Dead Man Below Deck

Chapter 5. Cocktails at the Country Club

That evening I was sitting on the deck,

smoking my pipe. A Miller High Life was resting comfortably in my stomach and a

pad of notepaper was in my hand. My best thinking happened with a pipe in my

hand and some paper for taking notes. I used a mechanical pencil to jot down

stray thoughts. A pen would work but not as well.

The time had come to review events.

Betty had asked what was going on. It was a good question. Here is what I had

written down.

Friday p.m. – returned from Texas.

Saturday a.m. – dead man below deck.

Saturday p.m. – police station

(wallet in trash).

It was a short list. The emotional

impact of those events did not come through. I had the feeling that events were

building up to some kind of cataclysm. What, really, was going on?

I started to write down more specific

questions.

1. Who was the dead guy?

2. Who killed him and why?

3. Why was he under my deck?

4. Why was his wallet in my trash?

5. Why did the police let me go?

That last question was a good one. Why

did they let me go? The evidence, though circumstantial, seemed to point right

at me, provided I was an i***t. After all, it would not have been very smart to

kill the guy then leave him right under my own deck. On the other hand, for all

the cops knew, I could be crazy or stupid or even both. Some folks had

certainly thought so in the past. But since I was writing the list and I knew I

was not guilty, my alleged craziness or stupidity was irrelevant.

“Hello up there!”

Bob Johnson was down on the sidewalk,

looking up at me. Bob was a nice young fellow. He sold us the condo. As far as

I could tell, he was one of the owners of the development company. The building

we were in was an eight-plex. Three more eight-plexes were planned to fill out

a square that would contain 32 units. Bob and his partners would clear a tidy

sum when the rest were sold.

And that was not the whole story,

either. Our complex was at the edge of town. Most of the housing out there was

relatively new at the time. Acre after acre of new homes, duplexes, and

apartment buildings was spreading to the south of us. Demand for housing, Betty

and I theorized, was coming from people who were commuting into Madison. If a

couple had jobs in Madison and Milwaukee, Fort Atkinson was a central location.

Property was cheaper in Fort than it would be in either city. One spouse could

jump on the interstate headed west and the other could head east.

“I hear you had some excitement around

here,” Bob said.

“Yup. Just a little.”

“Yah, if a dead body is ‘just a little’.” I

didn’t answer, so he went on. “That’s really too bad. You guys are new in town and something like this

has to happen.”

He had a point. “Not exactly like the

Welcome Wagon, is it?” he asked.

“Meat wagon is more like it.”

“Is everything cleared up ok? Are the

police going to leave you alone now?”

“Guess so. They took me down to the

station today, but then decided to throw me back. Too little to eat, I guess.”

Bob chuckled. “You guys must be

pretty shook. Tell you what, the company has reservations out at the Fort

Atkinson Country Club for tonight at seven. Why don’t

you let us bring you as our guests? Have a couple of steaks and relax.”

That sounded pretty good. “Let me ask Betty.

Steak would just about hit the spot.”

Bob was ready to move on to his next

task. He was an energetic guy. “Tell you what, we will just plan on

seeing you there. Hope you can make it.” He turned to

go then turned back. “Oh, our senior partner, Moody

Jorgenson, especially was hoping you guys could make it. He would like to make

up for the poor hospitality you have gotten so far.”

Then with a wave, he was off and running to the next money making opportunity.

Those business guys are something else.

My pipe was out, so it was a good time

to go ask Betty about dinner. She was sitting on the bed, reading. When I

walked into the bedroom, she looked up with a frown.

“I had a strange dream last night.”

Uh oh.

“I dreamed about a first aid box. There

was a big billboard in my dream with a picture of a first aid kit.”

“Really?”

“What do you think it means?”

“Maybe it means you’re feeling anxious.”

“Why would I be feeling anxious?”

“Because you are a Nervous Nellie.”

“No, I am not!”

“Yes, you are.”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

“I think it means there is going to be

an accident. I think it means I should go out and buy a first aid kit.”

“Okay, buy a first aid kit. By the way,

Bob Johnson invited us out to the Country Club for dinner. His company has a

table and they wanted to be nice since I nearly got the electric chair today.”

She considered this. “We don’t have any food in the house.” She thought

some more. “I could wear my new shoes.”

“What new shoes?”

“Well, you asked me to buy you a bicycle

at the estate sale, but I found some shoes instead. They are really nice. You

will enjoy seeing me in them. They’re red and they have

heels.” She jumped off the bed and whipped open a shoe

box to reveal a bright red pair of suede shoes with one-inch heels.

“Those will kill your feet,” I observed.

“Sometimes a woman has to suffer to make

her man happy,” she said sadly.

Off we went to the Country Club after

looking up the address in the telephone book and consulting the city map. As

you might expect, it was an impressive building sitting on the edge of what

looked like a pretty nice course. Too nice for me to play. I was a duffer,

myself. Duffers should not waste money on good courses.

Jorgenson and Johnson were already there

when we arrived. Bob introduced us to Jorgenson, who was a beefy guy with a big

smile and a loud laugh. He welcomed us like long lost cousins, called the

waitress for a round of drinks, cracked a few jokes, and generally started the

evening off on a warm and friendly footing.

The steak was good and the beer was welcome,

also. I had already consumed one back at the condo, so the one I had at the

Club kind of went to my head. Alcohol was disinhibiting which in me resulted in

a tendency to be mouthy. My opinions, never far from the surface, would start

rising to the top like soap bubbles. When those bubbles burst into a

conversation, sometimes they caused a bit of a disturbance. I was not sure why;

people should be able to enjoy a bit of controversy without getting mad.

Unfortunately, once I got going on politics or religion, a lot of folks got

downright hostile.

In this case, I started talking about

regulations that prevented your average citizen from driving any kind of

inexpensive homemade vehicle that he could dream up. That led me to several

related topics, culminating in a call for the elimination of the federal income

tax. I was warmed up at this point and started on my lecture about how much

money the government wasted on unnecessary tomfoolery, such as high school

teachers. Just give the kids a box of computer programs and send them home for

Pete’s

sake. Once a kid could read and write, he could teach himself anyway. “I don’t remember any teacher ever teaching

me anything,” I asserted loudly. “I just learned it by reading the textbook.”

At this point people all around the room

were looking at me. Woops. One thing I had learned was that you can attack a

lot of sacred cows, but if you go after the school system, you are going to

make a lot of people really mad. Teachers worked their tails off, they didn’t get paid much, and

they had to put up with parents who thought their kids were smarter than they

really were. It was a tough job. So they got mad if you said they were

inefficient.

But what really made them mad was if you

said teens didn’t

need the social interaction they learned at school. Why this upset them so much

was a mystery to me. But the fact was, and it was a fact I had just pointed out

at length, most of the bad habits teens picked up they learned from other kids.

Spiked hair, tattoos, pierced body parts, drugs, and pregnancy all resulted

from interaction with other kids. The obvious solution was to keep them away

from each other.

Then what would we need the teachers

for? They could organize and manage internet courses. Of course, this would

require smarter teachers. Ouch. This was usually where somebody threw something

at me.

Finally I shut up. All eyes stared at me

for a moment, then returned to their meals. I figured my name was mud and our

hosts were feeling humiliated. We would never be allowed into the Country Club

again.

But Jorgenson’s smile was a mile

wide. “Ed,” he said, “You have some fascinating ideas. We are going to have to get

together and have some serious conversations. Sometime soon.” Then he called for the check.