When the Bishop Needs an Alibi

by Vannetta Chapman

  Emma smiled, and Henry had the sudden desire—the need—to put his arms around her. Instead of doing so, he said, “That’s gut, Emma.”

  It seemed insufficient, barely touching the depth of gratitude he felt that she wasn’t harmed.

  Before he could put those thoughts into words, Tess walked up to them. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “No need.”

  “But there is, Henry. You got involved in something you could have ignored. You were a friend to Sophia, and you were kind to me. You both showed amazing courage.”

  “Courage is simply fear that has said its prayers.” Henry nearly laughed when Emma rolled her eyes, but weren’t the proverbs of their parents and grandparents always spot-on? It seemed to Henry that they were, that he was only beginning to understand the wisdom there.

  “Maybe,” Tess conceded. “Maybe there’s something to that.”

  She squeezed Henry’s good arm and pulled Emma into a hug. The women stood there, arms around each other as sunlight caused the sand to sparkle, the sound of cranes filling the air.

  Seventy-One

  They were all loaded into the golf carts and driven to the visitor center. Henry supposed the place was closed temporarily, as he didn’t see any other tourists—no bird-watchers at all. They had the place to themselves.

  “It’s a crime scene,” Grayson explained. “Can’t let anyone in until we collect all of the evidence. First order of business is getting your arm looked at.”

  Two additional paramedics had been waiting for their arrival.

  “Looks like it grazed your deltoid. You’re lucky it didn’t go any deeper, or you could be looking at surgery and rehab.” The young Hispanic woman cleaned and rebandaged Henry’s arm, reminding him to “see your physician within the next twenty-four hours.”

  After he had put his shirt back on, Henry glanced up and looked out the window in time to see Anderson being loaded into a police cruiser.

  “What’s he doing here?” Emma asked as she came up beside him.

  “I don’t know, but he was involved in this somehow.” He walked over to the window and thought he saw Anderson glare his way, but he could have been imagining it. The officer driving blipped the siren once, but left his lights off as he proceeded out of the parking area.

  Sheriff Grayson walked in, but he didn’t ask them any questions. Though Henry had seen him at the bottom of the dune, Grayson now pumped his hand as though they were dear old friends, which he supposed they were. Grayson made sure they had additional bottles of water to drink, and some snacks were spread out across one of the counters. Henry chose a glazed donut. “Not as gut as the widows’ baking, but it’s not bad.”

  He would have preferred coffee, but the paramedics had insisted they needed to hydrate.

  “My family’s going to be very worried,” Emma said.

  “I sent an officer out to let them know you’re fine.” Grayson took off his hat and ran a hand over the top of his head. “Henry mentioned that you ladies are in possession of a flash drive? I’m going to need that.”

  Tess dug it out of her pocket and handed it to him. He thanked her, and then he asked, “Password protected, right?”

  Emma and Tess shared a smile.

  “Capital C, capital B, 021412,” Tess said, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

  “We’re going to need you to wait here until we can get your statement. I know you’re tired, and I apologize.” Grayson hurried out of the building.

  Henry and Emma were patient. After all, they were used to the unhurried tempo of farm life. They weren’t surprised or terribly put out when things moved slowly. Tess, however, paced the room, threw questions out at no one in particular, and mumbled to herself.

  Finally, Grayson came back, but he wasn’t alone. Agent Delaney was with him.

  Like the other times Henry had been in the agent’s presence, the man wore a crisp white shirt, black jacket, and a tie—this one again black so it matched his pants. He was still pale, still had short black hair and blue eyes. But now those eyes struck Henry as shrewd rather than frosty—the only difference being that he was no longer looking at Henry in an accusatory way.

  They pulled their chairs into a circle and got down to business.

  “Mr. Lapp—”

  “Henry.”

  “Henry, I owe you an apology. Grayson vouched for you, but I wouldn’t listen.”

  “To be fair, you were being misled.”

  “I was. The tip hotline lit up within an hour of my being on scene, and a good portion of those tips incriminated you.”

  “Then it’s understandable that you would question my innocence.”

  “Actually, it’s not understandable. I was too eager to close this one. I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted,” Henry said.

  Delaney looked surprised to be forgiven so easily, but he nodded once, pulled out his phone, and pushed some buttons as he muttered, “I need to record this.”

  He proceeded to pepper them with questions.

  Forty-five minutes later, he clicked off the recording.

  “Now can you tell us what’s going on?” Tess asked. “I’m not leaving here until I have answers. Why was Sophia killed? She had evidence, didn’t she? Evidence about what they were doing?”

  Delaney sank back into his chair. “Officially, I’m not allowed to share details of an ongoing investigation.”

  The special agent stared out the window, and then he allowed his gaze to travel across the three of them. “You three have been through a lot, and we believe your actions will lead directly to the arrest of someone the bureau’s been chasing a long time.”

  He blew out a long breath. “I don’t bend the rules often, but this time I’d say you’ve earned some answers.”

  “Why was Sophia killed?”

  “Your sister had evidence of the crime taking place. We found a burner phone and a camera in a Dumpster near Paddock’s truck. She abandoned it in a gas station parking lot in Walsenburg, where she stole a different vehicle. We have the plate number, and the vehicle had onboard navigation. We’re tracking her now.”

  “Will you catch her?” Emma asked.

  “There’s every reason to believe we will, Mrs. Fisher.”

  “The phone was my sister’s?”

  “Apparently, Sophia bought it when she first moved to Monte Vista. I’m sure when we search phone records for that number, we’ll find the voice mail recording your sister made to you. More pertinent to this investigation, Sophia took photographs of a pickup at the Monte Vista Refuge, one similar to what you three described. The camera Paddock left behind was Sophia’s too.”

  “So they were stealing animals?” Emma asked.

  “Technically, it’s called poaching—the illegal hunting or capture of animals on land that is not your own. In this case, on national park land, which makes it a federal crime.”

  “And they would kill for that?”

  “A large bull elk like the one you saw airlifted out? The antlers alone would be worth thousands of dollars, but they weren’t hunting these animals. We believe, based on evidence we’ve recovered, they were selling them to managed land places. You know, private hunts, that sort of thing.”

  “So someone stole them to sell them to someone else, and the person who purchased them planned to kill them or allow them to be hunted.” Tess’s voice rose. “And then they killed Cooper and my sister to cover it up?”

  “We suspect we’ll learn the people who were purchasing the animals planned to use them as breeding stock. And the reason your sister and her husband were killed? Greed, one of the most common motives for murder.”

  Seventy-Two

  I’ll agree with you about greed being a common motive for murder.” Henry struggled to order his thoughts. “But fifty thousand, even a hundred thousand, isn’t that much money, not to an Englischer.”

  “Multiply that many times over. I suspect we’ll find this has been going on for some time.”
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br />   “Who was Clayton?” Emma asked. “I heard that name when Paddock was on the phone.”

  Grayson looked as if he wanted to answer, but Delaney stopped him. “We can’t share that information, not at this point.”

  “Officer Anderson is under arrest?”

  “Yes. We caught him trying to destroy some of the call logs at headquarters. He’d been contacted and told to turn the investigation toward you, Henry. He’s the one who fabricated anonymous tips about your having an argument with Sophia, your taking her to a hotel—”

  “Which I did.”

  “The tip said you were there for more than an hour. We now know from the CCTV footage that isn’t true. I’m not sure how Anderson thought he could get away with it, but I know why. He confessed to receiving a large payment, which he claims he needed for his retirement.”

  “Was he also responsible for your getting removed from the case?”

  “Yes. He fabricated some complaints and sent them up the chain. It was enough to convince someone I needed time off.”

  Tess ran a thumb across her bottom lip, back and forth, back and forth. Plainly she was struggling between relief that the killers had been found and grief over the loss of her sister. “I want them all in jail.”

  “And I believe that will happen. It was very clever of you to take the video.”

  “But it didn’t load.”

  “You live streamed it. When you did, our tip hotline as well as the local police switchboard lit up with people calling in what they’d seen. It’s amazing how many people are online in the middle of the night.” Delaney shrugged as if he couldn’t fathom the ways of today’s generation.

  “How did you find us?” Emma asked. “I thought we would sit behind that sand dune for days. We were in the back of the park amid the hills. How did you find our exact location? How did you get there so quickly?”

  “James Brownfield.”

  “Who?” Henry asked.

  “You know him as Jimmy,” Delaney said. “I don’t have all of the information, but he is a federal investigator who had gone undercover to catch the poachers and their operation.”

  “So he wasn’t actually helping Paddock.”

  “No, Ms. Savalas. Agent Brownfield wanted to stay and apologize to you for that. He wasn’t with Paddock the night she killed your sister. They’d sent him to the other end of the supply chain to oversee the arrival of the animals. He thinks if he had been here, he could have saved her.”

  “It’s not his fault,” Henry said.

  “No, it’s not. And when I first arrived to investigate the murder of a young woman on national park land, I wasn’t immediately made aware of the other investigation.” Delaney rested his elbows on his knees and stared down at the floor. When he glanced up, he looked almost like a normal man rather than a hardened agent. “If we had coordinated better, we might have been able to capture Paddock before you three were in danger.”

  “Sophia would still be dead,” Tess whispered.

  “True, but it’s unfortunate that we had no way to link the murder of Sophia Brooks to the unlawful capture of wildlife in the national parks. In retrospect, we should have made that connection earlier.”

  “I heard gunshots.” Henry’s hand went up and unconsciously touched his bandaged shoulder. “Several shots as I was rushing to push Tess and Emma out of the way.”

  “Agent Brownfield had circled back around behind Paddock. She managed to get a shot off, and he was hit in the leg.” Delaney glanced at his watch. “He should be in surgery right now. CareFlight transported him to the hospital in Alamosa.”

  “Is he going to be all right?” Emma asked.

  “He is. He lost quite a bit of blood, but the bullet passed through cleanly. Agent Brownfield managed to crawl off into the woods, where he called for backup. In the meantime, he told us, she continued shooting at you.”

  Emma leaned forward, rubbing her forehead. Henry worried that she was getting sick, possibly even with one of her migraines. It would be no surprise if the night had taken its toll on her health, but then she snapped her fingers and sat up straighter.

  “I remember now. I remember what was bothering me. When Jimmy asked where Paddock was taking us, she said same place as last time. What did that mean? Did they kill someone else?”

  “No. They did not, but I can’t tell you any more than that.”

  Delaney stood and smoothed down his tie. “If you have no more questions, I’m sure they need me in the field. Again, I want to offer my condolences to you, Ms. Savalas, and I’d like to thank all three of you for your help. I’m sure the federal prosecutor tasked with trying this case will be in contact regarding your testimony.”

  He’d made it to the door, and Grayson was standing to indicate the meeting was over, when Emma said, “How did you find us? I know Jimmy, or rather Agent Brownfield, told you where we jumped off the dune, but how did you find us so quickly?”

  “Easy,” Grayson said. “Henry’s monitor led us right to you.”

  “Speaking of that, you’ll be able to remove it now…right?” Emma’s voice held such hope that Henry nearly laughed.

  “I’ll contact the judge.”

  “So the monitor helped you find me?”

  “Once Stuart told me where you’d gone, I called the local office, and they used one of our drones to locate the signal.”

  “A drone?” Emma shook her head, as if she had trouble trying to picture what he was saying.

  “About this big.” Grayson cupped his hands as if he were holding a small animal. “Doesn’t make much sound, moves quickly—”

  “Like a bird.”

  “Yes.” Grayson smiled. “Exactly like a bird.”

  Emma glanced at Henry, and he knew her well enough to understand she was remembering the words from Genesis.

  You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.

  Delaney had opened the door, letting in a breeze that carried the scent of falling leaves and the call of distant cranes. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the flash drive that had held Cooper’s notes and Sophia’s journal. He fingered the device and turned back to Emma and Tess. “How did you figure out the password?”

  The two women shared a smile, and Henry had to repress a chuckle. It didn’t seem right to laugh in this situation, but then life took such strange twists and turns that he did find amusing, even amid tragedy.

  He’d often considered that day when a baseball slugged him in the head and left him unconscious as the worst day of his life. It had marked him forever as different. It had changed the path of his days, but God had used even such a thing as an accident with a baseball.

  “Henry’s drawing,” Tess said. “He’d drawn my sister, down to the last detail, including her tattoo.”

  “CB—her husband, Cooper Brooks,” Emma said.

  “And 021412, the day they met,” Tess added.

  Delaney nodded, as if what she was saying made sense. He’d never seen Henry’s drawings, and he didn’t ask to now. He thanked them again, walked out the door, and climbed into his black SUV.

  Seventy-Three

  Emma’s family practically smothered her in hugs, and she didn’t mind one bit. Over and over she assured Stephen and Thomas that she was all right. They’d hurried home from school on their lunch break to “check on Mammi.” Finally convinced that she was fine, they’d each grabbed an apple out of the fruit bowl and assured Rachel it was all they needed, and then they took off running down the lane.

  “Does my heart gut to see those two living a normal, calm, and simple life.”

  Clyde had grunted at that. “Perhaps now we all can, if you and Henry will stop getting involved with murders.”

  Silas stood with his back to the kitchen counter, arms crossed, grinning at Emma as if he was inexplicably proud of her.

  She sank onto a kitchen chair and gave them the quick version of what had happened, hitting only the highlights. Clyde, Rachel, Silas, and Katie Ann stared at her, mouths o
pen, eyes wide, and then they all started asking questions at once.

  Rachel was the one who came to her senses and said, “The details can wait. You’re home, you’re safe, and you’re probably starving.”

  Emma admitted that she hadn’t managed to eat anything at the park office.

  She promised to share all of the details later. Silas gave her a hug and said, “Glad you’re home, Mammi. Maybe you should be like other grandmothers and take up a hobby. You know, other than solving murders.”

  Clyde patted her clumsily on the shoulder and headed back out to the fields.

  Rachel and Katie Ann insisted on making her a lunch of warm soup, cheese, and fresh bread.

  “This bread is wunderbaar. Did you make it?” she asked Rachel.

  “You know better. My bread-baking abilities are marginal at best.”

  “We were so worried when you weren’t here this morning.” Katie Ann perched on the edge of a chair across from her. “The widows came by, wanting to know if you were home yet. When their whole story came out, I thought Dat was going to drive the buggy all the way to the sand dunes.”

  “But then an officer arrived to tell us you were fine.” Rachel blew on her coffee and smiled over the rim of the mug.

  “I went into town to let the widows know.” Katie Ann smiled mischievously. “Figured while I was there I should buy a few things—bread, cookies, and even a pie for later this evening. So we can celebrate. The widows seem quite proud they could pass on your message. To hear them tell it, they’re responsible for solving Sophia’s murder and returning the valley to safety.”

  Emma laughed. “There will be no stopping them now. They were already selling out of everything they could make.”

  “And now the newspeople are there.” Katie Ann squirreled up her nose. “They’re like flies on a summer day. I won’t be going back until they grow tired of the story. I’m proud of you, Mammi, but I’d rather my photograph not be on the front page of the Monte Vista Gazette.”

  “Why are they hanging out at the bakery?”