Killerfind (29 page)

ust what
were you
two doing
in there?” Randolph asked, his calm voice belying the thundercloud that
darkened his deep blue eyes to nearly coal black.

“Oh, Randolph, I’m so glad you’re here!” Rhetta
rushed to her husband in relief.

From his surprised expression, that probably wasn’t
the reaction Randolph expected from her. “What’s wrong?” he asked, concern
seeming to replace any anger. After receiving her hug, he stood back and
studied her.

She knew she probably had muddy streaks and bits of
gravel, brush and dirt clinging to her hair and face. He reached up and brushed
a twig out of her hair.

“I’ll admit that we tried getting into the garage
through the window,” Rhetta said and pointed to the shattered window. “But
before we could pry it open, someone began shooting at us, and blew out the
window. Luckily for us they missed, but Ricky fell in, and I fell back. I think
Ricky has a broken arm and a sprained ankle.”

“Shot at you?” He turned to Ricky, who nodded.
“Let’s get you to the clinic in town. We need to call the sheriff, too.”

Billy Dan put a protective arm around Ricky’s
shoulder. “I’ll take her, Judge. You take care of Rhetta.”

Billy Dan supported Ricky while propelling her to
his Ranger. He stopped, opened and then held the door. Ricky winced, then
climbed in

gingerly.
He dashed around to the driver’s side, started the truck and sped away in a
shower of gravel.

Randolph studied his cell phone and shook his head.
“No signal.” He stepped around Rhetta to study the ground under the window and
then the gash where a bullet had punctured the metal side of the garage. “Why
would anyone be shooting at you? And who could it have been?” He squatted and
studied the hole. “Looks like someone used a hunting rifle. Maybe they were
target shooting from farther up the ridge, and the bullets went astray. That
happens out here in the country.” He stood and then examined the window.

“After the shooting I saw someone walking around the
building, gripping a hand gun. Looked like a .38. Then he walked around the
garage, and left. I didn’t see what he was driving.” Rhetta joined Randolph in
the examination. “He shot at us when we were on the window ledge first. It’s a
wonder we didn’t get cut to pieces.” With that, Rhetta found a stray piece of
glass in her hair and plucked it out.

“Did you say you thought he had a .38?” Randolph
stooped again to study the garage. He reached in his pocket for his
pocketknife, then proceeded to dig out the spent bullet. “This isn’t from a
.38, Rhetta.” He bounced the spent bullet in his hand. “This was shot from a
hunting rifle, possibly a 30-06.”

Rhetta shook her head. “I don’t understand. The guy
I saw definitely had a handgun. He held it in both hands like they do on those
TV cop shows.” Rhetta pointed to the marks in the dirt under the window ledge.
“He also stood right here and tried to jump up to look into the window but was
too short.” They both studied the shoe prints in the dusty earth near the
garage. Rhetta examined the bottom of her sneakers, then pointed to some
patterns. “I think those are our footprints, mine and Ricky’s where stood
before we climbed in. But look here.” She pointed to boot tracks that circled
the garage. “See? That’s where he walked around the garage. These have to be
his boot tracks.” They both examined the prints. They were made by a foot no
larger than Rhetta’s size 7, which she proved by standing alongside one of the
impressions.

“Mighty small feet for a man,” Randolph said.

“Then maybe it wasn’t a man, but a woman!” Rhetta
stood under the window. “Come here, Randolph and stand by me.” He did.

“I’m pretty short so if I want to see in, I can
barely get my chin up to the window sill. But you can look in. You’re taller
than me.” She reached up and patted the window ledge. “Whoever stood here was
jumping up to see who might be in the garage.” She whirled around to face
Randolph. “Whoever was here was as short as me. Whoever was here was a small
woman with a handgun. Who was the shooter? What the heck’s going on?”

Randolph checked his phone again. “Still nothing. I
guess we’re too far out for the tower. We’ll call the sheriff and report this
as soon as we get a signal. We may have to come back out here. I’ll drive
Ricky’s truck, if you’ll take the Artmobile. I’ll follow you to her campsite.”

“Why don’t you drive her truck to Billy Dan’s and
I’ll follow you. We can leave it there.”

Rhetta climbed in behind the wheel of the Artmobile,
and adjusted the seat, steering wheel and mirror. “I don’t exactly know where
her campsite is, since we didn’t actually go by there on the way out here.”

Randolph leaned in to the driver’s side window. “Why
am I not surprised?” He sighed, then ambled to Ricky’s truck. As he rummaged
around the front seat, probably looking for the keys, which Ricky always tucked
behind the overhead visor, Rhetta spotted a flash of red farther down the road.
Her curiosity aroused, she stood on the running board of the Artmobile and
peered down the gravel road that led away from the cabin, and on into the
valley below. From here she could see a long ways, perhaps a mile. A cloud of
dust rose as the vehicle flew around a curve. As it came out of the cloud,
Rhetta spotted a red sports car.

She shouted at Randolph. “Get in with me, and leave
Ricky’s truck. I think I just saw Mylene Allard’s car!”

Randolph made it to the truck in three strides.
Rhetta shot out of the driveway as soon as he had the door shut. He fumbled to
fasten his seat belt as she careened down the driveway and took a hard right on
to the gravel road. She accelerated as fast as she dared. Thankfully, this way
wasn’t as pothole-and boulder-strewn as the way she and Ricky had come. This
gravel road was level and for now, at least, free of traffic.

“How do you know it’s her?” Randolph managed to get
the belt fastened. He held on to the assist grip over the door to keep from
knocking his head against the glass as Rhetta caromed down the county road.

“I only know of one red sports car like it. I’m
pretty sure it was a Viper.”

y the
time Rhetta
reached
the highway, the red sports car had vanished. She stopped in a cloud of dust at
the intersection of Highway 34 and the Old Dump Road, and pounded her palm on
the steering wheel. “We lost her. She couldn’t have made it here this quickly.”
Rhetta glanced up and down the only straight part of Highway 34. “I don’t see
her.”

Randolph began dialing his cell phone, “I have three
bars,” he announced as he dialed directly to the sheriff’s office. “I need
Frizz, please,” he said pleasantly when the dispatcher answered, “Bollinger
County Sheriff’s Department.” No hint of urgency in his voice. Unlike Rhetta,
his calm manner always prevailed under stress.

Everyone called Sheriff Dodson “Frizz,” because of
his unruly black curly hair that sprang out in all directions from his large
square head. When Rhetta had once asked Randolph what the sheriff’s real name
was, he confessed he couldn’t remember, and doubted if he’d ever known it.
Frizz had been called Frizz since he was a kid growing up near Castor River.
Randolph said his head was square back then, too.

After being on hold so long that Randolph had to
check his phone to be sure the call was still connected, a frazzled-sounding
Frizz picked up. Randolph switched on the speaker so Rhetta could hear the
conversation.

“Dodson,” he grunted.

“Frizz, this is Randolph McCarter, and I’d like to
report a shooting at Whispering Pines Lake. One person—”

Before he could finish, Frizz interrupted him.
“Damn. Who got shot?”

“No one got shot, but my wife and her friend, Ricky
Lane, were shot
at.
” Randolph emphasized the word “at.”

“Is anybody hurt?”

“Not from a bullet. Miss Lane, ah…well, she stumbled
and hurt her ankle. My wife saw the shooter and would like to make a report. It
happened at the Griffith cabin.”

“Griffith cabin, you say? Wasn’t that the fella your
wife and Miss Lane found in that barn? What were you folks doin’ up to the
cabin?”

When Randolph hesitated, Rhetta mouthed the words
“real estate agent” at her husband.

“Miss Lane is a real estate agent in Cape County,
and I believe she was looking to list the property.”

Rhetta nodded enthusiastically and held up both
thumbs.

“Well, that’s pretty damn creepy, you ask me,”
Dodson said. “First, she finds the remains, then she wants to list the
property. Them real-a-tors in Cape got no respect for the dead.”

“I’m sorry, Frizz, but I’m not sure I make the
connection. If you could come out to the property, you can see all of this for
yourself, and we can get this report filed.”

Dodson grumbled something incoherent, then added.
“Meet me there in half an hour.” Then he disconnected.

Rhetta leaned back against the leather seat. The air
conditioning had finally gotten cool enough to suit her. She ran her fingers
through her hair and found more debris. She examined a piece of twig, then
tossed it out the window. “Guess we need to go back up to the cabin and get our
story coordinated for the good sheriff.”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Randolph said.
“Please don’t blurt out what brought us up here in the first place. Let’s stick
to the real estate story.”

Rhetta nodded, put the Artmobile into reverse, and
headed back to the cabin. Along the way she kept watching for the red sports
car, sure that it couldn’t have made it all the way to the highway and zoomed
off that quickly. They reached the driveway to the Griffith cabin without
further sighting it. It seemed Mylene Allard had evaporated into thin air.