Crime Rib (Food Lovers' Village) (21 page)

S
o now I had evidence, I thought as I snuck the Subaru back down the drive, praying that Reg hadn’t returned. But evidence of what?

That Drew had not stolen the huckleberry filet recipe from Amber. But what did that prove?

And what was Gib’s involvement? Drew had seemed to think Gib was behind the so-called snafu, and now I shared his belief.

Why had Gib changed cars? Were my questions related? Those icicle shivers returned.

I sped up the highway to Pondera. The rental car agencies huddled near each other out by the airport. I parked by the office, a small building with a stone facade, and felt for the ticket, securely hidden in my jeans pocket.

“Hey, I know you.” A stocky fellow in a pink button-down, a dark tie loose at the collar, and pleated-front khakis crossed the parking lot. “You’re—don’t tell me. You were a year behind me in high school, in Jewel Bay.”

Couldn’t have proven it by me.

“You hung out with Kyle Caldwell’s cousin, the one who became a cop. What’s her name?”

“Kim Caldwell. She’s a deputy sheriff. I’m Erin Murphy.”

“That’s it—that’s the name,” he said, as if congratulating me for remembering my own name. He pumped my hand. “Danny Davis. What can I do for you?”

Now the tricky part.
“I’m with the organizing committee for the Jewel Bay Summer Fair and Grill-off—”

“Ah, Jewel Bay. Another weekend, another festival. Hot spot of the valley.”

I smiled. “That’s us. You may have heard, we had an EAT-TV crew in to film last weekend, and we’re covering some of the expenses. I just need to straighten out this one thing. I don’t mean to put you in a spot, but—”

He worked the knot of his tie with two fat fingers, his voice a tad less hearty. “Any way I can help, Erica.”

“Well, it’s about the car Gib Knox rented. A Porsche SUV. We’ve got two different bills and we’re confused.”

“Oh, the Cayenne. Nothing to it. Come into the office.” Inside, he went behind the counter and began clicking keys. “He picked it up Wednesday afternoon. He musta come in on that two o’clock flight. Called Friday, said he’d had some trouble. Brought it in, and sure enough, he’d scraped the left front fender. Lucky he bought the extra insurance—it covers minor repairs.”

“Why not wait until he was ready to leave and tell you then?”

Danny cocked his head, giving me a “you’re joking” look. “A guy who rents a Porsche?”

Right. Driving a dented car would not have suited our Gib.

“He wanted it repaired right away, but I said no can do. So then he wanted the same model,” Danny continued, “but we only had the one in black so he chose the jet green metallic. The green’s a sharper look, if you ask me. All kindsa black rigs on the road.”

Bingo
, my inner Ned piped up. Gib had traded in the scuffed black car for a clean green machine.

But what reason had he given that hadn’t aroused Danny’s suspicions, or prompted him to call Detective Caldwell? (Other than not remembering her name.) “Did he say what happened?”

“Said he parked too close to the curb out front of Red’s in JB and scraped the fender. Hey, who hasn’t?”

True enough. Parking on Red’s side of the street was diagonal, head-in, and where the street sloped, it left a high curb that was hard to see. A trap for the unsuspecting. Ned, and others, had moaned about it for years, but no one had a fix.

“Any chance I could see the damage, if it’s not repaired yet? Not that I doubt him, but if we’re responsible . . .”

Back to the keyboard. “You’re in luck. Our body guy’s running behind.” He pushed through a door behind the desk and I trotted after him.

The service department and body shop occupied a prefab metal building behind the office. Metallic pounding and whirring competed with urban hip hop on the satellite radio. Danny hit a switch and the music stopped. A mechanic in a blue-gray striped coverall slid out from under a Honda, saw Danny, and slid back.

Danny kept moving, headed outside. And there it was. Gib’s—or Pondera Auto Rental’s—shiny black Porsche SUV. Shiny in all but one spot, the front left fender. I crouched. Had this fender struck Stacia? Tossed her to the side of the road where she’d landed on the rocks and roots and died?

Had Gib known?

“Mind?” I said, holding up my phone for a picture or two. My hand shook and I used both hands to keep the phone steady. I still didn’t remember Danny Davis—I’d have to ask Kim, or Kyle, about him. He shrugged, a go-ahead.

No fibers that I could see. No animal hair or pine pitch. If Gib knew he’d hit her, at least he’d invented a creative excuse for the damage. He hadn’t relied on the usual—and potentially verifiable—dead deer story.

But if he knew he’d hit her, why hadn’t he stopped? Why hadn’t he stayed and called for help?

And then the shaking worsened. What if he’d hit her on purpose?

For Pete’s sake, Erin. Now you’re making things up. There is no reason . . .

“April, are you okay?” Danny’s voice pierced my anxious reverie. I stood, ignoring his outstretched hand.

“It’s Erin. And I’m fine. Do we owe you for this? Not that the committee has any extra money.”

“No. Like I said, he bought the added coverage—it’s inexpensive. And with a car like that . . . ”

I had to get out of here. I had to tell Kim. Even if she wasn’t on the case anymore, it had been her case. She still cared. She could help me convince Ike Hoover that something was terribly wrong.

*   *   *

D
riving while hyperventilating is not recommended. I pulled into a gas station and sat, head back, eyes closed. When my heartbeat left the danger zone, I popped inside and bought a Coke. Drank half of it down before coming up for air. The combination of caffeine, bubbles, and high-fructose corn syrup was downright revitalizing.

I reached for my bag and slid out the iPad and the printouts from Drew’s computer. The answer had to be here.

I scrolled down my inventory of Stacia’s papers and compared the date of Amber’s submission to Drew’s. I’d bet a mess of s’more cookies and a case of Lake Monster Root Beer that Amber’s original submission had not been a huckleberry-mushroom filet, but one of the steaks on her menu. Something “fancier.” Perhaps the hazelnut-Gorgonzola recipe she’d offered as her substitute.

So how had she gotten Drew’s recipe? Someone had given it to her. But besides Drew, only two people had it: Gib and Stacia.

That was it. One of them had given the recipe to Amber, intending to put Drew in hot water.

Stacia would never have undermined one contestant to give another a leg up. Besides, she had no motive for harming Drew.

And Gib Knox had motive up the wazoo.

I studied the spreadsheet. Had Stacia known, last Thursday morning when Gib accused Drew of theft, who the real thief had been? And why he’d gone to such lengths to smite an old friend?

Seemed Gib Knox had three victims: Stacia, Drew, and Amber.

And I had to stop him before he left Jewel Bay.

Before he killed again.

*   *   *

I
took the scenic route back to town, giving myself time to ponder. Ike had made clear he needed hard evidence before he’d consider probing a link between the deaths. But the evidence I’d found didn’t lead to the conclusion I’d expected. Nothing tied Gib and his grudge to Drew’s murder. Even the link to Stacia’s death was speculative—Gib’s explanation for the damage to his rental car made some sense, as did his insistence on a new car.

And what about the recipes?

Near the Old Steel Bridge, I turned off the highway onto a dirt and gravel road that followed the Eagle River. Had the Eagle Lake Monster ever been sighted this far upstream? Sturgeon were powerful swimmers, so it was a possibility. I’d have to ask my brother.

This stretch of the river twists and meanders, making for thick groves of red willows and cottonwoods along the banks. The road meanders, too. I hadn’t realized how badly rutted and eroded it was.

A movement in the tallgrass meadow between me and the river caught my eye and I slowed. Nothing. I had imaginary monsters—cryptids—on the brain.

A moment later, it was there again. Something keeping pace with me. My throat tightened and my hands gripped the wheel. The grasses parted, and in an instant, a reddish-gold streak burst into view and darted onto the road. I slammed my brakes.

Duke? What was he doing here? We had to be a good mile north of Amber’s place.

The big wet dog leaped at the passenger side of the car, his muddy paws almost at the top of the window. I put the car in park and opened my door, then remembered Tracy’s dog cookies. I grabbed the cellophane bag, jumped out, and threw open the hatchback, still fumbling with the treat bag.

“Get in, boy!”

He danced back and forth frantically, sending me a message I didn’t understand.

A loud crashing drew my attention back to the meadow. The grasses wove and heaved with the movement. A herd of—what? A powerful bass bellow shattered the air.

Not imaginary at all.

A figure broke through the tallgrass and stumbled onto the road—a slight figure in tan pants, a fishing vest, and muddy waders.

Amber.

And I knew what was behind her.

“Get in,” I yelled to her, grabbing for the dog’s collar as he continued to evade me.

“But Duke!”

“He’ll get in when you do.”

She jerked open the passenger door and fell in, immediately turning in her seat and extending her arms. “Here, boy.” Duke leapt in, then scrambled over the backseat, defying his age and arthritis.

I slammed the hatchback shut and dashed to my open door. My foot caught in a rut and I went down. On my left elbow. Pain shot through my body, but there was no time for whimpering. A huge, shaggy, crazy-eyed beast stepped onto the road and stopped in front of me.

This was no cryptid. Dark and dripping wet, with a hump behind her neck and menacing eyes. I scrambled to the car and dove in.

“Hang on!” I shoved the car into reverse, wrapping my right hand around Amber’s headrest to better see behind me. But before I could hit the gas, the grasses parted again and a young calf emerged. Moose calves aren’t as strange looking as their mothers—as with humans, awkward is cute in the very young—but we weren’t sticking around to ooh and coo.

“We’re trapped,” Amber said in a panicky tone.

“Go to Mama,” I urged the calf, letting the car slip slowly backward, and danged if she didn’t take a few stuttery steps toward the side of the road, then bolt forward to the cow.

I gunned it and we sped away in reverse. A few hundred feet away, I spotted a field entrance on the other side of the road. I backed across, cranked the wheels in the opposite direction, and tore back out. Before racing off—facing forward this time—I glanced at the cow moose, her calf beside her, still bellowing in the middle of the road as if she owned it.

At that moment, she did.

When we reached the highway, I pulled over, folded my arms on the steering wheel, and bowed my head. My heart was still in overdrive.

“Erin, you saved my life.” Amber’s voice shook.

“What the heck happened?” In the backseat, Duke chomped away at the dog treats, which I must have tossed in after him.

“We were working our way north, along the river’s edge. I lost sight of Duke, then I heard him barking. The calf came rushing toward me and stopped, fifteen feet away. I could hear the mother getting closer. I didn’t know where to go—the river was too deep, and if the cow was really ticked, she’d come right in after me. Then I slipped on the wet bank.” Her entire right side was covered in thick, gooey river mud. “I’ll clean your car, Erin. Detail it, head to toe.”

Darn straight.
“Where’s your gear? Where’d you park?”

“Dropped it. In the river or in the meadow when I ran—I don’t know. I walk up and fish this hole when I’ve only got an hour or two. What were you doing here?”

“You walked?” I blew out a long noisy breath, then rummaged under the seat for a water bottle and offered it to her. She shook her head and I swigged half of it down. “I was coming to see you.”

Beneath the mud, her cheeks flushed then paled.

“I know what happened, Amber. Part of it anyway. All three of you submitted your recipes on time. Only Gib and Stacia saw them. Gib decided to use you to get back at his old pal Drew. Right so far?”

Her wide blue eyes said yes.

“Gib gave you a copy of Drew’s recipe and suggested that you submit it for the Grill-off, instead of whatever you planned originally. Strongly suggested, I suspect. Hinted that you’d win if you did as he said.”

She leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. The dog kept chewing.

“You didn’t know it was Drew’s until the Thursday before the Grill-off, when I called to say there’d been a mix-up. Gib wanted you to go forward with the huckleberry-morel filet—he recognized it as a clear favorite—and he wanted Drew to be kicked out and humiliated. But the Committee messed up his plans when it decided you should both resubmit. He thought he could still get some mileage out of it, though, by making his insinuations public.”

Her chin quivered. I pushed on. “Was it hard to create a new recipe on such short notice, or did you go back to your original submission?” She shook her head no, then nodded yes.

“That’s what I thought. I also think Gib threatened you on Monday, when he and Pete came out here to film. Told you to keep your mouth shut.”

Eyes still closed, she practically vibrated with stress.

“You texted him that afternoon, didn’t you?” The message he’d gotten while I was in the closet.

“I beg you, Erin, stay out of it. This could ruin my career.”

I turned toward her sharply. Her eyes flew open. “Murder ruined Drew Baker’s life. He left a daughter. A hit-and-run ruined Stacia Duval’s life. She left a husband and a son. He’s only three, Amber. She called him every night to read him
Goodnight, Moon
.” I was shouting. Duke stopped chewing. “I know you didn’t kill Drew. But the rest—you have to own up.”

She met my gaze, not blinking, not speaking. Then she sat back, facing forward, her eyes closed again. Tears slid down her muddy cheeks.