A Valley to Die For

by Radine Trees Nehring

  He hadn’t answered when the knocker sounded.

  Three men stood at the door this time, two dressed all in black, one in jeans and a sheepskin jacket. Black looks nice on the tall blond one, thought Carrie, swallowing an urge to giggle. The man looked so stiff and haughty!

  He stepped forward and said, “I’m Harrison Storm, County Sheriff, and this is Detective Sergeant Don Taylor.” He didn’t introduce the third man and was beginning to talk again when the man interrupted him.

  “Mrs. McCrite,” he said, “I’m Julian Baker, the County Coroner. I know how awful this must be for you... ”

  “Yes,” said Storm, barely glancing at Baker. “May we please go to the scene of the crime at once.”

  He was making a statement, not asking a question.

  Carrie hesitated and turned to look at Henry, who had followed her to the door.

  “Mrs. McCrite has had a terrible shock,” he said quietly, “and I can assure you she’s not going to leave the area. Can’t she remain here while I show you?”

  “I’d prefer she go with us,” replied Storm, narrowing his grey eyes at Henry as he spoke.

  Henry helped Carrie into her coat and held her arm as the five of them retraced the path back to the hillside.

  Yellow tape was now tied from tree to tree in a large area around the place where JoAnne lay. Faraday could be seen walking up the hill away from them, following the path of scuffled leaves that Carrie had pointed out. He was bent toward the ground, moving very slowly. When he heard the group approaching, he turned and came back to meet them, circling away from the trail.

  JoAnne’s never been still for so long, thought Carrie, covering up what began as a choked sob with a loud cough.

  Henry and the coroner looked at her with concern. The other men glanced away.

  “Wait over there, please,” said Harrison Storm, pointing. “We’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

  Henry led her to a large rock, and Carrie sat there while he stood beside her. She couldn’t hear what the men were saying but winced and shut her eyes when one of them touched JoAnne’s body, though that didn’t shut out the picture of JoAnne lying there.

  Then she heard footsteps and opened her eyes to see Sergeant Taylor crouching beside her, notebook in hand.

  “Now, Mrs. McCrite, would you describe how you found the body, and tell me what you were doing on the hillside.”

  She told him, explaining that JoAnne had been missing since Saturday morning and trying to make him understand that this was really not unusual, not for JoAnne. She said she’d fed the cat, then come up the hill to look for frost flowers.

  It was quite obvious he had no idea what she was talking about. Probably Faraday hadn’t told him about the crushed ice under JoAnne’s hand.

  “Well, they’re gone now,” she said stiffly. “It’s too late in the day.” She wasn’t going to waste time explaining such lovely, fragile things to this cop.

  Oh, dear, she’d forgotten. Henry was a cop.

  And, without being conscious of doing so at first, she left out all mention of Henry while she talked and didn’t say anything about their plans to find the frost flowers together. Let Henry tell them that himself if he wants to, she was thinking, as she continued her story of every move she could recall until the time when she found JoAnne.

  “And,” she finished, “her red coat and hat are missing. You’d better find those.”

  “How do you know they’re missing?” Taylor asked.

  “Because, of course, I saw they were gone from her closet yesterday afternoon.”

  He was quiet for a moment, writing, then looked at her steadily as if he expected her to say more.

  I can do this as long as you can, Carrie thought, lifting her chin to stare back.

  “So you’ve been in her house more than once since she disappeared,” he said, making it sound like an accusation.

  “Of course. I’m, I was... I am, her friend, and I told you I needed to feed her cat.”

  “We’ll go to her house in a few minutes,” he said, shutting his notebook and turning back to the group of men.

  She looked up at Henry, then stood so she could speak to him without raising her voice. “Were you out looking for frost flowers this morning? I didn’t see you.”

  He lifted his eyebrows, but before he could say anything, Taylor was headed toward them again. He began by asking almost the same question Carrie had.

  “Mr. King, how did you spend your morning?”

  “Reading the paper,” said Henry. “Then I decided to go for a walk since I’d heard there would probably be frost flowers on the hillside this morning. That’s when I found Ms. Harrington, and since Mrs. McCrite’s radio was on the ground beside her, I thought she had probably been out walking and found the body. I went on to her house to make sure she was all right.”

  “Radio?” said Taylor.

  “Yes,” said Carrie firmly. “To keep hunters away.”

  This time she ignored Taylor’s stare.

  * * *

  During what seemed like an eternity, several more men in black arrived on the hillside. Pictures were taken, and every inch of forest floor around JoAnne was studied. Finally, her body was lifted and put in a long black bag. Carrie stared into the woods while her friend was carried away from the hillside where she had walked so many times.

  At last, Taylor and Storm were ready to accompany Carrie and Henry back to her house so she could take them to JoAnne’s. Carrie wondered if Henry was as hungry as she was. She decided she’d better not ask if she could take time for lunch.

  She did ask for a moment alone inside her own home to “freshen up” before she went with the men. Once inside, she ate some crackers, then dawdled, hoping Henry would come in too. She wanted desperately to confer with him before she spent more time with these inquisitive men. She understood why they had to ask questions, but she wondered what Henry expected her to tell them. Should she say anything about the fact that he’d gone to JoAnne’s house and found her not at home yesterday morning? Or should she just say that they’d known JoAnne was missing when she didn’t come to the meeting? Should she mention Henry at all?

  In their time together after finding JoAnne, he hadn’t said she shouldn’t tell everything. But then, maybe neither of them had been thinking clearly. Of course, it made no difference what Henry had done, everything would have a simple explanation. And none of it had anything to do with JoAnne’s death. None of it.

  When it was obvious that Henry wasn’t going to come in the house to get her, she returned to the porch and saw him wiping his hands. Sergeant Taylor was taking fingerprints!

  She glanced at Henry’s face. He looked as tired as she felt, and quite worried. Did his worry have anything to do with the fingerprinting? Something had furrowed his forehead, and when he spoke, offering to accompany Carrie to JoAnne’s house, his tones were higher than the usual low rumble.

  The Sheriff told Henry they’d rather he returned home. “We’ll talk to you later, Mr. King,” Storm said, trying to smile. Don Taylor wrote down Henry’s address and phone number and a description of how to get to his house. After shaking hands with the two men and smiling—a real smile—at Carrie, Henry walked off through the woods.

  Well, never mind, she thought, as Sergeant Taylor rolled her inky fingers on his card. I’ll figure out what to say by myself. Maybe they won’t ask more questions.

  After she’d wiped her hands, Taylor helped her into the back seat of the car marked “Sheriff,” got in the driver’s seat next to Harrison Storm, and followed her directions to JoAnne’s house. When they arrived, she started to get out, but, after asking her where the key was, Taylor indicated she was to wait in the car. She sat back and watched the men carry two large bags into the house.

  They’re going to look for fingerprints, she thought, so they had to have ours to eliminate them. She began speculating about whose fingerprints they might find. Hers, of course, and Susan’s and Putt’s. Well, if fingerpr
ints lasted a long time and JoAnne hadn’t done too much cleaning, Mag’s would be there, and a repairman or two. Since the quarry committee had never met in the house, and Henry had never been inside, that would probably be all.

  Time passed. The car was warm enough with the sun shining on it, but eventually Carrie began to fidget and think about how hungry she was. She wondered how FatCat was reacting to the strangers. They’d probably shut her in the laundry room. She hoped they’d moved her water and the litter box there too.

  It was very quiet. She didn’t even hear bird calls in the nearby woods.

  Then, suddenly, there was the sound of JoAnne’s voice again: “Crime against the land, crime against the land.”

  All right! They wouldn’t let this crime interfere with their fight to stop the quarry, and now they had to win that fight for JoAnne as well.

  Finally Sergeant Taylor came out, opened the car door, and perched backwards on the front seat, looking at her.

  “Let’s see,” he began, “as I recall, you said you were in the house yesterday afternoon and this morning, looking around. Tell me everything you saw that was unusual.”

  That’s not really a question, thought Carrie. He acts like he knows I searched the whole house pretty thoroughly.

  “Well,” she said, “the back door was unlocked, and JoAnne’s address book—it was gone.”

  “And?” he said.

  “The red hat and coat too,” she replied. “I told you.”

  “Mrs. McCrite, I think you’d better come in the house with me, but for now, please don’t touch anything.”

  Puzzled, Carrie went with him to the front door. He moved aside, and she stared down the hall at the heap of things spilling out of the closet door. He indicated with a hand gesture that she should go in, so, stepping carefully over the jumble on the hall floor, she turned into the kitchen. The contents of the desk had been dumped everywhere.

  Since Carrie’s visit at 8:15 that morning, someone who didn’t care what kind of mess they made had searched the house. And, she thought, I’ll just bet these men think I did it.

  CHAPTER VIII

  No one ever mentioned lunch.

  After Carrie looked at the mess—hoping her unfeigned shock would help convince the two men she had nothing to do with making it—she answered questions through what seemed like three meal times.

  First, Detective Taylor had her stand in the door of each room and look around carefully, telling him if she noticed anything odd or missing.

  Other than chaotic heaps of JoAnne’s belongings, Carrie saw nothing to talk about. She did not say what seemed obvious to her, if what the searcher was looking for had been hidden in the first place, how was she supposed to know it was gone?

  One thing was clear—the person hadn’t been looking for money or valuables. JoAnne shopped with checks and credit cards, so she kept no money, except in her purse, which she presumably took with her when she left. The few good pieces of jewelry she owned were dumped on the floor with everything else. The television and VCR were untouched.

  Carrie did notice two things missing, but didn’t say anything about them, because they seemed so trivial. She didn’t see the pink envelope with her name on it or the picture of Susan and her family. When she’d told Sergeant Taylor about the missing address book, he hadn’t seemed very interested, and she supposed he’d think the missing card and photograph were even more trivial. Perhaps they were concealed in the mess somewhere and would turn up later.

  After she looked through the door of each room, Taylor asked her where she usually sat when she visited JoAnne. He had her sit there, and the questions continued.

  Storm and Taylor alternated, and she soon realized they were actually asking the same things over and over, putting questions in different words but repeating themselves anyway. And, she thought, they might as well be asking the cat.

  “Why would someone search this house? What did JoAnne Harrington do or know that could put her in danger? What did she talk about? Describe her life here. What did she do in Kansas City? Tell us all you know about her past. Tell us all you know about her family and friends. What did she do Friday? What did you do Friday? Saturday?” And, “Mrs. McCrite, couldn’t you have forgotten to lock the back door when you came to feed the cat?”

  Carrie talked, and answered, but everything came out sounding very simple, normal, and unimportant.

  The men didn’t ask her any questions about Henry. They wouldn’t think there was any reason to, she decided. After all, he was a fellow cop.

  Both men kept their voices low and were obviously trying to appear reasonable and kind. Sergeant Taylor managed it quite well, but Sheriff Storm didn’t. By late afternoon, Carrie was imagining herself screaming at him: “She grew bigger tomatoes than I did”—a statement JoAnne would have appreciated, since Carrie had never admitted it before—“so I killed her and searched the house for her secret fertilizer recipe.” Then Harrison Storm could breathe a sigh of relief and get on with whatever he usually did on Sunday afternoons.

  Well, she thought, as her stomach rumbled loudly enough for everyone to hear, this is hardly my idea of an ideal Sunday afternoon either.

  Finally she protested, with a choked sob that was as much frustration and anger as grief, “Look, JoAnne was my best friend, and if I knew anything about her that seemed dangerous, or sinister, or unusual, I’d tell you. I don’t. We’re all boringly normal here. Now I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m upset, and this has gone on long enough!”

  Conceding—probably, she thought, because she was now telling them the same things over and over—they ended the questions. Taylor drove her, FatCat, and all of FatCat’s necessities home, saying he’d be back later that evening.

  Leaving the cat to explore on her own, Carrie called Susan to report and make plans. Then she punched in Henry’s number, wondering if he really was at home, since Storm had almost ordered him to go there. For whatever reason, he did answer his phone quickly, and the low, quiet “hello” warmed and comforted her the minute she heard it.

  After telling him what had happened at JoAnne’s, she asked if he knew what they might expect next. “I had thought Susan and her family could stay at JoAnne’s house,” she said, “but I guess they can’t now.”

  Henry was quiet for a long moment before he answered. “It’s probable Storm won’t allow you or Susan in for a while, especially if the house was torn up by someone doing what sounds like a pretty thorough search. What the sheriff does depends on when his department thinks they’ve learned all they can there. We’ll have to expect that it will be off limits. Could Susan stay at a motel in Bonny?”

  “No, not with the baby. I couldn’t let her do that. They can stay with me.”

  “You’ve got lots of extra things to do right now,” said Henry, “so maybe I can help by inviting them here.” There was a pause before he continued. “Shall I ask them here?”

  “That’s nice, Henry, but I have the extra room, and Susan really doesn’t know you.”

  Another pause. “That’s right, she doesn’t.”

  “Well, then.” She sighed and looked at her watch. “It’s almost six. I’m going to take a hot shower and fix something to eat. Storm’s hospitality didn’t include lunch. Have you eaten?”

  “Yup, TV dinner,” he said.

  “Thank goodness for those. I’m too tired to fix anything else. Have you called anyone? Roger and Shirley, or Jason?”

  “I called them all,” said Henry. “They’re horrified, of course, and I don’t think it seems real to anyone yet. Shirley said we’re to come there for dinner tomorrow night. She didn’t know when to call you and admitted she wasn’t comfortable talking to answering machines. I told her we’d be there. Is that all right? It sure won’t be TV dinners.”

  “Of course I’ll come. Would you mind telling her for me? And tell her I’m glad to have the dinner to look forward to. It helps, somehow.”

  “Good, I’ll call her now. Jason thought we should wait u
ntil after next weekend to plan anything more about the quarry. We won’t meet Saturday, of course, but somehow it seems getting going on this quarry thing and beating it would be the best possible memorial to JoAnne. Maybe everyone will be willing to talk about it tomorrow evening.”

  “Yes, we must plan... something. It’s even more important to me now too.”

  Carrie, dressed in flannel nightgown, robe, and slippers, had just been finishing the last of her Hungry HE-MAN Roast Beef Dinner when Storm and Taylor came by to tell her JoAnne’s house was sealed, and no one was to enter. If they had learned the answers to any of their questions, they didn’t say so.

  Sergeant Taylor did have one piece of interesting information, which he mentioned just as the men were leaving.

  It seemed that when things were important enough, even state officials got asked questions on Sunday. Don Taylor had called the head of the Environmental Commission at home in Little Rock. She reported back that JoAnne had never contacted them, nor met with any member of the commission.

  Carrie was brushing her teeth some time later when it occurred to her that Henry had said JoAnne asked him to come by and help organize a meeting report that could not have existed. So, someone lied! Why?

  She couldn’t seem to follow any logical reasoning about that. By the time she was ready for bed, she had discovered that challenging dark memories of the day was more than enough for her mind to handle.

  She sat up in bed reading her Bible for almost an hour before turning out the light. Carrie’s last conscious thoughts that Sunday night were in the form of a silent prayer for JoAnne and her family.

  And now, eating breakfast, getting dressed, and driving the familiar highway toward the tourist center, there was plenty of time to puzzle over more than one mystery.

  She had already acknowledged that this was no hunting accident. Hunters wouldn’t tear a house to pieces, then take nothing of value. And, how would strangers know where the key was? There was no sign of forced entry. Unless, she thought, JoAnne’s keys were in her purse, she had it with her when she was shot, and the killer took her keys.