Murder Fir Christmas

by Joyce Lavene

  She checked the maps against known mineral areas that included rivers and streams where Harvey might have found his ruby.

  “Not that it especially matters,” she said aloud. “But where did you find it?”

  Maybe it was better not to know. She’d have to include it in a report, and when that leaked out as it always seemed to do, that river or stream would be inundated with miners hoping to match Harvey’s big score.

  Bonnie heard a noise at the window and looked up to find Dustu coming in the house through the large pane. The little wolf was at his feet as he warmed his hands near the fire in the hearth.

  “How did you get in here?” she asked the shaman. “What do you want?”

  “I’m here to help you, as is your wolf.” He smiled broadly. “Remember that you don’t need to find the ruby. You need to find the killer, or he could kill again. He seeks the ruby and doesn’t care how he comes by it. Protect yourself, Unega Awinita. You are more valuable than this thing he seeks.”

  The little wolf grinned too and wagged his tail.

  “I think you should leave,” she told the shaman and then turned to the wolf. “And you should get back in your kennel.”

  The wolf howled loudly and woke her up. She’d been asleep with her face on the desk, drooling a little on the wood. She wiped it up quickly and went to check on the wolf. He wasn’t in his kennel, and she found him asleep on her bed again.

  Before she could walk him back to his kennel and demand that he stay there, there was a loud knock on the front door. She was still in the clothes she’d slept in but ran her hand through her hair and went to answer.

  It was a man with two children who wanted a Christmas tree. They didn’t really open until nine a.m., but she remembered her father opening whenever he needed to and invited them in for a warm drink while she put on her boots and jacket.

  Rose got up and made steaming bowls of oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar. The man was from Frog Pond. His wife was a nurse who was working the morning shift at the hospital in Sevierville. He wanted to surprise her when she came home by having the Christmas tree up in the living room. His two little girls were loud and full of energy. They ran ahead in the snow after breakfast as they argued about which tree was the perfect one.

  The three hawks that had been on the hood of the truck yesterday called to Bonnie from the roof of the barn, as if demonstrating that the one she’d tended was all right. She nodded to them as she picked up a chainsaw and headed to the tree the girls had chosen.

  The tree was cut and bundled by nine a.m. and then tied to the top of the car. She waved goodbye to the family, who’d paid well for their tree. The money had made up for what she’d lost the day before. Had this been the way it was for Eric and her father? She’d have to remember to ask him when he came back for Christmas.

  The pepper factory foreman called about an injured deer that had been found in the parking lot. Bonnie promised to be there as soon as she could—which included time to shower and change clothes. The wolf had gone back into the kennel without her help this time. It seemed pointless to bother closing the door since he came and went as he pleased. She gave him some chicken and wondered how he and the shaman had managed to get into her dreams.

  “I think I’m getting too close to you too, little man.” She reached a hand to stroke his coat. He looked up but ignored her as she touched him. “No. This can’t happen. I have to find you a home.”

  Bonnie told Rose she’d be back for lunch and went out to the Hummer. There were no injured animals and no sign of Matthew. She was alone to work as she chose, as she’d been most of the time in Alabama. The Hummer was loud as she started it, but she’d get used to it. She’d get used to all of this as part of her new life.

  Life had made her a pragmatic woman. She’d made one big mistake early on that had cost her dearly. Recovering from that had meant being more careful than most people—she looked more than once before she took a step, much less a leap. None of that had changed since she got home. The shaman in her dream was probably nothing more than her own subconscious warning her to be careful.

  That was one thing no one had to warn her about.

  The pepper plant on the high hill overlooking Sweet Pepper was at full shift that morning. With the ice and snow completely gone, the factory the town had been built around was humming along. Bonnie had called ahead and the plant manager met her in the parking lot.

  “She’s back here.” The plant manager walked her around to the area where trucks would normally be parked to take the hottest, sweetest peppers in the world to market. “The men who found her just wanted to put her out of her misery.”

  “I’m glad you stopped them,” she said.

  “I told them there was a stiff penalty for shooting a doe out of season,” he continued. “I won’t have that going against the pepper plant. What you do from here is up to you, Agent Tuttle.”

  He walked away without offering any other assistance. Bonnie revised her initial impression of him. He wasn’t interested in helping the doe. He just wanted her off the property in the least troublesome manner.

  “Okay.” She knelt on the cold blacktop and stroked the doe’s head. “Looks like you got hit by something. I’m guessing you can’t get up.”

  The doe made a snorting sound and moved her head, her large, brown eyes staring into Bonnie’s in fear and pain.

  “Let’s see where the problem is and what we can do to get you out of here.”

  Bonnie checked the doe’s front legs—they seemed to be fine—and then her back legs. Her left back leg seemed to be broken, her hoof bent at a strange angle. When she touched it, the doe started up trying to get away. Bonnie soothed her and convinced her to stay where she was.

  She realized she was going to have to move her, but it was at least a two person job. It would’ve been better if Matthew had been there, but she was used to figuring these things out on her own.

  Going back to the Hummer, she backed the vehicle until it was close to the doe. She assured the doe again that she’d be fine but her injury needed more than Bonnie could provide at the scene.

  “Don’t worry,” she told the doe as she took out the large, heavy harness. It was attached to a winch that could raise and lower heavy animals. “Let’s just get this around you, and we’ll have you up in the back in no time. We’re going to have to find that vet that takes care of wild animals. But you’re going to be fine.”

  The doe gave her a skeptical look. Bonnie wished she really could speak to animals. She could reassure the doe of everything she was saying.

  Bonnie got the harness on the doe and kept her hand on the doe’s neck as the winch pulled the harness up. She gently pushed the harness toward the back of the hummer and lowered the doe inside. She was pleased when the animal was safely in the vehicle and glad she had the harness and winch to work with. Sometimes she had one in Alabama, and sometimes she had to share it with others.

  “All right. This is going to be loud and bumpy, but everything will be better once we get to the vet. Trust me, you’re going to be fine.”

  The doe made bleating noises of protest and tried to get up. But after a few minutes, she lay down her head and was quiet.

  With the back door closed and the doe secure, she drove to the far edge of the parking lot so she wouldn’t be in the way of vehicles going in and out. She looked up the phone number she’d been given to contact the wildlife vet in Sevierville. She had to leave a message, of course. The only address was a post office box number, so she couldn’t just GPS the vet and find him by herself.

  That meant waiting for a return call.

  “I’m sorry,” she told the doe. “But at least you’re not on the cold parking lot ground. We’ll just have to wait until we hear back.”

  Waiting was hard when she knew the doe was hurt. She left two more messages for the vet, including one where she gave him instructions on how to find her. That would save some time if he decided to come out this way.

&
nbsp; She didn’t hear anything back from the vet and kept calling. During one call she glanced out the side window and looked at the old ice house. The door was wide open. Someone was careless. Maybe they’d shut it off. If not, it was cooling all of Sweet Pepper. It probably didn’t matter since the temperature in the ice house was about the same as it was outside the ice house.

  Still, she had some time on her hands. She promised the doe that she’d be right back and went to check on the situation.

  The door was open because the lock had been cut off. The tables where they’d kept Harvey and Ray Hoy had been tossed aside. It looked as though someone had vandalized the place. It wasn’t hard to guess what they were searching for. By now, word of the missing ruby would have been all over town. She could see where it would be a sensible place to look for it if the police hadn’t already extensively searched.

  She turned to walk out of the ice house and heard a sound before it felt like the back of her head exploded and she fell to the floor.

  Chapter Twenty

  The next thing Bonnie knew, someone was calling her name. She opened her eyes and saw three pairs of eyes looking back at her. Her head was pounding, and she felt like she was going to throw up.

  “What happened?” She put one hand to the back of her head and tried to sit up.

  “Not so fast,” one of the men, a stranger, advised.

  “Someone hit you in the head,” John Trump said. “D.W. called when he found you here on the floor.”

  “D.W.?” Bonnie asked.

  “You called me about the doe, remember? D.W. Vance.” The older man with the huge, gray beard reminded her. “Sit still a minute. Let me take a look at your head.”

  “Uh…you’re a vet,” Matthew reminded him. “She’s a person. You should go tend to the deer. John, call an ambulance.”

  “I’m okay.” Bonnie shrugged off all three of them and got to her feet. She was woozy but didn’t fall over again. “Why would someone hit me in the head?”

  “Probably looking for the ruby,” John said. “Looks like they worked this place over.”

  “I guess that means the killer must still be on the loose and trying to find the ruby,” Matthew added.

  “What ruby?” D.W. asked as he felt around on the back of Bonnie’s skull. “I don’t feel a fracture, and you’re not bleeding. They just hit you hard enough to knock you out. You have a low threshold of consciousness, most likely, and uh…you might want to button up there. And your pockets are pulled out. I think someone worked you over too, Agent Tuttle.”

  He fastened the buttons left open on her shirt, and she pushed in her pockets. Her cell phone and radio were still on her, along with her gun and Taser.

  “What do you want me to do with the doe?” D.W. asked.

  Bonnie wanted to sit down but was afraid she wouldn’t make it to the Hummer. She stood still instead and waited for the dizziness to pass. Coffee and an aspirin would be good about then. “I think she has a broken leg. Can you treat her?”

  He nodded, his long, blondish gray hair swinging into his face. “Sure. I can treat her. Can you pay?”

  “I can.” She nodded, stopping abruptly when her head felt like it was going to fall off. “Or rather, I can put in a voucher with the Wildlife Agency so you get paid.”

  His bright blue eyes lingered on her face. “You’re new here. You can’t save every animal that gets hit by a car, shot by a gun or an arrow, or all the other things that happen. The agency won’t pay for it, and then you and I would have a problem.”

  “Maybe this isn’t the best time to negotiate that deal,” John said. “Grab my keys, Brown Elk. I’ll take Bonnie in the Hummer.”

  “You can’t drive the Hummer,” Matthew told him. “Only someone who works for the feds can do that. Ask her if you don’t believe me.”

  “This is an emergency,” John replied. “And I’m an officer of the law, not to mention that she’ll be in the vehicle. I’m taking her back to town hall to fill out a police report.”

  “All right.” Matthew took John’s keys and went to the police car.

  “I’ll make an exception with the doe this time,” D.W. told Bonnie. “You fellas help me move the deer to my pickup. Give me a call later, Agent. We’ll talk then.”

  It was all a little foggy for Bonnie. She could barely remember getting in the Hummer and ending up at town hall. She woke up again lying on a worn sofa in the police breakroom with several officers staring at her.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Officer Skeet Richardson said with a cup of coffee in one hand and a donut in the other. “How’s that head doing?”

  “They should have taken her to the hospital,” Officer Nancy Bradford said. “Don’t we even get medical attention anymore?”

  “I’m fine,” Bonnie said. “Thanks. I could really use some coffee and an aspirin.”

  “Help yourself,” Skeet said and then mindful of her injury, got aspirin, coffee, and a donut for her. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

  “I’m sure. Thank you.”

  He stepped into the hall outside the breakroom and told John that she was awake.

  “You look better.” John summed up her appearance. “Are you up to a debriefing with Chief Rogers?”

  She nodded and her head hurt but didn’t feel as though she might lose it. “His office?”

  “Conference room. The coroner is here too.”

  John led the way. Judd Streeter and Chief Rogers were waiting in the conference room with Stella and another man that Bonnie didn’t recognize.

  “How are you?” Stella asked. “John tells me you have a hard head like me too.”

  “I guess so.” Bonnie found a place to sit and waited. Stella introduced her to Rufus Palcomb. They’d spoken on the radio but hadn’t met yet.

  “Looks like we’ve got some good news and some bad news,” Chief Rogers began the conversation as everyone took a seat around the table. “First off, we had to let our only suspect go this morning. We checked his .38 against the bullet taken from Harvey Shelton, and it wasn’t a match. That, and the attack on Agent Tuttle tells us we’re on the wrong track. His lawyer took him home after getting the breaking and entering charge against him reduced by the DA.”

  “What’s the good news?” Stella asked.

  “The good news sounds a lot like the bad news,” the chief said. “Because Agent Tuttle was clearly attacked by someone looking for the ruby, we know the killer is still out there and hasn’t managed to find and sell it.”

  Judd cleared his throat and laughed. “It seems I have the best news of all—despite the fact that Chief Rogers upstaged me by giving you forensic information.”

  The chief nodded. “Sorry, Judd.”

  “That’s quite all right.”

  They all waited as the coroner produced a plastic bag that contained the red velvet bag they believed Harvey had used to carry the ruby around with him.

  “I was puzzling over how the ruby could be missing from the jeweler’s bag and yet no one seemed to have the stone. I thought a lot about this one and went back to the body for evidence. There it was.” He paused for effect until he brought out another evidence bag that held a large red gemstone. “And here it is.”

  Everyone around the table marveled at the size of the pigeon-blood ruby. It was beautiful, raw and uncut, a stone worth dying for.

  “How did you miss it the first time?” Chief Rogers asked. “And where did you find it? We thoroughly searched his clothes.”

  “It was lodged in his esophagus.” Judd held the stone up to the light. “I believe Harvey thought he could swallow it and keep his killer from getting it. He died before it could get to his stomach, which was why I didn’t find it the first time around.”

  John Trump sat back in his chair with a sigh. “That just makes it harder to catch the killer. We were hoping we could get him when he tried to sell the stone. That can’t happen now.”

  They all agreed with that. Suggestions flew fast and furiously around th
e table, but nothing more really came of the meeting. Stella and Rufus, the pilot of the Tennessee Teardrop fireboat, couldn’t recall seeing a particularly strange boat at the fire since there were so many boats.

  “It wasn’t just our boats or police boats,” Stella said. “There were dozens of boats with people who just wanted to see what was going on. If any of them was the killer, my people were too busy with the fire to look around to see if there was a rifle.”

  Chief Rogers nodded. “Like I said, good and bad news. We have no suspect, but we have the ruby. I spoke with Harvey’s family. They didn’t know anything about the stone or the beach house. I tend to believe them because the real estate people I spoke with only met with Harvey and the property was only in his name.”

  “So maybe he didn’t even plan to take his family,” Stella said.

  “I don’t know,” the chief admitted. “Let’s work on a strategy, people. I don’t want the FBI in here investigating the death of a Federal Wildlife Agent—which they assuredly will be, unless we come up with something. Have you heard anything from the FBI or your superiors in Wildlife, Bonnie?”

  “No, sir. But I’ve been out a lot with not much cell service,” she admitted. “I can make some calls and see what’s planned.”

  “Thanks, but let’s not start a fire if we don’t have a steak,” Chief Rogers chuckled at his own humor. “All right, then. All of you keep me up to date on anything you find out.”

  The group began to leave the room. Stella stayed an extra moment to talk to Bonnie and make sure she was all right.

  “I guess you didn’t see anything,” she said, with Rufus beside her on one side.

  Bonnie wondered if Eric Gamlyn was on her other side. “No, the attack came from behind.”

  “This man must be desperate to attack you looking for the ruby,” Rufus suggested. “Maybe there’s some way to use that against him.”

  “Good idea, Palcomb,” John said. “Come up with a plan to do it.”