Murder in the Devil's Cauldron (47 page)

As soon as the door shut behind Fowler, Viv
began rummaging in her purse to see how much money she had. The bar
in Grand Marais might be out for the moment, but there was no
reason she couldn't nip over to the diner and get a little
something. She'd be back long before he returned. It wasn't
perfect, but it beat the hell out of sitting in this peewee version
of a motel room.

Maybe it was just as well that her SUV was
still back at the Storm Point Lodge. If it had been here, she would
give major consideration to leaving and to hell with David Fowler.
While she needed the money, she was getting seriously worried. It
felt as if things were going down as fast as the Edmund Fitzgerald
and she didn't want to be on the ship when it sank.

She scrounged enough money in her purse for
at least one drink. As she crossed the room, she jumped as someone
started pounding on the door. Thinking the cops were onto her, she
considered climbing out the bathroom window, then decided to see
who it was first. Maybe it was just someone who had the wrong
room.

Viv looked through the peephole, shocked to
see David standing out there. She opened the door and he stormed
in.

"Get everything packed. We have to get out of
here."

"What?"

"We've been spotted. The cops will be here
soon." He looked around the room. "What do you still have
here?"

"David, let's just leave," Viv pleaded.

"I need the film," he said tightly. "I have
an idea and I think I can pull it off tonight. So we'll be out of
here first thing tomorrow. Okay?"

Viv sighed, weighing the money against her
instincts.

The money won. "Okay."

"Give me your suitcase. I'll get the car
while you're getting the rest of your stuff. Make sure you don't
leave anything behind."

"Like I don't know that," she snapped.

David merely grunted and carted the suitcase
out to the car. Viv tossed the few things she'd unpacked back into
her overnight bag. Thank the gods she had left most of her stuff in
the suitcase, she thought as she took a final look around the room.
She kept the key to the room just in case and pulled the door
closed behind her just as David pulled up.

When they pulled out of the motel driveway,
though, instead of heading north, David turned left and headed back
towards Storm Point.

"Where are you going now?" she asked.

"That damn girl saw us at the motel," he
said. "I want to see if we can catch up with her."

"The one with the camera?" Viv was beginning
to feel as if she was caught in a bad episode of the Twilight
Zone.

"Got it in one," David said tightly. "She
took off down the Superior Hiking Trail, but she's going to have to
come down to the highway to get back to the Lodge. So I want you to
keep an eye out. See if we can see her."

"You're not going to do something stupid, are
you."

"Don't be an idiot. I just want that fucking
camera. Once I have the film, the kid can scream and bitch to her
heart's content, but there won't be anything to back her up. The
sheriff doesn't believe her and he never will as long as she has
nothing to back up her story."

Viv glanced at him uncertainly. Everything
inside her was telling her to get the hell out of here, but she
couldn't. She was stuck.

Resigned, she looked out the window and tried
to see if she could see any sign of the red hair. Maybe if they
could get the film, they could be out of here in a few hours. And,
she promised herself, once she had her hands on that money, there
was no way in hell she was going to get involved with David Fowler
ever again.

Fae was just about to head back home when
Jessica hurried out of the dining room. "Fae, could I bother you
for just a sec?"

"Sure. What's up?"

"Well, I'm not sure anything's up. But…" She
hesitated, looked over at Ivy, then back at Fae. She gestured with
her head towards the dining room and Fae followed her to a spot
where they could speak without being overheard.

Fae waited for Jessica to find the right
words.

"It's just that I had this really weird
experience last night with Mrs. Fowler. And when I heard about the
sheriff questioning them and now
you're
here, well …. I
figured maybe I'd better say something. Just in case."

"The sheriff was questioning them?" Fae was
completely unable to mask her surprise. Ivy hadn't mentioned that
little factoid. She wondered if the sheriff was investigating
Fowler for the same reason she was. Or if it was something entirely
different. She hoped he'd be back from Duluth soon.

"You didn't know?"

"No. Any idea what that was about?"

Jessica shook her head. "Everybody's talking
about it, but nobody really knows anything."

"That's what you were going to tell me?"

"No. I thought you already knew about that.
Something else strange happened at dinner last night."

"Can we sit down?"

"Oh, sure. Sorry." Jessica led the way to a
table at the far end of the dining room where they would be out of
the way.

"So what happened at dinner last night?" Fae
asked once she had taken the pressure off her back which was not so
gently reminding her that she had been standing much too long.

"You know Jan's Rock Shop, right?"

Fae nodded. She had gotten a number of unique
gifts there over the years.

"Well, Mrs. Fowler saw my earrings a couple
of days ago. She really liked them. So I told her about Jan's. She
seemed really interested. You know?" She looked at Fae.

Fae nodded.

"Well I stopped by there yesterday and she
had these great earrings that were a lot like mine, but kind of in
the colors I saw Mrs. Fowler wearing. So I had Jan put them aside
for her." Jessica fiddled with the silverware on the table in front
of her as if trying to make everything line up just so. "I thought
she'd be pleased."

"She wasn't?"

Jessica shook her head. "It was weird. At
first it was like she didn't know I was talking to her. She was
looking out the window and I just figured she was thinking about
something really hard and didn't hear me. You know?"

Fae nodded.

"And then when she did turn around, for a
minute I thought I'd made a mistake and it wasn't Mrs. Fowler at
all."

"But it was."

"It was, but …" Jessica made a gesture of
helplessness. "It just didn't
feel
like her. You know? It
wasn't just that it seemed like she didn't know what I was talking
about when I mentioned the earrings." She stopped and stared at
Fae. "You're going to think I've lost it, but I think she was
someone else. I don't know how else to put it. Maybe she'd had a
fight with her new husband, or something was wrong so she was
different and I'm nuts. But there it is."

"I see."

"You think I'm crazy."

"No." Fae looked out at the flat sheen of
Lake Superior and the thunderheads that were gathering on the
horizon. "I think something is going on. I know part of it, but I
suspect there's a lot more going on up here than I thought."

"What did they do?"

Fae shook her head. "That's what I'm trying
to find out."

"Fae?" Ivy came over with the portable phone.
"The sheriff's office is on the line."

"Thanks." Fae activated the phone. "Fae
O'Neill."

"Hi, Fae," Sherrie's voice greeted her
cheerily. "I just heard from Mike. He should be there shortly. He
asked can you wait for him at the Lodge."

"No problem. Did he say where he was?"

"Just came through Tofte, so he should be
there in a jiff."

"Sounds good. Any word on a deputy or
two?"

"Still working on it."

"Okay. Thanks, Sherrie."

Fae turned off the phone. She wouldn't have
time to go home before the sheriff got here, but she might have a
chance at a quick bite. She turned to Jessica.

"The sheriff is on his way. Any possibility I
can get a quick bite of something before he gets here?"

"Let me see what I can put together." Jessica
hurried off to the kitchen.

Fae pulled out her notebook and started
writing down everything she knew so far. With any luck, after she
spoke with the sheriff, she'd be able to make sense of everything
that was going on.

Starr's full out run had turned into a jog
once she realized Fishy Fowler wasn't behind her. It felt good to
settle into a smooth rhythm as she came down the Hiking Trail, but
the heat and humidity was starting to get to her. When she saw the
signpost for the Enchantment River State Park, she hoped Charlie
wasn't too far ahead. All Starr wanted right now was something cold
to drink and a lot of shade.

When she came around the bend and saw Charlie
sitting on the picnic table where they had eaten yesterday, Starr
wanted to cheer, but settled for flopping down full length on the
cool grass next to the picnic table.

"Hot enough for you?" Charlie quipped.

"Ha. Ha. Ha."

"Here." Charlie handed her a water
bottle.

Starr poured some over her head, then swigged
the rest of it, almost gasping with relief as the ice cold water
froze her insides. "You filled this up from the river."

"I figured that would taste good," Charlie
said. She looked down at her hands. "I was starting to get worried.
I wanted to go back and make sure you were okay. You said not to,
but I figured it was safe to wait here."

"He stopped chasing me right away," Starr
said. "I got away real easy." She frowned. "Too easy."

"Maybe he was afraid we were going to the
sheriff and he wanted to escape," Charlie suggested.

Starr nodded. "Maybe."

"You don't think he's gone, do you?"

"It'd be nice."

"But you don't think so."

Starr thought about it. "I'd be real
surprised. Unless he was scared he'd get caught. I don't know,
maybe he figured taking off is the smart thing to do."

"So what do you want to do?"

"I think we should stick to the plan," Starr
said. "Just in case." She slipped the water bottle into the
backpack. "All set?"

"You bet."

The morning crowed had pretty well cleared
out of the dining room by the time the sheriff made his appearance.
Fae popped the last bite of English muffin into her mouth as he sat
down opposite her.

"Sherrie tells me you've put quite a strain
on our resources," he said and put his hat on the table.

Fae lifted an eyebrow as she gave him her
favorite you've-gotta-be-kidding expression.

He shrugged. "Guess there was an accident up
towards Ely that needed some help on top of the usual, so we're
stretched a little thin."

"She said she was going to see who else could
pitch in."

"So what's going on?"

"I hear you stopped by here yesterday to talk
to a David Fowler. What's that all about?" Fae asked.

He grimaced. "Some kid said she saw him push
his wife in the Devil's Cauldron. He claimed it couldn't have
happened 'cause his wife was in Duluth shopping. She got back
yesterday, so I stopped by to meet her and make sure everything was
all right. Not a big thing. Just some bored kid trying to get a
little excitement going, far as I can figure."

"So you met Diana Marshall?"

He nodded. "Right here in the bar, as a
matter of fact." He eyed her suspiciously. "So what's your interest
in all this?"

"The BCA has been looking for Fowler for
awhile. Mostly for scamming a lot of people. Plus, some women
who've been involved with him have disappeared. We got a lead he
was up here, so I've been making the rounds. Then today I find out
he's been staying here under his wife's name, but he's apparently
already taken off."

"Any idea when?"

Fae shook her head. "Could've been last
night, could've been this morning. There are a few things in the
room, but it's just stage dressing."

"Huh."

"So what can you tell me?"

"So you think the kid might've seen something
after all?"

"Wouldn't surprise me. What did she tell
you?"

"Well, now, that's what's kind of
interesting." He looked out the window towards the lake as if the
answers were written on the water.

Fae followed his glance and saw that the
surface had lost some of this morning's glassy quality.
Thunderheads were building up on the horizon and she was willing to
bet they'd be seeing a pretty good storm tonight or tomorrow. She
looked back at the sheriff who seemed lost in his thoughts.

"What's interesting?" she prompted.

"When I talked to her yesterday, she said
that not only had he pushed his wife in the Devil's Cauldron up at
the park, but that this Fowler had a fake wife stashed at the
Bide-A-Wee."

Fae just about came out of her chair. "Did
you check?"

"Naw. It's a bit TV land, don't you
think?"

"We need to get there right now," Fae said.
"Maybe he's still there."

"You think there's something to it,
then?"

"It wouldn't surprise me one bit." Fae stood.
"Can you get someone to meet us there?"

"I'll make the call on the way." He followed
her out of the dining room.

"I'll meet you there," Fae said, grateful her
car was right outside.

In no time at all, Starr and Charlie reached
the stump that marked the turn-off to Fae's house. As they turned
onto the path, Starr took the right side of the bike while Charlie
took the left. The plunge down the hill through the trees at least
brought relief from the heat on the trail. The humidity remained
though, trapped by the thick growth of brush that kept out any
possible breeze from the lake. Sweat trickled into Starr's eyes, as
well as down her back and she couldn't wait to get back to the
lakeshore and cool off.