High Country Fall

by Margaret Maron

  I realized that I couldn’t let him get between me and the side of the mountain. The crazy way he was driving, he might push me off the road. The bottom fell out of my stomach as I stole a glance toward the side. No shoulder worth speaking of between the right lane and a sheer drop beyond. I hugged the center line as long as I could, till yet another car appeared and I had to move over, fighting the wheel as the curve tightened. Before I could get back to the center, he elbowed in beside me.

  A Firebird’s something of a muscle car, but with those monster tires he could climb all over me. Metal crunched on metal as he nudged me closer to the edge. I battled to hold my own car on the road, then, more in desperate instinct than rational thought, I sat on my brakes and he shot past me.

  Frantically, I made a three-point turn and headed back up the rise, but the clashes had done something to my alignment and I had to struggle with the wheel. At least I now had the mountain on my side of the road.

  My moment of relief was short-lived, because here was that shiny black Ranger in my rearview mirror again and coming up fast. The road took a sharp right curve, but I kept my right foot on the gas pedal and mashed it to the floorboard as I cornered.

  At that instant, I felt a sickening jolt from behind.

  A split second later, I was sailing straight out through bright blue sunlight. I stomped on the brakes, but there was only air beneath my wheels.

  Sky and trees tumbled wildly in front of my windshield, then my world went black.

  CHAPTER 26

  THURSDAY, 3:50 P.M.

  “Hey, Mary Kay,” George Underwood said as they met at the outer door on the lower level. “Playing hooky?” “Just a little bit. We finished up early and Mrs. Vincent said I could cut out early, too,” she said, referring to Lafayette County’s clerk of court.

  “Judge Knott’s already gone?”

  She nodded. “You missed her by about fifteen minutes.”

  Underwood experienced a twinge of disappointment. He was looking forward to telling her of their interview with the UPS driver, who was just now pulling his boxy brown truck out of the parking lot as they watched.

  “You sure you remember that Monday?” they had asked him. “Could you maybe be thinking of an earlier day when Mrs. Ledwig actually did take delivery?”

  “It was that Monday. That’s when my radio station does the roundup of all the weekend baseball scores, and I wanted to see who the Braves might be going to have to face in the playoffs.”

  “And you’re positive it was Mrs. Ledwig? You knew her by sight?”

  “I didn’t ask to see her birth certificate, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her before. Middle-aged? Blond? ’Bout as tall as me? She was coming around from the back to get in her car. Had the keys in her hand and looked a little like she really wanted me to move it ’cause the truck was blocking the drive. I just handed her the stuff and she went back with ’em the way she’d come.”

  Underwood looked at his notes. Tina Ledwig drove a silver Lexus. “What kind of car was it?”

  The driver shrugged. “I don’t keep up with the makes. It was a luxury sedan, though. White.”

  “I don’t suppose you noticed the license plate?”

  “Sorry. I don’t remember the numbers, but the first three letters were S-U-N.”

  Underwood, who had been leaning back in his chair, came upright. “You sure about that?”

  “About the letters? Sure, I’m sure.”

  Underwood swung around to his computer. “I’m going to type up your statement, and while I’m doing that, Detective Fletcher here will need to get your fingerprints so we can eliminate them from the packages.”

  Now, the deliveryman was on his way back to Asheville and Underwood took his signed statement into Sheriff Horton’s office.

  “You saying Sunny Osborne was at the Ledwig house that afternoon?” asked the sheriff.

  “She’s tall, blond, middle-aged, and the license plate on her white Lincoln has the word ‘SUN’ followed by the date she and Osborne were married. They say she swings a mean tennis racket, too,” Underwood told him.

  “Jesus!” said Horton. “You serious? You really think she killed Ledwig?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that she was there that afternoon and she didn’t see fit to tell us.”

  “Osborne’s body’s still in Chapel Hill. She do him, too?”

  He shrugged. “Our DA and Judge Knott both say she was playing a dulcimer the whole time before Osborne went missing.”

  Horton’s face brightened. “That’s right. So if she didn’t kill her husband, she didn’t kill Ledwig. She was probably scared to say she was there. Afraid we’d jump to the same conclusions we almost did. You go talk to her, George. Be easy with her. I bet she’ll tell you what really happened.”

  “I’ll give her a call. See if I can run up there now.”

  On the way back to his office, Underwood paused at the dispatcher’s station. “Any word on Proffitt yet?”

  The owner of the Trading Post hadn’t shown up yesterday morning, and when a deputy went to collect him today, he was not to be found.

  The dispatcher shook her head. “Nobody’s seen him since night before last. Faye says his shotgun’s still there, but if he went hunting, nothing’s in season for another week. Course that wouldn’t stop ol’ Proffitt, but his truck’s still parked out back. You reckon he’s skipped town?”

  “In what?” asked Underwood. “Don’t make it official, but I’ll send somebody out to check his house, and you tell everybody to keep a stray eye out for him, okay?”

  “Sure, Captain.”

  He went on down to his office and called the Osborne house. The housekeeper who answered said she thought that Mrs. Osborne and her daughter had gone to a funeral home in Howards Ford. “To make the arrangements,” she said with a catch in her voice.

  He left his number and asked her to tell Mrs. Osborne to call when she got back.

  THURSDAY, 4:30 P.M.

  The intercom on Lucius Burke’s desk gave a preliminary crackle, then his secretary’s voice said, “Billy Ed Johnson on line two, Mr. Burke.”

  He pressed the right button. “Hey, Billy Ed! How can I do you?”

  “Well, I was just wondering if that lady judge is still around the courthouse?”

  “Judge Knott? I’m not sure. You want me to have somebody check and see?”

  “Well, I’d appreciate it. She was supposed to meet me up here at Eagle Rest, but looks like she’s running late. Only she’s not answering her cell phone either.”

  He gave Burke his number and said, “Call me back, hear?”

  “Sure thing.” Burke cut the connection and touched the intercom button. “Suanna? Would you see if Judge Knott’s still in the courthouse?”

  Out in the anteroom, that young woman rolled her eyes, but pushed back from her computer and went down the hall to the courtroom the visitor had used today. The lights were out. The light was also out in Judge Rawlings’s chambers, but Suanna was nothing if not diligent. She took the stairs down to the lower level and peered out over the parking lot. “Anybody know what kind of car that judge drives?”

  Fletcher, on his way back from flirting with the evening dispatcher, said, “Captain Underwood might.”

  “Might what?” Underwood called, having heard his name.

  “Know what kind of car your judge friend drives,” Fletcher called back.

  Underwood came to his doorway. “Who wants to know?”

  “Mr. Burke.” As the DA’s secretary, Suanna usually took notes on his calls unless he specifically told her to get off the line. “She was supposed to meet somebody at Eagle Rest at four o’clock and she’s not answering her phone, so they want to know if she’s left yet.”

  “Eagle Rest? That’s what? Eighteen, twenty miles?” Underwood went over to the wide glass doors and scanned the lot, but didn’t see her black Firebird. “Mary Kay Kare said she left around three-thirty. She should be there by now.”

  H
e accompanied Suanna back to Burke’s office and was soon dialing the number Billy Ed Johnson had given Burke.

  “How did you route her out there?” he asked when Johnson answered.

  Within thirty minutes he had retrieved her license plate number from Motor Vehicles, and as the sun sank low in the west he had three units prowling the roads Johnson had specified.

  There might be a dozen reasons why she was late, but how many reasons could there be for not answering her cell phone? And maybe he was jumping the gun, but if it was Annie, he’d sure want to know.

  With a sigh, he pulled out his wallet and found the number he’d scribbled on the back of a card three days ago, then picked up his phone and dialed the area code for Colleton County.

  Deputy Ray Elkins was only twenty-one. He had joined the sheriff’s department in July, shortly after finishing a two-year criminal justice course at the local community college, and he was very much aware of being the new kid with something to prove. Accordingly, he drove fast down the stretch of road he’d been assigned, looking for a black Firebird in obvious trouble—maybe something as simple as a flat tire or broken radiator belt.

  Along the way, the young deputy stopped to examine a set of fresh skid marks on the outer lane at the bottom of the second long hill. There were shards of silvered glass on the pavement and he found a smashed side mirror that had been recently torn off a black vehicle and bounced over to the base of the mountain wall; but after walking fifty feet in either direction from the skid marks, he saw no sign that a vehicle had gone over the side.

  He wasn’t real sure if this mirror came off a Firebird, but he stuck it in the trunk of his unit anyhow and drove on.

  When the quick and dirty failed, Elkins turned around at the end of his assigned stretch and drove back more slowly. As he came up the same hill and rounded a sharp curve, there, about fifty feet past the crest, he saw a short set of skid marks. They continued off the pavement and on across the narrow, leaf-strewn shoulder.

  He got out of the car and looked down, taking care not to step on the torn-up weeds and dirt. The tire tracks were so fresh, the exposed dirt had barely begun to dry. If a vehicle had gone off here, though, into this thicket of head-high mountain laurels and hardwoods, it wasn’t immediately apparent. Nevertheless, he climbed down to make sure, holding on to young saplings and laurel branches. Just as he was ready to turn back, a breeze parted the leaves and sunlight gleamed off black metal another twenty feet down.

  A crumpled form lay in the bushes beyond the vehicle, and Elkins hesitated. The only dead bodies he’d seen in his short life were properly laid out in caskets in Sunday clothes. For a long moment, he stood there cussing the stupidity of people who don’t buckle up automatically, before his training kicked in and he forced himself to walk over to the body, to squat down and feel for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  He located the victim’s wallet and driver’s license, then climbed back up to the road, where he thumbed his mike and radioed for help.

  CHAPTER 27

  My alarm clock was ringing—ringing with such infuriating loudness that I fumbled for it on my nightstand, ready to slap it across the room, anything to make it stop. I seemed to be lying on my left arm and it was half numb as if I’d slept on it wrong. My head throbbed like the worst hangover of my entire life and the front of my neck was so sore I could barely turn it.

  And still the alarm shrilled, sending daggers through my pounding head. I cracked one eye and groaned. It wasn’t even full daylight yet. The sky was the gray of predawn without a single rosy-fingered sign of sunrise. Why the hell had I set the alarm for such an early hour? And where was the stupid thing anyhow?

  Abruptly it stopped.

  Good.

  Now I could turn over and grab another hour of sleep. Get rid of this headache.

  Except that I seemed to be all tangled up in the covers.

  I struggled to free myself, every part of my body hurting as I clawed at the constricting sheets—

  Sheets?

  I opened my eyes and looked down. Not sheets.

  Seat belt.

  I was hanging almost upside down against the left door of my car. No wonder my arm had gone numb. The deflated air bag hung like a limp balloon from its space on the steering wheel and there seemed to be a white powder all over my jacket. I twisted around, and as I shifted my weight, the car gave a sickening lurch, then slowly rolled over, crashing through the undergrowth. My head socked against the window and I blacked out again.

  When next I came to, it was even darker. Remembering what happened the last time I moved, I slowly lifted my head and looked around. The car seemed to be slightly canted on its right side now so that I still hung in the seat belt like a trussed calf. The front end pointed down the side of the mountain at what felt like a forty-five-degree angle. To my infinite relief, though, it appeared to be blocked from further slippage by the sturdy trunks of two large maples, not to mention that I was jammed in by so many laurel bushes that I could barely see the sky through all the thick leaves and the shattered windows.

  At first I couldn’t understand where I was or how I had gotten myself in such a fix, then, as my head cleared, I remembered the tattooed kid from court, the black Ranger, the whole terrifying incident.

  I tried to push myself upright and discovered that the car roof was now several inches lower, almost even with the top of my headrest. Dwight’s always complaining about the cramped interior. He’d go ape boxed in here now.

  I strained to reach the cell phone that had been thrown into the well on the passenger side, but my seat belt kept me too far away. Between the jackhammer that pounded through my head and the pins and needles in my arm, it was difficult to concentrate, yet I did realize that my first order of business was to get out of this seat belt.

  Easier said than done. Even pushing against the floor with my feet to take a bit of the tension off, nothing happened when I pressed the release. I tried again and again, moaning with frustration at each failure.

  Jammed.

  It was so dark down here under this canopy of leaves that I could barely make out the numerals on my watch.

  6:10.

  I was two hours late for my meeting with Billy Ed, the only one who knew where I was headed. Would he assume I’d changed my mind? If he thought I’d decided to blow him off, he might head back over toward Tennessee without saying anything to anyone. I could dangle here forever.

  The twins wouldn’t be home till midnight. If they noticed I was gone, the way their minds work, they’d probably think I was in bed with Lucius Burke somewhere. I couldn’t count on a search party until tomorrow morning when I didn’t show up for court.

  If only that guy with the jackhammer would knock it off, take a cigarette break, sit down on the curb for two minutes so I could think. I tried to press my temples with both hands. That’s when I noticed that my left arm didn’t want to track with the right. Broken?

  I tentatively squeezed along the top of my forearm with my right hand and it hurt like hell. Fortunately, the pain felt more like a bad surface bruise than something deeper.

  I assessed my damages. Sore arm. Banged head. A burning area on the front of my neck where the seat belt must have rasped me. No nausea, though. No blurred vision. Nor did I feel an overwhelming urge to sleep. If I was remembering correctly everything that nurse had said when I was seven and fell off a barn roof where I wasn’t supposed to be climbing, then I probably didn’t have a concussion.

  With the top of the steering wheel blown off by the air bag, I couldn’t seem to locate my horn, but at least the light switch was in its usual spot on the dashboard.

  I turned the knob. It got me nothing except more darkness.

  There was barely any wiggle room. I could get my arm free, not that it did me any good. Not when the roof and seat kept me from eeling out. It was like being strapped into one of those MRI machines. All the same, I scrunched over till most of my weight was on my other hip and pressed the sea
t belt release again.

  Still jammed.

  There was a nail clipper in my purse, but my purse was down there with the cell phone. Both might as well have been in China for all the good they were doing me.

  The console yielded up Johnny Cash tapes, a nearly full plastic bottle of water, a wad of gas receipts and fast-food napkins, scraps of notepaper, a ballpoint pen, and a foam coffee cup. Safety glass is all well and good and has no doubt saved a lot of lives but it meant no sharp shards. Why hadn’t I brought a regular mug? Something I could break and use as a knife.

  Knife? I automatically reached for my keys before I remembered.

  After 9/11, the penknife I used to keep on my keychain had been confiscated the first time I went through an airport safety check. What about the keys themselves, though?

  They were still in the ignition. I pulled them out and felt the shafts till I found one that was sharp and crisp—the key to the front door of my house, a brass key I’d maybe put in the lock once just to make sure it worked because nobody in my family ever uses a front door. Everyone pulls up at the back and enters through the kitchen.

  I shifted around till the seat belt was as taut as I could make it, then, using that key, I began to saw at the tough woven nylon just above the metal clasp. I kept it up till my hand cramped and my body ached, then I relaxed so that the belt went slightly slack, and examined the spot I’d been working on with the tiny light on my keychain. The edge of the belt was barely starting to look frayed. At this rate, it was going to take me hours.

  “Well, it’s not as if you’ve got anything else to do,” said the pragmatist over the pounding in my head.

  CHAPTER 28

  THURSDAY EVENING

  “Jason Barringer? And he’s got a Tanser-Mac student card?” The name on the victim’s driver’s license did not register with George Underwood, but the bailiff had started hanging around the sheriff’s department past quitting time after his wife died the year before, and he was standing at the dispatcher’s station when Deputy Elkins radioed in. As soon as he heard that name, he poked Underwood’s shoulder and said, “Ask him if he’s got a tattoo of a naked woman on his shin.”