Myra Lipton's Short Story

Myra Lipton's murder ignited conspiracy theories before her corpse cooled to room temperature. To Myra, that would have been a tribute more tender than any eulogy.

“Adam could tell she was gone as soon as he went in the front door.” Lynette's son was the first to arrive after the UPS driver reported someone on the floor at Myra's house. “There she was, crumpled like a stillborn calf, like a broken bird, with her head bashed to bits.” I attributed the embellishments to the postmaster and not her EMT son.

I was almost home from my monthly excursion into Riverton to get my roots colored, stock up on cream soda, and scarf down forty bucks' worth of sushi. Mail waited in my P.O. box, but the huddle of damp flannel on the porch shared with

the Iris Country Store blocked the door. At the edge of the crowd, I listened to the news many in the county would agree hadn't come soon enough.

“Was she naked?” a man asked.

Lynette shot him a glance and went on with her story, dropping her voice to a loud whisper. “The most horrible part...” she paused, “she had cow manure crammed in her mouth.” A couple of women gasped. “With that silly wig half off and all the damage, Adam could hardly recognize her.”

“Musta been the bullshit comin' outta her mouth that made it a positive ID,” a calm voice said. For a moment, I was afraid it was mine. But the dozen or so heads swiveled to a man seated on the pew beneath the store's plate glass window, a Marlboro sign casing a pink halo on his stringy white hair. Someone snickered. The man lifted his 40-ounce beer can in a toast to his own wit and took a long drink.

“Now, Junior, this is no laughing matter,” Lynette warned. “No matter what anyone thought of Myra, I mean, they don't know who did this yet. We all need to be on the lookout.”

“On the lookout for what?” Junior raised his substantial eyebrows in exaggerated disbelief. “Someone who hated Myra. Hell, swing a dead liberal and you'll hit ten of 'em. Sounds like somebody finally shut that old

b---”

“It...it...this was the feds, dammit, sure as I'm standing here,” a man behind me blurted out.

All eyes went to the thick figure on the bottom step, camouflage cap pulled down to the upturned collar of his camouflage jacket. He nervously wiped at his nose with a camouflage glove, as if embarrassed by the sudden attention. He probably thought all that camo made him invisible.

“Why on earth---?” A woman with soft blond curls spilling from under a crocheted cap began, but the invisible man cut her off.

“To scare the occupiers and push through the monument. It was a political assassination, a political assassination,” the man insisted, enunciating each syllable as if teaching a six-year-old the Pledge of Allegiance.

“It sounds personal to me,” the blond woman said. I felt myself nodding in agreement. “I'm sure the police---”

“Ain't no police around here, Sweetie,” Junior said. The blond's brows wrinkled. She must be a newcomer. Junior explained the situation. “Sheriff's office is gutted, jail's got a revolving door. Only detectives are Staters out of Medford. If we're lucky.” He took a swig of beer. “You can thank Myra Lipton for

that.”

“It was the feds!” The invisible man pressed his point. “They want to scare the occupiers off Burnt Ranch, but we won't give up our God-given rights to our land.” The blond woman said something about public lands belonging to the pub-LIC, but I stopped listening as louder voices overtook hers.

I excused my way into the empty post office. Lynette was in back, filling in the driver picking up the outgoing mail.

Junior was right. Myra had enemies. Her crusade to “expose corruption” shattered more than public trust and personal reputations. News of her death would prompt a collective sigh from county officials alone that could blow the snowpack off Draw Knife Butte like powdered sugar off a lemon square. But the cold creeping up my neck wasn't from relief.