Broken Bonds Page 9

  He headed out of the valley, staying hidden in the trees, but he saw something strange. He approached what looked like a black metal ladder attached to a tree. It was a tree stand for hunting with a seat about fifteen feet off the ground overlooking where deer could come to drink or the beavers worked and lived. But someone shooting from here would be shooting down so the bullet would seem to come from the sky.

  “Damn!” he muttered. “Like that arrow.”

  With a last glance up at the hunter’s stand with its empty seat and shooting rail so someone could steady a gun or crossbow, he ran up the path he’d come down. He needed to talk to Char.

  * * *

  Matt saw Char pulling into her driveway ahead of him. He honked once and parked behind her.

  “What?” she said as she got out. “Are you okay?”

  “I went to see the Fencers. I’m probably going to hire Joe to take Woody’s place, as if anyone could. You— Have you been crying?”

  “Happy tears. Tess just told me she and Gabe are going to have a baby.”

  “That’s great. But listen, after I talked to Joe, I went down to the river—creek—near his house.”

  “I used to know that area well. I can’t tell you how many frogs we caught. Dad taught us to fish there, though I haven’t done it since.”

  He took her arm and steered her away from the cabin, back into the area where they’d seen the deer Wednesday evening. “What?” she asked again.

  “I spotted a hunting stand attached to a tree there with a seat and bar to steady a rifle or crossbow. High up, so—”

  “I get it. We should have thought of that, looked up into the trees, not just down for footprints. So we’re going to look now? It makes sense that, since this is a hunting cabin, there could be something like that nearby—or more than one.”

  “Which someone could use to watch your place.”

  “But why? Some voyeur, Peeping Tom out here in the cold dead of night? I close all my curtains at night, so you can’t think—”

  They both saw it at the same time, a metal ladder attached to a tree, with not only a seat above, but a kind of camouflaged tent around it, gray-brown so it blended with the tree trunk.

  “The arrow could have been shot into your door from there,” Matt said. “Here, don’t want to have these drop out.” He handed over his keys and wallet. Reaching for the lower rung about three feet off the ground, he climbed up.

  “Be careful.”

  “That’s our motto lately, partner. I just want to check the trajectory, see if there’s anything left up here.”

  She craned her neck to see while he stuck his head into the small canvas cover, then lifted a side flap to get better light inside.

  “Anything?”

  “Not that I can see, but the view of your door and most of that side of the cabin is clear from here. There’s a wadded-up package of—of, get this—Red Man Chewing Tobacco.”

  “It should change its name to American Indian or Native American.”

  “Char, let’s take up that cause later, okay?” he said as he carefully came back down with it.

  “You know,” Matt went on. “Maybe Gabe can at least get prints off this—if he eliminates mine—or even DNA.” He took his keys and wallet back, then carefully nestled the wadded tobacco package next to the low step by her back door. “Let’s look around more.”

  “I can call Mrs. Richards to ask if her husband used chewing tobacco or put up that tree stand.”

  “That would eliminate him, but who knows who else could have used it, besides our crossbow shooter.”

  They hurt their necks looking up, turning this way and that around trees until Char spotted another tree stand, perched almost on the edge of the ridge high above Lake Azure. “Bingo!” she called to him, and he hurried over. “Are you going up again? Or I can this time.”

  “Can-do Char. I’ll go.” He handed her his keys and wallet again and climbed up. This one didn’t have a canopy. “Nothing but a great view—not of your cabin this time but the other direction, clear to the lodge below. I wonder how close that would all seem with high-powered binocs. Coming down.”

  Again, she handed him his things, and they started along what seemed to be a path back toward the cabin. “Oh, I see a raccoon!” she cried and jumped behind him.

  “Or maybe not so can-do Char,” he said, trying to lighten their mutual mood. “No, it’s...” He approached the fur in the leaves and squatted to study it.

  “Is it dead?”

  “No, it’s—it’s a coonskin cap,” he said, his voice breaking as he picked it up and examined it. “Woody’s name’s inside—and, damn it, this is a long way from the place where he had to have fallen.”

  10

  Char could see that Matt was really upset. She stepped closer not only to look at the coonskin cap but to put her hand on his arm. “How did his cap end up over here? Maybe it blew here in the wind?”

  “It’s snagged on the wrong side of this tree to have blown here. The wind up here comes from the northwest,” he said.

  “So...”

  “So he must have lost it here. But he fell way over there, at least twenty-five or thirty yards. There was an autopsy—no heart attack or anything that would have made him stagger on without it, then trip and fall. If he’d been able, he would not have left it behind.”

  “And if he was hurt, he would have headed back toward the road, not farther from help. Why was he even up here? It isn’t Lake Azure land.”

  “A home owner had complained about pinecones falling and knocking on his roof, jamming up the eavestroughs, so Woody came up to cut some of the limbs back. He drove a golf cart up here, which he often used to get around. It was found down in your cabin’s driveway.”

  Matt bent over to look closer at the spot where the cap had been. “I’m just wondering if he could have fallen and hit his head, kind of lost it—his sense of direction.”

  “Should we go look at the pine trees where he wanted to cut cones off?” she asked. “Maybe there’s something there.”

  “The sheriff searched the area.”

  “But didn’t see this cap here?”

  “Wasn’t looking way over here, I guess,” he said with a deep sigh. “And it was kind of buried. You know, Char, as different as Woody and I were from each other, we really got along. Ever had someone like that? I mean, Royce is like that for me, too, but Woody was different, so down to earth, no pun intended.”

  He got to his feet and put his arm around her shoulders. “Yes,” she told him, leaning close. “I had someone like that. Maria Whitehorse. A lot older than me, a great-grandmother to one of the kids I worked with out West. The Navajo have a matriarchal family system, you know—power to the women. But she told me, however much that was their heritage, it sometimes robbed the men of power they felt they should have, so some took it out in the wrong ways—drinking, fighting, dominating their wives and kids. It’s the opposite culture pattern to most families in Appalachia, where the man’s in charge. Anyway, she understood what I was trying to do, even warned me about my ill-fated ‘Dads Don’t Drink’ campaign that turned some against me. Her strong advice was that I should leave so that some of the disgruntled young bucks who liked to drink didn’t harm me.”

  “In other words, she kept you safe. Jumping in with both feet to do what you thought was right—that does sound like you.”

  “Maria burned all the signs I was putting up in town and using to picket a bar just off reservation land.”

  Still holding the fur cap close to his chest, he shook his head. “Your story reminds me of Woody again. He made enemies organizing a picket line with ‘KILL THE DRILL!’ signs.”

  “So are you thinking— I mean, did Gabe consider...”

  “That he might have met with foul play? Yeah. But there
was no evidence, no witnesses.”

  “Let’s go look at that spot where he was cutting the pine tree boughs.”

  “Okay, but like I said, it’s been searched and it’s not where he fell.”

  Holding hands, they carefully walked the ridge to the cluster of white pines. Their crowns were loaded with cones; some lay on the ground, but no branches looked cut off, even near the edge of the steep hill.

  “Like I told you, Gabe looked in this area and where he fell,” Matt said. “And whatever happened to him, he obviously didn’t get the boughs cut. If I hire Joe Fencer, he can cut them off—and I’ll bodyguard him the way Orlando does Royce.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s walk back.”

  Still holding hands, they headed away from the area where Woody must have stumbled and fallen. Her cabin was in sight.

  “Look,” she said. “A sort of deer path, partly hidden by more leaves.”

  He squatted to look at the ground she pointed out. I was about twelve feet back from the edge. “You know, from this angle, it looks like—”

  “Something was dragged,” she finished for him. “Or someone.”

  “But, as I said, it’s really far from where he fell. Maybe deer have been sleeping here and it looks like drag marks. Or a bear killed a deer and dragged it.”

  “Could your friend have crawled along here?” she asked, squinting at the half-hidden site. She followed in Matt’s footsteps along the strange path that perhaps wasn’t a path at all. “Maybe we should call Gabe.”

  “But look,” he said, holding out an arm to stop her. “The drag marks, or whatever they are, stop right here, and we’re still a long ways from where he went off.”

  “You said Woody had enemies—”

  “Yeah,” he interrupted, “but I don’t want this pointing to Royce, who would never do or allow anything like that. Some locals were upset by Woody’s stand on fracking. We can’t just start making accusations.”

  “Matt, I didn’t even mention Royce. What if whoever hurt him got tired of dragging him and picked him up here to take him way over there and shove him off?”

  “Only if he’d been unconscious could someone else control him. He was a strong guy. He did have head injuries, broken bones, but with that fall, none of that was suspicious. Besides, if you’re tired of dragging someone, it takes more strength to pick him up and carry him. But you’re right. Let’s get the sheriff in on this—the cap, these possible drag marks. See if your phone works in this spot, because mine doesn’t.”

  “It’s in my purse. You tried to call from this area already? Mine works in the cabin.”

  “I’ve been up here a lot, even when I first came to Cold Creek. I took photos of the progress on the buildings below. I love the view—especially of the lake.”

  “Let’s head back. We also need to tell Gabe you found tree stands and that tobacco package.”

  They hiked back, staying off the drag marks, if that’s what they were. Char wondered if any of this would make Gabe open a new investigation. She could tell Matt was torn between loyalty to Woody and to Royce. Back at the cabin, she got her phone from her purse, which she’d left in her truck. She dialed the number of the police station. But before she put the call through, she jumped as Matt shouted. “Char, the tobacco package isn’t here! I put it in this corner where it couldn’t blow away, and there’s not much wind, anyway. At least I have his cap.”

  She spun toward him. “Are you sure?” she started to ask. But the empty tobacco packet was nowhere in sight.

  * * *

  After Matt and Gabe walked along the ridge for a good half hour, they came back into the cabin, looking chilled and dejected.

  “It would have helped if we’d found a rock with blood on it,” Gabe was saying. “We can try to investigate the tobacco, have Jace ask around in a couple of area stores who buys it. It’s a real stretch that someone was watching you or Char, but I agree it didn’t blow away. The coonskin cap placement is significant, but I can’t bank much on whether those are drag marks or not—human drag marks.”

  Char poured them both coffee as they took off their coats and slumped in chairs across from each other at the small kitchen table. She wanted to help. “I can go over that path inch by inch tomorrow, see if anything else fell or—”

  “Char,” Gabe said. “Matt and I agree that, just in case there was a crime committed up here, a possible homicide, not to mention that arrow in your door—”

  “And the disappearance of that package,” Matt said. “I looked all over for it in case it blew away, which it didn’t—”

  Gabe interrupted. “You should take up Matt’s offer to move down to Lake Azure to house-sit that empty place, at least for a while.”

  “What? I’m not leaving. That’s the story of my life—find some place I want to be and—out! Besides, I just paid for three months’ rent.”

  “Just until we get some answers,” Gabe said. “Those tree stands may not be suspicious—I’m going to check with your landlady to be sure they’re not new—but someone could be using them to watch the cabin for some reason.”

  “Gabe,” she said, hands on her hips, “I haven’t been here long enough to make enemies. I’m helping people, working with them, not against them.”

  “Think it over,” Gabe said, finishing his coffee fast and getting up. “At least for a night or two until we get some answers here. That arrow in the door was too close for comfort, a warning, at least. I’ve got to get going. Matt, I know you want to return that cap to Woody’s widow. I’ve marked the spot and examined it, but I’d better take it back with me for a better once-over.”

  “The thing is it’s for his grandson.”

  “I’ll get it back to you soon. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you two to arrange Char’s temporary stay down in the valley. Char,” he said, throwing an arm around her stiff shoulders, “it’s for your own good. Tess said she told you about the baby. We want her to have two willing and able aunts in town when he—or she—is born. Okay?”

  “Maybe. Probably. Gabe, that reminds me about Grace out there with that crazy Bright Star. She’ll have her baby in about a month, and we’ve got to get her out of there, for the birth at least.”

  “You let Matt get you settled down below, and I’ll go with you and Tess—not in uniform, just as a family member—to see Grace and Lee. One last try to talk some sense into them. We’ll find some place where Bright Star and his cronies can’t spy on us with that peephole I hear you discovered.”

  He hugged her, shook Matt’s hand and headed out. Matt closed the door behind him.

  “It sounds like you’re his acting deputy now,” she said, standing her ground across the table from him. “Am I under arrest?”

  “I’d like that, but you wouldn’t be staying in a vacant house down in Lake Azure then, but with me. Come on, Char, pack some things, let’s lock up and I’ll follow you down before it gets dark. We’ll have dinner at the lodge and think this all through again—everything. I need you to help me figure it all out.”

  “I spent last night here with no problems. No more arrows, no nothing. I had a good night’s sleep.”

  He rolled his eyes. “That was then, this is now. Two nights out of the three you’ve been here, weird things happened.”

  “I suppose I don’t have a choice,” she admitted. His words, That was then, this is now, and especially, I need you, in whatever context he’d said them, snagged in her heart and head. Her theory was that people always had choices. Still, being near Matt again sounded not only safer but sweeter than a night alone in this cabin without him.

  * * *

  “This place is big—beautiful,” Char whispered as Matt let her into the empty house of a retired Dr. and Mrs. Manning, who lived in South Florida in the winter months.

  “It’s three bedrooms. The layout’s simil
ar to mine, although none of the houses are completely alike.”

  “You’re sure they won’t mind?” she asked as Matt set her suitcase down and started turning on lights in the great room. It had a U-shaped beige leather couch with lots of throw pillows. Several tall windows reached to the ceiling, but there were vertical blinds hung from halfway up, which were closed. A lovely oil painting of the Mannings hung over the raw stone hearth. He had silver hair and a round face; she had dark hair and sparkling brown eyes.

  “They prefer having someone in here, though we have good security. The community’s never been gated, but there’s a guard who makes the rounds at night, and the groundskeepers are aware during the day. We have had a few problems in here over the six years. I have an interview with Joe Fencer coming up for Woody’s job, by the way, so we may soon have another good pair of eyes here. I’ll show you the guest bedroom and bath.”

  “Anyway,” she said, following him as he carried her suitcase down the hall, “I probably won’t be here long enough to qualify as an actual house sitter, though my sisters will both rest easier to know I’m here.”

  “Then I like both of your sisters,” he said, clicking on the bathroom light from the hall, then the bedroom light next door. “Almost as much as I like you, however stubborn you can be.”

  He put her suitcase on the double bed. The room was tastefully done in neutral hues with splashes of color from bright pillows, pictures and lamps, much like the great room. It had a TV, an easy chair and a desk where she could put her laptop, so she didn’t spill out into the rest of the house. She didn’t want to leave a footprint here, or get in food—anything like that. Surely, she wouldn’t be here long.

  Matt smiled at her. “I actually thought I’d have to carry you here, kicking and screaming. I’ll wait in the great room, give you some time to get settled, then we’ll go eat at the lodge.”

  “I’ll take you out this time.”

  “Char, I have dining privileges there. We’re together, but it won’t be a date, if you don’t want it to be.”