The Chocolate Moose Motive: A Chocoholic Mystery (14 page)

Luckily, Joe and I had taken a course for citizens who were interested in becoming police department volunteers, so I had an elementary idea of how to use the dental compound today’s law officers use for casting. Now I just hoped Nosy and Rosy were home. I didn’t want to go onto their property without permission. That would probably bring another report of prowlers.

The next mailbox east of Moose Lodge was marked with the name Reagan. It was shaped like a great big fish; the postman poked the mail in through a wide-open mouth. At the end of
the drive I saw a small black pickup truck. Good. Maybe Nosy and Rosy were there.

The Reagans’ property wasn’t as neatly kept as Wildflower’s. The woods were thick over almost all of it, with only a small patch cleared for a scraggly bit of grass and one flower bed. In the little clearing was a light gray double-wide with a colonial-style front porch. The double-wide would have made me feel as if I were back in Texas if it hadn’t been for the tall trees and thick undergrowth.

Actually, the undergrowth was much too thick to suit me. The whole property felt damp and claustrophobic. I gave a shiver as I stopped the van, and I couldn’t have guessed if that shiver was caused by the clammy atmosphere or by the threatening vibes I was picking up from all those trees.

It was the kind of area I call “mosquito heaven,” and I was glad to see that hanging on the porch was a big bug light, the kind that attracts bugs, then electrocutes them.

As I got out of the van, Rosy came out the front door. His white hair was fluffed up in back, and I wondered if he’d been taking a nap when he heard my van.

He looked a little puzzled; then his face cleared. “Mrs. Woodyard, right? What can we do for you?”

“Wildflower wasn’t happy with the cursory way the sheriff was investigating the possible burglary at her house. She asked me to look around and see if I could find any more evidence that someone had been prowling around. And you folks said that y’all found some tracks.”

“Darn right! And that sheriff wouldn’t even look at them. I guess we’re not important enough in the Warner County picture for him to pay us any mind.”

“Would you mind if I took a look?”

“Not at all! I’ll show you where they are.”

“Did the prowler get into your house?”

“I didn’t find any sign of that. We lock up pretty good. We lived in the big city too long to have this small-town habit of leaving things open the way Wildflower does.”

Rosy led around the house, and I followed, bringing the casting materials. “Then you haven’t lived here too long?” I said.

“Just about five years. We were looking for a cheap place to retire.”

“Do you find it lonely?”

“After thirty years in an apartment complex, we like lonely. And Wildflower is a good neighbor.”

Rosy led the way down an extension of the gravel drive. We walked around another group of trees and reached a metal outbuilding. A double garage door was centered in front of the drive, and an ordinary outside door was around the corner, on the side of the building. True to what Rosy had said, both doors were firmly closed and had locks.

An old-fashioned galvanized steel washtub had been turned upside down at the corner of the building. Rosy lifted the tub and made a dramatic gesture. “There!”

The tub had been protecting the suspicious tracks. Someone had definitely been walking in the damp earth around the Reagans’ garage.

At first I could see only the outline of a shoe sole in one place. Then I saw others that were not so clear. When I peered closely at them, the tracks looked as if someone had been stomping on waffles. The clearest print showed a pattern of diamonds running down the center of the sole and some wavy lines toward the toe.

And the prints looked big. I belatedly realized I hadn’t brought a measuring tape.

I got out my notebook, knelt down, and made a sketch of the clearest print on a fresh page. I drew the pattern in, and I gauged the size by comparing it with my hand.

Rosy watched me. “Do you want to measure it?”

“Do you have a ruler I could use?”

“Sure. There’s a measuring tape right here in the workshop.”

Rosy went to a side door of the metal building, took a key from somewhere behind a bush, and unlocked the door. So much for keeping everything locked up. I hid a grin, but I didn’t criticize his security procedures aloud.

In a minute Rosy came back with a tape measure, a stout metal one with a button to retract the measuring tape.

The print in the mud had been made by a shoe or boot thirteen inches long. It was five inches wide at the widest point, across the ball of the foot. I marked that down. Then I produced my pan, spoons, and water and began to mix the dental compound. It should be the consistency of pancake batter, Hogan had told our class. Investigators use it because it sets much faster than plaster of Paris.

Rosy sighed. “I wish I’d known how to do that last February, when I found the tracks before Buzz was killed.”

“Did they look like these?”

“Not much. It was winter, after all. Whoever came in had on some sort of snow boots. But if I’d thought to measure them, at least, it might have helped. Of course, we didn’t know somebody was going to get killed.” He moved restlessly. “Now—well, I can’t help wondering if the person who prowled around last winter is the same one who’s been here in the past couple of days.”

Rosy watched for another moment, then glanced at his wrist. “Do you mind if I leave you with this project?”

“Not at all. Would it be okay if I looked around a few more places?”

“Sure! That’s fine. I’ve just got a chore I need to do.”

At that moment I heard Nosy’s voice, calling from the house, over behind the trees. “Rosy! It’s time for
Jeopardy!
”

So much for Rosy’s claim he was going to do chores; I was interrupting an afternoon-television ritual. Rosy told me he’d leave the workshop door open and that I could put the measuring tape on the workbench. Then he left me alone. This was good, because I’m a total amateur at casting a footprint, and I’d just as soon not have a witness to my inept way of doing it.

Hogan might have laughed at the way I cast the print, but I got it done, by golly. Then I cast a couple of the other, more smudged tracks. The material set quickly, so pretty soon I was able to stack the casts on the gravel drive. Then I looked around to see if the prowler had left any other signs.

And farther from the metal building I found another print of a different shoe. This one was of a smooth-soled shoe.

It took me a minute to see that the print must have been made by Rosy. At least, there were two of them, side by side, right where he’d been standing as he watched me prepare to make the mold of the waffle-soled boot.

Rosy’s tracks looked to be the same size as the ones with the waffle soles.

I studied them, comparing them. Coincidence, I told myself. In fact, I doubted it was true.

I knelt and measured Rosy’s print. It was thirteen inches long and five inches wide across the ball of the foot. The two prints were the same length.

Did this mean the intruder’s foot was the same size as Rosy’s? Were they the same height? Or were the feet inside the shoes smaller? Did Rosy own a pair of hiking boots? Had he
made the suspect tracks himself? If so, why would he tell Wildflower and the sheriff and everybody else that they were made by some stranger?

It would take a real expert to confirm that both tracks might have been made by the same person wearing different shoes.

I reminded myself that Rosy had told me I could look around their property. Was I going to get that done or just stand around gawking at the ground?

I carefully stacked the casts and my materials—bowl, spoons, casting compound—on the gravel drive. I put the measuring tape inside the workshop. Then I walked around the metal building.

A couple of paths led away from Rosy’s workshop, going into the woods. I followed one of them. It went about forty feet and ended in a trash heap, a pile of stuff that in a rural area has to be hauled to the dump by the property owner. A rusty metal bookshelf too big for regular trash pickup leaned against a broken metal chair. I retraced my steps and followed another path. It led to a pit Nosy and Rosy apparently used as a compost heap. I backed away from it gingerly; I was sure raccoons and skunks and other critters hung out there, even though dirt had been tossed on top of the garbage.

A third path led in a northerly direction and I went on farther, ignoring my usual fears. Eventually I came to the fence that bordered the nature preserve. I realized I’d crossed over onto Wildflower’s property.

All was peaceful there. The day Joe and I had hiked the nature preserve, somebody had been riding an all-terrain vehicle along the trails, even though use of such things was illegal. But now it was quiet.

I examined the fence and saw no sign that anyone had
climbed it. I scanned the woods on the nature preserve side. They were just as thick and brushy as the ones on Nosy and Rosy’s and on Wildflower’s property. A faint path led into them.

I had no desire to go in there. I looked at the underbrush, gave another little shudder, and turned back, retracing my steps along the path until I saw the metal building. Having no idea what I was looking for, I was unlikely to find it. I’d done enough, I decided. I’d gather up my materials and go home.

As I came around the corner of the building, I saw that my stuff had been disturbed. The plastic sack I’d used to carry the dental compound, the metal bowl, and the water bottles had been turned over, its contents scattered over the gravel.

My first thought was that an animal had been there.

But why would the sack have attracted an animal? There was nothing edible in it.

Then I got close enough to see the casts I had made. They were smashed to pieces.

“Oh no!” I yelped out the words.

Well, that eliminated animals. No animal would have broken up the casts. Someone had kicked or stomped on them or hit them with a club.

I stomped my own foot. “Son of a gun! Drat!” I said. Or something like that.

“Well, by golly, I’ll just make another set,” I said.

I turned to the corner of the workshop, where the tub had protected the tracks.

The tub had been tossed aside, and the area it had hidden had been raked thoroughly.

The tracks were gone.

I could have cried. The evidence had been destroyed.

I didn’t know if I should cry or swear. As I was trying to decide, I heard a noise.

It was a branch breaking, and it came from the direction of the nature preserve.

I have never understood what possessed me, but I turned and ran toward the sound.

Chapter 14

Why did I do that? Looking back, I’m not sure.

Maybe I ran toward the strange sound simply out of anger. I’d worked hard making molds of those tracks. It hadn’t taken a lot of physical labor, true, but it had taken mental effort because it wasn’t a job I was familiar with. I had done something I wasn’t at all sure I could do, something I’d had only rudimentary lessons in accomplishing. And I’d succeeded. To see my work destroyed—well, it made me mad as all get-out.

So I ran down that path, ready to tear into whoever had ruined the tracks and the molds I had made.

I was so mad that I’d gone at least a hundred yards before I realized I was running headlong into a situation I dreaded and always tried to avoid. It took me that long to come to myself and realize I was surrounded by deep woods and there was someone dangerous near.

Cold fingers slid down my spine. My running steps slowed to a walk. Then my walk slowed to a sort of tiptoe; I edged along, trying to look in every direction at once—at the trees, through the trees, behind the trees.

After all, you never can tell when something scary is going
to jump out from behind a tree. Trees are like that. They hide things—animals, dangerous maniacs, monsters, snakes, poison ivy, crawly insects, small dinosaurs, nameless fears, even harmless little creatures like squirrels that could startle you.

But most of all, trees hide the sky. They make you feel closed in and claustrophobic. They make it hard to breathe.

One tree is a friend, providing shade and beauty. A thousand trees are a net of spiderwebs, every branch grabbing and trying to catch you, or camouflaging unknown enemies.

I shuddered and stopped in my tracks. I almost turned and went back.

But ahead I could see the fence that marked the boundary of the nature preserve. At least I could go that far. I might still be able to get a look at the person who had smashed the molds and destroyed the footprints.

So I walked on. I tried to step out firmly, but I didn’t run. In fact, it would have been hard to run on that path. It wasn’t a maintained path, but merely a partly overgrown trail, narrow and covered with leaf mold and scattered branches and twigs.

Forcing myself to be brave helped, of course. When I came to the fence, I paused and looked ahead. I saw nothing significant. Nobody yelled boo. Nobody jumped out with a club. No wild animal howled.

I decided I could check on what was on the other side of the boundary. I climbed up, using the barbed wire like a ladder and holding on to the nearest fence post, then jumped down on the other side. The path continued, still faint and hard to see. I walked along, watching my footing. After all, rationally I knew that the worst danger in a forest is the chance of tripping and breaking a leg. If I got stranded in the nature preserve, it might be a long time before someone found me. So I pussyfooted
along, stepping carefully and reminding myself that my cell phone was in my pocket. Of course, it might not have any service in an area this remote.