Hermit Shack — T.F. Platt

The epicenter of the story takes place in southern rural Michigan. Some Cub Scouts discovered human bones in a gravel pit. The team of Sheriff Wayne Puller, Deputy Jack Trip and Sergeant Detective Fanny Gillespie is augmented by Kent County Deputy Clydis Groner and Deputies Edith and Harold James along with Platt family children and other family members. Their old dog named Sniffer manages to uncover many of the clues that help resolve the mystery.
Although fiction, the story is set into events of actual history including the war in Viet Nam and beginning of foreign oil importing by the United States. One character is Uncle Helio Outhe, an Athabascan Indian truck driver from Alaska who makes a stand favoring the use of our own oil and of the Alaskan pipeline. Helio with his wife Anna Mae [Groner] Outhe participates with others of the family in softening Grandmas pain over the recent loss of Clarence, her beloved husband. The huge white Outhe camper pulled by a Mack truck was designed in part to give Grandma competing thoughts to occupy her mind. The camper hauled the Michigan deputies on an adventure into Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky in quest of clues to resolve not only the murder but also to include historical stops to enjoy Annie Oakley, John Dillinger, and Big Foot. A Big Foot hunt in company with real mountain men provides humor and adventure eventually culminating in Mr. General being handcuffed to his potbelly stove due to his unfortunate grasp of Grandma out in the Big Foot woods.
Along the way traveled by the camper or a squad car the deputies discover some history of the Wabash Cannonball and of Amtrak and of a baby carriage dating from 1905. The carriage is restored in time to become a prize possession of an adopted three-year-old maiden with a happy face and a stack of golden curls. In another adventure encountered while on trip carrying the bones previously found by the Cub Scouts in the gravel pit, a group of deputies encounter a lady picking dewberries and she tells them of a mad Yankee, not a Big Foot, that burned their revival tent.
Home finally to Leadford, Michigan, granddaughter Hulda Sunshine James in taking her turn caring for Grandma is awakened to find Grandma scalded by coffee in an eerie darkened kitchen with the blue flame of the oil burner ghosting hotly the steam wreathing the prone figure of Grandma on the floor screaming for God to let her see Clarence. Hulda soon found that her Grandmad been awakened before dawn by a hungry Robin. That darned old Robin, Hulda exclaimed. Im going to get up early tomorrow and tend to that bird. Meanwhile back in Manitou Prairie Nathan and Luisa Platt had found their way into the Hermit Shack venue seeking the last clues in resolution of the Hermit Shack mystery. In the distance they hear the siren of Detective Sergeant Fannys ornate police cruiser cracking the evening air on a streak toward the Platt couple standing with pounding hearts out at the Hermit Shack.