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I waited until the Sunday services were over before breaking the news to Bonnie. It had been too late to call her the night before and I didn’t want to upset her before church. I had been going to her church most Sundays, ever since Julie died. We were in the church basement where several of the congregation gathered for coffee and donuts after the service. Poor Freddie stayed home and missed out on the donuts.
She had been listening intently with elbows on the table, holding her cup in both hands. “Why did you wait so long to tell me, Jake? This changes everything.”
“I couldn’t very well bring it up in front of all your friends. I had to wait until I got you alone.”
“Are you sure it’s Lisa?”
“Pretty sure. Here, take a look.” I pulled my smartphone from my jacket pocket and opened the pictures of the Escalade.”
She adjusted the rope holding her reading glasses around her neck, and put them on the tip of her nose. “It’s too small.”
“You can zoom in with your thumb and index finger.”
She raised her eyes so she could see over her glasses without removing them. The look she gave me didn’t require any words to make her point.
“Here, let me show you,” I said, taking my phone back and zooming in on the picture for her before handing it back.
She adjusted her glasses again and looked down at the picture, then let them fall off her nose. “It sure looks like her, doesn’t it?”
I reclaimed my phone before she had a chance to drop it. “Here’s another,” I said after swiping to the next picture and zooming in for her.
“I don’t suppose you have any of her straight on? Oh, of course not, we would have had to get in front of her to do that.”
“But I do, my fair lady. Look in the side mirror.” I took the phone back, zoomed in further, and gave it to her again.
“My God, Jake! It is Lisa!” She suddenly realized where we were and clasped her left hand to her mouth. A couple at the next table looked over at us, and then went back to their conversation when Bonnie returned their stare.
We both pretended nothing had happened. Bonnie quietly sipped on her coffee while I took another bite of my chocolate-iced, cake donut. I wanted so badly to dip it in my coffee, but visions of my mother frowning stopped me.
Bonnie finished off her sugar donut and washed it down with the last of her sweetened coffee before speaking. It made me wonder if she would be a candidate for diabetes with all the sweets she consumed. “So what’s next, Sherlock? Do we show these to Sergeant Cruz when we go see her tomorrow?”
“I thought you had to go back to Margot’s tomorrow?”
“I’d rather have my toenails pulled out by the roots than miss seeing Cruz’s expression when we tell her we solved the case.”
I had to laugh. “Hold on my dear, Watson. Even if it is Lisa in that Escalade, how does that prove she murdered anyone?”
“She tried to kill you, Jake! It’s obvious we were getting too close to solving the case!” Our neighbors stared at us and didn’t bother to hide it. Bonnie showed some level of restraint, considering where we were, and only glared at them. I was confident she wouldn’t salute with her finger, but I wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t stick out her tongue.
The couple looked away then gathered up their cups and napkins to leave. Bonnie turned back toward me, smiling. She started to say something, but stopped. Her smile went from one of those happy emoticons to a sad one. “Okay, so they don’t prove anything other than she was driving a Cadillac Escalade. And we don’t even have proof it was the same Caddy that tried to kill you, do we?”
“Exactly, Bon. I think it’s time I went back to Debbie’s and looked in her garage. If there is a Cadillac parked in there, I should have the proof I need.”
“How’s that, Jake?”
“There’s a small spot of paint on my Wagoneer’s front bumper. I must have tapped the rear of her car when she slammed on her brakes. If the paint matches, I can at least file a road rage complaint against her when I see Cruz on Monday.”
Bonnie’s posture stiffened and her blue-gray eyes turned a shade grayer. “You mean we, don’t you? I told you, there’s no way I’m missing out on this. Don’t think for one minute that you’re going back to Debbie’s alone.”
“Who said I was going alone? Are you forgetting Fred?”
“Of course not. But I’m part of this team, too, sonny, so I’m going. And that’s that.”
***
BONNIE GAVE ME AT LEAST a hundred reasons why I couldn’t check out the Cadillac Escalade without her on our drive back to my cabin to get Fred. Although there was no danger of him freezing or getting rained on, I didn’t want to leave him out after dark.
Among some of her reasons were reminders of all the times she’d saved my rear on similar trips. I didn’t mention that most of those times she had been more of a liability than an asset, but her most persuasive argument was that I needed her Cherokee. The broken taillight on my Jeep would certainly attract all kinds of cops, and more importantly, unless I parked a mile from Lisa’s I might as well knock on her door and tell her we were there to inspect her garage.
“Okay, Bon, you win,” I said when she pulled into my drive. Before she came to a complete stop, I felt a cold premonition sweep over me.
“What’s wrong, Jake? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“He’s not here, Bon. Fred is always here to greet me. Even when I’m gone ten minutes, he’s jumping up and down and wagging his tail, like he hasn’t seen me in a week.”
My fear was contagious. Now it was Bonnie who turned white. She got out of her Jeep faster than I’d seen her move since I’d know her. “Freddie,” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Come to Aunt Bonnie, Fred!”
“Come on, Fred,” I yelled a second later. “Come here, boy!”
We both stood still, listening and waiting. Nothing. Not a single bark or yelp.
“Why don’t you drive down to your place, Bon, and see if he’s lying on your deck? I’ll check my deck. Call my cell if you find him.”
Bonnie hesitantly opened the door to her Jeep. Her eyes were wet. “Only if he’s down there, otherwise I’ll be back in ten minutes with my hiking boots and a gun.”
She knew me too well, for I had already planned on hiking up our little mountain to search for him, but the last thing I needed was a seventy-year-old woman with a gun following me up a steep mountain trail. “Leave the gun home, Bon. It’s not a safari.”
Her mood changed quicker than our weather. She stared at me like I’d called her every four-letter word in the book. “What if it’s a cougar?” she said.
“Then your little pea shooter will only make him mad. I’ll bring my dad’s twelve gauge.”
I’d been fighting back the image of dead llamas I’d seen in our local paper a few months back. The murder scene was on the other side of the hill behind my cabin, in a meadow once owned by Willie Nelson. They had been slaughtered by a mountain lion. He, or she, had done it just because he could. He obviously hadn’t been hungry, for once the animals were dead, he left them where they fell. They had been penned up and didn’t have a chance. At least Fred had a chance, as I never tied him up, but it wouldn’t be much of a chance with a cat three times his size.
***
THE TRAIL UP THE MOUNTAIN was nothing more than an old animal path that wound back and forth, and had been slightly improved over the years by hikers who had cut and removed dead trees that had fallen across it. We were halfway up the hill when Bonnie stopped to rest. “You should have brought him to church, Jake. No one’s ever complained before.” I hadn’t noticed her red eyes on the way up because she was behind me.
“Now I wish I had, Bon. It was such a nice morning, I didn’t have the heart to keep him on a leash during the service.”
“You don’t think the mountain lions got him, do you?” she asked, then started to cry again.
“No, I don’t think so. We would have seen some sign of a struggle by now.”
She wiped her tears and stood up. “I’m just holding you back. You go on without me and I’ll check with the neighbors to see if they heard anything.”
“Thanks, Bon. I don’t think the Clarks were home at the time. I didn’t see any cars in their driveways when we drove by, so you might try the other end of our circle. Maybe the Simpsons are home.”
She looked down the hill for confirmation, even though it was impossible to see any of the neighbors through all the trees, and then turned back to me. “Call me if you find anything, Jake.”
I nodded my head.
“Promise.”
“I promise, Bon,” I said, then headed up the trail.
***
FRED AND I HAD CLIMBED this trail so many times that we both knew it better than any street in Denver. The trail was part of the Denver Parks System. There were over five thousand acres of undeveloped, landlocked wilderness behind my cabin whose residents included mountain lions, black bear, deer, elk, coyotes, raccoons, and several rodents. I’d never seen a snake or another human on any of the hikes we took. Unlike the woods we’d seen a few years back in Missouri, Colorado forests are not that dense. Fred used to leave the trail at several places whenever he smelled an animal’s den, or chased a squirrel. It was at one of his favorite side trails that I saw long scratches on a nearby aspen. At the base of the tree were the unmistakable remains of an animal carcass.
The scratches, I knew, had been made by a black bear. I don’t know if they do it to mark their territory or what, and at the moment, I didn’t care. My heart was pounding, and the thin air was starting to get to me as I got closer to examine what I prayed wasn’t my best friend.
I was near tears when I realized the body belonged to some unfortunate raccoon and heard Bonnie call out. “Jake, get your butt down here! I think I found something.” I didn’t waste any time with the switchbacks and ran straight downhill, falling and sliding on my rear more often than not.
“What is it, Bon,” I asked between gasps of oxygen when I got to the road.
She waved a piece of yellow celluloid in my face that I immediately recognized.
“Brendon? You don’t think...”
“Who else do we know that’s addicted to butterscotch candy? His car’s floor must be littered with them, and this one fell out when he took Fred.” She was bouncing from foot to foot and waving her hands like one of those sailors signaling an incoming jet on an aircraft carrier.
“He’d never get in the car with Brendon, and I doubt very seriously if he took Fred, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Freddie chased him all the way down to Upper Bear,” I said, after we had walked a few yards back to my cabin.
Bonnie sat down on the porch steps, pulled out her cigarettes and lit one. “I hope he didn’t go down there. He’ll get run over on that road the way people drive.”
She got up suddenly, and stomped out her cigarette. “I’m getting my Jeep and checking it out.”
I barely had time to say anything before she took off for the path between our houses. “Come get me, Bon. I’ll throw on a sweatshirt and join you.” I could only assume she heard me, for she was gone before I finished speaking.
I raced up my porch steps and headed for the door, then froze. Sticking halfway out from under Fred’s water bowl was a piece of paper. I didn’t need my magic eight ball to tell me what it was.