Swope's Ridge

by Ace Collins

  He watched as she continued to move. When she drew near the front wall, she reached out and touched the door’s thick frame. Her left hand lingered there for a few seconds, then she made a slow pirouette and rested her back against the wall. She stood unmoving, her toned body relaxed but her face showing obvious signs of concentration. What was she doing? What did she perceive that he could not?

  She’d moved to the door to better hear the outside world. She’d know long before any of the rest of them if someone was approaching. In a strange way, the blind woman had become the lookout.

  “A car’s coming through the gate.” Janie turned her head in Lije’s direction.

  “Are you sure?” He picked up a loose brick he’d pried out of the wall a few weeks ago.

  “Yes, it’s moving slowly, but it’s heading this way.”

  Another minute passed before he heard it. He squeezed the brick, then got down on his hands and knees and crawled over to the door. The home’s native stone floor felt cool.

  “What do you think, Diana?” he whispered. “Who is it?”

  The former ABI agent shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Curtis was a solid CSI type. Lije knew that from watching her work. She had investigative skills he deeply respected.

  “It’s not the same car that’s coming now,” Janie whispered. “Not the one that drove off on the ridge.”

  “You sure?”

  “The one we heard after the shots had a distinctive squeak, like a spring was broken. This one doesn’t. And driving up here on that bumpy, rocky driveway would make that squeak even more pronounced. I guarantee it’s not the same car.”

  Lije hadn’t noticed any squeak, just the sound of a car driving off. Glancing over his shoulder, he looked at Diana. She shrugged. She’d missed it too.

  So if this wasn’t the guy who’d just shot at Diana, who was it? Who would be coming to this spot, so secluded that cell phones couldn’t find a signal?

  Still clutching the brick, Lije moved to the edge of the door and peered through the narrow opening. A postcard-like scene displayed the awesome majesty of the unspoiled Ozarks. Two robins flew overhead, and a squirrel raced up the trunk of a tree. A nervous turkey scurried between rows of blackberry bushes. Nothing in his field of vision was unusual. In fact, this was as close to peace on earth as he could imagine.

  Though he still couldn’t see the approaching vehicle, like Janie he now could hear the sound of a motor moving closer. Would there be a violent confrontation, a life-and-death struggle in this remote, idyllic setting?

  “Get ready,” Janie whispered. “He just parked the car and turned off the motor.”

  Curtis moved to Lije’s left side, lifted her gun, and aimed at the point where an intruder was most likely to approach their sanctuary. Lije felt a sense of extreme curiosity, as if this might be the most important moment in his life. Would he finally look the killer in the eye? Would he finally get answers to the nightmare that had started that fateful night on Farraday Road, the nightmare that had left his beloved Kaitlyn dead?

  Mentally voicing a quick and sincere prayer, Lije hefted his brick and readied himself for the fight Yes, it was time! It was long past time.

  “He’s walking this way,” Janie whispered. “He’s alone.”

  Lije nodded, then realized their alert sentry couldn’t hear the motion.

  “Here he comes,” Curtis whispered. “I see his shadow.”

  Lije glanced out and saw a silhouette floating over the windblown grass. It appeared to be a man. He had stopped moving.

  Time seemed to halt as surely as the intruder, now twenty feet outside their door. The clock wouldn’t start ticking again until the mystery man took his next step.

  3

  LIJE WAITED, HIS BODY TENSED, READY FOR ACTION, ready to lunge through the door. Janie touched his shoulder and kept him glued to his post. Patience, she seemed to tell him. Patience is what you must have now.

  Why didn’t the visitor move? Why didn’t he rush in and start shooting? As if in a bad dream, the shadow remained anchored. Lije couldn’t see the flesh-and-blood form of the man creating that shadow.

  Lije continued to stare at the dark, ill-defined figure, watching for any movement. His mind flashed back to a time when Kaitlyn had introduced him to MP3s of old radio dramas from the 1930s and 1940s. She’d had hundreds of them on her iPod and liked to listen to them as they traveled. She’d said classic radio programs made a long trip seem shorter.

  While she had loved Boston Blackie, Richard Diamond, The Lux Radio Theater, and The Whistler, her favorite program had starred Orson Welles. She often mimicked the great actor’s well-known line, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows! “

  Kaitlyn would’ve seen the irony of this moment.

  There it was! Barely perceptible at first, but movement. The shadow took a cautious step forward. Another short step. Then another. From where he knelt, Lije could now see half of a dark-brown hiking boot. Whoever this was, he was prepared for the rugged terrain that covered so much of Swope’s Ridge. Did he know something they didn’t?

  Moving his attention from the boot to the shadow falling on the tall grass, Lije saw a hand move. It seemed to linger at the man’s side for a moment before pulling something from the pocket of his pants. The man took that unknown object and aimed it. What was it? Lije tensed even more. Curtis slid her left hand to the screen door. She was ready to shove it open and fire. But she held back, perhaps waiting for one more step by the intruder.

  Lije heard a faint sound. It stopped. Then another soft burst. The sound was familiar, but what? He glanced over at Curtis. Shaking her head, she looked up at the woman leaning against the wall. Maybe the blind woman’s ears could somehow see what they could only hear. Maybe she could put a picture with the sound.

  “He’s spraying something,” Janie said. Her nose wrinkled as the breeze carried the scent into the room. “It’s Off.”

  “What?” Curtis said.

  “Off. You know, the insect repellent.”

  Janie had just finished her explanation when a deep voice hollered, “Lije? You up here?”

  The anxiety in the room evaporated. This wasn’t a gunman; it was a friend.

  “It’s McGee,” Curtis said, rolling from her belly onto her back and easing the gun to her side.

  “Yep.” Lije laughed. “The Shadow knows.”

  “What?” Janie asked.

  Not bothering to explain, Lije jumped to his feet, pushed open the screen door, and strode out into the sunlight. As he did, the state’s top defense attorney took a couple more steps forward, finally revealing himself to his host.

  “Stopped by the house in Salem,” McGee said. “When I discovered you weren’t there and your assistant wasn’t home either, figured you were up here trying to find something new.”

  Janie, Curtis, and Jameson emerged from the dungeon-like confines of the German’s home. McGee laughed, “So you’ve got the whole Scooby Crew with you. What’s with the building material?”

  Lije shrugged, dropped his brick to the ground. “Somebody took two shots at this place a few minutes ago from higher up on the ridge. We thought you were the guy coming down to finish the job.”

  McGee glanced over his shoulder to the spot where his friend was pointing. “The old logging road?”

  “That’s right,” Curtis said. “One shot missed my head by an inch.”

  McGee grimaced, suddenly serious. “It’s anything but over, then.”

  4

  KENT MCGEE LOOKED AT THE PHOTO OF THE BUS IN the old high school yearbook. “So you think your great-aunt’s disappearance might be tied to something that happened on Swope’s Ridge? Imagine! When you consider everything else that’s supposedly tied to this place, this property could be the capital of Crime, U.S.A.”

  Lije shrugged. “Mabel Dean did claim it was cursed, and even though I don’t believe in that sort of thing, I can now see why she does. As for Aunt Josephine
being tied to this place, well, it’s a long shot that I wouldn’t even consider if not for the fact the annual’s the only book in this house printed in the United States. I find that weird. Everything else came from Germany.”

  He thought it strange that a man who had had no friends, welcomed no guests, and lived as a hermit for five decades would have latched onto and kept a high school annual. That had to mean something. It was time to be logical and work clues like a puzzle, fit pieces into place.

  “Let me rephrase that,” Lije said. “If you’re asking, ‘Did what happened to JoJo have anything to do with Kaitlyn’s death?’ I’d say not likely. But the pages in the yearbook where the bus appears show signs of having been looked at more than the others. And Schleter bought a bus to live in while he built this house. That one out in the brush could be the same one.

  “Consider this: we’ve been through this house with a fine-toothed comb and have nothing to show for it besides the annual. Others have gone through this place, too, but it’s obvious nobody has looked inside the bus. Not us, not the ABI, and not the man who killed Kaitlyn. She was murdered right after she bought Swope’s Ridge from Mabel. There has to be a connection. If you can think of a better place to search than that bus…”

  McGee grinned, turned, and strolled out the door of the old brick home. When Lije joined him, the criminal defense attorney was staring intently at the tangle of vines and underbrush all but hiding the transportation relic from a very different age.

  “It’s going to be a challenge just to hack our way in,” Lije noted.

  “Couldn’t we just pay someone to do it?” McGee suggested. “I’m into sports, not yard work.”

  Lije slapped his friend on the back. “No, we can’t and you know why. And don’t worry, I’ve got a chain saw. Besides, you’re dressed for the job. It won’t be nearly as much work as you think. It’ll be good for you. Looks to me like you’ve put on a few pounds, old friend.”

  “I should’ve stayed in Little Rock,” McGee moaned. “I’m going to need a lot more Off before this day is finished. And…“ He patted his stomach. “I weigh the same as I did in college.”

  “Yeah,” Lije said. “That statement proves some lawyers lie. Now come on, Kent, let’s get the tools and get to work. That old relic might have the answer to Kaitlyn’s murder. And knowing you, I’m sure you want to find it almost as much as I do.”

  “Probably snakes too. I don’t like snakes. And you’re an attorney, so no more lawyer jokes.”

  The two men turned toward Lije’s SUV to get the tools just as Curtis came out of the house.

  “Listen, guys,” Curtis said with an air of authority. “Don’t you think we need to let the law in on the fact that someone took a shot at me? This is the kind of thing the police like to investigate.”

  As Lije lifted the chain saw from the floor of the SUV, he wondered why she would want to report it and have police crawling all over the place, especially her old boss. He didn’t trust the ABI director. Barton Hillman had done nothing to help find Kaitlyn’s killer. He’d even let an innocent man die on death row—a memory that still haunted Lije. Whose side was Diana on? She had quit the ABI, but now she wanted to drag back in the same people who had screwed them up just a few months ago?

  Lije clenched his jaw. “Why? All the locals would do is look around, then bring in the ABI. That’d mean Hillman would be back up here. Do you want him here? Or do you want out? You know what I think.”

  “But there’s a killer out there,” she argued.

  He knew he couldn’t stop her from calling the authorities, but that wasn’t the test he had just presented. He had to see where her loyalties lay. Was she with him or was she still part of the old ABI mentality that had crippled the investigation of Farraday Road? That had let Kaitlyn’s killer escape. He waited for her response.

  Her eyes avoided his. “I don’t know,” Curtis said. “It could be Smith.”

  “Could be,” Lije shot back. “Maybe he’s after you now, but don’t forget he killed my wife.”

  Curtis hooked her thumbs in her jeans pockets and looked down at the ground. With the toe of her boot, she drew a small circle in the red dirt. “Okay, I’ll play it your way, but we still need to check the spot where the shots were fired. So, if you don’t mind…” She offered a slight grin. “I’m going up to the logging road and see what I can find.”

  “Good idea. That’s why you’re needed. You’ve got skills we can’t begin to touch. We’ll be here when you finish.”

  Pulling her keys from her purse, she walked over to her Ford Focus and got in.

  “Be careful,” McGee yelled as she started the car.

  Lije watched as she drove out of the gate and over the ridge. He felt uneasy. Was the shooter still out there? Who had taken the shots? Should he have gone with her?

  “Saw’s going to make a lot of noise,” McGee said.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. With the price of heating fuel so high, there are chain saws working up and down Spring River every day of the week. Besides, everyone around here knows I’m cleaning up this place. If anyone asks, I’ll just tell them the bus and thicket are eyesores and we’re getting rid of another blight that’s spoiling this superb hunk of nature.”

  “Still think it’d be better to hire someone,” McGee said. “There are a lot of folks looking for extra work.”

  “Give it up, Kent.”

  5

  IT TOOK THE MEN A BIT OF WORK TO CUT AWAY enough tree growth and brush to get to the side door of the bus. In the process they scared a snake out of a good hiding place. McGee jumped, Lije laughed, and the reptile hissed, then slithered off toward the river.

  Even with the chain saw, nothing about cutting a path to the bus was easy. It was the hardest work either had done in months. Finally, assuming the worst was behind them, they discovered the bus door was secured by one of the largest padlocks they had ever seen. They scanned the discolored windows. All were covered with bars. Even the front windshield wore thick security braces. The door was the only way to gain access to the rusting hulk.

  “You really think his old bus is important?” McGee asked.

  “It’s worth a look,” Lije replied. “Think about it. Folks have been searching for something valuable on Swope’s Ridge for years. Yet they’ve found nothing. What’s the one place they haven’t looked? This bus.”

  “You got a hacksaw?”

  “In the Explorer,” came Lije’s dog-tired reply.

  While Janie had contented herself with keeping the workers supplied with cold water, Jameson had moved the brush the men had cut into a meadow just to the right of the home. She was more than ready for a new assignment. When neither man made a move toward the SUV, she said, “You all stay there. Rest up. I’ll get the saw.”

  No one argued.

  Lije had never ridden on a school bus route, but he had taken plenty of rides on the yellow carriages to ball games and field trips. He looked at the vintage vehicle and thought about all those who had once walked through that locked door. If the old bus had a voice, what stories could it tell? Years of daily runs on washed-out back roads, hundreds of students whose route to school began and ended in this vehicle. How many girls and boys had shared their first kiss inside this rig? How many found the loves of their lives? How many studied for tests as they rode in the early hours of the morning? And how many of those passengers were still alive today?

  So many secrets. So many stories. Would anything here bring him closer to understanding why Kaitlyn had been murdered? Or was this a waste of time? Another dead end?

  McGee sat down on a tree stump while Lije moved around the bus to study it in more detail. With his leather-gloved hand he rubbed at the decades of grime near the windshield. The bus had been painted green, not the usual yellow.

  Ash Flat hadn’t had a high school in four or five decades. What were the odds? Here was bus number 3, the same number as on the bus pictured in the annual they’d found. He worked his way around
an old cedar tree to the front bumper. The unique V-shaped grill was identical to the one in the book. This was a 1936 flathead Ford.

  He studied the bus. Amazingly, despite the assault by nature, the old people carrier was in solid shape. A series of small dents indicated the bus had been through several hailstorms. The roof looked a bit caved in, perhaps from heavy snow. The hood was rusty but intact. The sides had weathered the seventy years in the woods even better than the hood and top, and while the tires were cracked and flat and had settled a few inches into the ground, if a person wanted to clear a path through the brush and bring in a strong wrecker, old number 3 could be yanked off the ridge and restored. That would be cool. Few of these things ever showed up at car shows. Might be a project worth considering. He envisioned the possibility of bringing this long-dead chunk of iron back to life.

  “Got it,” Heather announced as she made her way through the freshly cleared path to the bus. “And look who’s come home.”

  Lije worked his way around the bus to the door. Curtis was heading toward them.

  “Did you find anything?” Lije asked.

  The investigator shrugged. “Only one shell casing, no prints. And the tire impressions were from a tire so common that making a mold would do us no good. What about here?”

  “What you see is what we have,” McGee replied.

  “Cutting through the brush,” Lije said, “we’ve created enough firewood to last two winters. But we’ll soon be inside what I hope is the hillbilly version of King Tut’s tomb.”

  Janie, who was rounding the corner of the house, yelled, “Have you stacked any booby traps in my path?”

  “No,” Jameson yelled back. “Stay straight and you’re clear.”