by Sharon Dunn
She angled the photo of David surrounded by pine trees with the houses and radio tower on the edge. When she had first flipped through the album, this was the photo that struck her as familiar. Maybe it was a place she had visited.
Phoebe strutted to the door, sat back on her haunches, and stared at the doorknob.
“You want to go out, baby?”
Ginger stepped out onto the porch. There was just enough light to make out the silhouette of trees and Earl’s workshop. Was someone watching her now? She zipped her bathrobe to the neck and shoved her hands in its plush pockets. The whispered threat about her friends ran through her brain on a loop.
Lord, what I am supposed to do?
A few hours later, Ginger sat at her table watching Kindra dance around the kitchen while she talked on the phone to Tammy. Had she ever had that much energy? Her muscles were heavy from lack of sleep. Brain fog clouded her thoughts.
Kindra placed a hand over the phone. “Please, Ginger? You’ve got to take me to Suzanne’s anyway. You might as well come out to the archery range.” Kindra pointed the phone like it was a conductor’s baton.
Arleta and Earl sat eating omelets Arleta had whipped up while she told stories of cooking over a fire for an entire archaeology crew. Earl’s eyes were barely-open slits. So far his contribution to the conversation had been three groans and an “uh-huh.” Ginger had learned early in their marriage the he wasn’t technically human until his second cup of coffee.
“Tammy can go rooting around all she wants.” Ginger pushed a piece of omelet across her plate. “I just don’t think it’s going to do any good for us to play Columbo.”
Kindra spoke back into the phone. “Just a second, Tammy. Ginger’s thinking about it.”
Ginger put a hand on her hip. “That’s not what I said, young lady.”
“Just take me to Suzanne’s. Even if you don’t want to continue investigating, we do.” She leaned forward and mouthed, “Pleasepleaseplease.”
“Is Trevor coming with Tammy?” Earl took a bite of toast.
Ginger nearly jumped off her chair at the sound of Earl using actual words.
“I don’t know. Let me ask.” Kindra turned her attention back to the phone.
Arleta glanced at the clock on the wall. “I need to head home and get those shingles on my roof. I can take Kindra into town.”
Kindra said good-bye and hung up the phone. She scooted in beside Ginger at the table. “Tammy says she can bring Trevor. So does that mean you’re taking me, Earl, or is Arleta?” Kindra grabbed a slice of marmalade-slathered toast, tore off tiny pieces, and popped them in her mouth.
Earl rubbed his face and blinked several times. “Why don’t I just take you straight to the archery range, and Suzanne can meet you there. I wouldn’t mind talking to Trevor again.”
Ginger sat up straight in her chair. “You want to talk to Trevor?”
“Yeah, he’s got some good ideas.” The glassiness cleared from his eyes. “He catches on quickly.”
A twinge of jealousy pinched the back of Ginger’s neck. The distance between her chair and Earl’s felt like a million miles. She had good ideas, too.
If Kindra and Suzanne went to the range, they might be in danger. “You know, Kindra. I think I will go with you and Earl.”
“Super-duper. I knew you’d change your mind.” She patted Ginger’s leg. “I’ll call Tammy and Suzanne and have them meet us at the range.”
“Tell me you found the name?” Tammy stood outside Deaver’s house, which featured a fence made of old bicycles and several large antennae on the roof.
Bradley looked different without his white coat. The khakis and the Star Trek T-shirt made him look like a bald teenager. He waved a piece of paper in front of her. “It took some doing.”
“How on earth did you track down the name of the hiker who found the Parker woman’s body? Was it embedded on one of the hard drives? Did you piece together the report from the trash?”
“Actually, it was harder than that. I checked the newspaper story that came out a while after she was found.” He handed her the paper. “The one that said it was an accident.”
“Did you have to go to the library?” She had just swung by there with Trevor so he could check out books on engineering and electricity to show Earl.
“No, I save all the newspapers I subscribe to.”
“All?” Tammy pictured a room stacked floor to ceiling with newspapers. Or worse, Bradley cutting out articles that had secret messages hinting of conspiracies and filing them in alphabetical order. She put the brakes on any kinds of thought connected with Deaver’s personal life. She just didn’t need to go there. Bradley was helping her, he could be trusted, and that was all that mattered.
She unfolded the piece of paper. “Remington Shaw. Sounds like a soap opera star.”
“And get this.” Deaver pulled another piece of paper out of his briefcase. “Remington is also a member at the archery range. Here’s the entire list with phone numbers.”
Ah, the legwork Officer Vicher was supposed to have done. She patted his shoulder. “Thanks, Bradley. Maybe I will call this Mr. Shaw and see if he can meet me up at the range.”
Deaver grinned. “Already got it done for you”
“What would I do without you?”
Deaver zipped up his briefcase. “So what did Stenengarter say about your being late for your shift?”
She shrugged. “I have a meeting with him later today. I told him I had an emergency with my son, which was the truth.” She kept her voice even, but the encroaching tension in her back betrayed her calm demeanor.
Deaver rubbed his nose and cracked his knuckles. “Hope it goes okay.”
Tammy waved the membership list. “Thanks for doing all this for me.” She stared at the list of members.
What was a hiker doing wandering around the woods in the middle of the night?
The dirt road that led to the archery range wound around the mountain. The car jostled side to side as Earl drove the single lane.
Ginger stared into the evergreen forest. Mary Margret had died out there, somewhere between the time she made the last phone call close to noon and when her body had been found that night. What had she been doing all that time? Someone must have forced her to drive her car here. But why?
Ginger gripped the door handle. Mary Margret had hit four sales, gone to look at some property with another agent, and then gone to the library to look up information about twenty-year-old city commission meetings. Puzzle pieces that she couldn’t form into a coherent picture.
Kindra sat in the backseat of the car. “Do you know if Mary Margret made the phone calls from the house or on her cell?”
Ginger picked at a loose thread in the seat cover. She really didn’t want to discuss these things with Kindra, to encourage her. Someone might have seen them leave the house and head toward the archery range.
She feigned indifference about the question with a wave of her hand. “I assume the first one was out while she was still hitting the sales, so it was probably from her cell. And the other one was made from home. How else would her garage sale stuff be there?”
“Now that Tammy is working with us, we should see if she can get ahold of Mary Margret’s phone records. That’s what they always do on Law & Order.”
Ginger turned around to look at Kindra’s placid freckled face. “When do you find time to study?”
“I study and watch TV at the same time. We ADD people have to do that.”
Ginger turned back around and continued to tug on the seat cover thread. It would only get harder to come up with excuses as to why they shouldn’t look into Mary Margret’s death. Kindra and Suzanne were determined to find out more. Should she just tell them about the threat?
When they pulled up to the archery range, Suzanne was already waiting for them, resting on a hay bale at the front of the range. She leaned back, supporting herself on her palms.
The range consisted of a gravel parking lot wit
h a U-shaped building beside it. Targets were set up at two-hundred-yard intervals along the plowed dirt. Beyond that a berm of tarped hay bales lined the far end of the range. Pine trees framed the range to one side and behind the berm. Lodgepole pine, tall and growing close together, held a sort of foreboding. Ginger’s chest tightened.
That must be where they found Mary Margret.
A stranger dressed in what looked like a burlap bag and frayed shorts stood in the gravel parking lot beside a battered Subaru. The man gripped a bow. Arrows held in some sort of carrier stuck up from one side of his shoulder. He was tall with a deep brown tan. His hair stuck out in funny sausage-like rolls. The first time Ginger had seen the hairstyle on a salesgirl, Kindra explained that it was called dreadlocks. Creating such a hairstyle involved not shampooing your hair for weeks on end.
Kindra piled out of the backseat. “Tammy must still be on her way. I wonder who that guy is.”
“Tarzan,” said Ginger.
Kindra giggled. “He’s kind of cute.”
In a sloppy, unkempt sort of way. Ginger may have come of age in the sixties, but she had been too square to embrace the idea of unwashed long hair as a style choice. While the rest of the world had been dropping acid and dropping out, she had been sitting in a Young Life meeting learning the real definition of free love—the love of Christ. The Young Life meetings had cushioned her against the chaos her mother created, and it was where she had met Earl.
Earl opened the driver’s side door and stepped outside. Suzanne pushed herself off the hay bale and wobbled toward the other members of the BHN.
Tarzan sauntered toward the group. “I’m Remington Shaw. The guy who found your friend that Saturday night. Officer Welstad asked me to come here and show you guys where I found her. I’m real sorry about your friend.”
They all nodded.
Remington yanked on the string of his bow and then narrowed his eyes at Kindra. “I know you. Calculus 102. You’re the girl who threw off the curve.” Mr. Shaw’s bow looked very high-tech. Not like the simple things Ginger got for her grandkids. The front part of the bow was an arched piece of wood with what looked like pulleys on either end.
Color rose in Kindra’s cheeks when she smiled at Remington. Ginger had to keep reminding herself that Kindra was one smart cookie. She never bragged about it. The blond hair and obsession with clothes tended to hide her super-brain attributes.
Kindra became fascinated with her shoes, and her cheeks grew even redder. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you, Remington.”
“All my friends call me Rem. It’s okay. I looked really different last semester: short hair and polo shirts. I sat behind you.” He touched his dreadlocks. “I found my inner he-man last hunting season.”
Inner he-man? Is that what that look was about? Maybe later on today Rem would find his inner bathtub and barber.
“What’s with the bow and arrow?” Earl asked.
Rem touched one of the arrows attached to his bow. “Can you excuse me for a moment? I need to get something out of my car.” He sauntered away.
When Rem was out of earshot, Suzanne scooted toward Kindra. “Nice muscles, huh?”
Kindra crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Oh, quit.” Her cheeks, which had simmered down to a soft pink, turned red again.
Suzanne leaned close to Kindra’s ear but spoke loud enough so Ginger could hear. “So, Kindra. I don’t think I’ve seen tomatoes turn as red as you.”
Kindra looked up at the sky. “Stop.”
“He’s cute, don’t you think, Ginger?” Suzanne bumped Kindra’s shoulder playfully.
If you want to date Neolithic man. “He’s seems nice enough.” His character was what really mattered. “I wonder if he’s a Christian.”
“He’s cute, but I need to get through college before I can think about dating. I have a plan and I’m sticking to it.” Kindra shrugged. “I might Google him later just for fun.”
“Is that legal?” At the very least, it sounded painful. Ginger sat on a hay bale.
Suzanne sat beside her. Just standing had made Suzanne breathless. “That’s where you type in someone’s name on that Internet search engine.” Sweat trickled down her face. “If he has ever been arrested or has a family website or has been in a newspaper or written something, it’ll come up.” Suzanne rested her hand on her stomach.
“That baby better be born soon or you’re going to run out of lung capacity.”
Suzanne tightened her lips and took a quick half breath. “Any day now.”
Rem returned holding more arrows. “I thought these would work better.” He plucked the string of his bow. “The lady cop thought that since I was an archer, I could help you figure out if a stray arrow from the range could have hit your friend.”
Kindra rocked back and forth, casting furtive glances in Rem’s direction. Somebody definitely had a little crush on Tarzan.
Tammy’s yellow car appeared at the top of a hill and rolled into the gravel parking lot. Seconds after the car came to a stop, Trevor jumped out and raced toward the group. He sidled up beside Earl. “Hey, Mr. Salinski. Wait until you see the cool books I got from the library.”
Earl slapped Trevor’s back. “Sure.”
Trevor bounced from foot to foot. “We can look at them right now.”
Ginger felt that twinge in her chest as the men wandered back to the car. Her envy was silly, just silly. And really it wasn’t about Trevor; it was about feeling so estranged from Earl.
Tammy came up beside them, nodding at the people she knew. She held out her hand. “You must be Remington.”
Rem slung his bow over his shoulder, like a woman would a purse, and shook Tammy’s hand. “I can tell you right now there is no way someone on the range could have shot your friend. Too far for the arrow to travel, and the angle isn’t right. Lots of trees in the way. Not even a really bad shot would zigzag that way.” Rem pointed with the bow. “Let me show you what I mean.”
He pulled an arrow out of his quiver. Expertly, he placed it in the bow and pulled back on the string. The arrow flew through the air, falling short of the edge of the forest. “I get really good distance, probably one of the best in the club. And I can’t even get it into the trees.” He repeated the procedure from several places on the range.
Rem ambled back toward them. “If you ladies want to go down the hill, I can retrieve my arrows and show you where I found your friend.” He gazed at Kindra when he talked.
Suzanne wiped sweat from the back of her neck. “I think I’ll stay here and rest.”
Ginger crossed her arms and tilted her head toward Suzanne, who had no color in her face.
“I’ll be all right. The baby is not going to be born in the next ten minutes. I’ve done this three times before.”
“Earl is just right over there if you need help.” Ginger wrapped her arm around Kindra and strode down the hill behind Rem and Tammy.
Ginger glanced back at the range where Earl and Trevor stood by Tammy’s car, flipping through a book, their heads close together. Suzanne, sitting on a hay bale, tilted her head back and closed her eyes. She already looked better.
Ahead of them, Rem stopped to pull an arrow out of the ground. On the edge of the forest, he yanked a second arrow out of a tree. Ginger and Kindra caught up with Tammy and Rem just as they stepped into the trees. The temperature dropped five degrees, and only a small amount of light filtered through the canopy of evergreens.
Ginger’s feet treaded on the soft earth. “What were you doing out here hiking at night, Mr. Shaw?” Though she couldn’t come up with a motive, Rem could have been the one who put the arrow through Mary Margret. He certainly had the means. He needed to be ruled out.
“I wasn’t hiking. The paper said that for convenience, I guess. I was out testing some night-vision goggles. I cross-country ski in the winter, and sometimes I need to ski out after dark.” Rem trudged ahead of the women. “I thought they might come in handy when I hunt, too.”
“N
ight-vision goggles? Where do you get those?”
Rem turned to Ginger. “Sporting goods store in the mall sells them.”
Hmm, who would have thought it? Earl sometimes didn’t finish hunting until after dark. She’d have to get a pair for him. Maybe a gift that was about what he liked could open some discussion doors.
There was no obvious trail for them to walk on. They stepped into a clearing. Several fallen and rotting evergreens rested on the thick undergrowth. Toward the center of the clearing was a large white rock surrounded by smaller ones.
Ginger turned. The trees were thin enough that she could see the range, at least the parking lot and the U-shaped building.
“Just up here a ways.” Rem directed them toward something that looked a little more like a trail.
She crossed her arms and slowed her pace. Did she really want to see this?
The narrowness of the path required them to walk single file with Rem in the lead. The trail curved and the others disappeared behind a clump of trees.
Ginger stopped. She could hear their voices and see flashes of color through the trees. She tilted her head, gazing at the tree-tops and clouds floating by, and tried not to think about Mary out here by herself with a killer. That hollow feeling invaded her heart. She wanted to run back to the car and drive for a very long time. Far away from this hole inside her that would not heal.
“Ginger?”
Kindra’s voice sounded distant. Ginger waited for the trees around her to come into focus. She swiped the tears from her eyes and trudged forward. The others stood in a small clearing.
Rem turned a half circle. “The trees aren’t that close together, but still, it’s what we in the business call an impossible shot.”
Tammy asked, “Could someone have been wandering around the forest with a bow and arrows?”
“Yeah, but look at your shot range: twenty feet at most, and unless it was pitch black, you’d be able to see a person. There is no way it could have been an accident. Arrows don’t bounce off trees and into people.” Rem tugged at the bandanna on his head. “Besides, why would you be practicing down here when the range is just up the hill?”