Bury the Hatchet in Dead Mule Swamp (23 page)

I ignored the comparison,
since flies on hot windows usually died. “Wish me luck. Maybe I’ll
find something interesting.” I hung up before Adele had a chance to
wish me that luck, or say anything else.

I shrugged off the blanket
and slipped out of my jacket. Then I added the cell phone to the
plastic bag and made sure the zip closure was sealed tight.
Finally, I opened the car door and stood in the rain while I
switched from sneakers to the rubber sandals that were also still
in the Jeep.

Quickly, I ran down the
stairs and into the river before I had time to think about changing
my mind or how chilly I was. Hugging the shore, I worked my way
left till I could touch the boathouse walls, then ventured into the
deeper water. The current wasn’t bad, but the riverbed quickly
dropped off and within three steps I was holding tight to one of
the boathouse pilings, and my feet barely touched bottom. Taking a
deep breath, and clutching the plastic bag holding my electronics,
I ducked under the edge of the wall and came up on the
inside.

I hadn’t considered how I
would get up onto the walkway around the edge, and it was really
dark in the boathouse. The two small windows in the landward door
only let in a small amount of light. I tread water for a few
minutes while my eyes adjusted, and realized before long there was
a ladder out at the far edge, by the river door. I swam out there
and climbed onto the wooden platform.

I was cold and didn’t waste
any time getting to the reason for my prowling. The rain was
drumming on the metal roof, making a huge racket, and that
certainly didn’t help my nerves.

The large hand wheel on the
side of the hoist obviously raised and lowered the boat, but I
didn’t know if there was a brake that had to be released. I set my
plastic bag on the walkway, out of reach of a clumsy toe, and
tentatively turned the wheel counterclockwise, the normal direction
to loosen things. It moved easily, and soon the boat was descending
slowly toward the water. When it was lowered far enough for me to
see over the gunwales, I retrieved the baggie and removed my
flashlight, replacing the bag on the walkway. I didn’t want to turn
on the boathouse light. That would be obvious evidence of an
intruder to anyone looking down from above.

Switching on the narrow
beam, I flashed it over the interior of the boat. There was nothing
inside. More carefully, I began to move the beam across the edges
and seats, places that would have been certain to catch dripping
blood. Section by section I studied the boat, determined to look at
every possible surface.

Almost obscured by the
sound of the rain, I suddenly heard footsteps on the wooden
stairway. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, and I shivered
involuntarily. Switching off the light, I jumped in the direction
of the door and crouched beneath the small windows, hopefully out
of sight. Peering through a crack, I saw long slim legs clad in
black slacks, with the feet incongruously encased in lime green
wellingtons imprinted with daisies. Probably a woman. I wondered if
there was a matching raincoat covering her top half. The person was
obviously already looking in a window.

“Anastasia Raven, I know
you’re in there.” The voice was Mavis Fanning’s. My only hope was
to remain quiet.

“What are you doing? Your
car is in plain sight, you know?” she continued. “I see you’ve
lowered the boat. Planning on taking a clandestine river cruise,
are you? Tracy Jarvi may be very interested in that
idea.”

My heart sank at the
prospect of facing Tracy, but I also wondered what Mavis was up to.
She didn’t seem like a person who simply enjoyed hiking in the
rain.

From halfway down the
walkway, my phone rang inside its plastic bag. Any chance of
escaping detection had just been erased.

Chapter 34

Mavis pounded on the wooden
door, as the phone continued to ring, ten times. Eleven. I'd always
been glad that it rang enough times to give me a chance to answer
before going to voicemail. Right at the moment, I cursed that
setting.

“You’re in trouble now,
Ana,” she yelled. “I’m going to call the police."

Over the jangle of the
phone, I heard her steps receding as she began climbing toward the
parking area. The rain had let up, allowing me to hear more sounds
outside the boathouse. The phone stopped its ringing, but my nerves
were still buzzing.

I jumped to retrieve the
phone, but before I called Adele back I wanted to get out of the
boathouse. Fortunately, the lift mechanism was well greased, and
the boat rose easily as I turned the wheel clockwise until it
stopped at the maximum height. Jamming the flashlight back in the
bag with the phone and hastily sealing it, I jumped in the water
and ducked under the wall.

Just as I emerged from the
water I heard car doors slamming at the top of the bluff. Doors,
plural. How had Tracy, or maybe a Sheriff’s Deputy, gotten here so
quickly? I couldn’t see any way to get out of facing the music. I
was soaking wet—wetter than the rain could explain, and very cold.
Mavis had heard a phone ring inside the boathouse, and my car was
parked up above. Slowly I climbed toward certain chastisement, if
not worse. I’d forgotten all about returning Adele’s
call.

As soon as I was able to
peer over the edge of the high bank I was surprised to see, not a
police car, but Virginia Holiday’s sedan. She and Mavis were having
a heated discussion. Mavis was red-faced and waving in the
direction of the boathouse. Virginia stood, hands on hips, shaking
her head. I was too chilled to care what they thought, and walked
directly to my car, grabbing the blanket to wrap around my
shoulders.

“Ask her yourself,” Mavis
insisted, now pointing at me. “She was in the boathouse. See if she
denies it.”

Virginia continued to shake
her head. “So what?

“So what?” Mavis was
practically apoplectic. “She’s a trespasser. A
troublemaker.”

I used the towel I also
kept in the car to dry my hair and didn’t say a word.

I had no idea why, but
Virginia was coming to my defense. “She’s been here before, with
me, as a prospective buyer for this property. If she wants to look
around, I don’t mind.”

“But, but...” Mavis
sputtered.

Virginia glanced my way, as
I continued to drip beside my Jeep. “Her methods may be
unconventional, but there’s nothing in the boathouse she could
possibly steal. No one can get the boat out without opening the
river doors. And I know there’s nothing else of value
inside.”

Encouraged by Virginia’s
attitude, I turned my pockets inside out and showed them I had
nothing but the cell phone and flashlight. I grinned, hoping I
looked apologetic.

“I see no reason to call
the police,” the realtor said. “If you’re interested in the
property also, Ms. Fanning, I suggest we take a tour. I have the
keys, though, so that will make it easier. Perhaps Ana just likes
doing things the hard way.”

Virginia took Mavis by the
arm and forcefully marched her in the direction of the Lodge. She
didn’t look back. But Mavis shot me a menacing look over her
shoulder.

I had no idea what had just
happened, but it seemed good. I stepped into my Jeep and turned the
heater to high as I pulled away from Chippewa Lodge.

The phone was no worse than
damp and lit up normally when I opened it. I punched in Adele’s
number. She answered on the first ring.

“Ana, where are you? Are
you all right?” She sounded frantic.

“I’m fine. I’m wet and
cold. I have to go home and change. Then I’ll fill you
in.”

“Come to my house as soon
as you’re done. I’ll heat some soup. I called someone to help Suzi
at the store,” Adele said.

“That sounds good. Give me
a half hour.”

“I’ll be waiting,” I knew
she was more than eager to hear all the juicy details.

Chapter 35

By Monday morning I’d
decided I should tell Detective Milford about the remnant of fabric
I’d found on the stairs at Chippewa Lodge.
What’s the worst he could do
, I
thought,
yell at me?
I’d broken no laws. Well, not on the steps. Maybe I wouldn’t
have to tell him the rest of the story.

Once again, I was escorted
to his office in the drab Sheriff’s building. I asked him if he had
any ideas about where the body of Jared Canfield had been put in
the river, but he was not about to be so easily steered in the
direction I wanted to go.

“It sounds to me as if you
might have an idea of your own,” he said shrewdly.

“I have been looking
around,” I admitted, letting my voice trail off.

Milford shifted his weight
and sighed. “I assume you came here to tell me about
it.”

I pulled the small digital
camera from my purse and turned it on. Pushing several buttons, I
brought up on the small screen the macro picture of the rough fiber
and handed it across the desk.

“And what am I looking at?”
he asked, sounding perturbed.

“I was thinking about
places one could get to the river without being detected. This is
at a property that’s for sale, west of town, downriver toward
Jalmari. This bit of thread is caught in the edge of a step on some
stairs that lead to the water.”

“Why do you think a body
would be taken there? Why not to one of the public access points?”
He sounded interested, but I felt as if I were being
interrogated.

“Public access sites
are—well—public. Anyone dumping a body at one would be taking a
chance on being seen, don’t you think?” I tried to keep my tone
conversational.

“True, but if there are a
lot of steps, that wouldn’t be very handy,” he pointed
out.

“I know. But I decided to
look anyway, and I did find this. I didn’t touch it,” I added
quickly. “I don’t know what the body was wrapped in. Do
you?”

Milford shifted again. “No,
we don’t. Did you form an opinion about the kind of fabric this
is?”

“It looked like burlap to
me. Scroll through the pictures.” I stood up and pointed to a
button on the camera. “You can see which step it’s caught
in.”

The detective fiddled with
the camera for a few minutes, while I resettled in my chair. “This
is interesting,” he admitted. “Just where is this
place?”

“It’s called Chippewa
Lodge, and it’s about a mile west of town on South River Road,
where the water gets deeper.”

He handed the camera back
to me and almost smiled. “That’s fairly good detecting,” he
admitted.

“Thank you. Will you follow
up on this?” I asked.

“We might.” He leaned
forward and drummed his blunt fingers on the desk. Then apparently
coming to some conclusion, he leaned back slightly and took a deep
breath.

I held my breath. It seemed
as if he was about to tell me something significant, and I was
right.

“We are pretty sure Jared
Canfield was put in the river right at Jalmari. It was awfully
convenient that he was found snagged on a tree there, where people
would see him.”

“But he might have been
carried by the current and just happened to get hung up there,” I
protested.

“Sure, but then where would
be the value in using him as some sort of threat? This killer
needed the body to be found and identified. Remember, if this is
connected in some crazy way to the hatchet in a box, the similarity
in names is part of the puzzle. Canfield’s wallet was still in his
pocket.”

“But it was all water
damaged.”

“Not that badly. The canoe
livery reported finding the body soon after sunrise. The lab is
pretty sure he’d only been in the river about an hour, even though
decomposition was farther along. That doesn’t allow enough time for
him to have been carried very far downstream.”

“I suppose a body doesn’t
float as smoothly as a kayak,” I admitted.

“No, it certainly doesn’t,”
Milford said.

“Why are you giving me this
information?” I asked.

“Why are you so curious
about a murder you claim has nothing to do with you?” he
countered.

“I... I feel involved, with
the hatchet and finding the blood...the place where it happened,
you know.”

“Ms. Raven, Ana, you better
hope you aren’t involved. So far, not very much is making sense
here. We have a few bizarre facts, and a lot of speculation. If all
these facts are connected, we may be dealing with someone who is
not mentally stable.”

“That’s probably true of
many killers, I expect,” I said evenly.

“Yes, but if this is all
one case, the perpetrator deals in riddles, uses chicken blood to
try to frighten someone—through his ex-wife, and kills a person
simply as a warning to someone else, this person is totally
unpredictable. I am telling you to stop poking around and to be
very careful.”

Milford stood, and I
realized I was being dismissed. The detective did summon a deputy
to copy the photos from my SD card to a police computer, which
helped me believe the time hadn’t been a complete waste. However, I
felt more like a suspect than a bystander caught in a set of
strange inexplicable circumstances. At least I hadn’t needed to
confess about the boathouse.