“It’ll take about twenty minutes for the pizza,” he said. “Want to come inside and have something to drink? They’ve got fairly comfortable looking booths in there.”
A wine cooler sounded good but I knew it would make me sleepy. I settled for a Coke. Drake had a light beer. The time passed quickly enough and I felt somewhat rejuvenated by the time we arrived at Mary’s.
Raindrops splatted on the dry ground as we drove up. By the time we got inside, the water was coming down in sheets.
“You guys made it just in time,” Mary greeted, holding the screen door open for us. “I’ve got a fire going and a bottle of wine open. Our other guests may not make it. They called from Albuquerque to say they’d just arrived. If they get here at all, it’ll be late.”
Rusty was overjoyed to see us. He rubbed against my legs and licked Drake’s fingers thoroughly. I promised him a pizza crust if he’d lie down in the corner while we ate. We sat around the coffee table in front of the fire. This time I didn’t worry whether the wine would make me sleepy. The rain on the roof, the warm fire, the occasional thunder in the distance all had a lulling effect. Mary vanished discreetly after the pizza was gone, leaving Drake and me alone with the fire. He pulled me into the curve of his arm, not talking, just being there. I forced myself not to remember that he’d be leaving again in three days.
Chapter 16
Our lovemaking the next morning had an almost desperate quality. Like we both realized our time together was almost over and we wanted to extract everything we could from the time we had left. I was having a hard time with this. The idea of committing to move in together, or more drastically, to get married, hadn’t settled with me yet. But the idea of watching him leave again, of knowing that it would be months, if ever, before we were together again . . . I couldn’t accept that either.
The quilts were warm, Drake’s body comforting, as I drifted in and out of cozy sleep. The house was devoid of sound. Apparently the other guests had never come in. Breakfast was not a pressing matter. If we missed it, fine. Somehow I thought Mary sensed our situation , though, and would keep the meal waiting.
Drake stirred next to me, and I realized he was wide awake. When I mumbled incoherently into his chest, my voice awakened Rusty. He had pressing matters on his mind. Like it or not, I had to get up. Wrapping my terry robe around myself, I fumbled my way to the door and down the stairs, Rusty eager at my heels. He raced out into the yard the second the door opened.
Coffee makings waited on the sideboard and discreet sounds of pans clanking together came from the kitchen. I glanced at my watch. It was after ten. Poor Mary, if she wanted to run on a schedule around here we had certainly messed it up for her.
“Sorry we’re so lazy this morning,” I said, poking my head into the kitchen.
She grinned indulgently. “No problem. Those other people didn’t make it last night. Good thing I got a deposit from them, because I imagine there will be an argument over weather delays being someone’s fault.”
I apologized again and told her we’d be down soon.
The shower was running when I entered our room and I could hear Drake whistling something from a Broadway musical. I dropped my robe and joined him under the hot spray.
Fifteen minutes later, dried and dressed, we quickly threw our few belongings into the duffle we’d brought. I glanced back at the brass bed, the homemade quilts and white shutters. The weekend had been a wonderful getaway, despite the fact that I was there to work.
Downstairs, Drake carried the bag out to the car, while I offered to help Mary organize breakfast. Within minutes, Drake’s footsteps clomped loudly across the porch.
“Charlie, come out here,” he called out.
Something in his voice alerted me. I felt the hair on my arms rise.
“We’ve got trouble,” he said through the screen. “Have Mary call the police.”
“What! Where’s Rusty?”
“He’s fine,” Drake answered almost impatiently. “There’s been some vandalism to the Jeep.”
I pushed the screen outward. “My Jeep? My almost new Jeep?”
“What’s going on?” Mary had come up behind me.
“Our fuel line has been slashed,” Drake informed us. His mouth was set in a firm line.
“Oh, my god,” Mary said quietly. She finished drying her hands on a dish towel, striding quickly toward the vehicle.
Sure enough, the smell of gasoline grew stronger as we approached. I turned to Drake.
“Are you sure it was deliberately cut?”
He raised the hood and showed us the spot. A neat slice bisected the line near the fuel injector.
“It obviously wasn’t a pro,” Drake said. “He cut such a large gash that the line drained immediately. If he’d wanted to make it look accidental, he should have made a small hole. Then the gas would have been pumped up here and come out in spurts. As we drove and the engine heated up it probably would have caused a good-sized fire.” His mouth was grim.
My stomach felt like lead.
“I’m calling Steve Bradley,” Mary said, firmly. “Nothing like this has ever happened out here.” She marched back toward the house.
I stared at the crippled Jeep, my only emotion—disbelief. When and how had this happened? Why hadn’t any of the dogs alerted us to the intruder?
Footprints surrounded the Jeep in the soft mud, but they were vague and indistinguishable. Probably made by overshoes, smooth on the bottom. The area where the vehicle was parked consisted of dirt, gravel and grass. Prints just didn’t show well.
I walked to the back of the car, hoping to follow the trail of footsteps as they approached. One fairly clear print showed. Otherwise, the vandal had stayed to the side of the driveway, walking in the tall grass. The print was generic—large for a woman, perhaps, but medium for a man—smooth on the bottom with no distinguishable tread. I followed the drive to the dirt road. Here, there was an abundance of tracks.
Unfortunately, they blurred together. A tire print showed clearly that a vehicle had parked at the entrance to Mary’s drive. A good imprint, about two feet long, showed in the mud beside the road. After that, the road was graveled well enough to conceal prints.
“Charlie!” Drake’s voice drifted through the trees.
I walked back down the drive to my sadly smelly vehicle. Drake was beside it, peering into the woods in all directions.
“Here I am,” I answered.
“I’m afraid I’ll not make a good investigator,” he confessed. “I just realized that I’ve already walked all around the car.”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “There are other prints up by the road. Although I’m not sure we’re going to learn anything from them.”
“Mary phoned Steve Bradley,” he told me. “I got on the line and told him to send out a service truck. It may be an hour or so before they can get out here.”
I flopped down heavily on the front steps. A rather disappointing ending to a perfect weekend.
“Why don’t you two come in and have breakfast anyway,” Mary invited through the screen door.
Drake nudged me. Might as well.
“Oh, Mary. Do you have anything we might use to block off a section of the roadside? Just to be sure no one drives over that tire print out there?” I asked.
She came out and we rummaged through a storage shed at the back of the property. Finally we came up with a couple of bright red five-gallon buckets. I carried them out to the road and set one at either end of the tire print. I put a couple of large rocks in each so they wouldn’t tip over. Maybe we could preserve what little evidence we had.
Breakfast was a quiet affair. So many thoughts raced through my head that I wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Drake had seen me this way before, on the case we handled together in Hawaii.
He kept my coffee mug filled and let me work out the thoughts on my own.
“I can’t believe this was a random act of vandalism,” I finally told him. “Our car isn’t visib
le from the road. It seems unlikely that anyone driving around looking for trouble would just happen to pick this spot.”
“So who’s after us?” he said, completing my thought.
Exactly. Who knows we’re in town? I could think of half a dozen off hand. More importantly, whom have we gotten close to? Who has something to fear from us?
A squeak of brakes and a revving engine signaled the approach of Steve Bradley. Drake, Mary and I all rushed out to the front porch. The chief slowly withdrew himself from his four wheel drive patrol vehicle. A shorter man wearing a blue work shirt and pants got out of the passenger seat. He reached into the back seat and brought out a toolbox.
“Hey, Mary,” Bradley drawled. “What’s going on?”
Mary was still shaken by the idea that someone had come so close to her home out here in the woods. Someone with ill intent. She explained the situation quickly to Steve in a series of rambling sentences and jerky hand gestures.
“This here’s Manuel from the garage in town,” Steve said to Drake. “He brought that fuel line you asked for. Now, I guess we better see what we’ve got here. Have you all been walking around the Jeep?”
“Yeah,” Drake admitted. “I’m afraid I did that.”
“There are other prints,” I told him. “I’ll show you.”
He followed me up the drive, both of us staying on the graveled parts until we came to the few footprints and the tire print at the road. Drake and Manuel turned to the Jeep’s open hood.
“Maybe you can take a mold of the tire,” I suggested.
“That won’t be necessary,” he informed me. “I recognize it. It’s a Goodyear. Most popular tire they make. Probably a third of all the cars in town have this tire.”
I knew without asking that the footprints would be of no use either. They were just too plain. My spirits slumped.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll file a report anyway. You never know. And I can drive up the road and talk to the other residents. Maybe one of them came in late and saw someone parked here.”
I perked up somewhat. Sure, in a town this size everyone would know the local vehicles. If one of the other residents had seen a car here, there was probably a very good chance we could find out who it was. Walking back toward the house, I felt better than I had all morning.
“We’ll have to get back to Albuquerque today,” I told Bradley. “Could I call you later in the week to see what you find out?”
“Sure.” His tone told me not to count on much.
Manuel tossed wrenches back into his toolbox and Drake dropped the hood of the Jeep into place as I approached. I asked Manuel how much I owed him, went through a little back-and-forth as I argued that he wasn’t charging enough, then went inside for my purse. I gave him twenty more than he asked for—for his time, I told him—and we watched the two men drive away in the police cruiser.
“Maybe I ought to let the dogs sleep out on the front porch from now on,” Mary said. “I can’t believe they didn’t alert me.”
“Don’t be too hard on them,” Drake said. “Remember, there was lots of thunder last night. Easy for someone to cover any noise they might make.”
“Besides,” I added, “I don’t think the vandal was after you, Mary. They got what they came for. They meant to scare us off.”
Chapter 17
Few clouds from the previous night remained. The moist brown earth of the mountains gave way to dry dusty powder as we left the valley. By the time we reached Albuquerque the temperature had become oppressive. Matching my mood.
Laying out money for a new fuel line hadn’t been on my agenda for the weekend, and the idea that someone meant to harm us left a sour taste in my mouth. Butting heads with the untalkative populace of Valle Escondido hadn’t helped either. These thoughts had roiled around in my head for the past hour and I felt ready for something physical. Usually I take out these unsettled, half aggressive feeling by cleaning the house. But with Drake here that seemed rude. Worrying about being rude was also eating at me. I can only keep smiling just so long.
“You okay?” He’d been watching me for a few minutes.
“Yeah.” I smiled but it felt tight.
We were almost home. Maybe I’d go ahead and run the duster over things, even if it did seem rude. I needed it. Drake carried the duffle inside. Rusty loped around the backyard, thrilled at being back in his own territory. He sniffed all the corners of the yard, then rushed to the middle of the lawn and rolled, rubbing his nose and his spine on the rough surface.
I watched from the kitchen window. Drake came up behind me and put his arms around my waist.
“I get the feeling you’d like to be alone for awhile,” he said.
I hadn’t wanted to be that transparent. Obviously, I was.
“Do we need anything from the grocery?” he asked. “I could go. Stock us up on milk or steaks or double chocolate fudge brownies . . .”
He really was a sweetheart.
“Okay. Let’s check.” We looked through the refrigerator and cabinets, making a short list.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Already I was feeling like I’d kicked him out.
“Not a bit,” he assured me.
He sounded sincere.
The Jeep backed out of the driveway, leaving me feeling somehow even emptier inside. Tears pricked at my eyelids. Why? Why was I becoming such an emotional wreck recently? This wasn’t like me. I stomped away from the window and found my feather duster.
Thirty minutes later, the house looked better and so did I. My senses were at least on a more even keel. I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and went over the rugs in the living and dining rooms. When that was done I was breathing hard but I felt good.
Drake had been gone almost an hour. I found myself standing by the window, watching the street. I hoped he hadn’t become lost. Did he even know where the grocery store was? I probably should have thought about that. Oh well, he’s a big boy. He’d figure it out.
Rusty was anxiously waiting at the back door so I let him in. I heard the front door at the same time. See.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” he called out, coming into the kitchen. “Sorry. I just wanted to try that out for size. Couldn’t resist.”
I was touched but managed to cover my tangled emotions by taking the grocery bags from him.
“Feeling better?” he asked. He came to me and cupped the side of my face with his smooth hand. “I was worried about you, sweetheart.” Those stinging eyes again.
“I’m fine,"Tim I assured him. I really was, although I couldn’t figure out why my eyes reacted so strongly.
He pulled me into his arms and held me there silently for a long time. My body reacted by settling into him comfortably.
“I really better check in at the office,” I told him, pulling reluctantly away. “Do you mind if we run over there?”
“Are you sure you want me tagging along? You might be getting tired of having this big old stone around your neck all the time.”
I assured him that he was no stone. He could come along or stay home, as he wished.
“I’ll call first,” I told him. “Maybe I won’t even need to go in.”
Sally’s first words were, “When are you bringing Drake to meet me?”
She then proceeded to tell me how much mail had piled up and how I really did need to take care of a couple of phone calls.
“Do you want to go with me?” I asked Drake as soon as I’d hung up. “Sally really is antsy to meet you.”
We called Rusty in, locked the doors and the three of us piled back into the Jeep. Ten minutes later we were pulling into the small parking area behind the office. It was mid-afternoon already. Obviously, Sally had stayed late just for this occasion.
:Hey, Drake, how’s it going?” Ron poured coffee into his mug as he greeted us in the kitchen.
“Great. You been out shooting again recently?”
Sally’s keen ear had picked up their voices. She came through the swinging door wit
h a funny look on her face. Curious or coquettish, I couldn’t tell. I did the introductions quickly.
“So, you want to come out to the range again?” Ron interrupted any chance Sally might have had to speak to Drake.
The men’s conversation turned toward guns once more, that curious other language that I was only beginning to understand a little.
“What messages do I have?” I asked Sally, steering her out of the kitchen.
We walked to the front reception area to her desk. She took her seat and handed me a couple of pink message slips.
“Sally, how did you know Ross was the man you wanted to marry?” I asked. I tried to make the question nonchalant but didn’t pull it off.
“Ah ha,” she said, grinning and pointing her index finer at me. “I knew it, I knew it. He’s the one, isn’t he?”
“Sally, spare me the giggles. I’m serious. How do you know?”
“Well, when I met Ross I was only eighteen years old. I didn’t know anything. I suppose I just got lucky.”
“That’s not much help,” I told her.
“Sorry. I don’t really know what to tell you, Charlie.”
“That’s okay.” I turned my attention to the phone messages.
My feel dragged up the stairs as I faced the prospects of what my desk probably looked like.
Actually, it wasn’t bad. Settled into my chair, I managed to reduce it to three or four significant pieces by tossing all the catalogs, advertisements and hot offers into the trash. I’m not a good bet for the junk mail people.
Of the two phone calls, one was from my friend, Linda Casper, calling to confirm our regular every-other-Wednesday lunch. I left a message with her receptionist that I’d be there.
After seeing Drake off at the airport early Wednesday morning I had a feeling I’d be wanting companionship. Besides, Dr. Linda might just offer some valuable insights into the case in Valle Escondido, considering that I hadn’t gotten any information at all from the doctors up there.
The second call, too, was easily handled. A former client wanted a copy of her billing for tax purposes. I told her I didn’t think she could deduct our charges but agreed to send her the billing anyway. She could work that out for herself.
Small Towns Can Be Murder Page 10