Forest Outings (A Coffee and Crime Mystery Book 3)

by Nan Sampson

  There were still a handful of reporters clustered around her small tables, so Chloe passed them by to head down the little hall to the back rooms. Ellie didn’t need an invitation to follow.

  Once behind closed doors, the girl didn’t waste any time, but her voice was pitched so low, Ellie had to lean close to hear her.

  “Mom said to let you know that Chief Gruetzmacher has headed out to the Mough’s to arrest Josh.”

  My stomach soured. “Do they know?” I gestured towards the news zombies out front.

  “I don’t think so. But there are a bunch of them camped outside the police station, so as soon as they come back with Josh, it’ll be all over.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, seeing the feeding frenzy in my mind. “Does your mom want me to do anything?”

  Chloe shook her head. “She just wanted you to know. I think she’s hoping that maybe between you and Charlie…”

  Ellie nodded, understanding. “Tell her it’s under control. We’ll do everything we can to help Josh. Charlie is a pro.” She said it with more conviction than she felt.

  Chloe smiled. “I’ll tell Gramma. She’s heading out to the farm now to stay with Aunt Patti. Gosh, this is just horrible. Poor Josh.” She glanced around, as though there might be someone to over hear her, hidden perhaps behind the filing cabinet in the corner. “Do you think…”

  “Do I think what?”

  “Well, do you think Josh might have…? I mean, I totally would get why.” She looked guilty for even thinking it, but there it was. The court of public opinion.

  “Chloe Kemp, you wash that thought right out of your head.” I sounded a great deal like her Aunt, and it made me feel old. “Josh could no more have killed Link than you could have. He’s innocent, and we’re going to prove it.”

  The young woman had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s just… Ellie, you didn’t hear them, Josh and Link, I mean, going at it every other minute. That Link… he wasn’t a nice guy, no matter what people say about him. He was wicked mean, and not just to Josh. A couple of times, I saw Ms. Thorsen come out of his room crying. He used to tell her how stupid she was. Can you imagine? She’s a lawyer, Ellie. Lawyers can’t be stupid.”

  That almost made Ellie laugh. But now was not the moment for a lesson in real-world education. “Josh didn’t do this. Just stay focused on that.”

  “I’ll try. Although,” and she looked around furtively again, “I’m almost glad he’s dead.”

  Ellie pressed her lips together to keep herself from joining in.

  “Don’t tell Gramma I said that, though, okay?”

  Ellie nodded. “You better get back. Bella will be needing your help if she’s going to be out at the Mough’s this afternoon.”

  Chloe nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Ellie. I’m… I’m really glad I can talk to you.”

  Honored, and even a little afraid, she gave Chloe a smile. “Thanks. My door is always open.” It was what she’d always said to her underlings when she worked in the corporate world. It sounded lame right now, but Chloe seemed to appreciate it.

  There was a knock on the door and Marg poked her head in. “Hate to interrupt, but you’re going to want to see this.”

  Ellie hurried into the kitchen, where Marg had the small TV tuned in to an all-news cable channel.

  She had the sound turned down, but an announcer wasn’t needed to interpret what was on the screen.

  Josh had a gray hoody sweatshirt tented over his head and face, but there was no mistaking him for those who knew him. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and Sam Klein and Marcus Kemp guided him from a parked police 4x4 and through a blue metal fire door at the back of the jail.

  The caption, underlined in red, beneath the action read: Suspected murderer arrested.

  Ellie sat down on the nearest stool, the sick feeling in her stomach growing. She said nothing as Chloe headed out. She was sick to death of death. After the everything she’d been through the last couple of years, she vowed herself done with losing people she cared about. Pushing it all away, she stood up and brushed her hands on her apron as though that would somehow brush the grief and loss away as well.

  “We’re closing up. Marg, go home.”

  “What? Ellie, we’ve got a shop full of customers—“

  “Let them make their own damn coffee in their hotel rooms in Rockton. We’re closed.”

  Marg stared at her open-mouthed. “Okay. What about tomorrow?”

  Ellie stared through the little round window in the swinging door, watching the vultures mill around her shop, talking rapidly on their cell phones or typing madly at their laptops. “I don’t know. I’ll call you. But by all means sleep in.”

  She left Marg the job of closing up, but not before she shooed every last reporter out into the cold. Then, feeling as though she’d at least accomplished something, she got in her electric VW van and headed home. There were plans to be made and an investigation to be coordinated. If Charlie didn’t want to help, then by the Goddess she’d find a way to do it all by herself.

  The cabin was empty when she got home. Even Erik was MIA. She checked out back, thinking Charlie might be hauling in some wood, but no joy.

  It was an unexpected treat to have the house all to herself, and she puttered around the kitchen for a few moments, putting away dishes that were drying in the rack and straightening a few books that had been left out on the coffee table.

  Then she sat down on the couch. The clock that hung over the mantle ticked the minutes away, but no matter how hard she tried, she was unable to concentrate. The house was too quiet, for change. Where the hell was Charlie, anyway? He had no car. Where could he have gone?

  More importantly, why the hell had he taken her dog with him?

  She stood up, paced the short distance from her front door to her back door. Back and forth, back and forth, for another fifteen minutes. Her thoughts spun around like a tilt-a-whirl, but she came no closer to any thought that might help Josh. Heck, she couldn’t even focus on answering one outstanding question for more than a few seconds. She kept flashing back to that morning, as she walked across the field towards the body. There was something about it that was bothering her, something she knew she should remember. But no matter how often she retraced her steps in her mind, all she ended up being able to see was Link’s face, staring sightlessly at the end of the water trough.

  “I need to go back there,” she said to her dog who wasn’t there.

  Feeling good about at least having an immediate plan of action, she grabbed her parka and headed back out into the cold.

  The snow that packed the back road that led to the Mough’s north pasture was starting to melt in the bright sunlight. A layer of slippery slush slowed her down as her faithful VW bus inched up a hill and down the other side.

  She slid to a stop on the side of the road close to the gate, behind another, familiar vehicle that was already parked there.

  Hopping out, she went through the gate and trudged through the snow, walking parallel, but a few feet to the side of the foot marks in the snow that led to where Link had been found. As she neared the spot, she heard a familiar bark and then saw Erik bounding through the snow towards her.

  She bent down and greeted him, getting a welcoming tongue bath, and by the time she straightened up, she saw the figures of Per and Charlie coming towards her from a stand of trees several hundred yards to the east.

  She waved to them, then grabbed hold of Erik’s collar and moved toward them. She didn’t want Erik to trample excitedly over the crime scene and accidentally destroy some piece of evidence that hadn’t been found yet.

  As they neared one another, Ellie stopped and waited for them to reach her.

  “So this is where you are. I thought maybe you’d kidnapped my dog and gone back to Chicago.”

  “I would have left a note, but I thought you’d be at the shop. What are you doing here?”

  She explained about the media vultures, and about Josh’s arre
st, although she could tell that Charlie and Per already knew. “I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I came out here. There’s something about the scene that keeps nagging at me, but I can’t figure out what it is. I thought maybe if I saw it all again, it would help me remember.”

  “There’s not much left to see. Between the snow melting and the coroner’s men, things are pretty well trampled. But you’re welcome to look around – Bill’s cleared it already. What is it that you think is off?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just this vague sense that something I saw that morning is important, something that only registered in my subconscious. What are you two doing out here.” Erik beat his tail against her leg. “I beg pardon, you three.”

  After some hemming and hawing, they admitted to having gone through Josh’s suitcase, and after finding a dirty sock, thought they might be able to use Erik to track Josh’s movements and verify at least part of his story.

  “Did it work?”

  Charlie looked skyward. “Let’s just say that Erik will probably never get a job as a police dog.”

  Erik gave a disgusted snort. Ellie patted his broad head. “Not everyone is cut out to be a cop. I’m sure he did the best he could.”

  “We did, however, find something interesting,” Per interjected. He held up a paper grocery sack, the top of which had been folded over.

  “Groceries?”

  “Ah, ye of little faith. It’s a pair of work boots, the kind you’d wear to muck out a barn. My father would have called them Wellies. They have some very suspicious stains on them.”

  ‘Let me see.” Ellie reached or the bag, but Per pulled it out of reach.

  “I’m afraid Charlie won’t allow that. He doesn’t want any more contamination than they’ve already experienced.”

  “We were on the way to take them to Chief Gruetzmacher now,” Charlie added.

  “Where were they?”

  Charlie pointed back towards the trees. “In that copse. But not too far off the road. Someone could have driven by, tossed them out then continued on. That’s my theory anyway.” He shaded his eyes against the sun. “We found no other tracks leading away from the scene, either yesterday or today. So the killer had to come from the road and through the gate, just like Josh did.” Charlie made a point of looking at his watch.

  Ellie got the message. “Go. Hopefully it won’t turn out that Earl left them there by accident last fall.”

  Charlie shook his head. “I’d stake my reputation that those spots on them are blood. Plus, they were laying on top of the snow, with no other debris covering them so they can’t have been there more than a day.”

  After waving them on their way, she and Erik went back to the watering trough. The ground was churned up, and she could see grass and mud in places. There was no sign of Link now, except a patch of snow stained pink with blood, and even that was quickly vanishing in the bright sun.

  She stood still for a moment, eyes closed, trying to put herself back in time to yesterday morning. She retraced her steps, mentally, starting from when she got out of Patti’s truck, to when she’d gotten to Link. What was it that was bothering her?

  Coming up empty, she then went and physically retraced her steps, from the gate to the trough. Still, she couldn’t figure out what it was that seemed wrong, or out of place or unusual. She could no longer make out individual tracks in the snow. The whole area was fairly trampled now.

  Erik sat on a patch of snow-bare ground, watching her with bright eyes, head cocked to one side, as though he were trying to figure out what she was doing. She had to admit, that to a dog, it must look strange. He gave a whine, then trotted around the back of the feeder, full of hay, and began to dig in the pile of loose hay laying on the ground.

  “What are you after there?”

  His digging grew more frantic, and then he barked and whined.

  Excited, wondering if maybe he was more ‘police dog’ than Charlie gave him credit for, Ellie knelt down beside him – then saw the little tunnels under the snow and through the grass that meant mice, or voles, had made a winter home under the feeder.

  “Oh, Erik, get away from there. You don’t need to add mice to your already nauseating diet.” She shooed him off, then patted him on the side. “Come on. Let’s go home. We’re not accomplishing anything here.”

  But Erik wouldn’t leave the spot alone. He scratched frantically at the snow again, until something flew backwards between his legs and hit Ellie’s pants leg.

  She leaned down and with her gloved hands picked up an object she knew didn’t belong anywhere near a pile of straw. She glanced over at Erik, who was looking pleased with himself. “Now what the heck is this doing here?”

  Chapter Ten

  Ellie stared down at the little plastic lighter in her hand. “well, that’s just plain dangerous.” No one she knew who worked for the Mough’s smoked – Earl would have said it was bad for the cows, not to mention a fire hazard. Ever litter conscious, she carried a stash of plastic dog poop bags and she pulled one from her pocket and tucked the lighter inside. It was probably not important, but she’d give it to Gruetzmacher anyway. Maybe it would have the murderer’s fingerprints on it and all would be well.

  Erik was sitting, looking up expectantly, wagging his tail, which swished a fan in the snow. Ellie gave him a pat on the head, then headed back to the car.

  She drove home in a funk, knowing that Josh was now in jail, and she was powerless to do anything to help either him, or Patti and Earl. This, she thought, was why she’d stayed away from having relationships. When she’d lived in Chicago, she’d only known her neighbors well enough to make eye-contact with them in the elevator, or to occasionally nod to them in the hallway. There sure as hell had never been anyone like Charlie in her life. Bed partners, yes. But whatever she and Charlie had was like nothing she’d ever experienced.

  A handful of bills awaited her when she got home, along with a couple of catalogs and a travel magazine. On the cover was a picture of a Bermudian beach, replete with deck chairs dug into soft pink sand, palm frond covered beach umbrellas, and gorgeous turquoise water. She spent a few moments indulging in a fantasy where she and Charlie frolicked carefree in the warm waters of a tropical paradise – then sighed and set about the chore of opening bills and paying them. That, and fixing dinner would hopefully keep her mind occupied until the distraction that was Charlie got home.

  Opening the shop the next morning was the most galling thing she’d ever done in her life, but as Charlie had pointed out, the media idiots were a gold mine and after the last couple of weeks, the business was desperate for an infusion of cash.

  Charlie had tried to visit with Josh the day before, after dropping off the boots he and per had found, but Gruetzmacher had issued orders that the only one to be allowed in was Josh’s attorney – just as soon as the Mough’s hired one.

  The bulk of the day came and went in a flurry of activity, as the reporters camped out either in her shop, or in at The Crock Pot down the street. Business was booming and Marg did double the normal baking to accommodate the crowd.

  A little after one o’clock, Ellie was surprised to see Sierra Thorsen and Matt Pace come in. Sierra was dressed in a dark suit with a silk blouse, with her hair pulled back in a severe bun. Now she looked like a lawyer – although the change in wardrobe had Ellie wondering what the reason for it was. Matt, also in a suit, was looking haggard, as though he hadn’t been sleeping, and given how hung up he’d apparently been on Link, it wasn’t surprising.

  “Well, hey there, you two! What can I get you?”

  Sierra looked at her as if they had never met before. “Do you have coconut milk?”

  Ellie nodded. “Of course. Almond milk too if you’d prefer.”

  “I prefer coconut milk. Could I get a large Macchiato with an extra shot?”

  “Sure. Matt? What about you?”

  He turned a red-rimmed eyes on her. “Uh… a latte I guess.”

  “Moch
a? Caramel?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Um…”

  Sierra rolled her eyes. “He’ll have a mocha latte with skim. Make it a large too.” She glanced at him and her expression was not kind. “Get it together, Matt. You don’t have to say anything during the press conference, but for God’s sake, you need to at least look presentable.”

  Ah. Press conference. Ellie had forgotten that was today. That explained the suits. “I was so sorry to hear about Link. Have you been able to see Josh?”

  She looked at Ellie as if seeing her for the first time. “Oh. You’re Josh’s friend… I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name.”

  “Ellie. Ellie Gooden.”

  “Right. No, the police won’t let me talk to him. Ridiculous, really. I was tempted to call Daddy, but if Josh really did kill Link, then it probably wouldn’t be good for anyone – especially not The Whole Earth Society.” She gave a slightly apologetic smile. “You know how things can be misconstrued and we have to think about the Society’s reputation.”

  Spoken like a true lawyer. Where had the love-smitten eco-warrior who couldn’t keep her hands off Josh gone? “Of course.”

  Matt scowled. “Let the bastard rot in jail. He killed Link. Why would you even want to see him?”

  Sierra glared at Matt. “Oh, shut up, Matty. You’re such a loose cannon.”

  Whatever Sierra might have said next was interrupted by the chiming of her cell phone. She wandered off, no doubt for ‘privacy’ and Matt also moved away, plopping down in a seat at one of the little tables, looking deflated again. Ellie gave an eye roll of her own and went to prepare their drinks.

  At the register, Sierra paid with a corporate credit card, still talking on her cell, without even so much as looking again at Ellie. Maybe the whole love sick puppy thing had been an act. Maybe she didn’t care about Josh any more than Josh cared about her and now that Link was gone, she could be herself. Poor Josh. Surrounded by vipers on every side. When they got him out of this mess, and they would, she was determined to have a long talk with him about his choice of friends and bedmates, Per and his choices be damned.