crotch.  He

sucked in air and held himself with both hands, the gun still in

the right one.  I grabbed both sides of the hood on his parka and

pulled his head down toward my ascending knee.  Blood splattered

my hands when his face made contact.  He dropped the gun and

slipped to his knees on the street.  I stepped back and slammed

the side of foot against his head, and he crumpled silently as I

landed on my tailbone on the icy street.  He didn't move.

     The building behind me burned brightly and back-lit the

gusting snow like dust in the sun.  A siren stared up in the

distance.  I pulled open the van doors.  Empty.  Picking up Mr.

Parka's gun, I squeezed into my car and took off.  I didn't feel

a bump, so I must not have driven over his sprawled body.

     "Is the sheriff back yet?"  I stumbled into the police

station, my face flushed and hands bloodied.  "Is he here?" I

panted.

     "Ten, fifteen minutes yet in this weather.  What happened to

you?"

     "Get him on the radio.  Hurry!"

     She mumbled some cop-talk into the mike and got him on the

line.

     "What is it?"  Static blurred his voice.

     "Mr. Evans for you, Sheriff."

     "Put him on."

     "Sheriff," I said into the mike.  "How fast can you get out

to the old Hamilton barn south of town."


     "In this storm?  I'd say about twenty minutes."

     "Meet me there.  Have your gun ready because I think we've

found our murderer."

     "The hell!"

     "I don't know how many there are, but if I'm right they're

holding Dale Crary there, too."

     "I'll come running.  Don't shoot anyone before I get there.

It would be a hell of a mess of paperwork."

     I broke the connection.  Putting my dancing partner's gun on

the desk, I said: "There's a guy lying in the street in front of

the newspaper.  He assaulted me with this, and I'm pretty sure he

started the fire there.  You better have somebody pick him up."

     I ran out to my car and headed south.

     The snow was coming down hard by then, but the wind was with

me till the turn so I made good time.  Once I headed east on the

gravel road it was all but impossible to see, and the wind sifted

snow in past the windows and covered my shoulders with it.  The

snow formed a solid white cloud around my vehicle, reflecting my

headlights back at me and moving across the road in a vertiginous

blur.  I crawled forward at ten miles and hour, then five, and

finally slowing beyond the lower limit of the speedometer.  For

all I could tell, I wasn't moving forward at all but sliding

sideways across a white wall at about eighty miles an hour.

Then, what seemed like hours later, I saw the dim glow of

flashing red lights grow in the void behind me.  I pulled over

and stopped, turning my flashers on, and got my thirty-eight

from the glove compartment.



     "Rough going in that runt car?" the sheriff asked as I got

into his sedan.  My knees were shaking against the shotgun in its

holder as I held my hands over the defrost vent below the

windshield.  "Now what the hell is happening?"

     "Damned if I know, but there's something going on at the

Hamilton barn and Frank must have stumbled onto it.  He took a

picture of that old barn when there was a car parked beside it.

It turns out that the car was stolen.  They could be running hot

cars into Canada, but I doubt it.  The car was too old for that.

I do know that they set fire to the Reporter office and some bozo

tried to haul me off at gun-point.  I'm damn sure they've got

Dale.  I only hope I'm right about where they're holding her."

     "We're at the turn for the old Hamilton place," he said.

"Least, I think we.  Can't walk in this weather, so we'll have to

drive in and hope they've got the yard light going to guide us

when we get there.  As I recall, the light is on a pole right off

the corner of the barn."

     The car moved slowly along the overgrown road and I leaned

forward straining to see where we were.  As soon as a light

showed through the snow, he stopped.

     "All right, looks like about fifteen yards to the barn.

Walk straight at the light.  Don't try to sneak around to the

back or anything like that.  In this storm, if you lose sight of

that light you'll get lost and freeze to death.  I'll leave the

car running with the lights on, too.  That'll help."

     The wind caught our doors and kicked them hard against the

hinges as we opened them.  We half ran, half crawled through the

drifted snow as the wind slammed into our backs and pushed us

forward.

     Reaching the barn, we pressed up against the rough wood by

the doors.  The padlock and chain had been removed and the large

doors jiggled in the wind.

     "How do you want to do this?" I shouted into his ear.

     "I don't know, but we'd better get in there before we freeze

against this damn wall!"

     He edged along and grabbed the door handle with his left

hand while pulling out his revolver with his right.  I slipped

around to his other side with my gun ready.  "Here goes!"  He

pulled the door open about two feet and I went through rolling

and landed in a crouch.

     Three men stood huddled around a kerosene heater in the

center of the barn.  A gasoline generator chugged away somewhere

in the rear.  I saw Dale Crary sitting on a bale of hay near the

white Olds.

     "Hi, boys."  The sheriff's matter-of-fact baritone rumbled

in the empty space, rivaling even the howl of the storm.

"Surprise," he said, smiling.

     They stared stupidly for a second and then scattered.  One

brave idiot came up behind a wooden partition with a shotgun.

Peterson fired first, and the scatter-gun roared uselessly up

into the rafters as the man jerked back into the straw.  Ronny

Hamilton froze half crouched with his hands up in the air.

"Don't shoot me!" he cried.

     I ran back where I'd seen the third man go.  A barn door

hung open, flapping in the wind.  I ran out.  The wind drove snow

like icy bullets down the neck of my coat and up my pants legs.

It sucked the breath from my lungs and drove me to my knees.  I

felt my face freeze in a puckered grimace.  I didn't have the

strength to shout or run.  I couldn't see anyone out there, and I

no longer gave a damn.

     I turned back into the wind.  The barn had vanished without

trace in the void of swirling snow, and I was alone in a world

with no sky and no horizons, just the black feeling of movement

and cold to give it definition.  It was impossible to hold my

eyes open against the icy wind that roared unchecked down the

prairie from Canada.  I crawled on my hands and knees squinting

at the ground till I found my footprints in the thin layer of

snow the wind had allowed to catch in the bent grass.  Following

my tracks back to the flapping door, I collapsed on the scattered

straw on the barn floor.

     "Come on, boy."  Sheriff Peterson hoisted me off the ground

and dragged me over to the heater.  "Ya lost him, huh?  Well, I

guess somebody will find him in the spring."

                                #

     It took nearly two hours to make it back to town that night

having to creep along a road that was so obscured that we could

rarely see more than a foot before the bumper.  There were four

of us in the car.  The kid with the shotgun wasn't in any hurry

to travel.  We left him.  I rode in the back seat behind the wire

grill with Ronny Hamilton.  He had his hands cuffed behind his

back and didn't look any too comfortable.

     My street buddy called his lawyer the next day and clammed

up tight, but with a busted jaw he didn't talk too well anyway.

Ronny waved his rights and talked himself right into prison.  He

took a lot of others with him.

     They had a pretty good business running drugs down from

Canada and spreading them around northern Minnesota.  Shipments

were flown in at night, landing on a field by the old farm.  The

car in the photograph had been appropriated by a runner from

Minneapolis who came around to pick up the shipments.  His

partner had come up in another car and they'd left the hot

vehicle behind to rust.

     Frank Crary made the innocent mistake of getting the car on

film and asking Ronny about it.  When Ronny said, rather

stupidly, that he didn't know anything about the car, Frank

insisted that he go to the sheriff about it.  Ronny didn't have

the brains to lie his way out of it, so he called his bosses and

they sent a man up to take care of things.  They met Frank at the

pistol range and overpowered him, then shot him with his own gun.

If they hadn't made the mistake of leaving his gloves on, they

might have gotten away with it.

     Twenty-three men were hauled in on drug charges that

weekend, mostly in Minneapolis.  Sheriff Peterson got his smiling

face printed in every major paper in the state.  The big guy in

the uniform on the front page of the Sunday Star-Tribune is

Peterson.  The curly headed turkey grinning at his right is me.

I got honorable mention in the story.  I wouldn't doubt that

Peterson gets Cop of the Year.  It couldn't happen to a nicer

guy.

                                #



     They towed my car back to town the next afternoon and I

spent the weekend watching the snow swirl around the streets of

Harrison, Minnesota.  Dale and I talked, but we didn't have

anything to say.  It was all too long ago.

     I left on Monday morning, after getting Dale to agree on

paying my usual fee rather than a percentage of the insurance, as

she had wanted to.  After all, what are old friends for?

     I headed south in my rattling old MG with her check in my

pocket.  The heater worked about as well as usual, so my feet

were numb and my fingers burned with the remembrance of that

night in the storm.  The snow receded and the landscape grew

more rolling and forested as I continued south.  Winter hadn't

set in yet back at home.  It was still early, and I wasn't

looking forward to more snow.