Murder at Granite Falls

by Roxanne Rustand

  A brief, painful memory of Billy’s erratic, footloose ways cut through Carrie’s thoughts. “Until now, I’ve…just been able to do some substituting, now and then. We moved around a lot.”

  Marie gave her an approving smile. “Lucky you to find a permanent position here. It isn’t easy, these days.”

  “I know. And I’m thankful for this summer job, too. I need the money.”

  Marie chuckled. “Don’t we all. Did you find a decent place to stay?”

  “I have to start looking for something long-term in the fall, so let me know if you hear of anything. I have just a summer lease out at a rafting company property.”

  “Which one?”

  “Wolf River. Logan and Penny Bradley.”

  “Really.” Marie’s eyes widened. “How did you end up there?”

  “Weeks of searching on the internet—and the first day the apartment was listed, I nabbed it sight unseen. It’s really nice,” Carrie added, feeling defensive at the hint of incredulity in the other woman’s eyes. “Despite being a little noisy with the tourists coming and going on raft trips. I moved in over the weekend, and it was crazy on Sunday.”

  “I can imagine.” Marie looked at her closely. “And what about the Bradleys? Have you had a chance to get to know them?”

  “Not really, but they both seem like nice people.”

  “Yes. Well…I’m sure they are.”

  The tone in her voice didn’t ring quite true. “Is there something I should know?”

  After casting a glance down the hall to where several teachers had emerged from their classrooms and were striking up a conversation as they headed toward the door, Marie flashed a diffident smile. “Well, I’m not one to gossip, you know. Maybe I shouldn’t say anything.”

  “Now you have me worried.”

  “Well…the Bradleys had a little…uh, trouble a year or so ago.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Nothing proven,” Marie reassured her. “It all turned out okay…for them. There are people around town who still really want answers, though. Hey, I’d better get busy, or I’ll be here all afternoon.”

  Nothing proven? Uneasy, Carrie watched Marie waggle her fingertips in farewell and scuttle across the hallway to her classroom. First Deputy Munson and now Marie had hinted at trouble, though neither had given her any concrete reason to worry.

  So what on earth was going on? Tomorrow afternoon she had to go back to her brother’s ranch to pick up the last of her possessions, but when she returned, she was going to find some answers.

  Not again. Carrie stilled. Held her breath. There it was—a rustle in the bushes—closer, this time. The muted crunch of pine needles. The snap of a twig.

  And another.

  It wasn’t the bears this time, though she might be the only person who’d ever wished it were. They tore at the garbage can lids with single-minded determination, heedless of the noise they created. But this was too quiet. Too stealthy.

  And it wasn’t a wolf.

  The looming threat out there was human and she’d never felt so alone.

  She eased the blinds away from the window and peeked out, thankful that the apartment was darkened already, but frustrated by the dim sliver of moon that had long since slipped behind a threatening blanket of clouds.

  Marie’s words from this morning ran through her mind again and again. The Bradleys had experienced a “little” trouble a year or so ago.

  After class ended at noon, Carrie had taken the long trip to Trace’s ranch, and hadn’t made it back to her apartment until dusk. Logan’s pickup was gone, but Penny had just returned with her evening float trip customers and their cars were still parked next to both buildings.

  She’d had to park farther away than usual, just beyond the bright pool of light beneath the security lights shining from the peak of the boathouse and the top of a single pole close to the river landing site.

  It hadn’t seemed important at the time, with a noisy group of rafters chattering along the shore as they peeled off their life jackets. But now…

  She drew in a sharp breath as a hunched dark form materialized out of the gloom next to her old SUV and crept from one door to the next, trying the locks. Lord—what do I do now?

  She could yell and startle him…but what if he then came crashing through her apartment door? Her heart pounding, she stepped away from the window and took a slow, faltering breath, trying to still her trembling fingers and shaking knees as she punched 911 into her cell phone.

  Four rings.

  Five.

  Six.

  Why wasn’t anyone answering?

  Moving back to the edge of the window with the phone at her ear, she furtively stole another look.

  The stranger wasn’t by her Tahoe. He now stood a few feet away from it, something gleaming at his side. And he was staring right at her window as if he knew exactly where she was standing. As if he were taunting her.

  “911. What is your emergency?”

  She stood frozen, staring through the blinds as the figure melted back into the shadows.

  “You have called 911,” the dispatcher said with an edge to his voice. “State your name and the emergency, please.”

  “I…I think there’s someone outside. Trying to break into my SUV.”

  “Your location?”

  “Nine miles north of Granite Falls. Wolf Creek Rafting Company.”

  “Hold on.”

  She gripped her phone even tighter as several interminable seconds ticked by. The breeze had picked up, sending branches scraping against the building. The shadows beyond the reach of the security lights seemed to be shifting, coalescing.

  Was that someone lurking by the boathouse? At the bumper of her SUV? Or was it just her imagination? Billy had threatened to make trouble—was it him?

  From some distant place in the darkness she heard the faint sound of a distant engine roaring to life…then fade, heading toward the highway.

  “Ma’am, I have an officer who should be there within twenty minutes. Are you alone?”

  “Yes.” More than I’ve ever been in my life.

  “Stay inside. Keep your doors and windows locked.”

  He certainly had a knack for stating the obvious. “Believe me, I will,” she said wryly. “But I…I think I heard a car start up. Maybe he left it hidden somewhere up the lane and now he’s gone.”

  “Do you still want the officer to stop out?”

  “No…” She bit her lip. “On second thought, please. If this guy is still in the area and sees a patrol car arrive, it might scare him off.”

  “Yes, ma’am. The officer will get there as soon as he can.”

  Carrie leaned her head against the window frame and peered through the edge of the blinds. The parking lot was empty. Only the sounds of the river and the breeze-tossed branches filled the silence.

  But this incident brought back memories of other nights last fall, when she’d tried to still her racing heart. When a threatening phone call or email had kept her on edge. When Billy had promised to make her pay.

  And there’d been another one of his cryptic emails just last night. A subtle threat. A promise that when he came back to Montana, he was planning on a little visit.

  The figure out in the darkness had seemed a little…taller than him, though that could have been a trick of the lighting, or a perception enhanced by her own fear.

  But what if he was back in Montana and had already found her?

  Counting the slow drag of the minutes on her watch, Carrie shivered in the chilly night air, unable to tear herself away from the window. What if the stranger came back? What if he managed to quietly pick the lock on her door?

  Harley padded across the room to wind around her ankles like a warm, sinuous powder puff, then stalked away and curled up on the back of the sofa where he promptly went to sleep.

  “Some watch cat you are,” she muttered.

  The most interest he’d shown since their arrival Sunday had been
over the appearance of Logan’s golden lab. The cat had patrolled the windowsills for ten minutes after the sighting, the low grumble in his throat promising no quarter if he ever got the chance to attack.

  The dog didn’t appear very energetic. It had apparently slept away the afternoon in the boathouse, and had only emerged to jump into Logan’s truck when he got ready to leave yesterday evening. With all the people around, it hadn’t uttered a single bark.

  But still, a dog might offer a sense of security, and her brother’s fiancée, Kris, did run an animal shelter…though it would be a long drive to check out the possibilities for a good, noisy companion.

  “I wonder if Logan would like to make a temporary trade?” She studied her sleeping cat, who opened one eye, offered a bored yawn and went back to sleep. “Maybe not.”

  At the crunch of tires on gravel she stiffened, a hand at her throat…then relaxed when a patrol car marked with K-9 Patrol on the side pulled to a stop.

  Relief flooded through her when a deputy stepped out with a clipboard in hand. He wasn’t the rumpled, overweight teddy bear of an officer she’d met in town, though. This one was thin, austere-looking and older, his uniform crisply pressed, his military-cut, salt-and-pepper hair silvered by security light overhead.

  She stepped out of her apartment onto the balcony. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she called out as she descended the stairs and crossed the parking area to meet him.

  “Deputy Rick Peterson.” He accepted her handshake. “I hear you’ve had a little trouble?”

  “There was someone out here, trying to break into my Tahoe. I keep it locked, so he couldn’t get in. I know it’s probably not a big deal, but I’m here alone.” The police dog in the backseat of the patrol started barking. “Maybe your buddy has picked up his scent, or something.”

  “Had any trouble out here before?”

  “I just moved in Sunday afternoon and thought I had a prowler last night, as well. This is the first I’ve actually seen him.”

  “You surely haven’t had enough time to make any enemies here.” He looked at her over his half-rim glasses. “Or have you?”

  She shook her head. “No. But one might’ve followed me from the past.”

  He pursed his lips as she told him about Billy, then he flicked on his flashlight and circled her vehicle. She followed on his heels and peered inside, too.

  “Are you missing anything?”

  Her boxes of books were still on the backseat, along with her old camera bag and an even older ink-jet printer. “Everything is still there—not that anyone could want it.” She tried the door handles. “And the car is still locked. I suppose I’ve called you on a wild-goose chase.”

  “Not a problem. If a stranger was out here lurking around, I can understand why you’d be concerned.” He scanned the wide parking area and beyond that, the dark, nearly impenetrable pine forest that rimmed the clearing on three sides. “Maybe you’d be better off finding a place in town. Closer to civilization.”

  “I tried, but no dice. I’ll have to find a different place by September, though.”

  “Our county sheriff’s department is understaffed and we have a lot of ground to cover. If you do encounter trouble out here, we might not be able to respond as fast as we’d like.”

  She nodded, biting her lower lip. “I understand. I still hope my past isn’t going to be an issue. But I’ll let the Bradleys know about it.”

  His eyebrows drew together. “Still, a lady living alone like you might want to take a gun safety course and keep a weapon around. There’s other varmints out here besides the two-legged kind.”

  “I grew up on a ranch. I’ve had my own shotgun since I was twelve.”

  “Is it here?”

  “It’s in the back of my SUV.”

  He snorted. “Won’t do you much good in there.”

  “I didn’t want to bring it in until I had time to install a padlock on my closet. There are families with kids all over this property during the day. If one came upstairs and found it while I wasn’t home…” She shuddered.

  He went to the back door of the SUV. “Ma’am, I recommend that you take it upstairs for the rest of the night. Just firing off a warning shot might do a world of good if that prowler comes back. It could take us a long time to get here.”

  She could only imagine the deputy’s amusement if he saw her battered 1960s Remington shotgun, a gift from her grandfather.

  Years ago, back when she was a teenager, she’d left one of the ranch dogs in her pickup cab while she’d struggled to catch and treat a calf with scours, and the dog had chewed the butt of the wooden stock to splinters. The weapon was old but accurate, and sentiment had kept her from trading it off.

  She patted her pockets. “I…don’t have my keys on me.”

  He tipped his head toward the front door. “Looks like you have a keypad, though.”

  She pulled a face. “It doesn’t work. I can just take care of this tomorrow.”

  His gaze sharpened. “Go ahead and get your keys. I don’t mind waiting.”

  At the hint of suspicion in his voice she sighed, and dutifully ran upstairs to retrieve her keys from the kitchen table. If he’d misread her hesitation and thought he was going to make headlines by finding stolen loot or a few hundred pounds of pot in her trunk, he was going to be sadly disappointed.

  She unlocked the liftgate, opened it and stepped aside while it lifted on its own.

  His eyes flared wide when he saw the only contents—the old shotgun and a box of shells. “That’s…it? Does it even work?”

  “It actually shoots true, even if it looks a little rough.” The barking from inside the patrol car grew more frantic. “Does your dog need to be let out, or something?”

  “I just started my shift. He shouldn’t.”

  Now, Carrie could hear the sound of its claws scrabbling against the windows. “I’m glad you aren’t letting him loose. He sounds fierce.”

  “Ranger’s new to the department, and he’s still erratic.” The deputy scowled toward his vehicle, a thoughtful look spreading across his face. “But he does know his business. Maybe—”

  The radio mike at his shoulder crackled with static. A rapid-fire dispatcher’s voice rattled off a series of codes, then an address.

  Peterson listened, tapped a button on the mike and muttered a response as he strode to his vehicle and pulled open the front door.

  He paused, half-inside, and looked back. “Accident on the highway. I have to leave. But don’t hesitate to call the dispatcher if you have any problems. Believe me, we’d rather answer a false alarm now and then, than have to deal with the aftermath if someone fails to call in time.”

  THREE

  The clerk, a stocky middle-aged woman with Norma emblazoned on her name badge, finished ringing up Carrie’s last item. “You must be planning on a blizzard in June, with all these groceries.”

  Carrie smiled at the teenage boy bagging the last of her purchases and rescued a bottle of Diet Coke before it disappeared into a bag with her canned goods. “With a weekend ahead, I probably won’t want to brave the tourist traffic to come back into town.”

  “And this is just mid-June. Wait till the Fourth of July.” Chewing on her lower lip, Norma tilted her head and studied the name on Carrie’s check, then slid it into the cash register and handed her the receipt. “There was someone in here asking about you the other day.”

  Small-town gossips at work, no doubt. Carrie rolled her eyes. “I hope you had good things to say.”

  “It was some guy who wondered if I knew where you lived.”

  Carrie stilled. “He? Did he say who he was?”

  Norma thought for a moment. “Nope. It was real busy at the time. He didn’t buy anything, just sort of cut into the line to ask me and then he left.”

  “Do you remember what he looked like?”

  “I just had a glimpse of him, but he was a nice-looking man. Dark hair. Thirties, maybe.”

  Which could be Billy
or a thousand other guys. But how many other guys would be looking for her? Carrie fidgeted with her key ring. “Do you remember what day?”

  “Honey, at my age the days sort of blur together. It was early in the week, anyways. I know I haven’t seen you since then.”

  “Did you tell him where I live?”

  “I may be getting old, but I’m not stupid. If he was an axe murderer, I’d never forgive myself. But,” Norma added, “everyone in town knows about you being the new teacher here. And with the Bradleys’ trouble last year and you staying out there, word gets around.”

  Which meant there was a good chance someone might have shared that information without a second thought. But then again, maybe the guy had been totally innocent. Someone needing to deliver a package, perhaps.

  But Norma would’ve noticed a FedEx or UPS uniform.

  Carrie managed a smile. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  Norma’s forehead creased into a worried frown. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. You look worried.”

  “Believe me, I want to know.”

  Norma gave her head a decisive nod. “Well, if I see this fella again, I’ll be sure to tell you. And he won’t be getting any information from me.”

  Carrie smiled in thanks as she headed for the exit, the bag boy following at her heels with the cart. Small towns, she thought with an inward sigh. Friendly, connected and sometimes entirely too trusting. Maybe Norma would be careful…but what if it was already too late?

  The view was perfect, from the shaded spot between the drugstore and Marv’s Saddle Shop and Shoe Repair. The tourists window-shopping along Main Street were a better cover yet. And if anyone else saw him, it wouldn’t matter. He blended right into the fabric of this vacation destination town.

  He watched with satisfaction when Carrie stepped out of the grocery store. She paused, shaded her eyes with her hand, and scanned both sides of the street as if she knew someone was watching.

  He remained motionless, his dull clothes fading into the shadows and the dark gray wall behind him, his hat settled low over his eyes. She’d come so close to seeing him, several times, it was almost funny. Now, her gaze flitted past him. Hesitated. Then swept by him once more before moving on.