Eyes at the Window (11 page)

Miranda didn’t know what to believe. That story certainly sounded more plausible than the idea of a homeless field hand hanging out sleeping in an old pile of straw.

“Tell me where this was,” Luke continued. “The—the body you found.” He was trying very hard to sound official, but his face lacked color and his voice trembled. Miranda felt sure he wasn’t as calm and collected as he was trying to appear. “Was there—” He blinked rapidly and his eyes glistened as if tears gathered. “Was there any identification found?”

“I didn’t look closely enough to know.” Relenting, Miranda described the scene she’d found in the scooped out earth. She decided it wouldn’t do any harm to tell him what she’d found, even if he was lying. She even tried to explain how far down the creek bed the remains could be found.

“Rufus did find a scrap of cloth.” She dug in her pack and pulled out the green sleeve.

“Oh my God.” Luke stepped forward and snatched it from her. “Where did you—” There
were
tears in his eyes, Miranda was sure of it now that he was closer. “Tell me exactly where you were, what you saw.”

So she went through it again, for all it was worth. There were no significant landmarks close to the spot that she remembered. “Just keep walking,” she said. “You’ll find it if you’re looking. Now I’ve got to—” The night had come, the dark gray sky slowly turning to black, no stars in sight yet despite the absence of clouds. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call the sheriff’s office when I get home,” she added.

“No!” He cleared his throat and spoke without taking his eyes off the sleeve he held. “Let me call. I have a cell phone in my pack up above.” He looked to see if she believed him. “Wait here and you’ll see. I’ll call them myself.” He was halfway up the ladder by the time he finished talking.

But courage failed Miranda once he was out of sight. With the dark dropping from the sky faster than she could have thought possible and the vivid memory of the skull trapped in earth and roots, she ran the rest of the way to the house, locking the door behind her and turning on every single light she could find.

Chapter 12

Luke wasn’t sure what he would have done if Miranda had called his bluff about contacting the sheriff. He only hoped it had worked and that she didn’t pick up the telephone as soon as she got inside. As soon as she left, Luke threw his flashlight and an extra box of bullets into his backpack. Looping one arm through the shoulder strap, he grabbed his rifle and strode to the ladder. With his foot on the top rung, however, he paused in his descent.

His heart raced. His breath came in jerks and gasps as if he’d been running a long way. Groaning, he collapsed in a ball on the hayloft floor, head buried in his hands. He began to sob, hay dust clinging to his wet cheeks.

When finally his grief loosened, he pulled himself to a seated position, wiping one jacketed arm across his face. The gesture, however, reminded him of the green scrap of cloth Miranda had given him and the tears began to flow again. It couldn’t be his brother. It just couldn’t be. Wouldn’t he know if his twin was dead? The brothers had developed an uncanny sense of knowing when the other was hurt or in trouble. Wouldn’t he have felt something at the exact instant the life left his body?

It was that hope that helped him get his emotions under control. His senses returned as well. It was useless to try finding the body in the dark. He gritted his teeth, fists clenched. Just because the jacket sleeve resembled one his brother once had, didn’t mean the body was his. And whoever it was and however they had died, recovering the remains tonight wouldn’t do the person any good anyway. The best revenge was to find out what had happened, and Luke felt certain the key to that lay in continuing to watch Harlan Hunter.

Leaving the worried Butch to stand guard in the loft, Luke made his way to the overlook he had set up for himself a couple of days after his arrival in Greenville. Miranda’s timberland edged right up to the side fence of Harlan Hunter’s property. Luke had discovered the remains of a hunting blind built in the branches of a tree that was high enough up to give him an excellent view of the house and surrounding outbuildings. Many days and nights had been spent sitting on the worn floor boards with binoculars trained on the view looking for clues.

Tonight, however, Luke’s adrenaline was too pumped to sit at a distance and be the ever vigilant observer. Tonight he wanted answers, and he would find them. When he reached the fence line, he crouched low, assessing the situation. The ground floor of the two story farmhouse was lit up and he could see silhouettes passing behind the curtains of the room he knew to be the kitchen. That was a good sign that they were probably eating supper right now.

Across the driveway from the house was the huge white barn and stockyard. The cattle had been penned in for the night, most of them full of feed now and peacefully chewing their cud. A tool shed sat to the right of the barn and a long, sheet metal lean-to on the left sheltered a row of tractors and farm implements. At the back of the house a small chicken coop sat ringed by chicken wire. The hens had all gathered inside already.

In the quiet he could hear the sleepy cackle of the hens and occasional deep mewl of a cow. The smell of roasted meat from the kitchen mingled with the stink of manure and fertilizer. Somewhere, far off, he could hear the distant whine of a motorcycle as it passed by on the county road.

The building Luke was most interested in was the workshop on the other side of the chicken coop. He’d seen enough activity back and forth over the days to know it served as Hunter’s office as well as a machine shop. He also knew that Harlan Hunter was careful to lock it after him with a thick padlock any time he left it alone.

Chances were that somewhere behind that locked door was a clue to his brother’s disappearance.

Luke hopped the fence and crouched low, checking for observers before dashing across the open field to a line of trees behind the workshop. His destination was a small square window on one side of the office. It faced the chickens, however, and was close enough to the coop he would have to be especially careful so as not to disturb them. If they raised an alarm, someone in the house was bound to rush out to investigate, probably with gun in hand assuming they would have to confront a hungry fox.

Crouching at the trunk of the last tree, Luke carefully scanned the area. Insects and the dark shape of a bat flitted around the yard light at the corner of the farmhouse. The elongated shadows of the two outbuildings stretched toward him, offering a cover of darkness just out of reach. Sprinting across the open grass to get there, however, would leave him in plain sight of anyone looking out the farmhouse windows.

He took a deep breath and ran, crouched low. He reached the corner of the workshop without incident, but stayed in a squat, listening for quite a while to make sure. The hens were louder now. A couple of them still pecked periodically at the dirt outside as they made their slow way to the coop entrance. One looked at him with tilted head and took two steps toward him as if hoping he had feed to offer, but she changed her mind and turned away. He could hear a dispute of some sort take place inside the coop as two birds squawked and beat their wings against each other. It didn’t last long, and thankfully had not been loud enough to attract undue attention from the house.

The workshop window was locked just like he knew the door was, but the wood frame had rotted enough from years of weather that it did not take too much prodding with his pocket knife to dig the latch loose from the outside. Wood scraped loudly against wood and the sash counterweights rattled as he opened the window. A thick stick lay along the inside of the window well and Luke used it to prop open the window.

The sill was about shoulder high, and the opening barely large enough to fit through. Luke stuck his flashlight in his back pocket and left his pack on the ground before levering himself up with a hop. His stomach scraped across the cracked and slivered wood sill as he pulled himself inside head first. A workbench had been built just under the window and several tools clattered to the floor before Luke make it all the way across. Jumping down from the table, he paused again, listening and breathing hard. Nothing stirred. Even the chickens could not be heard from in here.

A careful sweep with his flashlight showed the room had been divided in half. The office half created a huge contrast to the rustic workshop along the opposite wall. A mahoghony desk faced the door, fronted by leather wing chairs. Against the wall behind the chairs was a matching sofa. A bronze statuette of a Hereford cow sat on the coffee table in front of it.

Hunter trusted the padlock on the door enough that he hadn’t bothered to lock up either his desk or his file cabinets. In one cabinet, Luke found an assortment of veterinarian supplies and medications, most of them clearly marked. He turned each label toward him as he read. Diclazuril Solution for parasites, Metronidazole, Ivermectin. One label was so faded he had to bring the vial close to read it. Phencyclidine. His heart rate picked up. This drug was rarely used by vets these days due to its frequent misuse by humans—PCP. Could Hunter be involved with producing or selling PCP?

The small vial was the only source of the drug he found, however, and nothing else indicated any kind of illegal drug paraphernalia. In fact, there didn’t seem to be evidence of any misdoing anywhere. Luke looked carefully through it all and the only other thing he found which was marginally interesting was a monthly day planner in a bottom desk drawer.

Every second Sunday had the day’s number circled. The circled dates corresponded to the days Luke had observed Meeks and Hunter arriving at Miranda’s farm house. On the alternate weeks, every Thursday had the initials H.M. penciled in, followed by a time. The time was different on each entry, but the interesting thing was that the time on the last Thursday corresponded roughly to the same time Luke had seen Bob Meeks talking to the stranger in the BMW.

If he was right, H.M. was the guy in the car. To use the Occam’s Razor rule of the simplest solution being the most likely, those visits had something to do with the Sunday activities that always happened the following weekend.

Luke thought of taking the calendar with him, but its absence would only put Hunter on the alert. There was really no point anyway, since it proved nothing by itself. He had to find out who H.M. was and what he, Hunter, and Meeks were up to. Then he’d have something he could run with.

Luke shoved the calendar back in the desk drawer where he’d found it. When he did so, it bumped into something at the back of the drawer that made a tinkley sound. Pulling the drawer out further, Luke peered into it, reaching in to retrieve a small music box. The box’s lid was hinged and painted with a pink and white lacquer. When he opened it, a miniature ballerina popped up out of the perfume-saturated interior and started dancing to a childish tune.

“Let me call you Sweetheart, I’m in love—”

Luke slammed the lid shut, even though he doubted it had been loud enough to be heard outside. What on earth was a little girl’s music box doing in Harlan Hunter’s desk? The man had no children and never had that Luke knew of. And from the background check Luke had done, he hadn’t seen evidence of any nieces and nephews either.

Luke shrugged and put the music box away. Whatever it meant, it had nothing to do with him. He didn’t see how it could possibly be tied to the mysterious comings and goings he’d been witness to. He had risked a lot on this move to break in here and had gotten very little gain out of it.

He blamed his frustration over this as the reason for his next carelessness. Exiting the shop through the open window again, he was thinking about what his next move should be instead of looking before he leaped. It wasn’t until he jumped to the ground and picked up his backpack that he heard someone exclaim, “Hey, what’s going on there? Who’s out there?”

Ducking, Luke ran for the line of trees at the back. He’d almost reached their cover when he felt a searing pain in his shoulder and a split second later the sound of a gunshot. The impact of the bullet sent him flying flat into the dirt and brush under the first tree. He lay there a second, stunned, not quite understanding what had happened.

“He went into the trees at the back,” he heard Bob Meeks shout.

Those words galvanized him into action. He grunted as he raised himself to one knee. The pain in his shoulder almost made him cry out, but he ignored it and ran. There was no way to escape without running across the open area between tree line and fence. All he could do was run as fast as the screaming pain in his shoulder would let him. Shouts reached him, followed by the spit of bullets hitting the ground around him.

His breath tore through his lungs and his legs ached, but he made it over the fence and into the timber. Even then he didn’t stop running, couldn’t stop running. Branches tore at his jacket and face, one time catching hold of the pack he held in one hand. The snag caught him short and he fell to his knees. Reaching out, he tugged the pack with both hands to release it. He stifled a scream as the movement caused unbearable agony in his arm.

He was able to get to his feet again, but the pain now slowed him and he traveled blind, stumbling, turning haphazardly, no longer sure where he was or who he was fleeing from, just running, running, running. Away from the pain, away from the shooting and shouting, away from the possibility of his brother’s body lying dead and broken somewhere in these very woods.