RESORT TO MURDER (13 page)

Her car rested tightly against the guard
rail, beyond which was the long, steep, wooded slope, the slope she
would have plunged down if she hadn't somehow regained control of
her steering and speed. It was all a blur of fast-action now as she
thought back on it, but somehow, miraculously, she had managed
through braking, skidding and frantic steering to avoid a head-on
crash into and through the guard rail.

Maggie waited until she felt steady enough,
then unbuckled her seatbelt and eased out of the car. There was no
sign of the blue van, which didn't surprise her. It had
deliberately tried to run her off the road - and down the mountain.
She was certain of that. But whoever was driving didn’t hang around
to watch the final results.

Walking to the rear of the car she saw the
deep skid marks her tires had made in the gravel. She reached the
guard rail and saw some of her car's paint and a series of large
dents in it. Then, holding onto the rail to steady her rubbery legs
she peered at the side of her car. It was scraped badly and dented,
but on the whole, especially considering what might have happened,
not too bad. Still... Maggie winced, feeling the pain of an injury
to her cherished, yet-unpaid-for car.

Maggie walked around some more to calm her
nerves, her emotions still swinging between anger, amazement, and
fear, then back again. When she felt calm enough she opened the
driver's-side door, ready to move on. A tan Plymouth chugged up the
road - the only moving thing she had seen since the blue van had
loomed up beside her, and she tensed, watching it. It contained an
elderly couple, the man in a pork-pie hat. They slowed at sight of
her, then, apparently deciding she needed no help, or perhaps
afraid to stop? continued on.

Maggie turned on the ignition, put the car
in gear, and slowly, with nerve-rending scraping noises, pulled
onto the road. Listening carefully for any strange knocks or bumps,
she gradually relaxed as the engine and wheels responded with no
evidence of major damage.

Questions ran through her head as she drove,
watching carefully for any sign of the demonic van ahead. Who drove
it? Why did they do this? Was it a random act of violence or was it
aimed particularly at eliminating her? And if it were aimed at her,
what did they hope to gain by killing her?

She thought of how casual - careless really
- she had been with Lori's notebook. So many people had seen it,
perhaps overheard her talking about it with Dyna. Did one of them
try to keep her from getting it to the sheriff? She wondered what
the sheriff would say about this. Would it move him to more
action?

"My, my, my," Sheriff Burger said, clicking
his tongue and shaking his head as he read the report Maggie had
filled out. He hooked his thumbs into his straining belt and shook
his head. "Those roads can be mighty tricky, can't they?"

"Sheriff, I didn't lose control because of
the turns. I'm a very good driver. I'd have to be to have avoided
plunging down that mountain to my death. I'm telling you someone
deliberately tried to force me off the road. I could have been
killed!"

"A blue van, you say? Did you happen to get
the license number?"

Maggie watched him reach for a pencil,
preparing to write, just in case while scrambling to save her life
she had managed to glance at and memorize the van's tag numbers.
She shook her head in exasperation.

"No, I didn't."

"That's too bad.” He laid the pencil down in
evident disappointment. "A description of the driver?" he asked,
with less hope now. Maggie shook her head.

"Well, we'll see what we can do, check up on
it."

The phone on his desk rang, and the sheriff
picked it up. "Earl, you ol' son-of-a-gun.” He listened a moment
and laughed a deep, chortling belly laugh. He glanced at Maggie as
she waited stiffly, holding Lori's journal on her lap, and turned
away slightly. "Let me call you back in a few minutes Earl," he
said, and hung up, swinging back to face Maggie. She put the
journal on his desk.

"This belonged to Lori
Basker.” She explained where it had been found, avoiding mention of
exactly
who
had
discovered it, and told of some of the things she had read in it.
"I feel strongly that she was murdered by someone who worked with
her at the Highview. I also think this same person, or someone
closely connected, drove the van that tried to kill me."

"Hmm," the sheriff said, as he pulled the
journal to him and paged through it. "Does she say in here that she
was afraid of anyone, or maybe threatened by someone?"

"No, there's nothing like that. It's just
that, knowing Lori, I think she was probably trying to help someone
and innocently, naively, picked the wrong person. That journal, I
think, contains clues to the identity of that person."

"Mm-hmm.” The phone rang again, and this
time was answered in another part of the office. Before Maggie
could say more, a deputy called over to announce that the mayor was
on the line.

Sheriff Burger put his hand on the phone and
looked up at Maggie. "I thank you, ma'am, for bringing this in. And
if we find out anything about the blue van we will surely call you.
Ah, you'll be at the Highview? You're not going back home
soon?"

Maggie shook her head.

"Well, you be careful now, especially on
those twisty roads. You be real careful."

His solemn tone surprised her, and she saw a
serious look in his eyes. Was it her imagination, or was he now
warning her against more than a scraped car?

Maggie nodded automatically, and the
sheriff's face quickly crinkled back into a smile. Before she even
stood up he was talking cheerfully to the mayor, apparently about
arrangements for the Fourth of July parade. Maggie walked to the
door, but before going out glanced back. Sheriff Burger returned
her look, and, leaning an elbow on Lori's journal, waved a friendly
good-by.

Maggie drove back to the Highview, checking
her mirror often for dark vans, or any vehicle that might seem to
be following her. She hated the feeling of paranoia, the jumpy
suspicion of any moving thing that now possessed her, even though
she knew it was wise to be careful. As she pulled into the hotel's
parking lot, she looked around for any sign of the van and saw
none.

Walking quickly from her car to the front
door, Maggie checked her watch. It was 11:45. Dyna's aerobics class
would have finished long ago. Maggie stopped at the courtesy table
in the lobby and poured a Styrofoam cupful of coffee, wondering
where she might find her friend, then headed down the hall to the
exercise room.

No sign of Dyna there. One rather paunchy
man sat puffing rhythmically at the rowing machine, and a
leotard-clad young woman, with a head band securing her hair, stood
behind a high desk examining a schedule book. She looked up at
Maggie with a shining, freckled face and smiled.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Dyna Hall. I think she was
in the aerobics class."

"Yes, I remember her. Um, she might still be
in the Jacuzzi.” She pointed the way and Maggie went down a short
hallway, then opened a door that let out a wave of warm, humid air,
causing every curly hair on her head to tighten.

Dyna's head and shoulders protruded from the
circulating waters of the Jacuzzi, and her eyelids drooped
drowsily. Maggie was glad to see her there alone and pulled a white
plastic chair up close. Dyna's eyes focused at the noise and she
looked up.

"Maggie, you're back!"

"Have a good workout?" Maggie asked, and
took a sip of her coffee.

"Terrific. If I did that every day I would
be in such good shape. How'd it go at the sheriff's?"

Maggie told her about her near brush with
examining the mountain-side treetops close up, and Dyna snapped out
of her stupor.

"My gosh, Maggie! You could have been
killed!" she said as she straightened up.

Maggie shrugged.

Dyna pulled herself onto the edge of the hot
tub and searched around for her towel, her silvery-blue suit
dripping and catching the light. "You've got to get out of here. I
mean, pack up and leave. C'mon, I'll help you, and then I'm coming
with you."

Maggie shook her head. "No, Dyna. I'm not
ready to leave yet."

Dyna opened her mouth to protest, but Maggie
cut her off. "Don't you see? This proves we're getting close. It
proves, to me at least, that Lori's murderer is right here. If we
run away and do nothing, that person will likely go free. And
someone else might be killed."

Dyna pulled her feet up to the Jacuzzi’s
edge and hugged her knees, a worried look on her face. "But what if
that someone else is you, or me?"

"We'll just have to be
careful to avoid that, won't we?” Maggie tried to smile, but her
face grew serious again. "I mean,
I’m
going to be careful. Dyna, why
don't you go on home after all. I'd feel better if you
did."

Dyna stared at her toes for a moment, chin
on wet knees, then shook her head and looked up at Maggie. "Uh-uh.
I'm not leaving you here alone.” She swung her legs to the floor
and stood up. "C'mon, let's go back upstairs. I'll get dressed, and
we'll figure out our next move."

Back in her room, Maggie noticed the message
light blinking on her phone, and she called down to the desk. Liz,
her librarian friend had tried to reach her while she was out and
left a number. Maggie punched it in and sat down, pulling paper and
pen close by, waiting to hear her friend's familiar voice.

"Hi Liz, it's Maggie. You have something for
me?"

"Something, Maggie, but not a lot, I'm
afraid."

Maggie listened as Liz explained the steps
she had taken to find the information, checking newspapers and
sports magazines for the time period Maggie had given her.

"He wasn't a big name, so it didn't get that
much coverage," she said. What she did find, however, seemed to
confirm Eric's claim: Rob Clayton, rising young tennis pro, had
abruptly withdrawn from the Wimbledon tournament. No explanation
had been given beyond a vague claim of illness, but rumors had
floated around about a violent argument with a girlfriend, and
police involvement.

"The girl's name was Christy Hammond, a
tennis player herself, American, and playing in the junior's."

"How old was Rob at the time?"

"Um, let's see. Eighteen. Which can be a
volatile age for some, as we high school educators know well."

"Mmm. That's it? Nothing about charges
actually brought or anything like that?"

"That's it. Again, he wasn't a big name, so
the press might not have followed up on it."

"Right. Thanks, Liz. I owe you one.” Maggie
was about to hang up when she caught herself. "Oh, Liz! How would
you feel about looking up a couple more things?"

"Are you kidding? I'd love it! This is the
reason I went into library science. It's a great change from the
usual junk I have to plow through all summer. You know – counting
books, ordering new ones, all that really exciting stuff. Just tell
me what you need."

Maggie did.

"Do you want to let me in on what this is
all about yet?" Liz asked. "I mean, you didn't take a summer job
with the FBI by any chance, did you?"

Maggie laughed. "No, nothing like that. I'm
actually on vacation. But you know me, the math perfectionist. If
something doesn't add up correctly it drives me crazy. I'll explain
more when I've got a few more numbers, okay?"

"Okay, Maggie. I'll get back to you."

Liz hung up, and Maggie sat next to the
phone thinking. Soon she heard a knock on her door and a muffled
call through it. "Maggie, it's me."

Maggie let Dyna in, then told her what she
had just found out about Rob.

"Doesn't make him sound like a sterling
character, does it?" Dyna said.

"No, but it's very incomplete. Mostly rumors
and innuendo. Actually, not much more believable than listening to
Eric."

"Except, it at least shows
he didn't make the
whole
thing up."

"Yes.” Maggie scowled at the wall for a
moment, then said, "Come on. There's someone I'd like to talk to
downstairs."

As they stepped off the elevator in the
lobby, Maggie and Dyna spotted the silvery-haired Charles in his
neat, navy blazer, checking in a new guest. They sat down on one of
the several sofas in the lobby to wait, idly picking up tourist
leaflets on a nearby table.

Maggie looked at one that described the
Civil War battlefield of Antietam, which was in the area. It looked
interesting, and Maggie remembered her hope to visit it during her
vacation. "Have you ever been here?" she asked Dyna, holding it up
for her to see.

"What is it? History? Ugh, no. I hate that
stuff. Especially anything to do with wars. Upsets my karma."

The business at the desk was apparently
completed, as the new arrival picked up one of his smaller bags and
followed the bellboy carrying the rest of his luggage to the
elevator. Maggie stood and walked over. Charles glanced at her and
smiled as he gathered up papers.

"Charles,” Maggie said, “I was looking for
Rob earlier today, about ten, and couldn't find him. Is he off
today? I thought maybe I saw him drive away in a dark-colored
van?"

"No, I'm sure he's here
somewhere. And I believe he drives a more
sporty
vehicle - fitting, I
suppose," he added with a smile. "A white Miata," Charles said as
he opened an appointment book and scanned it. "Well, he was
scheduled for a tennis lesson at ten, with a Mr. Anderson, but, ah
yes, now I remember. He called here and asked us to reschedule it
for later."

"When did he call, do you remember?” Dyna
had come up beside Maggie by then.