Sleight Of Paw Part 35

"I did figure something out. One of the kids from the co-op program has a webcam at Everett's offices. It picked up part of the parking lot down at the studio building. And it doesn't look like Ruby's truck moved at all the night Agatha was killed."

"That's wonderful. Did you tell Marcus?"

"Lita did."

"So why do you want to know where Hardwood Ridge is?"

"I'm just curious. It's no big deal. Forget it."

"Kath, you can't walk that far."

"Yes, I know," I said. "Go back to your burpees. I'll talk to you later."

"Okay," she said slowly. "Promise me you won't try to walk way up there."

"I promise I won't walk up to Hardwood Ridge," I said solemnly.

"Fine. I'll talk to you later."

I hung up the phone. Two furry faces were at my feet glaring at me. "Don't look at me like that," I said. "I told Maggie the truth. I'm not going to walk up to Hardwood Ridge." I gave them the Mr. Spock eyebrow. "I'm going to drive."

Both cats followed me downstairs. Ruby had said Justin was going to be in Minneapolis for a couple of days. Now was my chance to look for the truck.

I got my old jacket and snow pants from the closet, pulled on an extra pair of heavy socks and got my big boots. As I put on the snow pants I looked up to see both cats standing by the messenger bag.

"No, no, no," I said, shaking my head. "I can't take you with me." They exchanged some kind of wordless cat telepathy. Then Hercules walked over to me while Owen used a paw to push open the top of the bag and climb in. "Very funny, Owen," I said. "But when I said 'I can't take you with me' I meant 'I can't take either of you with me.' "

Owen gave a snippy meow and pulled his head down inside the bag. I finished putting on my things, put my wallet and phone in my pocket. And started out. Hercules stepped in front of me. I moved to go around him and he did it again. This time with a loud yowl.

"What do you want?" I growled. He looked over at the bag. "I'm not taking Owen. All I'm going to do is look for the truck. That's all."

I went to step over him and he darted backward so quickly I almost fell trying not to step on him. "You're crazy," I said in frustration. "Both of you are crazy, and you're making me crazy because I'm standing in the middle of my kitchen in twenty pounds of clothes, arguing with one cat about another."

I stalked over to the bag and grabbed the strap. "Happy?" I snapped. A small meow came from inside.

There was a flashlight on the floor by the vent. I'd used it when the bulb had burned out in the porch light. I picked it up and slipped it into the bag next to the cat. "Here, hold this," I said.

Inside the truck I slid the messenger bag along the seat. Owen immediately climbed out and put his paws on the door to look out the window. I leaned over to double-check that the door was locked, and I set the bag on the floor.

"I take it you're riding shotgun," I said. His response was to come back over, sit angelically on the seat and look straight ahead.

I started the truck, backed out of the driveway and headed for the highway, hoping the same karma that had given me a truck on the one day I really needed it would also help me find another truck.

I overshot the road to the camp the first time and had to turn around in the bar's empty parking lot. We bounced over the icy ruts and a wide-eyed Owen went sliding across the seat. I thought I was on the wrong road and was about to give up and try to turn around when I spotted the handmade sign with an arrow pointing down a dirt track nailed to the tree.

I stopped in the road-there was no one behind us-and looked down the trail. It was plowed, but I didn't dare chance getting stuck. "We'll go up there and turn around," I said to the cat, pointing to the slight rise ahead. "And I'll be able to pull off to the side."

So we did that. I got the truck off the road as far as I could. "What are the chances of you staying here?" I asked Owen. He jumped off the seat and dove into the bag. About what I had figured.

I picked up the bag, locked the truck and made my way to the turn off. One benefit of the cold temperatures was that the road was dry and frozen, although the ruts were more like trenches.

I stayed close to the edge just in case someone did start down, although I couldn't see who would. Justin was the only person working out here and he was in Minneapolis.

The road cut into the woods in a slow arc, coming out into a cleared area amid the trees. There was a small log cabin and in back of it, off to one side, some kind of old metal-sided storage building No one was there. I walked slowly around the cabin. The truck was behind the storage shed. Justin hadn't even made the effort to hide it. I wasn't sure if it was stupidity or arrogance.

I didn't touch the truck, but even from a distance I could see the broken headlight and the front-end damage. It looked exactly like Ruby's truck, even more so than the truck Harry had loaned to me, which had the primed replacement fender. This truck was dented and dirty and old.

"We got it," I said to Owen. I pulled out my cell phone and took three pictures of the front of the truck. Then I called Marcus's number. Nothing happened. I looked at the phone. The reception was almost nonexistent. I'd have to walk back out to the road and try there. I slung the bag back onto my shoulder and started around the building, past the cabin. Something stopped me.

Justin had killed Agatha. Had he taken the envelope? Whatever doc.u.ments Agatha had in the old brown envelope could be Harry's only chance to find his daughter. And as soon as the police came to the cabin the envelope would be part of the investigation and anything inside would be off-limits.

"We have to take a look inside the cabin," I said to Owen. "If Justin has that envelope . . ."

The question was, How was I going to get inside? The answer was apparent as soon as I walked closer to the back door of the log cabin.

The back door was fastened with an old-fas.h.i.+oned padlock. I could pick a padlock in my sleep. It was one of the many skills I'd learned hanging around backstage at all those theaters my parents had performed at, along with street hockey, counting cards and a pretty decent fake British accent.

I hesitated. No matter how good my motives were, I was still breaking into Justin's place. I remembered Agatha's body, lying crumpled in the alley while tears slid down Ruby's face. I swallowed and fished in my pockets. There was a paperclip in my jeans and another in my coat, along with Roma's roll of duct tape that I kept forgetting to give back to her.

The back door opened into the kitchen. There was a small, round table with two chairs against the back wall, squeezed in between the refrigerator and a propane stove. Justin was clearly not spending much time at the cabin. There was nothing on the old wooden table. I checked the drawers and cupboards.

Nothing. I stepped out of my boots and went into the next room.

A sofa was against the end wall in the living room, along with a rocking chair and a banged-up rolltop desk. I went through everything on the desk, checking each piece of paper. All of it had something to do with the camp. Maybe Justin didn't have the envelope. Maybe it really was gone.

There was one more room. The bedroom. The only things in the room were a mattress and box spring on a metal frame. There was no sign of the envelope.

Unless . . .

"What do you think?" I said to Owen, setting the bag on the floor. I lifted the edge of the tan blanket and slipped my hand between the mattress and box spring. Please don't let me feel anything creepy, I thought.

The envelope was at the top edge of the bed. My hand shook as I slid it free. I did a little fist pump in the air and grabbed the messenger bag.

"Let's go call Marcus," I said to Owen.

I stepped into the other room just as Justin came through the front door.

"What are you doing here?" he said.

I slipped the hand with the envelope behind my back and pasted a smile, albeit a fake one, on my face. "Oh, good. You are here," I said. "I'm sorry for just walking in, but the door was open and I've been looking for you." I held the envelope against my back with my index finger and tried to use my thumb and middle finger to fish out some of the papers.

"Looking for me in my bedroom?" he said.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know it was your bedroom. I thought this was some kind of office for the camp. That's why I walked in. I wouldn't have done that if I'd known you were living here."

I had some of the papers out of the envelope. I twisted my wrist to slide them under my coat and then behind the back of my snow pants. It was hard to move my hand without giving away the movement, and the envelope slipped to the floor.

"What's that?" Justin was across the room in a few steps. He grabbed my wrist and bent to pick up the envelope. Most of the papers had at least made it under the waistband of my snow pants, the top edges hidden underneath my jacket.

Justin straightened and smiled at me, but it wasn't friendly. "Where did you get this?"

There was no point in bluffing. "Under the mattress, where you hid it," I said. "It doesn't belong to you."

He squeezed my wrist, twisting outward just a little. I bit my cheek so I wouldn't make any sound.

"Yeah, well, it doesn't exactly belong to you, either, does it?"

The front door was in front of me, across the open floor. The back door was behind me, through another room. If I ran out the back door Justin could easily go out the front and head me off.

I glanced down. He was wearing heavy boots, much like the ones I'd come in with, so stomping on his instep in my sock feet wasn't going to work. I swung my foot, connecting with the side of his left knee. He shouted an obscenity and let go of my arm.

I hugged the bag close to my body and ran for the front door, knocking Justin off balance and onto the floor. I grabbed the doork.n.o.b, twisted it hard and pulled, but the door didn't give. I twisted it in the other direction, pulling with both hands, but nothing happened. Justin was already up. I bent my knees, braced my feet and frantically twisted the k.n.o.b, willing down the panic that was spreading throughout my body.

Justin caught me by my hair and yanked me back from the door. He winced as he s.h.i.+fted his weight onto the leg I'd kicked, and pulled a key from the pocket of his jeans.

He dangled the silver key in front of me. "Ah, gee. I locked up behind myself."

My eyes flicked for a second from him to the back of the cabin. Justin pulled on my hair, hauling my head back so hard, my teeth came down on my tongue.

"Oh, see, you've been thinking you should have gone for door number two," he whispered, his mouth so close to me I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck. "Just to make you feel better about your choice"-he turned my face toward him-"it's only fair to tell you, I locked that one, too."

He kept his fingers laced through my hair, gripping tightly on my scalp, and frog-marched me to the sofa. He gave me a push and I landed sideways on the couch, s.h.i.+fting my weight at the last minute so I wouldn't land on Owen in the bag.

Justin sat on the arm of the sofa, slapping the end of his closed fist against his palm. "Who knows you're here?" he asked.

"Lots of people," I said.

"Now, you see, I don't think so." His tone was conversational. "Because if lots of people knew, then lots of people would be here with you, and they're not." He extended his arms and looked around the room with that same unsettling smile. "Ruby told you I was going to be out of town, didn't she?"

I didn't say anything.

He tossed the key up in the air and caught it. "Yeah, I lied about that. Sometimes I just need a little s.p.a.ce."

"How did you manage to get a truck just like hers?" I asked.

Justin laughed. "The fact that my old truck is like Ruby's is just bulls.h.i.+t luck." He held up his hands like a doctor who had just scrubbed for surgery. "The fact that it's running is because I'm good with my hands. I told you that when I was in juvie I learned how to hot-wire a car. I learned a few other things, too."

"You killed Agatha," I said.

"Miss Marple." His eyes narrowed. "You didn't think I was that well-read, did you?" He shook his finger at me. "The village busybody. I should have guessed it would be you. You are a librarian." He said "librarian" like the word left a bad taste in his mouth.

Suddenly his hand shot out, pulling the strap of the messenger bag from my hand. "What's in the bag, Miss Marple?"

I swallowed hard. "A flashlight," I said. I hoped the cat was invisible, but if he wasn't, I hoped he'd launch himself out at Justin's face, because I wasn't going to waste another chance on either door. I was going to grab the old chrome chair in front of the rolltop desk and launch it through the window.

Justin peeked in the bag and then tossed it back on the couch. Owen didn't make a sound, but I was guessing he was mightily p.i.s.sed. And he was probably plotting his revenge.

"Why did you kill Agatha?" I asked. I was going to have to stall him until I figured out what to do. My voice didn't shake, although I was struggling to keep the rest of me from trembling.

"I didn't kill her. Not on purpose. It was an accident."

The creepy joviality was gone like that. He was still fidgeting.

"People will understand that."

"What the h.e.l.l was she doing in that d.a.m.n alley in the middle of the night, anyway?" He yanked both hands through his hair. "It was dark. She was wearing that big, dark coat. How the h.e.l.l was I supposed to see her?"

I nodded. "It was an accident." The taste of something sour filled my mouth. Even if Justin had hit Agatha by accident, he was drinking and driving and he had literally left her there to die. "You took Eric to the restaurant rather than home. That's why you were in the alley."

"I didn't know she was going to leave me the money in her will." His eyes darted around the room. I wasn't sure I believed him.

"But you knew she had money," I said. "How? No one else did."

He started smacking his hand with his fist again. "Post office was holding a bunch of mail for her. Ruby picked it up. I saw the return address on one of the envelopes and I knew it was an investment firm. Didn't mean anything to Ruby."

"You opened it."

He shrugged. "You'd think a fancy place like that would spring for envelopes with better glue."

Maybe if I kept him talking he'd let down his guard and I could make a break for it. "You told Ruby how worried you were about losing your funding, banking on her telling Agatha. What were you planning to do? Use Ruby to convince Agatha to invest?"

"What if I was? What the h.e.l.l was she going to do with all that money?" he said derisively. "She was just sitting on it."

I s.h.i.+fted on the sofa, moving a little closer to the edge. "And the truth is, you took the envelope Agatha wouldn't let out of her sight, because you figured if she was holding on to it so tightly, it had to have something to do with the money."

He looked past me, out the front window. "You know what's true? Some people really can't drink, and Eric is one of them."

"You spiked his drink."

His eyes came back to me. "Very good. Yeah, I did. I was trying to make a point." His jaw tightened. "It didn't work out quite the way I hoped. Eric's not like me."

"You can have a drink or two. You can stop."

"What? You don't believe me?"

"You've had a drink or two since the accident," I said. "Haven't you? I couldn't tell."

He came down off the arm of the sofa and paced in front of me. "That's because I'm not an alcoholic. That's a load of c.r.a.p they've been trying to feed me since I was sixteen. I'm not like Eric. For G.o.d's sake, he doesn't even remember Wednesday night."

"So why don't you just explain what happened to Agatha? Explain it was an accident."

"Yeah. Yeah, I can't do that." His hands were everywhere. "I'm really sorry about the way things worked out for other people. But I can't do that."

"You mean Ruby." I pulled the bag closer. "And Eric."

"Like I said, I'm sorry, but sometimes stuff happens. Sometimes people have to make sacrifices."

"Or be sacrificed," I said softly.