2 Death at Crooked Creek

by Mary Ann Cherry

  “We can get a warrant and check his house for the drawing tablet. If we can find it, it may still have the matching page in it—the one from the last threatening note.”

  “Go for it,” Arvid said. “I’ll grab Russell and we’ll help you search.”

  “Do we have any idea where Glen is right now?” Fischer asked. “Perhaps working his display room at the art Expo?”

  “No. Tate came and picked him up. He wanted Glen to go with him when he informed Althea Heath that her son’s body had been positively identified. I’m sure that after they did that, Glen would head back to the Expo. In fact, they’ve probably been back for an hour or more.”

  Fischer snorted. “That M.P. should have come in right away and introduced himself. I’m not happy about that.”

  “Well,” Arvid said. “I hear you. But instead of wasting time worrying about that, if you can grab a warrant right now, we can go over to the house while Glen is otherwise occupied. Maybe we can find that tablet and match the paper to Berg Nielson’s, Evan’s, and Jessie’s threatening notes. Then we have strong grounds to bring him in for questioning. But we’ll sure have to dig into his alibi for the time Adele Nielson was shot. There has to something fishy with that alibi.”

  Jessie stood listening, a tear slowly trickling down her cheek.

  “Right now, even if we find the tablet, what can we arrest him for? All we have on him is harassing folks. Not murder. He might have a motive for killing Harris since he probably expected to inherit the ranch—but we know Benny went to Savannah and he looks good for that murder. And what about a motive for Adele?”

  Jacob knocked on the door. “Sheriff, Richard Christofferson is here and would like to speak to you. And a Tate Kamaka called for an appointment for this afternoon.”

  “Ask him to come in, Jacob.”

  “What kind of name is Kamaka, anyway? That’s a new one on me.”

  “Hawaiian. And give Miss O’Bourne here a ride back to the Crooked Creek Lodge, will you?”

  “Sure.” Jacob stared at Jessie. A slow flush crept up his face, and she realized he was thinking about the skunked Hawk. She flashed him a brilliant smile. It was hard to be that young.

  “Jessie,” Sheriff Fischer said grasping her hand in a firm handshake, “Thank you. Thank you very much. And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to keep our information under your hat.”

  She gave him a nod.

  *.*.*

  Jessie looked out the window as she drove, deep in a funk.

  So, it was Glen of all people. Who would have suspected that he was such a scumbag? Man, life throws you some curves. I just can’t picture him as a killer—to be someone who makes a living creating things, but then turns around and takes a life. She felt her eyes grow moist. More than one life.

  “You okay, Jessie?” Cheri looked concerned. “You seem sort of down.”

  Jessie tried to smile. “No, I’m good. Just tired, I guess. Have you been out this way before?”

  “Quite a few times. I used to buy porcupine quills from a lady out this way. You know, to use on my warshirts. I never asked where they came from. Ugh. I imagine road kill. But after I clean them thoroughly and soak them in hot soapy water, they’re lovely.” She pointed to the west. “There are some abandoned cabins over to the North. But next to them, there’s an old blue trailer house. That was hers.”

  “I see it.”

  “It’s practically falling apart. The door’s missing and the windows are filled with pressed board. Probably has animals living in it now. Just driving past those old cabins when my friend Amanda lived out here was like moving backwards through time fifty years at a stretch.” Cheri chuckled. “Amanda was a lot like you, Jessie. She wasn’t afraid of being on her own, and she’d haul that trailer up to Glacier Park and paint for a week or two at a time. Just like you do in the Hawk.”

  Or used to, Jessie thought. My poor Hawk. At least Dad brought me the old Ford.

  She thought back to the night before as she did her quick draw of the cows, standing under a big cottonwood tree. Her dad kept suggesting she change a few colors. ‘Why is the cow so blue?’ And is that little one a yearling? His wife, Marty, finally threw her hands in the air and said, “Let your daughter paint, for Pete’s sake, Dan. It’s what she does.’ Still. Too bad they couldn’t stay for a day or two. And as soon as the insurance money materializes, I’m ordering a new Greyhawk…same beautiful interior…same upholstery. She tried to keep track of what Cheri was saying.

  “She’d take all four of her cats along. They were good company, she said, and that way her daughter didn’t have to pet sit. Amanda passed away a couple years ago. I miss her.”

  “What happened to her cats?” Jessie’s mind went to Jack.

  “Her daughter took all four. Said it wasn’t right to split them up, they’d been part of a family for so long.” Cheri looked at Jessie and grinned. “Her dachshund wasn’t real pleased.”

  Jessie felt her mood improving. There were good, generous people in the world. “This is Helland’s lane.” She pulled in, parked, and got out to knock on the door. She beckoned to Cheri when Joe answered. “Come on…you need to take a look at his carvings before we go out to see the Nielson’s barn.”

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Althea Heath’s ranch

  “Bet Evan will be relieved if Glen is arrested,” Fischer commented as he opened another drawer in Glen’s bedroom. “He’s been getting the threatening notes just like Jessie. And he kept asking us to look harder at Glen.”

  They’d been through the shop—where it appeared Glen did most of his sculpting—and found nothing. Then they decided to go through the bedroom.

  “Did he now? That’s real interesting, because my gut keeps telling me we’re missing something. Why would Evan suspect Glen of anything? He knows Benny went to Savannah and probably killed Harris. So far as anyone knows, Glen had a rock-solid alibi. At least for Adele’s shooting.” Arvid was looking through a stack of magazines, gloves covering his hands. And then he saw it. “Here it is.”

  Russell and Fischer both scurried over to see.

  “We’ll see if we hit pay dirt.” Arvid lifted the cover of the tablet carefully. The page on top was torn in half. The remaining half—at first glance—was a possible match for one of the notes Fischer had in the evidence files. “We’re going to have to take him in for questioning. Not until we see if the torn edges of this tablet match up with those of a threatening note, though.”

  “And we’ll need to see if his fingerprints match the ones on Evan’s truck door handle.” Russell looked glum. “This is going to be hard on both Jessie and Camille.”

  “Not to mention his step-mom,” Arvid grumbled. “If she’s having a good day, she’ll know things have gone south.” He thought about Althea and her polynomials. She’d likely been having fewer and fewer good days, and nobody deserved this. If Glen was behind the harassment of Berg Nielson, he probably had something to do with his step-brother’s murder, too, even though Benny was the prime candidate for that. “Poor woman.”

  “You said it,” Russell agreed.

  “It just seems to me that everything started with Adele Nielson’s murder and everything else may have snowballed from there. And I gotta say…sometimes a horse just don’t need zebra stripes.”

  “Do you mean, ‘when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras?’,” Fischer asked.

  “That’s exactly it.” Arvid looked at Russell and Fischer. “This all began with Adele and you said Evan was her boyfriend. Or fiancée. Are you sure things were happy between them?”

  “So far as we know.” Fischer slipped the tablet into a clear evidence bag and labeled it. “Let’s head back to the office. I could really use a cup of coffee. And if it isn’t too much of a standard joke on cops of all kinds, a donut.”

  *.*.*

  Back in the Sheriff’s car, Arvid asked, “Did you look for any connection between Glen Heath and Evan? I mean, besides the obvious one of both being i
nvolved in the Expo?”

  “We looked, and we found one. But it’s tenuous. They both took a class in marketing and promotion at the college in Bozeman about three years ago.”

  “Promotion, huh? Well, the notes to the old man that made him increasingly more paranoid seem a lot like promotion. Like advertising. When you see the same message over and over, supposedly it sinks in deeper each time. But don’t it seem that the best person to send a text from Evan’s laptop was actually Evan? And he could certainly pretend to get the notes. Maybe he sent them to Jessie just to make his own more believable.”

  “Now you sound like young Jacob. He thought Berg Nielson had a screw loose and was pretending to get the notes just to get attention.” Fischer looked amused. “Do you really think Evan made it appear that someone was setting him up, but he was actually organizing everything behind the scenes? No. If that was the case, he had no idea how long he’d be locked up. Or if he’d ever be released.”

  “Mebbe,” Arvid replied in a matter of fact tone. “But if he had enough faith in our finding out the boots in the video were Glen’s, he might be enough of a showman to pull it off. I’ve watched him in action at the art show the past couple years. Evan’s a good actor. He works a crowd. And I think we need to find out what happened to the first toy tractor Jessie turned in at the check-in desk at the lodge. Did anybody check to see if it was still there? Because the young man behind the desk must’ve handled it. Heck, several people behind the desk probably picked it up and fiddled with it.”

  Fischer was looking at his phone. “I’ll find out if it’s still there.”

  “Best person to put the bag of tractors and old notes into Evans pickup is Evan himself. Easiest thing in the world to call in the anonymous tip to your office.” Arvid stroked his chin.

  “Maybe using a throwaway phone,” Russell said. “Yeah. He could have done all that…but why?”

  “I don’t know.” Arvid sighed. “But it all started with Adele and he’s the only one who had any ties to the young woman. But…it doesn’t explain Glen’s boots on the video, either.”

  Fischer ended his call. “Good call, Arvid. The first toy tractor disappeared, all right. The kid at the check-in desk thought the child who lost it must’ve claimed it. I’ll send Jacob over there to fingerprint him. Then we’ll see if we have a match for the print on the toy tractor cab.”

  “Even if they match,” Russell griped. “We still have the other set of prints on the pickup door handle to account for.”

  “I like your analogy of trying to tie a bow in a length of barbed wire.” Fischer said. “And here’s something else to muddy the water. We know Benny went to Savannah. But maybe he was met at the airport by someone who knows the area. Say, an Army M.P.?”

  “Tate? You’re talking about Tate? What does Tate have to do with it?”

  “I forgot to tell you. You’ll love it. The reason Christofferson came to see me today was to let me know Tate Kamaka was an army buddy of both Dom Nielson and Harris Freeman. He’s the heir.”

  Arvid and Russell stared. Finally, Arvid asked, “THE heir? You’re saying the heir to both ranches?”

  “In a nutshell. Tate knew both wills were in his favor. He claims he came to town to see the ranches and try to find out what happened to Harris. But, being in Georgia when Harris disappeared, he had means and opportunity. He inherits the whole kit and caboodle—the land, the money. Everything except a few miscellaneous bequests.” Fischer looked frustrated.

  “I just can’t see how he could orchestrate any of this from Georgia,” Arvid grumbled. “No matter how smart he is. And I do think he’s smart.”

  “Yeah,” Russell said. “It almost has to be someone from Crooked Creek. And with Glen’s boots on the video and finding this tablet here, it’s got to be Glen. He’s probably the one that dumped that stuff in Evan’s truck.”

  “I think we should have a meeting of the minds before we arrest him. We need to sit down. Go over all the options.” Fischer rubbed his eye. “Can we have that friend of yours—the FBI fellow—sit in?”

  “I’ll ask him.”

  “Who’s keeping an eye on Jessie?” Russell asked.

  “Aw, she’s fine. She’s with Joe Helland and Cheri Cappello. Cheri wants to see Helland’s carvings, and Jessie wants to go over to the Nielson place, so she can take photos of the barn.”

  “Nielson’s? She’s going to Nielson’s?” Both Russell and Fischer wore dumfounded expressions.

  “Yeah. Helland has been acting as sort of a caretaker over the place, and he commissioned Jessie to do a small painting of the barn for him.” Arvid looked out the window at the passing scenery. The winter wheat was barely up. One pasture held a mixed herd of horses, including an Appaloosa and foal. Fischer drove the speed limit, tapping his finger on the wheel.

  “I don’t like it,” he said. “It makes me nervous. Wasn’t it you. Arvid, who said the murders must be connected but to figure it out is like trying to tie a bow in barbed wire? You got that right. Tate should be done speaking to Althea Heath at the assisted living facility by now. He probably took Glen back to the expo. But we don’t know that. And we don’t have any idea where Evan is. The killer could be any one of the three. Or it could be any two of them. Geez. They’re all on the loose and all we have in hand is this tablet. Was anyone around when you asked Jessie O’Bourne to come in and view the trail cam footage? Did anyone hear she was going to be looking at boots?”

  Arvid closed his eyes and thought. He had told Russell. And Camille was in the room. Could she have heard? And if so, would she have told Glen?”

  Arvid and Russell both looked at Fischer with concern, then said in unison, “Step on it, will you?”

  Russell pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped in Jessie’s number. In the old red pickup, Jessie’s phone emitted a shrill trill. And then trilled and trilled.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Crooked Creek Lodge

  Grant glared at Woodcastle. “What do you mean, so far the books look great?”

  “I mean, so far the books look great.” Woodcastle gave him a dirty look right back. “Unless you find something fishy with the paintings—like one that’s been copied and sold as an original—then Max Watson is in the clear. Granted, the way he handled the sales of these high dollar items has been unethical, but not illegal. Not actionable.”

  “I just feel like there’s something wrong here. Get someone in to look at the paintings in his office and at his home.” Grant slouched against Max’s big desk and thumped the side of his hand on the wooden surface. “Look a bit harder at the books, too, will you?”

  “Of course, I’m going to look harder.” Woodcastle slumped and sighed. “I’ve barely started. Just with the barest scratch on the surface. I’ll be here all week, Grant. You don’t finish an audit like this in one day. But I will say that, as a favor to you, I verified with the bank that the money for Jessie O’Bourne’s $32,500 painting went right to the Creekside Veterinary Clinic as it was supposed to.”

  “Well, I’ll be. Curiouser and curiouser.”

  “Really? I’m doing all of this work and you’re going to come in guns blazing and quote Alice in Wonderland at me?”

  “Guns blazing?”

  “Well, okay,” Woodcastle conceded. “Eyes blazing. How’s that?”

  “I’ll only let you malign me like that because you’re so good at your job.” Grant stood with his head tipped back, thinking. Then, he stood and said, “Places to go, crooks to catch. See you later.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Creekside Humane Society

  “Good morning. How may I help you? Are you here to choose a new forever pet?” The young woman behind the desk at the Creekside Humane Society looked hopeful.

  “Sorry, no. My name is Grant Kennedy and I was in yesterday to speak to the director, Clifford Schultz. I need to speak to him again on a matter of some importance. Is he available?”

  “Why, no. I’m afraid he isn’t in this morn
ing.”

  “Can you tell me when he might return?”

  “Well,” she glanced toward the back of the office and spoke hesitantly, “I don’t know. I think that Mr. Schultz had an out of town family emergency, and he and his wife aren’t sure when they will return. It was unexpected. They left yesterday afternoon.”

  “I see. Is there someone in charge in his absence?”

  “One of the vets is in today…Dr. Sullivan. She would be the person in charge.”

  “Then I’d like to speak to Dr. Sullivan, if I may.”

  “I’ll see if she can come out. This is her surgery morning.” She bustled down the short hallway and through a swinging door. She was back in under a minute with a tall dark-haired woman wearing a pink lab coat and a harried expression.

  “I’m Dr. Sullivan. May I help you?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid you can. What I need to discuss might be better said in private.”

  She looked startled, glanced at her receptionist and then beckoned Grant into the nearest examination room. They stepped in and she closed the door.

  “I’m in between patients and don’t have much time. What’s this about?”

  “My name is Grant Kennedy. I was here yesterday to see Clifford Schultz.” He showed her his badge.

  “FBI? Is this a joke?”

  He waved his hands palm out in a self-deprecating gesture. “Dr. Sullivan, you’d be surprised how often I am asked that question, but no, I’m afraid it isn’t a joke. Not to alarm you, but while handling another issue in Crooked Creek, it’s come to the FBI’s notice that you likely have a problem here at the Creekside Humane Society.”

  “What kind of problem?” She traded her harried expression for a skeptical one.