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G had his head under a hood when Gertrude walked in. She stood by his front counter, patiently waiting for him to notice she was there—for about two seconds. Then she loudly cleared her throat.
He looked up. “Oh, hey, Gertrude,” he said, sounding less than excited to see her.
“I need your help,” she said.
She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw him grimace.
He headed toward her, wiping his hands off on a rag. “Need help moving another cast iron clawfoot tub?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think I have room for another one. I just need a ride to the water park.”
“You mean the small, weird one just outside of town?” The “water park” was actually an average-sized pool surrounded by inflated slides and bouncy houses with hoses hooked up to them. And a few arcade games inside a small adjacent building. It was the kind of establishment that could only survive in a tiny, out-of-the-way town like Mattawooptock. In rural central Maine, the place was thriving.
Gertrude nodded.
“OK, can I ask why you need to visit a closed water park?”
“I need to talk to the guy who owns it.”
“Silas?”
Gertrude shrugged. “I guess so.”
“What do you want with Silas?”
“It’s personal.”
G stared at her for several seconds. It looked as if he was trying to figure her out. But then apparently he gave up because he sighed and said, “OK, fine. But does he live at the water park?”
“Yes,” Gertrude said. She had no idea.
Gertrude followed G out to his truck. He opened the passenger door for her and then pulled a milk crate out of the bed of the truck. He flipped it over and placed it at her feet so she could climb into his truck. This was not the first time G had given Gertrude a ride.
About five miles and ten minutes later, G pulled into the empty parking lot of WaterWoopPark.
“I don’t think he lives here, Gertrude. The place looks deserted.”
Gertrude put her hand on the door handle. “Would you mind waiting for a few minutes?”
G looked at her incredulously. “Gertrude, there’s no one here!”
“I know, I’m just going to have a look around.”
G looked through the windshield at the tall wooden fence that encircled the park. “It’s a closed building and a closed fence. I don’t think there’s much to see.”
“I know. Can you help me out?”
G sighed. But he got out of the truck and walked around it to place the milk crate. He helped her out and then watched her walk toward the door. She pulled on the door handle. It was locked.
“Satisfied?” G asked from behind, still standing by his truck.
Gertrude looked up. “Can you feel the top of the doorframe, G?”
He came up and stood beside her, and then looked down at her skeptically. “You mean, feel for a key?”
“What else would I want you to feel for?”
“This is a business, Gertrude. He’s not going to leave a key, even if this is Mattawooptock.”
“Would you please do it? Or go get my crate so I can do it?”
G sighed again and halfheartedly reached up and felt the top of the frame. Then he held up his empty hand. “See? Nothing.”
Gertrude stepped back and surveyed the scene in front of her.
G waited patiently for a minute and then asked, “Can we go?”
“There!” Gertrude triumphed, pointing at a rock pressed up against the building, several feet from the door.
“There what?”
“There. That rock.”
“What rock?” G snapped. There were many rocks.
“That one,” Gertrude said, without pointing. “It’s different from the others.”
G stared at the rocks at the base of the building. “I don’t see it.”
Gertrude heaved a frustrated sigh and took two steps toward the rock and pointed with her chin. “That one.”
“So I guess you’re expecting me to pick that rock up?”
She just looked at him.
He walked over to the building and bent to retrieve a rock.
“Not that one,” Gertrude said, exasperated, “that one.”
G picked up a different rock. “This isn’t a rock,” he said.
“I know. Flip it over.”
He did. “I’ll be darned,” he said. There was a small compartment in the bottom of the false rock. He opened it, and removed a key.
“Gimmee,” Gertrude said, holding her hand out toward him.
“No,” G said, pulling it away from her eager clutch. “What are you going to do with it?”
“What do you think?”
G frowned. “You want to tell me why we’re breaking into a water park?”
“We’re not breaking in. We have the key.”
“Gertrude! You said you had to talk to Silas. He’s obviously not here. So let’s go. The man probably has a telephone, you know.”
“Fine!” Gertrude snapped. “Why don’t you just leave. I can walk home.”
G laughed. Gertrude never walked anywhere, let alone the five miles home. That would wear the tennis balls right off her walker. “I’m not leaving you here,” G said. “But I need you to tell me what we’re doing.”
“We’re just going to take a look around, make sure Silas isn’t here.”
“If he was here, wouldn’t he have come to the door by now?”
“Not if he can’t.”
G furrowed his brow. “Is something wrong with Silas?”
“Don’t know. You won’t give me the key.”
Looking exasperated, G walked to the door and unlocked it. Then, holding it open with one hand, he waved Gertrude in with the other. “Ladies first. Let’s hope there’s no alarm system.”
“Yeah, right. Who would break into this place?” Gertrude asked as she entered the dark foyer. She immediately groped around the adjacent wall for a light switch.
“Hang on. I’ve got a flashlight on my phone,” G said.
Her fingers found the switch. “No need for one of those fancy doohickeys.”
“You’re probably right,” G said, following her inside. “If you had a cell, I’d probably have to go on a lot more of these errands.”
“Oh, stop it. You know you love feeling needed.”
G didn’t respond.
“At least I’m not asking you to babysit my cats again.... What’s that?” Gertrude asked.
“What?” G asked.
“That. The House of Balls.”
“Um, it’s a house of balls,” G said.
“I can see that. I can read. But what is a house of balls?” Gertrude was downright excited.
“It’s just a big box full of balls. For kids to play in.”
“Oh goodie!” Gertrude exclaimed and rushed over to the ladder.
“Gertrude, don’t get in there. I might not be able to get you out!” G hurried after her.
But she was already on the ladder. Then she froze. “Oh Mylanta!”
“What?” G asked, but then followed her gaze and started. There was a woman in the house of balls. And she appeared to be very dead. Her face was colorless, and her chest, which was eerily still, had a bright red circular stain on it. As G stared, Gertrude jumped into the house of balls.
“Gertrude, no!”
Gertrude landed and instantly sank to her shins. She tried to pick up one short leg, but then the other leg sank and she toppled over sideways with a small yelp. She flailed her arms, looking absurdly like a chubby Raggedy Ann doll and then sat up with a giant smile on her face. “This is great!” she exclaimed.
“Gertrude, get out of there! We need to call the police. And you’re going to get yourself in trouble. Get out of there!”
“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a bunch. I’ll be right out. Just hang on a sec.” Gertrude slogged over to the body and peered closely at it, looking for something, anything, to connect Lance Pouliot to this dead body.
“For the love of God, don’t touch her!”
“It’s not the woman from the photos.”
“What photos?” G asked.
Gertrude felt around in the balls, searching for something, or someone, else.
“That’s it. I’m calling the cops.” G didn’t have a signal, so he left Gertrude alone in the balls and went outside to call the police. When he returned, Gertrude had miraculously extracted herself and stood waiting for him.
“Are they coming?” she asked.
“Of course they’re coming. There’s a dead body.”
“She’s been shot,” Gertrude informed him matter-of-factly.
“You didn’t touch her, did you?”
“Of course not!” Gertrude said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
They stood there together, awkwardly, silently, just inside the door, waiting to see some sign of life outside.
They heard it before they saw it. Sirens. Then, thirty seconds later, blue lights.
G greeted the lead officer by name. “Hale,” he said, and nodded. They had played high school football together.
“G,” Hale said, returning his nod. “You found the body?”
“Over there,” G said, pointing to the house of balls.
“You didn’t touch it?”
G shook his head.
“OK, wait right here. One of us—”
“I know who did it,” Gertrude interrupted.
Hale turned to her expectantly.
Gertrude felt nervous all of a sudden, an emotion entirely unusual for her.
“Well? Are you going to share your theory?” Hale asked, obviously impatient and annoyed.
Gertrude took a deep breath. “It was the mayor.”
And Hale actually laughed. From deep in his belly, he whooped with laughter, his ridicule echoing to all corners of WaterWoopPark. “And just why do you think it was the mayor?”
Gertrude felt her face flushing red, another experience she wasn’t used to. She didn’t know what to say.
“OK then,” Hale said, regaining his professional demeanor, “you guys sit tight. One of us, probably me, will be back to take your statements.” Hale walked over to the house of balls, took one look, and then spoke rapidly into his radio. Another officer asked G and Gertrude to step outside, and then he began to wrap trees with caution tape.
G stood with arms crossed, constantly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His jaw was tight, and he seemed unable to look at Gertrude. “The mayor?” he muttered through his teeth.
Gertrude didn’t respond.
“I know none of us love the guy.” (G also attended the church Lance Pouliot had tried to burn down.) “But I wouldn’t be accusing him of murder to the cops. That could get you into trouble, Gert.”
Gertrude heard him loud and clear, but she didn’t respond. She was too angry.
Eventually, Hale returned. “Can I have your full names and addresses please?”
They gave him the info.
“So, what were you two doing here exactly?”
“I needed to talk to Silas, the owner,” Gertrude said.
“About what?”
“None of your business.”
Hale looked at Gertrude, surprised, then looked at G, and back to Gertrude. “Actually, this is a murder investigation, so it is absolutely my business.”
“I wanted to sell him Girl Scout cookies,” Gertrude said snippily.
Hale sighed. “Ma’am, lying to the police is against the law.”
“No, it’s not,” she said.
Hale chewed on his lower lip. “OK, so you were here to talk to Silas. Then what happened? How did you get in?”
“We used the key.”
“You had a key?”
“No, we found it.”
“She found it,” G said, pointing at Gertrude.
“OK. Found it where?” Hale asked.
“I have a cat named Hail.”
“That’s great. Where did you find the key?”
“In the hide-a-key rock,” Gertrude said matter-of-factly. “Over there.”
Hale looked. Then he looked at Gertrude as if he’d never seen such a thing. Then he wrote something in his notebook.
“Who is she?” Gertrude asked.
“We haven’t made a positive ID yet,” Hale said.
“So you have made an ID?” Gertrude asked.
“What?” Hale snapped, looking genuinely confused.
“You said you hadn’t made a positive ID, which means you’ve made a less-than-positive one. Otherwise, you would have just said you didn’t know.”
G rolled his eyes and took a step back from Gertrude.
Hale sighed. “One of the guys thinks he recognizes her, thinks she’s a local waitress. But we don’t know anything for sure yet, so don’t go telling everyone. Then anyone who knows a waitress will fly into a panic.”
“Private Eyes?” Gertrude asked.
“What?” G said.
“How’d you know?” Hale asked.
“Lucky guess,” Gertrude said. “I know how you cops like to hang out there. G, you need to get me home. Right now.”
“Hang on,” Hale said. “Not so fast. I have some questions for you.”
“What?” Gertrude asked.
“How did you know she worked at Private Eyes?”
“I told you. Lucky guess.”
“OK, so what did you want to see Silas about?”
“I told you. Girl Scout cookies.”
“A-huh.” Hale wrote something down in his notebook. “So you’re the one who found the body?”
“Yep.”
“And what made you look in the house of balls? Did you expect to find Silas in there, inside his locked, closed building?”
“Nope,” Gertrude said, completely missing his sarcasm. “I just like balls.”
Hale stifled a chuckle. “OK then. So you found the body. Then what did you do?”
“I jumped into the balls.”
“You did what?”
“Oh, don’t get all shook up. I didn’t touch anything. I just wanted to make sure she was dead.”
“Did you touch the body?”
“No, of course not. I watch television.”
“So then how did you confirm that she was dead?”
“I could tell once I got close enough.”
“But you didn’t touch anything.”
“I said that already.”
Hale sighed again. Suddenly, he looked exhausted. “So did you see or hear anything suspicious?”
“Nope,” Gertrude said.
“Nothing at all?”
“Nope.”
“OK, well, we may need to fingerprint you later, so we can rule them out when we find them all over our crime scene.”
“Oh yeah, like you’re going to fingerprint an entire house of balls. What would that be, the print of every kid in Somerset County? That was a smart place to murder someone if you ask me,” Gertrude said.
“Except that I didn’t ask you,” Hale said. Then he looked at G. “How about you? You see or hear anything useful?”
“No, sorry, man. Nothing. The place was still, dark, and quiet.”
“And do you know what she wanted with Silas?” Hale asked.
“No, sorry.”
“So you just drive her around?”
“Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes I have trouble saying no.”
“OK then,” Hale said and then looked at both of them as if he wasn’t sure what to do next. “You can take her home. Please, you two, don’t talk to anyone about this, especially reporters. And you,” he said, looking at Gertrude, “don’t leave town.”