Bonnie paused for so long I thought she was done, but then she sighed and went on, “No one in their right mind would try to pass nowadays, but it was rare to see another car then. At least that’s what the other driver said happened.”
“I thought you said the police never found the guy who killed her?” I asked.
“Not him. The driver of the car he tried to pass,” she answered. “He said it was coming at her straight on and she swerved to his side of the road trying to avoid him. Then, according to the other driver, he came back to his side of the road which forced her into the creek.”
It was difficult following her story. I chalked it up to her being upset that I had accused Jonathan of trying to kill her. “So the guy who killed Diane was trying to pass another car on the road and ran her off the road into the creek?”
“Yeah, down by Indian rock. You know the one that juts out where the old Troutdale resort used to be. Nobody hardly used seat belts in those days, let alone air-bags. Her head went through the window. Was in a coma for a week before they pulled the plug and we watched her life drain away.”
She wiped her face again with the back of her hand, then reached down and ruffled Fred’s hair. “I need to use the little girl’s room. Can I get you another beer while I’m in there?” she asked, and left before I could answer.
Fred came over to me after Bonnie left. He put one paw on my leg and barked once, looking at the empty beer can in my hand. He had me trained well. I emptied the last dregs on the deck for him to lap up.
“Drink up, Boy, then we need to get going. It’s been a long day for both of us.”
Bonnie was back before Fred finished cleaning her deck. She handed me another beer that she had opened herself and sat back down. I looked at Fred and shrugged my shoulders. I could tell he wanted more.
“I took the liberty of opening it for you, Jake, before you cut another finger. Now where were we before I got all sentimental? Oh, the house.”
I gave Fred another shot. It was more as an excuse not to look Bonnie in the face than to pacify my furry lush. “My point is, Bon, I think Jon wants you out of the way so he can get your house.”
“There’s nothing to get. Greg took out a reverse mortgage before he died. It pays all the taxes and insurance and gives me a couple hundred a month. Between their fees and interest, my equity is long gone. Nothing left for Jonathan or Alec once I’m gone.”
I decided it was time to leave. I felt like a fool. I was sure she thought it was another excuse not to accept the blame for Lonnie’s death. “Maybe Chuck was right all along; it kind of looks like I screwed up big time.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Jake. It was an accident, plain and simple.”
I stood up and crushed my empty can before placing it on the table. “I was being facetious. I know everyone believes I’m looking for excuses, but I truly believe that was no accident. Someone cut that hose, and I’m going to find who it was if it’s the last thing I do.”
She started to get up. I put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “You’re a good friend, Bon, and I’m sorry if I upset you. Please don’t mention any of this to Jon and tell him I’ll return his tank after I get it listed on Craigslist.”
Later that night, I did list the tanks and sent Jonathan an email with the link, but I had no intention of ever returning the tank. It was the only evidence I had to prove Lonnie’s death was not my fault.
Chapter 6
Fred woke me the next morning barking and growling at the door. It wasn’t his “I’ve got to pee bark.” Someone or something was out there. I knew better than to let him out alone for he might attack whoever was trespassing, and in this state I would be at fault. I quickly threw on some jeans and a shirt, grabbed a leash for Fred then went outside to see who or what had made him so upset. There were two Department of Wildlife SUVs and a sheriff’s truck parked in my driveway. The sheriff’s deputy was standing next to the open door of my motor home.
“Mister, Martin?” he asked. I noticed he had one hand on his gun.
“What’s going on, Officer?” It was all I could do to restrain Fred. He must not have liked the tone of the deputy’s voice.
“Are you Jacob Martin?” he asked again. He sounded annoyed.
“Yes. What are you doing in my motor home?”
He looked past me without answering. I turned to follow his gaze. Someone was turning up a terrible dust cloud racing up the road. “Do you know anyone in a red Bronco?” His eyesight was evidently much better than mine.
“It must be my neighbor, Bonnie Jones.”
Bonnie pulled behind the deputy’s truck and jumped out of her Bronco. “Are you okay, Jake?” she asked while walking over to me.
The deputy wasted no time in heading her off. “Miss, I’ll have to ask you to go back to your vehicle. This is a crime scene.”
Bonnie ignored him and came over to me and reached down to pet Fred. “It’s okay, Freddie. Aunt Bonnie is here. I won’t let these mean men hurt you.” Then she looked up to me, “I saw all the cops race past my house and thought you were hurt or something. What’s going on, Jake?”
An officer standing in the doorway of my motor home spoke before I could answer Bonnie. He was holding a compound bow. “We found them, Al. Right under the bed where he said they would be.”
The deputy’s reaction was instant. He had his gun leveled at my head, holding it with both hands just like in the movies. “On the ground, Mister. Now!”
I saw his hands shaking and wasted no time obeying his order. I had no intention of becoming some rookie’s first kill. “Bonnie, please get Fred out of here before Deputy Fife shoots him,” I said before the deputy could cuff me. She seemed to sense my fear and backed away with Fred, who was baring his teeth at the deputy by now.
“Easy, Al. It’s not like he’s armed and dangerous.” The other officer had left his perch on my motor home and joined us. I couldn’t see his face because mine was held down in the dirt. Fred was trying his best to free himself from Bonnie and come to my rescue. I prayed to God that he didn’t.
Al, the deputy, released my head and let me sit up. “You have the right to remain silent…”
“I’ve seen enough cop shows. Forget your speech and tell me what the hell is going on here.”
“Shut up and listen… If you can’t afford a lawyer…” I waited for him to finish. His tone suggested if I didn’t, I’d be eating dirt again.
Deputy Al no sooner finished reading me my rights when his partner took over. “Is this your bow, Mister Martin?” he asked in a much friendlier voice. It was beginning to look like the infamous good-cop, bad-cop routine. However, I could see now that the good-cop was really a game warden, or as the insignia on his uniform read, a District Wildlife Manager.
“No Sir. I don’t own a bow,” I answered while watching a female game warden taking some antlers to her SUV. “I wouldn’t even know how to use one like that. It’s a compound isn’t it?”
“If this isn’t your bow, why it was hidden under your bed?”
“That must be where that arrow came from,” I said it out loud and realized my habit of thinking out loud might get me in trouble this time.
The game warden removed his glasses and went about cleaning the lenses. His real partner had also joined us after putting the antlers in her SUV. She came up from behind without saying a word. I could smell her but couldn’t see her, and for some stupid reason, I found myself wondering if game wardens were allowed to use perfume.
“What arrow is that, Mister Martin?” I think I was in the fifth grade the last time someone asked me a question in the way he did. I had tried to explain to my teacher, Miss Jackson, that my dog really had eaten my homework.
I stood up slowly so Deputy Al wouldn’t get the idea I was a threat. “My Golden flushed out a big mule deer the other night and when he came back to the house he had a broken arrow in his mouth. It was right over there by the motor home. When I went to check, I found a pool of blood so we track
ed it up the hill but never found it.”
Everyone, except the female warden, looked over at my motor home. I noticed her eyes were watching me. “Take the cuffs off him, Al. We won’t be taking him in today,” she said.
Deputy Al looked pissed. “Are you kidding? You got the bow and the antlers. He even admitted to tracking down a kill.”
“You’re left-handed, aren’t you, Mister Martin?” she asked, looking at my hands.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Al asked, belligerently. The other warden didn’t say a word. It was obvious he knew his place in the pecking order.
“I noticed he favors his left hand. Even when cuffed, he pointed with the index finger of his left hand, and that’s a right-handed bow.” Then unexpectedly, she walked over to Fred and Bonnie.
Whether it was her perfume or female pheromones, Fred took to her instantly; he started wagging his tail and gave her his best smile. “Aren’t you a big boy?” she said while scratching his head. I swear I saw his eyes roll back in their sockets.
I had been un-cuffed and walked over to make sure Fred didn’t do something I’d be sorry for. “He’s really a pussycat at heart. All that growling was just for show.”
“I’ll second that,” Bonnie chimed in. She had been holding Fred on a short leash and seemed relieved that he didn’t bite the warden.
“I’m Officer Bartowski,” the game warden said, holding out a hand for Bonnie. “Julie Bartowski. I take it you must live close by?”
Bonnie switched the leash to her left hand. “Bonnie Jones,” she answered, returning the handshake. “I live right down the hill from Jake in the two-story mine-shed. It’s a little out of style now, but back in the seventies that style was all the rage.”
“I should know. I was raised in one of those over by Bailey. My father moved us out there so he could build his own house. That was before they had so many restrictions.”
Deputy Al must have tired of the conversation. “If you two ladies don’t mind, I’ve got better things to do with my time than to listen to this chit-chat.”
“Thanks for your help, Al,” Officer Bartowski said without trying to stop him from leaving. “I’ll let Jack know what a big help you were.”
Bonnie went on like Al had never been there. “Sounds a lot like Jake. He built this cabin all by himself. I never knew anyone so handy. I think you’d like him once you get to know him.”
The warden finally seemed to notice me, even though my eyes had been glued to her all the while. It wasn’t that she was going to be on the cover of any fashion magazine anytime soon, but something about her had my hormones working overtime.
“Poaching is a serious offense, Mister Martin. Someone has been killing deer and elk in this area for their antlers and leaving the carcasses to rot. We got a tip on the hotline from a ‘concerned citizen’ that it was you and they claimed to see you shoot a deer with a bow up there.” She pointed up my hillside to where Fred had chased the deer.
My property was at the edge of civilization. Behind me were five thousand acres of so-called park belonging to the city of Denver, and past that were untold acres of the Mount Evans Wilderness owned by Uncle Sam. I managed to turn my head up toward the hillside while my mind was still focused on her face and body.
“Lucky for me that you noticed I’m a southpaw.”
She looked back toward me, flipping her red hair over her shoulder as she turned her head. “You’re still our prime suspect, Mister Martin. Plenty of left-handed people know how to use right-handed equipment. I’ll have the lab run the prints on the bow before I make any final decisions.”
“You want me to come in for printing?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. I checked you out yesterday. Your prints are in all the Fed’s computers. I was impressed with all those clearances from DOE and DOD. If they can trust you with national secrets, I suppose I can trust you not to take off until this is over.”
I wasn’t sure if it was a question or not, but answered anyway. “Scouts honor. I promise not to fly off to Mexico anytime soon.” I made sure to cross my heart with my left hand. “Not unless you want to go with me that is. I hear Cabo is fantastic this time of year.”
Her eyes seemed to soften when she looked at me without smiling. They were mesmerizing; somewhere between green and hazel. “Are you flirting with me, Mister Martin?”
“No Ma’am,” I answered. “I would never think of flirting with an officer of the law, but you don’t have to call me Mister Martin. Everyone calls me Jake.”
“That’s good, Mister Martin. I’d hate to call Al back to cuff you again,” she said as she headed for her SUV, but not before turning to Bonnie and winking.
We watched while she drove off with her team close behind making them eat her dust from our dry-dirt road.
Bonnie let Fred loose when Officer Bartowski was far enough down the road. “I think she liked you too, Jake.”
When Fred gave one last bark at the departing caravan, I knelt down and rubbed his ears with both my hands. “You tell them who’s the boss, Buddy.” Then I looked up at Bonnie. “What do you mean, too?”
“Men. You are so obvious. You guys haven’t changed in ten thousand years. I thought you were going to hit her over the head and drag her back to your cave.”
“Huh? I hardly said anything. She did all the talking.”
Bonnie laughed. It wasn’t a response to a joke kind of laugh; it was closer to a chuckle than a guffaw. “What was that about Cabo? You think Julie didn’t get it? ”
“That’s not a name you hear much anymore. Is it?” I asked. “More like the mid to late seventies. I think it was pretty popular about then. Don’t you?”
“Are you asking me how old I think she is?” Bonnie was still smiling. It was obvious she was two steps ahead of me and knew where my mind was. “Well, she’s definitely your age, give or take a couple years; and single too, by the looks of her wedding finger.”
Fred wasn’t the least interested in my love-life. He heard Chatter in a nearby aspen and took off to chase him. “Forget it, Fred. You’ll never catch him,” I yelled as I stood back up.
“Thanks for coming to our rescue, Bonnie. I’m not sure what Fred would have done to that idiot deputy if you hadn’t been here.”
“It’s what friends are for, but I better get back to my kitchen. I was in the middle of starting breakfast when those cops went sailing by,” she answered while giving me a hug. “You’re one of the few people I know with a heart, so I’ve got to watch out for you.”
The hug caught me off guard and I couldn’t think of what to say. I simply patted her on the back, then watched her walk over to her Bronco and leave. “Well, Fred, shall we check on what’s left of our motor home?”
Fred headed straight for the rear of the old Minnie Winnie. I planned to go inside first, but he had other ideas. He came back to me, barked once, and went to the rear of the coach. He was standing by an open cubby when I caught up to him. It didn’t take a master detective to see the door to the storage cubby had been pried open. It was the unit directly below my rear bed. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”
He just wagged his tail and smiled. I had to bend down and give him a big hug. “Guess I won’t be trading you in for a Collie after all, Old Man. Now let’s go inside and see how much damage those Mounties did.”
Julie and her partner had left all the cabinet doors open, and the mattress and its plywood frame standing up against the rear wall. Other than destroying my entry door when they pried it open, nothing else had been ripped apart. I put the bed frame back and laid the mattress over it before closing all the cabinet doors. Our motor home looked like the day we bought it. I didn’t find Jonathan’s calling card until I started making the bed and found a tar smear on the bed sheet. There was the unmistakable streak of roofing cement that must have come from a roofer’s work glove; I would have never noticed it if I hadn’t inadvertently turned the plywood frame upside down when I put everyt
hing back in place.
Chapter 7
I spent the rest of the day surfing the web looking for information on bow hunting and poaching. My DSL service had been cut about the time Xcel shut me off. Little things like that didn’t stop me from using the web because Bonnie was close enough that I simply piggybacked off her wireless router. I wasn’t really stealing. She had suggested that we could share her service when I installed it for her and that’s exactly what I did when the phone company cut me off. I just failed to tell her.
I discovered there was a very lucrative market in elk and mule-deer antlers. Some cultures thought they had magical and medicinal powers and would pay dearly for them, and then there were trophy hunters who would also pay dearly — up to five figures for a large rack.
The devil in me wanted to run into town and punch Jonathan in the face. The bastard set me up. I needed revenge. Then my devil’s alter ego convinced me to keep my cool. The scene was straight from a cartoon.
I was glad I didn’t listen to the devil. Jonathan was not looking so guilty by the time I finished with my search. I also discovered that compound bows like the one Officer Bartowski found under my bed were very expensive. Considering Jonathan’s finances, I couldn’t see him throwing that kind of money away to frame me, but someone put the bow under my bed and he must have been wearing work-gloves that had been used to apply roofing cement.
My laptop began complaining about shutting down if I didn’t plug in the charger soon, so I decided to give it a rest and take Fred for a hike on the crude trail going up the hill to the mountain park behind my cabin. It was one of the many properties owned by the city of Denver which were nowhere near the city. The hills were home to black bear, mountain lions, coyote, deer and elk. This particular park was miles from the city and surrounded by private property. Unless you were a property owner like me on the edge of the park, there was very little access. Fred loved it. We never saw another soul on our hikes and he could run loose without a leash or without me worrying about getting a ticket for letting him go. The only law we had to watch out for was the law of nature. It didn’t take Fred long to break that law.
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