Murder in the Boonies: A Sleuth Sisters Mystery (The Sleuth Sisters Book 3) (6 page)

Faye hurried over to look. “I don’t see anybody.”

“It was just a flash, but it wasn’t an animal. There was pink.”

We went back outside, shading our eyes with our hands as we stared at the spot. “Whoever it was went from the hayloft into the woods behind it. It wasn’t very big, not a man, I’m pretty sure.”

“Neighbor kids?” Faye asked.

“Aren’t they still in school?”

“They should be. I heard from Madge last night after you went upstairs. Nobody at the school knows why the Isley girls left and as far as she can learn, the girls never contacted any of their friends once they withdrew.”

“You don’t suppose McAdams murdered them and took off, do you?”

“If he did, it was very recently. Madge said one of the teachers buys eggs from them, and she saw the girls last weekend.”

We’d walked up the hill to where double doors on the west end of the barn allowed entry to the hayloft. I stayed close to Faye, since the bull was once again eyeing us and she had the shovel.

The door was ajar, though we had closed it when we left earlier. The hayloft looked much the same as it had when we were kids, a large space with double doors at the opposite end for loading bales for storage, and a trapdoor in the center for dropping them down to the animals as needed. It was almost empty at this time of year, since the animals needed less hay now that there was tasty green grass to eat.

We stood looking around, seeing nothing unusual and hearing only the ticks of the tin roof as the sun warmed it, expanding the metal. Even Buddy found nothing exciting. He marked the loft for his territory then returned to Faye’s side. As we turned to go, a glint caught my eye, and I stooped to see what it was. I picked up a barrette, pink with a single rhinestone at one end, and showed it to Faye.

“Could it be one of Rose’s children?” she asked. “What would she be doing here alone?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but I think we need to find out.”

Turning to face each other, we said it at the same time. “The cabin.”

The original structure on our property is a log cabin built long before our father was born. Over the years, it had fallen into disrepair. Its chinking dried out and fell to the ground. Its door swelled from moisture and stuck shut. The windows no longer had glass, and to be truthful, Faye and I and a BB gun might have had something to do with that. Open to the weather, the cabin became the domain of small animals and dead leaves.

From time to time someone fixed it up a little. As girls we did hours of work cleaning it out so we could sleep there. The plank floor was hard and damp, but the spirit of adventure kept things interesting. Faye’s sons had in their turn discovered it, again clearing away years of detritus and using the cabin for camping adventures and possibly a few drinking parties. When they were grown it was forgotten again, so isolated we seldom thought of it.

If someone wanted to hide out on the farm, that was where he’d go.

“Put the dog in the car,” I told Faye. “We need to move quietly.”

She did as I suggested. Buddy didn’t like it, but he’s smart enough to sense the times Faye can’t be coaxed into changing her mind. Turning around once on the back seat, he settled his nose on his paws and closed his eyes. Taking up her shovel Faye led the way up the hill again, this time passing the barn and heading into the woods.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Faye

Barb and I were quiet, side-stepping twigs and branches that might snap and signal our approach. The cabin sat beside a pond that was sometimes there, sometimes not, depending on the season and the amount of rain. It wasn’t far, perhaps half a mile, though as kids we thought the place as remote as Jupiter. Images rose in my mind of the two of us lumbering through the woods weighed down by old blankets, flashlights, crackers, and a half-jar of peanut butter. The last time I recalled making the trip, Retta had insisted she was big enough to go along. Not having the heart to refuse her, Mom had suggested in the strongest terms that we take Baby Sister along. I can still recall Barb’s disgust when Retta got scared sometime after midnight and started crying to go home. I’ll admit I wasn’t thrilled myself as we fumbled our way through the dark woods with her sobbing between us.

We neared the cabin, puffing a lot more than we had as kids, and stopped to catch our breath. Looking down the slight incline, I saw that the pond was fairly big from the rainy April we’d had. The sun lit the water, hiding its murky underside with reflected sparkle. As girls Barb and I tried several homemade watercraft on that muddy mess, the most successful an old door we made into a raft. We had to stand on opposite ends, and our feet had always become soaked, but when we poled like mad and arrived at the opposite shore, we felt like we’d discovered land untouched by other humans.

We moved forward again, keeping trees between us and the door and craning our necks to peer between the newly-sprung leaves. Someone had replaced the broken windows with plastic glass, and the door sat properly in place. At first we saw no sign of life, but then someone passed the window. It was a girl of perhaps twelve, her blond hair bright in the dark space. As we watched, she reappeared, stopping at the window but facing away. Barb touched my arm, and we moved closer.

We reached the cabin wall without making any noise, stopped next to the front window and listened. “You can’t go back again,” a voice said. “They’ll catch us.”

“But what about Mazie?” It was clearly the voice of a young child.

“They’re going to take care of her from now on. Mazie will be fine.”

“But she’ll miss us. She wants me and Pansy to feed her!”

Someone sighed in frustration, and another voice chimed in. “Iris is right. We’ll get split up and you’ll never see me or her again!”

“Pansy, don’t,” the first one said. “You’ll scare her.”

The warning came too late. An unintelligible wail rose, ending in a few words we could decipher: “—want to stay with you!”

The pain in that voice was too much. Pushing the door open, I entered the cabin. Three young girls turned to stare at me, their expressions horrified, as if I’d brought poisoned apples for everyone.

Standing so close, they looked like a photo montage of a single child’s growing years. All three had honey-colored hair and round, blue-eyes, now shadowed by fear and distrust. Their fair complexions hinted at Nordic heritage, but several days in the woods had dulled them, as if they stood behind old glass.

Wearing a cotton skirt and a faded top, the oldest girl was at the stage writers call coltish. She’d apparently had a growth spurt, because her shirt pinched at the shoulders and the hem of her denim skirt had been let down, revealing a darker color. Her hair was neatly braided into one plait and fastened with limp ribbon. Twelve going on thirty-five.

The middle girl, a stair-step down in height, wore a skirt and top every bit as dull as her sisters’. Her hair was unbound and uncombed, and she’d stuck a screwdriver in her waistband, a nine-year-old’s means of defense.

The littlest girl had the round cheeks that are often the last vestiges of baby fat. On one side of her head, a barrette kept her light hair away from her face. It was a mate to the one we’d found in the barn.

Though they appeared to be healthy, none of them was old enough to be living in the woods alone.

Barb spoke calmly from behind me. “Don’t be afraid. We want to help.”

The oldest girl squared her shoulders, ready to face whatever she had to. The little one stepped behind her sisters, crying softly. I moved toward her, intending to offer comfort, but the middle girl blocked my way, her jaw tight. “Stay away from her!”

“Stop it, Pansy.” The oldest girl bent to comfort the little one. “There’s nothing we can do now.”

I glanced around the one-room cabin. The only furniture was a sturdy bunk bed in the corner away from the window. On each bed a couple of quilts lay neatly folded. In another corner was a cooler, and atop it were ready-to-eat foods: a jar of peanut butter, a stack of crackers, a box of raisins, and a bag of walnuts, along with three cups, three plates, and three sets of silverware. Next to the cooler was a thermal picnic jug.

At the foot of the bed was a large black garbage bag, and spilling from it was an assortment of clothing. Half-covered by the bag’s edge was a doll that looked hand-made. Its skirt was the same fabric as the skirt the smallest girl wore, and I pictured Rose making it for her youngest child.

“You’re the Isley girls,” Barb said.

The oldest girl answered. “I’m Iris. That’s Pansy, and Daisy.”

“Flowers,” I murmured, and she shrugged as if to say it was beyond her why her mother had chosen such names.

“What are you doing out here?”

Daisy looked up, her face wet with tears. “Don’t let So-Servishes take us away!” she begged. “I want to live with Pansy and Iris!”

We turned to Iris for a translation. “Ben said the social services people will separate us. We decided to live out here so we could stay together.”

“But where are your parents?” Barb’s tone indicated disgust with adults who would go away without making arrangements for their children.

More tacit communication. “We don’t know.” Pansy said as she stroked Daisy’s arm. “They just left.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Barb

I’m not sure what I expected to find in the woods on our family farm that day, but three unchaperoned children wasn’t it. What were we supposed to do with them?

Faye suggested we go back to the farmhouse, where she promised to fix the girls a meal. Food is Faye’s way of making everyone comfortable, and it worked. The oldest and youngest of the girls seemed relieved to see their adventure come to an end, and both of them ceded responsibility to the adults without objection.

The middle one, Pansy, had a little more fight in her.

“You aren’t the boss of us!” she said when Faye made her proposal. “Our rent is paid until the first of June, so if we want to stay out here, we can.”

Faye looked at me with a question in her eyes. “That’s not precisely true,” I said in my best barrister voice. “The rental contract is with your parents, who aren’t here.”

She wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Well, you aren’t our parents, so we don’t have to do what you say.”

Despite my irritation at having to argue with a child, I admired the girl’s active mind. “You are correct,” I replied. “In fact, you’re wise to consider the consequences of doing what a stranger tells you to do. However, you have to give yourselves up to someone, Social Services or some other government agency. We’re licensed private investigators, and I’m also an attorney. If you come with us, I promise to represent your rights as best I can. We’ll also try to ascertain the present location of your parents.”

“Our mother,” Pansy said. “We want to know where Mom is.”

“All right,” Faye said. “Let’s go to the house, where it’s comfortable.”

I led the way. At first the Isleys walked with Faye, who’s the mom type. Halfway along, however, Pansy, trotted up to my side. “Are you really a private detective?”

“I am.”

“And a lawyer?”

“Retired.”

She was quiet for a few steps. “Is it hard to get through law school?”

I smiled grimly. “Yes.”

“So you have to be really smart?”

I turned to look at her. “There are different kinds of smart, but yes, lawyers have to study hard, remember a lot, and learn to be good judges of character.”

“Because people lie to you?”

“Yes,” I said. “They lie, sometimes in words, sometimes by omission.”

“What’s that?”

I slowed my steps. “People often know more than they tell. Good lawyers have a sense for the things they don’t say.” Taking out a tissue, I wiped my nose. Something was pollinating in these woods. I seldom know what causes my sinuses to drip.

“What does the lawyer do if someone lies?”

“It depends on the situation. If the person gets to a point where she trusts the lawyer, she’ll probably tell what she knows.”

After a pause she asked, “What if she doesn’t?”

I shrugged. “It usually comes out some other way, sooner or later.”

Glancing at her sideways, I saw Pansy’s shoulders droop. The kid was hiding something, and it weighed on her young mind. I put a hand on her shoulder. “In my years as a lawyer I learned that things generally work out if people think hard about what’s best for everyone.”

“But how do you know what’s best?”

I squeezed her shoulder. “It will feel right when the time comes.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Faye

The girls seemed relieved to leave the cabin behind, and I guessed they’d been uncomfortable and afraid there. Barb led them through their story while I scoured the kitchen for things I could use to make them a decent meal. Finding ham, eggs, half an onion, and some cheese in the refrigerator, I made a large omelet and cut it into three chunks.

She began by telling the girls the legal system’s position on abandoned children. I kept injecting hopeful comments, because Barb’s a little scary when she gets going on the law. I knew she was trying to convince the girls they had to tell us more than, “They just left.” Still, quoting precedent is no way to make people relax. In my experience, no matter how much they don’t want to tell something, kids will tell, given time.

They had almost finished eating when the truck arrived with my horses. Though I was eager to hear what the girls had to say, I went outside to guide my new friends to their new home. They came out of the truck a little skittish, and I couldn’t blame them. It was a new place, and I was a new owner. I led the buckskin (I named her Anni-Frid) and the chestnut, (Agnetha, of course—Who doesn’t love ABBA?) into two of the four stalls available. Aware of how little I knew about the care and upkeep of horses, I substituted affection for expertise, petting and telling them how pretty they were. It seemed to work.

I returned to the house, where Barb and the girls had washed the dishes and put them away. “They’ve agreed to come into town with us,” Barb told me. “We’ll see what Rory can do about finding their parents.”

“Our mother,” Pansy corrected again. “Ben isn’t our dad.”