by Blair Merrin
He looks at me funny. “You know that’s just a formality, right? For the case file?”
“Don’t ruin it. It makes me feel dangerous.”
He laughs at me. “Whatever. Follow me up there, okay?”
CHAPTER 6
The ride up the winding road to Bonnie’s ranch is usually a therapeutic one; it starts with lots of trees, giving way to gently-sloping farmland, and then leveling out to the flat area upon which the ranch sits. Of course, when you’re on the way up there to question her potential involvement in a murder, it’s less therapeutic and more nerve-racking.
Dash pulls in first, parking in the small dusty lot at the ranch’s edge. I follow him, park, and get out just in time to see Bonnie’s son Steven and another man roughly flip a goat onto its back. The poor animal bleats its heart out, practically screaming.
“What in the world are you doing?” I ask, my eyes wide. The second man, unknown to me, wields a wicked-looking pair of shears.
Steven, in his twenties, struggles to hold the goat still. “Don’t worry, Cassie, we’re just trimming this guy’s hooves. But he’s being a big baby about it.” The goat bleats louder, sounding like it’s being tortured. “It doesn’t even hurt.”
The second man, a short guy with brown hair and a mustache like a push-broom, sets about clipping the hooves as Dash and I watch.
“By the way,” Steven says, grunting as he holds the goat still, “this is Vic. He’s our new ranch hand.”
“Pleasure to meet y’all,” Vic says without looking up, focusing on his task. His thick drawl tells me he came from Texas. “I’d shake your hands, but this fella’s already a handful.”
“No worries,” I tell Steven. “We’re just going to go up and talk to your mom.”
“Yup, she’s up at the house. Probably still in the backyard.” The goat continues to scream and fuss as we make our way toward the rustic log cabin that serves as Bonnie and Steven’s home. Her husband built it thirty-something years ago with his father, Steven’s granddad, though both have since passed away.
“Do you smell that?” Dash asks as we approach the cabin.
I sniff the air and get a whiff of something smoky and… meaty. “Smells like barbecue.”
“It smells incredible.”
We follow the scent around the cabin to the rear, where Bonnie stoops over a wide charcoal smoker that looks like it was made from an old oil drum. “Hey, Bonnie,” I call out. “Doing a little grilling there?”
“Smoking,” she corrects me. “Cassie, I’m so glad to see you! You have no idea what was in that book!”
“What book?” For a moment I forget that I had given her that handwritten recipe book, but then she flips it out of her back pocket and reminds me. “Oh, right, the cookbook.”
“This ain’t just a cookbook. It’s like a… like a… barbecue bible, or something. I don’t even know what to call it.”
Dash and I exchange a look that suggests we might have to commit Bonnie. Her eyes are wide as her smile, like she’s gone delirious.
“I’m not crazy,” she insists, as if reading our minds. “Here, try this.” She opens the smoker, pinches off a small amount of what I’m pretty sure is pork, and before I can protest she stuffs it in my mouth, along with the tips of her fingers.
Ordinarily, I’d be at least a little perturbed that someone else’s fingers were in my mouth, but then I chew. And swallow. I’ve never gotten goose bumps from food before, but good gravy, if that’s not the best barbecued pork I’ve ever tasted. It’s tender and juicy, with a thin crisp charred layer on the outside, spiced with something familiar and semi-sweet that I just can’t put my finger on.
She does the same to Dash, and the look we exchange this time says the same thing: More, please.
“Good, right?”
“Bonnie, that’s… good god, that’s delicious.” The same delirious smile on Bonnie’s face washes over Dash. “What is that?”
“Pork rub,” she answers. “I found it in this book! There are all sorts of recipes in here… they’re all very specific, detailed down to the minute, and…”
“Can I take a look?” Dash asks, reaching out.
Bonnie snatches the book back and grips it to her chest. For a moment an expression comes over her face, and I half-expect her to call it the precious.
She smiles. “I think it’s best I keep my secrets, thank you.” She furrows her brow. “What are y’all doing up here, anyway?”
Oh. Right. In all the excitement of screaming goats and barbecue pork, I completely forgot why we were actually there.
“Bonnie,” Dash asks, “did you buy a bronze skull at Cassie’s shop yesterday?”
Bonnie smiles again, confused, and she looks from Dash to me and back again. “Well, yeah, I did. What’s this about?” The smile disappears. “You’re not trying to buy it back, are you?”
“Can you show it to us?” Dash asks.
“Uh, sure. Come on in.” She leads us into the house through the back door, through the kitchen and into the living room. It smells like potpourri and I recognize all sorts of knick-knacks and tchotckes that I’d sold to her adorning the end tables and shelves.
“Well… that’s strange… I swear, it was right here on the mantle…” Bonnie looks around the room. “I, uh, I’m not sure what happened to it. Maybe Steven moved it somewhere.”
I bite my lip. I already knew going in that the skull would be missing; there’s no way that somehow two bronze skulls would randomly appear within a day of each other.
Dash takes a deep breath. “Please, sit down, Bonnie.” She does so, looking all the more concerned as Dash tells her about the Waverly place, finding Bill’s body, and the skull.
By the time he’s done, poor Bonnie is at a complete loss of words. “But… I… it was here…” There’s fear in her eyes as a realization dawns on her. “My god, you don’t think I…”
“Bonnie, we’re not pointing any fingers just yet,” Dash assures her. “But I do need to know what you were doing between seven and eight a.m. this morning, and if you were with anyone.”
Bonnie breathes a deep sigh of relief. “I was here! I was right here at the ranch. I fell asleep last night reading that cookbook, and I woke up at the crack of dawn to start the smoker—takes several hours, you know—and both Steven and Vic saw me. They were both here.”
I’m equally relieved, though I don’t say anything. Bonnie’s a tough woman—she’s killed rattlesnakes, tamed horses, and chased down dogs—but I’ve known her for years, and murder just isn’t in her.
“Okay,” Dash says. “We’re going to verify that with Vic and Steven, and we may need to get fingerprints from you, and possibly even them, if they’re not on file. Alright?”
She nods. “We’ve got nothing to hide.” She shakes her head. “Oh, poor Bill. What in the world is going on in this town lately?”
I give her shoulder a squeeze. “I know, Bonnie. It’s terribly sad. I just saw him yesterday.”
Dash rises and heads for the back door. “We should go.”
Bonnie pats my hand reassuringly and offers me a weak smile.
“You know,” I tell her, “before I go, I really think I should try a little more of that pork. It’s what Bill would have wanted, I’m sure—”
“Cassie!” Dash scolds.
“Coming.”
CHAPTER 7
Dash and I leave Bonnie’s after verifying her alibi with Vic and Steven, and letting them know that they may need to stop down at the station for fingerprinting after the bronze skull is examined. All three of them agreed, though Vic appeared to be a little concerned; apparently he hadn’t expected to be tenuously tied to a murder victim on his first day of the job. I really hope it doesn’t reflect poorly on Bonnie as an employer.
After a quick kiss and a promise to call me later, Dash heads back to the station to report to Phil and see what the others have found. I head back to Miss Miscellanea to relieve Mom of her duties… or at least I assume.
When I arrive, there are four customers in the store, two of them waiting patiently at the counter to pay, and Mom is nowhere in sight. Kodiak the Destroyer stands in the center of the shop, attempting to bark at everyone simultaneously. I put on a big fake smile and help everyone out, and once they’re all gone and Kodiak is appropriately calmed, I march to the back office to find Mom at the computer, where she appears to be uploading the umpteen-thousand pictures she took earlier that day.
“Mom!” I scold. “Why aren’t you watching the store?”
She peers around me so she can see the shop floor. “There’s no one here, dear. Kodiak would let me know if anyone came in.”
I grunt. “There were four people here, and your little demon-dog was barking his ever-loving head off!”
She stares up at me blankly. “Oh, I’m sorry, honey. I guess I was just really focused on getting these pictures online.”
I take a deep breath, ready to shout at her some more, but then I let it out slowly and calm myself. It’s not worth getting angry about, and I’m back now anyway. Besides, she did sort of give birth to me and all that; I really shouldn’t be scolding her.
I head back out to the shop floor and Kodiak growls at me. I stick out a finger at him. “Look here, buddy, you’d make a really nice fur hat, so one more yip or yap out of you, and—ooph!” I trip on something soft and land hard on my hands and knees.
Of course there’s nothing there. I glare at Xerxes, the oversized Persian cat that lives in my shop (I can’t call him “my” cat, because Xerxes is not exactly amenable to being anyone’s pet). He’s perched up high on top of a curio cabinet, his eyes narrow. His tail flicks once.
Ever since Kodiak came to roost, Xerxes tends to keep to higher ground to avoid the tiny ball of furry fury. It’s not terribly uncommon around here to trip on Xerxes when he’s not even there; me and Mom manage to do it all the time. But hey, that’s Bandit Hills for ya.
The afternoon drags by. A handful of customers come and go, which I’m grateful for because it gives my mind a small reprieve from thinking about poor Bill—or more appropriately, about the case in general. I mean, who murders someone with a bronze skull? It’s barbaric. Why not a hammer, or a piece of wood? There must have been plenty of other things that could have—
Ugh. I push those thoughts right out of my head. No need to entertain grisly notions like that. But why Bill? He was such a nice guy. Unless it had to do with the hotel, but according to Bill, no one else knew about that. And if it did have to do with the hotel, why Bill, and why not Maximoff? The old guy is just going to get another contractor anyway.
Finding myself unable to not think about Bill and the murder, I decide it’s a good time to go through that big box of stuff he brought me. I pull it with both hands close to the counter, grab a dust rag, and start taking an inventory of the goods.
One brass candelabrum. One manual shoe-shine machine. A vintage Smith-Premier typewriter. (I make a note to call Mr. Spencer, the reclusive science fiction writer that lives in the ‘burbs, to see if he’s interested in it. Seems like the kind of thing he’d be into.) Deeper in the box, I find an old chess set that appears to have been hand-carved, but is missing a white rook. An old chipped vase. A few old mason jars. An ornate cuckoo clock that, with a good cleaning and some TLC, could probably sell for a healthy sum.
The last item in the big box is… a smaller box. More specifically, it’s a tiny wooden crate, dusty and gray with age and nailed shut at the top. The whole thing is no longer and wider than my hand and only a few inches tall. I shake it gently and can tell there are a few items inside.
I’m baffled at how Bill could have just passed this on to me without opening it. What’s a girl to do when she finds a sealed box among a bunch of goodies? I search behind the counter for something to pry it open with.
See, back when I was in high school, I was a reporter for the school paper, and I gained the nickname Curious Cassie. I was just trying to be a good reporter—honest—but what I called “turning over the right rocks” and “asking the important questions” was what other people called “sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.” True story: my exposé on the grade of meat served in our cafeteria launched an investigation by the state.
I fumble with the wooden box for about twenty minutes with a flat-head screwdriver before I manage to pry the lid open. And I am not disappointed.
I find four items inside. The first is a length of twine, about three feet long and frayed at the ends. Nothing special. The second item is a sheet of paper folded in fourths and yellowed with age. Beneath the note is a pair of round silver-rimmed eyeglasses. They’re pretty narrow; I assume they were made for a child, or perhaps a small adult.
And the last item in the box is a diamond ring.
I’m no expert on jewelry, but it looks to be around a solid carat, a round-cut solitaire with a gold band. I turn it in my fingers and the diamond sparkles as brightly as it did whenever it was sealed away in this box. I could turn around and sell this for close to a thousand bucks, easy, but there’s no doubt in my mind that this was an engagement ring.
I set the ring aside and unfold the old paper. It’s a brief handwritten note, the words faded but not illegible:
My darling Matilda,
I love you. This letter could easily have been just those three words, because that’s all that matters to me. I don’t care what my family says, or yours. All I care about is you. Say the words and we could leave tomorrow. All I need is you.
Love,
Dex
I read the note three times and turn it over, but that’s all there is to it. There’s little doubt in my mind that Dex is Dexter Maximoff; it’s not exactly a common name. But I’ve never heard of a Matilda (though I certainly don’t know everyone who lives or has lived in Bandit Hills).
My cell phone rings.
“Hey, stud. What’s shakin’?”
He chuckles. “Thanks. I needed a laugh. We got a whole lot of nothing here. Rex’s parents confirmed that he was at home when the murder took place—not that I thought he’d have done it. Coroner’s preliminary reports show nothing out of the ordinary; no foreign skin cells, no hairs, no other DNA, but he’s going to look deeper. Blood samples from the skull are on the way to the lab, but I’m sure that’ll come back as Bill’s. And the skull itself has no fingerprints on it; looks like it was wiped first, and the killer used gloves.”
“Sheesh,” I mutter. “That’s less than nothing.”
“Tell me about it,” he says glumly.
“I think we should talk to Dexter Maximoff.”
“Why?” he asks. He pauses for a moment and then says, “Do you know something, Cassie?”
“No,” I tell him, staring at the note. “Just a hunch.”
“Phil already chatted with him earlier. Besides, he has no motive.”
I think quickly. “What if they were arguing over money or something? Cost of services, or, I don’t know, cutting corners on materials?”
“That’s a real stretch, Cass.” He sighs. “But, I have to admit that there’s usually some substance to your ‘hunches.’ You’re not being haunted again, are you?”
“Not at the moment. This is a legit, bona fide hunch.”
“Alright. I have to get some work done on another case. I’ll pick you up in the morning; we’ll go see him.”
“Good night, Dash.” I hang up, and I feel a little guilty. There’s no hunch, at least not as far as Bill’s case goes; I just really want to know about the note and the diamond ring.
Curious Cassie strikes again, I suppose.
CHAPTER 8
“Mr. Maximoff?” Dash bangs on the front door again. “Dexter? Are you home?”
“His car’s in the driveway,” I note.
Dash bangs again. “Mr. Maximoff?”
The two of us stand on the front porch of Maximoff’s house, if you can call it a porch; it’s the size of my whole shop floor. Maximoff lives in his family’s home, a
great, big, gothic, Victorian-style mansion with a gray-stone façade and dark shutters. If Poe’s House of Usher had a baby with the Hogwarts castle, it would probably look something like this.
The whole property is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, which wasn’t at all a problem for us because the gate was wide open when we pulled up the narrow drive. I can’t imagine one man living here all alone in this great big house. My first question would be how he maintains it all, but a quick look at the brown, patchy front lawn tells me that he doesn’t.
“Mr. Maximoff!” Dash bangs again on the door.
“Can I try?” I ask.
“Be my guest.”
I twist the doorknob and push the door open. “Easy-peasy.”
“Cassie, we’ve talked about breaking and entering. Crime, remember?”
“Oh, posh, Sherlock. We heard a shout; we needed to make sure he was okay.”
“We didn’t hear any—oh. I get it.” Dash follows me into the foyer. I immediately feel like I’ve stepped into an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Two wrought-iron staircases on either side rise up from the marble floor, twisting up to a landing on the second story, and then continuing out of sight to the third.
Dash lets out a low whistle. “So this is how the other side lives.”
We walk quietly—as opposed to creep quietly, which is something criminals do—past a massive dining room with a long, oak table that could likely accommodate sixteen people, and into a grand parlor, or salon, or whatever rich people call their living rooms. It’s a strange thing to notice, but the first thing that strikes me is that there isn’t a television. Off to one side is a baby grand piano, and against a far wall is the largest sofa I’ve ever seen, a few armchairs, a fireplace big enough to fit a family of four, but no TV. Weird.
“Jeez,” Dash clucks his tongue. “I take back what I said. This guy does not live well.” He’s referring to the detritus littering the floor. Empty bottles are scattered everywhere. Cobwebs stretch across every corner, and we can easily tell which chair Maximoff favors because it’s the only surface in the whole room not covered in dust.