Paws and Effect (18 page)

“That's uh, that's good,” I said.

“Do you want me to bring them over?” Rebecca asked.

Hope was watching me. I couldn't read anything from her expression.

“No,” I said. “If John didn't find anything, I don't think I would.” I thanked her and hung up.

Hope put her head in her hands. “I didn't ask the right question,” she said. “I asked her if Keller had come to her house to see her mother's journals. I didn't ask if he stayed.” She lifted her head and looked at me. “That was stupid.”

“You thought you had it covered.”

“But I didn't,” she said.

“Where did he get the car?” I asked, dropping one leg and curling the other underneath me. Hercules saw that as a sign to jump up onto my lap.

Hope looked blankly at me. “What car?”

“Dani was hit by a car and then the killer put her body over the side of that embankment. Dani and the two men had two vehicles. On the day of the murder
she had one and Travis had the other. Where did John get a vehicle if he ran her down?”

I felt as though my brain at the moment looked like the kids' game Mouse Trap and all I needed to happen was for all the little pieces to fall into place so the trap would fall down on the killer. On John, because now I was certain that's what he was. “You know that they had no permission to be on the actual property that was going to be part of the development other than that little piece Ruby owns?”

“Right.”

Hercules nuzzled my hand and I began to stroke his fur. His attention was still on Hope. “I think John was actually on the lakeside property. He alluded to having been there. It's rough, hilly, boggy-in-places terrain. Could some kind of cut down Jeep or truck have caused the injuries that Dani had?”

“It's possible,” Hope said. She rubbed at the creases in her forehead. “I'd have to see it to be sure. That still doesn't answer the questions though; how
did
John get a vehicle?”

“The big red barn.”

“You mean Hollister's? The place that sells the vegetables?” I could see the skepticism on her face. I would have felt the same way if not for the conversation I'd had with Maggie and Roma the night Maggie made pizza.

“They have a little under-the-table side business selling old vehicles for off-roading—I'm guessing they're not licensed, either. I know John knows the
place because he brought me a bag of apples from there as a thank-you for all my help.”

Hope got to her feet.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I'm going to drive out there and see what I can find.” She pulled her keys out of her pocket.

I stood up as well and set Hercules on the floor. “You're not going to call Detective Foster?”

“And tell him what? John Keller has a hole in his alibi and we think he's the killer because the victim's girlfriend thought there was something off about him?”

“I'm going with you, then,” I said.

“You're not a detective.”

“And you're not on this case.”

We stared at each other for a moment. “We're taking my car. It has four-wheel drive,” Hope finally said.

I grabbed a hoodie and my phone. Hercules followed us. I stopped in the porch and bent down to his level. “You can't go with us. Stay here.” I wanted to say “No walking though the door” but with Hope standing there I couldn't. He immediately looked at Hope.

She shrugged. “Does he get carsick?”

“No,” I said, “but on occasion he will try to give directions.”

“What the heck,” she said. “Let him come. Maybe he'll bring us good luck.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

She nodded. “We're just a couple of women driving
around with our cat, looking for a little piece of land to buy to build a getaway, maybe plant some flowers, make a fire pit, explore the woods in some kind of off-road vehicle.”

I smiled at her. “You're good.”

She smiled back. “I didn't get the badge for sending in two box tops and answering a time-limited skill-testing question.”

T
he big red barn was up the road a little from Wisteria Hill. Unlike Roma's place, which was set back from the road, the barn and the old farmhouse were easy to spot. The farm stand was out by the road with the barn off to the right and the old house on a slight slope of land to the left. Both the old house and the barn had a list to one side, as though they'd gotten tired of standing upright over the years.

Hope pulled in next to a couple of cars. “Look at the pumpkins, check out the squash and apples. Watch. Listen. That's it.”

“Stay here, please,” I said to Hercules as we got out of the car.

There were a couple of ladder-back chairs by the end of the vegetable stand. Hope walked over to them and tipped her head on one side as though she was trying to picture them arranged somewhere. Gerald Hollister spied her and headed in her direction. I
made my way over to the bushel baskets, arranged on a couple of long low tables. Two other women were checking out pumpkins. And I realized I knew the woman waiting on them. Her son was one of the new first-graders added to our Reading Buddies program.

I could get bits and pieces of Hope's conversation with the old man, and she wasn't getting anywhere. He offered the two chairs to her for way more than I knew they had to be worth. And when she mentioned she'd heard he might be able to help her with an off-road vehicle he told her flat out whoever had told her that was steering her wrong.

Hope took it all in stride, shrugging and saying it must have been someone else. She pointed at the old barn and asked if Hollister had any more chairs. He told her no—another lie, I was guessing.

Meanwhile the two women had found their pumpkin at last. Bella Lawrence—Lawrence because she wasn't married to her boy's father, the old man's son—came up quietly behind me.

“Hello, Ms. Paulson,” she said in her soft voice. Then she pointed at a basket of apples. “Haralson are good if you looking to make pie,” she added in a slightly louder voice. “So are Honeycrisp.”

“What about these?” I asked, moving over to the end of the makeshift table as far away from Hope and the old man as I could get.

Bella shook her head. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a braid, and her face, devoid of any makeup, made her look like a teenager—too young to be the
mother of a six-year-old. “Those are SnowSweet. Good for eating, not for pie.”

She lowered her voice again. “The old man is lying to your friend,” she said. “I know she's a police officer. She talked to Duncan's class when they toured the fire station.”

Neither one of us was any good at undercover work it seemed.

“Please don't tell him,” I whispered.

She smiled. “What he doesn't know doesn't hurt him. Anyway, I owe you. You should hear Duncan read now that he's in your Reading Buddies. He isn't going to be stuck here, that's for sure.”

I picked an apple from the top of one of the baskets and pretended to be considering it just in case the old man was looking our way. “So he does have some off-road vehicles?” I said.

“A truck and an old Jeep.”

“Has anyone used either one of them lately?”

Bella picked up the basket of apples directly in front of me. “Good choice,” she said. She led me around behind the mound of pumpkins. “You know that thing planned for the lake? The resort?”

I nodded. “He doesn't want it to happen. He figures the county'll make him fix this place up and come after him for tax on all the stuff he's selling. This guy came looking for something off-road.” Her eyes met mine. “I listen because it's good to know things. He said he could stop the development from happening but he didn't want anyone to know he's been over on that land.”

I described John.

“That's him,” she said. She took a pumpkin from the pile. “Is that everything?” she asked.

“It is,” I said. “Thank you.”

Bella dumped the apples into a paper bag and I paid her for everything. As she handed the bag of apples to me she bent her head close to mine. “If you want to look at that Jeep it's parked in a lean-to out to the back of here. Head that way.” She pointed down the road. “Watch for a peeling green post and some yellow tape around a tree. That's the road you want.” She straightened up and gave me a practiced smile. “Thanks for coming. Stop by again.”

I set the apples and the pumpkin on the backseat. Hercules immediately stuck his nose in the bag.

Hope slid behind the wheel with a fake smile plastered on her face.

“Turn right,” I said.

She glanced at me, eyes narrowed, but put on the right-turn blinker. “That was a waste of time,” she said once we were on the road. “And why did you want to go this way?”

“Because John did rent an off-road vehicle from Gerald Hollister and I know where it is.”

“How do you do that?” Hope asked, shaking her head, a smile starting to spread across her face.

“Do what?” I said, keeping my eyes glued to the side of the road. I was watching for a post with peeling green paint and a piece of yellow flagging tape tied around a tree.

“Get people to tell you things.”

“Bella Lawrence is living with Gerald's son. Her little guy is in Reading Buddies and she doesn't like the old man very much.”

“In other words she was happy to help you.”

“And throw a bit of a monkey wrench into in his plans as well.” I caught sight of the green post. “Up there,” I said, gesturing at the road ahead. “There's a gravel road. Turn off.”

We pulled off the main road onto an unpaved track. Hope stopped and put the car in park. “Okay, where are we going?” she asked, turning toward me.

“Bella told me that Gerald rented a cut-down Jeep to John so he could get around the property out by the lake. He agreed to keep it quiet because it's to his advantage.” I explained what Bella had told me about her almost father-in law's position on the development.

“So why are we on a dirt road in the woods?” Hope asked.

“Because the Jeep is at a lean-to at the back end of Hollister's land, according to Bella.”

I pointed at the road ahead through the windshield. “If you follow this it turns and runs behind Hollister's land and Wisteria Hill. I came out here this summer to pick blueberries with Roma.”

“If we could get a look at that Jeep and there's damage—”

“It shouldn't be that hard to link the vehicle back to John,” I said.

She nodded slowly. “I don't imagine the old man
will be so tight-lipped when there are murder charges involved.” An impatient meow came from the backseat. Hope grinned. “I think that means ‘Get moving.'”

“I think you're right,” I said.

We drove by the back of Hollister's property the first time and had to double back. I remembered Roma pointing out where his property and hers met, noting the remnants of a ramshackle fence in the scrub and bushes close to the road.

“Watch for a broken-down fence,” I said. Hercules moved to the driver's side of the car and looked up at the window. But it was Hope who spotted the weathered wood and sagging barbed wire.

“There!” she said, pointing through the windshield. She pulled the car off the road as far as she could onto the narrow shoulder then turned in her seat and looked at me. “I think you should stay here.”

“Not a chance,” I said, unfastening my seat belt. “I'm going to get out of the car, climb over what's left of that fence and trespass on Gerald Hollister's property. Being an officer of the law, you're going to come after me, because I'm breaking the law.
And
as an officer of the law, if you happen to find evidence of one crime while you're trying to stop another—” I held up my hands. “Who can find fault with that?”

She gave me a wry smile. “A lot of people can, Kathleen. Your scenario has more holes than my old rain boots.”

It was raining now, a steady drizzle that made me wish I had my own rain boots.

“I know,” I said. I took a deep breath and let it out.
“Just stay here, Hope. I'll go look for the Jeep, I'll take photos with my phone and bring them back for you to look at.”

She was shaking her head before I finished speaking. “No way.”

“Then I guess we're both going,” I said. I looked over my shoulder at Hercules sitting in the middle of the backseat. “Guard the car,” I told him.

“Mrr,” he said as if he'd understood, which I knew was a definite possibility.

Hope and I got out and walked across the dirt road. There was a narrow shoulder that dropped down steeply to a wide, muddy ditch. The fence began on the other side. There were bushes and spindly trees growing up, through and around it.

We made our way down the bank and through the mud, which sucked at our shoes. Up close the fence was taller than I'd expected. The wire was barbed. I couldn't see any way to get a handhold or foothold over.

“We're not getting over this, are we?” Hope said.

“No,” I said. “That barbed wire may be old but that doesn't mean it won't tear your skin apart.” I walked alongside the fence, hoping I'd find a break in it somewhere, but it just continued around the corner and into the dark, damp woods. I turned and headed back to where Hope was standing. “This isn't going to work. The fence continues into the woods. We could spend hours walking and not find a way to get over safely.”

Rain was dripping off the edge of her hood onto her face and she swiped at it impatiently with the heel
of her hand. “Then you're just going to have to give me a boost over and I'll take my chances with that barbed wire, because I'm not leaving without finding that Jeep.”

“I have an idea that might work better,” I said.

“You're not going to suggest we send Hercules in with the camera, are you?” she asked.

I shook my head and water sprayed off my jacket. “Nah, he wouldn't go. Hercules hates getting his feet wet. I think we might be able to get to this piece of land through Roma's. I don't think this fence goes all the way around on the section where the properties abut. I know those woods a lot better, too.”

“All right,” Hope said. “Let's go.”

We went back to the car and Hope drove slowly down the woods road and turned back onto the main road toward Wisteria Hill.

“What are we going to tell Roma we're doing out here?” Hope asked.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hercules's head swing around toward me when he heard Roma's name.

“She's not here,” I said. “She's over in Red Wing helping the vet there with a surgery. She won't be back until later tonight.”

Hope glanced at me as the car reached the top of the driveway. “Seems like we got lucky.”

“Let's hope it keeps up,” I said.

Hope and I got out. Once again I'd told Hercules to guard the car. He'd climbed into the front and was sitting on the passenger side, watching us through
the side window. It was still raining and I had no worries about him leaving the vehicle.

Hope looked around. “Okay, which way?”

I pointed at the carriage house. “There's a path around the side that leads across a field and into the woods. If we stay close to the brook there's a place where the water is low that we can cross and then we should be on Hollister's land. If we keep heading back that way we should come on the lean-to.”

“Let's do this,” Hope said.

We made our way around the weathered old carriage house and across the overgrown field behind it. The embankment had been graded and reinforced with a rock wall and it was fairly easy to climb up to the top. I pointed through the trees that stretched ahead of us. “Can you hear that?” I asked.

Hope pushed back the hood of her jacket. “That's water, isn't it?”

I nodded. “That's the brook. If we follow it back about half a mile there's a place I'm pretty sure we can get across.”

The trees provided some cover from the rain as we walked. “How did you get to know all this area so well?” Hope asked.

“Mostly Roma, a little bit Maggie and Rebecca,” I said. “Roma convinced me to join her group of volunteers who take care of the feral cat colony back before she even owned Wisteria Hill. I started spending more time out here and I just started exploring. Then Rebecca began teaching Maggie about the uses for
different plants and when they came out here to look for some of them I'd usually come with them.” I smiled at the memory of walking through these woods with Rebecca, who would point out tiny plants I'd never noticed before. “Rebecca grew up out here. Her mother worked for the Hendersons.”

“I like her,” Hope said. “Rebecca, I mean.”

I nodded. “I don't think there's anyone who doesn't. Owen and Hercules are crazy about her. She buys Owen those catnip chickens. It's like she's his catnip chicken dealer.”

Hope smiled. “Sorry. I don't think that's a crime.” She put out a hand to steady herself as the ground began to slope downward. “Can I ask you how you picked their names? Is there some literary connection?”

“There is for Owen,” I said. “His name comes from
A Prayer for Owen Meany
. I was reading it when I first got the cats and he kept sitting on the book. Now I realize it was probably to get my attention.”

“What about Hercules? That's Roman mythology, not Greek, right? Hercules is named for the guy who did the twelve labors.”

“Right,” I said.

“Okay, that was a lie,” she said.

I looked over at her. “No, it wasn't. Hercules is the son of the god Zeus and a mortal woman.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, I don't doubt that. What I meant was you're lying about naming your cat after him.”

“How did you know?” I said.

“You answered too quickly.”

I laughed. “I'll remember that next time I want to fudge the truth. No, Hercules isn't exactly named for the son of Zeus. He's actually named for Kevin Sorbo. He played Hercules in a TV series back in the nineties.”