At the woodpile, I followed their trail to a spot where there was a showering of chips. The snow was tamped down with boot marks. I pulled back the plastic and saw where an entire section of logs had been depleted. Unfortunately, the thief had not left a sweatshirt with his name on it.
And then, from deep in the woods, there was an eruption of gunfire.
Damn it.
I dropped to my belly, with the woodpile between whoever was shooting and yours truly. “Sabine!” I screamed. “Did you hear that?”
She had come out the back door with its two broken windows and was looking for me. “Don’t worry,” she called. “We hear shots fired all the time. It’s not even hunting season. The bastards!”
“You hear shots fired all the time,” I muttered, as I got to my knees and brushed snow off my clothes. “Great.”
“Still,” she yelled, “we should probably leave. We are technically trespassing.” As if to punctuate her words, another round of gunfire, closer this time, went off.
“Crap!” I hollered as I fell on my stomach again. Was my yelling more or less likely to rain bullets on us? Wait a minute. I’d seen something. Where? Not on top of the woodpile, not beyond it, but . . . below it. I inched sideways.
From this angle, between the snow and the bottom of the woodpile, I saw that something silvery had become wedged. It wasn’t a coin. It was too flat. As my frozen fingers tugged on the tiny gray corner of whatever it was, a third round of gunfire went off.
“Goldy?” Sabine cried. “You’re not in the best of shape, and I don’t want us to try to outrun those shooters, whoever they are.”
“Okay, okay.” I pushed hard on the lowest log close to the silvery gray thing. The wood moved a tiny fraction. I slammed my shoulder into the woodpile. Nothing. “Sabine!” I hollered. “Duck down and come help me!”
“With what?” Bent at the waist, she trotted toward me. She was covered with ashes from the fireplace.
“Help me push this woodpile over,” I said when she arrived.
“Are you mad?”
“Not mad, not angry, and certainly not insane. On three, push.” We set our arms out straight against the logs. I counted, and Sabine and I heaved and groaned. The woodpile crashed over.
“You really must have hated those logs,” said Sabine, brushing off her gloves. “And now we need to get going.”
I bent over and scooped up a credit card that was partially covered with snow. Once more, gunfire exploded, closer still. Even though I was consumed with curiosity, I couldn’t indulge it. My heart was pounding with the amount of effort it had taken to upend the logs, and I was worried about getting away from the shooter. I shoved the card in my pocket without reading the name.
Sabine motioned for me to follow her. Still bent at the waist, she jogged to the house, retrieved her gardening tools, and started trotting up the driveway. I raced after her, slipping and sliding wildly, as eager to get away from that A-frame as I’d wanted to get anywhere in my life. But I had, as they say in Tom’s business, a clue.
Sabine, bless her sweet heart, waited for me at the end of the A-frame’s driveway. Worry creased her face. “Are you going to make it?” This, from a woman three decades older than yours truly, propelled me the rest of the way to her house.
Once we were inside Sabine’s hand-built log cabin, I pulled out the credit card. Printed at the bottom was the name Sean Breckenridge. I showed it to Sabine, who raised her eyebrows.
She said, “This calls for some hot herb tea.”
I built a fire in her hearth and swathed myself in a homemade crocheted afghan. As I began to warm up, I wondered about Sean Breckenridge.
I didn’t know him, really. He and Rorry had been living in Aspen Meadow for only a few years, and when Rorry had parties, Marla told me, she hired a Denver caterer. Rorry and Marla had become friends at the country club pool, where Rorry took her son for swimming lessons.
I knew Rorry from church, but only a little. Sean and Rorry’s son, who I guessed was now in kindergarten, came to the altar for a blessing when his parents took communion. The little guy was dark haired and adorable, and possessed an amazing collection of checkered shirts and cowboy boots. He seemed to be wearing a new pair of boots every time I saw him, but always the same cowboy hat. As the mother of a son, I knew enough to tell him his outfit was “really cool” but to stop there. The little boy had looked at me with serious eyes and actually tipped his hat. He’d said, “Thank yeh, ma’am.” I’d managed not to laugh.
Sabine returned with a tray and two hand-thrown pottery mugs, from which a steam emerged that smelled like lawn clippings. She said, “Maybe it’s not as big a deal as we think it is.” She settled into a rocking chair and blew on her tea. “Maybe Sean and Rorry just have so much money, and such a big house, that they go out looking for, you know, adventure while their son is in school.”
“Adventure. Right.”
“Well, Goldy, you don’t know he was up to something else. With someone else.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” I took a deep breath. “What do you suppose that person or those people were shooting at? Do you think they saw or heard us?”
“I can’t imagine they did,” she said. Her nose and cheeks were smudged with soot. “I wish I’d found something. May I just see the card one more time?”
I placed the credit card on the coffee table Sabine and her husband had made, she’d told me when I did her retirement party, from a door salvaged from an abandoned church.
“It could have been stolen,” I said. “Or, if he’s the one who dropped it, he could have done it when he was lifting logs,” I said, remembering how he’d dropped his keys when he was trying to carry his camera. “Credit cards are weird that way. They can work their way out of your wallet. Any man who was exerting effort like that, back and forth to the house, if he had a wallet? The card could have just fallen out. Then the guy’s boot wedged it under the pile.”
Sabine shook her head again and handed me the card. “I notice the expiration is in two years. So it’s a current card.” That information settled over us for a few minutes. “Well, old friend,” she said, standing up, “I have to go take care of the horses. Hay, water, stuff like that. You’re free to stay as long as you want, but I need to get out to the barn.”
I scrambled to my feet and checked my watch. One-forty-five already! I had no idea our little escapade at the A-frame had taken so long. “I have to skedaddle, too. But, wait. Sabine, are you the one who called Donna about someone at the A-frame?”
She shook her head. “No. But there are other people who live out here. It’s just hard to see their houses with all the trees.”
“Has there been any other, you know, suspicious activity in the wildlife preserve? Some reason for people to be shooting?”
Sabine divided her ponytail just below the rubber band, then pulled it in two sections to tighten it. “Well, there’s Hermie.”
“Not Hermie Milkulski.”
“The very same. She’s an animal-rights activist, do you know her?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“Did you know she lost two fingers a couple of months ago, when she was trying to close down a Nebraska puppy mill by herself? The owner shot her hand.”
I shook my head. “So that’s how it happened.”
“Unfortunately, yes. And since she was trespassing, the owner was within his legal rights. I heard she promised her son that she wouldn’t go out of state anymore, nor would she go into places alone. Now, apparently, Hermie only acts locally. When she suspects some kind of abuse is happening, she just calls Furman County Animal Control.”
“She doesn’t go out of state, and she doesn’t go alone,” I echoed. Hermie had done more than call Animal Control. She’d hired Ernest to do her dirty work. It wouldn’t help to tell Sabine this, and I knew Tom would not appreciate my sharing this tidbit.
Sabine shrugged. “Whenever the Animal Control people don’t find what Hermie thinks they should find, sh
e raises a stink. She was here once, asking me a bunch of questions. Some guy near here has a legit breeding operation on his farm. But Hermie claimed this was cover. She actually used that word.” Sabine sighed. “Anyway, someone who bought a puppy from this breeder called Hermie and said the puppy got sick and then died. According to Hermie, the buyer said it was the veterinarian himself who suspected a mill. Also according to Hermie, Animal Control went out and couldn’t find anything. Hermie insisted that the mill, or mills, were hidden in sheds, or kennels, somewhere on the breeder’s property. Now, wait for it. Hermie thought this breeder knew he was onto her, words she also used. So, even though she’s left-handed, and she’d lost those fingers from her left hand, she learned to shoot a pistol with her right.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were. And she told me she was ‘withdrawing from society.’ ”
I thought for a minute. “So . . . Hermie thought illegal breeding was going on out here? Would that occasion gunfire? Or could Hermie be the one shooting?”
Sabine shrugged. “When Hermie showed up at my door, she was acting half crazed, asking if I knew back roads in the preserve that would lead onto private property. I told her, I don’t. Plus, you know how it is out here. There really aren’t good maps.”
“So . . . she never found the place?”
Sabine said, “I don’t think so.”
“Do you know if she had any evidence of deplorable conditions?”
“I don’t. But then I began to have suspicions. At the feed store, I ran into a bald guy, a very smarmy character, buying lots of bags of puppy chow. I held the door open for him—”
“What?”
Sabine closed her eyes and shook her head. “I mean, I have nothing to go on, but he put out bad vibes. When I asked him if he was raising puppies, he told me to get out of his way. After Hermie visited, talking about all her suspicions, I found myself wondering about that guy. Yes, Hermie is very excitable. She told me she was thinking of hiring an investigator to find the secret kennels, and get proof of the abuse for Animal Control. But listen, I really need to go feed the horses. Does that answer your questions?”
“All but one, Sabine. Did Hermie say the guy she suspected was raising beagles?”
Sabine’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. She said, “How did you know?”
14
I said, “Thanks for all your help,” then hugged her and hustled out to my van.
On the way back to town, my cell phone began beeping. I had three messages. Three? Why hadn’t my cell rung?
Tom’s voice said, “Miss G.? Where are you? I’m just getting back to you now, sorry, it’s been a firestorm at the sheriff’s department. Please call me.”
Then Yolanda announced, “Hi! We finished at the doctor’s office. I’m driving back up from Denver now. When we get to your place, I’ll check your schedule to pack everything up. See you soon.”
Once again, Tom’s voice implored me: “Miss G.? I know I didn’t answer your earlier message, but now I’m getting worried that you haven’t called me back. Are you all right? Please call me as soon as you get this message. This morning I had meetings, and then I was out of cell range.”
I called him back immediately, and he picked up on the first ring. “Sorry, Tom,” I burst out. “I was out at Sabine Rushmore’s place. She lives near the wildlife preserve.”
“Goldy, what in hell were you doing out there?”
“Tom, look. I was just trying to figure out who broke into—”
“Miss G., we’ve been having reports of shots fired out there for weeks. It’s what I was working on when Ernest was killed. And in case you didn’t know, it’s not hunting season—”
“I know, I know! Sabine and I heard gunshots—”
“Oh, Christ.” Tom groaned. “You weren’t out in that area where we had the big wildfire a couple of years ago, were you?”
“But . . . that’s less than a mile from where we were. Why?”
“Please listen.” Tom’s tone turned guarded, as if someone were hovering nearby. “I don’t want you out there anymore.”
“Listen, Tom! Sabine saw a bald guy who might be running a puppy mill. I didn’t see him, though, and Sabine didn’t know where he might be—”
“Goldy! Will you please not go out to the preserve?”
“Oh, Tom. Sabine and her husband live right—”
“Please? We have a big problem in that area that I’m not at liberty to discuss. In fact, I don’t want you going to any remote locations at or near the preserve.”
Okay, somebody really was standing right next to Tom. I asked, “Will you tell me later?”
He said, “Maybe,” and then announced that he had to go.
“But I need to talk to you! Did you reach Hermie Mikulski? Did you talk to Charlene Newgate? Because I thought I saw—”
“You’re breaking up,” said Tom through static. Then his voice was gone.
Damn it. I hadn’t been able to tell Tom about how Hermie had lost her fingers. Nor had I shared the details of Hermie’s suspicions of a guy running a puppy mill on his property, with a legit breeding operation as cover, a guy Sabine might have encountered, who was bald. And then there was that car that I thought had been Charlene Newgate’s BMW, also on its way out to the preserve.
Speaking of which, what was going on out in the preserve that Tom had been so secretive about? And how was I going to discover more about these privacy-loving adulterers—presumably the very married Sean Breckenridge and his girlfriend—if I couldn’t trek to remote cabins in the woods?
I called information and got the Mikulskis’ home number. Like Tom, I was connected to voice mail. I identified myself and said I didn’t know any more about the investigation into Ernest’s death. I said I really would like her to call me on my cell, as soon as possible, about a puppy mill situation. I left my number and closed by saying I hoped Brad was recovering from hurting his nose.
It had been a long afternoon, with lots of frustrations. The formerly poor Charlene Newgate had struck some kind of gold with her new boyfriend. I was almost positive that one of them had been driving that silver BMW out by the preserve. Where had he or she been going? And if the boyfriend had a big fancy house and I didn’t know his name, how was I going to find out?
Donna Lamar was also suddenly rich. How had that happened? She was having trouble with a lustful couple that was breaking into her unsecured rentals. How could anyone catch such wily sinners?
As I was coming up on Aspen Meadow Lake, my mind said: Wait. There was more than one way to catch people with their pants down. I didn’t have the DNA of Sean’s lover. But I had their garbage. And I knew Sean would be attending the party that night. Maybe his girlfriend would be, too. If there were wrappers in their trash, I could figure out what food they liked. It might be like one of those algebra problems where you know the values of two variables, and an equation puts them together. With food, I was definitely in the putting-together business.
I checked my rearview mirror. No one was following the van, for which I was thankful. My mind was soaking up Tom’s and Yolanda’s paranoia. Plus, Tom’s words had unnerved me. Someone was shooting guns out in the preserve? Why? People hiked out there. What if a stray bullet hit one of them? Was that what had happened to the bleeding beagle puppy brought in by a hiker to a local veterinarian?
I set this troubling thought aside. The rubbish, their rubbish, was what I needed to concentrate on.
There was no shoulder on this part of the road, only a high stone wall on the far side. Next to my lane, stretching as far as the eye could see, was a deep, snow-filled indentation. I pulled the van over to the edge of this ditch. The van still stuck out a bit into the road, but drivers in Aspen Meadow were used to swinging around horses, cyclists, and runners. With luck, they could steer past a caterer’s vehicle. I eased the van up to a trash can, just in case I needed to explain myself to a roving sheriff’s department deputy or worse, a state patrol officer. T
he sheriff’s department tended to indulge me, but the state patrol was something else altogether. I mean, I’d gotten in their way in one or two traffic accidents. They had not been amused.
As I dug into the smelly plastic bag of trash that Donna Lamar had collected, I tried to look like any tourist wearing catering clothes who decides to dump camping detritus while standing ankle-deep in snow. I turned a pair of sleeping bags inside out. They were somewhat mangy, but a woman’s pair of underpants dropped out of one. I picked it up. Donna, I thought, you really do need a detective. The panties were from Victoria’s Secret, black and lacy, size four. She was either small and slender or medium height and skinny. Well, I couldn’t exactly ask to see women’s underclothes when they came through the door at the Breckenridges’ place. But it was a start.
There was nothing in the other sleeping bag, so I set them both by the side of the road. I picked up first one, then a second plastic glass and held them to the sunlight. One had a semicircular tinge of mauve lipstick, but not enough to be able to tell what the exact color had been. The other just had the vague, vinegary scent of old wine.
Donna had put the cheese wrappers into a separate paper bag, and the stench when I opened that sack practically sent me into the ditch. I dumped the litter onto the snow and examined it carefully.
There were shreds of scarlet and gold foil from a package of an expensive Camembert I knew: Le Roi et la Reine. My king and queen of romance had fancy tastes. A red wax globe held a bit of moldy Gouda with the brand name ’s-Gravenhage. I knew that Dutch word meant “the Hague,” but I wasn’t familiar with the brand of Gouda, although I probably should have been . . . unless Sean and his girlfriend got them from mail order? Maybe. The box of water crackers was Carr’s, found in most supermarkets.
There was only one thing left in Donna’s bag: an empty wine bottle. I didn’t recognize the brand, but it was a Riesling Auslese Kabinett, with the further indication that it was a Qualitätswein mit Prädikat, the highest grade given to German wines. A partially missing price tag indicated the bottle had come from—hallelujah—Aspen Meadow Liquors. Would Harold at the liquor store be as privacy-conscious as the library, the schools, the church, or doctors’ offices? I certainly hoped not.
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