Santa Sleuth (14 page)

Zak continued on silently. I supposed he must be considering my question. Alex was tough. She never really asked for anything like the other two.

“I have to admit that nothing is coming to me off the top of my head, but let me think about it a bit. Did you invite Jeremy to dinner on Christmas Day?”

“I did, as well as Phyllis and the girls and Ellie and Levi, but I guess Levi won’t be with us if he’s decided to visit his family for the holidays. What time did Coop say he’d be here with my parents?”

Zak had sent his pilot to fetch my family from Switzerland and they were due to arrive sometime that day.

“They should be here around dinnertime. I set up a tree in their house and strung some lights around the windows.”

“That’s so sweet of you. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”

Zak paused at the top of an incline and looked off into the distance. He pointed toward the horizon. “Looks like smoke.”

I followed Zak’s finger with my eyes. “Maybe that cabin at the end of the road.”

“Let’s circle around behind. If we approach through the meadow Blugo, or whoever is in residence, is sure to see us.”

Zak and I continued to walk around the perimeter of the complex of cabins. The deep powder made it a strenuous trip, but we were both in good shape physically, making it doable. I knew that approaching from the rear of the tract was going to add half hour at least to our trip, but Zak was right; we couldn’t risk being seen from the road.

We decided we shouldn’t talk as we got closer to the cabins, lest our voices carry through the canyon and give our location away. We walked single file with Zak in the lead, making the trek easier for me by quite a bit. Walking behind Zak in silence gave me time for quiet reflection. It had been such a busy month; I felt like I’d barely had a moment to stop and breath.

Christmas had always been my favorite time of year. Dad and I and Grandpa would spend a quiet morning together, followed by skiing most years. As the only child of a single parent, I’d missed out on big celebrations, but now the home I shared with Zak was filled with the family we’d built and those quiet mornings had given way to noise and a busy energy that I found I rather liked.

I wondered what it would be like when we added our own children to the mix. Would a baby add to or detract from that which we had already created? I found that I spent quite a lot of time thinking about these things lately. I knew Zak was ready for a tiny Zimmerman, but was I? I loved Zak and wanted to give him everything he desired, but something, I realized, was holding me back.

I almost ran into Zak’s back when he stopped walking. “Luckily, the occupied cabin backs up to the trees,” he whispered. “We’ll work our way around and come in from behind. We can look in that little window on the side. Maybe we can figure out exactly what the situation is before we get too close.”

“What are we going to do if Blugo is inside? What if he’s holding Salinger captive? Are we just going to knock on the door and pretend to be lost?”

Zak smiled at my attempt at humor.

“We’ll suss out the situation and then retreat to discuss a plan.”

I followed Zak closely as he carried out the plan he’d just outlined. The window was too high for me to look through, but once he took a peek inside he motioned for me to follow him back into the woods.

“So?” I asked when we were far enough away.

“Salinger is inside. He’s lying on the bed. He isn’t moving.”

“He isn’t dead?”

“I honestly don’t know. I didn’t see anyone else inside. Of course someone could have been out of my line of sight. We’re going to need to approach cautiously.”

“I wish we had a gun,” I commented.

“We do have a gun.”

“We do?”

“I grabbed the tranquilizer gun you use when you need to capture injured wildlife. If it can take down a bear it should be able to take down a grown man if we need to.”

Suddenly I felt a little better.

I followed Zak as we made our way back down to the cabin. He looked through the window again, then motioned for me to follow him around to the front of the cabin, where he looked in another window. Still no sign of Blugo. Zak slowly opened the door and we slipped inside. The room was warm, so it probably had been recently occupied, but now it seemed to be deserted.

I hurried over to Salinger. He was out cold but very much alive. It looked like he’d suffered a head injury, which someone had wrapped. Maybe Blugo hadn’t tried to kill him. Why would you hit a man over the head and then bandage it?

“I see the cavalry has arrived,” a voice said from behind us.

I turned and locked eyes with a giant of a man dressed in fur-lined clothing, holding a black bag and a bow and arrow.

“Blugo?”

“Can I ask why you’re trespassing on my property?”

“We came for the sheriff. We knocked,” I lied, “but you didn’t answer.”

He held up the black bag. “I’ve been out hunting for my dinner.”

“I see. What happened to Salinger?” I asked.

“Hit a tree with that snowmobile of his. The man is lucky I found him. He’d have frozen to death otherwise.”

“I see. Has he regained consciousness?”

“He’s in and out.”

“We need to get him to a hospital,” I said.

“I couldn’t agree more, but he ain’t walking out of here and I don’t have a sled.”

Neither did we. I knew Levi had a sled for his snowmobile, so I headed outside and looked for a spot where the cell service worked. I had to climb a hill, but eventually I found a weak signal. Fortunately, Levi picked up and promised to meet us at the house as soon as he could get there.

“Levi is on his way with a sled,” I informed Zak and Blugo when I got back inside.

I figured it would take Levi a good forty minutes to reach the cabin even if he drove his truck to the end of the plowed road and snowmobiled in. Add some time to load his snowmobile and sled onto the trailer and we were looking at an hour minimum. Plenty of time to figure out a way to ask Blugo about Jason without making him mad, because one look at the guy and I was certain this bear of a man wasn’t someone to trifle with.

“So now that you’ve got a rescue on the way, perhaps you can tell me why you’re all out here disturbing my solitude.”

“We came out to look for Salinger because he hadn’t returned to town as planned, and I believe the sheriff was here to talk to you about Jason Overland.”

“And why would the sheriff want to talk to me about that cheating SOB?”

“He’s dead. Someone murdered him.”

Blugo smiled. It was a sinister-looking smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I can’t tell you what a relief that is.”

“A relief?”

“It took every bit of self-control I possessed not to strangle the man with my bare hands.”

I stood perfectly still, unable to decide how to proceed.

“You ever had an itch you know you shouldn’t scratch but you realize it’s only a matter of time until you give in to the urge?” Blugo asked.

I looked at Zak. He shrugged.

“Can you elaborate?” I asked.

“After I realized Jason cheated me, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill him real bad. The court mandated that I take anger management classes after the last guy I put in the hospital. Figured it was a waste of time, but much to my surprise, the techniques they taught me actually worked. When I realized I was becoming obsessed with the idea of making the guy pay for his disrespect, I decided to come out here, where the temptation to skin the guy alive was a little less intense.”

“So you didn’t kill him?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Do you know who did?”

“My guess is one of the other guys he cheated. Or maybe one of the women he used for a punching bag. If you ask me there are any number of possibilities.”

Great. It looked like we were back to square one. Salinger had already talked to all the other men who’d participated in the poker game in which Jason had cheated Blugo. Of course there could have been other games and other men…

As for the women Jason had slapped around and cheated on, we’d eliminated the ones we knew about. Except one.

Chapter 12

As soon as Levi arrived with the sled, we loaded Salinger and made our way back toward his truck. We carefully placed the sheriff in the backseat and then I drove him to the hospital, while Zak and Levi took our snowmobiles home. After I’d filled Dr. Westlake in on everything I knew, I called Janice and then settled in to wait.

Salinger had woken up during the drive into town. He didn’t remember what had happened to him and he didn’t seem to understand that more than a day had passed since he’d set out on his snowmobile. He said everything was fuzzy, which I could totally understand because the same thing had happened to me when I’d been hit in the head.

I used the time I had while I was sitting in the hospital waiting for news about Salinger to go over my suspect list one more time.

Tina had suggested that the killer could be Riley, but she had an alibi.

Riley had suggested that the killer could be Andrew Dover, Kelly Arlington, Bram Willard, Tina Littleton, or Blugo.

Bram had said he’d been working and provided several of his clerks as his alibi, although I hadn’t actually spoken to those employees. Still, my gut told me Bram wasn’t our guy.

Andrew told me he was skiing on the day Jason was killed. Again, I hadn’t actually spoken to his witnesses, but likewise I had a feeling he wasn’t the killer.

Blugo claimed not to have killed Jason, but he’d been alone when Jason died and didn’t seem to have an alibi. He could have killed Salinger but had taken care of him instead. His story seemed sincere, so in my mind he’d moved to the bottom of the suspect list.

As for Kelly, she very well could have woken up and stabbed Jason, but the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I’d seen another person come into the restaurant that day. I still didn’t have a face to go with the blurry image, but the feeling that it was real and not just a trick of the light was becoming stronger as time went by.

I thought about the fifth name Riley had given me: Tina Littleton. She’d admitted to having an affair with Jason and that he’d broken things off with her. She’d also admitted to stalking Riley, but that was where things began to fall apart. She’d told me that Riley was possessive, but after speaking to the woman herself, I had the impression she was the complete opposite. She seemed to view her relationship with Jason as nothing more than a way to pass the time. Tina also had told me that she was over Jason and therefore no longer stalking Riley, but she’d also said she’d seen Jason and Riley together at Lucky’s on the day of the fire. She didn’t seem the type to hang out in a seedy bar on her own for recreational purposes, so what was she doing there? Perhaps she hadn’t given up her stalking after all. Could she have followed Jason to Ellie’s Beach Hut after he left the bar?

And then there was the fact that the first time I’d spoken to Tina, she’d mentioned that Riley was exactly the type to stick a knife into some guy’s back if he strayed. At that point it wasn’t public knowledge that Jason had been stabbed, let alone in the back. Could she, in an attempt to cast suspicion on Riley, have inadvertently provided a fact that only the killer would know?

I took out my phone to call Zak just as Dr. Westlake entered the waiting room.

“So?” I asked.

“The sheriff’s going to be fine. I’m going to keep him for a day or two, just to make sure the head wound isn’t more serious than it appears, but he should make a full recovery.”

I let out the breath I’d been subconsciously holding ever since I’d dropped Salinger off. “That’s good.”

Dr. Westlake and I spoke for a few more minutes and then I called Janice to give her the good news. By the time I completed my call Zak had joined me in the waiting room.

“He’s going to be fine,” I shared.

“That’s good.”

“Where’s Levi?”

“On his way to the airport for his flight east.”

I’d almost forgotten about that.

“Are you ready to go home?” Zak asked.

“Almost. I want to stop off at the Christmas store first.”

Zak gave me an odd look. I considered making up a lie about needing Santa napkins or something, but he’d been so great and I really did owe him the truth, so I filled him in on my theory that Tina had been the killer all along.

“You make a good argument,” Zak affirmed. “Who’s acting sheriff now that Salinger is in the hospital?”

“Janice said they were sending someone up from the county office. She wasn’t sure who, but they should be here within the hour.”

“Maybe we should wait and let Salinger’s replacement handle this,” Zak suggested.

I frowned.

“Of course we could always use a few more ornaments for the tree.”

I smiled.

“We talk to her in a public place, but that’s it. If we still think she’s guilty of killing Jason we wait and let the replacement deputy handle it. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

The Christmas store was as packed as it had been every other time I’d stopped by in the past month. The lines at the front counter were long and the aisles were cluttered with merchandise that had been strewn about as hordes of customers sorted through the inventory. I couldn’t help but notice Zak’s eyes grow large as he viewed the sleigh replica featured in the center of the room.

“I noticed the kits for those sleighs when I’ve been in here before, but I thought they’d look cheesy when assembled so I passed. The finished product isn’t half bad, though.”

“We really don’t have anywhere to store a giant sleigh,” I told Zak.

“I guess you’re right. When I was a kid, before I moved to Ashton Falls, my friend had a farm not far from where I lived. He had this old sleigh that had been his grandfather’s, I think. Every year he’d hook a couple of his horses up to it and we’d take off through the woods. There was something kind of perfect about riding through a forest of fresh snow.”

“We just did that on the snowmobiles.”

“Yeah. But a sleigh is different. Not that this sleigh is going to take anyone anywhere. It just brought back a fond memory.”