Authors: Laura Childs
Then two more groups
poured in, Petra hit the bell sig
naling for a pickup, and the phone rang. When it
rains, it
pours!
“You grab the phone,”
said Toni, “I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Bless you,” Suzanne
murmured, speeding into the
Book Nook and grabbing the phone. “Cackleberry Club,”
she answered brightly.
“It’s Gene,” said a
raspy, male voice.
Rats.
Gene Gandle, the annoying reporter-slash-sales
guy from the
Bugle.
“Is this for take-out?”
Suzanne asked in her most
professional-sounding voice, hoping Gene would take the
hint that she was too busy to talk.
“No, it’s for print,
Suzanne. I’m not interested in plac
ing an order. Inquiring minds want to know what
happened
at your place last
night.”
“Gene, we’re swamped.
I don’t have time...”
Gene plowed ahead
anyway. “Give me a few minutes,”
he wheedled. ‘Talking over the phone is a lot easier than
my coming
over and interviewing you in person. Think
about it, do you really want a
reporter asking questions
about last night’s
murder
in front of your
customers?”
“Who says I’d give an
interview?” Suzanne’s demeanor dropped a few degrees colder than frozen. “I
have nothing
to say to the
press, so stop badgering me.”
“You want me to put
that in the newspaper?” Gene
asked. “Sounds awfully suspicious, like you’ve got some
thing to hide. How do
you think readers will react? Or your
customers?”
Suzanne gritted her
teeth and stared at a needlepoint on
the wall that said,
My disposition is subject
to change with
out notice.
“Are you trying to blackmail me?”
Gene’s voice was silky
smooth now. “Not in the least, Suzanne. Just trying to cobble together a
plausible story. I
already talked with a few of your customers from last night.
Your read dating
folks.” He gave a sort of snort. “Now I’d
like to get your view of things.”
Suzanne
hesitated. Truly, Gene Gandle was a boorish
clown.
“I’m on deadline,”
Gene said, pressing.
“Today’s
Monday. The
Bugle
doesn’t come out until
Thursday.”
“I like
to get a jump on things,” said Gene. “Just play
fair with me, okay?”
Suzanne’s eyes darted
around, looking for some sort of
excuse or escape. Anything to get her out of this
conversa
tion.
It came in the suddenly blessed form of Sheriff Roy
Doogie, walking into the cafe and
plopping himself down
heavily
at the counter.
“Can’t talk now, Gene,”
Suzanne told him. “The sheriff
just
arrived.”
Speeding
into the cafe Suzanne grabbed a pot of coffee
out of Toni’s hand and slipped
behind the counter. She put
a large white ceramic coffee mug in front of Doogie and
poured out a steamy
cup of coffee. Then she placed a knife and fork on top of a blue gingham napkin
and set a glass of
fresh ice water beside it. Doogie reached for the glass and
gulped the water down immediately.
As he
wiped his lips with his sleeve, Suzanne said,
“Find
any evidence out there, Sheriff?”
She had to know,
she
couldn’t wait!
Doogie gave a
surreptitious glance around, then nodded.
“Really?” Suzanne was
suddenly heartened. Maybe
there
was a plausible explanation for last night. Maybe
Doogie would actually solve the case!
Then the pass-through
door slammed open and Petra
called
out, “You want something, Sheriff? I saw you grub
bing around out back
and figured you might have worked
up an
appetite.”
“Anything you got is
good,” said Doogie.
“Anything?” Suzanne
asked, lifting an eyebrow. Usu
ally
Doogie was picky beyond belief.
“Eggs Momay is good,”
spoke up Doogie. ‘Taters if you
got
‘em.” Doogie hadn’t earned the moniker “bottomless
pit”
for nothing.
“Pumpkin pancakes?”
Petra asked.
“Sure,” enthused
Doogie.
“Coming right up,”
said Petra.
Doogie scratched the
back of his neck. “Why the heck you got a cornfield growing directly out back?
I stumbled
through
it and
almost got myself lost!” He didn’t look
happy.
“Lots
of bugs in there, too.”
“It’s a corn maze,”
Suzanne told him. “For Halloween.”
Then
she leaned across the counter and spoke in a low
voice
with very deliberate inflection, “What... did... you...
find?”
Doogie dug a hand
into his pants pocket, jingling
around
what sounded like keys and coins. Finally he pulled
out a
blue plastic key card
and slid it across the counter to
Suzanne.
Suzanne stared at it “A
key card?”
“Looks like,” said
Doogie.
“You think it’s from
the motel up the road?” she asked.
“Wrong color,” said
Doogie.
Suzanne’s brow
furrowed slightly, but she didn’t ask the
sheriff how he knew what color the
Super 8 key cards were.
Doogie was a widower and what he did on his own time
was his private business.
“Besides,” Doogie
added, “it looks a little high tech for
a motel. See that little
magnetic strip?” He scratched at it
with a stubby fingertip.
Suzanne nodded.
“It’s got a miniature
hologram. The kind you see on
high-limit
credit cards.”
“Maybe the card’s from
your own law enforcement center,” said Suzanne. “The jail must have high-tech
security.”
“We do,
and nope, it isn’t,” said Doogie. “Wrong kind
and color.”
“What
about the hospital?” Suzanne proposed. “It’s got
that depressing hospital-blue look.”
Doogie
slid the key card back into his pocket and took a
noisy slurp of coffee. “Don’t
know. But at least it’s something to check into.” His flat, gray eyes drilled
into Su
zanne.
“But that’s it. I didn’t find another darn thing out
back.”
“How far was the key
card from our building?” Suzanne
asked. She figured it was a good way of determining how
close the killer had
actually come to her and Toni last night.
How close they’d been to the fine
edge of disaster.
“Maybe twenty feet or
so,” said Doogie. “It was just
lying in a little patch of dry grass. Not stepped on or
any
thing. Like it had been
dropped fresh.”
“Hmm,” said Suzanne,
as Petra bustled out and placed a
humongous platter of food in front of Doogie.
“Okay?” Petra asked.
“Better than okay,”
said Doogie, already grabbing for
his fork, blue napkin forgotten.
Suzanne thought for a
few moments as Doogie tucked
into his breakfast, “Anyone could have dropped it,” she
rea
soned.
“There were lots of people here last night. Parked
all around the place.”
“Yeah?” said Doogie,
between bites. “But I bet no one
called here and asked if you guys found a key card, did
they? So it’s a clue. A good clue.”
“I see your point,”
said Suzanne, as Toni edged up to
the counter and dropped down on the stool next to
Doogie.
For
some reason, it didn’t sag and creak under her weight
as it did his.
“You find out
anything about crossbows?” Toni asked.
“Did a little
research,” Doogie told her. “They’re not as common as you might think. And I
already checked with
the DNR on how many bow hunting licenses were issued
last year as well as
this year in the three county area.”
“How many?” asked
Suzanne.
“Five,” said Doogie.
Suzanne nodded. That
could narrow it down.
“Anybody we know?”
pried Toni.
“Nobody that stands
out,” said Doogie, stabbing at a
pancake. “A couple of brothers named Miller who live
over
in
Deer County. A Jeb Brill who lives out by Borchard’s
Corner. And another guy by the
name of O’Dell.”
“O’Dell,”
said Suzanne. “He’s been in here a few times.
Strange duck.”
“How so?” asked
Doogie.
“Kind of quiet in a
weird way,” said Suzanne. “I can
never
get him to look me in the eye.”
“Lots of men are like
that,” said Toni. “Shy guys.” She
giggled, then added, “Not everyone’s a confident
stud muf
fin like our sheriff
here.”
Suzanne pursed her
lips to avoid an outburst of hysterical laughter, while Doogie pointedly
ignored Toni’s
remark.
“You ticked off four
names,” said Suzanne. “Who’s the
other
bow hunter?”
“Can’t recall at the
moment,” said Doogie, shifting his bulk on the stool. “But it’s in my notebook.”
“I don’t think I know
much about any of them,” said
Toni, wiping her hands on her apron, looking suddenly ap
prehensive.
“On the other hand,”
said Doogie, “it could be some
body who owns a crossbow primarily for target practice.
Never applied for a
hunting license.” He hesitated. “But
he’s moved on to ... something else.”
Suzanne
looked pained. “If it’s
something else,
we’ve
got a real sicko on our hands.
Someone quite determined.”
“I agree,”
said Doogie. “Because Peebler couldn’t have been much of a target. Skinny,
string bean guy like that.”
“Actually,”
said Suzanne, “he made a fairly good tar
get. The kitchen light was on
behind him and the door was open. He was probably silhouetted perfectly.”
Doogie thought for a
moment. “Ergo your clean shot.”
“Ergo?”
said Toni, sliding off the stool. “Now you’re
spouting Latin? Well, thank you,
Aristotle.”
Aristotle was Greek,
Suzanne thought.
Then Suzanne stared
intently into Doogie’s eyes. “The
shooter had to know what he was doing,” she
theorized. “Be
cause a crossbow isn’t a weapon for amateurs. You’d expect
an amateur to use a
gun, or a knife, or even the occasional cast-
iron skillet. But a crossbow?
That’s got to be premeditated.”
“Unless,” Doogie said,
waffling slightly, “it really
was
an accident. Even the most
skilled hunter can make a
mistake.”
“Six times?” Suzanne
asked, tallying up the number of arrows that had whooshed around the backyard
last night.
Two stuck in the wall, three on the ground, a fatal arrow in
Peebler’s skull:
“Point taken,” said
Doogie.
Petra emerged from the
kitchen where she’d obviously
been listening.
“I
just wish this whole thing would go
away,” she told Doogie.
He gazed at her
placidly. “It’s not going to. And besides,
whoever shot Peebler was
pussyfooting around in your
woods. There’s no telling what they want or if they’ll
come
back.”
“Don’t say that,” said
Petra, waving an index finger. “I
don’t want to hear it. I don’t want anything
tarnishing the
Cackleberry Club’s reputation.” Petra shook her head and retreated to
the kitchen, where she planned to alleviate her anxiety by punching out an
innocent batch of sourdough.
“Where
does someone even buy a crossbow?” Suzanne
asked.
“Anywhere
they sell hunting gear,” said Doogie. “Sport
ing goods stores, big-box stores,
even on the Internet.”
“The Internet?” said
Suzanne. “You can just order up a
crossbow?”