Mink Too, All the Riches in the World Can't Buy Love

by B. L Wilson

  Liz patted his head, then pushed his nose away so she could see what he had found. She saw a piece of a glove lying under blackened aluminum siding from the trailer and stuck a crime scene flag in the earth at the exact spot. “Good dog, Skipper.” She gave him a treat from her back pocket and rubbed his furry head.

  Susan kept her distance as she watched Liz pull out a camera from the backpack she carried.

  Liz took pictures of the area and then carefully picked up the glove to place it in a baggie. When she moved the burned siding aside to pick up the glove, she saw a partial footprint of a shoe sole with treads. Matted grass interfered with footprint, so the impression wasn’t clear.

  “Do you need this?” Jake held up a police kit for taking impressions.

  Surprised, Liz looked up and found her brother staring at her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Did you think I’d let you do this alone, Sis?” Jake smiled down at his sister.

  “Hello, Baby Girl, need an extra hand?” Her father peered at her over Jake’s wide shoulders.

  “You too, Daddy?”

  Her father nodded. “Yep, I couldn’t let you two have all the fun.”

  “So who’s watching Drummond?”

  “Ingrams.”

  Liz shrugged. “Remind me to recommend him for a commendation when this is over.”

  “What you got, Lizzie?” Jake asked, squatting down to talk.

  Liz handed the baggie to Jake. “It looks like a piece of glove. The kind you use with heavy machinery.”

  Jake held it up and stared at it through the plastic. “Yeah, it could be.”

  “Take a look at this.” Liz pointed to the footprint.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. You two tell me.” Liz stood up and moved carefully away so the two men could see the partial footprint she’d marked with another flag.

  “It looks like a sneaker tread.”

  Both men snapped on gloves and squatted down to study the shoe imprint in the matted grass.

  Jake followed the outline with a gloved finger without touching it and frowned. “Hmm, it’s interesting, all right. I don’t think construction workers typically wear sneakers on the job.”

  “I don’t think so either, Son.”

  “It’s probably not gonna cast too clearly, but we could try. Jake, you do it.”

  Jake opened the kit and mixed the quick-drying plaster, then poured it over the imprint in the grass.

  As they waited for the plaster to set, Liz looked around the area where they were standing. She knew the force of the blast had thrown Danny nearby. She tried not to think about what he’d looked like with the skin peeling off his back. She closed her eyes tightly shut and pressed palms into her eye sockets. She tried to keep the horror of that night under control.

  “Are you okay, Lizzie?” Jake Sr. reached over and squeezed her arm.

  Liz wiped at her eyes as she remembered the chaos that night. “I’m okay, Daddy. I was trying not to remember what happened to Danny.”

  “Baby Girl, it wasn’t your fault. You did what you could for Danny.”

  Liz sighed. “Yeah, my head knows that, but my heart says I shoulda done more.”

  “We’re gonna get this guy, Lizzie.”

  Liz nodded and then glanced in the direction of the car. “We have to. I don’t think I could stand it if something happened to her, Daddy.”

  “I hope you told her that, Lizzie.”

  Liz shrugged and then cleared her throat. “I will.”

  Once the plaster dried, Jake turned the mold over. He could see the partial tread of a sneaker. “Hey, Dad, Lizzie, take a look at this. It looks too big and too wide to be a woman’s footprint. We know Danny wore construction boots and you wore police boots. It doesn’t belong to either of you.”

  “I don’t know what Owen Drummond wears. Maybe we oughta ask him or his daughter.” Liz nodded in Susan’s direction.

  “So go ask, Lizzie.”

  “Okay, Daddy, I will,” Liz said softly. She tugged her gloves off, stuck them in a labeled baggie, and walked over to the car.

  Susan was pacing restlessly in front of the car. She worried Liz wasn’t ready for this today. She stared at Liz’s face as she strode over, trying to gauge her feelings. She reached out to stroke a soft cheek and felt the dampness on her fingertips. “How’re you doing, Lizzie? We can stop anytime. I’ll tell Jake if you want.”

  Liz closed her eyes tight. She shook her head and said no. The memories of that night were flooding her mind with images, scents, and feelings, but she had to finish the thing she’d started. She had to finish it for Danny’s sake, her own, and now for Susan Drummond. The tight feeling in her gut said as much.

  Liz looked so miserable, Susan thought she was going to cry.

  “I can’t stop, Susan. I gotta do this for Danny,” Liz whispered hoarsely and wiped at her eyes quickly with the back of her hand. She cleared her throat and changed the subject to one less painful. “Does your father wear sneakers?”

  Susan longed to hold Liz and comfort her, but it didn’t feel right to make that offer. Liz’s ridiculous question surprised her at such a serious moment. “What?” she asked, not sure that she’d heard the question correctly

  “Sneakers, does your father wear them?” Liz repeated.

  “I don’t think so, but you should ask him when we get back. Why?”

  “We found a partial sneaker print over there behind the trailer. It doesn’t belong to Danny or me. It’s too big for the woman with your father that night. My guys don’t wear sneakers during investigations, so it’s either your father’s or it could be someone on the construction crew’s.” Liz sighed as she wiped her eyes. “I’m betting they wear boots too, so it leaves one other possibility.”

  Susan’s eyes widened. She muttered, “It’s the killer’s footprint.”

  Liz shrugged, then nodded. “Yeah, it could be, or at least the guy who wrote those notes. I’ve gotta get back to finish this, Susan.” She smoothed down the front leg of her jeans with a damp hand.

  Susan frowned. “The office called me. I have a meeting with the architects to finish one of my father’s projects. Are you gonna be all right here, Lizzie?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want you going anywhere alone. Can you reschedule the meeting?”

  “No, I tried.”

  Liz frowned in thought. “How about relocating it to your house? At least Ingrams would be there.”

  Susan punched in her father’s office number.

  Liz listened to her speak with Eunice, the office manager. After haggling back and forth with the architects, Susan finally convinced them to meet at her house in an hour and half. She looked up to the sky and said a prayer. “Thank you.” She cleared her throat and faced Susan Drummond. “We should be finished by then. If we’re not, take my dad with you. Okay?”

  Susan nodded. She watched Liz walk back to the bigheaded dog, Jake, and her father. “I think it’s too soon for you to be doing this investigation, but I admire you for trying. I just pray you’ll be all right, Elizabeth Gilmore. I’d be pissed if something went wrong for you today.”

  She sighed at the futility of arguing with Liz. It’d be a waste of her energy, so she decided to get comfortable in the little sports car since it looked like the Gilmores’ investigation of the site had begun. “Why did I promise not to interfere?” she muttered, eyeing them. Her eyes grew heavy watching them turn into small, doll-like figures in the distance. She gave in to the hot, humid day and closed her eyes.

  Meanwhile, Liz walked back to Jake and her father.

  The two men searched the ground where Liz found the partial footprint.

  “Find anything else, Dad … Jake?”

  “No.”

  Jake Sr. smiled at her. “It’s time to turn Skipper loose again, Lizzie. Let’s see what else he digs up.”

  “Come, Skipper.” Liz slapped her thigh to get the dog’s attention, then pulled the notes out of the baggies and ha
d the hound smell them again. “Go find it, boy.”

  Skipper sniffed the ground where Danny and she ran for shelter after the first blast. As the dog drew closer to the blast site, Liz realized how devastated the land was after the explosion. The charred, blackened remains of the foundation looked like a large, ugly gaping wound in the earth’s body. The explosion transformed the equipment closest to the foundation into large chunks of melted metal and then spread the chunks throughout the surrounding field. It looked like a large hand sowed the earth with large bits of metal instead of wheat. She scanned the area and frowned. The blackened equipment farthest from the blast looked the most salvageable. She watched Skipper sniff the large metal fragments, then drag his nose along the ground, moving farther away from the main site. She wondered why he was so far away until she followed him. He’d stopped moving and sat down near a thicket weeds and bushes, half a football field away. He bayed at her.

  “Dad, look at that.” Jake squeezed his father’s arm and pointed in the distance at Skipper as he waited for Liz.

  Jake Sr. nodded. “Bet he found something else, Son. Let’s wait for Lizzie to tell us.”

  Jake and his father watched Liz stride through the weeds and stop where the dog waited. They decided to wait where they were until she called to them.

  Liz changed gloves so she wouldn’t taint new evidence with contaminants from the prior items she’d found. She bagged the gloves she’d just removed, labeled the baggie, and looked around. She spotted something and squatted down to study it. “Hmm, it’s another footprint. Good dog, Skipper.” She fed him another treat and patted his head.

  Skipper looked up at Liz and then waited to sit down.

  “Sit, Skipper. That’s a good boy.” Liz patted his head. She took pictures of the ground around the footprint. She moved the weeds to see the imprint clearly. Underneath the weeds, she discovered a second set of footprints almost on top of the first ones. Somebody smashed down the weeds in two uneven rows. She followed the rows and discovered tire tracks about twenty feet away from the footprints. She retraced her footsteps back to Skipper and signaled Jake and her father, then waited for them to join her. “Jake, take some impressions here.” She pointed to the first footprints. “I ran out of flags, so gimme about a dozen. I found something over there.”

  Jake tossed her two bags full of small bright yellow flags.

  She marked the first footprints and then the second set with the flags. She walked along the side of bent grass to keep from disturbing the evidence. She marked the trail and the tire treads with the flags and then stood back to look at the flags. She snapped more pictures of the flags and studied the land as she tried to understand what had happened here. When nothing came to mind, she turned to the dog. “Okay, Skipper, do your thing. Go, Boy, go find.”

  Skipper whined and sniffed another area about three feet away from the footprints and tire treads.

  Liz found brown stains splattered in a fan pattern on weeds and a shell casing from a .38 in the grass underneath the stains. Matted grass formed the faint shape of a body. She posted another flag marking the shell casing, four more for the stains. She used more flags to mark the outline in the grass and snapped pictures of the scene. After taking pictures, she cut off samples of several of the weeds with the stains and put them in separate bags. She labeled them with the location, the time, the date, and then initialed them for future reference.

  She wondered if they’d prove useful at trial. If the sheriff closed the investigation right now, she’d be left hanging out on a limb. There’d be a suspension looming over her head and Ingrams’ too. It was something to consider, but she wouldn’t let it stop her. She could claim Susan hired her, Ingrams, Jake, and her father as police consultants investigating the site explosions and the death of an ODC employee.

  She squatted down to peer at the casing and the outline in the matted grass. She frowned. The brown splatters looked like dried blood. She was sure that a body had been here recently. Since the body was gone, whoever moved it was a suspect. She wondered how they’d find the suspect. She wondered which one was the letter writer. Was it the dead body forming the impression in the grass or was it the person who moved it? She watched her father stride over to where her brother was preparing to cast the footprints.

  Jake Sr. leaned over with his hands on his knees to watch his son. “What did the dog find, Son?”

  “Take a look, Dad.” Jake’s gloved finger pointed out two sets of footprints. “Hmm, Looks like two people were here. Bet one of the prints is the same as the one over by the trailer.”

  Jake Sr. leaned closer to examine the footprint. “It looks like the same nick in the tread as the first one we found by the trailer.”

  Jake nodded. “Yeah, looks that way.”

  Liz walked over to Skipper to pat his head and then rewarded him with another treat. “Good boy.” She gave the dog another whiff of the notes. “Go find ‘em, Skipper.”

  Skipper picked up the scent, circled around the tire tracks, then barked, whined, and sat down on his hind legs, waiting for Liz.

  Liz strode over to him. She discovered more brown droplets in a straight pattern near the tire’s tread. They were larger than the bloodstains and splatters she’d found before. Something or somebody dripped these. Stained blades of grass bent in a wavy line and stopped at the tire tracks. She shuddered to think what Skip had uncovered. She suspected it was the remnants of a murder scene. Who died here and why? What did it have to do with the explosion? How did the notes connect with the murder scene? She shrugged, marked the area with flags, and snapped more pictures of the scene.

  Jake finished casting the last two sets of footprints and he was comparing the three castings with his father as Liz walked over. The nicked area on the sneaker tread looked identical in two casts while the third print was clearly that of a smaller foot. “What do you think, Lizzie?”

  “I think we have more than Danny’s murder here, is what I think. Skipper found what I think is blood and brain matter over there about three feet away.” She pointed to the flags marking the blood spatters and the bullet casing.

  “What’s over there, Lizzie?” Jake pointed to the flags marking the flattened trail.

  “Something or someone was dragged over the grass to where the tire tracks are. Whatever it was leaked blood. Skipper found more brown drops near the tire treads further over from the flattened grass. I suspect it’s blood too. I’m giving these samples to Ingrams’ friend in the lab to let her test ‘em. The brown stuff stops at the tire treads. The tracks go out that way, then stop. It gets rocky where they stopped. Come with me, Daddy. Help me find out where they lead.”

  Jake Sr. followed her to where the tracks ended. They stood staring down at the rocks covering the embankment for a few minutes.

  “Looks like an old service road, doesn’t it, Lizzie?”

  Liz nodded. “Yeah, Dad, it does. I bet if we looked hard enough, we’d find more treads matching the ones we already found up here.” She climbed down the embankment and then helped her father down. They started searching the rocky area, looking for the tire marks.

  “Hey, Lizzie, take a look.” Jake Sr. pointed to a black skid mark on one of the stones.

  The distinctive wide tread was clearly visible against the dusty road. Liz bent down and snapped a couple of shots of the treads, then marked it with flags. She looked at her watch. “I don’t think we’re gonna make Susan’s deadline, Daddy. Could you ride with her to the house? She has to meet some architects this afternoon. I want to stay with Jake. Maybe work out some scenarios before the evidence disappears.”

  Jake Sr. frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I have a feeling all this stuff will be destroyed somehow. It’s a small town, Dad. I’m sure someone saw us come out here. They’ll probably tell Uncle Ted. You heard him at the hospital. I’m sure Jake told you about the board meeting.”

  Jake Sr. nodded.

  “We need to c
onsider why Uncle Ted is so ready to close this investigation down so quickly. He has a whole department at his disposal, Daddy. How come he didn’t find what we did?”

  Jake Sr. stroked his chin in deep thought. “Interesting quandary, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it is, Daddy. See you later.” Liz was ready to climb the embankment when her father’s voice stopped her.

  “Go see Susan, Lizzie. Say goodbye to her. I think she’ll appreciate that. She’s been more than patient with us Gilmores today.” Jake Sr. watched his daughter shrug nervously. He wondered if she’d told the Drummond woman how she felt about her yet.

  Liz climbed up the embankment and then helped her father up. His foot slipped and he kicked over a rock. When Liz reached out to steady him, she spotted a piece of cloth with brown stains on it. “I’ll be damned. Look at that, it musta snagged on something.” She pushed another flag in the ground, marking the spot, and took a picture of the cloth, then slipped it in another numbered bag, noting the time, date, and location of the item as she had done with all the other bags.

  Together, Liz and her father walked over to Susan’s sports car and found her asleep. Liz gently stroked a cheek to awaken her, then watched hazel eyes brighten when they spotted her. “Hey, Sleepyhead, it’s time for your meeting.”

  Susan smiled at Liz. She was ready to reach over to pull Liz close for a kiss until Jake Sr. cleared his throat. “Oh God, I thought we were alone,” she whispered.

  Liz grinned. “Nope. My dad is here to ride with you back to the house.”

  Susan studied Liz’s face, noting alert clear eyes. “You found something, didn’t you?”

  Liz nodded, then described what they’d found and what she suspected. Susan remained calm when she mentioned finding evidence of a second murder at the site. The only sign of her distress was the widening of her eyes, Liz mused, studying her face. She was surprised. She thought Susan would be defensive because her family was associated with the site or at least frightened that the killers might come after her father again.

  “Will you be all right out here, Lizzie?” Susan asked, then stared into dark eyes and stroked her arm.