Crunch Time gbcm-16

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “I’m in Aspen Meadow, Colorado,” I said quickly, “I’m an independent citizen. I was wondering what you could tell me about Rita Nielsen.”

  “And you are interested because . . . ?” he asked.

  “Kris Nielsen is giving my friends and me some trouble.”

  At this, Ferdinanda and Yolanda began to speak rapid-fire Spanish. Boyd glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

  “You’ve told the local authorities?” Pargeter asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I said breezily. “My husband, Tom Schulz, is an investigator with the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. But—” My mind ran over recent events: the fires at Yolanda’s rental and Ernest’s house, the discovery of a marijuana grow, the murders of Ernest McLeod and Stonewall Osgoode, the chandelier with the stolen diamonds, the files I had found in Kris’s house. I said, “Kris’s ex-girlfriend is a friend of mine.”

  “Why don’t you put your husband on the line?” asked Pargeter. “I’d feel more comfortable talking to him.”

  24

  I sighed. “He’s not here at the moment. But I can put you on with a member of his team. His name is Sergeant Boyd.”

  Boyd shook his head but took the phone from me anyway. He identified himself, then gave his Furman County Sheriff’s Department cell phone number to Pargeter.

  “Careful fellow,” commented Boyd, who handed me back my cell phone, then answered his own.

  While Boyd listened to Pargeter talk, I reflected that I still did not know how everything connected. I didn’t know what the connection, if any, was between Stonewall Osgoode and any of the suspects in Ernest’s murder. Sean Breckenridge had taken pictures of puppies that might have been Osgoode’s. Was Sean Breckenridge Stonewall Osgoode’s investor? Had Sean been hoping for a big payday with the marijuana grow operation, a payday that would enable him to leave Rorry and marry Brie? If so, then why kill Osgoode? Because he knew too much? Had that been Ernest’s problem, too, that he knew too much?

  What about Kris? Had he somehow learned that Ernest was snooping around him at Yolanda’s request? Or had he just not liked that she was living at Ernest’s house?

  Humberto had been the most directly threatened by Ernest’s investigations, besides maybe Osgoode. Ernest had managed to retrieve Norman Juarez’s long-stolen necklace, tying Humberto to the theft of the Juarez family fortune. Had Humberto followed Ernest and killed him, then retrieved the necklace? Or had he had one of his henchmen do it? Or had Humberto hired Osgoode? Who had changed Ernest’s dental appointment, Charlene or somone else? I shook my head, feeling helpless, just as Boyd hung up.

  “So what was that all about?” I asked.

  Boyd did not answer me. Instead, he asked, “How did you happen to get Pargeter’s number?”

  Oh, crap. I said, “I can’t tell you that,” thinking of all the TV crime shows I’d seen, of how evidence got thrown out because it had been obtained illegally. Fruit of the poisonous tree, the defense lawyers always maintained. And out went those apples.

  “I’ll talk to Tom,” said Boyd cryptically, and I thought of a prosecutor saying, Inevitable discovery, Your Honor. But inevitable discovery of what?

  I shivered. We were driving along Main Street toward the Bertrams’ house, which was less than ten minutes away. Behind us, the prowler’s lightbar still blinked, which made me feel safe. I said, “Can’t you tell us anything?”

  Boyd said, “Joe Pargeter suspects Kris in what was ruled the accidental death of his wealthy mother, Rita Nielsen.”

  Yolanda gasped. Boyd said he couldn’t tell us any more until he had talked to Tom. I hugged my sides, frustrated.

  Boyd and our police escort carried our boxes into the house. Overhead, the clouds had cleared without our having a storm. The late-afternoon sun was shining. The weather was cool for just after three o’clock.

  Some cops, undoubtedly those with the day off, had begun arriving. Despite all that was going on, I felt safe walking down the Bertrams’ driveway. One of the investigators told me Tom would be arriving within the hour. Good, I thought. I had a lot to tell him, as did Boyd.

  Beside me, Yolanda glanced up at the hulking ruins that constituted Ernest’s burned house. Once her gaze had snagged on it, she couldn’t take her eyes away from the place.

  She was shaking, so I put my arm around her. Ferdinanda still looked grim.

  Yolanda said quietly, “I wish Ernest could be here. I feel as if this is all my fault.”

  “None of it is your fault,” I replied. “Let’s go inside.”

  To my surprise, the first person I saw upon entering the Bertrams’ house behind Ferdinanda was . . . Father Pete.

  “The Bertrams invited me,” he said hastily. When Yolanda drew back, Father Pete moved forward to embrace her. “I came early. I am hoping you will forgive me, Yolanda. I know you have been through a rough time, and I didn’t mean to startle you in the grocery store. I am absentminded.” He hesitated. “You have been a good friend to Goldy. I hope I can be a good friend to you.”

  Yolanda said, “That would be nice. And of course I forgive you.”

  Ferdinanda, unforgiving, rolled toward the kitchen. I wondered if, in the pastoral business, a 50 percent success rate was considered good.

  “Do you know where Penny Woolworth is?” I asked Father Pete.

  “In the kitchen. She has been working very hard here, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. The last time I was in this house . . . well, never mind.”

  I glanced around the living room. The upholstered brown furniture was what the discount houses call “Early American.” It was old but freshly polished, and the worn orange wall-to-wall carpeting had been vacuumed. There was no clutter. Penny must have performed a miracle.

  SallyAnn, greeting guests, winked at me and then hustled over. “Thank you so much for sending your friend. I’ve thrown away more junk, and donated more out-of-style clothing and shoes, than I even knew I had.”

  “Did you find anything valuable?” I asked.

  “My sanity,” she replied, then left to say hello to more folks.

  The kitchen was gleaming, and there was plenty of counter space. As Yolanda began unloading our first box of food, she opened a refrigerator that was half-full . . . and sparkling. Ferdinanda pulled drawers wide to find utensils. Penny herself, a bucket of soapy water at her feet, was washing the kitchen walls. SallyAnn was nowhere in sight.

  “Penny?” I said. “It doesn’t look as if you needed us after all.”

  Her face shone with sweat. “You’re right. I was in a panic the first hour. Now I’m almost done. There are two clean bathrooms with new towels in them, and one clean bedroom, the master, where people can put their coats.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said. I slipped the four hundred bucks into her jeans pocket. “You’re the best. How many sacks of discards did SallyAnn end up filling?”

  Penny stopped scrubbing and shook her head. “Five. They’re in my pickup. I’ll take them to Evergreen Christian Outreach on my way home. But get this: There are another five full garden bags stacked in their trash shed, out by their garage. When I go home, I’m sleeping for twelve hours straight, or until Zeke calls me tomorrow, whichever comes first.” She lifted an eyebrow and lowered her voice. “What do you think of the décor?”

  I looked around at mismatched but clean canisters, large wooden salt and pepper shakers, and a garage-sale rack with half-full bottles of spices and herbs that didn’t look as if they’d been used in a decade. The pictures on the walls were decoupaged cards, pictures of tiny mice clinging to autumn leaves, kittens snuggling, puppies playing. I whispered, “Well, it’s different from Kris’s.”

  “And from Marla’s, and from nearly every other house I do. But they have money. SallyAnn told me. She just hates to clean. So I’m taking them on, even after Zeke comes back.”

  “You are good,” I said, “and I am so thank—” My eyes caught on something. “What is that?” I pointed to a framed print from Sesame Street. “They don’t ha
ve kids, so what gives?”

  “Oh.” Penny’s tone was offhand. “I didn’t find it until we removed about a ton of stuff from that counter. It’s a picture of Bert and Ernie, you know? I think John Bertram’s old partner gave it to him. You know, the partner was called Ernie, and the cops call John Bertram Bert—where are you going?”

  I dashed into the living room and looked around for Boyd. It really couldn’t be that simple, could it? I hadn’t even processed it when SallyAnn first told me about the nicknames. But when I saw the picture, it seemed to make perfect sense. “Where’s Sergeant Boyd?” I asked a couple bringing in a covered casserole dish.

  “Uh,” said the man, a tall fellow whom I vaguely recognized. “On the patio, I think. Having a beer.”

  I thanked him and raced outside. Boyd, his right hand around a can, was giving advice to John Bertram, who was trying to start the propane grill. Boyd was laughing.

  “Sergeant,” I said, my voice urgent. “I need you. Please?”

  Boyd’s shoulders dropped, but he put down his beer and followed me. “Where are we going?”

  “I need you to show me the crime scene. I mean, where Ernest was shot.”

  Boyd exhaled but moved in front of me. John Bertram’s paved driveway was wide and long and led to the detached garage where he kept the numerous cars and trucks he was ostensibly working on. We walked down the driveway until we reached the field of boulders that stretched upward, to the left, between the Bertrams’ place and Ernest McLeod’s spread. Boyd turned and began climbing across rocks and over wild grass.

  Finally he stopped. Nobody had followed to see what we were up to. For that I was thankful. This was a bit morbid.

  “Here,” said Boyd, pointing to the gravel service road used by the fire department to reach otherwise inaccessible stands of trees. “He’d come down from his house. He must have heard something, or was suspicious, so he detoured onto this road. Then, we think, he turned back up toward his house and came into this field of rocks. Still, whoever was tracking him found him anyway. The cancer had weakened Ernest, we figure, so he couldn’t move so fast anymore. But he must have heard something and turned around . . . the killer shot him in the chest, then dragged him out of sight of the main road.”

  I turned in a complete circle. There were boulders and pine trees, the Bertrams’ long driveway and big detached garage, their low-slung house, the main road, then uphill, to more boulders and evergreens, and the ruins of Ernest’s house.

  “Say he didn’t detour down this road,” I said. Boyd looked skeptical. “Bear with me. Let’s say Ernest knew his house was being watched. So before someone could break in there, he put evidence incriminating Sean and Humberto into his backpack, with the intention of hiding it in John Bertram’s garage. Then imagine that he said to Ferdinanda, ‘If anything happens to me, ask Bert,’ not ‘ask the bird.’ And then Ernest, aka Ernie, walked down here and hid something at John Bertram’s place.”

  “Goldy,” said Boyd, with doubt in his voice, “we don’t think so. There were no footprints, and nothing was dropped—”

  “But it rained, and then it snowed. Any footprints would have been rinsed away.”

  Boyd was still dubious. “Well, if there was anything hidden in John’s house, it’s probably in the bottom of a trash bag, if it’s there at all. Your friend said she’s been cleaning for several hours. John Bertram and Ernest McLeod were polar opposites in the let’s-keep-things-tidy department.”

  I turned again, less sure of myself. My gaze swept across the vista. Ernest was neat; John was not. Ernest McLeod had left Saturday morning to walk into town. According to Ferdinanda, he had his camera, wallet, and other belongings in his red backpack. The backpack had not been found. SallyAnn hadn’t mentioned it, and Penny certainly hadn’t.

  The detached garage was a quarter-mile away. Say Ernest sensed he was being followed, and wasn’t sure he had the strength to escape whoever it was. But he went ahead and made his stop first, then wended his way back up through the boulders in the direction of home. . . .

  Nobody had cleaned in the garage, or, as far as I knew, even looked in there for Ernest’s backpack. It was too far away from the crime scene.

  “May I search John Bertram’s garage?” I asked Boyd eagerly.

  “Goldy, no. It’s a total mess. I don’t know how John even finds his tools in there.”

  “Please?”

  Boyd’s shoulders slumped again. “All right, I’ll come with you.”

  “I’d rather you stayed with Yolanda.”

  “Okay. I’m going to watch you go in there, though. We’ve got more cops here than a law enforcement convention. But don’t stay long. I’m telling you, if we had hurricanes here, you’d say that garage got hit ten years ago, and nothing had been cleaned up.”

  “Thanks.”

  I scrambled down the rocks, huffing and puffing for the second time that day. When I stopped to catch my breath, I realized I could see down to Cottonwood Creek and the main twisting road into Aspen Meadow. I stifled a whoop when I saw Tom’s car rumbling along behind a line of traffic.

  Finally, finally, I arrived back at the propane grill, which John Bertram was still trying to light. Ferdinanda, who’d just whacked John with her baton a couple of days before, showed no hint of remorse as she gave John directions on lighting the grill.

  “John,” I gasped. “Ernest called you ‘Bert,’ right?”

  He looked up at me. “Sure. We were Bert and Ernie. No big deal.”

  “May I look around in your garage?”

  His cheeks reddened. “Well, it’s kind of . . . chaotic in there. I mean, Ernest was always after me to clean it up. What are you looking for?”

  “I’m not sure,” I called over my shoulder as I walked briskly down the pavement. I didn’t see Boyd anywhere and I didn’t want to wait for him. Yolanda needed him more than I did right now.

  Behind me, Ferdinanda yelled, “Hey, Goldy! If this man ever gets this grill lit, we got to put the pork on. Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be back shortly,” I called. “We don’t need to cook the pork for at least another hour.”

  To my dismay, the sound of Ferdinanda’s wheels squeaked along behind me. She called, “Come here, Goldy! I don’t want you going anywhere without something I’m going to give you.”

  I stopped. Tom would be here soon, and I wanted to look in the garage before he arrived. But I dutifully waited for Ferdinanda. Maybe she would give me a Santería talisman, or—

  “Take this,” said Ferdinanda. She reached beside her hip and pulled out the baton. “You’ve made enemies out of Humberto and, it sounds like, Sean Breckenridge, and maybe Kris, too.” She pointed to a button on the side of the baton. “You want it to extend, punch this.”

  “Okay,” I said. I’d need both my hands if I was going to search through trash and who knew what all in the garage, but I did not mention this. “I’ll be right back.”

  I raced off, but to my dismay I again heard Ferdinanda’s wheels squealing along slowly behind me. Maybe she would find somebody else to give advice to along the way. I certainly hoped so.

  The crowd was thick, and it took me more than five minutes to thread through it. With any luck, Ferdinanda would be held up much longer, and not bother me on my quest.

  The garage door was a red wooden sliding entrance, more like the type you would find on a barn. I slid it open, felt along the right wall, and switched on overhead fluorescent lights.

  As promised, the place was a wreck. I counted six trucks and two cars, each in varying states of disrepair. The hoods of most of them yawned. Like many Coloradans, John Bertram cannibalized his old vehicles for parts to put in newer ones. But that wasn’t what interested me.

  Which vehicle looked clean? Which one looked as if Ernest might have been in it?

  It took only a minute. While the pickups were generally filled with rags, old cans, and all manner of detritus, there was one, a red one, over by the other side of the garage. I
could see it well because daylight spilled in from the regular-size door on that side. The roar of traffic from the road below was clearly audible.

  There was even a somewhat clear path to the red truck, as if someone—in my mind, Ernest—had tried to indicate where one should walk to get to the red truck, which looked as if it had been hastily wiped down by someone who wanted to indicate he’d been there. I walked quickly to it.

  Someone—again, I was willing to bet it was Ernest—had dumped all the trash that had been in the back of the truck on the garage floor. I levered myself up to check the cab. It was empty. With my free hand, I pulled open one of the doors and felt along the floor and between the seats, but my hands came up with nothing. When I opened the glove box, a crumpled heap of old restaurant reviews spilled onto the floor. I checked through them quickly, but found not a shred of anything of interest.

  Cursing, I slammed the door shut and climbed up one of the wheels, vaulted over, and landed with a soft thump in the back, which was empty . . . except for Ernest McLeod’s backpack.

  “I got it!” I cried as I lifted the backpack with my free hand. But then someone—a man, moving very quickly—vaulted into the truck bed behind me. And then something very hard, very hard, hit me across my shoulders. I screamed and fell, the baton slipping from my grasp. The big thing—the butt of a gun?—cracked against my back.

  The pain made sickness shoot through my body. Then the butt of the gun hit me again.

  I’m going to die, I thought. I imagined Arch motherless, Tom without a wife—

  “Did you really think you were going to steal from me?” Kris Nielsen’s menacing voice came close to my ear. His free hand grasped my neck. I stretched out my right hand, trying to find the baton. Once my fingers closed on it, I pulled it quietly toward my body. Kris said, “Did you really think you could just waltz into my house and take files, and I wouldn’t discover it? The next time you burgle someone’s house, don’t run out the back door where someone in the house can see you. What’s mine is mine. I am smarter than you, and I will destroy you. Now, drop the backpack, or I’ll shoot you in the head.”