Butter Off Dead (14 page)

“Great. Trace, you may not have thought this far ahead—”
Fat chance. Every woman thinks this far ahead.
“And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I'm thinking about the shop and summer and . . .” My turn to go red.

“Oh, no,” she said, her voice firm. “Don't you worry. I moved three times when Mitch got itchy feet, always thinking the grass was greener and the fish bigger someplace else. I'm never moving for a man again.” She cradled the mug close to her face. “But I won't have to. If it works out, Rick can work from Jewel Bay as easily as from the farm.”

True enough. Modern technology had expanded the range of work-from-home jobs, a huge boost for Montana's economy. And for those who'd rather not wear shoes on the job.

“Good. I've also been wondering if—well, if you're going to want to start your own chocolate shop. I mean, if it's what you want, great. Go for it. Don't let me or anybody hold you back. I've always hoped the Merc could be a business incubator, and I'd be thrilled to see you succeed, but—well, we'd be kinda lost without you.”

Her expression said I'd hit the target this time. Before she could reply, the old dog lumbered to his feet, barked once, and limped purposefully toward the back door.

“Potty time,” she said. I carried our mugs to the kitchen, where she put a goldfish box into my hands. Another bark. “I've been experimenting. You pooh-poohed the green tea truffles, but try 'em. Hang on, Boze. I'm coming.”

Treasure box in hand, I let myself out. The snow had started up again and the temperature had fallen. The day's sunshine had warmed the roads in Tracy's hilltop subdivision just enough to leave a thin sheet of ice. Like driving behind a Zamboni.

Down the hill I crept till I reached the highway, surprised to discover I'd been holding my breath. In Seattle, an inch of snow stops the city. Newcomers from the Rockies or the Midwest laugh at the natives, until they try to drive the city's hills in wet slush. Nobody can do it. When the first snow fell here shortly after Halloween, it had taken me a week or two to feel comfortable on the roads.

As I drove south along the lake, my headlights glinting off roadside reflectors, competing thoughts struggled for mental airtime. The Merc needed Tracy and her truffles. Few customers can resist the lure of locally made chocolates. They come in for one, buy a box, and load up on pasta, cheese, and sauces. Then they come back. My vendors count on that ripple effect.

On the other hand, I understood the desire to build your own business. To be your own boss. Enormously satisfying, but never easy. Would she want to take on that kind of commitment? Her chocolate combined with Rick's business acumen could be a killer recipe.

A flash of light caught my eye and I glanced in the rearview mirror. An SUV with its brights on swerved around me, tucking back into our lane as a semi approached, its giant wheels throwing a cascade of half-melted snow and ice my way. I flicked on the wipers a moment too late: Thick, gray-brown mush caked my windshield and began to freeze.

I muttered and crept toward the shoulder, pulling into the next driveway. Flicked the defroster to full blast. Groped on the floor for my snow brush and scraper. Did my best to clear the windshield and wiper blades, then remembered the headlights.

Filthy. I scooped up a handful of clean snow and scrubbed first one light, then the other. Not perfect, but clean enough to get me home.

I tossed the scraper into the backseat and reached for my door handle. A whooshing sound filled my ears and a jolt
of adrenaline filled my veins. Slush from passing wheels hit the back of my legs and knocked me against my car.

I am dead.

Not dead. Just soaked and freezing, standing on the narrow shoulder of a narrow highway. The truck zoomed on by, its driver heedless. I brushed myself off. Climbed in and let my forehead fall onto the steering wheel.

The goldfish box sang to me. One more truffle wouldn't hurt, would it? As a reward for surviving my own stupidity?

Eyes on the road and hands on the wheel, Erin
. People, and cats, are counting on you.

T
wo roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road not plowed.

Again.

The next morning, I stood outside Christine's cottage for the second time in less than a week, sniffing out trouble.

Six inches of fluffy white powder covered the walk and steps, punctuated by the hooves of a young doe who'd cut across the yard to nibble the tender tips of an evergreen.

So, carrying a latte in each hand and a bag of pastries, I detoured to the side door. I'd trudged a few steps down the unshoveled path between the two buildings when I realized no Jeep. No tire tracks.

But someone had been here. The screen door swung loose on its hinges like a warning in a late-night horror movie. The main door stood ajar, shards of glass scattered across the threshold.

I pushed it open with the toe of one boot and peered in. Clumps of snow and mud tracked across the kitchen and out of sight.

Get out. Go in. Someone could be inside. Someone could be hurt.

I froze, warring thoughts racing through my brain. I steadied my breath and studied the snowy back step and passageway between cottage and church.

The tracks went in and the tracks came out.

I swallowed the urge to follow. Instead, I explained it all to the 911 dispatcher—thinking,
Here we go again
, warning her that approaching officers needed to avoid trampling the footsteps, that they should follow the tracks away from the cottage to find the culprit. Who was probably long gone. I didn't think the church had been broken into—no footsteps. And unlike the cottage, it had a security system.

“No,” I assured her, “the house is empty. Or should be.” But while my father had taught us to recognize the signs of our woodland neighbors—whitetail, mule deer, elk, fox, hares, coyote, and the wild cats—tracking the far more dangerous human animal was outside my expertise.

So glad we'd rescued Pumpkin last weekend. After losing her human, the trauma of a break-in might have been too much for her—not to mention Sandburg and me.

I waded through the snow back to the front porch—unmarred by the intruder—and sat. Cupped my still-warm latte in my gloved hands. My shaking hands.

Two patrol cars arrived, both officers heeding my warning about the footprints. They were inside when Deputy Kim Caldwell turned onto Mountain View, pulled a U-ey, and parked in front of the cottage, engine running, overhead lights ablaze.

Why? The danger is over
. Announcing her presence to the neighborhood? Marking her territory?

Much of what she does in the name of law enforcement baffles me.

“Figured I'd find you here,” she said. A patrol deputy rounded the corner, saving me from a response.

“'Morning, Detective.” He'd been here Saturday, too. “Cottage is trashed. Someone searching for something.”

A car door slammed. “Erin!” Feet thudded through the snow. “Erin!”

Nick stopped halfway up the walk, his eyes darting from Kim to me and back. “You okay? What happened now?”

“No one's hurt. But someone's broken into the cottage.” Kim turned to the deputy. “See where those tracks lead. But don't go off the property until backup arrives.”

I heard her, but I wasn't really listening. I was too busy noticing that my brother had driven in from the south—from the direction of Rainbow Lake. Not from the north, the road he would have taken from the Jewel. And Kim had noticed, too.

“You check your packs?” I asked, afraid of the answer. Afraid of another lie.

“What?” he said, distracted. “Yeah. What happened? You sure you're okay? Dammit, Erin. Why does it seem like everywhere you go, something goes wrong?”

A flush of anger crawled up my throat. I handed Kim the latte I'd brought for Nick.

“Thanks,” she said, assessing the current between my brother and me. “You two come inside. The deputies have cleared the space and photographed the wet footprints. But we haven't taken other photos or prints yet, so don't touch anything. Just tell me what might be missing. What the burglar might have been after.”

Not that I would know. I'd only been in the cottage a time or two, including Saturday afternoon when my focus had been on subduing a feisty ball of fur long enough to get her to safety. Which reminded me, I still needed to find her a home. Kim?

Yeah, right. But, maybe.

You never know how people live. As I'd discovered last summer, women who organize their business lives to a T can
create complete chaos in their living space and never blink. People whose kitchens would give Martha Stewart pantry envy don't know what a car wash is. My cabin stays picked up most of the time, but my closet won't win any ribbons.

But I'd seen enough during my cat hunt to know that while Christine's closets were no better than mine, her cottage had not looked like this. In the kitchen, a box of Special K lay dumped on the counter, and hand-thrown pottery canisters had come to rest on mounds of the flour and sugar they'd once held.

We passed into the dining area, separated from the living room by the front door. An oversized red willow basket of gloves and hats lay upside down, its contents a wooly, fleecy heap.

From there, we followed Kim through an arch into a windowless hall. Ahead lay the bathroom; to the left, a guest room and stairs to the attic, to the right, Christine's bedroom. Socks spilled out of half-opened dresser drawers, the laundry basket empty on the bed, the mattress partway off the frame.

Nick's wind-chapped cheeks had gone pale, and I didn't feel too hot, either. “Who would do this?”

“And why in such a hurry?” Kim scanned the mess. “If you'd scared them off, I'd expect a more methodical search, ending abruptly. But this is almost random.”

“Or desperate.”

Nick moved silently through the cottage, expressionless—except for his eyes. They saw everything, and I guessed, understood nothing. He turned back to the living room while Kim and I went upstairs. More of the same. On a second tour through the main floor, I followed his gaze as he focused on the walls and shelves. Christine's own playful work brightened the kitchen and bathroom. An acrylic painting of an old black rotary phone occupied an arched phone nook in the back hall.

In the living room, a huge framed dye-on-silk portrait
of a psychedelic moose sat on the shelf above the fireplace. No need to read the signature to recognize Nancy Cawdrey's work. Hand-built pottery occupied the windowsills on either side of the fireplace, above the glass-front bookshelves. I did not need to turn them over to identify the potters. Like many artists, Christine had built an impressive collection of work she admired.

A Dan Doak lidded tureen lay shattered on the oak floor. But I spotted no empty hooks on the walls, no gaps in displays, no telltale rings of dust. Most of these pieces had not been touched.

“Anything missing, Nick?” Kim asked.

He squinted. “Hard to tell, but I don't think so.” He crossed the room to an antique secretary in the corner, a lovely walnut piece, and ran his hand over the drop-down writing surface. “She kept her papers here. The valuable artwork was all in the church.”

I closed my eyes and pulled up a mental slide of the Spreadsheet of Suspicion. If the break-in was related to the murder, was the suspect already on my list? Break-ins during funerals are common enough that neighbors often sit on the front porch while the family's away holding a service. Was this another despicable trend, looting a murder victim's home? A ripe target—if the victim lived alone, who would know?

Tricky timing. You'd have to wait until the sheriff stopped watching the place, but strike before the family started cleaning out.

I gripped the back of a chair to steady myself.

This was no random burglary. The intruder had been searching for something of less obvious value. Christine's jewelry box stood open but tidy. Her grandmother's pearls lay on top of her dresser, in a velvet-lined clamshell. A carved wooden hand held her rings in its palm: a pearl in a gold setting, an amethyst I knew had been her mother's, the diamond solitaire she'd tried to give back but that Nick had insisted she keep.

The ring they wouldn't be using after all.

I followed my brother outside, Kim behind us. She signaled us to hang tight while she spoke to two officers waiting to complete the investigation inside. A uniformed officer finished photographing the footprints in the snow, and set up a frame for casting impressions. The flat light and lack of wind would help, though it couldn't be comfortable working in twenty degrees.

It could have been worse.

A cluster of reserve deputies stood nearby, comparing notes. The crew leader broke away and trotted over.

“We followed the footprints north.” He pointed to the heavily wooded properties across the highway. “I'm bettin' he hid his rig in the driveway of a house closed up for winter. We photographed the tire tracks and took impressions. State lab can identify the tread, but we'll need the vehicle to make a match.”

Kim clenched her jaw. “Thanks. Finish the perimeter search and let me know what else you find.”

Sounds from near the garden drew our attention. “You got no right to go snooping around my property,” Jack Frost shouted at a uniformed deputy.

“Sir, we did not—”

“What's going on?” Kim broke in, and Frost flung his anger at her. “Your deputies trespassed on my private property, is what's going on.”

“The tracks go right along the fence line, then veer north through the woods and over the highway,” the deputy told Kim. “I don't think we crossed over, but . . .”

“Sir,” she told Frost, “this is an active investigation into criminal trespass and felony burglary, and possible felony theft, related to an ongoing murder investigation. Deputies in active pursuit of a suspect may follow that suspect, or his tracks, wherever they lead, private property or not. My deputy was only doing his job. Now, if he caused any damage . . .”

“No, he din't. What's happened now?”

“I was hoping you could help us figure that out. In fact, I was on my way over to interview you and your wife.”

“Sherry ain't home. She's been in Spokane all week, babysitting our grandkids. She heard about this murder, she wanted me to come over, too, till he's caught. Thinks it's ain't safe here. But I'm not being scared out of my home, no sirree. No, ma'am.” A shock of steel gray hair flopped over one eye.

His boots. Kim noticed them, too. “No match,” her deputy mouthed.

“You didn't get along with Ms. Vandeberg,” Kim said, and at his look of confusion, clarified. “The victim. Or with Mrs. Ring, who lived here for decades.”

“Hey, I didn't like the old bag, or the redhead, but I didn't kill nobody. Check out that guy what drives the fancy car. Or Wolf Man.” He sneered in Nick's direction. “He inherits the whole shebang, right?”

I couldn't stop myself. “That's ridiculous. Nick had no reason to break in to his own house and trash it. He's got a key. And he knew I'd be here.” Kim had seen for herself that he'd been genuinely shocked by the wreckage inside.

Nick put a warning hand on my arm. But I wasn't finished. “Doesn't this break-in prove Nick had nothing to do with Christine's death? The two are obviously connected.”

“Nothing's obvious,” Kim said, her eyes trained on Frost.

But while he makes a lot of people mad and is easy to blame, the break-in pretty much eliminated Frost, too. Far as we knew, his conflict with Christine had nothing to do with her possessions. It centered on her plans for the future.

What's more, he had no reason to flee north or hide a truck in the woods. His own woods offered plenty of close cover.

I pictured my list of suspects. Zayda? If her parents had kept her out of school another day, they'd be at the restaurant, not home keeping an eye on her. But why would she break in? Nothing hinted at a conflict between her and Christine.

Sally? She might break in and take what she thought rightfully hers. But a ransacking? Impossible. If the murder and break-in were related, Sally was an unlikely culprit.

“Mr. Frost, may we talk inside somewhere? At your home, or the fire station?” Kim gestured across the highway. “I'll meet you and the deputy in a moment and you can tell me what you know.”

Frost nodded and he and the deputy started walking. Kim turned back to us. “Why were you here, anyway?”

“Nick wanted to start cleaning and sorting,” I said. “Oh, criminy. Now we've got a major mess. The fridge is gonna start stinking pretty soon.”

“We should be finished in a few hours. I'll let you know.”

Nick and I walked to our cars in silence.

“I almost forgot. I brought breakfast.” I tossed Nick the bag of squished croissants. As he reached out to grab it, his unzipped coat flew open and I saw the gun on his hip.

Though I've never had a reason to own a gun, they don't scare me. But seeing my brother packin' heat at the scene of his girlfriend's murder was alarming. “Nick, the gun. You don't think you're in danger, too?”

“I always carry when I go out to check the packs,” he said.

“Your packs are up north. I watched you drive up. From the south.”

He stared at me, wheels churning. Deciding. “Leave it alone, Erin. It has nothing to do with you.”

“You're making things worse, Nick. Kim and Ike know you weren't in the Jewel last Saturday. If they think you had role in Christine's death—”

Shooting me one last long frosty look, Nick climbed in his Jeep and started the ignition. Left me standing there watching him drive away, my throat cramping, tears hot in my eyes.

Nobody can hurt you like the ones you love.