by ACF Bookens
“What?!” I said, opening the door and stepping out. “That’s so weird.”
I walked around to the back of the truck, and sure enough, not a light on in the rear of the vehicle despite the fact that my headlights were on.
“Well, that’s odd. Gracious. I guess you can’t see me at all from behind, huh?”
“Nope. Your truck’s a lighter color, so that helps. But it’s really not safe to drive like this. Especially out here. Someone might run right up on you.” He held his flashlight onto the back of my truck.
“True. Well, I guess I can call Daniel. Have him come take a look. I don’t suppose you want to just follow me in your car?” I was only half-joking. I could feel my relaxing evening disappearing.
“Why don’t I just give you a ride to wherever you’re going? We can pull the truck off the road and leave a note. I’ll let the station know that it’s out here. Then you and Daniel can come back in the morning and take a look. No reason to ruin your plans over this.”
I hesitated. I didn’t like the thought of leaving my truck here unattended, but I also didn’t want to run Daniel all over creation after he’d spent the day lifting furniture. “Okay, but I have two dogs with me. Is it okay if they ride along?”
A shadow passed over Dillard’s face, and for a second, I wondered if he disliked dogs or maybe was allergic. But then I remembered how he’d given Mayhem such good scratches. Maybe he didn’t like the idea of hair in his patrol car.
“Um, sure. Let me put a blanket on the back seat.”
“Cool. Thanks, Chad. I’ll get them out.” I repeated my awkward climb into the bed and nudged the two hounds awake and out into the bed, where I clipped on their leashes before helping them get down. Taco definitely needed to go on a diet.
Then, we walked over to Dillard’s car, and I opened the back door. Normally, both of these dogs took to a ride like they had invented NASCAR, but tonight, they hesitated and went stiff-legged as I urged them in. Eventually, I had to lift both of them onto the backseat and quickly close the door.
I sat up front next to Dillard and thanked him again.
“No problem, Harvey. All part of the job.”
He started the car and pulled back out on the road.
I glanced back at the dogs and found them both sitting bolt upright and staring into the front of the car. “Lay down, guys. It’s not far, but you can still catch a quick nap.” Neither of them moved.
“Probably nervous about the unfamiliar smells in here,” Dillard said. “Not all my passengers are as polite as they are.”
I forced a small smile but kept looking back at Mayhem. She had her eyes fastened on the back of Dillard’s head. I felt the hairs on my arm stand up. Something was wrong.
My suspicion was quickly confirmed when, instead of turning left into the complex where Ariel’s apartment was, he kept driving straight. Only then did I realize he’d never asked me for the address.
* * *
I tried to keep my cool, act like I didn’t realize what was happening. “So how are you liking St. Marin’s?”
His face moved into a crooked smile, and he said, “It’s nice. I like the quiet, being able to get out onto the water.”
As he talked, I adjusted myself in my seat as if I was trying to get comfortable when really I was trying to reach my cellphone in my back pocket. Why, oh why, had I worn my tightest jeans? “You fish?” I had to keep this conversation going, keep him a little distracted.
“Yeah. Grew up fishing trout, but I’m finding that the challenge of catching bass is even more fun. I like a challenge in my kill.”
I felt my heart rate quicken and tried to work the phone up and out of my pocket without giving away what I was doing. Almost there. “I’m one of those people you don’t want to fish with. I don’t like to bait the hook or take the fish off. I’m mostly there for the casting.”
“Huh, that surprises me. Seems like you like to get your fingers into everything.” He shifted in his seat. “Why don’t you just hand me that phone now?”
I looked over and saw that he had drawn his pistol and had it pointed at my side. “What phone?”
“The one in your back pocket . . . or do you need to use the bathroom?”
For one second I thought about lying and saying I just had to pee, but I decided against it. No need to make him angry.
I leaned forward and got the weight off my rear so I could hand him my phone. I tried to move slowly enough that my thumbprint would register and I could at least dial someone’s number, but he snatched it from my hand before I could open the contacts.
“I do feel bad about this, Harvey. I want you to know that. But your snooping, well, the sheriff warned you that it could get you into trouble. You should have listened.”
My mind was whizzing around, trying to figure out exactly what was going on, but I was clueless about everything except the fact that clearly Dillard had something to hide. “I actually did listen, Chad. I don’t know what you heard, but I haven’t been snooping at all except—“
Dillard snickered. “Except that you have at the behest of our beloved Tucker Mason. He had you looking into things that could have been better left unexplored.”
I tried to read his expression from the corner of my eye. He looked calm, collected, which terrified me. But it did mean that he would probably talk, and if I’d learned one thing from TV shows it was that keeping the attacker talking was the victim’s best bet. “I’m really confused, Chad. Surely you knew that the sheriff would eventually execute a warrant on the bank and figure out what was going on with the theft there.”
“Eventually was the key word, but you kept pressing, kept asking questions, and he moved more quickly than I thought he would. I had hoped that the murder would keep him busy long enough that by the time he looked into what happened at the bank, we’d be long gone.”
He had a partner, so maybe Cynthia had duped me. I shook my head slowly. “You really are going to have to help me here. I’m just not following.” That statement was true, but I was beginning to formulate a theory. A little too late, though.
“You’ll see soon enough.” He turned onto a narrow gravel road, and I estimated that we were about ten minutes past Ariel’s apartment. Too far from town for me to run and in entirely the wrong direction if anyone came looking for me on my expected route.
The road turned out to be a long, nearly abandoned driveway, and he parked his patrol car in front of a run-down cabin that seemed to sit right on the water. A screened in porch that was no longer a screen against much of anything faced the drive, and leaning against one of the pillars, I saw Renee Forsham. She was smiling, and I felt all the blood run out of my extremities.
“You know her?”
“Sure do. Known her all my life.” Dillard smiled at me, then, and in that moment, I saw the resemblance. Forsham was his mother.
I decided not to blurt that out, though, because I figured maybe there was some advantage to seeming like I was missing things. But I was quickly putting the pieces together. The theft, the murder, Cynthia’s involvement.
The one thing I didn’t know yet was why. What exactly was going on to make this mother-son duo not only steal, but kill someone?
Dillard stepped out of the car, and, for one moment, I thought about running. But then I heard Mayhem snarl and Taco start his basset hound braying, and I knew that if I did that, the dogs would definitely be dead. I couldn’t have that. I just couldn’t.
So I stepped out of the car and waited. He gestured toward the house. “Those two will quiet down once they can’t see you anymore, I expect.”
I looked back at Mayhem and gave her a nod, hoping she knew what to do, and then I walked up the creaking steps to the porch.
“Nice to see you again, Harvey. Too bad you’re going to miss the memorial service tomorrow.” Her voice was calm, almost light, and I found bile rising in my throat, from anger or fear I wasn’t sure.
Dillard gave me a shove toward the open door o
f the house, and I stepped into what was obviously a long-neglected vacation cabin. The old ship’s wheel on the wall was covered in cobwebs, and the sofa looked like it had been an antique in the days of Archie Bunker. “Sit down,” Dillard said, gesturing to the couch.
I dropped onto a cushion, and a cloud of dust rose up around me like I was Pigpen. I feigned a coughing fit to give myself a few seconds to study the room.
Forsham and Dillard sat down on folding chairs across from me and started playing cards on a round, wooden table. Poker, maybe. I’m not much of a card player, but there was a lot of bidding going on. They were only playing with fun-size candy bars, but it looked to me like they were seasoned players given the quickness of the game and their relatively high bids.
I wasn’t sure what was going on here, but as my captors were largely ignoring me, I decided not to rock the boat. I looked around the room as surreptitiously as I could, hoping I’d see an easy exit. But while there was another door at the other end of the room by the kitchen, I didn’t think I could make it there before Dillard could draw his gun. Besides, the dogs were still trapped in the car, and they needed me to save them.
I spotted a set of fireplace tools by the woodstove just to my left and thought I might be able to grab one and disarm Dillard before Forsham could get to me. But then I wasn’t sure I could fight her off. She was older than I was, but she looked strong.
I kept scouring the room, hoping to see my magic escape ticket. A giant bowl of acid I could grab and toss on both of them long enough for me to get free and release the dogs. A rickety support beam I could kick out to drop the ceiling on just the two of them. A length of rope I could fasten into a lasso to drag them off their feet. Despite the fact that I found nothing of this sort, the hope kept me distracted and away from panic. I needed to keep my wits about me, that I knew.
After a dozen hands or so, Dillard had lost all of his candy to Forsham. “See, this is why you get in trouble, Chad. You bet too high and get caught up in the stakes. You have to be smarter with your bids.”
Dillard rolled his eyes and sniffed. “Mom,” he sounded like a petulant teenager, “you know that this isn’t my fault. Those men swindled me.”
His mother frowned. “Chad, you must take responsibility for your part in all this. You know that?”
I felt strangely awkward watching this mother-son moment. It felt like I was seeing a young boy scolded by his mommy for the fact that he’d kicked a ball into someone’s window. But, of course, this was a full-grown man, a police officer at that.
Dillard sighed. “I did take responsibility. See? She’s right there.” They both turned to me, and I wanted to crawl back into the cushions of the dusty couch.
I took the chance to ask one of the seventy-five million questions swimming through my head. “You think adding kidnapping to your list of crimes is a good idea, Chad?” I wasn’t sure what I hoped would happen with this line of talk, but I just kept going. “I mean, if you do get caught, is it wise to have another felony for the judge to consider?”
Renee ignored me completely. “You did, honey. That’s good. But how are we going to handle this? We can’t let the sheriff solve these cases, not yet. Not until next week. You know that.” Forsham’s tone was patient, like a teacher talking to a problem student.
“I do know that, Mom.” Dillard stood up, and his chair fell back against the floor. “I have a plan.”
“Okay, then let’s hear it.”
I wasn’t particularly eager to hear Dillard’s plan for killing me, but I didn’t have much choice.
“I’m going to take her out into the woods and use that shotgun.” He pointed to a long barrel that I hadn’t noticed behind him by the table. “Then, I’ll take her back to near her truck and leave her. When I puncture the tire, it’ll look like she wandered off into the woods and got shot by a hunter.”
I started to speak up and point out that deer season was in the fall so no one would fall for that but Forsham spoke before I did.
“Good plan. Right in the midst of spring turkey season. Plus, she headed out about dusk when the birds were likely to be moving. One question though, what about the dogs?” She sounded almost proud of her murdering son.
“Oh, I’ll shoot them, too. Make it look like a hunter was covering his tracks.”
I whimpered. I didn’t want to die, but the idea of Mayhem and Taco being shot was too much for me. “You don’t have to kill me, you know. I really don’t know anything. Even now.”
Forsham peered at me. “Well, you know that Chad and I are related, don’t you? And you know I stole that money from the co-op and blackmailed Cynthia.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know any of that.”
Renee stood up and walked toward me. “Okay, I do know that,” I tried to sound calm and reasonable, “but the sheriff already knows, too. I mean, you could just leave me here, tie me and the dogs up or something, and get out of town. If all you need to do is get to next week, then you don’t have to add murder to your crimes. Just leave me here.” I didn’t relish the thought of being tied up in this depressing place, but at least I’d be alive and so would the dogs.
“I’m afraid that just won’t work,” Renee said. “See, the sheriff has put a freeze on my accounts. So I can’t help Chad out of his mess. The only way I can do that is through my sister’s money.”
I really have to learn to think before I speak. “But she didn’t leave you much?”
Renee glared at me, and I cowered back against the dusty couch. “She did leave her young nephew a fair sum, though.” The bitterness in her voice could have cut flesh. “But to claim our inheritance, I need to be at the memorial playing the grieving sibling. Nope, we can’t run. Not yet. Not until I get the check from the lawyer.”
The picture was coming together more fully now, and fortunately, my natural curiosity kept me asking questions. The longer they talked, the longer I had to figure my way out. “Chad’s mess? You mixed up in something?”
Dillard’s face snapped toward mine and then back to his mother’s. “I told you, they scammed me.”
“Scammed you, my foot. You lost that hundred thousand by betting on the wrong team, son. No scam there. Just bad judgment. Now, you can’t pay, and they’re going to take their payment out of your knees.” Her voice had lost even the little warmth it had before. “You have a gambling problem.”
Chad groaned. “It’s not a problem, Mom, just bad judgment, like you said.” He was pleading.
Forsham softened visibly. “It’s okay, honey. Mama’s going to fix it again, and then we’ll start over.” She pulled her son into her chest and caressed his head. “But first, we have to fix this problem here.”
“Wait, what about the sheriff? Doesn’t he know that you killed Wilma? What good is it to kill me if he already knows what’s going on?” I was grasping at straws here, hoping that I had it right.
“Oh, he hasn’t figure that out yet. But he will. By then, though, we’ll be gone.” Forsham sounded so sure of herself. “He doesn’t know the connection between Chad and me, but that’s not long coming. Now that he knows about the bank money, he’ll start digging. Probably already has.”
“You don’t think he’ll put it all together this weekend?” I asked with dwindling hope.
“Honey, you know as well as I do that even law enforcement takes a break on weekends. There’s no way he can pull my records until Monday. I meet with the lawyer on Monday morning. Gullible man believed the story that I had a sick cat to get back to, and then, I’ll be out of town, and Chad will, too. We just need two more days.”
I tried begging again. “I can give you two more days. Please just leave us here.”
“Too risky,” Dillard said. “Get up.”
I made myself limp like I’d seen toddlers do and tried to become dead weight. But he was strong and just picked me up over one shoulder and marched me toward the front door.
As we reached the porch, I could hear Mayhem and Taco barking for all
they were worth, and I said a silent word of thanks to them for their loyalty. Then, I let out the loudest scream I could and kicked with all my might.
I must have surprised Dillard because he dropped me, and I ran as fast as I could to the patrol car and grabbed one of the back doors. Mayhem and Taco leaped out like lightning bolts and charged at Dillard, who had fortunately dropped the shotgun when he dropped me.
Still, I lunged after them, hoping to grab their trailing leashes before he could get to the gun. But I was too late. He already had the shotgun in his hands and was raising it to his shoulder.
Just then, I heard tires on the driveway gravel and turned back to see blue lights speeding up the lane followed by a caravan of cars including Daniel’s green pick-up truck. Sheriff Mason slammed the car to a halt next to me, and Daniel’s truck whizzed right by, clipping Dillard in the leg just as he fired a shot at the dogs. Dillard cried out, and the shot went high.
As the sheriff jogged up toward the house, he shouted, “You okay?” in my direction and looked at me just long enough to see me nod before he ran to Dillard and handcuffed him.
“Daniel, Renee Forsham. Back door,” I shouted from my prone position on the ground, two dog leashes firmly clasped in my extended hand.
He didn’t hesitate and was off with the sheriff close behind him as my dad came and put a foot square in the middle of Dillard’s back. “Don’t even think about it,” Dad said. I wondered how long he’d wanted to say that.
At that moment, I heard a shot, then a loud shout from the back of the house. I scrambled to my feet and would have run to Daniel if Bear hadn’t grabbed my arms and held me in place. “Just wait, Harvey,” he said softly, but firmly, in my ear.
For a few more excruciating seconds, I strained against his grip until I saw Daniel walk around the house with Renee Forsham thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Then, I slumped back against Bear and felt Henri lay her face against my shoulder. “He’s okay,” she said as if both to convince me and to be sure herself.