Murder in the Devil's Cauldron (30 page)

Fowler smiled. He'd be willing to bet it
hadn't occurred to the management that those trees also made it
possible to be unobserved. He'd have to check it out from the other
side, but so far it looked as if the job would be much easier than
he had expected.

When he reached the path to the Storm Point
lookout, Fowler stopped as if to take in the view. After making
sure no one else was around, he headed down the shore, following
the walkway as it went into the woods. Eventually he came to a
split in the path. A small sign off to the side informed him of the
distance to each of the state parks. For the truly intrepid hiker,
Duluth was only 89.7 miles away. Fowler grimaced. He knew there
were people who would think nothing of hiking all the way, but even
the idea made him shudder.

Off to the right, another part of the path
angled back towards the Lodge and he followed that. It didn't take
long to see a path that branched off to the left. When he craned
his neck to see where it went, he could just see the corner of a
log cabin. A few steps further along and the cabin was completely
hidden.

The closer he got to the Lodge, the closer
the cabins were to each other. Even so, each was surrounded by
thick stands of pine and other trees.

One disappointment was that there were no
mailboxes or names on the cabins, so he would have to find out
which cabin the girl was in some other way. Once he had that
information, it would be simple to take care of things
unnoticed.

He itched to check out some of the cabins a
little more closely. Maybe peek in the windows and get an idea of
the layout. They all looked the same from the outside. It would be
interesting to know if they were identical on the inside, as well.
Unfortunately, someone was much too likely to notice, but it wasn't
that important. As long as he found the right cabin, he'd find his
way around just fine.

By the time Fowler got back to his room, he
had a pretty good idea of the layout and a few good thoughts on
what his next step should be.

Getting to Ruby Cove turned out to be easier
than Starr expected.

After leaving the Visitor Center, the girls
went through the tunnel and climbed up alongside the Enchantment
River, following the wide easy trail on the north side of the
river. Starr helped Charlie push the bike up the hill, stopping
when they reached the small wooden bridge Starr had discovered on
her first hike to the park.

"I know there's a path that goes down on the
other side of the river," Starr said, pointing to the other side of
the bridge. "But I haven't explored the rest of the trail yet. Does
it go all the way to the Lodge?"

"Sort of," Charlie said, her face scrunching
up as she thought about it. "Eventually it hooks up to the Superior
Hiking Trail, but it's down aways. It's a good way to go from here
if you don't want to go all the way back down to the park. If you
want to get to the Lodge, you have to take a side trail that's kind
of hard to see."

Then she pointed at the trail that went off
to the right. "This will get us to the Hiking Trail, too, and then
we'll take that to Ruby Cove."

They started up the trail which soon led them
to the Superior Hiking Trail. Charlie pushed her bike to a small
picnic area just down from where they joined the trail.

"Do you mind if we stop for a snack?" Charlie
asked.

"That sounds great," Starr admitted as she
looked around appreciatively. It was small with only two picnic
tables and an obviously well-used barbeque grill. Better still, a
circle of large evergreen trees shaded the entire area. While the
climb hadn't been that strenuous, it was dry and the heat had been
rising steadily since breakfast, along with the humidity. Her
t-shirt was sticking to her back and her throat felt as if she had
swallowed half the dirt on the trail.

"Most everybody goes to the picnic area up by
the river," Charlie said as she leaned her bike up against one of
the tables. "So lots of times I come here to read and have a nice
lunch."

Starr pulled her backpack out of the basket
and flopped down on the bench, grateful for the shade.

"This is really nice." Starr pulled a couple
of apples out of her backpack and handed one to Charlie. "Looks
like it's going to be a real scorcher today."

"And humid." Charlie took a bite out of her
apple as she looked at the sky. "There'll be a good storm coming
through in a couple of days."

"Really? You can tell that?" Starr was really
impressed.

"You can feel it." Charlie held a straight
face for a long minute, then grinned. "Besides, it was in the paper
this morning."

Starr laughed. She had been completely taken
in. "And here I thought it was some kind of Indian wisdom or
something."

"How! Me big Indian weather girl," Charlie
joked. Raising her hand, palm out. "Me need big feather for
hair."

Starr giggled. Not only was Charlie
interesting, she was
fun
. Starr still couldn't believe her
good luck in living in such a great place. She hadn't really fit in
at any of the places they had lived in the Cities, so it was extra
special to have a friend like Charlie.

Laughing between bites, they finished their
apples and some slices of cheese and then tossed the cores into the
trash barrel chained to one of the trees near the trail. Charlie
tied the backpacks down in the bike basket and then led the way to
Ruby Cove.

Fortunately, the Superior Hiking Trail was
wide and flat in this section. Charlie got on her bike and pedaled
slowly and Starr jogged along side. Down by the lake, it always
seemed cool and comfortable. But the breeze from the Lake didn't
get through the trees to this part of the trail, and the heat and
humidity was much higher and getting to the point of stifling.

She stopped a couple of times to guzzle water
from one of the bottles in the basket, but, despite not having a
decent run in over a month, she was only slightly winded by the
time they reached town.

When the girls got to Ruby Cove, the first
thing Starr noticed was how small the town was, especially compared
to the Twin Cities. No skyscrapers in sight, let alone glinting
chrome and glass office buildings. The buildings were all one or
two stories and ran on both sides of the highway for about three
blocks. Beyond that, the highway simply vanished unaccompanied into
the pine tree expanse.

The next thing Starr noticed was the way the
store fronts were fixed up. Ruby Cove looked like a town in a
western movie. She hadn't been paying attention when she and her
mother had driven through during the trip to Grand Marais, so now
she tried to look everywhere at the same time, amazed at what she
had missed.

Even better, the backs of the buildings next
to the trail had been painted with a long disjointed mural showing
the front of the town with Lake Superior glinting through.

"A long time ago, they thought they were
going to have to close the town," Charlie told her as they walked
slowly past. "There wasn't any work and no one was stopping. Then
they painted the mural to get the hikers to stop and they fixed up
the town like a movie set to get drivers to stop."

"I guess it worked, didn't it." Starr was
really impressed. It looked almost real and the combination of the
mural plus the view of the buildings on the other side was really
neat. Beat the heck out of her old neighborhood in Minneapolis.

Charlie nodded. "Although I think it really
helped when Suzanne's Pies came."

Grinning, Starr glanced sideways at her
friend. "Now I can't wait to try them myself."

As they reached the end of Ruby Cove, another
picnic area greeted them with welcome shade. Beyond it, the trail
turned sharply inland and vanished in to the trees.

"This is the first decent run I've had in
weeks," she told Charlie as she flopped down on the grass under a
huge evergreen. "Now that I know about this trail, I can get some
good runs in and get back in shape."

”Are you going to run track when school
starts?"

"Probably. Is there a regular team?"

"Sort of. The school isn't very big, so the
team is kind of small and they don't usually win any prizes at the
meets and stuff. They'll be really happy to see you when school
starts."

"Do you do any sports?"

"Not really," Charlie said. "I like to bike
and I skate in the winter. And I play baseball with some of the
other kids after school sometimes. But I'm not very fast, so mostly
I just cheer everyone else on. I'm much better with books."

The last building they had passed to get to
the park sat at an angle, so the mural was slightly skewed and
Starr could see both sides. A bunch of cars were parked next to it.
It looked like a motel and she looked for the sign, giggling when
she saw it.

"The Bide A Wee? That's too funny."

"It's really old." Charlie smiled in return.
"I guess the name was cute back in the twenties. I suppose it's
kind of corny now."

"It's still kind of cute," Starr said. "Makes
you feel like you're really on vacation. You sure don't see places
like that in the Cities." She looked past the motel down the neat
row of stores along the highway. It looked as if there were all
kinds of places. She saw Suzanne's Pies halfway down and a
bookstore next to it.

Even if she didn't have a bike, it would be
easy to come
here
. That lifted Starr's spirits and she
looked forward to exploring it once she'd talked to the sheriff.
Which reminded her of why they had come.

"So where's the sheriff's office?"

"Just past Ole and Lena's Café. It's not very
big, but once you go around the corner, you'll see it." Charlie put
the backpacks on the picnic table. "I'll wait here."

"Save some for me."

Charlie grinned. "I have to. I need to save
some room for pie."

"Wish me luck."

Charlie held up both hands, fingers
crossed.

Starr took a deep breath and marched around
the motel, her chin up.

When Fae returned from Duluth, she ate an
early lunch and then lay down for a badly needed nap. Her physical
therapist was a terrific woman with the improbable name of Bambi
Yevchenko. Fae liked her personally, but had come to think of her
as a female Simon Legree when Bambi put her through "just one more"
repetition of the exercises designed to strengthen and return
flexibility to her back. She knew it was necessary, but knowing
that didn't make her feel any better when every inch of her body
felt as if it was on fire. Fae was worn out even before beginning
the drive home and usually rewarded herself for surviving the
session with a long afternoon nap.

Today, though, Fae's attention had, for once,
been somewhere other than the pain in her back. The idea that
Fowler might be a killer had had a firm grip on her brain since
last night, and was making her rethink the entire case.

She only slept for about twenty minutes and
when she woke up, her brain was already in overdrive.

Just about everything in the official records
indicated Devious Dave was a typical con man who preferred using
words instead of violence to get people to part with their
money.

Research she had done since getting this
assignment had told her that most con artists preferred using words
instead of weapons or threats of physical harm to persuade people
to part with their money. Most seemed to pride themselves on their
ability to talk someone into (or out of) something, often against
logic or that person's better judgment. They relied on natural
greed or the desire for a better than ordinary opportunity, not
unlike the lottery. The most successful con artists had a nose for
people who were naïve or trusting and easily bilked.

Which brought Fae back to the note in the
unofficial file that had caught her interest. It might mean nothing
at all, as Bailey had reminded her. It could also hint at something
really horrendous that had been going on under their radar for
years. Fae shivered, hoping she was wrong.

The first entry mentioned Kathy Nichols, a
victim of one of Devious Dave's cons who had disappeared shortly
after complaining to the BCA, as well as to a number of other
people, including the person who had introduced her to Devious
Dave.

While there had been an investigation, there
had been little to go on and no evidence that tied her
disappearance to David. Or, at least nothing that could be used in
court.

Fae had looked up the records last night and
now called Ed Larson, the investigator in St. Paul who had been in
charge of Kathy Nichols' disappearance. Bailey's injunction to keep
the investigation confidential meant Fae still had to be careful
what she said.

Rather than come up with an elaborate story,
she simply told him she'd been asked to check up on a few things
and asked if he had ever located Kathy Nichols.

"Hold on," he said.

Fae heard the clunk of the phone as he put it
on the desk. A moment later she heard papers rattling.

"I don't really need the file," he said when
he came back on the phone. "But I wanted it handy."

"Sounds like you're still looking, then."

"Oh ya," he said. "And even if I wasn't, her
sister wouldn't let me forget about it."

"She calls a lot, then?"

"Oh ya. She called every day in the beginning
and then I got her to stretch it to once a week. Finally, I had to
tell her I hadn't forgotten about Kathy, but once the trail goes
cold, it takes time. So she gave me a break and now just calls once
a month. But it's always on the first day of the month and only if
I haven't called her with anything new."