A Luring Murder (17 page)

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Louise and I wandered back to the resort and gave Digs the plastic bag with the residue we’d found on the boat. Somehow we had managed to leave out that little tidbit of information when we filled the Sheriff in on our suspicions.

Part of me was happy that we had kept those cards to the chest. How dare he bench us after all the help we’d given him with this case, when we were supposed to be on vacation; this case had been our baby from the start. Sheriff Anderson had been no more than a walking, talking, information booth, which filled in the secrets of the town when we ran up against a wall of silence.

At least with the sample, Digs could get a head start on the search warrant. Provided Louise had been able to sweep enough residue into the bag.

Digs had his doubts that he could, but he would try.

After that, there was nothing to do except wait. And I mean nothing.

Louise suggested we check out a local antique store, but they were closed for a family wedding.

“What do we do now?” I spun around in place. For eternity, and then some, there was nothing but fields with corn, beans, and hay.

Louise shrugged. “There’s a gift shop at the resort.”

What else was there to do? The gift shop was a separate cabin like building manned by a very bored, teenage girl with a romance novel butterflied in front of her face. She glanced up, grunted a greeting, then went right back to the pages of her book.

Must be a particularly steamy scene.

We browsed the isles of wooden boxes with the resort’s name burned into them, coffee mugs with the resort name printed on them, and post cards of every sort of majestic animal you could want. Of course these too had the name of the resort printed across the bottom. As I stood by the table of shot glasses contemplating if I needed a souvenir of this trip, the door behind me, which I had assumed led to the restroom, opened and Samantha King breezed out.

“Thanks, Linda. Call me if you need anything else.”

She did a whiplash double take in my direction before stopping. “Hi Detective. Getting some shopping in?”

I cast a sad eye at the shot glass in my hand, then set it back on the table. My mind went through how beautiful her house had been, and couldn’t put that together with a tacky display of souvenir glasses from around the globe.

“Yeah,” I said. “Looking for something to remember the trip by.” I grimaced at the display in front of me.

She laughed and looped her arm through mine. “Tacky, I know. Come with me.”

She led me to an alcove full of colorful ceramic pots, oil paintings, and watercolors. Some of the paintings were of the resort painted from somewhere out on the lake, looking up to the huge white farm house past the shoreline.

“Wow.” One syllable was all I could manage. All the air had been sucked out of my chest at the beauty of the unexpected.

“This is incredible,” Louise said.

I jumped. I hadn’t realized she had crept up behind us.

“Are they yours?”

Samantha nodded. “Mine and other local artists. The Peterman’s have been supportive through the years to what little art community this town has.”

I moved through the rows to one watercolor that had drawn my eye. Soft blues and greens created the lake. The house was more of a hint like looking at it through wavering heat waves.

“That’s one of my favorites,” Samantha said. “I can’t believe it hasn’t sold yet.”

I removed the picture from its hook.

“Maybe it was just waiting for you.”

Profound guilt hammered at the edges of my consciousness when I saw the name King scrawled across the bottom of the painting. The King’s had been so nice to us through the entire investigation. Here I was holding Samantha King’s artwork in my hands while somewhere the Sheriff was arranging a search warrant for the very same boat she’d probably sat in to paint my new piece of art.

I bought the painting, because I liked it, not because of the guilt. Louise rummaged through the art room and finally settled on a vase that had leather wrapped around the outside and a feather tied at the neck. The brown color would suit her condo well considering everything she owned was neutral.

We paid for our purchases and then stepped out into the bright sunlight.

A low growl rumbled from near our feet. Samantha put her hand on her chest and jumped back away from the little white fluff ball.

“Jesus,” she said.

“That dog is stalking me.” I stomped me feet and fanned my painting in his direction. “Shoo!”

He skittered back a couples steps and growled again.

“I mean it.” I stomped again. “Get. Go find Gavin.”

The dog scurried away, as if he knew the name Gavin.

“I hate that damned dog,” I said.

“Me too,” Samantha said.

“I’m sure he’s harmless,” Louise said. “Unless he’s near Catherine. She got on his bad side.”

Samantha stifled a chuckle behind her hand.

“That dog doesn’t have a good side, Louise.”

Samantha left and when she did there was nothing left for us to do, and I do mean nothing.

We sat in folding, plastic web, lattice lawn chairs in front of Bill’s cabin and stared at the lake. Occasionally, one of us would swat a mosquito, which provided a momentary thrill to break up the monotony.

The chair webbing cut into the back and sides of my thighs. The sun had superheated the metal rivets on the arms, and they sizzled into the flesh of my arms every time I tried to sit back and relax.

This is why I never wear shorts. Life had a way of knowing when parts of your body were exposed, and it was these particular moments that you were faced with a metal bench blistering in the sun, a leather car seat, or some other equally horrible seating apparatus like webbed lawn chairs.

I adjusted toward Louise.

She, for her part, yawned.

“Explain the appeal of lake vacations to me again?”

She yawned bigger and shook her head from side to side. “I honestly don’t know. All I want to do is sleep. Must be all the fresh air.”

“Yeah. Nothing like a lung full of freeway carbon monoxide to get your juices flowing,” I said. “I guess that’s why they call it rest and relaxation.”

She nodded.

“How long does it take to get a warrant for God’s sake?” I stood and paced. “I could run to Saint Paul and back quicker.”

Four more hours. That was the magic number for a search warrant in this town. When the Sheriff’s cruiser pulled up next to Bob’s cabin, followed closely by Deputy Watkins’s Suburban, Louise and I were as near as a human could be to a catatonic state without actually being catatonic.

“It’s about damned time,” I said. “What took you so long?”

The Sheriff and Deputy Watkins each slammed their doors.

“I had to find the judge on the lake. He was out fishing with his wife. Wasn’t too happy about having to sign off on this.” He held up a packet of papers.

At least he’d gotten the warrant. My eyes rolled skyward. No one in this town was ever at their desks where they should be on a workday. I imagined that if this case ever went to trial they would need to conduct it on the lake so they wouldn’t disturb everyone’s fishing schedule.

“We should have just arrested Patrick the first day, instead of waiting.” Deputy Watkins crossed his arms over his chest. His perfect, craggy features turned smug. “I don’t think we even need to search the boat. We have enough to make the arrest.”

“You couldn’t make the charges stick in court.” Louise stood. “Not in this town, or any other, and you know it.”

“I think we could.” He seemed annoyed that a woman had just challenged him. Especially a woman who he knew found him attractive. Mr. All-American probably got his way in most situations, but Mr. All-American hadn’t come up against Louise.

She was used to getting her way too. Only she got her way because she was damned smart and she knew her job. Her looks might help, but they weren’t all Louise could hang her hat on. If she dug in, there was a good reason.

“With the kind of hot shot defense attorney Patrick King could afford, your case would be thrown out before jury selection.” I mimicked his stance. “It’s better to have too much evidence than not enough.”

If Deputy Watkins had been a cartoon character, smoke would have fizzled from the top of his head and whistled like a teakettle. Instead, he got back in the Suburban and slammed the door.

“I’ll get Digs,” Louise said. “We’ll follow you down to the marina in the BCA van.”

“I’ll ride with you,” I said.

“It’s too crowded in the cab.”

My alternative would be driving myself, or riding with either Anderson or Watkins. There was no way I was going to listen to Watkins pout and rant all the way to the marina and back. If I drove myself, I would miss any bits of gold that Digs might share with us on the way back. No way was I driving myself.

“Cope.”

A caravan of law enforcement pulled into the marina. Deputy Watkins in his suburban, the Sheriff in his cruiser, and us in the BCA cube van.

Patrick King had been notified of the search and was waiting for us outside the Marina, with Noah the boat master.

“What is this about?” Patrick asked. “Watkins is this your doing?”

Noah stepped forward. “I didn’t let him into his boat, Sheriff. Though I didn’t feel right about it. It is his boat after all.”

Noah saw me and scowled.

“That’s the one who was poking around earlier.”

Patrick turned to me. “Oh, so this is your doing. I told you where I was the night Warren was murdered. Isn’t that enough?”

“I’m sorry. I wish it was, but it’s too easy to convince others to lie. Especially, someone you have an intimate relationship with,” I said.

“Patrick, don’t blow this whole thing out of proportion.” The sheriff stepped forward. “Let’s just get this search over with, and we can move on to someone else.”

“First, you said something about having a warrant. I’d like to see it please.”

Watkins stepped toward him and stuffed the warrant into his hand.

“Read it. It details how, where, and why you murdered Warren Pease. Very interesting reading.”

“I’m sure it is. Considering it’s pure fiction.”

Digs rattled his gear out of the back of the van and came up next to us. “Where’s the boat?” He pushed his thick glasses up on his nose.

Patrick made a point to flip through all the pages of the warrant then swept his arm toward the dock. “Please follow me.”

Digs followed, then Watkins, the Sheriff, Louise, and finally me. As I passed Noah, he whispered. “Troublemaker.”

I figured he was talking to me, even though it had been Louise’s theory that brought us here. Let him think what he wanted.

It’s my job to cause trouble for murderers. Catching killers is what got me through each day. The thought that, today, I could make this world a little better by taking another bad-guy out of the equation was quite a rush.

Only part of me kept asking, ‘Is Patrick a bad guy?’ Though I wasn’t convinced he was good either. For once, I wanted a villain to twirl their moustache or rub their hands together in a sneaky fashion, while giving a “bwah, ha, ha” laugh. Then I’d know with no uncertainty that we had the right guy.

Digs forbade any of us from setting foot on the boat so we wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene. He already knew Louise, and I had been on the boat, and he’d swabbed both of us for comparison.

When he emerged we crowded around him, like autograph hounds at a movie premier.

“Well?” Deputy Watkins said.

“Well what?”

Watkins stepped closer so Digs had to look up at him and folded his arm across his chest. “Did you find anything?”

Digs looked at us and rolled his eyes. He pushed past the Deputy and trudged toward the van.

“You’ll have the results, after I’ve had a chance to analyze what I’ve found.”

“Then you did find something,” Watkins said.

Digs paused for a second then let out an annoyed grunt. “I didn’t say that. I said I’d tell you when I know anything.”

Patrick shoved the Deputy. “Damn it, Watkins. Did you plant something for him to find? Is that why you think he should have found something incriminating already?”

Watkins shoved Patrick away. He puffed like a bull about to charge. Patrick answered with a fist to Watkins’s set jaw. With the roar of a freight train, the two were rolling on the ground beating each other. One punch, two, three. Years of hatred and anger delivered with each blow.

The sheriff and I made an attempt to pull the men apart, but they were like two pit bulls at each other’s throats. Feral growls came from each man as they pulled out of our grasps and leapt at each other. They crashed onto the ground and resumed swinging.

Finally, Noah shuffled around the corner of his shack with a garden hose. He doused each of the men with a full stream, concentrating the brunt of his assault on their faces. Watkins and King rolled away from each other shielding themselves against their new attacker.