Alberta Alibi

by Dayle Gaetz

  But he only told them the police were in his office with a search warrant and explained why. Sheila and Huntley listened politely and nodded occasionally, as if they knew nothing about it. When he was done, Dad said, “You’d better go upstairs and wake your friends.”

  Sheila and the others sat at the kitchen table, eating cereal and watching the two police officers walk past carrying stacks of papers. They even took the recycling bin. Just as Huntley had predicted, they took the computer and then returned for the rifles.

  While the police searched upstairs, the kids went outside. They stopped near the police vehicle. “We need to watch them,” Katie whispered, “and see what they take.”

  “Sure, but we can’t just stand here and stare,” Rusty said.

  “No,” Sheila agreed. “But we could watch from the corral. How about Huntley and I give you guys a riding lesson?”

  Rusty turned pale. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Besides, we already know how to ride. We spent all day in the saddle yesterday, remember?”

  “Well, yeah,” Sheila nodded. “But the police don’t know that. Besides, you could use some practice trotting.”

  “Oh man!” Rusty groaned.

  “How about you two give us a demonstration?” Katie suggested. She seemed as hesitant as Rusty.

  Sheila and Huntley looked at one another. They both grinned. “Okay,” Sheila said, “but only if you admit you’re a little bit sore from yesterday.”

  “A little?” Rusty asked. “I may never again sit down without pain!”

  They all turned to Katie. “Okay, I admit it, I have a sore butt! If it means I don’t have to ride today, I’ll admit to just about anything. Besides, I need to take notes.”

  While Sheila and Huntley put their horses through their paces, Katie and Rusty took up positions on the fence where they could watch the riders, the front door and the police vehicle. But the results were disappointing. The men came outside carrying large bags that they placed in the back of their SUV. It was impossible to tell what was inside the bags.

  Sheila was trotting Silver around the corral when the Mounties walked over to her dad’s truck. The thinner man leaned inside and lifted something from the floor. He passed it to his partner, then leaned inside again. Sheila pulled her horse up short. The Mountie returned to his vehicle carrying a red plastic gasoline container.

  Sheila’s stomach turned over when the second Mountie followed, carrying a rifle at his side. Sheila tapped Silver’s sides until he broke into a canter.

  12

  Sheila slowed Silver to a walk and tried not to watch the white SUV drive slowly down the long driveway, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away. She was afraid it would stop, reverse and come roaring back to the house, lights flashing and siren wailing.

  She held her breath when it stopped at the road. Her hands fidgeted with the reins. Then the police vehicle made a right turn. Flashes of white appeared and disappeared along the row of pines that lined the fence until finally it was out of sight.

  Sheila’s stomach fluttered as she walked Silver to the barn door and dismounted. She led him through the wide doorway, knowing Huntley had stopped near the fence where Katie and Rusty stood. She refused to look at them. They would be all sorry and sympathetic, they would smile and try to cheer her up. If only they would simply go away, she could handle that much better.

  Sheila knew exactly what they were thinking, and she couldn’t blame them. They thought her dad was guilty. Maybe she should climb back up on Silver and ride away. Take off across the grasslands where she wouldn’t need to talk to anyone. She patted Silver’s neck, but she didn’t feel like riding, not anymore.

  Sheila removed Silver’s saddle and bridle and put them in the tack room. The horse didn’t need grooming, but she stood beside him anyway and brushed his thick silver mane.

  “At least you don’t think he’s guilty, do you, Silver?” “Who’s guilty?”

  Katie’s voice, so close behind, made Sheila jump. “I wish you wouldn’t sneak up on me like that!” Sheila snapped.

  “I didn’t mean to sneak. I just walked across the barn like a normal person. I thought you knew I was here. I thought you were ignoring me again.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing, Sheila—I just want to talk to you.” Katie hesitated. “You okay?”

  “What do you think?” Sheila growled. She ran the brush through Silver’s mane.

  “I think it’s time we got busy,” Katie said.

  Outside, Huntley was trying to convince Rusty to go for a short horseback ride down to the swimming hole.

  “I’m not riding anywhere,” Rusty insisted. “How about I walk and meet you there?”

  At the fence, Sheila listened and thought how good a swim would feel. The sun already beat down hard, and a hot, dry wind stirred dust into the air. She turned to ask Katie what she wanted to do, but Katie wasn’t there.

  A flash of white caught her eye, and she spotted Katie’s T-shirt and red shorts just disappearing behind the cottonwoods. Sheila ran and caught up to her on the lane that led around the grove of tall trees.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To question the foreman.”

  “What? Ben? You can’t question him!”

  “Why not?” Katie didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down.

  “Because it’s not like he’s just a ranch hand; he’s more like a friend or…something.” Sheila struggled to find words that would convince Katie to give up this stupid idea. She didn’t want Katie to go stomping into Ben’s house and accuse him of something he didn’t do. Ben might not mind shooting animals, but he was no more likely to shoot at a person than her dad was. For as long as Sheila could remember, Ben had lived here. He helped her learn to ride and train Silver.

  “I’m not going to question him, exactly,” Katie said. “I just want to find out if he knows anything.”

  “Don’t you think he would have told us by now?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes witnesses don’t realize they saw something important until you question them.”

  “So Ben’s a witness now?”

  “Could be.”

  The cottage looked a lot like the main house, but on a smaller scale. It was painted white, with a covered porch across the front. Its steep roof had two dormer windows that made it look as if there were bedrooms upstairs, but Sheila knew there was only a loft up there, where Ben had his office.

  They reached the front door—still green, Sheila was pleased to see. She lifted the door knocker, shaped like a horse’s head, and tapped four times.

  A minute later the door swung open and Ben stood on the threshold, grinning down at them. “So this is your friend Katie?”

  Sheila nodded.

  “Pleased to meet you, Katie.” He shook her hand. “Any friend of Sheila is a friend of mine. Come on in, girls. I was just finishing my coffee in the kitchen. Ryan’s gone to the city for a couple of days, left last night.”

  Just as in the main house, to the right of the front door was a row of pegs for jackets, a top shelf for hats and a low shelf for boots. Ben’s old, brown winter jacket hung on one peg, a brown leather vest on another. There was one cowboy hat, light brown, on the top shelf. Sheila smiled to see that it still had the leather band she braided for Ben the same year she made the white one for her dad. Ben’s was brown of course. It seemed everything Ben owned, other than his work shirt, was brown. Even his last name was Brown.

  She wondered if Ryan liked brown as much as his father did. Ryan used to wear a cowboy hat the same as his dad’s, but it was probably too small for him now. Come to think of it, she hadn’t noticed him wearing a hat.

  The living room and dining area to the right were flooded with light from one of the dormers above. The door on their left was closed, but Sheila knew it was Ben’s bedroom. Behind his room, along a short hall that ran behind a steep ladder-like stairway to the loft, was the bathroom, and beyond that was Ryan’s room at the back of the
house. They followed Ben through the wide-open living room and dining area to a small kitchen.

  Ben’s kitchen might be tiny, but it was as neat as a kitchen can be. Unlike Sheila’s dad, Ben always insisted that everything be in its place. His coffee mug sat on the counter in front of a high stool with a newspaper neatly folded by it. The coffeepot was already washed and sat gleaming on the coffee machine.

  “Have a seat, girls.” Ben waved at the two high stools in front of the counter.

  “Uh…if you don’t mind, I’d rather stand,” Katie said, eyeing the hard wooden stool.

  “Suit yourself.” Ben smiled knowingly, winked at Sheila and then said, “I’ve got some chocolate milk.

  Do you still like it as much as you used to, Cowgirl?”

  “Sounds good,” Sheila said, although she didn’t feel like drinking anything right now, with the way her stomach was leaping around. She worried Katie would embarrass her or hurt Ben’s feelings, or both.

  Katie stood at the end of the counter and flipped open her notebook. She thanked Ben for the chocolate milk and ate one of the graham wafers spread with peanut butter Ben put on a plate.

  Ben perched on the stool next to Sheila, sipped his coffee, put the mug down and asked, “Why do I get the feeling you two aren’t simply here for the pleasure of my company?”

  Sheila almost choked on her chocolate milk. How did he know? What should she say? “Katie thinks you might know something you don’t know you know,” she told him.

  “How can I know it if I don’t know I know it?” Crinkles fanned out from Ben’s eyes.

  Sheila tried to laugh, but she suddenly felt like crying. She stared at her chocolate milk, wrapped her fingers around the cold, frosty glass and waited for someone else to speak because there was a lump in her throat that made talking impossible.

  “The thing is, Mr. Brown…”

  “Please, call me Ben! Nobody calls me Mr. Brown, makes me sound like a politician—or a criminal,” he chuckled.

  Katie smiled politely. “The thing is, Ben, that you were there on the night in question…”

  “What question…sorry, bad habit. I promise not to interrupt again.”

  “The night the night watchman was shot,” Katie explained, “you were up at the house, right?”

  Ben nodded.

  “So you might have seen something important to the case. Can you please tell me what happened, in your own words?”

  “Well, I generally tend to use my own words on account of whose would I use if I didn’t use mine?”

  Ben slapped his hand to his forehead. “Oops! Sorry again.” He took a deep breath, sipped his coffee and stared out the window. A moment later he said, “Okay, here’s how it went. Chris called me about ten thirty on the night in question. Said he was worried about the calves up on the range to the north.

  Apparently our neighbor up that way called about some problem with wolves.”

  He spoke slowly, a half smile on his face, while Katie scribbled in her notebook.

  “I asked if he wanted me to ride along, and he said he’d be fine, but he was concerned about leaving young Huntley on his own. I was about ready to turn in, but said I’d come on up to the house, there’s a movie I’ve been wanting to watch on his big-screen TV. And that’s what I did.”

  “Was Chris there when you arrived?” Katie asked.

  Ben shook his head. “Nope, didn’t see him, must have just left.”

  “What about the truck?”

  Ben frowned. “The truck? Can’t recall. I assumed he’d taken Pita though. That’s rough terrain for his old beater.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, let’s see.” He rubbed a hand over his chin.

  “I zipped upstairs to see if Huntley wanted to watch the movie, but he was already sawing logs, he’d put in a full day’s work—he’s a good worker, that boy.”

  Sheila scowled and sipped her chocolate milk.

  “Then I made myself some coffee so I could stay awake. I went to the living room, slipped my video in the machine and settled on the couch.”

  “Did you watch the whole movie?”

  “You kidding? Have you tried that couch? It’s so soft you feel like you’re floating in the clouds. And I’d been working hard since six o’clock that morning. Don’t think I got through ten minutes before I nodded off. Never touched my coffee. Next thing I knew, the back door creaked open and I leapt off the couch. Couldn’t believe it was after two already!”

  “Was it Chris?”

  “Chris? At the door?” He shook his head. “That’s what I figured at first.”

  “So who was it?”

  “Turned out to be Ryan, my son. He came looking for me, said he got worried when I was so late.”

  “Does he have keys for the house?”

  “I generally leave all the keys right there,” he nodded at a row of key hooks beside the door, “but I took them with me that night. Ryan found a key for the back door he used as a kid. That’s why he came in that way, he took the shortcut to the back of the house.”

  “Then what?”

  “Uh…let me think. I went into the hall to meet Ryan, we talked for a minute and then I went back to shut off the TV. Ryan offered to stay at the house until Chris came home.”

  “And? Did he?”

  “No need. That’s when Chris arrived at the front door. We said goodnight and wandered on home.”

  “So you both went out the front door?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you notice the truck then?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. It was there all right. I remember because it was pinging away like it does when it cools. Sounded way louder in the quiet night.”

  “Which means the truck had been running,” Katie said, making a careful note.

  “Well, yeah, I guess you’re right. I was too sleepy to think about it at the time, but now you mention it, I guess I did know something I didn’t know I knew!”

  13

  Worse and worse. Everything they learned made her dad look guiltier. If he went out in the truck that night, then…she couldn’t think about it right now. With her thumb, Sheila traced a big “x” in the condensation on her chocolate milk glass and vaguely heard Katie ask to use the bathroom.

  “Sure thing, just down the hall next to Ryan’s room.” Ben nodded in that direction.

  Katie closed her notebook, placed her pen and empty glass on top, gave Sheila a warning glance and left the room.

  Sheila wondered what that was about.

  “Your friend fancies herself a detective, does she?” Ben asked after they heard the bathroom door close.

  Sheila nodded. “Katie manages to stumble across a mystery everywhere she goes, like she’s some kind of bad-luck charm.” She stared at her hands, fingers locked together on the countertop. “I should never have brought her here.”

  “What? Sheila, whatever happens has been in the works for a long time and would have happened no matter who came visiting. But if you ask me, you’ve got to keep that girl in check before someone gets hurt!”

  “Ben, you don’t think my dad did it?”

  “Chris? Shoot at someone? Are you kidding? That man doesn’t even like to shoot a wolf. He’ll only kill one as a last resort.”

  “You and I know that, but the police think he’s guilty. A truck just like his was spotted near the development on the night in question. Then, today, his missing rifle showed up in the truck.”

  “What?” Ben plunked his mug down so hard, drops of coffee bounced over the top. “Are you sure?”

  Sheila nodded. “The police found it. And a gas can too! Now you say Dad’s truck was out that night.”

  As soon as she said this, Sheila gasped. She had suddenly remembered half waking the night before and thinking she heard a truck start up.

  Ben placed his rough, callused hand over Sheila’s and gave it a comforting pat. “Now, don’t you worry. Everything will work out for the best, you’ll see.”

 
He glanced at his watch. “Do you think Katie has set up camp in the bathroom?”

  As he said this, Sheila thought she heard a soft footstep in the hall. Then the bathroom door opened and Katie strolled back toward the kitchen.

  “Show me this shortcut,” Katie said when they were outside.

  Sheila led the way to a narrow path that cut straight through the cottonwoods.

  Once on the path, Katie stopped and bent over her notebook.

  “What are you writing?” Sheila asked.

  “Just a note about what I saw.”

  “In Ben’s cottage?”

  Katie nodded. “In Ryan’s room.”

  “You went into Ryan’s room? You’re not supposed to do that. How nosy can you get? How would you like someone snooping around in your room? You don’t even like it if anyone reads your notebook!”

  Katie shrugged. “That’s personal. This is an investigation.”

  “So? What did you see?”

  “Only a black cowboy hat. It’s on the shelf in his closet.”

  Sheila felt a burst of hope. “And? Did it have a white band? Was there a feather?”

  “No,” Katie admitted. “Not that I could find.”

  Her hopes sank. “Do you know how many black cowboy hats are in Alberta?”

  The path ended at the back patio, but neither of them felt like going inside just yet, so they continued to the front of the house. Both girls stopped abruptly. At first glance Sheila thought the RCMP had returned, and her heart crashed into her stomach with a sickening thud. Then she realized the white SUV parked beside her dad’s old blue truck was tiny compared to the RCMP vehicle. On the door was a blue decal in the shape of a horseshoe with bright red lettering around its inside edge. The girls moved closer to read the words “Cottonwood Creek Ranch.”

  “That’s the Arnesens’ ranch,” Sheila said, “where Huntley lives now.”

  “The car must belong to his mom,” Katie said.

  “She must be back from Calgary.”

  They both turned to the house, its red door thrown wide open. They glanced at one another, then hurried across the yard, up the steps and through the door.