A Valley to Die For

by Radine Trees Nehring

  And where was JoAnne’s truck? Was the purse in it? Of course, if you accepted the fact that JoAnne had been killed with a handgun, and not by a hunter, then someone must have meant to shoot JoAnne, and that was beyond understanding.

  No matter how many times they had asked the question, the sheriff and Sergeant Taylor couldn’t get her to recall any reason why someone would intentionally kill JoAnne.

  That’s because there is no reason, thought Carrie.

  But, as she turned into the parking lot at the center, she decided the most worrying question was the lie about the meeting notes. And who had lied? Henry? Or JoAnne?

  Was the “crime against the land,” the quarry, part of all this somehow? She thumped the steering wheel in frustration. She, as JoAnne’s best friend, really should be able to accomplish things the sheriff’s men couldn’t.

  If she did discover something of value, deduce something important, and do it by herself, then it would prove to Henry—and everyone—that she could be clever, smart, and capable, without help from anyone... a woman to be respected and reckoned with!

  “JoAnne, what would you do?” she asked aloud.

  Wait. There was something. And it was something only Carrie herself knew. Some time ago, JoAnne had told her about hiding a box with contents she wanted kept secret, said she had told no one else, and explained where the box was. After asking Carrie to repeat the description of the hiding place, she made her promise not to look there or tell anyone, except in dire emergency. And now...

  When Carrie had tried to question JoAnne, she’d just shaken her head and refused to discuss the matter further.

  Of course, what was hidden probably wouldn’t have a thing to do with her murder, but... then again...

  JoAnne had harbored quite a few quirky notions, of course, and could have kept something secret that most other people would display openly—a book she was ashamed to own, for example.

  Nevertheless, thinking about finding evidence of any sort, and maybe even something that would help identify JoAnne’s killer, made Carrie hope she wouldn’t have to stay at work very long.

  News about JoAnne’s death was being reported on area radio stations and had arrived at the Bonny Tourist Information Center before Carrie got there. Everyone was determined to be sympathetic, but it was also obvious they could barely control their boiling curiosity, so, as simply as possible, she told them what had happened.

  Talking about finding JoAnne wasn’t as painful now. It had almost become someone else’s story, since she’d already repeated it so many times for the detectives. It was a bit like the stories she used to read to Rob. They’d read his favorites so often that she sometimes paid no attention to what she was saying. Rob still talked about having to remind her to turn a page when she continued with the familiar words beyond events pictured on the pages that lay open in front of them.

  The employees on duty at the center were quick to understand when she said she’d just be there for the morning, then must go home to get ready for the coming week and the arrival of JoAnne’s family. She was, she explained, executor of JoAnne’s estate, and there was lots to do.

  She really wasn’t sure yet just how to go about it all. Though Amos’s law practice had brought many wills and estate closings into his business life, he hadn’t shared information about what was going on; and others had been there to help her when Amos died.

  After calling department headquarters in Little Rock to explain why she was taking a few days’ emergency leave, Carrie spoke with center employees about the new special events she’d put on the winter calendar. When she went to unpack the boxes of brochures she’d brought from home, her thoughts suddenly hurtled back to Henry and Saturday night. She stopped and stood motionless, staring into the distance while a stack of brochures slid to the floor.

  Startled and embarrassed, she bent to pick them up, hoping no one had noticed; but Sarah Simmons, senior tourist consultant, came over quickly, took her by the arms, turned her toward the door, and gave her a brisk pat on the behind.

  “Go,” said Sarah, “take care of things for that young woman and her family. We’ll manage just fine.”

  Carrie gave Sarah a hug, put on her hat and coat, and though she’d only been at work three hours, headed home.

  First she’d check to be sure FatCat was all right, though the cat seemed to be getting on fine in her new quarters. True, she had yowled unhappily when Carrie made it plain last night that she was not sharing the down comforter on her bed with any cat, not even a bereaved one. The complaints had stopped when Carrie found an old down pillow with most of its stuffing gone and put it on top of the mattress in the wicker cat bed. Carrie was pleased with herself. Rules were rules, and FatCat was, after all, a very intelligent cat. She was catching on quickly to the new ground rules.

  When she got home, Carrie parked her station wagon by the door to save time. She needed to go into Guilford as soon as possible to get JoAnne’s will out of her safe deposit box and take it to the attorney.

  Both she and Susan had seen the will when JoAnne made it a year ago; it left a nice amount to the Self Start Project in Rough Creek that aided single mothers, and the rest went to Susan.

  But first, she’d find what JoAnne had hidden. The will would have to wait that long.

  No cat greeted Carrie at the front door, but almost at once FatCat came loping toward her from the bedroom. She rubbed against Carrie’s ankles, making noises that sounded like she was trying to start a muted Vespa. It was rather nice to have someone come say hello, Carrie thought as she bent to rub the cat’s back.

  She headed for the bedroom to get her gardening jeans and oldest sweat shirt. The morning’s cloudiness had faded, making the snow forecast a sham. Leafless trees outside the bedroom windows barely filtered the bright sunlight falling across her bed. Carrie looked at the round indentation in the middle of her comforter, then went to the bed and put her hand in the cavity. Warm. Much warmer than the rest of the sun-lit bed.

  She looked down. FatCat was gazing soulfully up at her while the black-tipped end of her tail curled slowly from left to right and back.

  “We aren’t going to discuss this,” said Carrie. She looked back at the bed and its sun-lit down pouf. How wonderful it would be to curl up in the sun, just like FatCat had obviously done, to feel the softness... to forget... She sighed. “Cat, if I’m going to adopt you, you have to learn that bed is MINE. No cats, no sharing.”

  FatCat watched her from the floor while she changed clothes. As she left the bedroom, Carrie picked up the cat basket with one hand and tucked its owner against her side with the other. She dropped the cat in the hallway and shut the bedroom door firmly.

  “NO,” she said, wondering if this was going to work. Since the woodstove provided most of the heat in the house, she couldn’t leave the bedroom door shut very long. Well, the cat was simply going to have to learn the rules, that was all! For now, she’d leave the door shut. Maybe the message would get across. She carried the basket to a sunny spot by a window in the main room and put it down. That would have to do until she had more time to think about getting her new companion to understand house rules.

  Carrie stood at the kitchen sink looking out into the woods while she ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drank a glass of milk. Then she put on her old coat and gloves and, carrying her hat and full-length good coat, went to the car. She would change coats at JoAnne’s and go straight into town to save time. If she had her good coat on, few would realize she had gardening clothes under it.

  When she pulled into JoAnne’s driveway, the house that had once seemed so friendly and welcoming stood sharply four-square and cold. For the first time, Carrie noticed that dead flowers remaining in the pots JoAnne left on the porch year-around looked dusty and broken. The bright marigolds of last summer were now represented by these shadow plants. Still, she thought, the seed heads are there. I’ll bring an envelope and collect memory seeds for my garden... and Susan’s.

&nb
sp; Tape at the doorway reminded everyone that the house was off-limits and, shivering, Carrie was glad it was. She couldn’t face being alone in the house right now. But, no matter how she felt, she’d have to straighten the mess inside before Susan saw it.

  Would Susan sell the house right away? It was hard to think of new people, but then, such a house should share its setting in the living, natural world with living people.

  Curious, she looked under the third flower pot. No key. Evidently, the sheriff had taken it. Well, never mind. She had her own extra key if she needed it, and Susan did too.

  She looked around carefully and listened for a moment before heading into the woods below JoAnne’s tool shed. She didn’t want anyone seeing her now. Her heart was thumping, reminding her, if her head hadn’t already done so, that this might be a very important venture.

  She climbed down to the place below the tool shed where the hillside stopped its gentle slope and dropped into a sheer rock bluff. The bluff front couldn’t be seen from the house. It was only about eight yards wide, a horizontal limestone scar along the hillside caused by some wisp of geologic action that Carrie couldn’t begin to imagine.

  According to JoAnne’s instructions, she’d have to get to the middle of that sheer face. The idea terrified her, but there was no other way, and if JoAnne had done it, well, she could too!

  Starting from the slope at the edge of the bluff, she began to slide carefully along the vertical wall, bracing her feet on rocks and tufts of grass at the bottom of the bluff face and edging toward the small ledge and opening in the rocks that JoAnne had told her about. The only hand-holds now were dead weeds growing out of the bluff. It was slow going, and her feet slipped several times, sending rock showers into the valley below her.

  After what seemed like a very long time, she got to the ledge. It was at least a foot above her head, and, no matter how she stretched, she couldn’t reach over it.

  Carrie wanted to wail in frustration. But, of course, JoAnne had been several inches taller than she was. What on earth was she going to do now?

  What she did was rest against the trunk of a tree growing close to the bluff face and consider possibilities. Henry was certainly tall enough, but JoAnne had made her promise to tell no one about this. And, would Henry be the one to tell anyway? Thinking about Henry and JoAnne, she was suddenly uneasy; she wondered once more who had lied about Henry’s invitation to help JoAnne with her meeting notes. And why? No, she mustn’t ask Henry for help.

  But she was so close. She had to find a way, even if she didn’t get to town before the bank closed.

  Carrie looked more carefully at the bluff face, searching for some way to climb. The rock wall was almost straight, and its surface was weathered. Small chunks of chert and limestone fell every time she moved.

  Could she bring a short ladder and brace the bottom of it against the tree she was leaning on? That was it, and JoAnne had a stepladder in her tool shed! Forget the will and the lawyer for today. Carrie wanted to see what JoAnne had hidden in the crevice above her head.

  She reversed her slow movements until she got to the slope and then hurried as fast as she could through the dry winter underbrush on the forest floor. She’d have to use her key to JoAnne’s house because JoAnne had kept the tool shed locked, and the key to it was on a hook by the back door. She’d just reach inside around the door frame and get the key. She probably wouldn’t even have to break the tape, so the sheriff would never know.

  Still, the whole business was creepy, and Carrie was glad when she had the ladder out and had returned the key and re-locked the tool shed and the house. She would put the ladder in the back of her station wagon when she was finished and return it later.

  It was very difficult to edge along the bluff front with the ladder over one arm, and the darn thing was surprisingly heavy. Her feet slipped several times and, when they did, the ladder banged against her side. Nevertheless, she was glad it was wood. It seemed sturdier for bracing against tree trunks than aluminum.

  When the small ledge was above her head again, she laid the ladder against the bluff with its legs hooked on either side of the tree trunk, and used the steps to help her climb while she held on to the ledge. Just now a slip might send her bouncing down the hillside. After what seemed like an age, her head was over the top, and she could see the opening clearly. When she got to the top step, she freed her right hand by holding firmly to the ledge with her left and reached slowly toward the tiny cave, moving very carefully so she wouldn’t go off balance and send the ladder over sideways.

  When her hand was inside the opening, she couldn’t feel anything but empty space. Then she saw that the cave opened wider behind the face of the bluff, and there was clear space around the edge on either side as well as straight back. Her gloved fingers groped back and forth and still felt nothing. She changed hands, holding on to the top of a fallen cedar tree on the right, and reached up and back with her left hand. A smooth object resisted, then moved, and she heard the scrape of metal against rock.

  Something was there, but she had moved it farther away! Carrie wasn’t too keen on sticking her hand in the dark hole without heavy gloves on, but there was no other way. She tried not to think about what might be using the cave for shelter and took off her left glove, stuffing it in her coat pocket.

  She reached again and touched a cold metal surface. It was a box, and... yes, there was a drop loop handle. How else could JoAnne have pulled the box in and out? She curled her fingers under the metal loop and pulled. The box grated on rock, moving toward her. Once it was sticking out of the hole, she saw that it was no larger than a cash box.

  She tested its weight, pushing it up with her fingers.

  Fairly heavy. She’d have to risk pulling it over the edge with one hand and just pray the ladder wouldn’t tilt off balance. She tugged slowly until the box teetered and, struggling to brace its weight with her stiffened arm, she pulled it free, holding tightly to the handle. It came over the edge and dropped, yanking her arm painfully as she resisted its pull so she could keep it from shifting her body or the ladder sideways.

  After a breathless moment, she was able to begin backing slowly down the ladder, holding the box with an arm and hand that were almost numb.

  Chapter IX

  Carrie inched her way back to the slope, lifting the box and holding it against the side of the bluff ahead of her while she slid toward it. When the box was finally secure among the dry leaves and rocks on the hillside, she went back for the stepladder and had just finished moving it to the slope when she heard a car, no, two cars, pull up in front of JoAnne’s house.

  Oh, no! The sheriff’s men, of course. They would come back now! She huddled against the hillside in a panic. Why hadn’t she realized that they might come back? Well, there was nothing to do but act her way out, since her car was there, plain as day. But she could not—would not—let anyone else know the box existed. She’d have to hide it again, and quickly.

  She looked back at the bluff. No, she couldn’t put the box back in the little cave. There were too many fresh scrapes and scratches there. If they searched the hillside before forest creatures and weather had covered the signs of her presence, they’d surely find the box.

  Well, nothing for it but get the thing as far away as she could before they came looking, and she’d have to be careful how she moved, or they’d hear her.

  She felt more exhilaration than panic now. She was accomplishing something important and doing it on her own. She just wished—here, her lower lip went out—that Velda and Pat and Dusty could have seen her crawling along that bluff face. They thought she was over the hill, and instead she was practically scaling mountains.

  She was Carrie McCrite, Private Detective. That certainly had a nice sound to it, though she knew her friends and family would laugh.

  Well, what of it? Maybe she couldn’t match Emily Pollifax, but, of course, that woman’s feats were pure fiction. Carrie McCrite could be her own kind of detective, and
there was no doubt she had an important mission.

  She felt a twinge of guilt that this was all the result of JoAnne’s murder, but one did have to carry on in the face of adversity. So, carry on she would, and she’d better get with it.

  Hugging the box to her chest, she began edging her way carefully down the slope. She had to make it to her own property! Thank goodness the men were talking loudly. There was no way to be completely quiet on a hillside covered with brush and dry leaves.

  She continued to move downhill, half sliding, until she got to the bottom where there wasn’t so much heavy growth and she could walk more quickly. She kept to gravel bars along the edge of the creek and almost ran toward her end of the hollow. The voices stopped, and she did too, holding her breath until she heard a door slam. Probably all the men had gone inside. She fervently hoped so.

  When she reached the woods below her house, she pushed the box into a hole left by a heavy tree that had toppled after several days of soaking rain last fall. She hurriedly covered the grey metal with leaves and rocks, dropped a broken branch over the place, and stood back for a quick survey. Not bad. Since squirrels, skunks, and other creatures were constantly ruffling up small places on the forest floor, it would do. She headed back downstream toward JoAnne’s and was just starting up the hill below the tool shed when she saw Detective Sergeant Taylor looking at her from the top of the hill.

  “Oh, hi, there,” she called up to him. “Just came over to borrow JoAnne’s stepladder so I could get some leaves out of my guttering and heard a pileated woodpecker calling. Thought I’d see if I could find it. So you’re back to look around again?”

  The man stared at her in astonishment, then, for a moment, his eyes narrowed. But after all, he was only about thirty-five. I hope his mother does lots of things he considers peculiar, thought Carrie.

  She reached the place where she’d left the ladder and stopped to catch her breath. “I just dropped the ladder as I followed the bird and didn’t realize I’d brought it so far downhill.”