Town in a Wild Moose Chase chm-3

by B. B. Haywood

  It had fallen right into her hands.

  Now what was she going to do with it?

  As her gaze swept over it, she noticed several things about it. It looked nearly new, with an oak handle, free of nicks or scuffs. It had a streamlined head, half coated in red, with a sharp, polished blade at one end that practically gleamed.

  That struck her as odd. This was—allegedly, she reminded herself—the weapon someone used to murder Victor Templeton. But it looked like it had just come right off the tool shelf at Gumm’s Hardware Store. Shouldn’t it look, well, less clean? As if it had actually been used to murder someone?

  There was no blood on it. No hairs, no fibers, nothing to indicate it had been plunged into the back of its victim.

  She looked up at the old hermit. “Solomon, did you wipe off this hatchet?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t touch it much. Just pulled it out of the body and stuck it in the bag.”

  “There’s no blood on it, no… residue,” Candy said.

  “Nope, there wasn’t when I took it out of the body. There wasn’t much blood on the body at all, come to think of it.”

  “Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.” He motioned toward the hatchet. “You might want to take a look at the other side of that thing.”

  She gave him a funny look and then curiously turned her attention back to the hatchet. Gingerly, using only the tips of her gloved index finger and thumb, she reached out, took the handle by its farthest end, and flipped it over.

  Immediately she saw what Solomon was referring to. Burned into the hatchet’s polished wood handle, using some sort of heated engraving tool, in an old-fashioned typeface, were the words STONY RIDGE MUSEUM—HATCHET-THROWING CHAMPION, 2009.

  She drew in her breath.

  This was the clue, she realized with a jolt, that would lead the police to Victor Templeton’s murderer.

  Her hands went to her mouth.

  She didn’t know whether to be pleased or horrified.

  She leaned forward and read the inscription again, thinking. After a moment she pointed to the inscription. “Have you ever heard of this place?” she asked Solomon. “The Stony Ridge Museum?”

  He made a face, sticking out his chin and lower lip. “Nope. If it were around here, I’d know about it for sure. I’ve been here all my life.”

  “Do you have any idea who this hatchet might belong to? Have you seen it around town? Have you seen anyone carrying or using it?”

  He took his time considering that. Finally he shook his head. “I don’t see many people, and don’t know of any hatchets except my own, and I’ve had that one for twenty years.” He pointed at the hatchet on the table. “Never seen that one before I pulled it out of that feller’s back. Don’t know who it could belong to. But I’ll tell you this: whoever it was, that’s a pretty nice hatchet to leave out there in the woods, especially when it was sticking in the back of a dead body.”

  He was right about that. Candy had been thinking the same thing.

  Why would someone leave an incriminating murder weapon in the back of the victim—one that could so easily be traced by anyone with an Internet connection?

  She set that question aside until later, when she had some time to think about it. For now, she studied the other items Solomon had set out on the table.

  The car keys, she noticed, were for a Honda. Probably a late model, from the look of them. The hotel room key also caught her eye, mostly because it looked so old. Rather than a key card, as most modern hotels used, it was an old brass key, its teeth well worn and attached to a rather battered diamond-shaped piece of plastic. The room number, which once had been stamped in the center of the plastic piece, had been worn away long ago due to heavy usage.

  Her gaze focusing on it, she gently flipped it over.

  The opposite side was blank. No room number.

  “I wonder what hotel that’s from?” she said, mostly to herself.

  “There are a couple of older places up on 192,” Solomon said helpfully. “Maybe it came from one of them.”

  Lastly, she looked at the cell phone. It was a typical Blackberry. No doubt it contained a number of clues.

  Dare she switch it on?

  As she pondered the question, Solomon said from beside her, “I turned it on a while ago.”

  “You did?”

  “Took me a while to figure out. I haven’t had one of those things before, though I seen my daughter using one. She’s been trying to get me to buy one, but I just don’t have a use for it. I don’t make many calls out here in the woods, and frankly I don’t care much about people calling me.”

  Candy understood. “And what happened when you turned it on?”

  “It buzzed once or twice.”

  “When was that?”

  Solomon thought about it. “Would’ve been yesterday afternoon sometime.”

  “Did you pick it up? Were they alerts or incoming calls?”

  The old hermit shook his head. “I don’t know the difference. I got tired of it after a while and turned it back off.”

  Candy nodded. That’s the way she’d leave it.

  Right now, she knew what she had to do.

  “Solomon, we need to get this stuff to the police right away.”

  “I know that.” His eyes grew hard and his jaws tensed as he shook open the burlap bag and moved closer to the table. Carefully, he started placing the items back into the bag. “That’s why I’m giving all of it to you.”

  “But this could lead them to Victor’s killer.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She chose her next words carefully, uncertain of his reaction. “Solomon, you have to go back with me. You have to go to the police.”

  She expected a strong reaction from him, but instead he was silent for a moment as he placed the wallet inside the bag. He gave her a sideways look, as if he had known her request was coming. For a moment his eyes grew dark, and she was afraid he was about to go ballistic on her. But instead the darkness receded, and he allowed a slow grin to work its way across his face. Softly, in a gravelly voice, he said, “Well, now, you know I can’t do that.”

  “Solomon—”

  He held up a hand to stop her. “It ain’t no use. I ain’t going to see no police.”

  “But you have to tell them what you saw,” she pleaded. “You’ll have to tell them how you found the body—”

  “I already told you how I found it,” he said evenly, “and you can just pass along all those details to them.”

  “But they’ll want to talk to you. They’ll want you to show them the place in the woods where you discovered the body, and they’ll want to know why you moved it out to the road.”

  “Like I said, I already told you all about that. As far as that gully where I found the body, I’m not even sure I could find the exact spot myself in these woods at this time of year. It’s likely buried by now, or disguised somehow. These woods change a lot after a snowfall, you know. Even a little one. Makes everything look different.”

  “The police can help. They have all sorts of investigation methods.”

  “Well, there you go.” Solomon’s grin was gone, and he scratched the back of his neck. “You see, me and the police, we don’t always get along. I leave them alone, and they leave me alone, and that’s the way we like it.”

  He lowered his voice and leaned in close to her, and for the first time she realized he hadn’t taken a bath in quite a while. “You see, I had this little problem with the police way back when. It’s all settled now—at least I think it is—but there’s no sense doing any investigating and digging it all up again, you know what I mean?”

  Candy felt a breath go out of her. “Isn’t there anything I can say to convince you?”

  He didn’t answer as he gathered up the last few items on the table.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked after a few moments, watching him.

  He made a sound in the back of his throa
t. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” he said, chewing over his words carefully. “I thought about staying here—not many folks know about this place, and I’d probably be just fine. But I know of another place a little farther up in the woods, way out of town, and I’ve been thinking of moving up there until things quiet down.”

  “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

  Solomon placed the last item in the bag, tied it up with a length of twine, and handed it over to her. Reluctantly she accepted it, cradling it in her two hands.

  He swept off his hat, ran a hand through his disheveled hair, and looked up at the sky. “Clouds are coming in again,” he said, studying them with a practiced eye. “The almanac predicted it, you know. Said we’d have this series of little snowstorms, with a few nice days in between each one.”

  His gaze dropped and shifted to her. “The almanac’s right seventy percent of the time, you know. They got a lot of useful tips in there too. That’s how I learned to cook them biscuits. I got the recipe right out of the almanac.”

  He chuckled, shook his head, and grew more serious as he returned to a previous question. “I don’t know for sure, to tell you the truth. Maybe ’til spring. Maybe longer. Maybe not. Depends.”

  She nodded. “Okay. But just so you know, you can always stay with us at Blueberry Acres, if you ever need a place for a few nights. Doc and I would love to have you.”

  He gave her a warm smile. “I appreciate that, Candy.”

  She looked around the camp. “Do you have enough food?”

  “Oh.” He waved a hand, as if it were inconsequential. “Don’t worry about that. There’s always plenty of food around, if you know where to look for it. I had squirrel stew for dinner a few nights ago. Caught a wild turkey last week. I make do.”

  “If you ever need any staples, like sugar or flour or salt, just let me know. You can always stop by the farm. The back door’s always open for you.”

  He nodded, but she could tell she wouldn’t hear from him for a while.

  She took a deep breath and looked around. “Well, I guess I should be going. I’ve got to get these items to the police.”

  “Okay. You do that. Think you can find your way back out?”

  “Sure. Just follow my footprints in the snow, right?”

  “That’s right. And if you get sidetracked, head south-southwest,” he said helpfully, pointing in the general direction with the vertical flat of his hand. “You’ll eventually come to the farm—or the sea. One or the other. Either way, you’ll be fine.”

  She felt for the compass in her pocket and knew she had a backup in case she got lost. She nodded toward the woods. “What about our friend, the moose?”

  Solomon put his hat back on and squinted at the creature. “Well, I guess that’s up to him, isn’t it?”

  “I guess it is.” She watched the moose for a few moments, still awed by its silent majesty. “Do you think that’s why it came this way? Because it sensed that body out there?”

  “Been wondering that myself,” said Solomon thoughtfully. “It’s the strangest behavior I’ve ever seen for an animal like that—and I’ve seen some strange things out in these woods. What drew it to the body, or made it come after us, I couldn’t say.”

  “Well, I figured something was bothering him,” Candy said. “He’s been chasing me all over town.”

  Solomon chuckled. “Chased by a wild moose, huh? He must have given you quite a start.” He laughed a little harder, amused by the thought.

  Now it was Candy’s turn to give him a sideways look. “So, you think it’s funny too? My friends think he’s in love with me.”

  Solomon laughed again. “Well,” the old hermit said, slapping her on the back, “if that’s true, he’s not the only one.”

  Twenty-Eight

  She emerged from the woods to find it snowing again.

  Somehow the weather had changed in the time it had taken her to walk from Solomon’s camp to the blueberry farm. She’d been enclosed by the embrace of the woods and hadn’t been aware of the gathering clouds. Looking up now, she noticed a pregnant dark cloud flitting past, one of a line of low clouds moving at a steady pace along the coast.

  It was just a passing flurry, she surmised. It would probably clear up later on.

  But she felt no relief in that knowledge as she cradled the burlap bag in her right arm, mindful of what it contained: evidence that would convict someone and send that person—possibly someone she knew—to jail for a long time.

  There was no doubt she would turn the items over to the police today, immediately. There was no doubt that she would spend no more time studying them. They were tied inside the bag now, and that’s where they would stay, until she handed them over to the police.

  Still, she couldn’t help wonder what she would discover if she ran down the leads herself.

  It was a tempting thought—one she resisted with all the willpower she could muster.

  Doc had rescued the Jeep. It was parked in front of the house, snow caked in around its bumpers and wheel wells. He must have pulled it out with his truck while she was in the woods.

  With the burlap bag under her arm, she went inside.

  Doc was in his office when she entered the house, but he came running when he heard her open the door. “There you are, pumpkin. Are you all right? I was worried about you.”

  “I’m okay, Dad,” she said as she placed the bag on the counter and made her way to the sink, peeling off her gloves so she could rinse her cold hands under the water. “It’s chilly out there,” she added, experiencing a few moments of sublime bliss as her fingers warmed and loosened.

  “Where’d you go?”

  “I found Solomon Hatch,” she said simply.

  Doc’s eyes widened. “Where was he?”

  “Hiding out in a small cave in the woods. He gave me that.” She pointed to the bag and briefly explained what it contained.

  “He gave you evidence? Of a murder?” Doc asked in disbelief when she’d finished.

  “He said he had no interest in delivering the bag to the police himself. So naturally he thought of me.”

  Doc’s expression changed to one of mild amusement. “You’re developing quite a reputation around here, pumpkin.”

  “I know. Don’t remind me.”

  He indicated the bag with a finger. “You’re going to take that to the police right away, correct?”

  “Correct,” Candy said, “but first I have to check out one quick fact.” She made a beeline for her writing desk in the living room, where she kept her laptop. They’d installed a wireless network in the house the previous summer, since they both used the Internet for research. She slipped into the straight-backed chair sitting in front of the desk, powered up the computer, and opened a browser window.

  In the search field, she keyed in stony ridge museum hatching throwing champion and hit the return button.

  Quickly she scanned the results. One link caught her eye.

  It was a web page for The Cape Crusader.

  Wanda Boyle’s website.

  Doc watched over her shoulder as she clicked the link, opening the page.

  It was one of Wanda’s recent blog posts about the participants in the ice-sculpting contest. Wanda had written brief bios for several of the sculptors. One sentence in particular caught Candy’s eye.

  …won the hatchet throwing competition at the Stony Ridge Museum in Virginia three years in a row…

  Candy’s gaze shifted to the name of the sculptor highlighted at the beginning of the paragraph.

  It was Duncan Leggmeyer.

  Twenty-Nine

  Ninety minutes later, she sat in a small, bare conference room at the Cape Willington Police Department, sipping on a cup of bad coffee and wondering if she’d ever get out of here alive.

  Doc was somewhere out front, in some waiting area, probably wondering what the hell had happened to her. She hadn’t seen him since they’d whisked her away to this windowless room—decorated
only with a table, a few chairs, an American flag, and a black-and-white framed portrait of the president—once they’d found out what she’d discovered.

  She’d already been through the story more times than she could count, including what she’d found out about Duncan Leggmeyer, and thought she’d done a pretty good job telling it all as correctly and honestly as possible, emphasizing the parts about how hard she’d tried to stay out of it. Whether they believed her or not—well, she just hoped for the best, and that it didn’t involve jail time.

  Chief Daryl Durr sat across from her, arms on the table, hands clasped together, and tie loosened, perhaps in an attempt to show her how he’d managed to remain calm and reasonable. He was the last of several interviewers, though they’d been more like a series of interrogators, she thought. They had started out gently enough, but each subsequent questioner had become a bit more accusatory. Despite a few tense moments, however, there’d been nothing she couldn’t handle. She’d worked for the better part of a decade within the chaotic world of start-up high-tech companies in Boston. This was a piece of cake, comparatively. At least these people were sane.

  Well, mostly.

  A uniformed policewoman stood near the door, arms folded behind her, apparently guarding the exit in case Candy should attempt a daring daylight escape. She had actually considered it more than once over the past hour or so. But she didn’t think she could make it all the way out the front door, so she reluctantly dismissed the idea.

  Instead, she remained seated in her chair and took another sip of coffee, which was growing cold.

  Chief Durr now gave her his full attention. He’d been distracted earlier and had been called out of the room a couple of times. Something was going on at the station, she sensed. But they apparently had no intention of telling her what it might be.

  The chief leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hand across his chin. “Explain one more time this thing with the moose, Ms. Holliday. You say you followed it into the woods? And it led you to Solomon Hatch? How is that possible?”

  It wasn’t, Candy explained, but it had happened nonetheless. It all had happened just as she’d told them over and over again, despite how strange it sounded, she emphasized.