A Treasure to Die For (6 page)

Bonnie must have heard the truck, too, because stopped rifling through the dresser and looked up at me. Her eyes were huge. “My God, Jake, he’s back!” She was holding a pair of Appleton’s shorts, and any other time it would have been funny. She had an index finger poking out a hole meant for something else.

“Quick, Bon, close that drawer and let’s go out on the deck. We’ll pretend we never came inside.” Bonnie didn’t move. She was frozen in place and had turned whiter than fresh snow. I grabbed her by the arm and hurriedly led her outside before Appleton could catch us in his house.

Once outside, I realized it wouldn’t take him ten seconds to find us out. It was time to take the offense. I opened the gun’s breach to make sure it was still loaded, then snapped it shut. The double-barrel shotgun was an antique, but very effective with number-two buckshot at close range.

“Grab Fred’s collar and get behind me when he comes up, Bon, but not too close; this gun has a pretty good kick.” I cocked both hammers and waited.

The truck didn’t move, and Appleton didn’t get out. He just stayed there with the motor spewing blue-white smoke out the tailpipe. I couldn’t actually see his face because of the glare on his dirty windshield. Was he on his phone calling the sheriff? Or worse, was he loading his own gun? What was he doing?

Fred didn’t wait to find out, and took off down the deck stairs before Bonnie could catch his collar.

“Fred! No! Get back here! Now!” I might as well have been yelling at the trees.

Bonnie was back to being Bonnie. “Go get him, Freddie! Show him we mean business.”

I didn’t waste time with the stairs and vaulted over the rail. I wasn’t about to let that creep hurt my dog. The drop from the deck to the ground was only a few feet, but I landed on a large rock and twisted my leg causing me to fall. The butt of the gun hit the ground hard and fired. Appleton put his truck in reverse and raced out the driveway before Fred could reach him. Fred knew from experience he couldn’t catch the truck once it was on the road and gave up the chase. He was back with a huge grin on his face before I managed to get up.

“Good boy,” Bonnie said, reaching down with both hands to rub his head. “You showed that pervert who’s the boss.” She had taken the slower, but safer, way to get off the deck by walking down the stairs.

***

“I still have some old Keystones in the fridge, if you want one, Jake,” Bonnie said before taking a sip of her Jack Daniels. We were recalling our adventure while watching the sun slip behind Mount Evans from her back deck. If ever there was a time I needed a beer, it was now. I’m sure Fred could use one too, but I knew Julie was watching and we couldn’t let her down.

“No thanks, Bon. I’ll wait for the coffee.” Fred had cold water he didn’t drink. It would have been the quintessential Rocky Mountain spring night if not for her police scanner squawking in the background to remind me we had just committed a felony of breaking and entering.

Being a possible fugitive didn’t seem to bother Bonnie. She was amazing. She hadn’t cared one bit if Appleton called the sheriff; she had been hell-bent on going back inside to look for my cigar box. I had to talk myself silly to get her to leave his cabin before the law arrived, but I’m glad she was on my team. Though she didn’t find it, I was amazed at her lack of fear.

Bonnie looked at the wrinkled paper again and took another sip of her drink. “Blood sucking bug pass. Do you think that’s the location of the Tenderfoot, or where Drake stashed his gold?”

“Most likely the gold, if those numbers are the code he left for his niece to decode. I’ll have to get a copy of Paul Wilson’s book and verify them, but we still don’t have a clue as to what it means.”

“Patty has a copy, Jake. I’ll ask to borrow it first thing in the morning.” Bonnie had that little-girl gleam in her eye again, and I could tell it wasn’t from her drink. “Oh, this is so exciting. We’re going on a real treasure hunt.”

“Whoa there, partner. Nobody said anything about searching for it. You won’t be doing much treasure hunting from a jail cell. Let’s concentrate on finding Shelia’s killer first.”

She put the paper down on the little deck-table before taking a long swallow from her glass. “We know who did it. We practically caught Sleeveless with his pants down.”

I choked on my coffee. The vision of Bonnie with her finger sticking through Appleton’s shorts and the image on his computer screen made me laugh before I could finish swallowing. “That’s not the point, Bon. You and I both know he killed Shelia while stealing her copy of the book, and when he found it was the wrong copy, he helped himself to mine. The point is we can’t prove any of it.”

She paused with both hands around her glass, thinking about what I’d said. “It’s all circumstantial, isn’t it?”

Bonnie’s police scanner cut me off before I could answer. She nearly dropped her drink when a dispatcher mentioned Appleton’s name. He had been found dead in his truck. There was more, but I couldn’t hear it over the static.

Bonnie went over to her scanner to silence its screeching, but not before we heard the mention of suicide. She turned to me with eyes the size of quarters. “Suicide?”

“That’s what they said,” I answered. “Kind of hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“You don’t suppose it was because he knew we figured out he killed Shelia?” she asked, now holding her glass tightly with both hands.

“He didn’t seem like the kind to kill himself, Bon.”

A vision of Appleton trying to run over my dog when Fred had chased his truck flashed through my mind. “What do you think, Fred? Do you smell something fishy?”

Fred didn’t answer, but raised his head at the mention of his name. He had slept through the excitement of the scanner, and I felt bad for waking him from his dreams. For all I knew he might have caught Chatter, or met a pretty Collie. I reached down to rub his ears, but froze when the scanner came back on.

Bonnie managed to raise the volume in time for us to hear someone request a tow-truck at Three Sisters Park to haul Appleton’s truck away. “I think Fred and I might go there tomorrow, Bon.”

“Three Sister’s Park? What do you expect to find there?”

“Not the park, Bon. I want to go back to Appleton’s cabin before they send out their forensics team. Our prints are all over the place.”

She set her glass on the table next to the wrinkled paper from Appleton’s bedroom. “Why would they do that? Are you saying he didn’t kill himself?”

“You’re forgetting the blood stain on the deck, Bon. I’m no expert, but it looked fresh and someone tried to wash it out. Maybe somebody was trying to make it look like suicide.”

“Are you sure I can’t get you a beer, Jake. It would help you think better. How did he drive back and catch us there if he’d already been killed? You gonna tell me he’s a zombie?”

“Zombie or not, it doesn’t smell right, and I’m sure the cops will smell it too.”

***

I was torn between leaving Fred with Bonnie and taking him with me the following morning. Bonnie made the decision for me when she used the same tactic as the day before. My Jeep was still down and if I wanted to use her Cherokee, I had to take her along.

“Only if I drive,” I told her, trying to look like I meant it. I used my mean face, the one I use when Fred has done something bad, where I stare without blinking.

She wasn’t buying it. “Should we let the little boy drive, Freddie?”

My mean voice had worked on him. He was at my side acting like a concrete statue, but managed a short bark when he heard her question.

“Okay, you guys win, but only because I need to fix my face and it will save time if I do it while you drive.”

***

We drove past Appleton’s slowly, but not slow enough to be suspicious if someone should be watching. Once satisfied that the cabin wasn’t being watched, we went back and pulled into the drive. I parked close to the deck stairs instead of the front door. There was no need to clean the door of prints because we had entered through the sliding door on the deck.

I turned to Bonnie who had already unhooked her seat belt and was reaching for the door handle. “Bon, please don’t,” I said before she could open the door. “I need you to stay here with Fred and watch the road while I go in and wipe the place down.”

“It’s my prints too, Jake. I can’t take the chance you’ll miss anything.”

“Please, Bon. You’ll slow me down and I need you to be my lookout.”

She let go of the door handle and sat back without saying a word. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was pouting.

“I’m sorry, Bon Bon. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that I really need you to watch my back.”

A cigarette and lighter appeared from nowhere. “I’m not a cripple, Jake. Just because I’m old, doesn’t mean I’m slow,” she said, before flicking on her lighter.

***

The cabin looked the same as when we were here yesterday. I knew I had to be quick for it was only a matter of time before someone showed up, so I started at the sliding door then worked my way toward the bedroom, wiping everything we might have touched with a rag coated with lemon oil. I had seen on some TV show where prints couldn’t be lifted from an oily surface. It sounded logical, whether it was true or not, but too late I realized how stupid I’d been. Maybe Bonnie should have come with me after all. I’m sure she would have known better.

Appleton had been a slob. The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months, so my attempt to wipe prints became all too obvious when I went to clean off the table where my shotgun had lain. I needed to wipe the whole table or even a rookie cop would see someone had tried to remove finger prints. It would be like leaving little sticky notes saying ‘look here’.

If only moving the clutter to clean under it was so simple. My brilliant idea to wear latex gloves was stupid, because they were now coated in lemon oil. I couldn’t touch anything without staining it with oil from the gloves, and if I took them off, I’d be leaving more prints than I started with.

Appleton had inadvertently solved the problem for me. Among the mess on the table was a dirty dish towel. Using the towel as a makeshift pair of gloves, I could now move a stack of books that included Forrest Fenn’s book and several overdue library books on lost Rocky Mountain treasures. There was also a Lakewood phone book and a printout on paper with holes punched on the sides. I was in still in high school the last time I saw that kind of paper; it had to be thirty years old, but wasn’t. Thirty-year-old paper should be yellow with faded ink, and this looked like it was printed yesterday. A quick glance told me it was a copy of the Rocky Mountain News article Paul Wilson had mentioned at his book signing.

More clutter was stacked on top of a small tin box. My heart nearly stopped when I went to move the box heard the distinctive sound of coins. Sure that Julie’s ring would be there, I tore off the top of the box, but all I found were my coins and a flash drive.

Where was her ring? Did he sell or hock it? I wanted to throw the tin box across the room, and probably would have if not for Fred. He was sitting on the other side of the table wearing a grin on his face.

“What are you doing here, Freddie?” The question was really meant for Bonnie, for she was standing behind him at the sliding-glass door.

“Jake, I think we better leave.” Her wrinkled forehead and frown spelled worry.

“I’m almost finished, Bon. Give me another minute and I’ll be right out.”

“You don’t have another minute. Someone has driven by a couple times in a fancy SUV, and I’m sure they saw my Cherokee.”

“I can’t leave yet, I’m not finished. Keep an eye out for me while I check the bedroom.”

She surprised me when she didn’t argue. I thought for sure she would have come in to help, or should I say snoop. Evidently, she took the SUV seriously.

I quickly finished with the table then had a brilliant idea. I put most of my coins and the flash drive in my pockets, but left a few quarters. Somewhere in my twisted logic, I thought the police wouldn’t suspect anyone had been here when they saw the coins. Any self-respecting burglar wouldn’t leave cash money behind.

Pleased with my clever subterfuge, I hurried to the bedroom door to wipe its frame and knobs, and anything Bonnie or I might have touched or leaned against. Two minutes later, I joined her at the door.

She pointed toward the kitchen. “You missed those paw prints by the fridge, Jake.”

I followed her finger and saw where Fred had sniffed for food. There was no way I could clean those without doing the entire floor. “It’s too late now. We’ll leave the door open and hope they think a neighbor’s dog made them.”

She was gone when I turned back to the sliding door. I made one last wipe of the jamb where she had been resting her hand, and followed her to the car with Fred one step behind me. I couldn’t help but wonder if the FBI kept track of dog prints.

Bonnie was behind the wheel, and I wanted to leave the scene of our crime quickly, so I didn’t argue about her driving. “I think all we did was dig a deeper hole,” I said while watching out the rear window for the mysterious SUV once we were back on the road.

She looked over at me as she turned onto 285. “Why’s that, Jake?”

Suddenly, the blare of a semi truck’s horn made us nearly jump out of our seats. Bonnie had cut off the big rig and it missed us by inches when its driver swerved into another lane.