CHAPTER SEVEN

I SAT ON THE ground next to the wheel barrow, feeling light-headed and completely helpless.

Gallagher had said if "everything went as planned" he'd let me talk to Ambrose in the county jail after six.

I called Ken Brownberg to get a recommendation for a criminal attorney. Because he had a name and phone number immediately, he must have thought Ambrose's arrest more likely than I had. Ken said the lawyer from Fairfield would talk to Ambrose before he was arraigned in River's Edge.

"Do you know the charge?" I asked.

After a few seconds of silence, he said, "I've heard second-degree murder."

Though I didn't like Brownberg's information, I thanked him and asked who he had recommended.

"Charlotte Dickey, and I would use her myself if I needed such representation."

I had to purse my lips not to tell him to sound less snarky. I had enough self-control to know the reaction was probably more my perception than his intended tone.

Next, I called my sister-in-law, but the call went to voice mail. I didn't know what Sharon would know yet, so I chose my words carefully. "I'm reminding you that I have an extra bedroom if you need it. I won't even make you share it with Mister Tibbs. Call me, okay?"

I wanted to ask her if she'd gotten a different lawyer for Ambrose, but she was probably still teaching and wouldn't have had time. She or Ambrose would probably call Ken and get the same recommendation.

I was still sitting on the ground when Syl opened the side door to his house. He walked quickly down the steps toward me, holding up his house phone. "Sandi. She said she couldn't get through on your cell."

I whispered. "Did she tell you?"

He nodded. "I'm sorry."

My eyes filled. "It's not true."

He stooped and put a hand on my shoulder, handing the phone to me as he did. "I'm sure you're right."

I gulped a sob. "Sandi? What do you know?"

A wet feeling at my elbow made me look down. Mister Tibbs’ head was cocked, and if a dog can look concerned, she did. Syl reached over and scratched her head.

Sandi spoke fast. "Ryan's mother's cousin at the sheriff's office said that a lot had to do with Ambrose's fingerprints on the knife. How he was holding it."

I almost smiled at the idea that one of Gallagher's deputies was passing information to a reporter. "What does that mean?"

Syl stood and extended a hand. I took it and stood.

"I'm not sure," Sandi said.

"Give me a minute." I closed my eyes, envisioning the scene the day we found Peter Frost.

Frost was on the barn floor, lying between Ambrose and where Granger and I stood. Ambrose knelt next to Frost, with the knife in his right hand.

How was he holding the knife?

Ambrose's palm extended over the knife hilt, with his pinky near the blade. His thumb was wrapped around the hilt, coming to rest near the edge of his curled fingers. A murderer might have used the same method to grasp and thrust a knife, but how else might Ambrose have held it to remove the knife?

With a sick feeling, I realized I would have grasped it almost the opposite, with my thumb and index finger close to the blade. Sort of a backhand grip. That didn't mean everyone would have handled the knife my way to remove it.

Or to stab someone. In fact, on TV I thought murderers held a knife quite differently and thrust in and up. But those attacks were generally planned.

Ambrose didn't plot to stab Frost in a certain way. He wasn't a killer.

I felt chilled. Ambrose was right-handed. If he had removed the knife with his left hand, the sheriff and his deputies might have figured Ambrose would have had a hard time stabbing with that hand. But anyone would have used their dominant hand to remove the knife. There had to be more to it than that.

I opened my eyes. "Okay, Sandi, you might say he held it in a way that somebody could use it to kill Frost, but I thought that would also have been the most logical way to pull it out."

She blew out a breath. "Damn it, I wish he'd left it alone."

"Me, too. I'm going to see if Dr. MacGregor will let me read his ME report." I knew he wouldn't. I'd have to get it from Ambrose's lawyer. Assuming she would let me see it.

"Okay. I'll use any source I can, but the sheriff and his deputies have been really close-mouthed on this one."

I pushed the end button and turned to Syl, who stood a few feet away, staring at me as Mister Tibbs wound around his legs.

I handed Syl his phone. "Thanks."

He frowned. "Drive me out to your parents' place. It's nearby, right?"

I hesitated. "The police tape might still be up."

"Or might not. You'll feel better if you're doing something."

I started to say I wanted to be anywhere but that barn, but maybe Syl and I would see something the sheriff missed. Not likely, but worth a try.

"Okay. Let's take your truck."

When Syl gave me a sort of questioning look, I added, "No one will think much if you drive onto the property. Probably lots of people are, if the place isn't cordoned off. My pickup might get noticed more."

He went to get his keys, and I looked down at Mister Tibbs. "You have to stay on my lap. And don't try to lick Syl when he's driving."

I got her blanket and leash from my pickup and opened Syl's unlocked passenger door. I rarely do something a friend might resent, but I didn't want Syl to say that Mister Tibbs had to stay at his place.

Syl pulled the driver's door shut, looked at me cradling Mister Tibbs on his truck's front seat, and then turned to lock the door. I couldn't see his expression.

As Syl drove the couple miles to the farm, I stared at flat fields of corn and soybeans, not really seeing them. It made no sense. Even if Ambrose and I arrived close to the time someone killed Frost, we got the calls to go to the farm. We weren't lying in wait for Frost. Especially Ambrose. His drive from Dubuque had taken hours.

"Any ideas?" Syl asked.

"Surely they've looked at his phone to see what cell towers he used. They'll know he was on the road."

Syl turned into the farm. "They must think there is a very narrow window for time of death."

I thought about this as I got out of his truck. Reporters in small Iowa towns don't cover murders on anything like a regular basis. I remembered what Sandi had said about Frost's body temperature and suppressed a shiver.

I placed a leashed Mister Tibbs on the ground as my eyes swept the area between the house and barn. The main barn doors were closed. A short piece of yellow police tape hung loosely on the metal ring used to grip the barn door that faced the house and slide it along its metal track. The tape dangled as if left behind.

I walked to the barn, Syl a pace or two behind me and Mister Tibbs straining on her leash ahead of me. She had wanted to go in this barn for a long time, but I never let her.

I yanked on the ring, and the door slid on its track as I pulled it open.

Syl had been taking in the house, barn, and cornfield that came almost up to the back of the barn. He looked into the barn itself. "Dark place."

"I'll open the back door, so there'll be light from two sides." I looked down at Mister Tibbs. "Can you hold her leash for a second?"

He took it, and I shook a finger at her. "Stay down."

I walked the sixty feet across the barn, glancing right and left. Even in the dim light, a chalk outline showed how Frost's body had lain. I forced my eyes from it and slid the back door along its track. Light beamed in, but not as brightly as with the front door, since the tall corn stalks were close to the back of the barn.

I met Syl and Mister Tibbs at the center of the building, where Syl looked up.

I could have told him that many years ago a second level was beneath the steep roof. It covered maybe a quarter of the space, and wasn't closed in.

Mostly the second tier was used to store bales of hay, since it was drier than on the ground. When the wood started to rot, my father tore it down and didn't replace it. He could make more in corn and soybeans, so he got rid of the animals.

"Does it look the same?" Syl asked.

"I hadn't been in here for two years until the day somebody murdered Frost." I described why I thought boxes might have been stored on the floor. "Now, you can't really tell because there are hundreds of footprints from the sheriff's people and EMTs."

"And last you knew it was empty?"

"Yes. But with the corn this high, if someone pulled around to the back, they wouldn't be visible from the road. Keep the front door shut, and you'd be in your own little world."

"Well, if nothing should be here, I'll walk one side and you walk the other."

His matter-of-fact approach had a calming effect. "Sounds good. Come on Mister Tibbs."

I walked back to the front door, and then she and I walked slowly on our side. I looked at the floor, and Mister Tibbs sneezed several times as she smelled every inch of the dirt.

Near the far end of the barn, she stopped walking and smelled vigorously. I figured she'd found a mouse scent and bent over to gently raise her head.

A dark spot on the dirt caught my eye. The black spot was about the size of a half-dollar, not even an inch from the wall.

At my height, I'd missed it. I stooped next to Mister Tibbs and ran my hand down her back. "Good girl."

I squatted and wriggled the dirt until I had some on my finger. It looked like the black powder used in ammunition, though it didn't have the acrid smell of a fired gun. Another faint odor seemed familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

It's not uncommon to have explosives on a farm, especially if water runs through the property and beavers build dams. However, my father had only kept a couple of rifles to kill coyotes that went after dogs or chickens.

I sniffed again. The black residue smelled like sulfur, but not as much as the stink bombs always produced at the high school on April Fool's Day.

The black powder could have had a lot of uses, but my Dad would never have kept any of it in the barn. Temperatures fluctuated too much, and super high temps could contribute to a fire.

Syl spoke from behind me. "Find something?"

Lost in my thoughts, I almost fell over with surprise. "Mister Tibbs did." I stood and held out my hand. "Some black powder. Probably nothing, but I don't know why…wait a minute."

The sound of a couple of roman candles whizzing around the farm yard came to me. "Somebody shot off a couple of roman candles out here the other day. I bet they were using the barn."

"Shooting them in here? This wood would go up pretty fast if it ran into sparks."

I wiped my hands on my jeans. "I bet someone hid stuff in here while they got ready to sell it. Kids drive down to Missouri and come back with a trunk full of stuff to light around Fourth of July."

Syl glanced around the barn. "I guess Missouri's not that far. I didn't look for anything as fine as black powder. I'll walk my part again."

I stood silently, thinking and gazing around the barn. Whatever brought people here, there couldn't have been a lot of traffic. Neighbors would have noticed.

Vacant properties attracted bored teenagers and the occasional hitchhiker or homeless person. Most weren't destructive, but some were. But the barn had no damage, not even trash lying around.

Somebody cleaned up.

That reinforced that whoever had been in here, whether the day of the murder or prior to it, used the barn for something illegal. If it had been a meth lab, the smell might have carried to other farms. At least to the road. Plus, methamphetamine makers were notoriously careless and messy.

"Oh." I stooped and picked up Mister Tibbs. The chemicals used to make meth were really dangerous, not for a dog's nose. Perhaps the barn had not been a meth kitchen.

Mister Tibbs did not want to be held. After a few seconds, I reasoned that if chemical residue was on the floor, it would deter her from sniffing a spot. I put her down.

I walked to the barn's back door, and Syl called from the front. "Don't see anything except a bunch of footprints from all the police and ambulance guys."

"Same here." I stared at the cornfield, which started about six feet behind the barn. The corn rose above my head. Movies show people running through the stalks, but they don't depict the real world, where thick groups of plants are unyielding and can easily cut any uncovered skin.

I didn't think anyone had used the field for cover. No, if they came into the barn they would probably drive a car or truck behind it and go in through the back door. With the front door shut, no one would see them.

Syl joined me and stared into the fields. "Meditating?"

"Ruminating. Someone used this barn. Maybe not the day Frost was killed, but they were doing something."

Syl walked to my right, and something he did made a clicking sound. "Why didn't you say there was a light?"

I looked at the wall he stood near. Two small, round lights, evidently battery operated, hung on the wall at a height of about seven feet. They were the kind that you turned on and off by pushing on the small, plastic globe.

"Because we only had one electric light in here, and the electricity's been off for ages."

Syl pulled one light off the wall. It had been affixed with Velcro and made a sort of sandpaper-on-wood sound as he removed it. "Bet there were more."

"Agreed." I scanned the barn. "Wish I had the high-beam flashlight I keep in the truck."

Syl had a wimpy flashlight in his glove box, but it shone more brightly than a mobile phone's screen. Twenty minutes later the barn was full of dog prints, and we had found several more spots that had Velcro on the wall, the lights having been removed.

"You know," I said, "they must have used these only during daylight. If there had been lights on in the barn at night, someone would've called me."

"Maybe," Syl said, "but these weren't powerful lights. I doubt anyone would notice if only one was lit. Now what?"

I took my phone from the back pocket of my jeans. "I'm playing by the rules. Maybe the sheriff can find some fingerprints near where the lights were."