Critical Impact (8 page)

He was racing down the hill now, trying to beat his old time. He knew he could. He had just rounded the last corner near the bottom when a slanted ray of sunlight reflected across a filament that spanned the path, as gossamer as a spider's web.

He had looked down just in time to see the wire strung carefully across the path and attached to trees on either side.

He braked hard and dirt flew up behind his tire. To keep from flying over his handlebars, he aimed the front tire abruptly to the right, and laid the bike down. His fall off his bike was controlled.

It could have been a whole lot worse. A thin wire had been strung carefully across his path, a foot off the ground, and attached to trees on either side.

A
nna decided she needed to visit Marg. Her car was an automatic, no gears to change, plus, no one told her she couldn't drive. It might be a different story if she had to manually shift with her arm in a cast. Quickly, quietly, she pulled her mother's old woolen poncho over her head and made her way out the front door without her aunt or her mother being the wiser.

Now that Johnny had been transferred to Whisper Lake Crossing Hospital, Marg might be at the hospital with him, but Anna went to Marg's house anyway. It was worth a try.

At the Seeley mansion, Anna parked beside a silver car with an out-of-state license plate. She walked up the steps quickly and pressed the doorbell. It chimed richly from someplace deep within the house. Eventually a haggard-looking Marg answered the door. She wore a white terry-cloth robe that looked as if it might have belonged to her husband at one time. Every time she saw Marg, the woman looked older.

“Marg?” Anna said. “You said you wanted me to come and talk with you if I had any new information on the case. I have something.”

“You do?” Marg was wearing a pair of skinny end-of-the-nose glasses. Probably she'd been reading when Anna rang the bell. She opened the door wide and Anna entered. “Someone is trying to frame me for the bombing. Someone put fertilizer in my locker.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Anna followed Marg into a richly furnished foyer and then into a kitchen beyond where a closed laptop lay on the table with half a cup of coffee next to it, plus some papers in a file.

“I was just working,” Marg said. “Haven't even had a shower yet. That sometimes happens,” she explained. “I get so engrossed in my work….”

“What sort of work do you do?” said Anna, eyeing the computer. She'd always figured Marg lived handily off Johnny's many investments.

“I do Web design.”

“Really?” Now that was surprising.

“Tell me about how you were framed.” The intensity of Marg's voice caught Anna off guard. The woman seemed very upset.

Anna told Marg about the fertilizer, the locker, her wallet. Marg hung on every word. When she finished, Marg said, “So that's it?”

Anna nodded.

Marg took a sip from the coffee mug beside her at
the computer. “Thank you,” she said. “That helps. It helps for me to know.”

There was a pause in the conversation. “What kind of Web sites do you do?”

“I'm working on one for my church now. I do the bulletins, too.” Marg sat down and put her arms protectively over the cover of her laptop.

“That's very nice. I'm sure they appreciate it. How is Johnny doing, by the way?”

Marg shook her head, slumped in her chair.

Oh, dear. Had Johnny taken a turn for the worse?

“Oh, Marg.” Anna put her hand on the woman's shoulder. “I'm so sorry. He's not well?”

“My husband is an adulterer.”

Anna removed her hand. The vehement tone in the woman's voice stunned her.

“I can see that you're surprised. Don't be. I have to get back to work now.”

“Marg?” Anna felt a sudden tenderness toward this woman. Although she had a beautiful house and beautiful things, she seemed so unhappy. Marg picked up the file folder and accidentally upended it. A bunch of black-and-white, amateurishly made brochures were scattered all over the floor.

Anna stooped to help her pick them up. “No, no,” Marg said. “I can get them.”

Anna picked one up. On the front was a picture of a square box building with the words
Dragon Mountain Church
printed on it. Marg and Lois's church?
“Is this your church?” Anna asked, bending down to help Marg retrieve her papers.

Marg nodded, head down as she gathered the brochures quickly to her, as if she didn't want anyone to see. Anna wondered at this, but further questions about the church went unanswered.

Surreptitiously, Anna folded the brochure in her hand and deftly hid it under her poncho.

When she left, the silver car with the out-of-state plates was gone.

 

On the way home Anna was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't see the stop sign until it was almost too late. She slammed on the brakes and her right arm flew into the dashboard, stinging it momentarily. She pulled over and breathed deeply. If she was going to be a one-armed driver, then she was going to have to pay more attention.

During the sudden stop, she felt something fall forward from underneath her seat. She groped for it with her left hand. It was a plain black cell phone. It wasn't hers. Was it one of her students'? Probably. Sometimes she drove her students home. She looked at it curiously for a moment. She looked around her. She was the only one on the road, so she stayed where she was, opened up the phone and turned it on, and then played with the buttons. There was no contact information, no previous calls recorded and no embedded
text messages. She wondered about that for a moment before she put it in her glove compartment.

She had more important things to think about. She needed to get home and begin looking up Dragon Mountain Church on the Internet.

 

While Stu took various paths up the mountainside, he always came down the same way. And anyone who watched him or was familiar with his habits would know this. Carefully, he laid his mountain bike against a large tree and walked over to the wire. It was stainless steel, fairly heavy-gauge wire, and strung about two feet off the ground. It was attached to trees on either side with wire clamps.

If he hadn't seen it glinting in the sun, he would have ridden right into it. It could have killed him. And if it hadn't killed him, he would have been seriously harmed.

Not wanting to interfere with any fingerprints that might be on the scene, Stu examined the wire with a small stick he found on the ground. The wire clamps were expertly attached to the trees. This was not the work of kids playing a prank. Stu poked one of the trees with a stick. It looked as if it had been recently affixed. The bark under the clamp was green.

He opened his cell phone and called Alec.

“You won't be able to get up here with the car,” he said. “Go to the Seeleys'. I keep my four-wheeled off-road quad in their garage. The keys are in the
saddlebag. I think you should see this. I don't want to leave. And please bring the crime kit with you.”

While he waited for Alec, he snapped pictures with his cell phone. Near the tree where one of the wires was attached, he thought he saw a footprint. He took more pictures. He traipsed through the woods on either side of the path, careful not to disturb the scene. He was checking for anything that looked out of place. He found nothing.

He went back to his bike, sat on the ground and waited. He thought about how easily he could have cycled right into the wire. And that made him think of something else. The pane of glass that Anna had tripped over. Was there a connection between the two incidents? If so, why? Did someone want Anna dead? Did someone want him dead because he was getting too close to the truth about the bombing? Except he wasn't.

Could this be the work of Peter Remington? It disturbed Stu that they couldn't find him anywhere. The California police were looking for him. There had been no activity on his credit cards or ATM cards. It was as if the guy had vanished into thin air.

Presently, he heard the unmistakable sounds of his quad ascending the rough path. When Alec arrived, he took more pictures and looked through the woods.

“We'll look for prints,” Alec said. “Or some identifying information. I'm thinking of bringing Steve in on this.”

Steve Baylor was a former police officer who some times helped Alec on his cases. He now managed a resort with his wife and two teenage daughters.

Carefully, Alec undid the wire from the trees, coiled it up and put it in an evidence bag. “I don't know what this will tell us, but in light of what's been happening, this had to be deliberate.”

Stu agreed. Alec bent down and looked at the foot print that Stu had photographed.

Alec said, “I talked with Jack Habrowser's brother.”

“Do you know where Hilary's former husband is?” Stu said.

“His brother says Jack is out with a bunch of guys delivering some sailboat up the coast. He hasn't been answering his cell phone because he's been out of range. Jack's brother said that Jack was real broken up when he heard about Hilary's death.”

“But not shook up enough to abort his sailing trip.”

“Apparently not.”

Alec shook his head. “We're going to have to get back. We're losing our light.”

Stu took one last look at the trees and wondered who had tried to kill him.

 

The buzzing of Anna's cell phone early the following morning woke her. It was Bette, the English-
woman whose cottage she was renting and who was graciously allowing her to keep her things there.

“I thought you should know something,” Bette said. There was a worried note in her voice. “The police are here.”

“What for?” Why would the police be at Bette's home? And why was Bette calling her to tell her?

Bette said, “It seems they have some kind of a search warrant for the cottage you rented. I don't know if they told you or not or if I'm telling tales out of school.”

“The police are searching my cottage? Right now? Why?” Anna asked.

She sat up. This had to have something to do with the stuff they found in her so-called locker. Maybe they thought they could find more incriminating evidence among her personal possessions. This was all too much.

“Deputy Stu McCabe wouldn't tell me. I don't think he's allowed to. It's very infuriating, but I did overhear one of the police officers say that they were going to be going to your mother's place next. I just thought you should know. And if I get in trouble for phoning you and telling tales out of school, well, so be it. You've been through enough.”

Anna looked at the clock. Nine a.m. She had slept in. She didn't hear anything in the house. Perhaps her mother and her aunt had already left. She needed to
get up and get dressed. She needed to get over there. “Is Stu still there? I mean, Officer McCabe?”

“The last I looked he was down at your cottage.”

“I'll be there in a minute,” Anna said.

She dressed quickly and then headed out, walking along the lakeshore. Around the bend, she saw the police cars, two of them parked outside the cottage, which she had lived in up until eight days ago, hoping for a little bit of peace in her life.

Stu was there standing beside a police car, leaning into it and talking on his cell phone. He didn't see her at first, but when he did, he looked away.

Bette was on her porch, hands on her hips. When she saw Anna, she waved for her to come over. Anna headed up from the beach and walked to Bette's. “Bette, I don't know what's going on.”

“I don't know, either. But come in, dear, and we'll figure it out.”

Bette gave her a warm hug and said, “Whatever they think they're looking for, they won't find anything. You've been through so much. You don't need this.”

Bette's kitchen was warm and bright and smelled of fresh bread. Through the window Anna watched as another van pulled into the yard. This one belonged to a television crew. Her friend Cassie was right. This was all over the news.

“Do you want to go and talk with Stu?” Bette asked. “I know the two of you are friends.”

“We
were
friends. Something happened. He doesn't believe me anymore. He thinks my former boyfriend and I are in cahoots on this whole thing. That we planted the bomb, for whatever reason.”

Bette stood and looked at her. “That's ridiculous.”

“Tell them,” Anna said, pointing toward the two police cars and one media van.

“I thought you and Stu had something special between you. Every time I visited you in the hospital, that young man was there,” Bette protested.

“Things have changed.” Stu hadn't spoken to her since she'd been detained in Shawnigan.

While Bette made tea, Anna sat down and told Bette about the episode with the windowpane, the bell being removed, about being driven to Shawnigan and questioned about some fertilizer in her locker. “I didn't even know fertilizer had anything to do with bombs.”

Bette frowned.

“And then they think my former boyfriend, who does special effects for movies, is somehow involved. But that is just so ridiculous.” She also told Bette about her strange visit with Marg.

“Poor Marg. She's had a difficult life.”

“How well do you know her?”

“Not well. She's been in Whisper Lake Crossing ever since she and Johnny were married ten years ago. She comes from a rich family in Boston. I understand
there was some trouble there, and that marrying Johnny was her way out of her family.”

Bette seemed to sense Anna's turmoil and put her hand on Anna's arm. “I should phone my mother,” Anna said. “I ran out here before I could call her and tell her what was going on. I don't know where she's gone. I don't know where my aunt Lois is. What are the police going to do when they get to my house? Are they going to go through all my drawers and things? What are they looking for? Why is this happening to me?”

Bette leaned over and put her arms around Anna and held her while she cried.