I felt green. If they found my fingerprints on Wenonga’s post, mixed in with the blood, I would be a prime suspect in whatever statue-stealing, man-scalping extravaganza had taken place here. And I knew from experience that the local law would not be sympathetic to my case. I could confess to Wohnt right now about having touched the post, but the fact that I hadn’t told him right away would make me appear guilty.

I threaded my way through the crowd, trying to put distance between the cops and me, and ran smack dab into Dr. Castle. Today she was dressed in conservative espadrilles, an ankle-length peasant skirt in muted browns, and a beige silk tank top. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, and her face was pale except for the sunburned tip of her nose.

“Whoa,” she said, smiling kindly as she stepped back a pace. “See something up there you didn’t like?”

I smiled weakly. “I think I ate a bad breakfast.”

She nodded sympathetically. “I saw you at the town hall meeting yesterday, right?”

“Me, and a bunch of angry citizens. You know the Chief is gone, right?”

She stared at the space where his head used to be. “They know who did it?”

I studied her face as she stared at the sky. Her eyes were a light green, almost translucent, and she had a light dusting of freckles over her cheeks and her peeling nose. The police didn’t know who had taken the Chief, but I knew who didn’t—me—and I also knew who would gain from doing it: Dr. Castle and Les Pastner. Since it would be in my best interest to pin that tail to a donkey other than myself, post haste, I’d best start asking questions. I swallowed my bile and held out my hand.

“They don’t. I’m Mira James, by the way.” She shook my proffered hand, warmly and confidently. “I work for the Battle Lake Recall. Mind if I buy you a beer tonight and pick your brain for an article I’m working on about Wenonga Days?” I winced at my own choice of words, considering that there might be a little brain on the Wenonga base.

“Sure. Like we say in PEAS, all press is good press.”

“How about the Rusty Nail at 7:00? It’s right on Lake Street, a block or so down from Stub’s.”

“It’s a plan.” She winked and moved toward the front of the crowd as Jed stepped back toward me.

“This is wild stuff, Mira.” His normally bloodshot eyes were glowing, and the sun had dried the sweat from his curls, making them wild. “I heard one of the cops say there was a scalp on the post. Someone got scalped!”

“Mm hmm.” I tuned him out as I wondered how I could find out what Les Pastner, my other suspect, had been up to last night. It wouldn’t be easy. The man pretty much kept to himself, living in the woods in a two-room house he had built for himself. It was basically a glorified cabin, and except for his mangy dog, he was alone out there. He had occasionally visited the library to check out books on tracking, the French Revolution, and bombs, but we had never conversed in depth. I had witnessed him once or twice on a good rant at Bonnie and Clyde’s, one of two bars in Clitherall, so I knew that he would talk if the right buttons were pressed. I needed to figure out what those buttons were.

Jed interrupted my thoughts. “You hear what everyone is saying? People think the ghost of Wenonga’s come back to get us all.” He laughed and grabbed another Jolly Rancher. Grape. “Hey, Mir. Wanna have supper tonight? Say, the Rusty Nail at 6:00. I was supposed to meet up with some people to go to the street dance later, but you could hang out with us.”

“Sure, Jed. Whatever.” I quickly scanned the crowd to make sure Les wasn’t here, searching for his telltale greasy gray hair and fatigues, but there were too many people around and I wasn’t tall enough to see over most of the heads.

“Great! I’ll pick you up.”

“What?”

“For supper and the dance tonight. I’ll pick you up at 6:00.”

Shit. I replayed our conversation in my head. Shit. “No, sorry, I’ll meet you at the Nail. I have other plans later.”

He looked slightly dejected, or maybe it was just the exertion of our sprint up the block and two Jolly Ranchers catching up with him. “Cool. Some other time.”

“Cool.” I smiled at Jed, who really was a harmless sort, and pulled out of the crowd. As I walked away, I puzzled over who this Brando person that Kennie had referred to was, and why he would care about the missing Chief. Although it was against my better judgment and actually my survival instinct and every fiber of my being, I decided to go to the source to find out more.

She was not hard to find.

“Kennie?” I said, when I was within speaking distance.

She looked down her nose at me, a few inches taller even in her star spangled ballet slippers. “Hello, Mira. It looks like we’all got ourselves another mystery. Are you on the case?”

“It’s pure coincidence that I’m here, though I’d sure like to get the Chief back in time for the Wenonga Days kickoff tonight. Was that Brando person you were talking about part of the entertainment?”

For a second, I thought she was going to ignore me. She probably still felt slighted for being booted from the secured area. Then, in her haughtiest voice, she straightened her red, white, and blue hat and said, “Brando Erikkson is an artist. He and his company, Fibertastic Enterprises, created the Chief.” Her voice was raising, and the spangles on her dress started shivering like pebbles before an earthquake. “Do ya’ hear me? And we have lost him! WE have LOST him!”

Kennie was working herself into a lather, and lord knows where that would have gone if Mrs. Berns hadn’t walked by just then in her flower-patterned housedress and muttered, “You look like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag, Rogers.”

Immediately, Kennie was back to her plasticine self. “And a good day to you all, too, Mrs. Berns. I can count on you’all helping with the Fourth of July parade cleanup, right?”

Mrs. Berns snorted and kept walking. “I’d rather clean my bathroom with my tongue.”

And with that, she was swallowed up by the crowd. I decided to copy her disappearing act and slunk away after a quick “thank you” to Kennie. If I jogged across town, I could maybe track Les down before he opened his store and ask him a few questions in private. That weird little militia guy might be the only thing between me and some uncomfortably long jail time, and that was not a reassuring thought.

Despite its grand name, the Meat and RV Store was just an unassuming brown building off of County Road 210. If not for the enormous red-lettered sign featuring a madly grinning sausage driving a Winnebago, it would have been easy to miss. My Toyota was dwarfed by the five used RVs in the parking lot, every one of which had seen better days. A quick scan of the front of the building revealed no light or movement inside, and when I jogged around back, there was no sign of Les’ battered Ford pickup. A quick pull at the rear door revealed that he hadn’t arrived.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to do but go back to the library. Maybe I could catch Les this evening. I could almost hear the clock ticking as I drove to work, me racing against the fingerprinting crew. Time was not on my side.

I was a half an hour early opening the library, and Mrs. Berns was a half an hour late. She showed up with a group of elderly friends who were all tittering about the missing statue, the Fourth of July parade, and Kennie’s surprise guest. The smell of pressed powder and mint Maalox hovered over them like a cloud.

“I hear Marlon Brando is coming to town!” Ida said. She was one of my favorite old ladies in the world, and Battle Lake had a pretty nice selection. She always looked snappy, and today was no exception. Her hair was a crisp white, cut short, and still in the shape of the curlers that she had slept in. She wore a wrinkle-free yellow polo shirt with the collar neatly ironed, brown shorts with a crease in the front, and brown bobby socks with her white Keds.

“Naw, it’s Bronson Pinchot,” Mrs. Berns said. I hadn’t noticed her flip-flops back at Halvorson Park, but her pink toenails complemented the flowers on her housedress nicely.

“The guy from ‘Perfect Strangers’?” Ida asked.

“You sure it’s not Charles Bronson coming to town? I heard Charles Bronson.” This from Ida’s shy sister, Freda. She was dressed almost identical to her sister, except the colors and creases weren’t as crisp.

I shook my head. This was how rumors started in small towns. I set Mrs. Berns to the task of reshelving the returned books, waved at her coterie as it old-lady-shuffled out of the building, and got to work on a rough of my “Mira’s Musings” column. Given the recent happenings, I decided to title it “It’s My Party, and I’ll Fly if I Want To”:

In a strange turn of events, the Chief Wenonga statue disappeared from Battle Lake just as the plans for his twenty-fifth birthday party were getting under way. Police on the scene Friday morning found only four posts and what appeared to be blood at the Halvorson Park location where the Chief has stood proudly for twenty-five years.

The police currently have no leads, and I for sure didn’t do it.

The town of Battle Lake is hoping to have the Chief home for his holiday. If you have any idea what happened to the Chief, please email me at miraj@prtel.com.

I crossed out the middle line and chewed on the end of a pen. My deadline was technically noon Monday, but I wanted to do more than just write my one column. I wanted to cover all of Wenonga Days, now that it might be Wenonga-less and my ass might be grass. I phoned Ron Sims to get the go-ahead.

“Hi, Ron. How’s tricks?”

Ron was a paunchy, grouchy, warm-hearted man who was fortified in life by his dedication to journalism and drive to publicly make out with his wife. I didn’t know if the latter was a fetish so much as a habit at this point, but if you got Ron and Lisa together, they sprayed each other like cats in heat. Their dedication was both heartwarming and stomach turning.

“You got my article, James?”

“Absolutely. Just typed it up. I have a scoop, though.”

“Scoop this. Chief Wenonga has disappeared, and we have half the state coming for his party today.”

“I know. I might have an idea where he’s gone. I want to cover the whole weekend. I want to be your Wenonga Days go-to gal,” I said.

“You got until noon Monday to get me 1,500 words. I want at least three different articles.”

“Thanks, Ron!”

“Yup.” Click.

I was just about to call Mrs. Berns over to tell her to watch the front while I went to the bathroom when I spotted Battle Lake Police Chief Gary Wohnt striding toward the front glass doors of the library, his shiny lips and fathomless sunglasses reflecting light as sharp as arrows.