by J. R. Ripley
“No offense, Ross, but these days, with portable phones, you could have been talking to her from anywhere, including Yvonne’s house.”
“I’m old school. I have a cell phone, but I have had a landline out at the cabin for years. That’s the number we talked from. My reception at the cabin isn’t so great, anyway.”
Bird poop.
Ross’s phone cord would have had to stretch pretty far to reach from his cabin to Yvonne’s. Another fish had slipped free of the hook.
I was flummoxed. Alan Spenner and Ross Barnswallow had alibis for Yvonne’s murder. If they were innocent, who was the murderer?
Misreading my face, Ross said, “You can ask her if you don’t believe me.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Besides, I was certain the police would have taken care of that little detail.
29
The sun was chasing toward the western horizon as I followed the now-familiar circuitous detour to Webber’s Pond.
Madeline Bell looked like a moving art installation standing in the middle of her fenced-in garden. She held a rake over her head, brought it down quickly, then repeated the process.
It seemed a bit late in the day to be working in a vegetable garden, hacking away at weeds. Smoke trailed from the chimney of her cabin.
I waved a hello as the rake slashed downward. I had no reason to stop. The van bounced down the track toward Gar Samuelson’s cabin.
Moving deliberately along, I spotted Kay Calhoun seated in a weather-worn rocker on her front porch. She sat all alone.
I shot her a wave, too, but she signaled for me to stop. I cut the engine, not bothering to move off the unpaved road. I couldn’t imagine there being any traffic at all unless the deer were using it in their daily commute.
“Evening, Kay.”
“Hello, Amy.” She patted the arm of the chair beside her own. “Join me.”
I clambered up the steps and took a seat. “It’s so peaceful here,” I exclaimed, gazing out over the darkening pond. A half-dozen small birds flew lazily across the water, then disappeared into the forest.
“Yes.” Kay rocked slowly, taking a sip from a chipped, brown cup that had no handle. She turned her head toward me. “What’s that expression? Still waters run deep?”
“Something like that.” I smothered a yawn. All this tranquility was making me sleepy. “How do you mean?”
“Oh! Where are my manners?” Kay Calhoun unfolded herself from her chair and went inside the cabin. She returned a minute later with a second cup. She sat and picked up a bottle off the porch on the opposite side of her chair.
I was somewhat surprised to see that it was Jamaican rum. Rolling a sip around in my mouth, I tasted orange peel and brown sugar. “It’s very good.”
Kay nodded. “It’s Warren’s favorite.”
“Warren?’
“My husband.”
“You are married? I didn’t know.”
“Oh, yes.” She got up quickly and went inside the cabin.
Kay returned with a faded photo in her hand. She handed the framed photograph to me.
The 8x10 photo showed a handsome younger man against the backdrop of Webber’s Pond, though there were fewer trees then.
“He is very handsome,” I remarked. I handed her back the photograph, which she set gently on the porch.
A yellow porch light flicked on across the pond. Ross Barnswallow stepped out onto his porch wearing his red hat and brown coat. Pep ran into the front yard and began chasing shadows.
Barnswallow looked our way, arms hanging at his side. He clapped his hands, and Pep obediently returned to the porch. Man and dog disappeared through the front door.
Kay poured a little more rum into her own cup and settled back. Her unremarkable beige coat was pilled. The frayed edges of a navy shirt peeked out at the chest and cuffs. The material of her brown corduroy trousers had grown shiny, and the heels of her boots were unevenly worn. “He’s gone now.”
“Has he been gone long?” I asked. A few insects braved the cold to make themselves heard. Somewhere far away, an owl was making itself known.
“He has been gone for quite some time.” Kay set her cup in the folds of her coat.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to bring up old hurts.”
Kay turned to me with a small smile. “That’s all right, Amy. I expect him to come back,” she said matter-of-factly before raising her cup to her lips.
I pressed my feet to the sagging porch boards and rocked slowly for a minute. What did she mean? Was she expecting Warren to return from the dead? Maybe she was expecting to die soon herself and join him?
Kay was looking at me as if expecting a reply. I struggled for something to say or ask. Nothing came to mind. Asking her if she was crazy seemed impertinent. After all, I was a guest at her home.
Besides, the answer was becoming more and more evident each time I visited with her.
“Did you ever miss anybody, Amy?” Her Southern accent lent a dreamy quality to her words.
Maybe it was the setting, maybe it was the rum, but I was beginning to get woozy. And a little weirded out.
“Of course. My mother is gone, and I miss her,” I stated.
“I see.”
“But she will be back,” I clarified. “Definitely. She’s vacationing in New Orleans. She isn’t dead.”
“That’s nice. Gar is dead, you know.”
“Yes, I know.” I creased my brow. Had she forgotten that we had already had this conversation? “I was just on my way to his cabin.” I had a sudden thought, albeit an insane one. “Kay, did you see or hear anything unusual the night Yvonne Rice was murdered?”
“Do you mean her killer?”
I cleared my throat. “I suppose so…”
Kay shook her head side to side. “No. I didn’t see or hear anything. I rode home with Murray and the others. We had a drink at Murray’s, and then he took me and Madeline home.
“I went to bed. I was so tired,” she said, as if feeling a need to apologize for not being more help. “It wasn’t until the next day that I learned of Ms. Rice’s death.”
“Did Murray give Ross a ride home too?”
Kay thought a moment before answering. “No, only to his place. Ross walked straight home from Murray’s the minute we got back to the pond.”
She leaned forward, resting her arms on her legs. “The two men don’t really socialize with each other much. I do not believe they much like one another.”
Could Ross have run back to Yvonne’s cabin and shot her before talking to his girlfriend on the telephone? Murray had told me that he would have heard if Ross had driven off in his noisy truck.
But he wouldn’t have heard if Ross had gone running past.
Kay licked her lower lip. “Amy, do you think the Devil shot Ms. Rice?”
“I don’t think the Devil uses a handgun,” I quipped. “I’m not even sure the Devil has a license to carry.”
“You know,” Kay rested her head against the back of her chair and looked across the pond, “I only saw the Devil once before.”
“You-you saw the Devil?”
“Yes, I told you, dear.” Kay patted my hand. “Remember? It was the Devil that took Gar away.”
“Yes, I remember now. You said it was the Lord of Death.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Not exactly.” But it was close enough.
“Do you want to know what I think?” Kay eyed me slyly.
“Yes.”
“I think Ms. Rice must have known that she was going to die.”
“You do?”
Kay nodded solemnly. “She knew that she was going to die. She wrote I am murdered. The Lord of Death was right there on the mantel. Looking at her.” She pointed at her eyes. “And then he took her.”
/> “But she was shot,” I reminded her.
She shrugged. “The Devil uses whatever is handy. Maybe Ms. Rice owned a gun and the Devil used it against her.”
“I guess it’s not impossible.” I meant the part about Yvonne owning a gun and somebody using it against her—not the part about the Devil being the shooter.
My thoughts were swirling. My head was a fishbowl filled with rum. “You said you saw the Devil another time. When was the other time?”
Kay didn’t stop to think. “I saw the Lord of Death the night Warren disappeared.” She pulled her coat tighter across her chest. “Of course, I didn’t know it was the Lord of Death then. But I knew it was the Devil.”
A waft of cold air wrapped itself around my feet. “Did the Lord of Death, the Devil, take Warren?”
I knew it was a crazy question. I also knew that Kay wouldn’t think it was half as crazy as I thought it was.
“Oh, dear, Amy.” Kay’s voice cracked. “I hope not.” She rocked faster.
“Me, too. How long has Warren been gone?”
“Let me see.” Kay tilted back her head and closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she turned to me and said, “It must be going on ten years now. Right before, no, right after Ross Barnswallow moved in.”
“Ten years is a long time.”
Kay clicked her tongue. “Life everlasting. What’s ten years when you’ve got life everlasting?”
What indeed.
If I stuck around here long enough, I’d end up as crazy as my host. I stood. “Thanks for the rum, Kay.” I set my glass carefully on my chair.
“You’re welcome. Come visit me again.”
I drove a few hundred yards farther to Gar Samuelson’s cabin. The porch light at Ross Barnswallow’s place went out.
I felt better knowing that the empty Fritsch cabin at the end of the road truly was empty and that Alan Spenner was under lock and key somewhere.
I strode out onto the pier and gazed down at the inky water. A stiff, cold breeze ruffled my hair and clothing.
How had Gar ended up here? I refused to believe it was an accident. He’d been up and down that pier hundreds, maybe thousands of times before.
I still had the keys to the cabin, and I let myself in. I hit the light switch. The interior was still a mess, but Derek had set up a couple of lamps the last time we’d been there. Both were working.
I rummaged through the books on the floor. No diary. I scanned the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, although few books remained there.
Still no diary.
And I had no idea what it looked like.
A pair of hunting rifles sat in an open cabinet opposite the kitchen table. They had been untouched. A deadly-looking bow and a quiver full of arrows sat on the floor beside them.
I dug around the cabin haphazardly, searching the floor, the nightstand, and the dresser in the bedroom. I even lifted the plush dog bed at the foot of the bed and felt around the thick foam padding. Nothing.
Not even a flea.
In the tiny galley kitchen, I checked the cabinets and the refrigerator and freezer compartment.
Tired, cold, and hungry, I was about to give up when I noticed a metal reaching tool tucked in a corner next to the kitchen door behind a tall plastic trash bin. It was a big, heavy-duty grabbing tool, folded in three. He probably used it to place and retrieve items in the upper kitchen cabinets.
Then it struck me: So far, because Gar was wheelchair bound, I had been focusing my attention on those places I thought he could reach. After all, if he did keep a diary, it would have to be someplace fairly easily accessible.
But what if he had wanted to hide it from prying eyes or searching hands?
I pulled out the reacher tool and extended its arms. With the joints locked, the sturdy aluminum reacher extended approximately eight feet. There was a black pistol grip at one end. At the grabbing end, a pair of tongs had heavy-duty rubberized grippers.
I tried it out in the kitchen and had no trouble grabbing a box of oats from the top shelf. Even for someone seated in a wheelchair, the grabbing tool was more than sufficient for the task. If anything, Gar would have been better off with a smaller one.
So why such a long tool? I had seen shorter versions in the stores and on TV.
Assuming there really was a diary, that whoever had tossed the place after Gar’s death had been looking for that diary, and that it was still here someplace in the cabin, I looked around the cabin with a fresh perspective.
I moved from the kitchen to the main room of the cabin. It was the only space high enough to accommodate the full length of the grabber tool.
I tried the rafters first, running the tongs inch by inch across their unseen surfaces.
No luck.
Keeping it extended, I moved toward the bookshelves and fireplace. There was no place to use the reacher. Not even a wobbly stone in the fireplace that I could pull loose.
Or was there?
A large flat river rock hung out just an inch or two past the others. For the first time, I noticed that the edges of the stone were smudged black.
I stood on the hearth and peered up at it. Stepping back down, I slowly maneuvered the grabber’s tongs around the rock and squeezed the pistol grip. “Gotcha,” I whispered.
I gave the stone a jiggle. It moved. Carefully, I brought the stone to the hearth. I set the reacher on the floor. I examined the stone. The edge was black, but it wasn’t soot.
I stepped back and peered up. I couldn’t see a thing. I switched on my flashlight app and tried again. The beam of light reflected off something golden.
I picked up the grabber tool and tried to fish it out. The tongs were too clumsy, however, at least for me, with my lack of experience with the things. All I had succeeded in doing was pushing whatever I had seen farther back, like an angry possum retreating into its lair.
I threw the reacher down on the sofa and grabbed an ancient kitchen chair. I still couldn’t reach the recess from the ground. Knowing it was stupid and that it would serve me right if I broke a leg, I hoisted the chair up onto the hearth, wedging it as best I could into the fireplace for extra support.
I put my hands on the seat of the chair to keep it from teetering. It was rickety, and it would be hours, if not days, before anybody found my broken body if I fell, but I wanted whatever Gar had seen fit to put in that cubbyhole.
Squeezing my fingers around the fireplace stones, I eased myself up. The chair legs bobbled. So did my legs. My fingers found the hole. I grunted and thrust my hand inside.
I felt something cold and hard. Hopefully not the bones of a dead rat.
Please, please, not a living rat!
I managed to work my fingers around the object and pulled it down. The chair shifted and popped free from the fireplace. I lost my balance and leapt feet first, figuring it was better to possibly land on my feet than definitely on my head.
My feet hit the hardwood floor, and my legs gave out. Balance and grace had never been two of my strong points. I tumbled head over heels, rolled across the room, and hit the big recliner chair in the corner.
30
I sat there a minute, trembling and seeing double, leaning against the front of the cold brown chair. I shook my arms—all four of them: check. I lifted each leg: Again: check. I turned my neck from side to side: perfect.
Well, no more creaks than usual.
Satisfied that I was alive and had all my significant parts in working order, I hoisted myself up onto the cushy chair.
That was when I noticed that I had something clenched in a death grip in my right hand. I peered at it—happy to see that my vision had returned to normal and that I was seeing only one hand.
I urged my fingers to open. Finally, and under protest, they did. I was holding a gold watch.
I sighed.
&n
bsp; So much for Gar’s diary.
I peered overhead, where the big head of a stuffed brown bear peered right back down at me. Its ugly, honed yellow teeth seemed to be fixated on my tender, exposed neck.
“What are you looking at?” I leapt from the chair.
Not because I was afraid of a dead bear. I just felt like getting up.
I examined the watch. There was nothing special about it. It was a simple man’s watch with a black face and a broken gold band. The crystal was milky and contained fine cracks. Neither of the watch’s hands moved. I saw no inscription on the back.
Perfectly ordinary.
Perfectly useless.
I bounced the heavy watch in my palm.
Why had Gar kept it hidden above the fireplace? It could not have had any value beyond a sentimental one.
I turned to my hungry-looking friend. “I don’t suppose you know where your master kept his diary, do you, big guy?”
Was it my imagination, or were the bear’s glassy black eyes mocking me?
Feeling the strain of defeat and the call of a hot bath and a hot cup of tea, I set the watch on the mantel. Time to call it a night.
I flipped off the lamp switch and turned the doorknob. “For a bear head on a wall, you sure are useless,” I snapped at my furry, silent friend.
I waited for a snappy reply, but since none was forthcoming, I left, slamming the door shut behind me. I took one step, then a second.
Then I stopped. Something niggled at the back of my brain.
Gar called the story he had written his buried treasure. What if he had been toying with me? What if it wasn’t a buried treasure but a bearied treasure?
I threw open the door and strode back inside, flipping the light switch with a flick of the wrist. The glassy-eyed bear was laughing at me.
“Laugh all you want, bear. Your laughing days are numbered.”
I crossed the room. The bear trophy was just out of reach. I climbed onto the lumpy recliner and extended my arms. My fingers touched fur. If I could just curl some of it in my fingers…Then the bottom of the chair fell out!