Dead Man Below Deck

Chapter 9. Concert in the Park

That night a couple of hundred people were gathered around the bandstand. The tubas, the horns, and the various other instruments along with their players were already in place when we arrived. We saw Betty’s cousin Andrew leaning against a tree, so Betty and I dragged our folding chairs in his direction.

“Hey, Andrew. How’s it goin’?”

“Just holding up this tree to make sure it doesn’t fall down.”

“You’re doin’ a fine job. It’s not even lookin’ wobbly.”

As we settled in for the show, Betty and Andrew exchanged small talk about relatives, some of whom were throwing guilt trips her way about not visiting them yet. We were living in Wisconsin now, why hadn’t we come to see them? The relatives sent these guilt trip messages through Andrew. He was the nearest family member and so it fell on him to pass the guilt on to Betty. It sounded a bit convoluted to me, but I was not one who could judge these things. Usually, when someone threw a guilt trip at me, I didn’t even notice.

The concert was pleasant. The quality of the music was a little uneven, but when they got to the Army and Marine anthems the band did an excellent job. John Phillip Sousa’s work was delivered with verve. You could tell the band had practiced marching music quite a bit.

By the time we were allowed an intermission, it had become apparent to me that the audience could be broken into several distinct groups. First, we had retired people. This was the largest group. They must have arrived first because their folding chairs were clustered closest to the bandstand.

The next largest group was the kids, who were busy playing on the swings and jungle gym. They yelled and had a good time until a stern-looking woman from group A came over to shush them.

The third largest group, oddly enough, was the bicyclists. At least twenty people clad in spandex were scattered around, their bikes on the ground next to them. These people did not have folding chairs, instead they just sat on the grassy turf. Personally, I would have been reluctant to do that. Chiggers leave a nasty bite when they get their teeth into me. While I have never been the recipient of a chigger bite in the butt, I would be reluctant to take the risk.

The cyclists were scattered between our tree and the old folks. They chatted among themselves in a desultory way during the intermission. Betty, Andrew, and I did, also.

Andrew had a bone to pick with us. “Hey, you guys didn’t tell me about the excitement you had over at your place.”

“Excitement? Oh, you mean the dead guy.”

“Yes, I mean the dead guy. That’s big news. Why didn’t you call me? All the relatives will want to hear about it.”

“Nothing to tell. Dead man below deck. End of story.”

“That can’t be all of it,” Andrew protested.

“Yep. Except they took me downtown for the third degree. Then they let me go.”

“That must have been pretty scary. Did they tell you what it was all about?”

“Nope.”

“Well, why did they let you go? You look pretty guilty to me.” What a jokester.

“They let me go because I didn’t do it. In fact, I couldn’t have done it because the guy was killed on Thursday when we were still driving up here from Texas.”

Betty looked over. “How did you find that out?” Damn. She never misses a trick.

“Andrew, tell me this,” I blustered on. “What possible reason could there be for a murder in Fort Atkinson? I mean, why would somebody leave a body lying around in plain site?”

“I don’t know. We don’t have many murders around here. A suicide now and then is all we get and that is usually a cop doing himself in.”

“Maybe it was politics?” I asked.

Andrew looked at me like I was from Mars. “Politics? We don’t get that excited about politics.” He thought for moment. “Most likely, it was some drug deal out of Milwaukee. Or Chicago. You know how those city people are. If they didn’t have money, we wouldn’t even let ‘em get off the highway at Fort Atkinson.”

“What’s their money have to do with it? Are you saying it’s okay to do business with drug dealers?”

“Well, it’s okay to sell them ice cream.”

The band started up again, so we turned eyes front. I am afraid I dozed off soon after that.