A Luring Murder (13 page)

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CHAPTER TWELVE

“
Catherine? Catherine, wake up, honey.”

Someone grabbed my shoulders and shook me gently, at first. The gentle rocking ended, so I ignored it in favor of drifting back to a heavenly dream of jeans that not only fit comfortably, but also looked good at the same time.

Before I could fully fall back into my blissful dreaming, someone shook my shoulders again. Someone was taking their life into their own hands if they kept shaking me.

“Catherine.”

This time my assailant shook me so hard my neck cracked; a sound I’d become increasingly familiar with each passing day. Damn, getting old is a bitch.

“Wake up, Catherine.”

“What?” I croaked and opened my eyes.

The blurry figure of Gavin perched over me with a hand on either side of my head, hovering over my face.

“What the hell’s going on?” I propped myself up on my elbows and yawned. “Was I snoring really loud or something?”

“Yes,” Gavin said, “but that’s not why I woke you. I’m used to your rumbling after all these years.”

He tweaked my nose. The half curve of his smile slipped down, and he gave a heavy sigh.

“What’s wrong, Gav?”

“There’s been another murder.”

The ice water bath I’d had our first day at the resort plunged over me again.

“All right.” I sat up straight. “Give me some room.”

He moved to the edge of the bed. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

“Who?”

“I’m not sure. Louise is waiting for you outside.” He leaned down, pulled a bra from my the oversized duffle bag I used for long trips, and handed it to me. “She doesn’t look very happy.”

I grunted my acknowledgement of my need to rush.

“What time did you finally come in last night?” I snapped on my bra and adjusted the girls so they stood at attention and all parts were in the right places.

Gavin watched me dress with the same fascination he had since the day we met.

“Bob and I sat out by the fire bullshitting until about one o’clock this morning.”

“My God.” I tugged on a t-shirt. “What time did you get up?”

He handed me a pair of jeans. “I just woke up about a half an hour ago. So about seven. I’d be on the lake if Louise hadn’t stopped me.”

I don’t know how he manages to function with less than eight hours of sleep, but he always does, even at home.

“Are you having fun?” I stretched out on the bed arched my back and tugged up my jeans in one mighty yank.

“I’m having a great time. But I wish I could spend more time with you.”

He ran the tip of his finger up the bottom of my foot. I groaned and pulled my toes back for more, but Gavin was teasing.

“Don’t try to make me feel guilty Gavin James O’Brien.”

I leaned over the edge of the bed and located a pair of socks rolled around each other into a ball. I yanked them apart and put them on.

“If I remember correctly, you’re the one who volunteered me for this job.”

A shamed dog look hung on his features. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. I’m proud of you.”

I pressed my hands flat on the mattress on either side of my hips. I pushed myself forward and pressed a sloppy kiss on the side of his face.

He smiled.

“That means more to me than you’ll ever know.”

We stared at each other with the same intensity we had on our first date.

“You know I’m proud of you,” he said.

“Yes, but there’s a difference between knowing and hearing.”

He patted my leg. “Come on. Louise is waiting.”

“Where are my boots?”

Gavin pointed to the floor. “You dropped them under the bed.”

I reached under the bed, and located the edge of one of my boots, pinched the heel, and drug the boot out. I grasped the heel in my fist, and gave it a hard shake to make damned sure nothing with eight legs was waiting to spring out at me. I followed the same procedure with the second boot, which had fallen only a few inches away.

“I swear Catherine. How many years ago was it that the spider crawled out of your boot?”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t plan to relive that personal hell.”

I still had a scar that jagged through my left eyebrow to remind me every day of terror. After putting on my favorite pair of battered Dingo boots, a small black spider crawled out the top and up my leg. I screamed swatted and stomped until Gavin rescued me. I kicked off the boots as fast as I could and found on the toe of my sock the remains of an egg sack.

I fainted for the first and only time in my life.

When I woke, I was in the emergency room with stitches holding my puffy bruised eyebrow together. The concussion was supposed to be a mild one, but to me, it felt as though someone had my head gripped in a nutcracker.

I remained the butt of many a break room jokes for weeks after that. Rubber spiders found their way into everywhere from my desk drawer to the vending machine dispenser slot.

After checking the boots carefully, I zipped on my boots and stepped out into the living room.

Light filtered into the room through the dingy beige curtains that covered the horizontally louvered windows. At least the sun had decided to join the day.

I stopped and stretched my back. A low growl rolled up from the couch behind me. Curled on the center cushion was what looked like a white, shag rug with two coal eyes peeking out.

“What they hell is that doing here?”

Gavin bent and scratched the little dog behind its ear. It’s pink tongue lolled out, and he licked Gavin’s hand.

“Haven’t you found that things owner yet?”

“That thing is a he.”

“I became well aware of that fact when
HE
peed on my leg. Where are the owners?”

“I haven’t found them yet. I’m afraid the owners might have left him behind by accident.”

The dog rolled onto his side and slightly lifted his front paw. Gavin scratched his chest obediently.

“Probably intentional abandonment.”

“No.” Gavin rocked him back and forth. The dog pawed his hands playfully. I swear the damned beast actually smiled at him.

“He’s a good boy.” Gav slipped into baby talk and gave the dog one last jostle.

“Oh, please,” I said.

“Why don’t you like dogs, Catherine?”

“I like dogs just fine but he-” I pointed an accusing finger toward the little mop. “peed on my leg. I’m not prepared to endow him with any trait close to man’s best friend.”

I went to the door, and the white mop scrambled off the couch and followed me. He stood about three feet away from me and growled.

“I’m going,” I said. “You don’t have to chase me out.”

I put my hand on the knob, and he stood. I removed my hand, and his butt dropped to the floor, and he growled again. I touched the knob. He stood.

“I think he wants to go out with you,” Gavin said.

It did indeed look as if he wanted to leave with me, but for what reason? Maybe he was trained not to pee in the house and wanted one more shot at my leg.

He stayed standing with his eyes locked on my face. He let out a low rumble as if demanding that I open the door for him.

I swung the door open and stood back. The dog didn’t move. His eyes darted from me to the door, then to me, then the door.

I acquiesced and stepped outside.

Louise was reclined on one of Bill’s patio chairs. She lifted her sunglasses and parked them on top of her head.

“Morning, Catherine. I see your friend is back.”

I looked down. The little white dog sniffed the ground around me.

“Gavin’s going to find his owners. Today. Right, Gavin?”

“Of course.” He kissed me on the cheek. “Be careful, honey.”

“Mmm,” I said. “Two murders in one week, and you think this place is safer than Saint Paul, huh?”

He stuck his tongue out.

“Nice and mature my love.” I flipped him the bird. I could throw immaturity with the best of them.

He ambled off toward the water with the little dog hot on his heels.

I slid into the chair next to Louise. “So there’s been another murder?”

She dipped her head in acknowledgement.

“Anyone we know?”

She nodded again.

I moved to the edge of the chair. “Who?”

“Bruce McMahan.”

“No.”

“Unfortunately.” She dropped her sunglasses back to the bridge of her nose, then pushed herself out of the chair. “I guess our theory was wrong.”

I followed her down the dirt path that ran past Bill’s cabin.

“Who found him? Where?” My mind was stuttering questions at me trying to wrap itself around what had happened. “How? Another knife?”

Louise held her hand in the air and splayed her fingers to stop my rambling.

“He was found in a trash heap by two teenagers who were looking for scrap metal to sell.”

“No shit. Does his wife know?”

Profound sadness swept over me at the image of the small boy covered in clay, and the brother I did not see, suddenly without a father. Part of me knew Mrs. McMahan was strong enough to be enough guidance for her sons but for a boy with no father around to run things by as they got older–the first wet dream, first kiss, first date–life would be difficult.

“Sheriff Anderson was on his way to see her when I came to get you. She should know by now.”

The trash heap, as Louise described it, was more of a trash mountain. Tucked away from the civilized resort visitors in a grove of trees. The Peterman’s used the area to deposit old refrigerators, concrete blocks, household scraps, even the rusted out shell of an old car, the kind that looked like a whale on wheels.

A raccoon ambled across the top of the trash and chattered at the crowd of people who’d dared to invade his territory.

“That’s one way to save on the garbage bill,” I said.

“Evidently there aren’t dumping laws around here,” Louise said. “You’d think there would be considering the Peterman’s are renting out rooms essentially like a hotel. There should be health regulations regarding something like this.”

The fresh air that had greeted me every morning since my arrival blew with a foul taint back in this area.

“Who says there’s not,” I said. “But who would enforce it?”

I inclined my head toward where Sheriff Anderson stood with his arm around the shoulder of Mrs. Peterman comforting her.

Louise nodded. “I see what you mean.”

Halfway up the mound of trash, balancing on his haunches atop on old tire embedded in the trash heap, was Digs. A few feet to his left was an elderly man in shorts with strange half glasses. Between the two was the body of Bruce McMahan. Gratefully he had not been gutted.

“Who’s the old man?” I asked.

“The M.E. at least we caught him before he went out on the lake again.”

We reach the base of rank trash.

“Digs,” I yelled up to him. “You’re trampling a crime scene.”

He shoved his glasses up his nose and focused on me. “You couldn’t get a more compromised crime scene, O’Brien.”

Digs pushed himself up and toddled down the hill toward us.

“Was he stabbed?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Bludgeoned. This looks like a crime of opportunity. The killer used an old porch rail from the trash and crushed the back of his skull.” He turned and pointed to the hill. “He was dragged up the hill and covered with trash. A halfhearted attempt to cover him. The killer might have been interrupted.”

“Yeah, had he had the time a body could have been lost in that mound forever,” I said.

Louise shook her head. “No, a fox, or wolf, or bear would have smelled the decomposition and dug him out eventually.”

There was an image I didn’t need to take home with me; wild animals devouring a garbage covered corpse.

“Ick.” I shuddered.

“Sorry.” She grimaced as if she just realized what she’d said.

Sheriff Anderson had extracted himself from Mrs. Peterman and stood next to us. “The Peterman’s are understandably upset.”

I glance at Mrs. Peterman who glared at our group as if we were somehow responsible for all the ills that had befallen this town in the past week.

“They’ve known Bruce since he was a boy.”

“What did Mrs. McMahan say?” I asked.

The Sheriff nudged his cap up with the knuckle of his right-hand, index finger. “She’s devastated. When I told her, she was on the verge of hysterics. I wanted the doctor to give her a sedative and that seemed to sober her. She refused and said she had to think of her boys.”

“Did you ask her why he might have been out here so late? Did he say anything to her?”

“He told her he had some business to take care of and that he wouldn’t be long. Beyond that, she wouldn’t say. She asked me to leave because her boys would be waking soon and she didn’t want them to see me. She wanted to tell them, without them being traumatized by police the rest of their lives.”