Kitabı oku: «Deputy Defender»

Chapter One

Yellow was such a cheerful color for a death threat. Brenda Stenson stared down at the note on the counter in front of her. Happy cartoon flowers danced across the bottom of the page, almost making the words written above in bold black ink into a joke.

Almost. But there was nothing funny about the message, written in all caps: BURN THAT BOOK OR YOU WILL DIE.

The cryptic message on the cheerful paper had been enclosed in a matching yellow envelope and taped to the front door of the Eagle Mountain History Museum. Brenda had spotted it when she arrived for work Monday morning, and had felt a surge of pleasure, thinking one of her friends had surprised her with an early birthday greeting. Her actual birthday was still another ten days away, but as her best friend, Lacy, had pointed out only two days ago, turning thirty was a milestone that deserved to be celebrated all month.

The message had been a surprise all right, but not a pleasant one. Reading it, Brenda felt confused at first, as if trying to make sense of something written in a foreign language or an old-fashioned, hard-to-read script. As the message began to sink in, nausea rose in her throat, and she held on to the edge of the counter, fighting dizziness. What kind of sick person would send something like this? And why? What had she ever done to hurt anybody, much less make them wish she were dead?

The string of sleigh bells attached to the museum’s front door jangled as it opened and Lacy Milligan sauntered in. That was really the only way to describe the totally carefree, my-life-is-going-so-great attitude that imbued every movement of the pretty brunette. And why not? After three years of one bad break after another, Lacy had turned the corner. Now she was in school studying to be a teacher and engaged to a great guy—who also happened to be county sheriff. As her best friend, Brenda couldn’t have been happier for her—and she wasn’t about to do anything to upset Lacy’s happiness. So she slid the threatening note off the counter and quickly folded it and inserted it back into the envelope, and dropped it into her purse.

“No classes today, so I thought I’d stop by and see what I could do to help,” Lacy said. She hugged Brenda, then leaned back against the scarred wooden desk that was command central at the museum.

“I can always use the help,” Brenda said. “But you’re putting in so many hours here I’m starting to feel really guilty about not being able to pay you. If the fund-raising drive is successful, maybe there will be enough left over to hire at least part-time help.”

“You already rented me the sweetest apartment in town,” Lacy said. “You don’t have to give me a job, too.”

“I’ll never find anyone else who’s half as fun for that garage apartment,” Brenda said. “At least if I could give you a job, I’d still be guaranteed to see you on a regular basis after you’re married.”

“You’ll still see plenty of me,” Lacy said. “But hey—I hear Eddie Carstairs is looking for a job.”

Brenda made a face. “I seriously doubt an ex–law enforcement officer is going to want a part-time job at a small-town museum,” she said.

“You’re probably right,” Lacy said. “Eddie certainly thinks highly of himself. He’s been going around town telling everyone Travis fired him because he was jealous that Eddie got so much press for being a hero, almost dying in the line of duty and all.” Her scowl said exactly what she thought of her fiancé’s former subordinate. “Obviously that bullet he took didn’t knock any sense into him. And as Travis told him when he fired him, Eddie wasn’t on duty that day and he wasn’t supposed to be messing around at a crime scene. And he wasn’t a full deputy anyway—he was a reserve officer. Eddie always fails to mention that when he tells his tales of woe down at Moe’s Pub.”

“Is Travis as upset about this as you are?” Brenda asked. She had a hard time picturing their taciturn sheriff letting Eddie’s tall tales get to him.

“He says we should just ignore Eddie, but it burns me up when that little worm tries to make himself out to be a hero.” Lacy hoisted her small frame up to sit on the edge of the desk. “Travis is the one who risked his life saving me from Ian Barnes.”

“And anyone who counts knows that,” Brenda said. Ian Barnes—the man who had killed Brenda’s husband three years before—had kidnapped Lacy and tried to kill her during the town’s Pioneer Days celebration two months ago. Travis had risked his life to save her, killing Ian in the struggle.

“You’re right,” Lacy said. “And I’m sorry to be unloading on you this way. You’ve got bigger things to worry about.” She glanced around the museum’s front room, comprising the reception desk and a small bookstore and gift shop. Housed in a former miner’s cottage, the museum featured eight rooms devoted to different aspects of local history. “How’s the fund-raising going?”

“I’ve applied for some grants, and sent begging letters to pretty much every organization and influential person I can think of,” Brenda said. “No response yet.”

“What about the auction?” Lacy asked. “Are you getting any good donations for that?”

“I am. Come take a look.” She led the way through a door to the workroom, where a row of folding tables was rapidly filling with donations people had contributed for a silent auction, all proceeds to benefit the struggling museum. “We’ve gotten everything from old mining tools to a gorgeous handmade quilt, and a lovely wooden writing desk that I think should bring in a couple hundred dollars.”

“Wow.” Lacy ran her hand over the quilt, which featured a repeating pattern of squares and triangles in shades of red and cream. “This ought to bring in a lot of bids. I might have to try for it myself.”

“My goal is to make enough to keep the doors open and pay my salary until we can get a grant or two that will provide more substantial funds,” Brenda said. “But what we really need is a major donor or two who will pledge to provide ongoing support. When Henry Hake disappeared, so did the quarterly donations he made to the museum. He was our biggest supporter.”

“And here everybody thought old Henry was only interested in exploiting the town for his rich investors,” Lacy said. “I wonder if we’ll ever find out what happened to him. Travis won’t say so, but I know since they found Henry’s car in that ravine, they think he’s probably dead.”

Henry Hake was the public face of Hake Development and Eagle Mountain Resort, a mountaintop luxury development that had been stalled three and a half years ago when a local environmental group won an injunction to stop the project. Brenda’s late husband, Andy, had been a new attorney, thrilled to win the lucrative job of representing Hake. But Hake’s former bodyguard, Ian Barnes, had murdered Andy. Lacy, who had been Andy’s administrative assistant, had been convicted of the murder. Only Travis’s hard work had freed her and eventually cleared her name. But then Henry had disappeared. And only last month, a young couple had been murdered, presumably because they saw something they shouldn’t have at the dormant development site. Travis’s brother, Gage, a sheriff’s deputy, had figured that one out and tracked down the couple’s killers, but the murderers had died in a rockslide, after imprisoning Gage and schoolteacher Maya Renfro and her five-year-old niece in an underground bunker that contained a mysterious laboratory. A multitude of law enforcement agencies was still trying to untangle the goings-on at the resort—and no one seemed to know what had happened to Henry Hake or what the young couple might have seen that led to their murders.

“I guess I don’t understand how these things work,” Lacy said. “But it doesn’t seem very smart to base a budget on the contributions of one person. What if Henry had suddenly decided to stop sending checks?”

“Henry’s contributions were significant, but they weren’t all our budget,” Brenda said. “When I started here four years ago, we had a comfortable financial cushion that generated enough income for most of our operating expenses, but that’s gone now.” Her stomach hurt just thinking about it.

“Where did it go?” Lacy asked. But the pained expression on Brenda’s face must have told her the truth. “Jan!” She hopped off the desk. “She siphoned off the money to pay the blackmail!” She put her hand over her mouth, as if she wished she could take back the words. “I’m so sorry, Brenda.”

Brenda had learned only recently that before his death, Andy had been blackmailing her former boss, Eagle Mountain mayor Jan Selkirk, over her affair with Henry Hake. “It’s all right,” she said. “I can’t prove that’s what happened, but probably. But if that is what happened, I don’t know where the money went. I mean, yeah, Andy used some of it for the improvements on our house, and to buy some stuff, but not the tens of thousands of dollars we’re talking about.”

“Maybe Jan was giving the money to Henry, and his donations were his guilty conscience forcing him to pay you back,” Lacy said.

“That would fit this whole sick soap opera, wouldn’t it?” Brenda picked up a battered miner’s lantern and pretended to examine it.

Lacy rubbed Brenda’s shoulder. “None of this is your fault,” she said. “And you’re doing an amazing job keeping the museum going. These auction items should pull in a lot of money. Didn’t you tell me that book you found is worth a lot?”

The book. A shudder went through Brenda at the thought of the slim blue volume she had found while going through Andy’s things a few weeks ago. The Secret History of Rayford County, Colorado. What had at first appeared to be a run-of-the-mill self-published local history had turned out to be a rare account of a top-secret government program to produce biological weapons in the remote mountains of Colorado during World War II. Was that what had whoever left the threatening note so upset? Did they object to the government’s dirty secrets being aired—even though the operation had ended seventy years ago?

In any case, Brenda’s online research had revealed an avid group of collectors who were anxious to get their hands on the volume, and willing to pay for the privilege. Thus was born the idea of an auction to fund the museum—and her salary—for the immediate future.

“I still can’t imagine what Andy was doing with a book like that,” she said. “But I guess it’s obvious I didn’t know my husband as well as I thought.”

“Whyever he had it, I’m glad it’s going to help you now,” Lacy said.

The local paper had run an article about the fund-raiser, and listed the book among the many donations received. That must be where the letter writer had found out about it. Was it just some crank out to frighten her? Could she really take seriously a letter written on yellow stationery with cartoon flowers?

But could she really afford not to take it seriously? She needed to let someone else know about the threat—someone with the power to do something about it. “Can you do me a favor and watch the museum for a bit?” Brenda asked.

“Sure.” Lacy looked surprised. “What’s up?”

“I just have an errand I need to run.” She retrieved her purse from beneath the front counter and slung it over her shoulder. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour.” She’d have to ask the sheriff to keep the letter a secret from his fiancée, at least for now. In fact, Brenda didn’t want anyone in town to know about it. She had been the focus of enough gossip since Andy’s murder. But she wasn’t stupid enough to try to deal with this by herself. She figured she could trust the Rayford County Sheriff’s Department to keep her secret and, she hoped, to help her.

* * *

DEPUTY DWIGHT PRENTICE would rather face down an irate motorist or break up a bar fight than deal with the stack of forms and reports in his inbox. But duty—and the occasional nagging from office manager Adelaide Kincaid—forced him to tackle the paperwork. That didn’t stop him from resenting the task that kept him behind his desk when Indian summer offered up one of the last shirtsleeve days of fall, the whole world outside bathed in a soft golden light that made the white LED glare of his office seem like a special kind of torture.

As he put the finishing touches on yet another report, he wished for an urgent call he would have to respond to—or at least some kind of distraction. So when the buzzer sounded that signaled the front door opening, he sat back in his chair and listened.

“I need to speak with Travis.”

The woman’s soft, familiar voice made Dwight slide back his chair, then glance at the window to his left to check that the persistent cowlick in his hair wasn’t standing up in back.

“Sheriff Walker is away at training.” Adelaide spoke in what Dwight thought of as her schoolmarm voice—very precise and a little chiding.

“Could I speak to one of the deputies, then?”

“What is this about?”

“I’d prefer to discuss that with the deputy.”

Dwight rose and hurried to head off Adelaide’s further attempts to determine the woman’s business at the sheriff’s department. The older woman was a first-class administrator, but also known as one of the biggest gossips in town.

“Hello, Brenda.” Dwight stepped into the small reception area and nodded to the pretty blonde in front of Adelaide’s desk. “Can I help you with something?”

“Mrs. Stenson wants to speak to a deputy,” Adelaide said.

“That would be me.” Dwight indicated the hallway he had just moved down. “Why don’t you come into my office?”

As he escorted her down the hall, Dwight checked her out, without being too obvious. Brenda had been a pretty girl when they knew each other in high school, but she had matured into a beautiful woman. She had cut a few inches off her hair recently and styled it in soft layers. The look was more sophisticated and suited her. He had noticed her smiling more lately, too. Maybe she was finally getting past the grief for her murdered husband.

She wasn’t smiling now, however. In his office, she took a seat in the chair Dwight indicated and he shut the door, then slid behind his desk. “You look upset,” he said. “What’s happened?”

In answer, she opened her purse, took out a bright yellow envelope, and slid it across the desk to him.

He looked down at the envelope. BRENDA was written across the front in bold black letters, all caps. “Before I open it, tell me your impression of what’s in it,” he said.

“I don’t know if it’s some kind of sick joke, or what,” she said, staring at the envelope as if it were a coiled snake. “But I think it might be a threat.” She knotted her hands on the edge of the desk. “My fingerprints are probably all over it. I wasn’t thinking...”

“That’s all right.” Dwight opened the top desk drawer and took out a pair of nitrile gloves and put them on. Then he turned the envelope over, lifted the flap and slid out the single sheet of folded paper.

The capital letters of the message on the paper were drawn with the same bold black marker as the writing on the envelope. BURN THAT BOOK OR YOU WILL DIE.

“What book?” he asked.

“I can’t be sure, but I think whoever wrote that note is referring to the rare book that’s part of the auction to raise funds for the museum. It’s an obscure, self-published volume purportedly giving an insider’s experiences with a top-secret project to manufacture biological weapons for use in World War II. The project was apparently financed by the US government and took place in Rayford County. I found it in Andy’s belongings, mixed in with some historical law books. I have no idea how he came to have it, but apparently it’s an item that’s really prized by some collectors—because it’s rare, I guess. And maybe because of the nature of the subject matter.”

Dwight grabbed a legal pad and began making notes. Later, he would review them. And he would need them for the inevitable report. “Who knew about this book?” he asked.

“Lots of people,” she said. “There was an article in the Examiner.”

“The issue that came out Thursday?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He riffled through a stack of documents on his desk until he found the copy of the newspaper. The article was on the front page. Rare Book to Head Up Auction Items to Benefit Museum—accompanied by a picture of Brenda holding a slim blue volume, the title, The Secret History of Rayford County, Colorado, in silver lettering on the front. “How much is the book worth?” he asked.

“A dealer I contacted estimated we could expect to receive thirty to fifty thousand dollars at a well-advertised auction,” she said. “I thought that in addition to the money, the auction would generate a lot of publicity for the museum and maybe attract more donors.”

“People will pay that much money for a book?” Dwight didn’t try to hide his amazement.

“I was shocked, too. But apparently, it’s very rare, and there’s the whole top-secret government plot angle that collectors like.”

“But this note wasn’t written by a collector,” he said. “A collector wouldn’t want you to burn the book.”

“I know.” She leaned toward him. “That’s why I’m wondering if the whole thing is some kind of twisted joke. I mean—that cheerful yellow paper...” Her voice trailed away as they both stared at the note.

“Maybe it’s a joke,” he said. “But we can’t assume anything. Has anyone said anything to you about the book since this article ran?” He tapped the newspaper. “Anything that struck you as odd or ‘off’?”

“No. The only thing anyone has said is they hope we get a lot of money for the museum. A couple of people said they couldn’t imagine who would pay so much for a book, and one or two have said the subject matter sounded interesting. But no one has seemed upset or negative about it at all.”

“Where is the book now?” he asked.

“It’s at the museum.”

The old-house-turned-museum wasn’t the most secure property, from what Dwight could remember about it. “Do you have a security system there—alarms, cameras?”

She shook her head. “We’ve never had the budget for that kind of thing. And we’ve never needed it. We just have regular door locks with dead bolts, and we keep the most valuable items in our collection in locked cases. But we don’t really have much that most people would find valuable. I mean, antiques and historical artifacts aren’t the kind of thing a person could easily sell for quick cash.”

“But this book is different,” Dwight said. “It’s worth a lot of money. I think you had better put it somewhere else for now. Somewhere more secure.”

“I was thinking of moving it to a safe at my house.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” He stood. “Let’s go do that now.”

“Oh.” She rose, clearly flustered. “You don’t have to do that. I can—”

“I’d like to see this book, anyway.” He gestured to the door, and she moved toward it.

“I’ll meet you at the museum,” he said when they reached the parking lot.

She nodded and fished her car keys out of her purse, then looked at him again, fear in her hazel eyes, though he could tell she was trying hard to hide it. “Do you think I’m really in danger?” she asked.

He put a hand on her arm, a brief gesture of reassurance. “Maybe not. But there’s no harm in being extra careful.”

She nodded, then moved to her car. He waited until she was in the driver’s seat before he got into his SUV, suppressing the urge to call her back, to insist that she ride with him and not move out of his sight until he had tracked down the person who threatened her. He slid behind the wheel and blew out his breath. This was going to be a tough one—not because they had so little to go on to track down the person who had made the threat, but because he was going to have to work hard to keep his emotions out of the case.

He started the vehicle and pulled out onto the street behind Brenda’s Subaru. He could do this. He could investigate the case and protect Brenda Stenson without her finding out he’d been hopelessly in love with her since they were both seventeen.