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Fred had his big head resting on the front bench seat with his rear firmly planted on the back seat. Bonnie was giving him a head massage as a reward for having found the blankets. “I still don’t understand how the blankets tie it all together, Jake.” She was turned toward me, holding Fred’s head with both hands.
“Simple, Ms. Watson. We now know Fitzgerald knew Anderson and Benson. Isn’t it obvious they were all in it together?”
Bonnie quit massaging Fred’s head and looked at me with a blank stare. “Together in what: grave robbing or murder?”
Fred showed his displeasure and tried to get Bonnie to resume her massage by sticking his big snout under her right hand.
“Probably both, but I won’t know for sure for a couple days.”
I was about ready to turn onto Highway 65 and heard Fred thumping his tail against the rear seat. I couldn’t look, but I knew by the sound that Bonnie had resumed the massage.
“Would you care to enlighten those of us who can’t read minds just how you’ll know?” she asked.
“I’m going to take a page from the NSA’s dirty tricks book and tap Benson’s cell phone.”
I was merging into traffic and still couldn’t see her reaction, but I could imagine her mouth was wide open while she stared at me like I’d finally lost it when my phone rang.
“Can you get that, Bon?” Another chicken truck was coming down the road, and I didn’t need the distraction of my cell phone.
Bonnie knew enough to put it in speaker mode before answering. “Hello, Jake? It’s Sheriff Bennett.” His tone told me he hadn’t called to chat about fishing.
“Hi, Sheriff, what can I do for you?”
He cleared his throat before answering. “Kelly wanted me to call. She said to tell you she needs you to do what you and she discussed last night, whatever that is.” He paused, presumably waiting for me to tell him what she must not have. “I don’t suppose you want to share it with me?”
“Does this mean she’s been arrested?” I asked, pulling off to the side of the road and parking.
He paused again, but not as long as before. “I’m sorry, Jake. I know you two have become close, but the lab report came back. It was her gun that killed Grace Wilson.”
“But she lent it to Amanda and didn’t get it back until after the murder. Shouldn’t you be arresting Amanda instead?”
“It’s her word against Amanda’s, and Amanda denies ever having the gun. Sorry, Jake, but I’ve got to go. Let me know what it is she wants you to do, and maybe I can help.”
Bennett disconnected, and I looked over at Bonnie who had heard the entire conversation. She didn’t have to say a word—her face told me everything. She sat with her mouth open, exposing her missing bottom dentures.
“What does she want you to do, Jake?” she asked when she found her voice.
“She thought Amanda’s ex might have taken the gun she lent to Amanda,” I answered, pulling out into traffic.
“Except now we know that’s a smokescreen. She lied about giving the gun to Amanda. I’m sorry, Jake, but your girlfriend is looking pretty guilty.”
“Or Amanda’s lying.”
Bonnie raised her left eyebrow and made some kind of sarcastic laugh. “Why would she do that? She was never a suspect, was she?”
“No, but her ex was. I suspect protecting him comes before protecting Kelly. Now I need that spyware more than ever.”
***
IT TOOK SEVERAL TRIES before I found the perfect spyware. I reasoned that after I tested it on Benson, I could use it to spy on Amanda and her ex. Kelly might not like it, but Amanda looked like the real suspect. Why else would she have denied having the gun? On the other hand, why would she hide the sword she bought from the antique dealer where we could find it?
I didn’t want to compromise my own phone, so a smartphone app was not an option. I wanted a PC program I knew I could delete without leaving any trace of my illegal activity, even if it meant installing a new hard drive. Most of the programs I found required the user to install an app on the phone to be spied on. Those were the ones made for parents who wanted to keep an eye on their teens. I knew there had to something out there equivalent to what our government uses—something that would let us do our dirty deed without the user’s knowledge, and I found it after only a couple hours of searching and testing.
Bonnie looked like might pop an artery when I showed her Benson’s call logs. She’d come down to the kitchen for a nightcap and decided to join me at the table to see what progress I’d made. I’d been at it so long that Fred had fallen asleep under the table with Tigger curled up next to him.
“And he doesn’t know you’re spying on him?” she asked after taking another sip of her Jack Daniels. “Not according to the makers of the spyware,” I answered.
She adjusted her reading glasses and took a closer look at the list. “Wow, I can’t believe that’d be possible. Shouldn’t somebody shut them down?”
“Not without a cruise missile, and that would start World War Three—the site’s in Russia. But that’s not our problem, Bon. Look at all those calls to Fitzgerald. Notice anything about the last one?”
“March fourth. That’s two days before you found him in the cemetery.”
“Exactly. I wish Benson had texted him. I can read those but voice isn’t recorded.”
Bonnie smiled sarcastically. “You’re telling me the KGB is no match for our NSA? I hear they record everything we say on the phone.”
“I believe your KGB is called the FSB now, and I doubt if they use this software. I’m sure theirs is far more sophisticated.”
“Whatever, Jake. My point is that we still have no proof Benson or his buddy Anderson killed Crammer. And we have less proof they killed his crazy neighbors.”
I didn’t bother to remark on the logic of having less than nothing. I’d known Bonnie long enough to know not to argue with her when she had Jack Daniels backing her up.
“Oh, I don’t think any of them killed Crammer. All I’m saying is the blankets connect them, and the phone logs prove that. It looks like Benson was the fence for Fitzgerald, and he sold some of his loot to Anderson, including Captain Scott’s stuff. We also know from Fitzgerald’s wife and Anderson’s son, what’s his name—Jared, that Amanda was having an affair with Fitzgerald.”
She emptied the last of her Jack Daniels into her glass. “I don’t recall Jared saying that.”
Ordinarily, she’d be able to follow my logic, but it was getting late and the bourbon didn’t help either. “When he called her a cougar. He must have known about her affair with Fitzgerald. What I don’t understand is why she bought the sword and knife from Anderson.” I didn’t mention I’d planned to use the spyware on Amanda and her ex.
As if she knew what I was thinking, Bonnie drained her glass, reached under the table for her cat, and headed for the stairs. “I’m going back to bed, and if you’re thinking of spying on Amanda, I suggest you get to work on the roof first before Margot sends Jon out to do it.”
Bonnie had hit a nerve with her remark about the roof. The snow from Sunday had melted, so I thought I’d better at least check out the tractor to see if I’d be able to use it to load the shingles. I waited for her bedroom door to close, then headed for the barn with my shadow at my heels. Tapping Amanda’s phone and her ex’s would have to wait.
***
TO MY AMAZEMENT, THE old tractor started on the first turn of the key after I hooked up the battery charger and set it to six volts. I had expected a sixty-seven-year-old engine to be a bit more cantankerous. Crammer must have taken good care of his equipment.
Just as I raised the bucket to its limit to see if it would go high enough to load shingles on a roof, the old tractor coughed and died. Looks like I’d spoken too soon about Crammer’s penchant for maintenance.
“Let’s go back inside, and warm up, Fred. This can wait until tomorrow.”
Fred had wandered off to the back of the barn where I couldn’t see him. When he didn’t come when called, I tried shining my flashlight in his direction. Although the light was dim, I could see him scratching at a big box. How I envied his thick coat and ability to ward off the cold air. “Come on, Fred, or I’ll lock up and leave you here all night.”
I barely made it to the barn doors when I heard him at my heels.
***
WEDNESDAY MORNING FOUND Fred and me alone with Tigger, and without transportation. Bonnie had found a church her first week in town and left for Bible study before I got up. My previous night of spying on Benson and checking out the tractor had kept me up past my bedtime, so Bonnie didn’t wake me to go with her. Or maybe she didn’t want me sharing the cold I’d picked up with the rest of the congregation. Not that I had any intention of joining her. What I wanted was her Jeep so I could visit Kelly. I thought about driving the tractor to church and trading rides but quickly dismissed that idea. I doubt if it had a top speed faster than a three-legged mule with blinders, and something told me Bonnie might forget where she was and tell me where I could stick the tractor.
Fred and Tigger lacked the social skills to carry on a conversation over breakfast, so the three of us ate breakfast in near silence. It didn’t surprise me when Tigger ignored my attempt to make breakfast, but when Fred turned his nose up at my burnt toast, I began to wish I’d waited for Bonnie. I’d utter an occasional comment to Fred because he pretended to listen. Tigger, on the other hand, acted like I didn’t exist. She even refused the scraps of bacon I’d throw her way, acting like I’d tried to poison her. Fred had no such qualms. Unlike the toast, he didn’t care how it was cooked, and he caught his before it hit the ground then took hers.
After breakfast, we headed toward the barn. It was time to get the tractor working and load the roof. Fred was the first out the door with Tigger right behind. I’d thought about going back to bed but knew Bonnie’s threat about Jon was real. I’d become dependent on Margot’s paychecks and didn’t feel like sharing them with her son—my bills back in Colorado still needed to be paid, whether I was there or not.
Our trio soon became a duo when Tigger took off for the loft, hot on some critter’s trail. I think Fred wanted to join the cat, but despite being several years older, he hadn’t learned to climb. Fred soon forgot about Tigger and followed his nose to the far side of the barn, while I went over to check on the tractor that had died on me the previous night.
As a kid growing up I’d worked on a lot of cars built before they had sensors and computers that we didn’t know we needed to control the fuel, oxygen, ignition and a hundred other things. My father used to tell me there were only two things needed to make them run; gas and spark. I decided to start with the fuel and quickly realized why the tractor had died. It had run out of gas. There was a fuel cutoff switch that had been set to off. I also noticed the bucket wasn’t where I’d left it. There must be a slow leak somewhere in the hydraulic system I’d need to check out, so I switched on the gas, pulled out the choke and tried to start the motor. It took a bit to get gas back into the carburetor, but the old gal finally fired up and I raised the bucket again to make sure it still worked.
Fred heard the tractor and came back to see what all the noise was about. He sat on his haunches, smiling. “What are you grinning at?” I asked.
He barked, then got up and started slowly walking back toward the rear of the barn where he’d been the night before. When I didn’t get off the tractor, he stopped and barked again. I knew him well enough to know he found something and wanted me to follow, so I got off the tractor and did as he asked. “This better be good, Freddie. You know I need to get started on those shingles before Bonnie gets back from church.”
I was no sooner off the tractor and following Fred when I heard tiny footsteps behind me. “Find anything tasty up in the loft, Tigger?” I said, turning around. Tigger stopped following and sat down to preen her fur, acting like she had no idea what I’d just said. I didn’t have time to play cat and mouse with her, so I went back to see what Fred had found that was so interesting. Tigger waited a few seconds, then resumed tailing me.
“Okay, so you found another cedar chest like the one Bonnie found in the attic.” Fred wasn’t bred to point, but he did the best he could to show me his find. By the way, it was constructed with a maple veneer and cross-sawn inlays on the front, I guessed it to be from the early sixties. I remember my father buying something similar at a second-hand store for my sister. She had called it her hope chest.
“Whatever’s in there could no longer be edible, Fred. By the looks of the dust on the lid, that chest hasn’t been opened in twenty years.”
Fred ignored me and went over and scratched at the lid. Tigger, I noticed, had perched herself on a nearby bale of hay, watching us. Maybe she thought Fred had found her a nest of mice and was waiting for someone to open it for her. Not wanting to disappoint either of them, I tried to oblige, only to find it locked. There was a simple lock on the front of the chest that any kid with a bobby pin could open in thirty seconds. Unfortunately, I was neither a kid nor did I have a bobby pin. It took me several minutes to pop it open with my trusty, Swiss army knife.
Fred started wagging his tail and Tigger jumped off her perch to run toward the front of the barn. “What are you doing back there, Jake?” Bonnie had returned.
“Fred found what looks like Amanda’s teenage hope chest. She must have forgotten it was here. It looks like it hasn’t been opened in years.”
Bonnie tilted her head to one side, looking at the chest, and turned to Fred “Your master wouldn’t be blaming you for his nosiness, would he?”
“Good one, Bon. Really, it was Fred who found it. He must have thought there was something good to eat in there because he wouldn’t leave me alone until I opened it.”
Bonnie shuffled closer while reaching for the glasses she kept on a rope around her neck. “I doubt that,” she said, shaking her head and wrinkling her nose after looking into the chest.
“What? That it’s her hope chest or that there’s something good to eat?”
“Both.”
“Why’s that, Bon?”
“Well, if it wasn’t for your cold, you wouldn’t be asking if whatever stinks in there is good to eat. Then there’s the Miss Me jeans on top. They both suggest someone’s been in the chest recently. If it was Amanda, she would have taken it like she did the other one.”
“Miss Me jeans? What are those?”
Bonnie raised her eyebrows making her wrinkles look like an old fashioned washboard. “It’s a brand of jeans that didn’t exist when Amanda was a teenager. And the stench you can’t smell is something dead.”
It was my turn to wrinkle my nose, trying to get a whiff of whatever had died, but all I could do was sneeze. “Hmm, now that you mention it, I do smell something,” I lied and started removing items from the chest.
“My God, Jake. Is that a Confederate flag?”
Under MissMe were the remains of a Confederate flag. It must have been covering Captain Scott’s casket, by the looks of it. Someone had put what the worms hadn’t eaten into a clear plastic bag like the ones used for good blankets. “I believe so.” I set the bag aside and kept digging to see if there were any more stolen relics inside.