The Trap (10 page)

All too soon, we saw the headlights from Millie Lee’s car sweep up the hill and across our driveway.

Ashley quickly began helping me lower the blinds and put the telescope back in place. “This was great,” she said. “I’m glad I came. Thanks for inviting me.”

She really was glad. I could tell. Maybe she was finally warming up to me.

I locked up, said goodbye to Ashley, and waved to Millie Lee. As I went into the house, Glenda got up from her chair and kissed me good night.

“Gabe’s already in bed,” she said, “and that’s where I’m going too.”

I wasn’t ready for bed. I sat at my laptop in Gabe’s office, intending to e-mail Robin. It was Friday night, and she should have returned home. But I didn’t have to e-mail. Her name popped up on my buddy list in the upper corner of my screen, so I knew she was home and online, probably checking her e-mail. I went into an instant message.

I did, and even though it didn’t seem to be important, I told her about the missing paperweight.

Aunt Glenda, her robe pulled around her, came into the room. I didn’t want her to see Robin’s last buddy note, so I quickly wrote
GTG. Bye
and signed off.

“Who are you writing to? Your mother?” Glenda asked.

I didn’t give her a direct answer. “I decided to check my e-mail,” I said.

Glenda sank down in a chair opposite the desk. “I can’t sleep,” she told me. “I knew at the time I shouldn’t have had that coffee, and I was right. Millie Lee should have made decaf.”

“Do you want me to make you a mug of hot milk?” I asked.

“No thanks,” Glenda answered. “I’d rather just talk. Is that all right with you?”

“Sure,” I said, and waited for what she had to say.

In a way, I was surprised when Glenda said, “I can’t understand why there have been so many accidents.” A tear rolled down the side of her nose. Almost angrily, she brushed it away with the back of one hand and said, “At least Gabe wasn’t killed when he fell.”

I leaned forward, hoping to get as much information as I could. “Tell me again about the first man who fell and how it happened.”

“Albert Crouch? They think he was on the outside balcony of their home, which is on the edge of a ravine,
and must have had a dizzy spell and lost his balance. Betty Jo saw him lying down on the rocks in the ravine when she got home from a trip to Kerrville to stock up on groceries.”

“Could anyone else have been in the house with him?”

“No. Betty Jo and Albert lived alone, except for her cousin who was visiting, but she was with Betty Jo.”

“Did Mr. Crouch often have dizzy spells?”

She shrugged. “Not that I know of. It was Deputy Sheriff Foster who came up with that answer. What else would have made someone fall off the balcony?”

For a moment there was real fear in her eyes. “All three falls—they
had
to have been accidents. What else could they have been?”

Trying to soothe her, I said, “If they were ruled accidents, then there’s no reason for the deputy to be suspicious about any of them.”

But maybe, I thought, he should be.

THE NEXT MORNING WAS SATURDAY, BUT I FIGURED THAT LAW
enforcement was a seven-day-a-week business and with luck I’d find the deputy in. I asked Glenda’s permission to drive into town to run errands, and she was happy to let me. The bright morning sunlight, the arrival of a new crossword puzzle magazine, and the sight of three complacent cows chewing the sprigs in her yard seemed to have eased her fears of the night before.

As I walked to the carport, Luis drove up in his pickup truck. “Hi,” he said from the open window.

I walked over, smiling at him. “Are you working here today?” I asked, thinking I might change plans and hang around for a while.

“No,” he said. “I’ll be near here, though, and I thought I’d take the chance of seeing you, just to say hello. I’m glad I got here before you left.”

“Luis,” I said, desperately needing someone I could talk to, “I’m going to town to talk to the deputy sheriff.”

Luis looked at me with surprise, but he didn’t speak. He waited for me to explain.

I told him my suspicions and worries and that I’d talked them over with a friend online. “We both think Uncle Gabe might still be in danger,” I said.

“
You
are the one who might be in danger, if this is true and you talk to the wrong people or ask the wrong questions,” Luis answered. He frowned as he added, “But, Julie, remember—the men who fell were old. There was nothing to make the deputy suspect that someone had caused their falls.”

“What about the missing paperweight?” I insisted.

“You didn’t see it in Mrs. Barrow’s house, but that doesn’t mean someone used it as a weapon, then took it.”

Desperately, I said, “And there are the small nail holes above the top step to the observatory.”

“Which the deputy said had been put there when the steps were built.”

I looked right into his eyes. “Were they?”

“No, they were not,” Luis said. “Maybe you’re right to turn the problem over to the deputy.”

I rested a hand on his arm. “Thanks,” I said.

“For what?”

“For believing me. For not saying this is all in my imagination.”

He gripped my hand in his. “Tell the deputy what you told me,” he said. “Then back off. Let
him
investigate, not you.”

“If he will,” I said. I remembered how Deputy Foster had laughed about the nail holes over the top step.

“Protect your uncle by making sure he’s never alone. That’s all you need to do.” He glanced toward the house. “Is Mrs. Hollister with him now?”

“Yes,” I said.

Luis released my hand as he said, “Just talk to the deputy, Julie. Do nothing on your own. Please?”

I nodded and backed toward the cars. I was making no promises.

About twenty minutes later, when I arrived at the outskirts of the nearest town, I stopped at a gas station and got directions to Dale Foster’s branch office.

It was in a small brick building with slow-turning fans on its high ceilings, and humming air-conditioning units protruding from the lower halves of the windows. A low counter divided the working half of the room from the small entryway and the closed door marked
DEPUTY
SHERIFF
. Behind the counter, working at a computer, sat a plump brown-haired woman whose dark purple lipstick was the wrong color for her pale skin.

“He’p you?” she asked in a low, raspy voice.

“I’d like to talk to the deputy,” I told her.

“Name?”

“Julie Hollister.”

“Reason?”

Her clipped questions were making me nervous. “To see the deputy? I—I’d rather tell
him
,” I said.

She studied me for a long moment. Finally, she asked, “You live around here?”

“I’m visiting my great-aunt and -uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gabe Hollister, who live in Rancho del Oro.”

Her eyes flicked as though a light had flashed on inside them, and her lips tightened. “The deputy’s busy,” she said.

“I’ll only be a minute,” I told her.

“I said, he’s busy.”

The door to the deputy’s office opened, and Foster stepped out. “Hello again. Julie, isn’t it?” he said to me with a grin. “Found any more nail holes in those stairs to your uncle’s observatory?”

Before I could answer, the woman said, “She’s one of those Rancho del Oro people. I told her you were busy, which you are.”

“Now, Myrtle, I’m not too busy to see what this young lady wants,” Foster said. He waved me toward his office and took a seat behind his desk, leaning back and resting his feet on the well-polished top. As I sat across from him, I noticed that he had left the door wide open.

“So what’s the problem?” he asked.

“Three men in Rancho del Oro took serious falls,” I said. “Two of the men died. One of them could have. Uncle Gabe thinks someone set up something on the observatory stairs to trip him.” At the smug look on the deputy’s face, I said, “I know what you think, but those nail holes were smaller than all the other nail holes. Please let me finish.”

He waved his hand. “Go on.”

“Someone could have pushed Mr. Crouch over the balcony railing. Someone could have hit Mr. Barrow over the head with a paperweight. There
was
a heavy paperweight. Now it’s missing.”

Foster dropped his boots to the floor with a thump, sat up, and leaned toward me. “Far as everyone knew, no one was with Mr. Crouch when he fell, and Mrs. Crouch had a perfect alibi—she was shoppin’ with her cousin and came home with a carful of groceries. Mr.
Barrow was alone, too, when he fell. Mrs. Barrow was playin’ cards—lots of witnesses. Both deaths were as simple as that. No further investigation needed.”

“What if they really weren’t alone?” I was thinking out loud. “What if someone strong enough …”

He actually smirked at me. “I suppose you got someone in mind.”

“Well … I suppose any of the men who work with the cattle on the ranch … or even Damien Fitch.”

Foster’s eyes narrowed. “How come you picked on Damien?”

“He’s visited most of the homeowners, trying to sign them up for pool membership. He’d know the layout of their houses.”

“His troubles with the law were all juvie. You’ve got no call to suspect him of any wrongdoing now.”

Startled, I sat up a little straighten Was Damien’s juvenile record what Millie Lee hadn’t told me?

“You haven’t been payin’ attention,” Foster continued. “I told you, those deaths were accidents, not murders.”

“But the missing paperweight …”

“Where are you gettin’ all these wild ideas?” the deputy asked.

I slumped a little in my chair, but I answered, “I don’t think they’re wild. Robin and I—”

He interrupted. “Who’s Robin?”

“Just a friend back in California. We keep in touch with e-mail. I’ve told her what’s happening, and she thinks the deaths should be investigated. Robin reads tons of mystery novels. She knows how investigations should be done.”

Foster stared down at the top of his desk for a moment, then raised his head and looked at me. “You live in a big city, Julie,” he said. “You’re used to lots of crime in and around Los Angeles. It’s different out here. You just need to get used to that idea and stop overreactin’. No murders, no suspects. No crime in Rancho del Oro. Got that?”

He stood and walked to the door, waiting for me to leave. As soon as I passed him, he shut the door.

Myrtle wasn’t working at her computer. Elbows on her desk, she was intent on watching me. It was clear she’d been listening and had heard every word. I just hoped she was professional enough to keep my story to herself and not consider it small-town gossip.

“You and I never did get officially introduced,” Myrtle said accusingly, as though it were my fault. “I’m Myrtle Dobbs.”

I nodded, trying to think of what to answer. I didn’t want to say I was glad to meet her, because I wasn’t.

Myrtle didn’t seem to expect an answer. She asked, “What are you doing on the ranch? The people up there on the hill are all retired city people thinkin’ of themselves as hardworkin’ ranch owners … which they aren’t.”

I heard a bitterness in her voice and simply answered, “I’m spending the summer with my father’s aunt and uncle.”

She eased off a bit, but there was still a touch of suspicion in her gaze as she asked, “So you and your friend are figuring out the situation for us small-town folks?”

I blushed. “No. It’s not what you think. We aren’t playing detective games. My great-uncle was hurt. He insists it wasn’t an accident. And because of the
other two people who fell, I think there should be an investigation.”

“Then leave it to the deputy,” she said. “Don’t start playin’ detective yourself. People who don’t know what they’re doin’ are likely to run into a lot more trouble than they can handle.”

Although Myrtle’s advice was close to what Luis had told me, she was not giving me a friendly warning. She was being too serious and intent for that. Why, I didn’t know, but it was plain to see that she had an attitude toward the people who had bought into Rancho del Oro, and I couldn’t understand that, either.