Let Loose (23 page)

o0o

I woke up Sunday morning feeling “off.” I
didn’t really have a better word for it, but it was the general
nagging feeling I got when something was just out of reach of my
memory, like when I went to the store to get eggs and got
sidetracked by a sale on chips. I’d wind up wandering around every
department until eventually I stumbled over whatever it was that
I’d come to the store to buy originally.

I wasn’t at a store, and I was fully stocked
in eggs, but clothed in my fuzzy jammie bottoms and robe, I did my
best to mimic the effect by wandering around my house. The dogs lay
in their respective places holding down my floor and watching
me.

After making my way from kitchen to bath to
laundry room and remaining uninspired, I found my way to the living
room and finally the front door.

The tool box was still sitting there.

I opened it and stared inside.

What would have been important enough that
someone would break into my house to get it? Especially something
of so little value that it had been set out for the trash?

The trash part could have been an accident.
But if it was, then how would the person who wanted it back have
known I had it? Even if the trash guys told someone I’d taken the
box, they wouldn’t have known what was inside it.

So, whoever was responsible for the break-in
at my house had to know what had been in the box and had to want it
back... but also had to have wanted to throw it away.

What would you steal just so you could get
rid of it?

The answer hit me like a ball-peen hammer to
the heart.

Evidence. But not just any evidence, the gun
that was used to kill Red.

The gun that, less than 24 hours after the
break in at my house, had been found in Ethel’s apartment.

I jumped to my feet and raced to the
phone.

Peter answered. He sounded tired and not as
happy to hear from me as a girl might like, but I let that pass
because I had news. Big news.

“Someone planted that gun at Ethel’s,” I
announced.

“Have you talked to her?” he asked, sounding
a little less tired, but not completely encouraging either.

“I did, but it isn’t something she said, it’s
what I’ve discovered.”

“What you’ve discovered.”

Not a question, but then obvious interest
would have blown the whole silent sexy cowboy thing he had
going.

“The gun was at my house!”

Fluff shifted from her side to her belly,
feet under her and ready to go.

I might have yelled a little more loudly than
I’d intended.

I gave Fluff a reassuring smile, but she
didn’t buy it. She walked to my side and sniffed me down.

“You found another gun?”

There was the interest I’d been looking for.
Unfortunately it was based on an incorrect assumption.

“No... the first gun. The one you found at
Ethel’s was here.”

“And you didn’t tell me this before?”

He might have been annoyed, or not. Again it
was so hard to tell, which luckily made the possibility easier to
ignore.

“I didn’t know before. I just figured it out
now.”

He sighed. “Lucy...”

I could feel what was coming - a brush off. I
charged ahead to cut that off. “It’s what was in the box. It’s the
reason someone broke into my house. Didn’t George tell you what I’d
discovered? That the box was open?”

“He might have mentioned something about you
kicking something and deciding—”

“Deciding? I didn’t decide. I know. The box
was locked. I couldn’t get it open, and then after the break in it
was open. How do you explain that?”

A deep breath was my response.

“Peter, seriously, I had an antique tool box
at my house that I couldn’t get into and I could tell there was
something inside. Do you really think I wouldn’t have gotten it
open if I could? You know me better than that.”

My crazy and his first-hand experience with
it paid off.

“Do you have the box now?”

I’d told George that I did, and I’d thought
he was sending someone to get it, but now did not seem like the
time to point this out.

“Yes.”

“When I’m done here, I’ll come by and get
it.”

“So, you’re coming out?” I was glad he was
taking my discovery seriously, but I was even happier that he was
going out of his way to visit my little slice of the mountain.

“Not for a bit, but yes.”

I could hear the smile in his voice. I hung
up happy.

Then I remembered why I’d called. I’d had
Red’s murder weapon in my house. Someone who wanted it back had
broken into my house. It didn’t take a lot to add all of this
together and realize a murderer or someone very close to the
murderer had been in my house.

This, unfortunately, was not an entirely new
thing for me, but that didn’t make it any less disturbing.

I wandered to the couch and sat down. Fluff
came up and placed her head in my lap. Kiska raised his, but seeing
Fluff had the job covered, lay back down.

The tool box came from Craig’s. It didn’t
take a lot of jumps in logic to conclude that Craig was the
killer.

Peter, being the kickass detective he was,
would surely come to that same conclusion.

Unless, of course, he didn’t believe my
story.

Which was entirely possible.

Two hours later, I was still wandering my
house, still trying to convince myself that Peter had the situation
under control. My interference would not be appreciated.

My interference might even be considered
“stupid” and “fool-hardy.”

I picked up the phone more than once,
thinking to call Peter back and make sure he had gotten to the same
place I had, but each time I put it down. Telling him how to do his
job, insinuating he wasn’t smart enough to follow the evidence as
easily as I had, would be insulting. Even worse, it was something
my mother would do... had done... many more times in my life than I
wanted to recall.

I didn’t want to be insulting, and I
really
didn’t want to be like my mother.

So I plopped back down on the couch and sat
on my hands.

That worked for all of five minutes, until
Kiska shoved his nose into my belly.

Even Kiska knew I needed to get moving.

I let the dogs out and back in, suited Kiska
up in his snazzy red sled dog harness that I’d gotten from Martin
and led him down to my rig.

Then I loaded him and my cross country skis
into the back and went to do some snooping.

I’d already used my usual reporter cover with
Craig, so this time I instituted my newly learned skill of
skijoring.

I drove my rig past his house and took a
right on a logging road that wove up the mountain behind his
property. Then, skis on and Kiska hooked up, I set off.

Skiing up hill, it turned out, even when
attached to a dog that theoretically should be pulling you, was not
as easy as it might sound.

My feet moved easily enough. They just didn’t
go anywhere.

Finally, I gave up, shoved the skis into a
snow bank and took off on foot. I kept Kiska with me, both as cover
and a source of intimidation in case such a thing became called
for.

The back of Craig’s property looked an awful
lot like the front. Junk and more junk.

We made our way through a barbed wire fence.
Kiska, with some coaxing in the form of a hot dog tossed six feet
past the fence line, crawled under. I bent at the waist and stepped
through two of the horizontal strands. Thanks to my childhood
training, negotiating my way around my grandfather’s farm, I made
it through unharmed. My coat, however, couldn’t say the same. It
caught on a barb, leaving a gaping hole in the cloth and a trail of
white down on the ground.

I kicked snow over my breadcrumbs and
retrieved Kiska’s lead.

Our next obstacle looked to be the remains of
an old ambulance. We picked our way around that easily enough and
kept going. From there, I could see the back of the house and
twenty feet or so behind it a shed.

We were headed toward the shed when I heard
car doors slam in the front. I jerked Kiska to my side and hid
behind a hood that had been wedged into the ground like a giant
tombstone.

I hoped that wasn’t a sign of what was to
come.

Immediately, I recognized Peter’s voice.
George was with him and after a knock on the door, Craig soon
joined them.

They stayed outside, which was good because I
could hear their conversation, but bad because George seemed to
have developed a severe case of ants in his pants. The man couldn’t
stand still. One minute he was walking up the drive, and the next
I’d hear him closer to the house.

Worrying about him stumbling over me made
listening to what Craig and Peter were discussing difficult.

But I persevered.

“There was a break-in down the road a few
days ago. We’re just checking with neighbors to see if they saw
anything, or if they’ve had any problems themselves.”

“Really? Where at?”

Peter gave him my name.

Honestly, I was surprised Craig hadn’t
already heard about the break-in, but then again, maybe he had and
just didn’t want Peter to know about it.

“Lucy? Huh? She was here the other day. Doing
some story.”

“Was she?”

I could hear Peter’s eyebrow twitch. I know
that sounded impossible, but trust me, it wasn’t.

“Too bad about that. They take anything?”

Peter, ever cool, replied, “I haven’t seen
the report. I heard you had some things taken here though. A couple
of snowmobiles? Interesting thing is though, I didn’t see a report.
Did you call it in?”

There was a pause, and when Craig spoke again
I could tell he’d moved. His voice was a little further away, in
the same direction I’d last seen George wander. “They were nothing
special, not worth more than I’d get for the parts.”

“That so?”

There was some other noise, like someone
kicking an empty milk keg or something.

Craig called out, “Just got that
yesterday.”

Peter replied, “To replace the ones that were
stolen?”

Another pause, then Craig answered. “Like I
said, those weren’t good for much.”

I leaned out a bit so I could see around the
hood. George stood next to one of Craig’s many piles. “This one
looks like she is. You mind if I take a look at her?”

Silence followed. The only one of the three I
could see was George, and he looked like his normal
non-intimidating self. He crossed his arms over his stomach and
waited.

Finally, Craig must have waved or given some
other sign of the affirmative, because George looked at Peter and
then stepped back out of view.

I slipped back into place behind the car hood
and listened. There were sounds of things being moved around and of
some kind of thick material flapping.

“After losing the others,” Craig confided. “I
figured I needed to keep this one covered. Don’t want word to get
out I’ve gotten another one until I can get my shed fixed up with a
good lock.”

I glanced at the shed. It was going to take a
lot more than a good lock for his shed to be secure, like new walls
and a door that hung on more than one hinge.

“Peter,” George called.

I could hear my detective boyfriend crunching
his way through the snow to where George waited. There was quiet
for a minute, maybe mumbling, but not loud enough I could hear
anything being said.

Peter spoke, loud and clear. “Craig, I’m
afraid we’re going to have to take you into the office.”

“The office? But...”

“Possession of stolen property. That new
snowmobile of yours was reported missing just last week.”

More crunching, faster this time. When Peter
spoke again, I could tell he was back by Craig’s side. “And while
we’re there, there’s a few more things I’d like to ask you
about.”

A car door slammed. Peering around the hood,
I was able to see Craig sitting in the back of George’s cruiser.
Peter stood to the side, looking in what I guessed was the
direction of the stolen machine.

“We can’t take it with us now,” he said.
“We’ll have to send out a trailer. Cover it up and then take Craig
into town. I’m going to swing by Lucy’s to pick up the tool box.
Then I’ll meet you at the office.”

A few minutes later and they were gone,
leaving me hidden behind my hood cursing. Peter was on his way to
my house where he would find me gone. Since it was obvious he had
no intention of staying and, say, snuggling on the couch with me, I
wasn’t all that disappointed I was going to miss his visit, but I
was concerned that his damn detective brain might add up everything
he knew about me and my need for action and realize I had gone off
to investigate things on my own.

Which meant I needed to get out of my current
incriminating circumstance immediately, if not sooner.

Kiska and I made our way back through the
barbed wire fence and trudged back up the hill. It was slow going,
and I spent most of the trip rehearsing possible stories to tell
Peter if he decided to stop by Craig’s again and spotted me.
Eventually, using Kiska as an anchor, I managed to pull myself up
the slope without pulling my malamute back down on top of me.

In my rig, I had another decision to make: go
home, head to town, or stay put.

I opted to stay put until I was sure Peter
would have been at my house, discovered my absence and moved on. He
hadn’t reappeared at Craig’s. So he had to be on his way to the
station.

Sure the way was clear, I headed back to my
house. The best defense was, after all, a good offense. I would
deliver the tool box to the police station myself.

It would, hopefully, deflect any suspicions
as to where I’d been and give me an excuse to do just a bit more
digging.

o0o

My trip to the police station did not go as
planned. Not that I had a plan. That might have helped.