Marja McGraw - Bogey Man 04 - Awkward Moments (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

“Is that you, Mrs. Cross?”

The dogs started barking, but for once I couldn’t tell if it was a good bark or a
be careful
bark. I’d heard more than just the wind.

“Who wants to know?” I stood and watched the path
, calling the dogs to my side. I motioned for Mikey to stand behind me. The voice sounded slightly familiar, but it definitely wasn’t my husband or his brother.

I heard the crackle of dead leaves again, but no one replied.

“I said, who’s
there?
” My nerves were practically standing on end. Whoever was out there was acting way too sneaky.

The footsteps sounded closer. “It’s me.”

“That’s not much of an answer. Who’s
me
, and you’d better answer fast or I’ll send the dogs after you.”

“Tony Hellman. I was lookin
’ for you and then I heard voices down by the creek.” He stepped out of the trees and walked down the path.

What was he doing in the trees instead of walking down the path in the first place? Why had it taken him so long to answer me?
And, most importantly, because of the wind and the distance from the house, there was no way he could have heard our voices unless he was close. His story didn’t wash.

“Stay,” I said to the dogs. Stepping forward, I left Mikey in the care of the dogs.

Tony stopped and watched us. “What’s up?”

“Excuse me? You just scared the daylights out of us. Why were you looking for me?”

Taking a closer look at the man, I realized he didn’t seem too steady on his feet. He had a silly grin on his face and his eyes were bloodshot. He repeatedly pulled on the neck of his shirt, like it was too tight.

The wind had picked up and it blew a branch downward, shadowing Tony’s face for a brief moment. Somehow it made him look evil.

“I jus’ wanted a friend to talk to,” he replied. His words were a little slurred and he rocked back and forth.

“First
of all, I’m not your friend.”

His grin disappeared
and was replaced by an expression I couldn’t define. I didn’t like it though.

“I barely know you. And what do you think you’re doing, showing up at my house when you’ve been drinking? I want you to leave, and don’t come back.”

“You’re the on’y person who’d listen to my stories about me and Charlie. I jus’ wanted to talk.” He was beginning to whine.

“My son and I are fishing. I really don’t want to talk about Charlie right now. Some other time. Besides, your stories don’t quite line up with other versions I’ve heard. No
w go away.”

He took an unsteady step toward me.

“Sherlock. Watson. Come.” They whined and moved from Mikey’s side to mine. Placing my hands on their heads, I could feel tension coursing through their bodies. They knew something was wrong.

Tony stood and watched me, narrowing his eyes. “An’ I thought I found a new friend.”

“Like I said, I don’t know you. Are you going to leave?”

He took another step forward, but Sherlock growled. Tony heard it and stepped back.
His face turned red. Without a word, he began unsteadily walking away from us on the path. Sherlock followed him and I didn’t stop the dog. Watson took a step forward, but looking over her shoulder she saw Mikey and sat down.

“Good girl,” I said.

“Mom? What was that all about?” Mikey sounded nervous, and I couldn’t blame him. I was nervous, too.

“That man was drunk. I didn’t want him around here like that. I don’t know him and he’s not a friend. You stay here while I make sure he’s really gone.”

“Okay.”

Holding my hand up, palm facing outward, I looked at Watson. “Stay.”

She sat next to Mikey and he rubbed her back.

Being as quiet as possible, I walked the path toward open space.
It was a distance from where I stood to the house, but I could see Sherlock sitting by the driveway, and I could see Tony leaving. He swerved to avoid hitting one of the cottonwood trees, and ran over some ground cover at the beginning of the driveway.

I rubbed my arms, thankful he hadn’t given me any trouble about leaving. Having a hundred and ten pound dog escort him to his truck hadn’t hurt either.

Taking my cell phone out of my pocket, I called the police station and reported a drunk driver on the highway and gave them his name with a description of the truck. We’d called Jimmy so many times that I had the phone number memorized. The dispatcher thanked me and said she’d send someone right out.

After taking a deep breath, I called to Sherlock and headed back down the path. I refused to let Tony ruin our day. It was time for more fishing.

Unfortunately, Tony had ruined the relaxed mood my son and I had shared. We pulled our lines out of the water and I let Mikey and the dogs play in the creek. It was only a couple of feet deep, but you’d have thought it was a
big swimming hole.

I tried to relax again whi
le I watched the child and dogs play. I’d been so wrapped up in Tony’s unexpected and unwelcome visit that I hadn’t noticed the clouds thickening and turning dark.

“Mikey, bring the dogs and let’s go inside. It looks like we may be in for a storm.”

He reluctantly climbed out of the water, calling to the dogs. “It’s getting kinda cold, Mom. Yeah, we need to go inside.”

I handed him his shirt and he put it on while the dogs shook water all over us.

Just before we reached the house the rain began to fall. I made the dogs stay on the porch while they air dried. I found a towel and tried to help things along, but their heavy coats were soaked.

Mikey and I got out the cards and played Go Fish, one of his favorite games. I found myself glancing at my watch, anxious for Chris and Bill to come home.

About an hour later I heard Bill’s truck pull up in front of the house. Mikey and I threw down our cards and went to the front door. We watched the brothers run to the house and shake water off on the porch.

“Took you long enough,” I said, pushing open the screen and letting both men and dogs come inside.

Chris glanced at his watch. “Were we supposed to hurry?”

“I’m sorry. No. We had an unexpected visit from Tony Hellman and I wished you’d been here. He was drunk and seemed to think we’d become friends on his last visit. I had to make him leave, with Sherlock’s help.”

“That explains it,” Bill said. “We saw a police officer escorting him into the station. You called the police, I’m assuming.”

“I did. He was drunk, like I said, and he was driving erratically.
He almost hit one of the trees before he drove over the ground cover out front. I didn’t want him on the road. I’m glad to know the coppers stopped him. Now I just hope he doesn’t come back.”

“Did he threaten you?” Chris asked.

“Not really. Well, he kind of snuck up on us, but that wasn’t it. I just got a bad feeling about him. He said he wanted a friend to talk to, and I told him we aren’t friends.” I shook my head. “It was just a feeling.”

“Best to go with gut feelings, a
ngel.” Chris walked over and gave me a damp hug.

“Ace, how about you? You okay?” Bill asked.

“Yeah, Mom took care of everything. Like Dad says, sometimes she can be a bulldog. Right Dad?” He turned to his father.

“That’s right, son.”

“I just hope he doesn’t come back,” I said. “What happened in town? Anything earthshaking?”

The two men grinned at each other.

“We shook things up a little.” Bill looked quite proud of himself.

Chapter Twenty-seven

The summer storm escalated to heavier rain accompanied by lightning and thunder. The kitchen turned dark, setting a tone for our conversation.

“You shook things up in town? What’d you do?” I asked, looking up at Bill.

He grinned, but Chris was the one who replied to my question. “We stopped in at the Burnt Bun again for coffee, and we talked about what’s been going on out here. Of course, we talked loud enough for everyone to hear us.”

“Of course,” I said. “You wouldn’t want anyone to miss what you were saying. Why rob someone of the opportunity to become angrier and follow through on the threatening note?”
The two brothers suddenly reminded me of children who thought this was all a game.

“The note was threatening?” Mikey asked. “Huh. You didn’t tell me that. You just said someone wanted us to go home.”

Not wanting to make things worse, I didn’t reply to my son.

“Stu
and Doc were there and they joined us,” Bill said. “Stu seemed to catch on right away, and he helped.”

“Oh, goody,” I said. Now there were three
, maybe four, children in on the act. “Was Doc in on this, too?”

“
No. Doc stayed out of it. Anyway,
Pamela
, we talked about the treasure hunters and said we weren’t going to put up with their destruction of the property anymore. We said it made perfect sense to us that one of the hunters is also a killer, and we intend to find out who it is.”

Chris had used my given name, with emphasis. I knew I was annoying him by not
falling all over myself and clapping my hands with glee for their ingenuity.

“Stu said he’d help us find the murderer,” Bill said.

“A couple of people looked nervous when we mentioned the treasure hunting and they got up and left. A few more people left when we talked about the murder.” My Bogey Man looked quite pleased with himself. Smug, in fact.

“And you think this will bring some kind of results?” I asked. “The killer will probably just be more careful about covering his tracks.”

“Did I forget to mention we brought up the watch I found? I told Bill, in front of everyone, that I’d turned the watch over to the cops and I said I was pretty sure it had fingerprints on it. Even Joe came out of the kitchen to listen to us. We put on quite a performance.”

“That we did.” Bill nodded his head.

“How’s Essie doing?” I asked. I knew she and Joe were good friends of Charlie’s. It seemed kind of cruel for the brothers to put on their act in front of them.

“Essie is still pretty upset,” Chris said. “She seemed kind of sassy wh
en we met her and Joe. Her sass seems to be gone.”

“
I’m not surprised. How did Doc react to all of this?”

Chris opened the refrigerator and picked up a pitcher of iced tea. “He left. He said he had to get back to work. I think he was uncomfortable with the
conversation. I kind of got the feeling he thinks we all belong in the cackle factory.” He held the pitcher up for his brother and son to see. Receiving nods all around, he took three glasses out of the cupboard. I was already holding a glass in my hand.

“I think he’s probably right. You all belong in the nut house. What were you thinking? You practically invited the killer to come back out here.”

Chris stiffened. “No, we didn’t. We just put the town on alert that we’re keeping our eyes open.”

I could see the conversation was leading to a spirited discussion – meaning an argument – so I left the kitchen without a word and walked outside to sit on the porch and watch the storm
from a nice, safe chair. The dogs followed me.

Creak, bang.

Crack, boom.

The lightning was close and the thunder loud. It made me jump. My nerves were already on edge and the storm wasn’t helping. Sherlock whined and stood in front of the screen door, wanting back in the house. I opened the door and he scurried inside. Watson
settled beside me on the porch. Thankfully, she’d never been afraid of thunder.

I didn’t think Chris or Bill had given
any thought to the idea that they could be making things worse for us. They’d practically thrown down a dare.

“You’re going to have to help me keep an eye on Mikey.” I patted Watson’s head.

She glanced up at me before looking toward the house. Mikey was one of many words she understood.

Creak, bang.

My senses told me Chris had joined me on the porch. I waited for a moment before I looked up. He was watching me intently.

“You know I’d never purposely put you or Mikey in danger,” he said.

“I know.”

“We have a plan.”

“I’m sure you do.” I patted Watson’s head again.

Chris started to say something but thunder cut him off. It seemed to be right overhead. The house and porch briefly shook with the fury of the storm.

I was glad I’d put my hair in a ponytail because the wind whipped it around and it slapped my face. Left undone it could have been worse.

“I had no idea the weather could be this bad in Nevada.” Chris took the seat next to me.

“Me, either.”

“Listen,
angel, we’re all going to be fine. Like I said, Bill and I have a plan.”

“I can’t wait to hear it. Wanna share?”

“We, ummm… We made it sound like we’ve found where the bulk of the gold is buried, and we mentioned a location, saying we’d be keeping a close eye on it because we’d need special tools to get to it. We also mentioned we thought there was more evidence, saying we found something near the hole in the ground where we found Charlie but we wouldn’t touch it until we told Jimmy about it. We made sure to let people know where the gold is, which would be in the back yard. We figured this way one of us could watch the front of the other could watch the back. We – ”

“Why didn’t you just send the killer a written invitation?” Chris wasn’t helping me get over my anger. He was making it worse.
“Besides, why would you need special tools to dig up the gold? Old Henry probably wouldn’t have used special tools to bury it.”

“I understand how you feel, babe. I really do. Just hear me out, okay?”

I nodded.

“Bill and I are going to hide out, one in front of the house and one out back
, like I said. We’re going to keep track of who shows up. I may even take pictures. We just need to see who heads for the hole where we found Charlie’s body.”

“Simple as that, huh?” He hadn’t convinced me it was a good plan.

Chris tipped his head to the side and looked into my eyes. “It seemed like a good plan at the time, but now I’m not so sure. Why did you have to question what we’ve done?”

“Because I’m the voice of reason?”
Wouldn’t he ever understand my role in our relationship? Or was I simply imagining my role was that of the reasonable partner?

As it turned out, we didn’t have to worry about treasure hunters or killers for a couple of days.

Just about the time we thought the storm was over, it picked up more energy and the rain came down in buckets, or so it seemed. It continued through the next day, bringing more thunder and lightning.

On the third day we mucked around the yard through mud and water. The rain made the holes people had dug sink into the ground. The dirt was too soft and the rain created more of a mess tha
n we’d imagined.

The people in town, including a killer, were too busy cleaning up the
damage left by the storm to even think about visiting us – I hoped.