The Sleuth Sisters

by Pill, Maggie

  “So you got bored and started going out to places where they didn’t know you, meeting people, and telling them you were a single guy.”

  He turned on the charm. “Look, Mrs. Burner, I don’t claim to be a saint, but I’m not a monk, either. Stacy didn’t sleep with me, she didn’t talk to me—hell, there were times I don’t even think she saw me.” He looked down at his fingernails. “She should have just hired a personal assistant to do what she wanted. It would have been a lot easier, and a lot kinder, too.”

  I sighed. “All right, Mr. Darrow. Tell me what happened Friday morning.”

  Licking his lips, Win said, “I got up around nine, had a bowl of cereal, and watched a little of the morning news. When it dawned on me I hadn’t heard Stacy moving around, I went and knocked on the door. There was no answer, so I looked in. The bed was made, the computer was on, and there was a full glass of water sitting on the desk, like she’d sat down there and then left again.

  “I started looking then, not sure where she’d have gone. I found nothing in the house, nothing in the garage. I’d about run out of places to look when I noticed an odd hump under the snow on the porch. I went out there, and--” There was real emotion in his voice. “—I knew it was something bad. I bent down and--” His voice caught but he swallowed and continued. “It was Stacy. She was buried in the snow, but--” He looked up at me. “I never saw anything like that before. I never--”

  When I realized he wasn’t going to finish that thought I said, “Why did the police arrest you?”

  Once again he pulled himself together, and I saw the sneaky look return to his eyes. “I don’t know. I swear to you, Mrs. Burner, I did not kill my wife. I know lots of guys say that, but why would I leave Stacy? I mean, I had to ask her for money, but she didn’t care how much I spent. She wouldn’t travel with me, but I took all kinds of trips and stuff. I had no reason to kill her. None at all.”

  Darrow’s statement got a laugh from the Bonner County sheriff when I repeated it to him a few minutes later. A sun-burned, raw-boned man, Wade Stabinski seemed pretty accepting and not likely to pat me on the head and tell me to go back to the kitchen. He did, however, end any illusions I might have had that Win had told me the truth.

  “Ask your client why he didn’t call us,” he said. “The Darrows’ cleaning lady came Friday morning and found his car still in the ditch next to the driveway. When she went to the garage, she saw their truck was missing. She went inside, saw the tracks in the snow, and found Mrs. Darrow’s body with his footprints all around it. That’s when she called us. We found Mr. Darrow at the bank, where he’d just withdrawn all the money from their joint account.”

  “He says she let him have money whenever he wanted it. Why would he kill her?”

  “It’s early in the investigation, and I can’t share information with you. I can tell you she was shot at close range with a pistol, possibly the .38 that’s missing from the home. In most homicides, the motive is either emotional or financial. We believe both motives were in play here.”

  I started for home, thinking we at least had enough to decide whether to take the case or not. I’d have leaned toward not if it wasn’t for the fact that Retta was involved. We could try to protect her reputation, making sure nobody thought she’d been in on the murder with Darrow.

  The day was bright, and the snow glistened, making sunglasses a necessity. As I navigated the twisty, snow-covered roads around Crockett Lake, I felt pleased with my recently-acquired vehicle, new to me but a 2010 model Ford Escape. It held the road well, it was an attractive shade of green, and I liked its roominess after years of driving a car too small for a woman my size. When the Smart Detective Agency had begun to make a profit, I’d taken the chance to upgrade my ride.

  Once I left the lake shore, woods took over, with only a few cleared fields here and there. The fields were buried in snow, but corn stalks, stumps, and rock piles interrupted the otherwise solid blanket of white.

  Five miles out, I saw him lying beside the road. At first I thought it was a bag of garbage someone had tossed from a car window: rumpled black with spots of white. When it moved, I realized it wasn’t trash, but something alive. Checking the rearview mirror, I pulled the car close to the banked snow along the road and turned on my flashers. There wasn’t much room for a car to pass, but I had to see what it was.

  It was a dog, about the size of a breadbox. His curly hair was matted with ice; his eyes were large but dimmed with suffering. As I approached he raised his head slightly and made a sound that might have been a growl if it had any strength behind it.

  “Hey, buddy. Hey, boy. What are you doing out here?”

  I looked around. There were no homes in sight.

  The dog kicked one leg weakly. “Are you hurt, buddy? Can I touch you?”

  Ever so slowly, I stretched out a hand toward him. Again he growled weakly, but I spoke softly, crooning encouragement. I let him sniff my hand, waiting until he relaxed a little. Next I touched the spot behind his ear where every dog in the world likes to be scratched. He tensed but let me rub the spot. I talked to him in a soft voice as I moved my hand to his head and petted him for a few seconds. I sensed he wouldn’t have allowed it if he’d been well, but he wasn’t. Gradually he relaxed, and I moved my hand to his body, feeling it carefully.

  His back seemed okay, as did his front legs. When I got to the back, however, he let out a yip of pain. He nipped at me, though it was only a gesture. “I’m sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  At that point a car went by, the driver goggling at me as he passed. I couldn’t dally, because if two cars came at once, we might all be in trouble. I sat back on my heels, looking at the dog. He was malnourished, neglected, and hurt. What was I going to do with him?

  It didn’t take long to make my decision. Going back to my car, I got an old blanket I kept there for emergencies. Returning to the dog, I started with an apology. “You aren’t going to like this, buddy, but it’s got to happen.”

  Quickly I tossed the blanket over his head, hoping it would prevent him from biting me. I wrapped the blanket tightly around him, sliding it under his back and making it into a bag. When I picked it up, supporting his body with mine as best I could, he whined, and I knew the leg had to hurt. I didn’t know what else to do, though, so I carried him to the car and put him on the back seat, tucking the blanket ends into the cushions so he couldn’t get free. A healthy animal would have easily escaped, but this one was too weak to resist.

  With the dog’s growls as accompaniment, I headed for Allport and the nearest veterinarian.

  End of Excerpt