[To Die For 02] - A Book to Die For (2014)

by Richard Houston

  “You think he’s the poacher?” she asked, breaking away from my grasp and walking toward Alec’s truck.

  She acted confused or angry. I couldn’t tell which. Maybe it was both. Fred must have felt it too. He followed her to the truck and tried to get her attention by rubbing up against her legs. When she bent down to pet him, I could see she was crying.

  “I’m sorry, Bon. I never seem to know when to keep my big mouth shut,” I said while walking over to her and Fred. I felt like a little kid again when I told my mother the truth after she had asked me if her new dress made her look fat.

  “I know, Jake,” she answered without taking her eyes off Fred. He was really playing it up by moving his head so she would rub his ears now that he had her attention. “But what if it is his blood? What if he’s laying dead in that mine. Where is he?”

  “He’s not in the mine. I swept my light over every square inch of that place. I also didn’t see any fresh tracks in the tailings outside the mine,” I answered, bending down on one knee to pet Fred while looking Bonnie in the face.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Our footprints are sharp and crisp. All the others are barely noticeable.”

  She was really upset now. She was actually shaking. “Not the tracks. How can you be so sure he’s not in there?”

  I stood up and reached out for her hand, pretending to steady myself, but really in an attempt to comfort her. “Alec didn’t go into that mine, at least not recently. Think about it, Bon. Both the truck doors left open and his phone on the floor. It looks like he was trying to get away from whoever was in the passenger seat. Kids now days wouldn’t leave their smart phones behind unless they were running for their lives. Why don’t you go back to my Jeep while me and Fred search the area on the other side of those weeds where he found the knife?”

  The way she squeezed my hand told me her answer before she said it. “No way, Jake. I’m going with you boys and that’s that.”

  It didn’t take long to pick up the trail again once we came on another mine. This one was only an exploratory hole, not a real mine, but the tailings around it had fresh footprints. Alec and someone else had been running. The distance between the prints was too great for walking. It looked like Alec ran for thirty feet or so past the tailings and headed toward a gulley another fifty yards away. We found the prints again in some grass just before the gulley. They had to be recent, for the grass, or what passed as grass at this elevation, was still laying flat. I couldn’t actually see footprints, but the bent grass was all I needed. Fred saw, or smelled them, too. He took off toward the gulley like a fox on the scent of a rabbit, which is how Fred found Alec.

  Chapter 13

  It was totally dark by the time the mountain rescue team lifted Alec from the pit and secured him in the helicopter. Bonnie and I would have been two more victims of the open mine shaft if Fred hadn’t found it first. His sixth sense, or maybe his close proximity to the ground, had seen the nearly invisible hole before we could fall into it like Alec had. It was another exploratory hole dug by a miner over a hundred years ago. Those holes were required back then in order to stake a claim. Brush had grown up around the hole in those hundred years or so making the mine a death trap to the careless. Alec had fallen twenty feet straight down. The only thing that saved him was a pile of old tires someone had dumped in the hole. There was no one else. Whoever had been chasing Alec must have seen him fall and ran away long before we arrived.

  I didn’t get a helicopter ride to the hospital with Alec and Bonnie. I had the privilege of being interrogated by Clear Creek’s finest on what we were doing there. The search team had found the meth lab and the sheriff’s deputy in charge was sure I had something to do with it. I would be sitting in a cell in Idaho Springs right now if not for Fred. The deputy felt sorry for Fred, or so he said, knowing he would be taken to an animal shelter if they locked me up. Once the deputy confirmed we had no prior drug convictions, or any wants or warrants against us, we were allowed to go our own way with the cliché of being told not to leave town.

  Without a television to watch or light to read a book by, I decided to do a little research on the knife later that night. While browsing a web page on hunting knives, I ran across an interesting article on hunting bows. Like most web searches, I was led down a path that had nothing to do with knives, but it did confirm what I already suspected. Jonathan and Alec were the prime suspects for poaching.

  I had been diverted to a page on bows and archery. Unlike guns, it’s pretty hard to trace bows and there are few restrictions on who can own one, but I remembered Julie said it was an expensive custom bow. It didn’t take long to find that the better compound bow manufacturers’ number each one that they made. That was no earthshaking revelation. I’d look pretty foolish pointing a finger at the father and son team based on that. Then I searched for Jonathan plus archery and found a news clipping on Jonathan placing in a local archery competition. I was pretty sure Julie could do a DNA match on the bear remains, and the blood on Alec’s knife. It was also a good bet she could trace the bow they found in my motor home to Jonathan as well. I’d not only get Chuck off my back, but I’d collect that thousand dollar reward too.

  Fred and I returned to the crime scene later the next day after visiting Alec at the hospital. Bonnie, Margot and Jonathan had spent the night, keeping a vigil over Alec. The poor kid was in a coma. It was the first time I’d seen him without his nose and lip rings. The nurses had removed those to put tubes down his throat. It wasn’t the time to ask Margot to get Chuck to drop his lawsuit. That would require me to explain why I thought Alec was an accomplice to the poaching. I wasn’t quite ready to point out the poaching mastermind, not with him in the room.

  Returning to the mine had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now I wasn’t so sure. The ride up the mountain was too much for my old Jeep. Water was gushing out from under the hood and the engine kept trying to go on its own long after I had shut it off.

  I was cussing at my Wagoneer when Fred went into his attack mode with his ears back and the hair along his spine standing straight up. Something, or someone, had spooked him. He was walking in a crouching position toward the mine when all of a sudden his ears went up and his hair down and he began wagging his tail. He was off into the mine like a cat after a mouse. “Get back here, Fred,” I yelled too late. “There could be a bear in there.” Then I saw why he was so happy.

  Julie was coming out of the mine and bent down to rub Fred’s head. “I know I can be grumpy at times, Jake, but I’ve never been accused of being a bear.”

  The afternoon light made her hair seem redder than I remembered. She had just taken off her warden’s cap to shake her hair loose. I suppose it was to rid herself of imaginary bats or bugs. The supermodels on the cover of Vogue would kill to look the way she did just now.

  “More like Goldilocks, if you ask me,” I answered. “What are you doing up here all by yourself? Aren’t you afraid the big bad wolf might get you?”

  She stood up from petting Fred and smiled. “Got your fairy tales a little mixed up, don’t you? That was Little Red Riding Hood the wolf was after, but I should be safe now that the fearless woodsman has arrived.”

  Her smile was infectious. My mood changed instantly and I completely forgot about my own problems. All I could think of was what a fool I had been to let her get away.

  “How have you been, Julie?” I asked after I made my way over to her and my dog.

  “It’s only been a couple days,” she answered. The smile had faded. “How have you guys been?”

  “Sad,” I answered. “And foolish, you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in years. I really miss you.”

  “Then shut up and kiss me, Jake. I missed you too.”

  We left my ailing Wagoneer behind and rode into town in the state issued SUV she had parked out of sight behind a pile of mine tailings. I assumed it was a habit wildlife agents developed to hide from their prey. It explained why she had s
urprised me coming out of the mine. I never once gave a thought to Bonnie or Alec after the first kiss. Julie had me in her spell and I was enjoying every moment with her.

  We found an old, pet-friendly, motel along the river in Idaho Springs and now we were famished. It must have been all the energy spent from making love in the middle of the afternoon. I waited outside by the river with Fred while Julie got ready to go into town.

  It always amazed me how most women wouldn’t think of leaving the house without their makeup. Julie not only carried her makeup with her, she also kept a change of clothes in her SUV for emergencies like this. At least that’s what she said. Being of a completely different gender, Fred and I didn’t even bother to bring a razor when we left the house. Not that he would know how to use one anyway.

  Fred was lucky enough to clean up in the river; whereas, I would have to hope I didn’t offend Julie with my now sweaty and dusty clothes. Watching him weave his way across the shallow water by choosing just the right rocks to step on, gave me the time I needed to collect my thoughts. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her no matter how bad the cancer got. Neither one of us had broached that subject yet. I decided she would tell me when she was ready.

  I also had to find a way to ask Julie to run a check on the bow she had found in my motor home. Asking for a DNA test on the knife would have to wait. If the bow did indeed belong to Jonathan, she would have a good reason to run the expensive DNA test.

  I was coming up with more questions than a game show host when she emerged from the room wearing shorts and a Colorado Rockies tee shirt. Her attire was topped off with a matching cap. How she got all that stuff in one little overnight bag would puzzle Houdini.

  We couldn’t put Fred back into the room until he dried off or Julie would have to smell wet dog-hair along with my clothes all night. So I made a makeshift leash out of some rope Julie had in her SUV and we took him with us while we strolled along Miner Street looking into all the antique stores and checking out the menus posted outside several restaurants. I think Fred was becoming jealous. Every time I would take Julie’s hand in mine, he would butt his big head between us, wrapping the rope around my legs. I finally got tired of being tripped by the big ox and wound the rope into a small loop and gave it to him so he could walk himself. It didn’t take long before we had a small crowd watching us.

  Julie thought it was cute that Fred could walk himself. He strutted behind us like the leash was attached to my hand, but of course it wasn’t. We would stop to look into a store window, and Fred would sit by my feet with the rope-leash in his mouth. When we went to look into another window, he wasn’t more than the distance of the rope behind even though he was free to take off chasing cars or cats whenever he wanted.

  “This looks good,” Julie said, pointing to a menu posted outside Beau Jo’s. “Have you ever had one of their mountain pies?”

  “No, but it sounds great,” I lied. It had been one of my ex-wife’s favorites.

  Julie knelt down and patted Fred’s head. “Somehow I don’t think he’ll be welcome at our table,” she said, looking up at me while rubbing Fred behind his ears with both her hands.

  “Well, technically, he is on a leash so I wouldn’t be breaking any laws by leaving him here,” I answered.

  Julie looked up just in time to catch the flash of someone’s camera. People were now taking pictures of the cute dog carrying his own leash.

  “Something tells me there’s going to be a regular circus crowd if you leave him out here. Why don’t you take him back to the room and I’ll go in and order?” Then she kissed me on the cheek and disappeared into the restaurant.

  “I guess we got our orders, Freddie,” I said, turning to face him. He didn’t look up. He just kept posing for the crowd. I swear he was smiling.

  “Come on you mangy mutt. Let’s get you back to the room and if you behave yourself, I’ll bring you back some dinner.”

  Going back to the room alone with Fred turned out to be an eye opener. Julie had left her overnight bag open on the bed. I don’t like to consider myself a snoop, but it was like she had left it there for me, or should I say, Fred? He went straight for the case. There was a half-eaten bag of corn chips on top of some papers. Fred pushed the papers aside and helped himself to the chips.

  “Fred!” I yelled. “That’s not ours. Give it to me.”

  Fred must have known he was in trouble. He immediately dropped the bag of chips and lowered his head to avoid looking at me. I quickly picked up the package and examined it for dog spittle. The outside was a little wet, but the chips inside were untouched. I took out a couple pieces and threw it to him.

  “Guess she won’t miss those,” I said, patting him on the head.

  The chips disappeared in a millisecond. Fred looked up at me expecting more now that he could see I wasn’t really mad.

  “No way, Jose.” I turned my back to him and began picking up the papers he had scattered in his haste to get at the chips. “What the hell?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. The papers were from Ray’s manuscript.

  What was Julie doing with the manuscript? Did Margot give it to her, and if so, why? My mind was racing, trying to work out how and why Julie had Ray’s book. I quickly checked the page numbers; they started at page two, twenty-three and ended ten pages later. My scanner had jammed on page two twenty-two. With the exception of that one page, I now had the entire manuscript.

  My first impulse was to sit down and read where I had left off. Then I had an epiphany. I took my cell phone from my pocket and started to take pictures of the pages. It didn’t take long. I took snapshots of two at a time. Maybe I would discover why Julie had the manuscript when I had the chance to read them later.

  I put everything back the best I could and left for the restaurant after telling Fred to guard the fort.

  “Looks like Fred’s going to have a treat,” Julie said, nodding toward the leftovers. She had ordered us a pitcher of gluten-free beer and a mountain pie with pepperoni, sausage, and artichoke hearts. The artichokes were okay; however, most of the beer went untouched. The mountain pie on the other hand was fantastic. It was huge. The crust was so thick that we ate it for desert by squirting honey on it. It was a meal in itself.

  “If Fred drinks all that beer he’s going to have to join alcohol anonymous,” I said. “Besides, I don’t think they’ll let us take it back to the room.”

  “The pizza, Goofy,” she answered with a huge grin. “But he’s going to have to fight me for the crust. I’d forgotten how good it is.”

  For some stupid reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off her smile. I should have been thinking how beautiful it made her look, but all I could think of was how much someone must have paid for such beautiful teeth. They were perfect and must have cost a fortune. This I knew from the dentist bill I was still paying for my daughter.

  “Earth to Jake. Are you still with me?”

  I quickly glanced down at the pizza; embarrassed for staring at her. “Speaking of Fred, he sort of made a mess of your suitcase.”

  She didn’t even blink. “He found the corn chips, I take it.”

  “And the manuscript,” I answered, looking into her eyes again.

  She looked at me like I had dementia or something. “You missed the camera?” she asked.

  Now I was the one who was confused. “The camera? What camera?”

  “Guess I left it in the car. I must be getting senile in my old age.”

  “I can think of plenty of things you haven’t forgotten,” I said, reaching out to take her free hand in mine. “You still know how to turn a guy into putty.”

  “If that was putty you had an hour ago, I’d hate to see the real thing,” she answered, squeezing my hands. “But seriously, Jake, you can’t tell anyone about the camera or the manuscript. They’re both part of the investigation and I’d get in a lot of trouble if anyone finds out I let you see them.”

  Then it dawned on me. “So that’s why you were in that mine. Why on earth did
you have one of your cameras in there?” I asked, freeing her hand from my grasp.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jake,” she answered, smiling again. “Now suppose I had placed a camera up there and suppose that instead of discovering a poacher, I saw someone making meth. You don’t think I would be able to share that information with you, do you? I could compromise a major investigation if I ever told you we had known about Alec’s operation for some time and that we were waiting to see who else was involved.”

  “Then you know who chased Alec into the other mine shaft?” I asked.

  She looked around the restaurant before answering. A Hispanic guy at the bar turned away almost on cue. “Maybe once I download the SIM card. The camera couldn’t talk to our server from inside the mine.” Her voice was barely audible.

  She checked on our friend at the bar before continuing. “But I can’t tell you that, Jake, anymore than I can tell you the DA is thinking about charging you for negligent homicide.”

  “Negligent homicide? For what?” Her statement made me forget all about asking how she came by the manuscript.

  “Causing Lonnie’s death; that’s a class 5 felony in Colorado, punishable with one to four years in prison.”

  “That’s bullshit! Everyone knows it was an accident.”

  “Chuck has friends in high places, Jake. Whatever did you do to piss him off? On second thought, I don’t want to know. I never told you about the DA. Remember? But if you were to do a little reading tonight after we fall asleep, assuming we sleep, you might find more than you bargained for.” She reached out to take my hand in hers. “It’s been a long day. What say we take Fred his dinner?”

  I didn’t tell Julie about the deal Chuck tried to make at the Little Bear. At the time I thought he was just trying to get me to sign his stupid affidavit. It was time to play my trump card and call Margot in the morning. In the meantime, I had to think of a tactful way to remind her Alec owed me his life.