I drove back into town and stopped at Ron’s jewelry store. In a parking stall in front of the store was a full-dress, made-in-Wisconsin Harley Davidson motorcycle, a two-wheeled advertisement that said Ron Carver was in. I parked and walked by the cycle. It was immaculate, chrome and leather all polished to a sheen. The gas tank had a custom paint job, flames trailing back from either side, joining in the middle to create a vortex.
Chrome exhaust pipes ran along the side and out by the back wheel, the chrome a little discolored from the heat. There are motorcycles and there are motorcycles. This one was really something, made for the open road.
I walked into the store and saw that Ron was holding court with his employees. He glanced up at me and gave me the sign for just a minute. The jewelry cases were full of every kind of jewelry imaginable. Hundreds of pairs of earrings, necklaces, and rings were all perfectly displayed in lighted cases. From plain silver bands to stone-encrusted pendants, it was all there.
At the end of the counter, I saw a different kind of display—a Plexiglas case that held custom knives. Not your run-of-the-mill hardware store fare, these were each handcrafted with the utmost attention to detail; locking folders and fixed blades dominated the selection. But down in the corner were several elegant little pocket knives. The handles were made from varied materials ranging from wood with beautiful grain to what looked like ivory. There was one that was a single blade about three inches long, and its handles were made of some type of highly figured wood. The blade was long and slim with a small “up” curve at the tip. It was a beauty. I needed to remember to ask Ron to let me take a look at it.
Ron Carver did not just walk into a room, he took the place over with his gravel voice, barrel chest, white beard and hair. His voice boomed, “Johnny boy, I see you made it to see ol’ Ron. Come on, let’s get out of here and go get a beer or whatever. We have got to talk.”
With that, he walked out of the store, across the street, and into the Fisherman Bar. He never looked back to see if I was following because he was the kind of guy that just assumed I would. And if I didn’t, he wouldn’t care. He had a strong stride and seemed to be a little bowlegged. He walked like a man that meant it and left a wake of vibes that said “mess with me at your peril.”
He slid into a booth, and I joined him.
A cute waitress hustled over to us.
“Hi, Ron! Do you want the usual?”
“I would, sweetheart. Have the cook grill up another steak sandwich for young Johnny here, too, and get him something to drink.”
I ordered a Diet Pepsi and Ron laughed.
“I gotta say, Johnny, it’s good to see you. You probably don’t remember me from when you were a kid, but I was around. Back then I was too busy building up my business, working all the time. Even then, your uncle Nick and I were best friends. He and I had independent streaks that really don’t require much social support. Besides that, we were both incapable of listening to chitter-chatter small talk. So we found that each other’s company suited our needs just fine.
“Your aunt Rose, though, just wanted to kill us sometimes. She was always doing something, organizing this and organizing that. If there was a good cause that needed a friend, Rose was the girl. She would tell Nick and I that we needed to show up at these fundraising events. She told me that it would be bad for my business if I didn’t. She told Nick it would be bad for his health if he didn’t. We tried it for about a year, but social butterflies we were not. We didn’t cause any trouble, at least not much, but some people are just not made for social small talk. Rose got tired of talking us into going, and we got tired of going about the same time. She was a smart one, that Rose.”
Ron stopped for a second and took a big sip of his beer. I could see in his blue eyes that his remembrance made him revisit the sense of loss he still felt. Sadness that never really goes away.
“So get this, one night she had us both in monkey suits and was taking us to the hospital fundraiser. Christ, every time Nick put on a tie I was sure his head would pop. His goddamned face would get so red. Well anyway, we get there, and before we walk in, Rose says she has a deal for us. We don’t have to go to any more fundraisers if we are willing to make a cash donation to the cause. We could buy our way out of jail so to speak. We didn’t even bat an eye, ‘How much?’ Nick asked as he reached for his wallet. ‘Not so fast, boys,’ Rose replied. ‘Nick, your donation cannot come from our household account or savings. It needs to come out of your shop/gun/gear fund. Ron, I don’t care where yours comes from.’
“Jesus, I thought Nick was gonna have a stroke right there. Rose was raiding his private little cash account, the account he had held sacred, the walking-around money he had gleaned from this and that. Aunt Rose had him. A continued life of chitter-chatter or a decrease in the net value of his most valuable cash resources. I didn’t much care what your uncle did. I was not going to miss my chance and I went for it. ‘Sounds good to me, Rose. How much?’ ‘We will start with ten times the event ticket price,’ She answered. Tickets for tonight are $25 each, your donation would be $250.’
“It was a no-brainer. I had a blank check in my wallet and wrote it out with a pen she just happened to have. Nick, however, was just standing there looking like a deer in the goddamn headlights. I knew he had been saving for a new milling machine for the shop, and this would put a dent in things, but he was more worried about the long-term consequences; Rose did a bunch of charity work, and it wouldn’t take long for him to feel the pinch. She took my check, waved goodbye, grabbed Nick by the arm, and dragged him toward the door. They almost got inside when Nick stopped stone dead. He didn’t say a word. He turned his back to Rose and pulled out his wallet. From a side compartment he pulled out some hidden bills, he carefully went through them, put some back, and handed Rose two hundreds and a fifty. She kissed him on the cheek and went inside. That Rose was quite a gal. She loved Nick and tolerated me. What more could you ask for?”
Ron got a misty, wistful look in his eyes, “Yeah, Nick and I had some great adventures. They don’t make many guys like us anymore. I miss him. I haven’t had a decent piece of blueberry pie since Rose died. She used to send us out into the bush to collect wild blueberries. Nick had these antique blueberry scoops he bought at the flea market, and they worked perfectly. In a good year, we would collect a couple of big buckets full. Then Rose would turn those into pie sent from heaven. God, I loved her blueberry pie for breakfast.”
Ron jogged my memory, and I said, “I used to love her blueberry pies too. I remember her putting a big scoop of West’s vanilla on top. I picked blueberries, too. We used to go out to Bear Island, and they were thick. One time out there, I was picking on one side of the island, and Uncle Nick was on the other. For every blueberry I put in the bucket, I ate two. By the time we got back in the boat to go home, I had reached my blueberry saturation level, and I was looking a little green, but I was happy. Uncle Nick just laughed at my almost empty bucket.”
We just sat there for a moment. I was thinking about the picture Ron had painted of my uncle and aunt. I longed to see them once more, just one more night by the fire, one more piece of pie. Just a few more minutes to make up for time lost.
“Enough reminiscing, Johnny. We got a lot of ground to cover and work to do. You and I are going to find the son of a bitch that ran him down. I got some pretty good ideas about where to start looking. There’s a fair bunch of snakes in the woodpile around here. We are going to light it on fire and smoke them out. We’ll make them pay, Johnny. We are sure as shit going to make them pay.”
Steak sandwiches, a Diet Pepsi, and a glass of the darkest beer I had ever seen were served.
Ron ate like a man who was in a hurry but really liked what he was eating.
“This dark beer is a local brew. They don’t sell much of it, but there are a few locals that won’t drink anything else, so they keep it on tap. You can damn near get a spoon to stand straight up in it. It’s kind of like a meal all in itself. You ought to give it a try next time you’re drinking beer. It will put hair on your—”
The waitress interrupted, “Can I get you boys anything else?”
Neither of us needed anything. She put our check on the table, and as she turned her head to look at Ron, I noticed the beautiful sparkling earrings she was wearing. “So, Ron, what time are you going to pick me up tonight? I’m looking forward to that motorcycle ride you promised.”
“Around six or so. Looks like it’s going to be a nice night for it,” he replied.
“See you then, handsome,” she said, as she sashayed away with a little glance back to make sure Ron was watching, and she wasn’t disappointed.
We finished up and walked back out on the street. Ron suggested we go back up to his store. He had an office in the back that could be accessed from the showroom or the alley behind. The office was a mixture of hi-tech and log cabin. A bank of five super high-resolution security cameras were above a desk that was against what appeared to be one-way glass, making it so we could see everything going on in the store, and no one would know we were watching. In another corner, a fishing vest and wooden handled net hung on an antique coat rack, and a fly rod leaned against them. Hanging from another one of the hooks was an old cowboy belt and holster, made of black hand-tooled leather and adorned with silver conchos. In the holster was a vintage Colt single action army revolver with what looked like real ivory grips. Leaning in a corner beneath the coat rack was an AR-15 style rifle, made of black metal and plastic with a high capacity magazine sticking out the bottom. There was a well-worn leather recliner, and next to it a small table with a pile of magazines on top. A flat screen TV was mounted on the wall across from it. The remote control for the set was duct taped to a pine board about four inches wide and two feet long.
As I looked at it, he said, “I kept losing that remote. Haven’t lost it once since I taped it to that board.”
Then Ron added, “I knew that you would come here and help me look into what happened to Nick, so I waited for you. I know some things I haven’t shared with anyone. The fact is, I don’t know who to trust, so in that case, it is better to keep your ears open and your mouth shut. Now that you’re here, it’s time to get moving. I just needed a little backup.”
I started to speak, but he shushed me. “Listen to what I have to say first. Maybe it will answer some of your questions.”
He paced back and forth. “First off, they said there were no witnesses to the murder, and I am calling it murder because that’s exactly what it was. There were two witnesses, Nick and the bastard who ran him down. I don’t know about anybody else. No one came forward anyway.”
In a sense, perpetrators and victims are witnesses. This becomes most evident when there is more than one perp who rats out his or her buddy. The perp becomes an eyewitness—happens more often than you would think. Honor among thieves is not alive in today’s criminal population.
“Your uncle didn’t die right away. He had sure been killed but hung on for a while. He saw the driver. He saw the truck. He wasn’t himself, but even half there Nick was smarter than anyone else around here. It took him a while, but the story he gave me is one helluva lot different than what the cops came up with.
“The truck was a white Ford Expedition. I brought in pictures of every truck I could find, and he picked it right out. Then I showed him a color chart from one of the dealer brochures, and he pointed to white.
“He was getting weaker by the minute, but he wanted to tell me as much as he could. However, both of us knew that the end was close.
“Here is what I figured happened: Nick walked over to the café to have a cup and a little breakfast every day, rain or shine, 90 degrees or minus 20. He liked the place because the food was good, the coffee was strong, and the joint opened at 5:00 a.m. He loved to walk. I think it helped heal his mind after Rose died. His route took him along the lakeshore, then to a trail that paralleled the highway but was 100 or so yards off. The trail is in pretty good shape because it sees some semi-regular use mainly by locals on ATVs and snow machines. Nick loved watching wildlife, and he’d write in his notebook about every different kind of bird or critter he saw. He read a bunch of stuff by a guy named Leopold and really got into something called phenology. Anyway, he took very detailed notes about everything he encountered on his walks.”
“Do the police have the notebook?” I asked.
“Hold on. You’re getting ahead of me. The answer is they don’t have it, I do. We’ll get to that. Just let me finish.”
“Okay, sorry.”
“Here is what he was able to tell me about the day he got run down. He was just taking his normal walk, spotted a bird that he hadn’t seen before, and was stopped on the trail looking at it through his field glasses. When he got to the road, he stopped to record his sighting, and that’s when he heard the truck. It must have been coming fast. He was in damn good shape, but he couldn’t move quick enough to get out of the way. He said the truck aimed right at him, but he couldn’t see the driver. He had no doubt the guy was out to get him. That’s the last he remembered and pretty much the last thing he spoke, except for the words, ‘My journal.’
“I went and talked to the sheriff and gave him the information I had. He listened to me and then called an investigator in. I think they already had their mind made up that it was an accidental hit and run. I felt like they were just trying to humor me. I did my best to convince them. Before I left, I asked if they had recovered Nick’s journal, because I was sure when his nephew, you I mean, got here that you would want it. They looked over the evidence list and found no mention of a journal, and neither one recalled ever seeing one.
“I was pretty pissed off when I left there. The next morning, I hauled my ass out to the scene of the accident and started looking around for myself. After about an hour, I saw something yellow mostly buried by leaves. By God, it was his journal. He used these notebooks with waterproof pages so it was still as good as new. I put it in my pocket and kept looking around, but I didn’t find anything else.
“When I got back here, I started looking through the notebook and found a notation made two days before the accident. A couple of the seasonal lake homes had been burglarized, so the sheriff put out a notice in the paper and on the radio asking folks to write down the descriptions of any strange vehicles or people they saw in their area. Pretty much everybody participates in the Northwoods neighborhood watch anyway and especially when they put out a special alert.
“Nick had come upon a white Ford Expedition parked off the road, where it was out of sight. His hiding spot was on Nick’s trail. He must have thought things looked suspicious because he wrote down everything he could remember. And if Nick was anything, he was a detail man. As soon as the driver saw Nick, he slammed the truck in reverse and took off. I figure the sonuvabitch was looking things over, figuring the best place to take out your uncle. He got a little confused and pulled into the wrong trail. Nick saw his killer two days before he was run down. This was no accident; that bastard was stalking him.”
“Did he get a plate number?” I asked.
“No plate on the front, and one of those temporary cardboard plates on the back. It was covered with mud, and he couldn’t make out the letters or numbers.”
“Did he report the truck as part of the watch program?”
“I would think he would have, but neither Chief Timmy nor the sheriff’s department had record of a report,” Ron answered impatiently.
I didn’t interrupt anymore and listened to the rest of the story. My uncle was murdered, premeditated, intentionally killed. The weight of the situation settled squarely on my shoulders. I had nothing to say. In fact, neither of us spoke for a while, keeping our heads down and avoiding eye contact to avoid the possibility of sharing feelings.
Our quiet was disturbed by a low but audible beeping. A red light at the bottom corner of one of the screens had started to blink triggered by an employee. On the screen, one of Ron’s salespeople was showing a customer a tray of rings.
Ron and I looked closer and backed up the video. You could see that the customer had passed his hand over the ring tray and selected a ring from the back row. When he brought his hand back with the ring he had selected, two of the previously filled slots in the front row were now empty.
“My people are trained to be cool in these cases. No one will do anything to spook the thief. They just go on like nothin’ happened.”
Ron hit the speed dial on his cell, notified the dispatcher of the situation, and gave a description of the thief. Then he told me to follow him, and we ducked out the back door and came around to the front, lingering on the corner like a couple of tourists. The guy walked out of the store, and Ron blocked his way.
At that moment, a squad pulled up. The thief, a thirty-something man with a goatee and a spider tattoo on his neck, did the look around—fight, flight, or give it up. Ron reached his hand inside his leather jacket and turned it back a little just so the guy could see his hand on the butt of a gun. The sight of the gun helped make up his mind for him, and his shoulders slumped as the cop approached. He emptied his pockets, and there were two of Ron’s rings worth a couple thousand dollars. The dude was up from Chicago on vacation and figured he would make a few extra bucks while he was here. The cop cuffed him and put him in the back of the car. Ron said thanks to the cop and sent him off with a “Book ’em, Danno.”
“We are always on the lookout for thieves,” Ron said. “It’s a big problem during the tourist season. They come up or over from the cities figuring that small towns are easy pickings. We all got wise to this long ago. It was your uncle Nick, actually, who helped us design a surveillance system, and Chief Timmy held training during the winter for business owners and staff. Each counter has a hidden switch. When one of the girls sees something they don’t like, they push the button, and the camera locks into a frame-by-frame save mode. Usually I’m in the back working, so I monitor like I did today. If I’m not here, one of the others usually is.
“Our little town lost tens of thousands of dollars to thieves every year before these systems. Now it’s about a tenth of that. I tell my people to never confront anyone and call the law. A couple of years ago, the gal from the leather store went nose to nose with some guy from the city whose pockets were full of her stuff, and he pulled a gun. Not worth dying over something like that. There’s not one damn thing in my store that’s worth more than my employees. The D.A. here doesn’t screw around with these guys either. Many a big city shithead has found himself cooling his heels in the Namekagon County jail for six months. Our local criminals don’t care for the big city boys, so they don’t enjoy their stay very much.”
I was pretty sure that while Ron forbid his sales staff from confronting a thief, the same rules did not apply to him. He was not the kind of guy to watch his merchandise go walking off down the street.
We went back in the office, and Ron got right to it. “So what are we going to do now. What’s our next step?”
“First off, I’m hoping you could answer a couple of questions for me.”
“Shoot. I’m all ears.”
“There are some people around here that are really interested in what I am doing or not doing. You’ve been around a lot longer than I have, so maybe you can help me understand. I have got to ask about my uncle’s choice in lawyers. He was always a remarkable judge of character, yet he ends up with Derek Anderson for a lawyer. What is the deal with that?”
“That’s an easy one. Derek was working as a junior partner for Jonas McMann, a lawyer in town forever. Jonas was a honest and hardworking gentleman. He was still sharp and practicing law in his late eighties but took on two associates to help him with the day-to-day stuff. One of the associates, I don’t remember his name, lasted about a year or so and moved on. Derek was from the general area and stayed.
“Jonas used to love to fish fall muskies. With him, you better make sure you had your legal problems all fixed up before fall. If not, they’d have to wait until winter. One day, he was out musky fishing, and when he didn’t come back by early evening, his wife called the sheriff. A warden found him in his boat a little while later. He had passed on. Interesting thing, he still had his fishing rod gripped in his hands. The warden saw that the tip was jiggling and hand lined it in. At the end of the line was a very tired, but still healthy 50-plus-inch musky. The warden gripped the fish, worked the lure out, and watched it swim off. Nick told me that he was surprised that more people didn’t keel over when they had a big musky on the line. So, Derek just took over the practice and most people who had Jonas for a lawyer stayed with him.”
“Is he your lawyer?”
“Nope. I never liked him much, and when Jonas died, I went to a friend of mine in Spooner.”
“Did Uncle Nick say anything about working with Derek? Derek did all the estate planning, and I assume he and Uncle Nick had to work together quite a bit.”
“Nope. That’s not right. Jonas did Nick’s estate planning. I know because I was a witness to the signing of the papers. I am also listed as the executor in the event that something happened to you. I was supposed to take care of distributing his assets to various things he thought were worthwhile. The property was to go into a trust, and he was pretty specific about its disposition if you weren’t around. He agreed to do the same for me. Matter of fact, he pushed me pretty hard to get my planning done. As I recall, at the time he was greatly concerned that my penchant for riding my Harley fast over these backroads would soon be my undoing.”
“Do you have kids or other family, Ron?”
“No kids that I know about anyway, and I am not married at the moment. That could change any day but I am between wives right now.”
“Does ‘change any day’ mean you have someone special in mind?”
“Not really, but you never know what I am going to do until I do it.”
“Derek was the one that first contacted me about my aunt and uncle. He was pretty cordial to start with but was really pushing me to sell the property. When I told him I wouldn’t, our relationship went straight downhill. He obviously had a vested interest in the sale of the property. Clearly, he has his own agenda. I finally got to the point where I hired my own lawyer to work with him. I am getting strange vibes. There’s something else going on with Derek that involves me. I don’t know what it is, but I think it has to do with the property.”
“What did he tell you about the property?”
I went over everything thing I knew or suspected up to that point. Ron was an attentive listener and didn’t say much during my recount of the activities. After I had finished, he began asking me questions. That’s when I learned something very interesting about Ron Carver. His outward appearance would fool many people into thinking he was just an old rounder, battered by the storm of life, likely unable to string enough words together to make a sentence. They would be wrong. When Ron asked me questions, it was apparent that not only had he been listening but could recount every word I had spoken verbatim. His questions were clear and succinct and in better chronological order than they had been when I presented them.
“So Derek Anderson brought you an offer to purchase the property and recommended that you sign off and take the money?”
“Correct.”
“Did he share with you the name of this most anxious buyer?”
“He told me he didn’t know. He said he was working on behalf of another law firm. That was another lie. Subsequently though, I have met the guy. His name is David Stone.”
“David Stone!? David Stone is the guy who wants the property?”
“That is what he said his name was.”
“Johnny boy, I am going to have the girls make up a fresh pot of coffee. When I get back, I need to hear the whole story. Don’t leave anything out. I want to know about Stone and anyone else you might have met since you arrived. You’ve no doubt met some dangerous characters when you were a cop, but it is unlikely that you’ve ever met anyone as dangerous as David Stone, for he is truly a dangerous man.”
A few minutes later I was telling Ron everything I could think of about meeting Stone, Lawler, the chief, Julie, and Bud. I found that recounting all that had happened since my arrival helped me sort things out. The back and forth discussion that followed blew some of the mist away, and I could see the events more clearly. My investigator’s eyes became focused. The conclusion was simple. David Stone was running this show. Anderson and probably Lawler were doing his bidding for him, trying to get me to sign while scaring me off at the same time. Carrot in one hand, stick in the other. Stone didn’t get to be a wealthy businessman by spending money foolishly. If he was willing to pay more than the property was worth, it wasn’t for his dream home.
Ron didn’t know much about Lawler. He had heard lots of rumors about the guy but didn’t know much else. Chief Timmy was a good man and usually a good judge of character, just like my uncle. But he had hired Lawler, and Uncle Nick had hired Anderson. Two good men hire two bad men, and the bad men have some sort of unknown relationship.
Coincidence or pieces of the puzzle?
I didn’t tell Ron about the safe hidden in the file cabinet. I sensed I could trust him but felt it best to keep some of my cards close to my chest.
Stone, Lawler, and Anderson were our three principals of interest that we knew. The driver of the Expedition was still unknown. At least one of them had something to do with Uncle Nick’s murder; maybe they all did.
We didn’t have a motive. The property was clearly at the center of this, but that didn’t explain why killing Uncle Nick would get them any closer to owning it. Money is a powerful motive. I had seen store clerks shot over the fifty bucks in their register. Someone getting killed over millions is not very hard to believe. Nick wouldn’t sell. Maybe they thought I would just take the money and run. Maybe now they intended to kill me, too. There were too many complications, too many pieces of the puzzle missing. I still needed to know two things: what they were looking for when they trashed the desk and what was in the safe.
Ron had some business to attend to, and we both needed a break. I was going to go out to the lake and move what little I had into the cabin. Before I left, I needed to catch up with the insurance man.
Dennis Targett was in and sitting at his desk, putting new line on a musky-sized fishing reel. I felt like he was genuinely glad to see me.
“Hey, John, pull up a chair,” he said. “I can’t stop now or I will be fighting line loops forever. Changing out your line often is a requirement on a musky rig. Those big boys really stress fishing line, and nothing will make you sicker than to have your line break when you set the hook on a big fish.”
He was talking to me but focused on his line winding technique using every digit available to guide the line onto the reel. He had a clever way of using his thumb to keep tension on the line making sure it was wound on tight.
“Lot of folks use this new braided line, and it does seem to last longer. I am a monofilament guy. I think it’s harder for the fish to see. It doesn’t last as long, but I think I catch more fish. What kind of line do you like?” he continued.
“I don’t know that I currently have a preference. I’m just using the gear Uncle Nick had set up.”
“Hmm, you should probably change that line out. I’ll send you home with a spool of my favorite stuff. It’s called Newton’s Ghost. Best stuff I ever came across. Small company but a top-notch product.”
He finished with his new line and held the tag end in place with a wide rubber band around the reel, and then set it off to the side. He opened a file drawer and pulled out a file that he laid on the desk.
“Your uncle had a life insurance policy that he had paid up years ago. It had a pretty good cash value, but I don’t think he needed the money, so he never asked about cashing it in. He had an option of reinvesting the dividends to pay additional premiums and up the value. That’s what he did, and the company just did it automatically. The value is substantial, and your share comes out to just about $200,000. The remainder goes to the other beneficiary.”
“Other beneficiary?” I asked.
“You were the only one listed for a long time, but somewhere along the way your uncle filed a change directly with the company. He could have done it right here, but for some reason, he decided to work directly with the home office. I have a copy of the form right here,” he said as he slid it across the desk.
I looked at the form, and it took my breath away. Uncle Nick had filed a change of beneficiary form three weeks before he was run down. The person named would receive a half a million dollars upon his death. It wasn’t the money that took my breath away. It was the timing of the change and the name of the new beneficiary: Julie Carlson.
Targett pulled the form back. “Are you okay, John? Would you like some water or something?”
“Does she know? Does Julie know about this?”
“She sure does. We finished up the transfer paper a while ago. Yours is the last disbursement.”
I didn’t, I couldn’t, respond. A dark cloud smothered my mind. Julie Carlson had deceived me. She played me like the fool I was. Why had I even come to this place? I must have been delusional to think that Musky Falls was some kind of nirvana. How stupid could I be? Moving from one place to another doesn’t change the world. Deceit, heartache, and evil are everywhere.
I barely heard Dennis as he told me that by signing the document of receipt I would authorize them to electronically transfer the money to any account, checking, savings, or investment. They just needed the right account number. I gave it to him and signed a check release form. The money would be available within 24 hours.
We shook hands, and I stumbled out the door. I got into the jeep and drove over to Musky Falls Autobody. They were just pulling my car out. I parked the jeep in the lot, and they handed me the keys to my car.
“Good as new. No bill either. Dennis took care of everything. If you want, you can just leave the jeep here. I have to go down to the garage a little later, and I’ll drop it off.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. I got in, started the car, and backed out, then punched the accelerator as I hit the highway. I needed to get some answers and get them now. I was going to start with innocent, sweet, little treacherous Julie Carlson. I knew she’d be at school for the start of the summer session. It would be better for me to wait until she was home, but waiting wasn’t happening. After driving the jeep, my car seemed like it had wings as I flew east out of town.