by Laurie Cass
Keeping my head down, I walked quickly through the mishmash of downtown architecture, past the county building, and to the adjacent sheriff’s office.
“Hi,” I said, pushing back my hood and smiling at the deputy at the window. “May I please speak to either Detective Devereaux or Detective Inwood?”
“Detective Devereaux is out on medical leave.” The deputy eyed me. I tried to look tall and confident. This was a hard thing to do when faced with a high counter that reached almost to my chin, but I could, and did, meet the deputy’s gaze with a calm assurance.
“Is it serious?” I asked. The detective and I weren’t what you might call friends, but we had a relationship that was working, more or less, and I hoped whatever was wrong was fixable.
“He won’t be back until after Thanksgiving,” the deputy said.
“Then how about Detective Inwood? Is he around?”
“Let me check.” He asked for my name, reached for his phone, and dialed. Though he spun away from me to talk, he glanced at me once over his shoulder.
I smiled brightly, and he turned away. My interior self, which was not nearly as polite as my exterior self, snorted. I could just imagine that conversation. The detectives and I had a history, some of it positive, much of it not. They saw me as impatient and interfering. I saw them as slow and stolid, especially when it came to law-enforcement issues involving people whom I knew were law-abiding citizens of the sort who would never be late returning a book to the library, let alone anything as violent as—
“Ms. Hamilton? He says you can go back.” The deputy pushed a button, the door to the inner sanctum unlocked, and I went on through.
Inside, Detective Inwood was waiting. “We thought we’d be seeing you.”
I squinted up at him. It was a fair ways up. The first few times I’d met the two detectives, they’d always been together. You’d think that I’d have been able to keep their names straight, considering that one was tall and thin while the other was shortish and round, but it hadn’t been until a sympathetic deputy had told me that Detective Inwood, the tall and thin one, looked like a letter I and that Detective Devereaux looked like a letter D that their names got stuck properly in my head.
“We?” I asked. “I heard Detective Devereaux is out on medical leave.”
Detective Inwood nodded and ushered me toward another door. “Knee replacement.”
I winced. My primary cold-weather activity was downhill skiing, and I’d heard enough tales from former mogul jumpers to make me want to avoid the surgery at all costs. “He’s doing okay?” I asked.
“Says he’s getting bored watching so much TV.”
I made a mental note to put together a selection of suitable reading materials, and entered the small meeting room that held a table, four chairs, and nothing else. It pained me on a deep level to see a room without a single book, but I kept my thoughts to myself and pulled out a chair.
“When I said ‘we,’” the detective said, “I meant myself and Deputy Wolverson. You might recall that he’s training to be a detective.”
As if on cue, the man himself walked into the room. “Sorry,” he said. “I got caught with a phone call.” He slid into the seat diagonally across from me and smiled. “Hi, Minnie. Sounds as if you had a rough time on Saturday.”
I glanced at Detective Inwood, who was settling into the chair opposite me. I wanted to tell him that his much-younger coworker here had the right attitude, that a little kindness could go a long way, but once again I kept my thoughts inside. Which probably wasn’t an entirely good thing, because someday they might come hurtling out of me in a manner I wouldn’t be able to control. But why color today with the pending doom of tomorrow?
“It was a lot worse for Roger Slade,” I said. “Do you have any idea who shot him?”
Deputy Wolverson glanced at his senior officer, so I knew what was coming. “I know, I know,” I said. “This is only the beginning of the investigation, all avenues will be explored, and you won’t rest until you get the right guy.”
A small grin formed on the deputy’s face. Detective Inwood, however, simply nodded.
“Exactly right, Ms. Hamilton. I’m glad you understand our position. All possibilities will indeed be considered.”
Something in the phrase sounded off to me. “What do you mean, ‘all possibilities’?”
He steepled his fingers and stared at them intently. “The obvious is, of course, the most likely answer: a tragic hunting accident. We are interviewing property owners in the area about hunting permissions and we’re talking to other parties who might have knowledge of poachers. However, there is another possibility.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, frowning.
Detective Inwood’s eyebrows rose. “Surely, Ms. Hamilton, with your recent experiences, you’ve thought about the one other thing that could have caused Mr. Slade’s death.”
I shook my head slowly, ever so slowly. I didn’t want to hear this. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
“It could have been murder.”
* * *
The possibility that Roger’s death could have been something other than an accident hadn’t entered my head until Detective Inwood shoved it there.
“Thanks a lot,” I muttered as I squelched my way back to the library. An accident was horrible enough, but murder? Roger was the nicest possible guy. He worked for a construction company that had a fantastic reputation. He’d helped his kids build tree forts and volunteered his time with Habitat for Humanity. How could anyone want to kill a guy like that?
With my thoughts not on what was in front of me, I stepped straight into a puddle deep enough that I felt wetness across my instep. Sighing, I trudged onward.
An accident seemed much more likely than murder. We’d been out in the middle of your basic nowhere, and it had probably been a bullet from a deer hunter with very bad aim that had struck poor Roger. Then again, maybe there’d been some wacko up in those hills who’d felt like using a human for target practice. Things like that made you think there was no safety anywhere.
My breath sucked out of me, and I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. I turned in a small, damp circle, suddenly seeing threats where seconds before I’d seen only a quiet downtown.
What was behind that fence?
Was someone lurking around the corner of that building?
Had I heard someone following me?
“Of course not,” I said loudly, but my voice came out much thinner and weaker than I would have liked. I cleared my throat and almost said it again, but decided that would sound like I was talking to myself.
Not that there was anyone to hear.
Was there?
I stood for a moment longer, willing myself to not be a scaredy-cat, then squared my shoulders and walked briskly back to the library.
Once inside, I shut myself in my office. “Think, Minnie,” I told myself. If I was ever going to get to sleep that night, I needed to reassure myself that Roger’s death was an accident. Only . . . how?
Everything I knew about guns came from an in-depth series of self-defense classes I’d taken last summer, and most of what I’d learned had been about handguns. Up here, deer hunters used rifles, and my extremely limited experience with those—an hour on the range with a .22—wasn’t going to help much. What I needed was to talk to a hunter.
I picked up the phone and dialed. “It’s Minnie. Do you have a minute?”
Rafe Niswander clucked at me. “You say a minute, but is that what you really mean?”
“No.”
“That’s women for you,” he said. “Never saying exactly what they want, always leaving us poor men to guess at what’s going on up in their heads. No wonder there’s such a communication gap.”
I put my feet up on my desk. “You’re making assumptions about my entire gender based on a single colloquial
ism?”
“Oooh, big college word.”
“The right word,” I said firmly. “And you have as many degrees as I do.”
“Don’t remind me.” He sighed. “It’s embarrassing sometimes.”
I snorted. For whatever reason, Rafe liked to pretend he was a country bumpkin, fresh off the farm and clueless about almost everything. It was an act that his middle-school students ate up.
“Fifty seconds already,” he said.
Whatever. “I take it you heard about what happened Saturday?”
“Yeah.” Rafe’s voice was quiet. “I meant to call you, but . . .”
Rafe was good at many things, from being a school principal to home improvement to boat repairs, but handing out sympathy wasn’t part of his skill set. “I know,” I said. “It’s okay. Anyway, I wanted to ask you a couple of things.”
“Fire away.” He paused. “Um, I mean, go ahead.”
“You remember where that gas station is, right?” I asked, my heart suddenly pounding hard. “Do you know any guys who hunt around there?”
“Nope. There’s no state land in that part of the valley. Most of the property out there is owned by a timber company, and they don’t like guys hunting, because of liability reasons.”
“What about poaching?” I persisted. “Do you think there’d be much of that going on?” A guy hunting illegally—it would make sense for someone like that to have killed Roger.
There was another pause. “Minnie,” Rafe said slowly, his voice sounding suddenly serious. It was an odd way for him to sound and I wasn’t sure I liked it. “Why are you asking?”
“I just . . . I just want to know who . . .”
This time the pause lasted a lot longer. “Tell you what,” he finally said. “I’m going to give you two phone numbers. One is a guy who lives out there; the other is the conservation officer for that part of the county. And, for crying out loud, don’t tell them who gave you the numbers. I have a reputation to keep up.”
“Thanks,” I whispered. Coughed, then said more loudly, “You’re not so bad for a misogynistic, prejudiced redneck wannabe.”
“And you’re not so bad for an uptight know-it-all.”
His voice was sounding normal again, which was a small relief. I wrote down the numbers as he read them off, thanked him again, and started dialing.
* * *
Dinner that night was an Aunt Frances–inspired creation of seafood, coconut milk, and who knew what else. My contribution was washing the baby spinach for the salad.
“Another outstanding meal,” I said, dipping my soup spoon into the hearty mix. “I don’t know how you find the energy.”
“Oh, it comes and goes.” She covered her mouth to hide a yawn. “And right now it’s going. Tell me a story to keep me awake.”
Normally I would have a funny library story for her, but not today. So I told her about Stephen’s tale of a pending lawsuit and I told her about my trip to the sheriff’s office. I also told her about my phone calls to Rafe, plus my calls to the guy who lived near the gas station, and the conservation officer.
“The sheriff’s department had already talked to both of them,” I said. “The guy who lives there was gone that weekend, and the conservation officer, the CO, is already following up on some leads.” It was an active investigation, the officer had said, so he couldn’t talk about it. Though he was nice enough, I hadn’t learned much.
“I’ll keep asking around,” I said, “but with the sheriff’s office and this CO working on it, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find out anything they don’t already know.” I looked at her hopefully. “Unless you have some ideas?”
My intelligent and thoughtful aunt frowned. I waited, anticipating words of wisdom or reassurance, or both. Preferably both. Both would be excellent.
“That Deputy Wolverson,” she said. “Is his first name Ash?”
I blinked at her. “Sounds right.” I knew it had something to do with fires, but couldn’t remember exactly what. “Do you know him?”
“Not him.” Aunt Frances ground more pepper onto her salad. “I know his mother. She lives in Petoskey.” She yawned again.
I looked at her fondly. She was too tired for niece reassurances, and, besides, I didn’t really need them. Wanted them, sure, but that was different.
After dinner, I encouraged her toward the living room couch and started a fire. I brought her a book, a blanket, and an Eddie, and asked whether there was anything else I could get her. “I could open the TV if you’d like.”
Throughout the summer, my aunt’s television was hidden away in a clever cabinet that looked so much like an extension of the fireplace mantel that the summer boarders didn’t even know it was there. “Summers aren’t for television,” Aunt Frances always told them. “Go outside and play.” Even in winter, we didn’t use the TV much except for watching movies and the weekly episode of Trock’s Troubles, the cooking show that was sometimes filmed in Chilson.
“Not tonight, thanks.” Aunt Frances smiled down at Eddie as he settled on her legs. “You sure you don’t want him?”
I did, but I was trying to learn how to share. Plus, the rain had stopped while we were eating dinner. I’d even seen a few stars while I was doing dishes, and I felt the need to get outside and see some open sky.
When I told Aunt Frances as much, she pulled the blanket up to her neck. “Have a nice time, dear. I’ll be here when you get back.”
I looked at Eddie. “How about you? Will you still be here?”
He closed his eyes at me and didn’t even bother to say “Mrr.”
Outside, the air had shot up at least ten degrees since my walk home. Hard to believe that two days ago we’d been swimming in snow, but these things happened in November. I stood on the porch steps for a moment, enjoying the warm air that must be at least fifty degrees. It wouldn’t stay this way, and I didn’t really want it to, but there was no reason not to enjoy it while it lasted.
The front door of the house across the street opened and shut. I peered into the dark, but I couldn’t see if Otto Bingham had come outside or if he’d been out and gone in.
I came down the rest of the creaky wooden steps and headed across the street. It was just plain weird that neither Aunt Frances or I had ever talked to the guy. He’d lived there for weeks, and at this time of year he was our only neighbor for a block in either direction.
“Mr. Bingham?” I crossed the street, looking for nonexistent traffic both ways because I couldn’t make myself not check. “How are you tonight?”
The man, because there was indeed a man standing at the bottom of his porch steps, looked straight at me. But as I got closer, I could see that he wasn’t smiling the polite neighborly smile I’d expected. Instead he was giving me a look that was more deer in the headlights than anything else.
Which was weird, but now that I was standing in front of his picket fence, I was already committed to a conversation. “I’m Minnie Hamilton.” I considered holding out my hand, but eyed the distance and decided against it. There were unwritten rules about handshake distances, and I was pretty sure the gap between Mr. Bingham and me was outside the appropriate range.
Then again, since he hadn’t said anything, it was getting awkward even without the handshake. “Um, you are Mr. Bingham, aren’t you?”
He nodded in a vaguely friendly way. Well, it wasn’t unfriendly, anyway.
“Okay, good. Like I said, my name is Minnie. I live at the boardinghouse in the winter, with my aunt, Frances Pixley.”
Mr. Bingham jumped visibly when I said my aunt’s name. I frowned. A mention of my aunt usually made people smile, if anything. What was with this guy? I studied him a little closer. Well dressed, handsome enough—if you didn’t mind a cleft chin—with salt-and-pepper hair, and, judging from the distance between porch railing and the top of his head, tallish. He had “retire
d successful professional” written all over him. So why was he jumpy?
Puzzled, I went on. “I work at the library here in town and”—I paused for my coup de grâce—“two or three times a week I drive the bookmobile.” I waited for his reaction. If this guy didn’t respond to the mention of a bookmobile, he was a lost cause.
He wasn’t. His lips started to curl up at the corners, curving into what ended up as a very attractive smile.
“Minnie?”
I turned. Aunt Frances stood on the porch, waving a cordless phone at me. “Phone call for you, dear!”
“Be right there,” I called, turning back to Mr. Bingham.
But his front door was already closing with a soft click.
I squinted at it, then shrugged and trotted across the street.
“Who is it?” I asked, taking the phone from my aunt’s hand.
She started doing what generous people might have called a hula, so I knew it was Kristen on the other end of the line. Not that anyone did the hula in Key West, but, then again, I’d never been to Key West, so what did I know?
“Do people do the hula down there?” I nodded a thanks to my aunt, who had opened the front door for me.
“Da dah dah daaaa,” Kristen sang.
“Seriously?”
She snorted. “No idea. Us locals don’t pay attention to that touristy stuff. We’re too busy enjoying the sunshine and warm air.”
“It was warm here today,” I protested.
“I can Google your weather reports, you know. Plus, that webcam the city has downtown showed all sorts of snow on Saturday. And now rain.”
That darn Internet. “I like snow.”
“Yeah, and I like beating my head with a hammer because it feels so good when I stop.”
With our standard opening greetings done, there was a pause. “So, what’s going on down there?” I asked. “Anything fun?”
“Not really,” she said, but instead of launching into her usual litany of snorkeling, sunset watching, bike riding, and hammock napping, she hesitated, then said, “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay. After Saturday and, all that.”
