by Gemma Bruce
He downshifted at the yield sign and pulled onto the highway just as a van sped toward him, then veered to the right and shot down Old Mill Road. He looked at the clock on the dashboard. 3:26. Too late for the residents of Ex Falls. There were only four houses by the river and no one lived in the boarded-up mill town. Definitely suspicious behavior.
Any other time he would have followed it, but tonight, he had a more serious priority. He pushed the VW up to sixty, and a few minutes later he turned onto Halbeck Lane. He could see the portable blue light whirling on top of Terrence’s SUV half way down the block.
Cas pulled in behind it and banged on the car door, then remembered he was in Julie’s Volkswagen. He opened the door and unfolded himself from the seat.
Roy Nesbitt and his wife, Nanette, stood on the stoop of their redwood ranch house, talking to Terrence. Nanette’s arms were crossed over a purple terrycloth robe. The curlers in her hair were a lighter shade of lavender. Roy had pulled his overalls on over his striped pajamas and was pointing across the street toward the darkened Vale house.
Terrence looked up when Cas reached them. “Roy here said he was up going to the bathroom, when he saw a light bobbing around through the window. Since the Vales are in Saranac Lake visiting with their new grandbaby, he called Edith.”
“Good thinking,” said Cas, gazing at the house in question as if he could conjure up the thieves and cuff them. “Are they still in there?”
“I don’t think so,” said Roy. “When I came out to let Terrence in, we heard a truck drive away. Or maybe it was a souped-up car. There wasn’t anything parked in the driveway, so they must have parked it a ways off. If it was them.”
“It was them,” said Terrence.
“Thanks, Roy,” said Cas. “You’ve been a great help. I’ll come back and take a written statement on Monday if that’s okay.”
“No need,” said Roy. “I’ve gotta be in town anyway. I’ll just stop by the station. Save you a trip.”
“Thanks,” Cas repeated, then turned to Terrence. “Shall we take a look?”
Terrence already had the flashlight off his utility belt.
“New car?” asked Roy, nodding at the Volkswagen.
Like the whole town didn’t know it was Julie’s. And they would all know who was driving it tonight before he even got to work on Monday. “No. I, uh, borrowed it.”
Nanette’s lips pursed together. She’d be on the phone to his mother first thing in the morning. Shit was going to hit. But in the meantime, he had thieves to catch.
“Looks like a good little car,” said Roy. “If you don’t need us anymore, we’ll be getting back to bed. Goodnight.” He winked at Cas, then ushered his wife back into the house.
Terrence and Cas walked across the street and peered in the front windows. Everything looked normal until they got to the back yard. The kitchen door was flung open. The robbers must have beat a hasty retreat when they heard Terrence arrive. Cas should have thought to tell him not to drive up to the house.
“I shoulda thought not to drive right up to the house and risk scaring them away,” rumbled Terrence. “I sure would like to have caught those assholes. I mean, if you gotta get dragged out of bed in the middle of the night when you got a fine woman keeping you warm, you at least ought to catch the offenders.”
“Yeah,” said Cas. He was thinking the same damn thing.
“Hey, look over here,” said Terrence, shining the flashlight at the kitchen window. “It’s been pried open with a chisel or something. They must have climbed in here, but taken the stuff out through the back door. Guess they were in too big of a hurry to lock up after themselves.”
Cas scowled at the window. “Two robberies, if you exclude the chickens, and both took place while the occupants were out of town. Someone must have known they would be gone.”
“Yeah,” said Terrence. “Like the whole damn town.” He aimed his flashlight beam into the kitchen. “Jolene’s been showing pictures of her grandbaby to anyone who’ll look. And A.J. was down at the Roadhouse a few nights ago, talking about how they were going to stay at the Holiday Inn because after raising six of his own, he wasn’t getting up in the middle of the night for a baby ever again.”
The Roadhouse, thought Cas and wondered if Henry Goethe had been there talking about his trip before he was robbed.
“Think we ought to go in?”
“I guess,” said Cas. “But don’t touch anything. I’ll see if the county will send someone over tomorrow and dust for prints, but any fool who watches television knows to wear gloves.”
“Yeah,” said Terrence and led the way inside.
The entertainment unit in the living room had been emptied out. “Damn, A.J.’s going to be pissed off,” said Terrence. “He just bought a big screen TV and put up an extra satellite dish since this side of town doesn’t have cable yet.”
“Plus a stereo and who knows what else,” said Cas, nodding to where a tangle of wires lay on the shelf.
None of the other rooms seemed touched. “You probably scared them away before they could get anything else,” said Cas.
“Woulda rather caught the bastards. There had to be at least two to pick up that television and they couldn’t carry it very far.”
They stopped in the kitchen. Terrence closed the window using a big red handkerchief, then locked the door.
They stood in the backyard while Terrence ran his flashlight over the yard and into the trees behind it.
“What’s back there?” asked Cas.
“Railroad tracks from when the Erie local used to come through. Not used anymore.”
They walked to the edge of yard and found the broken branches of the rhododendron bushes. They looked at each other, then stepped through the opening.
Up a graded incline, railroad tracks ran parallel to Halbeck Lane.
“And I bet those are the tracks that cut across the road down by the package store,” said Cas.
“Yep,” said Terrence. “Drove the getaway vehicle right along the tracks, loaded it up and backed out onto the road. Damn. You could have passed them on your way here.”
“I think I might have. And if I did, it was a dark van. Let me drop off Julie’s car and we’ll go for a ride.”
Julie heard the VW’s engine long before she saw the lights bouncing over the rutted drive. She watched from the upstairs window as two cars stopped at the front of the house. Cas got out, but instead of coming inside, he got in the other car and they drove away.
He wasn’t coming back after all. And she’d thought they would have another night and day together, but she shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t start expecting things. That’s what got you into trouble. Hoping she could outrun her past and make a go of a new life, thinking she could change her feelings about the town, meeting Cas again and thinking ... hoping ... but she shouldn’t. Hell, she didn’t even want to admit what she was hoping.
But she could no more stop it than she could stop the river that flowed through town, though maybe that wasn’t a good analogy. It was a pretty piss-poor river. She loved Cas. She’d probably always loved him. He’d been her best friend from the day they met. In her child’s mind, he would always be a part of her world, like Wes. As an adolescent, she’d never questioned his loyalty; they were a team, like twins. Then they were torn apart. And he walked away, tearing her in half.
I love him, she thought. And she was rapidly falling in love with him. Is this what you wanted, Wes? Did you lure me back because Cas was here?
But Cas wasn’t here, she reminded herself. He was here and then he drove away. She sighed. At least she knew he was safe and now she wouldn’t have to endure the third degree over that slip with the Glock.
The telephone rang.
“It’s me,” said Cas. “Terrence and I are out investigating. Leave the door unlocked. I’ll be back.”
Julie hung up and smiled. So maybe things weren’t so complicated. He wasn’t suspicious about the Glock and she’d tell him the truth befo
re he had a chance to figure it out on his own.
It was getting light when Cas and Terrence cruised slowly down Old Mill Road, looking into driveways for trucks that didn’t belong to the inhabitants.
“None of these people would break and enter,” said Cas.
“You’d be amazed at what people will do,” said Terrence. “I’ll come back tomorrow and ask if anybody saw an unfamiliar van in the middle of the night.” He grinned through his beard. “And poke my head in just for a look-see while I’m asking.”
“Have you ever thought about being sheriff?” asked Cas.
“Nope. The garage is doing good, and if the Roadhouse keeps doing as well as it has been, Tilda and I are getting married.”
“No shit,” said Cas. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. What about you and Julie? Let’s take a quick look-see over at the mill.” Terrence turned off the road and the SUV rattled over the bridge.
“Jesus,” said Cas. “I haven’t been on this thing since I came back. Are you sure it’s safe?”
“Yeah, but the retaining wall is beginning to crumble. One day some kid’s going to be walking along it, and it’ll fall down right under him. Then where will we be? The water probably won’t be higher than his head, but he could get hurt.”
Cas leaned over to look at the two-hundred-year-old wall. It didn’t look like it could hold itself up, much less the water that had been diverted to make a harbor for the river barges that once carried goods down to the Hudson. “Why don’t they tear it down?”
“So why didn’t you answer my question?”
Cas made a pretense of looking out the window, although if anyone had driven over here, they’d be long gone by now. It would take days to search the abandoned houses and the vast interior of the mill for hidden contraband.
Terrence was silent and Cas finally said, “Because I don’t quite know what’s going on.”
“Shit, you’re kidding, right?”
Cas frowned at him. “I ... no, I’m not.”
“They used to call it courting, I’m not sure what they call it now.”
Try great head-banging, libido-freeing sex, thought Cas, but he wasn’t about to share that with Terrence or anyone else. “We’re not exactly doing that, courting. She’s going to be leaving soon, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
“She going back to New York City? Why somebody would want to live there is beyond me. It’s a dangerous place. But I gotta say, that girl can look after herself.”
Yeah, thought Cas. She certainly doesn’t need me to take care of her.
“Even so, I wouldn’t want any woman I loved living alone down there.”
“Love?” Cas yelped the word and then felt the heat rush to his face. “Who said anything about love?” And who was he kidding? He loved her, alright. No doubt about it. “Obvious, huh?”
Terrence pulled on his beard as he guided the truck up a narrow, crooked lane. “Not to me. But Tilda says so and she knows these things.”
“And did the all-knowing Ms. Green happen to say whether Julie loves me back?”
“Tilda says she does, but that she just hasn’t figured it out yet. She’s blocked. That’s what Tilda says.”
“Blocked?”
“Yeah, something she read in one of those magazines she and the girls are always passing around at the beauty parlor. You know the ones at the grocery store that say things like, Give Him What He Wants, But Won’t Ask For. Well, I guess there was an article on how to know if your significant other is in love.”
“And how do you know?”
“Aw hell, I don’t know. I just know that Tilda loves me and that’s enough for me.”
An hour later, Cas backed his truck out of Tilda’s driveway, tired, frustrated, and wanting only to return to Julie’s warm bed, her warm body. But it was after six and she’d be up dealing with her chickens. Cas was too exhausted to help her out and too much of a gentleman to sit while she worked. Besides, he’d be dead to the world by the time she was ready for him.
He flipped open his cell and punched in Wes’s number. It rang ten times before he hung up. Outside with the chickens, he told himself. He passed Highland Avenue and headed for home.
He needed sleep before he could face the Sunday dinner. They would know all about his weekend by this afternoon, and he’d need plenty of patience to deal with their reaction.
Hell, he and Julie were consenting adults, but he couldn’t tell them to mind their own business. Or ask them to accept her as the woman he loved. Reynolds would have a coronary.
He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say, even if they were willing to listen. He couldn’t tell if Julie felt as deeply about him as he did about her. Everything seemed to be a game with her.
And the thing with the gun had him worried.
Hell, his life couldn’t get much more complicated and he had Wes Excelsior to thank for it, and himself to blame. Wes hadn’t really talked about Julie before he died, except reminiscing about the past. Cas let him talk. It seemed to ease the dying man’s final days. Now he realized that maybe Wes wasn’t just comforting himself, but preparing Cas to meet Julie again. Because somehow, Wes had managed to get her to return to Excelsior Falls.
Maybe that’s why she had the gun. She might be afraid to stay in the house by herself. It was pretty isolated. But it didn’t explain why she had been roaming the woods that first night, searching for thieves. Or why she had jumped up when she heard there was a robbery in progress.
Cas’s insides tightened. Julie Excelsior had a few questions to answer—he yawned—as soon as he slept and confronted his family over dinner.
Chapter 19
Julie sat on the kitchen steps, absently stroking Ernestine’s head as she tried to quell her sense of impending doom.
She snorted, her breath making a cloud in front of her. Doom. Wasn’t she her own woman? Hadn’t she handled worse situations than having to explain to Cas that she was a cop? Or at least had been a cop. It wasn’t that big of a deal. She’d let the whole thing get out of proportion. She’d been a good detective and she was proud of it. And if Cas felt inferior because she could hit a target and he couldn’t, well to hell with him.
Instead of moping on the steps, she should be looking for the treasure, looking for a new job. Hell. She should have never left the old one.
And she should definitely stop rehashing her past and start getting on with her future. Right. If that future had any chance of being with Cas, she needed to come clean about everything. Swallow the chagrin she felt every time she thought about being demoted for being honest. Hell. That’s why she didn’t tell him. She’d done the right thing and been given the shaft. Stop beating that dead horse. Let it go and tell Cas.
And where was Cas? You’d think he’d call to let her know he was all right. He must have called and she’d been outside and not heard the phone.
She stood up and went into the house. Spent the morning with one ear listening for the phone.
It finally rang at twelve-forty, Cas letting her know that he was having lunch with his parents and would come over afterwards. “Two hours, three hours max. You get to see me in a suit.”
See, she knew he’d call. And she almost envied his family dinner, except that the family was Marian and Charles Reynolds. So she made herself a bowl of soup and practiced her coming-clean speech while she ate.
Cas knew as soon as Larue showed him into the parlor that he was walking into a full-blown gale. Mel looked up from where she sat on the window seat and frowned a warning at him. Marian perched on the edge of one of the wing chairs as if she were getting ready to pounce—or flee.
Reynolds stood at the fireplace, which today held a blazing fire. He was holding his martini glass tight enough to snap the stem. His face was flushed and Cas guessed that pre-dinner drinks had started early that day.
Christine and Ian were conspicuously missing.
“Where are the Macgregors?” Cas asked, leaning over to give h
is mother a kiss on the cheek.
Her cheek was cool and her posture unyielding and Cas thought, why can’t you show some emotion toward your children?
“Christine isn’t feeling well,” she answered. “I’m sure she’s working too hard. One would think they would hire help.”
“They did—me,” volunteered Melanie with an evil glint in her eye.
“And you know how your father feels on that subject.”
“Well, if I got an allowance, I wouldn’t have to soil my hands with honest labor.” Melanie held up her hands to show them, purposefully turning them so that her black fingernail polish was in full view.
Marian’s look could have frozen her to her seat.
Mel smiled coolly back at her parents, and Cas realized that she was provoking them on purpose. That’s all he needed, to have Reynolds primed for a fight before they even sat down to lunch. Then he wondered if Mel was drawing their fire to keep it from him. It was going to be a long afternoon without Christine and Ian running interference.
He went to the drinks cart and poured himself a Scotch that he didn’t intend to drink but thought he might need just to have something to do to pass the time until Larue rang them in. He would eat and leave—back to Julie.
It seemed to Cas that Larue announced dinner earlier than usual. Maybe because they’d started happy hour early. Happy hour, he thought sardonically. If only.
He walked Melanie into the dining room.
She lagged behind until Reynolds had left the room. “They know about Julie,” she whispered to him. “Watch your back.”
Cas nodded, aware that his mother’s radar was on full alert.
Dinner passed as always, except that it went more quickly without the full complement of guests. He could be at Julie’s in less than two hours if after-dinner coffee went as quickly.
But as they were returning to the parlor, his father motioned him back toward the library instead. As Cas followed him down the hall, he wondered, not for the first time, why he never stood up to his father. He wasn’t a coward. But it had always been easier to put up with Reynolds’s bouts of ill humor than it was to deal with them. Because Reynolds never listened to reason.
