by Aimée Thurlo
“Rachel, that’s Kurt’s pump shotgun,” she added, still trying to make sense of things. “I wondered why I’d never been able to find it.”
“Did you touch the trigger, or did it go off by itself?”
Suddenly things popped into place in her mind. “Neither. Kurt set a trap with that damn thing! He loaded the shotgun and aimed it at the front of the box. I saw a piece of string, which must have been attached to the trigger. If I’d have moved that metal box myself instead of using the tip of the broom, my brains would be splattered all over the attic right now.”
“Want me to call the sheriff?”
Leigh Ann was still shaking like a leaf. She couldn’t move, and she was almost sure she’d wet her pants, but her thinking was crystal clear. “No. Hold off on that. This wasn’t meant for you or me. Kurt knew we wouldn’t come up here. This was meant for someone else. Before we get the police involved I want to look inside the box. It’s no toolbox; it looks more like one of those petty cash containers. There’s a lock on the side below the lid.”
Kurt hadn’t been violent, yet he’d been willing to kill to protect the contents of that box. She had to know what was inside.
Leigh Ann took a shaky breath and reached for the box, making sure that the string was no longer attached to anything. “No more secrets, you bastard.”
“Leigh Ann?” Rachel called.
“I’m coming.” She edged back on hands and knees, dragging the surprisingly heavy box with her, and made it down the small ladder a few minutes later, carrying the box by the handle on top, a piece of string still attached to it. “I can’t stop shaking.”
“It’s little wonder.” Rachel took the metal document box from her hands and tried to open the latch. “It’s locked. Do you know where he kept the key?”
“No. I didn’t even know this box existed until about five minutes ago. After I go get the shotgun I’m coming down.
I’ll get this thing open even if I have to blast it with buckshot.”
* * *
It was getting late, and the darkness outside robbed Melvin Littlewater of the contrast between objects that provided him with orientation clues. His life had been shrouded in curtains of gray since the accident that had made him legally blind. Being told his vision was worse than 20/200 meant he could only discern objects in daylight that were within twenty feet or less. Faces, even point blank, were just a blur, and his reading material these days was in Braille.
He put away the clay sculpture of the antelope he’d been shaping with his hands, satisfied with the feel of the almost finished piece. After it was fired, he’d pack it up safely and deliver it to Director Nez at the tribal building.
Exhausted, he turned out the light and walked to the living room, knowing by heart how many steps he needed to take and where everything was placed. During the day he could find his way around his furniture and other large possible obstacles, but at night, outside, everything disappeared into a yawning black void.
He dreaded the night—the time when dreams came back to haunt him. Not yet ready to go to bed, he made himself comfortable in his leather easy chair and reached out to feel for the half-empty whiskey bottle he kept on the table beside it. The liquor was there to remind him that there were other demon-filled roads, some far worse than the one he traveled.
He switched on the TV and listened to a sitcom. Comfortable, yet weary, he soon drifted to sleep and back into the world of the sighted.
Unearthly, yet familiar dreamscapes unfolded before him.
He was on the road, behind the wheel of his truck, tired, and struggling to stay awake. Out of nowhere, he saw the bright headlight beams coming up fast behind him, blinding in the rearview mirror.
He pulled to the right, onto the shoulder of the road, taking his foot off the gas, giving the car behind him space to get around. There were two lanes in either direction and plenty of room.
With his horn blaring, the driver hurtled past him, then pulled back to the right too soon, cutting Melvin off and slamming into the front end of the truck.
At the impact, Melvin slammed on the brakes and fought for control. He saw the irrigation ditch beside the highway and steered left, trying to get away, but the car was shoving him inexorably to the right, tires shrieking.
Desperate to avoid crashing into the guardrail, he yanked the steering wheel hard to the right and broke free from the car. Somehow he avoided the steel guardrail and shot through a metal gate. The impact ripped into the driver’s side door but didn’t slow him down. Melvin struggled to steer, to regain control, but nothing made any difference. As his pickup struck the water, an air bag went off, nearly breaking his eardrums and slamming him back into the seat. He pushed the bag away and tried to sit up as the truck began to sink.
In the midst of the chaos, he saw the car roll, flip over the guardrail, then bounce into the water ahead of him, upside down.
With ice-cold water rushing into the cab of his truck, Melvin fought desperately to release his seat belt. He had to get out. Blood flowed down his face and his eyes burned so badly he could barely see. Everything seemed to be covered in a thin red veil.
The seat belt gave, but his leg was caught on something—the deflated air bag, he realized. He struggled, yanking at his pant leg with all his strength, and managed to free himself. Afraid of being pulled under as the truck continued to sink, he struggled out through the window and hauled himself onto the top of the cab. That’s when he saw the girl, knee-deep in water, struggling to reach him, holding out her hands.
He was about to call out to her when his truck struck the bottom of the ditch. The impact knocked Melvin off the truck and into the current. He couldn’t swim. As blackness encompassed him, he felt the presence of death, sweet, warm, and so enticing he almost surrendered.
It was the girl’s insistent cries that broke through to him. He couldn’t give up. He wasn’t ready to die. Somehow, he kept his head above the surface, thrashing as the current tossed him around.
After an eternity, he felt hands pulling him out of the water. Pain followed, then blackness again.
Melvin woke with a start. As he tried to even his breathing, he wondered if he’d ever be able to put that night behind him. Like a man trapped in time, he seemed condemned to relive the moments that had changed his life forever. Yet what haunted him most was the girl.
Over the years, he’d spoken to nearly all the witnesses and responders, but no one else had seen her. At first, he’d thought she’d drowned that night trying to save him, but her body had ever been found.
Everyone had tried to tell him that he’d imagined her, but as logical as their arguments had been, he knew better. She’d been much too real to be only a figment of his imagination.
Melvin found the sink and splashed cold water on his face. Fully awake, he now fought a different battle. Despair and frustration tugged at him, urging him downward into a hell he might never escape, an abyss where no hands could ever reach him.
Determined not to sink, he focused on Leigh Ann Vance. Everything about her, from the music of her voice, to the gentleness of her touch, called to him.
Everyone assumed they were friends, connected by her work at The Outpost, where he often sold some of his sculptures. To Melvin, however, their relationship defied labels. She didn’t know how he felt about her, but that was as it should be. He’d never bring her into the nightmare his life had become.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, after a quick shower and a change of clothing, Leigh Ann joined Rachel in the room they’d converted into a home office. Rachel had brought in a pot of tea and was sitting by the desk. As Leigh Ann entered the room, Rachel poured two cups of tea, saying, “I decided to make herbal. I figured we both needed something to settle our nerves. I picked the Soothing Afternoon Tea that we bought last week.”
Leigh Ann nodded absently and stared at the gray metal case.
“My boss has one like that for petty cash, but without a key that’s going to be
tough to open,” Rachel said, eyeing the box. “The hinges are concealed, too, so prying it open could take time.”
“I’ve still got Kurt’s pocket key chain. I tossed it in that drawer over there beside the one with the keys for the garage cabinets,” Leigh Ann said, pointing. “Maybe one of those will work. We can try them all.”
She found both key chains and inspected the keys, narrowing the possibilities down to two on the set he’d carried with him. As she tried the first one, her hands shook.
“Don’t worry, Leigh Ann. He can’t hurt you anymore,” Rachel said softly.
She tried to remain focused on the box. When the first didn’t work, Leigh Ann reached for the second and braced herself. She had a feeling that once she opened the box, her life would take a drastic turn for the worse.
“Maybe I should just destroy this, whatever it is, sight unseen,” Leigh Ann said, but even as she spoke, she knew she couldn’t back off now. Knowledge wasn’t as dangerous as the lack of it—like the shotgun, which was now beneath her bed, unloaded.
The second key fit. As she opened the lid, her heart was beating overtime. The box’s contents looked innocuous at first, and she lifted out the items and set them on the desk: a small notebook, a folder filled with receipts, and several folded printouts of bookkeeping spreadsheets. Beneath those papers she found a heavy .38 revolver.
“It’s loaded,” she said, opening the cylinder and checking. Holding a firearm came as naturally to her as barbecue and driving a pickup truck.
“Is that a passport?” Rachel asked, her eyes glued on the contents of the box.
“Sure looks like it, but what the hell was Kurt doing with one?” Leigh Ann picked it up and looked inside. The photo was of her husband, but the name listed on it was Frank Jones. Glancing quickly through the pages, she found no stamps or other markings. It had yet to be used.
“Frank Jones … I remember that name,” Leigh Ann said. “After Kurt died, both Wayne and Pierre would drop by once in a while, or call to ask if I’d found a Frank Jones file in Kurt’s papers. But it looks like Kurt was Frank Jones.”
Rachel held the two spreadsheets against the window, one over the other. As light shined through them, she said, “These pages are nearly identical except for the column listing vendor payments. I think most people wouldn’t even notice the differences, but it looks like one or more formulas have been altered, too, because the totals still come out the same down here.” She pointed to another section. “I’m not a bookkeeper, but I work with spreadsheets and electronic ledgers every day. I think Kurt was doing some creative bookkeeping, and from what I can see, the last entries were made a few days prior to his death.”
“There’s a flash drive in here,” Leigh Ann said. “Let’s take a look at that.”
Moments later, after loading the program into Leigh Ann’s laptop, they went over several more spreadsheets. Finally Rachel spoke. “This is just more of the same, Leigh Ann. Again, there are two sets. One seems to be the real one, the other’s doctored. The key differences are the payouts to Frank Jones Enterprises. They’re steady and totaling around fifty grand. At a glance, I’d say your hubby found a way to cheat his partners.”
“No way they knew,” Leigh Ann said. “They considered him one of their buds. They’d even go hunting together. That’s a guy bonding thing.”
“Although the police and forest service ruled it an accidental death caused by a careless hunter, they never did find out who shot Kurt,” Rachel said.
“I would have known if Wayne Hurley and Pierre Boone had found out Kurt was cheating them. Pierre, in particular, has a temper like Vesuvius. From the way they talked, I’m sure they thought Frank Jones was real.”
“Neither of those men are fools,” Rachel said.
“No, but then again it’s easier to be taken in by a friend than it is an enemy. You never see it coming,” she said, old hurts stealing over her.
“Do you think that’s why Kurt rigged up the shotgun? He didn’t want the guys breaking in when nobody was home, nosing around, and finding something that could get him arrested,” Rachel said.
Leigh Ann nodded slowly. “He was obviously scared enough to do whatever it took to protect this.”
“Why would he keep evidence that could have been used against him? Why not just destroy it?” Rachel said.
“I’m guessing it’s because he was embezzling money up to the moment he died and needed to keep things straight so he wouldn’t get caught. Kurt was no Einstein.”
“What’s in the little notebook?”
She looked through it. “I’m seeing a list of names: Sorrelhorse, Natani, Manuelito, Begay, Johnson, and Lee. Most sound Navajo, and I know there’s a tribal official by the name of Sorrelhorse, but there are no first names here. Some have question marks next to them.”
“Could they be potential clients, maybe?” Rachel asked.
“I have no idea.” Leigh Ann continued leafing through the book. “There’s also an address of a storage facility and a unit number.” A folded piece of paper pressed between the pages slipped to the floor. “Whoops,” she said, picking it up. “This looks like a rental receipt. He was paid up for a whole year.”
“I recognize the name of that place,” Rachel said, looking over her shoulder at the receipt. “I stored some stuff in one of their smaller units before I moved in with you. They’re cheap. You provide your own key and lock.”
Leigh Ann checked the metal box again. Only one thing remained. “There’s this little key with the number zero fifty-five on it. It doesn’t match the number of the compartment he rented, but maybe that’s it.”
“I don’t think so. Padlock keys usually have the name of the lock brand on them. It’s more likely a desk drawer key, or one to a box like that one. The storage place he used recommends a sturdy lock, and the facility itself doesn’t keep a duplicate of the key—to protect the client, they say.”
Leigh Ann sifted through more of the papers. “Here’s a receipt for a big padlock, but the key’s not here.”
“Do you suppose that Kurt hid the money he ripped off in that storage locker?” Rachel asked.
“Who knows? If he spent it, all I can tell you is that it wasn’t on me.”
“You need to go check out that place as soon as possible,” Rachel said.
“I’ve got to find the padlock key first,” Leigh Ann said, looking around the room slowly.
“He bought a Master lock,” Rachel said, looking at the receipt. “That comes with a very distinctive key.”
Leigh Ann looked through the top drawer. “Not here.”
“So what happened to it?”
“I don’t know, but since Kurt’s dead, maybe I can get the storage company to open up his locker for me. I could show them the rental agreement and his death certificate.”
“The rental agreement has expired,” Rachel said, looking more closely at the receipt, “and I’m not sure how much grace time they give a renter. If they auctioned off the stuff inside, you can kiss that money good-bye. Someone’s bound to have found it already.”
“It wouldn’t be mine to keep, anyway, but it won’t hurt to follow up on this.”
“If no one’s come after the money, why not just keep it?” Rachel smiled and shrugged. “You could sure use a lump sum like that.”
“Rachel, that money’s not mine. Had it belonged to Kurt, I would cheerfully take it and spend every dime, but it belongs to the company. Anything I find has to go back to his partners.”
“At least negotiate a finder’s fee, Leigh Ann! If they haven’t come to you for that money in all this time, they either don’t know the money’s gone or they wrote it off as a loss.”
“You’ve just raised an interesting point. By now, they have to know about the missing money, and fifty thousand dollars isn’t exactly chump change. Yet they haven’t said a word to me about that. Something doesn’t add up right.”
“You said they asked about Frank Jones. That means they knew something
was going on.”
She nodded. “They wanted to keep this from me. The question is why?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to hold on to that gun, for starters,” she said, glancing at the .38. “I’m also going back up to the attic and see what else is up there.”
“No, Leigh Ann, let it be. What if Kurt’s got something else booby-trapped?”
Leigh Ann shook her head. “Nothing else is covered up, but if I see any strings, wires, or fishing line, I’ll use my remote control—the broom—or what’s left of it.”
“At least we know one thing,” Rachel said. “That poor squirrel’s gonna haul his nuts out of there.”
“After everything’s that happened, that’s the best you’ve got?” Leigh Ann said, then laughed.
As Rachel went back out into the hall, Leigh Ann stared at the now empty metal box for a moment longer. Instinct told her that her problems were only just beginning.
— TWO —
Leigh Ann arrived at the trading post early and used her keys to enter through the back door next to the loading dock. It was Saturday and Jo would be gone all day; she usually spent Saturdays with Rudy Brownhat, studying to become a medicine woman.
Leigh Ann flipped on the storeroom lights before crossing through the back offices and into the front room. The first thing that caught her eye was Melvin Littlewater’s newest sculpture. She smiled at the sight of the mountain lion, depicted in midstride. That elusive, almost mesmeric lifelike quality had become his signature style and drew the gaze of anyone nearby. Jo had purchased the piece and kept it on view as a sample of Melvin’s work, believing that it would lead to more commissions for him. The Outpost collected a fee every time they set up a deal for the sculptor, and even though the lion had only been on display for a short time, Jo had told Leigh Ann that buying it had been a good business decision. Leigh Ann knew, though, that Jo wouldn’t have bought it if she hadn’t loved it.