The Great Jackalope Stampede (19 page)

“No, we’re okay.”

“Then what has you frowning at the horizon so much these days instead of singing with the radio while we work?”

Claire hesitated. Natalie had been honest with her. She hated to lie to her cousin in return. “Uh, just this small thing I keep worrying about.”

“What is it? Spit it out.”

Okay. “A baby,” she said, her voice mostly breath.

Natalie’s eyes widened. She stepped closer. “Come again?”

Claire jammed her hands in her front pockets, pulling her shoulders in tight. “I think I might be pregnant.”

* * *

Ronnie cruised into Yuccaville that afternoon, staying well under the speed limit and stopping for a full five seconds at each stop sign. After yesterday evening’s bare-all confession with Sheriff Hardass outside The Shaft, which had resulted in a warning from him about the punishment that came with falsely accusing others of crimes, she was not going to give him a single reason to grill her today.

There were no open parking spaces in front of the Yuccaville library, which was probably for the best with the Sheriff’s Department sitting kitty corner from it. While Grady had not actually seen her driving away in Katie’s car Sunday after she ran into him in the Mule Train Diner, she figured he would have his radar set to sound the alarm at any sight of her or her family, including their vehicles.

She found a spot two blocks away, but it would have required parallel parking between two big diesel trucks that were both hogging the white lines at either end. Ronnie’s insurance company had dropped her last month. The last thing she needed was to dent up her sister’s car and get stuck in town longer working off the cost to repair it.

Taking a right, she found a spot under a gnarled mesquite tree and cut the engine. She grabbed her purse along with the cowboy hat she had borrowed from Natalie and stepped out under the cloud-filled sky. Just in case the Sheriff or one of his deputies was running surveillance from their front window, she had dressed in faded blue jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and a pair of flat-heeled sandals. Her goal was to blend in with the locals—hide in plain sight.

With her cowboy hat pulled low on her forehead, she opted for the long way around to the library, staying as far from the Sheriff’s building as possible. Behind her sunglasses, she kept watch for any government vehicles, hugging the buildings as she walked along, ready to dart inside if needed.

She made it to the library’s front doors without incident. Inside, the cooled air held the usual smells she had come to associate with the place—musty books, dusty carpet, and rose water perfume. The latter of the three answered the question that had crossed her mind several times on the way here. Sure enough, Grady’s Aunt Millie and her gang of grannies loitered. Only today, instead of filling the seats in front of the internet computers, they lounged in the green padded chairs nearby with bags of yarn at their orthopedic shoes. Their knitting needles clicked in the hushed room.

Ronnie approached slowly, unsure if the Sheriff had talked to his aunt since learning about her racketeering operation. Even though the computers appeared open for business, she followed protocol and waited next to Aunt Millie’s red walker.

“Good afternoon, girls,” she greeted each with her well-practiced smile. She focused on Aunt Millie. “I brought you some lovely gifts today. Is the library’s internet connection up and running?”

Which was code for:
Here’s a bribe to score some computer time.

Aunt Millie nodded while her needles continued to click away.

Ronnie took a step toward the one with the fastest connection.

“What kind of lovely gifts, sweetie?”

Ah, that answered her question. Grady had not returned to his aunt’s place, which meant he probably didn’t believe a word Ronnie had said. That didn’t surprise her really, but it still stung a little.

Damn him for not believing her.

Damn her for caring one way or the other.

Reaching into her purse, she pulled out more chandelier earrings, this time with zirconia stems leading down to pear-shaped, faux yellow sapphires. “I believe these would look just darling with that green paisley scarf you have on today. What do you think?”

Aunt Millie eyed the earrings warily, then smiled and stopped knitting. “Yes, those would look just gorgeous, don’t you think so, Ruth?”

Ruth’s needles stopped clinking. From what Ronnie had gleaned over the last two days, she was the second in command. Ruth also had a cane she sometimes used, which made Ronnie assume she was Claire’s nemesis.

Lowering her rhinestone studded glasses, Ruth inspected the earrings Ronnie held out. “Oh, definitely, Millie. Those are lovely.”

“Wonderful.” Ronnie placed them on the table next to Grady’s aunt. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to look up a few things online.”

“Sure, darlin’,” Aunt Millie gave her blessing.

Ronnie glanced around the library to make sure she had no onlookers, as in lawmen or goons. All clear. Lowering onto the padded chair, she rolled up to the long table filled with monitors and keyboards, moving the mouse to wake up the computer. She pulled out her cell phone, opening the picture of the pocket watch that she had taken this morning down in Ruby’s basement office with Claire.

They had sneaked down the basement stairs while the rest of the house was asleep. Claire had locked the door behind them “to be safe.”

Ronnie tried not to roll her eyes at the whole cloak and dagger act. Her sister needed to relax. It was just a pocket watch and they were not in enemy territory.

“Where is it?” Ronnie had asked, checking out the antiques on the big desk in the middle of the room.

“In the safe. Give me a hand, would ya?” Claire stood on one side of the bookcase motioning Ronnie to join her.

The bookcase had snagged on the carpet as they pulled it out, almost tipping the cameras, books, and wooden boxes of who knew what onto the floor.

“Next time, Ronnie,” her sister had said, her voice tinged with sarcasm, “could you actually put some muscle into it?”

“I’ll put some muscle into you.”

Claire snorted. “That doesn’t even make sense coming from a girl.”

“Whatever. Why are we lifting this thing?”

“The safe is in the wall behind it.”

Ah, a wall safe. This was just like the movies.

They lifted the bookcase away from the wall enough for Claire to squeeze in behind it. She pulled a pair of gloves from her back pocket. Dropping onto her knees, she typed in a combination. Ronnie leaned against the side of the bookcase, watching her sister’s fingers trip over the keypad.

The door popped open. Ronnie caught a glimpse of a tiny gun holster before Claire started backing out. She walked over to the desk and waited for Claire to join her with the watch.

They had not pried open the back of the casing to check if the power were delivered by a spring-and-fusee mechanism or via a spiral spring balance, but the watch did have two hands rather than one. From what Ronnie had read, that pretty much date-stamped it as a seventeenth century or later piece.

With the help of Gramps’s magnifying glass, they had been able to find what was probably the watchmaker’s signature. It could have been the casemaker’s scrawl, but Ronnie doubted it since she had read that the signature of a watch’s enamel artist was rare. Not that Claire or she could read the swirly letters on the name they found, except for “R”—the first letter. Or maybe it had been a “P.”

While Claire was looking at it through the magnifying glass, Ronnie had pulled out her camera.

“What are you doing?” Claire asked, covering the watch with her gloved hand.

“Taking a couple of pictures, so I can compare the real thing to what I find online. You didn’t expect me to draw the thing, did you?”

“No, I guess not.” Claire didn’t sound convinced though and kept her glove over the watch.

“You know I’m not the greatest artist.”

“True.” She lifted her glove. “Your stick people come out all bent and wavy.”

“I told you, those were his knees and elbows.”

“I’m talking about his neck.”

“He had an Adam’s apple.”

Claire
harrumphed
but held out the watch.

Ronnie took pictures of the outside of the case with its embossed picture of a carriage and then the inside painting on the face. She took another one of the inside of the casing. Zooming in, she got a slightly blurry shot of the signature, too.

… Now as she stared down at her cell phone under the library’s fluorescent lights, she tried to figure out how to zoom in on the picture. When she figured it out, the picture only got blurrier the more she zoomed in. Damn. She should have brought Gramps’s magnifying glass along with her.

Wait a second! She swiveled in the chair. “Do any of you happen to have a magnifying glass on you?”

Ruth shot her a glance over the barf-colored scarf she was knitting. “What’s it worth to you?”

Ronnie had just the thing. She unzipped her purse and fished out a stickpin with an amethyst in the center, the heart surrounding it supposedly made of sterling silver. Lyle had brought it back for her from one of his many trips to Texas, where he claimed one of his company’s satellite offices was located. According to the Feds, he had been down there helping a so-called “client” launder drug money coming over the border.

“How about this?” She held up the stickpin.

Ruth looked at it over the top of her glasses. Then she pulled a magnifying glass out of her knitting bag and offered it to Ronnie.

One stickpin later, Ronnie was back in her chair, holding the magnifying glass over her cell phone.

She typed in the name of the artist, or something close to it, since the last four letters all flowed together in a sort of squiggly line, and the word “Pocket Watch.” She clicked on the Search button and waited.

The screen filled with possible links. Skipping over the ads for watches, she scanned down the page. She clicked on one link from a museum, but the painting on the watch was a different style. She returned to the Search screen and looked further down the list.

In the middle of the list of links on the fourth screen of her search she found a link to a German newspaper article from over a decade ago that had a name in the details similar to the one on the watch. The rest of the title was in German of which she knew enough to get her a mug of beer and directions to the train station. She hovered the cursor over it and clicked. A black and white picture of a gray stone, turret topped castle appeared on the right. Several paragraphs written in German filled the left side of the screen.

Highlighted in the third paragraph was the name she had entered in her search criteria. She stared at the signature in the blurry picture on her phone again. It could be the same name. She scanned the article, sounding out the words under her breath in a German tongue so rusty it practically creaked out of her throat, looking for words she sort of knew. There was nothing in there about beer or the train station, dang it.

Scrolling down, she saw several pictures of watches. One of them in particular seemed to match the one on her phone.

“That’s weird,” she said under her breath.

She went back and forth between the computer and her phone several times. Could it be the same pocket watch? No, there was no way it could be. Or was it? It wasn’t like they mass produced pocket watches back then.

She needed to know what the article said.

The clicking of needles behind her made her swivel around. “Do any of you ladies know how to read German?”

“Greta does,” Ruth said.

Ronnie dug in her purse and came out with an oval shaped emerald pendant on a gold chain. She held it up. “What do you say, Greta?”

“
Ja, Fräulein. Ja.
” Greta set down her knitting needles and grunted her way up onto her feet. She waddled over on her extra wide hips and took Ronnie’s offering, petting the emerald stone with a big smile. “
Es ist wunderschön.
”

Ronnie took it that meant they had a deal. “Would you like to sit?” Ronnie started to stand and offer her seat, but Greta put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down.

“No. I need to stand for a bit. My sciatica was starting to give me pains while I was knitting.”

Aunt Millie joined them, looking over Ronnie’s other shoulder. “What’s it say, Greta?”

Greta grabbed the reading glasses hanging at the end of a chain around her neck and leaned closer to the screen.

“Let’s see.” She started to read aloud in German.

“Greta,” Aunt Millie interrupted her. “I mean in English.”

“Hold on to your bloomers, Millie. I’m not so good at translating word for word.”

“Just give me the gist,” Ronnie said.

Greta read a couple of lines under her breath. “It’s an article about a castle in Germany, some of its history.” She read more under her breath. “There were several battles held outside its walls and you can still see the scars in the stone from the trebuchet attacks.” She pointed at walls on the screen image.

Ronnie scrolled down the page a little, pointing at the watch. “What’s it say about this?”

Greta’s lips pursed. She leaned closer. “It’s giving a list of items that were stolen from the castle two years before this article was written, along with pictures of several of the pieces. This pocket watch,” she touched the screen, “was stolen.”

Ronnie’s heart took off like a dragster at a green light, reverberating in her ears for a moment. Her hand on the mouse began to shake, making the cursor jiggle.

Aunt Millie touched Ronnie’s shoulder. “Are you okay, honey?”

Ronnie gulped the swell of nausea that pulsed up her esophagus. “Yes,” she whispered, then cleared her throat. “I’m fine.” This time she sounded a little less wishy-washy about it. “Please read on, Greta.”

Greta did, and Ronnie took notes on a piece of scrap paper. She wrote down the name of the painter, the watch style, the estimated value back when the article was written, along with the names and information on the other pieces, too. Her handwriting grew more stable as they went, her heart returning to its normal cruising speed.