by Sue Henry
“Yeah, but they stay put—no doors flopping open like the ones you describe at the grocery. Mine have secure fasteners. And you’ll also notice that all my glassware and liquor bottles are held securely in place—planned it that way when we built this place. It would take a really big one to cause real damage in here. The whole building is bolted to the foundation with heavy brackets.”
They nodded, still looking around, then turned back to the bar.
“Where were you Friday night, Stevie?” Oscar asked. “Didn’t see you in here that night.”
“No, but you’ll be glad to know that I was spending my shekels at your place in town. We felt the quake there too. One of these days I’m going to give up on this country and move somewhere that doesn’t shake, even a little bit. I do so hate those things.”
“Good luck. Did you know that even if you don’t feel it a big quake is a vibration that has an effect on the entire planet?”
“You’re kidding!”
“Not a bit. Even though most people never felt it at all, our big one in sixty-four vibrated the whole world enough to alter the alignment of the North Pole by a measurable degree or two.”
“Maybe you’d better apply to NASA for transport to some dead planet that doesn’t move,” Hank teased Stevie.
“Hm-m. There’s a thought.”
“They don’t have grocery stores on Mars, though, or trees to make lumber for carpenters. You’d be out of a job—and food.”
“And air—and beer.” Stevie sighed. “Guess I’ll have to stay here.”
“Guess so. Have another beer and play some pool?”
“Naw,” Stevie said and shook her head. “I gotta work tomorrow—an indoor job for Vic Prentice, finishing a house he’s renovating out the other side of the butte off the Old Glenn Highway. Should keep food on the table for another month or so. I better get on home.”
“Does he need anyone else? I’m free at the moment and could use an inside job.”
“Maybe. You should ask him.”
“I’ll do that,” Hank said and grinned.
Leaving a tip for Oscar, she climbed off the bar stool and started for the door. “See you guys when I see you.”
“Make it soon,” Oscar told her. “We missed you this summer, so you owe us.”
“Right,” she tossed back, reaching for the door handle. Before she could grasp it, it suddenly opened inward, giving her knuckles a painful rap.
“Oww!” Stevie yowled, stepping back and shaking her hand in an attempt to get rid of the hurt.
“Oh, Stevie. I’m sorry. Didn’t know you were there.”
“That’s okay, Bill. Neither one of us can see through a solid door. I’ll live. Nothing broken.”
“You’re the one who suffered. Can I buy you a beer?”
“Thanks, but I’m heading out. Got errands to run.”
“Well, remind me next time then.”
“I’ll do that. You better watch out. Hank’s cruising for a game.”
“Good,” he said. “I hoped I’d find him here. See you later.”
“You bet!” she called back as the door shut behind her.
A few minutes later, Stevie was driving past the grocery, a frown on her face at the idea of the quake they had felt inside. Buying her groceries seemed like enough, as she didn’t much like cooking, and she briefly considered the idea of eating out that night. Then, remembering the pile of clothes at home that needed washing, some of which she would need for work the next morning, she checked to be sure she had scratched laundry soap off the list written on the back of an envelope and resolutely drove on toward home.
Back on the hillside, Jessie had lifted her face to the slight warmth of a ray of sunshine that fell through the bare branches of a nearby birch and, eyes closed, was listening to the indignant chatter of another squirrel defending its territory somewhere nearby. Yawning, she opened her eyes when Tank suddenly sat up from where he had been napping at her feet and turned his head to stare up the hill behind them.
Standing up and turning to see what had attracted his attention, she saw nothing but the trees that lined the trail and cast their long shadows across the yellow leaves that covered the ground and heard nothing but their papery rustle in conversation with the slight breeze.
She sat down again and laid a restraining hand on Tank’s collar. “Lie down,” she told him. “No more games of chase the squirrel. You know they always win, since you can’t climb trees.”
The condescending glance he gave her made her smile, for it seemed to express extreme tolerance with her assumption that he knew nothing about squirrels and would go chasing after them like a half-grown pup.
“Lie down,” she said again.
But instead, he stood up, looking intently at something behind her off the trail, and growled low in his throat.
A raven suddenly came soaring over her head as if startled from a perch in some tree, a swift black silence that disappeared almost immediately among the naked birch and evergreen spruce below.
Beginning to turn to see what had attracted Tank’s direct attention, thinking it might be a moose, she was startled when a voice not far behind her barked a sharp word of warning.
“Don’t! I have a gun, so turn back and stay exactly where you are. Get hold of that dog and don’t move.”
The voice was low, gruff, and whispery. Jessie couldn’t tell if it was a man’s or a woman’s from the pitch, but something about it gave her a feeling she had heard it, or one very similar, somewhere else—would know and definitely recognize it again.
She reached her left hand to Tank’s collar.
“Sit,” she told him.
Obedient this time, he did as he was told, but remained alert and continued to closely watch the person behind her.
“Now,” that person directed in that odd voice again. “Very slowly, take the gun from your pocket and toss it behind you. You turn and I’ll shoot the dog first.”
So, whoever this was, the object of this confrontation was to recover the revolver Jessie had carefully retrieved from where she found it. Did this mean this other person was bluffing and actually had no other weapon?
By herself, she might have tested that theory, but it was a chance she was not willing to take with Tank under threat.
“All right,” she said. “I’m getting it now.”
Very carefully and slowly she reached into the right-hand pocket and extracted the revolver, holding it by the barrel with the grip facing away, and tossed it as instructed over her shoulder—heard it land somewhere in the leaves behind her.
There were footsteps that crunched those leaves as the person, whoever it was, moved to pick up the gun.
“Get up—slowly!” the voice instructed, a bit closer this time. “Don’t turn around. Just go back down the way you came up and don’t look back. I’ll be watching closely. Do it!”
Knowing that this person now had the revolver, and that it was loaded, Jessie did exactly as she was told: stood up, still holding tight to Tank’s collar, and stepped away from the log on which she had been sitting. Without looking back, she moved carefully, slowly, as directed, to the trail and began to go steadily down it toward home.
Tank growled once, low in his throat, and resisted slightly.
“Hush,” she told him, in a voice he would attend to. “Come along.”
There was no further comment from him, or from whoever was behind her, but she felt watched and heard the scuff and rustle of feet through leaves, as if the person had moved to stand in the trail to keep an eye on her as she descended.
It wasn’t far down to the first curve in the trail, one that swung to the right around a young spruce that would hide her from sight from above. Stopping with the tree between her and the upper hillside, without letting go of Tank, she risked peering through the branches back up the hill, hoping to see the owner of that odd voice, or, at the very least, catch a glimpse of its retreating figure. It made sense, she thought, that the person would go as q
uickly as possible back along the upper trail once she was no threat.
The trail closest to her was empty as far as she could see, though the place she had been sitting to wait for Alex was hidden by a rise in the ground and the thick brush and tall, drying grasses that covered it. Listening intently, she heard nothing at all like the sound of running feet that had caught her attention earlier. But vaguely she made out a rustling in the brush or dead leaves as someone passed on their way up. Then, through the spruce branches she caught a glimpse of a tall, slim figure in jeans, a brown jacket, and a denim hat with a brim, headed quickly into the trees that stood between Jessie and the upper trail. Almost immediately it vanished, cutting across through the woods from one trail to the other, and it was impossible to tell from such a brief and indistinct appearance whether it had been a man or a woman.
Should she try to follow? It was tempting, but she thought not. It would be a risk against someone with a gun. Better to go down and wait at home. There would be as much or as little to find now as there had been before, she decided. By the time she could reach the upper trail the person would be either far ahead or waiting for her. Better to let Alex examine it when he came.
“Come,” she said, letting go of Tank, who had lost all suggestion of aggression and was sitting close beside her, waiting for whatever was next. “Let’s go home.”
As she went on down the trail and, finally, into the yard of her house and kennel, he trotted obediently beside her, even ignoring a challenge from a squirrel in a tree above.
Once there, she considered calling Alex to report what had occurred on the hill behind the house, but decided he could hear about it when he came home. So she made the meat loaf she had promised, and put it into the oven with two large Idaho russets to bake.
When Alex arrived later, he found her sitting halfway down the front steps, elbows on knees, chin cupped in the palms of her hands, a thoughtful expression on her face, and Tank occupying a step close below her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“WHY DID YOU GO UP THERE?” ALEX ASKED AGAIN, FROWNING. “It’s still a crime scene, you know.”
“You took the yellow tape down. I’d have respected that, wouldn’t have gone inside it, but there wasn’t any.”
“I didn’t take it down. We left it where we put it up and neither Becker nor I have been back up there. Someone else removed it—maybe whoever it was you ran into.”
“How could I have known th—?”
“I told you not to run your dogs on those upper trails.”
“I wasn’t running dogs. I was taking a walk! Just me and Tank, like we often do.”
“Not anymore. Not till I solve this case. Until then you stay off the hill! Got it?”
Jessie gave him an astonished, wide-eyed look that turned to doubt and resentment as he sat stiffly silent, waiting for her to promise agreement.
“Are you trying to tell me where I can and cannot go? On my own property?” she demanded in a thin, tight voice, her face flushed with annoyance.
He straightened in his chair at the table across from her, spilling a splash of coffee from his mug as he pushed it aside, leaned forward, and stretched his long-fingered hands out flat on the tabletop with a slap that made her flinch.
“Jessie—Jessie! I’m trying to keep you safe. But, okay—yes—if you must have it that way. Officially I am telling you to stay off the hill, until I tell you it’s safe. Whoever it was, it could have been the same person who killed Donny Thompson. You could easily have been killed up there.”
“I don’t think so,” she shot back.
They stared at each other for a long minute in an intractable silent standoff of sorts—she, knowing that his reaction and demand was fear and concern speaking, engendered by his caring for her—he, that he had pushed her too far in his apprehension for her protection, but meant it and wasn’t about to take it back.
“I really don’t think so,” she said again.
“Why not?” he asked, eyebrows raised in puzzled surprise.
“The rose,” she said, frowning thoughtfully. “I think it was a woman. She used a low voice and tried not to sound like one, but I got that feeling. I think she brought the rose and must have accidentally dropped the thirty-eight when she heard me coming and ran. Whoever she was, she wouldn’t have killed him. She must have loved him to risk searching out the place where he died.”
“Or she already knew. What about the gun then?”
“Maybe she was scared—brought it with her as protection.”
“Hmm,” Alex mused. “How could she have known where he died? If she wasn’t involved somehow—was there when he was shot—how else could she—if it was a she—have known where to leave the rose—exactly? Only the killer could have told her where to look, so she’d have to know who that was, if it wasn’t her.”
“Maybe she had a general idea and went looking till she found the crime scene tape,” Jessie suggested. “It would have been pretty hard to miss that spot with it in place. She might also have torn it down.”
“You keep calling this person she. What was it, besides the rose, that makes you think it was a woman?”
“Like I said, her voice, the way she tried to disguise it in sort of a gruff whisper. Let me think for a minute.”
“Okay. Then tell me what you remember.”
She closed her eyes and tried to put herself mentally back on the hillside, on that log, and hear again the sound of the voice of the unseen person behind her who had directed her to throw the revolver—feel again what she had felt in response to it.
After a couple of minutes, she frowned and shook her head a little, opened her eyes, and spoke her thoughts.
“There was a thing that I can’t quite get hold of. I never felt really frightened that she would shoot me if I didn’t do what she said, though I didn’t risk it. There was something almost desperate in her tone, but mostly something really sad. I think I’d recognize it if I heard it again.”
“You should have come back down here to wait for me.”
“Yeah, in retrospect I probably should have,” she agreed. “Then I would have had the gun to give you.”
“With your fingerprints on it.”
“Alex—I’m not that stupid. I used a tissue to pick it up with and wrap it before I put it in my pocket.”
“Did you touch it when you tossed it behind you?”
She thought for a moment, sighed, and admitted that she had held it by the barrel to throw it.
“Damn! Probably smeared any we could have got off of it.”
“Well, you don’t have it anyway, so that’s not an option. Look, Alex, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear her coming. She surprised me and I just didn’t think.”
“And you still think it was a woman.”
She shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
“That could make sense, considering that leaving a rose is something a woman would be more likely to do. And you will stay off the hill for now, please?”
“Yes.” She smiled at his changing it to a request.
He grinned back at her.
“You are a very independent—possibly stubborn—woman at times, Jess.”
“I know. But mostly when pushed.”
“Agreed. I’ll try not to do that. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now,” he said, getting up from the table, “I’d better call Becker, then go and see if there’s anything at all that might help in figuring out who it was you ran into up there.”
“Want help?” Jessie asked, with a mischievous twinkle.
“No! Thank you very much.”
“Then why don’t you ask Phil for supper, if you like? There’s plenty of meat loaf and it’ll be done by the time you come back.”
“Good thinking. Would you also put that Killian’s I brought home in the refrigerator,” he said, waving a hand toward the six-pack that he had, more than a little distracted at the time, left at the door on his way in.
“Can do.
Anything else, my lord and master?”
“You don’t let go easy, do you?”
“Guess not. But we’re about even now, I think.”
Becker was not to be found at the office.
“He said he was heading your way,” the dispatcher told Jensen on the phone. “You should try his cell phone.”
As he was dialing that number, Jessie crossed to the window to assess the source of the sound of tires in the drive and turned to tell him not to bother.
“He just pulled in,” she said, opening the front door for Phil. “Sometimes I think you two are psychic.”
“Hey, Jessie,” the younger trooper said to her with a grin as he waved a sheet of paper in Alex’s direction. “Here’s the coroner’s report on Donny Thompson and you’ll want to see it.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah. Besides alcohol, there were evidently drugs involved that night.”
“Not just the marijuana Malone mentioned in the past tense.”
“Nope.”
“Well, bring it along and I’ll take a look. We need to go back up the hill to where he died. I’ll tell you why on the way.”
They went out the door together, taking the conversation with them, leaving Jessie to look after them and shake her head with a smile. It’s almost like a couple of small boys with a map and a game plan on their way to a secret clubhouse in the woods, she thought. But it was, after all, part of what made them successful at what they did—turning over the pieces of evidence like a puzzle to be solved—and they were pretty good at it, however humorous it sometimes seemed to an outsider.
She refilled her coffee cup and sat down at the table again, to think through what had happened earlier on the hill. There had been something about the person she still believed was a woman that nagged at her, but she couldn’t quite identify just what it was. The single glimpse she had had of the figure slipping away out of sight into the woods would have been of more use if whoever it was had turned just once to look back, but that hadn’t happened. From the back it could have been either a male or female, couldn’t it?
Holding the coffee mug between her hands to warm her fingers, she stared out the window into the dog lot, seeing nothing of it as she worried the problem in her mind. Suddenly she noticed that small, icy flakes were drifting down and the dog boxes already had a thin, pale skift of snow that had begun to fall since she came indoors.