Dead Man Falls (7 page)

"The killer went to a fair amount of trouble to keep these papers with the body. After we took pictures, I removed the items," Rick said, answering one of my mental questions. "We assumed it was a message."

Jerry turned toward me and said, "The papers are actually pages from our senior yearbook, Jolene."

"Yearbook pages?" I said. "From Kickapoo, our senior year. Why?"

"Calvin Holt’s picture was X’d out," Rick said, bending down and picking up the stack of plastic bags. "The meaning for him is fairly obvious. The other markings less so, but we can’t take any chances."

The tone of his voice had changed slightly and I’d caught a sideways glance from the usually cheerful beach boy detective that told me he wasn’t angry with me at all. Nope. He was worried. And that was way worse. "What do you mean, markings?" I asked, although I’d already lined up several immediate ideas, none of them good. "And why are you looking at me like that?"

Jerry slipped his arm around my shoulders as Rick shuffled the plastic-covered, waterlogged papers in his hands. The page he held out to me definitely got my attention.

There, sealed in an evidence bag, was indeed a page from my high school yearbook--a soggy but easily identifiable page from the senior photo section.

And in the middle of the sheet, with a big red circle around it, was the smiling teenage face of yours truly, Jolene Janette Jackson.

Chapter 4

“

Sorry, Jolene," Rick said, putting the page back in the stack. "I know this is the last thing you need right now."

Well, yeah, probably so. Last week, being targeted for murder would have been no big deal at all. I could have handled it just fine then. Next month would probably be okay too. But now? Yep, it seemed like a real bad time for that sort of thing.

"You aren’t necessarily next," Jerry said. "There are other pages and other circles, but it does appear that you could be targeted for some reason."

Oh, please. "Does appear" and "could be" are weasel words. If there were other marks, I wanted to see them, then I could decide for myself how worried I needed to be. "Can I see the other pages?"

"Sure." Rick fanned out the bags of soggy pages like a deck of cards and smiled a little. "We’re operating under the Jolene Jackson chain of custody rules today."

That might have been mildly amusing except that I couldn’t recall tampering with any evidence back in July, unless you counted Deputy Leroy Harper, which I preferred not to. I smiled and nodded as if I got the joke.

Rick glanced around at the growing crowd then pointed at the pages. "Take a quick look, then you both need to get out of here," he said, back to his serious voice. "We’ll talk later."

Fine by me, but I didn’t really understand why Jerry needed to hurry off, except maybe to keep me company or to see to it that I actually left the scene of the crime. Long shots, both, but when Rick pulled out the page behind mine I grasped the problem very quickly. Jerry’s face was circled in thick red marker just as mine had been. I think Rick showed me the other pages as well, but I didn’t really see them. I was still hung up on the fact that whoever killed Calvin Holt also wanted to kill Jerry. And me.

Jerry must have understood my glazed expression because he said, "That’s okay, Jolene. We’ll go over everything again later."

I’d been paying attention, hadn’t I? Apparently not, because Rick had already given the bags of evidence back to one of the investigators and yet I was staring at where they had been. Hard to make a decent excuse for that so I didn’t try. It was getting mighty hard to keep my distance from the reality of the situation, and as much as I hated to admit it, I was running out of both wisecracks and bravado. "I didn’t even really know Calvin Holt," I mumbled. "How can there be any kind of connection to me or Jerry?"

"That’s what we plan to find out," Rick said. "Right now, the priority is keeping you two safe. Jerry drove his department vehicle so you’re going to follow him out to your mother’s house. A patrol car will follow you."

Great. Just great. A parade.

"Where’s Lucille?" Jerry asked, looking around.

"She was up near the front by the railing when I left. She shouldn't be far so it shouldn't take me long to find her."

Well, I was sure wrong about that, as I belatedly discovered after winding my way through the throng of people lined up behind the police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. Lucille had apparently migrated with the excitement seekers and was no longer where I’d left her. A large number of umbrellas had popped up during the extended festivities, entirely too many of them purple, which didn’t help matters either. Finally, I found the correct umbrella in the mass of spectators, and the face beneath the purple shade did not look pleased to see me, meaning she was not happy that I’d been in the middle of things and she’d gotten stuck on the sidelines. I shrugged a helpless shrug, but she didn’t soften even a little.

I glanced over at Jerry, who knows my mother better than he would like, hoping he would detect the impending crisis and rescue me.

As if he’d read my mind, he stepped around me and walked up to Lucille, leaned down and whispered a few words. Her eyes rounded, then narrowed, and I could only assume he was telling her about the body and the possible next victims, namely her r good-hearted daughter who wouldn’t do a thing in the world ever to upset her dear mother.

I smiled just a little and tried for the "poor little ol’ me" routine, but I’m not good at that sort of thing and Lucille looked wholly unimpressed. She did, however, look mad.

She snatched her purse around from her elbow and unhooked the clasp.

Unpleasant rapid-fire flashbacks kicked my reflexes into gear and I lunged forward, reaching for the handbag, trying to snap the top closed. Jerry apparently had the same idea and we arrived at the same spot at the same time, banging together like two of the Three Stooges. Only it wasn’t funny.

We both straightened and rubbed our heads, still eyeing the purse to make sure it stayed closed and its contents well concealed.

Mother glared at us as if we were complete fools. Gun-shy knee-jerk reactive types, yes, but not fools. We have both learned the hard way about the purse. I was grateful that all she shot us was another disgusted look as she collapsed her umbrella and stuffed it inside her handbag. There was no need to ask if she had her gun any more than if she had her lipstick. Lucille carries her essentials at all times.

Now, it’s not that my mother doesn’t have a concealed permit for the Glock. She does. It’s also not a question of her knowing how to use the pistol. She knows. In fact, Lucille has an official training certificate attesting to her prowess with a variety of handguns, not to mention a wallet-sized card proclaiming her a lifetime member at the Redwater Falls Gun Club. All that’s well and good, I suppose, as long as I don’t have to be a witness to it, which was the point in grabbing the purse in the first place.

"We better go now, Mother," I said, still rubbing my forehead. "We’re going to follow Jerry out to the house."

Lucille narrowed her eyes and looked down at me. "It is very well time we went home. This outing has just been a disaster." She spun on her heel and stomped away in the general direction of the Tahoe. Her very presence parted the milling mass of humanity before her and she marched toward my car, chin held high and purse swinging from the crook of her arm.

I made quick arrangements to meet Jerry at the exit to the park then followed along behind her Queenliness.

Once we made it to the Tahoe, it was no trouble backing out or heading to the exit because everyone else was staying put now that the emergency equipment had showed up. A Channel 3 News van jerked to a stop beside a fire truck and people with cameras and cords and things starting piling out. Before I could drive past, I was within spitting distance of a real live local TV star. The anchor babe who’d told me all about the falls when I first arrived was now on the scene and ready to report. Wow.

I was mentally picturing the spandexed starlet in her short skirt and spiked heels tippy-toeing down the steep riverbank for an up-close live report, when I saw a girl with long blond hair standing a few feet behind the van, staring open-mouthed at my car. I groaned. "Kimberlee Fletcher."

Lucille jerked around in the seat. "Where?"

I nodded in the general direction of the young newspaper reporter who had written more than one unpleasant article about me, my mother and her private affairs, meaning her relationship with the married dead mayor. Mother had not taken kindly to the tabloid slant nor to the fact that the words "Jolene Jackson said" had appeared in every other paragraph. Specifically, Mother had wanted to shoot her.

I glanced at the purse. "Forget I said anything. Just stare straight ahead, okay?"

"Why, would you just look at that!" Lucille said, rapping a long nail on the side window. "The little twit doesn’t look any older than a third grader and we already know she’s not half as smart as one. Just look at her gawking over here at us." Mother jabbed at the buttons on the door, trying to roll the window down, which it would not because I had clicked on the lock switch about the time I recognized Kimberlee. Ditto for the doors. I didn’t figure either one of us needed to be tempted.

"You stop this car right now, Jolene. I’ve got a thing or three to say to that little snot-nosed brat, printing those lies about me before. Why, the very nerve."

I stepped on the gas. "Not now, Mother. We’ve got to get out of here."

She huffed and puffed for a second or two, then wedged herself around in the seat, facing the window, and gave little Kimberlee the finger. With both hands. Vigorously.

Lovely. Just lovely. "How do you suppose she’ll write that up, Mother? ‘Flipped me off,’ or ‘made vulgar hand gestures’?"

"She wouldn’t dare," Lucille muttered, apparently considering the possibility. "Besides, she doesn’t know me from Adam. And we’re in your car anyway."

"Yes, we are. The dark blue Tahoe with Colorado plates. Oh, no, wait, I believe her exact written description that appeared on page one was ‘a nondescript dark blue Tahoe with Colorado plates.’ And let’s not forget that she’s Leroy Harper’s cousin and wannabe love interest. I’m sure they never discussed us at all and she's totally clueless as to who just insulted her."

Lucille glanced back around to see if Kimberlee was still standing there. She was, notebook clutched to her chest and mouth agape. "Well, shit," Mother muttered. "You really think she’s stupid enough to print something silly like that?"

Certain of it, in fact. "I’m sure the hamster wheel in her head is spinning furiously as we speak."

Mother thought on that a second then said, "Well, then, I think you ought to write something up that tells our side of the story. You do still write stories, don’t you?"

Since I’m not working at a "real" job and I haven’t died of starvation, the obvious answer is yes. These little details of my "other" life are of little concern to Mother dearest, however. That I freelance for a number of newspapers and magazines around the country are not the stuff of which Dairy Queen moments are made.

"Sorry, Mother, but I’m not writing an article explaining why both your middle fingers were snapping up and down in the car window like twin pistons. And you wouldn’t like it if I did."

"Hmmph," she snorted. "Well, then, I guess there’s nothing for it then but to leave. I’ll think of something to do about this later. Now, hurry up and get us out of here."

I did.

The Redwater police had a barricade at the entrance, but Jerry was waiting and got us through with a wave. He led the way in his Bowman County Sheriff’s rig and a fully marked and lighted Redwater Falls patrol car followed us.

There was unlikely to be a threat with that kind of entourage, but something had Lucille worried. I knew this because she wasn’t saying anything, no complaints or criticisms of my driving, nothing. In fact, we were halfway to Kickapoo before Mother felt compelled to speak again.

"Now, Jolene, I’ve been thinking about this, and I just cannot get it to make much sense, you being in danger now and such. Jerry Don told me about some classmate of yours drowning in the river and that he was worried about you because of it. I don’t even remember that boy’s name so I can’t see how it has anything to do with you."

I gave Mother the summarized version of what I’d witnessed, and mentioned, lest she spread inaccurate details, that Calvin had probably been dead long before he wound up in the river. I did not mention the X’s and O’s business, which was just as well because she launched into a lengthy rant on murdering crazies. After talking herself out, she turned and stared out the window and didn’t say another word the rest of the way home. I didn’t either, but I was thinking--at a frenzied pace.

At the biggest event in local history, murder had taken center stage. There was obviously a point to making a public show of it, but what? Calvin’s death could have something to do with the new falls--a statement against the monument or the city or whatever--but it didn’t seem likely since the dead man held yearbook pages not from Redwater Falls, but from the little outlying town of Kickapoo, and very dated pages at that. And what about me? What did I have to do with this mess, or what did Jerry for that matter?

* * * *

The minute I walked inside Mother’s house, I headed straight for the bookcase in the living room. It took zero effort to locate what I was looking for since it stuck out like a glaring yellow dandelion in fresh cut grass, sandwiched there on the shelf between a red Methodist hymnal and a horizontal stack of hotly titled romance novels. My dear mother apparently favored the heavy-duty serious stuff. I didn’t think there was a law that said grandmotherly types couldn’t read books filled with wild and graphic sex, but I’m pretty sure there should be. One’s mother should not even think about sex, much less have it.