Criminal Crumbs (11 page)

Unfortunately, we’d been right the first time, though not immediately.

Evidently, Hank had recovered enough from his fall to crawl a dozen feet away into the dense undergrowth beyond our line of sight from above, and it pained me to think of him as he tried to save his own life by inching his way along, only to die in the effort.

Chapter 17

“O
h, no,” Celia cried out
the moment she spotted him. “I can’t believe he’s dead!” She threw herself onto the body before we could stop her, and her sobs tore through her as she mourned what might have been, at least in her mind.

I knelt down and put a hand on her shoulder. “Celia, I know you’re in pain, but we need to take a step back and think through what this means.”

“I know exactly what it means! It means that someone killed him!” she shouted as she turned on me.

I looked at Grace, and she came closer to us. In a calming voice, she said, “Celia, let’s step out of the way for a minute. Suzanne needs to check out a few things.”

“Like what?” she asked as she allowed Grace to help her up. “He’s dead! He feels so cold. I wish we’d brought a blanket with us.”

It didn’t make any sense given the circumstances, but I understood it nonetheless. I knew that at times like she was facing, doing anything was better than doing nothing at all, even if the end result was the same. Once Grace had her off to one side, I studied Hank’s body. His hands were bruised from his effort to crawl toward help, and there was blood on his left temple. He might have survived the fall, but the strike on his head had ultimately done him in. It hadn’t been an intentional murder, at least not as far as I could tell, but he’d still been killed in an attempt on someone’s life. If only he’d been able to give us a clue as to who had pushed him. I searched him as gently as I could, but I found nothing that might point to one of our suspects. If only he’d tried to leave us a message with his last throes of life instead of trying to save it, we might know exactly who he’d saved Nicole from.

I stood and brushed off my hands.

Grace asked me, “Anything?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

“That’s too bad,” she answered.

Celia looked at us as though we were speaking Greek. “Suzanne, what were you looking for?”

“Any indication as to who might have pushed him,” I admitted.

“What does it matter now?” she asked me. “He’s going to be just as dead whether we find anything or not.”

“Don’t you want his killer caught?” Grace asked her. “The only thing we have left to give him is justice.”

“You’re right,” she said, drying her eyes with the back of her sweatshirt arm. “But there’s nothing there, is there?”

“Maybe he left something at the place he fell,” Grace suggested.

“I’ll go look,” I volunteered.

“I’ll come with you,” Grace said, but Celia grabbed her arm and wouldn’t let her go.

“Do you have to leave me with him?” she asked, nearly sobbing again.

“No, I’ll stay with you,” Grace said as she shrugged in my direction and mouthed the word “sorry.”

It was up to me. I followed Hank’s path from where he’d fallen. It wasn’t as though it was a very hard trail to backtrack. He’d not only scraped the dirt on his way, but he’d also destroyed several small bushes and seedling trees, pulling himself along until he reached some kind of shelter. As I got closer to the spot where he’d landed, I searched the ground all around it. The slush left behind was translucent, and I could see if there’d been anything left behind.

As far as I could tell, there wasn’t.

Hank had died in vain after all, without leaving us a single clue.

But there still might be a way to work his demise in our favor. It meant lying to the others, but it was the only chance we had.

“I’ve got an idea,” I told them when I approached.

“Did you find anything?” Grace asked me.

“No.”

“Then what good is having an idea?” Celia asked me harshly.

“It all hinges on you, as a matter of fact,” I said, doing my best to pump up her ego. “If you can pull it off, we have a chance of catching the killer red-handed.” I knew that playing to her ego was a way of getting her to cooperate, and I felt a little guilty about manipulating her when she was so vulnerable, but what choice did I have? Jake liked to watch poker on television sometimes in the evening to relax after I went to bed, and I’d stayed up and watched enough of it to realize something. Sometimes, even when you don’t have very good cards, you can still bluff your way to a win.

And that was exactly what I was about to propose.

“What do you say, Celia? Are you up for it?”

“I’ll do whatever you ask me to,” she said.

“Are you willing to lie to everyone else, even to your own sister?” I asked as the most important follow-up question that I could.

“I don’t want to do that,” she said, pouting a little.

“What if it were for her own good?”

Celia seemed to think about that, and then she finally nodded in agreement. “If it might help keep her safe, then I’ll do it. Tell me what you have in mind.”

“Yes, I’d like to know that as well,” Grace said.

“As far as the rest of the party is concerned, Hank is still alive. Not only that, but we’re going to tell them that we saw clear evidence that he is somewhere on the grounds and intent on exacting revenge.”

They were both caught off guard by my suggestion, but Grace instantly smiled as she nodded slightly in agreement. “It’s brilliant, if we can pull it off.”

“I don’t understand,” Celia said. “How does this help us find out who killed him?”

“If they think Hank is still alive and that he poses a threat to whoever pushed him, someone might get careless enough to make a mistake. All we need is a thin wedge to split this wide open. If we tell everyone the truth about what we found, we’ve managed to lose one of the few advantages we have—the element of surprise.” I looked at Celia, who was now nodding, albeit reluctantly. “What do you say? We can’t do it without you.”

“My first reaction is to say no, but the more I think about it, it’s the last thing I can do for Hank, so even if it means lying to my sister, I’m on board.”

“It’s agreed, then,” I said. “We tell them we saw evidence, maybe footprints, that made their way along the trail we just covered, and maybe we even found something of Hank’s that couldn’t have been there otherwise.”

I looked at Celia, who was studying the body. “Hey, are you okay? If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to. Maybe we can come up with something else.”

She took a deep breath and then let it out before she spoke. “No, you’re right. Neither one of you knew Hank very well, but he always carried a red bandana with him. It was a way to remind him of his late grandfather, and I found it endearing. If we take his bandana and plant it somewhere to show that he was there, we can ‘prove’ that he never died. The only question is who is going to retrieve it.”

“I’ll do it,” I said, moving over to Hank’s body before I had a chance to change my mind.

Only it wasn’t there.

I patted his pockets down twice, and then Celia frowned. “I’m an idiot.”

“Why? Wasn’t he carrying one after all?” I asked her.

“It’s what caught our attention in the first place,” she said as she moved to the tree where we’d seen something flapping in the breeze when we’d first arrived.

Hank had used his bandana as a signal, the very thing that had led us to his body, and the item we were going to use to shake up his real killer.

I collected the small cloth square, and then I asked her, “Was there anything else Hank was known for?”

“Won’t the bandana do? I thought it was perfect,” Celia said with a frown.

“It is. As a matter of fact, it’s too good to waste just yet. We need something else to show that he made it out of this in one piece.”

Celia frowned, and finally, it was Grace who spoke next. “How about his button?”

“That’s perfect,” Celia said.

“Button? What button? How can that do us any good?”

Grace walked hesitantly to the body, and then she reached down and unpinned a button he’d been wearing on his sweatshirt. I’d missed it completely on my quick inventory earlier, but I didn’t beat myself up about it. After all, I’d wanted to make the search as quick as possible.

It was a circular button the size of a quarter, and inside, it had the letters printed, TUIT.

“I don’t understand,” I said as I frowned at the button.

“Hank used to say that was most people’s downfall. They always said they’d do something, but they never made time to actually accomplish their tasks.”

Grace shrugged. “It’s understandable that you don’t see it, Suzanne. I had to ask him about it myself on the first day we met. It’s a round tuit. Around to it. He told me that he always knew that someday he’d get a round tuit, and he always laughed every time he told the joke. I’m willing to bet there’s not another one of these within a hundred miles. Everyone will know that it was his.”

“Good enough,” I said. “We’re going to take this back as proof that he’s still alive. There’s just one thing left to do. Where do we say we found it?”

“How about on the front steps of the main lodge?” Celia suggested.

“I don’t know how we’d explain the fact that no one else saw it there first,” I explained. “It has to be in plain sight, but not in easy reach.”

I was still considering possibilities when Celia countered, “We could say we found it on the sign for the resort.”

“So, our story would be that he didn’t lose it by accident but that he planted it so someone could find it,” I said.

“What’s wrong? Is that no good?” Celia asked.

“On the contrary. I think it’s perfect. Grace, do you have an opinion?”

“I like it, too,” she said. “It could be read as a warning to the killer, that Hank is going to get around to unmasking them, and soon.”

“Only he can’t,” Celia said, getting a little weepy again.

“That’s why we’re going to do it for him,” I said. “Now let’s get going. It’s going to be getting dark soon, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t want to be on this path when night falls.”

“Lead the way,” Grace said, but Celia didn’t make any move to follow us.

“Is something wrong?” I asked her gently as she stood over the body.

“We can’t just leave him like this,” she said. “I know we can’t drag him back up the path we crossed, but this just doesn’t feel right to me.”

“I know, but what can we do?” I asked her. “There’s no way to protect him now.” And no need, I added to myself silently.

“Shouldn’t we at least say something over him?” she asked.

Grace saved the day. She looked at me, nodded solemnly, and then she took each of our hands in hers. As we stood there, she said, “Hank, you may be gone, but you will be missed. You may have sacrificed yourself to save someone else, but it won’t be in vain. You may leave nothing but a memory behind, but it will be a good one, a last act of courage trying to protect someone else.” She stopped, and we stood there a few moments before she spoke again, this time directly to Celia. “Is that what you had in mind?”

“It was beautiful,” Celia said. “Thank you.”

I mouthed the same sentiment to Grace myself. She’d done beautifully, but I would have expected nothing less from her. My best friend had a way with words, while I had a way with dough. Both assets were valuable, but at that moment, I would have traded every donut I’d ever made in my life for the ability to say something so powerfully.