Firesetter in Blackwood Township, a Winnebago County Mystery Page 5

  Smoke drove into my yard seconds later. Queenie started barking with persistence from inside the GTO. I fetched her leash from a hook in the garage, opened the car door, slipped the hook on her collar, and then held the leash when she jumped out. “You need to go in your kennel for a while, but I’ll get you out as soon as I can.” Smoke stepped out of his SUV, and walked into the garage as I was shutting the door to the kennel.

  “Going somewhere?”

  I dismissed my stubborn pride. “No. Where’s Marcella?”

  “Suffice it to say she left shortly after you did.”

  I walked past him and over to the front steps. He followed close behind me. “What’ve you got here?” He bent over and studied the rabbit. “What in the hell? No blood or obvious injuries that I can see. But the chances are slim to none he laid down and died right there.”

  “I’d say none.” I had been threatened and assaulted a number of times in my career, but looking at the little rabbit that had likely been sacrificed to send me some kind of bizarre message—or warning—saddened me. Add to that the barn fire and two letdowns I’d already had that day. The cumulative effect brought tears to my eyes. I pulled the top of my shirt up and dabbed my eyes with the inside of it.

  Smoke straightened up and snaked his arm around my shoulders. I didn’t shrug it off. “Weber had one, now you got one, too. And I know you didn’t get anyone pregnant.”

  I drew in a long, calming breath then shook my head. If I’d felt a little better his quip would’ve coaxed a smile out of me. “Have you ever taken an animal to a medical examiner?”

  “If you include veterinarians in that list, then yes. I imagine a vet will be able to figure out what caused the little guy’s death.”

  I pulled out my phone, and dialed a number. “I’m going to check in with Vince, see if he can come over and tell me if this looks like the same deal he had.”

  “Did he say if the one he had was a common cottontail like this one, not a pet breed of some sort?” Smoke said.

  “Correct. He said it was a cottontail, not a domestic.”

  Weber picked up. “Hey, Sergeant.”

  “Catch any fish, Vince?”

  “Nah, they weren’t biting. Too damn hot.”

  “Busy right now?”

  “If you call sitting on my couch, staring at not much of anything on the boob tube busy, then yeah. What’s up?” he said.

  “Can you swing over to my house? I got a dead rabbit on my front step—”

  That’s as far as I got. “You’re shittin’ me.”

  “I wish.”

  “There in a jiff.”

  After we’d hung up, Smoke said, “If you need to attend to Queenie, I’ll stand guard here.” She was whining, no doubt wondering what was going on.

  “Yeah, I’ll give her some treats and ask her to hang tough for a while.” I went into the garage and got a small handful of milk bones out of the sealed container. Queenie heard me and came through the doggie door from her outdoor kennel into the enclosed space. I pushed a milk bone through an opening in the chicken wire. She took it from my fingers and scarfed it up. “Here’s the deal. We need to take care of some business, and you need to be good. Consider this bunch of bones your treat. You’ll get one more when we’re done. Are you cool with that?”

  Queenie loved the word “treat” and being rewarded, but figuring out the why, in this case, was beyond her ken. She stuck her nose through the wire and gave a single yelp, begging for the rest of the bones. I dropped them into a bowl inside then returned to the front yard.

  Smoke was staring at the rabbit and holding some protective gloves and a large plastic evidence bag. He kept a stash in his vehicle for times such as this. He laid them on the bench by the steps then pulled out his phone and snapped photos of the critter from three sides.

  “Do you suppose Vince’s crazy sister-in-law followed him over here this morning, and saw us scraping the blood off his windshield? Is this her way of warning me to back off?” I said.

  “Actually, a similar thought crossed my mind. Your motion-detection camera should give you the answer.”

  “Hopefully. I’ll snap shots of the rabbit from its front side.” I went through the garage entrance to the kitchen, then into the living room, opened the front door, squatted down, took a few pictures with my phone then went out the same way.

  Smoke pulled on the gloves and handed me a pair. “You know all too well we’ve dealt with a lot of people whose actions make no logical sense. If Weber’s sister-in-law is responsible for this, I have to agree with Weber, she is not rational. And some delusional people are dangerous.”

  My shoulders rolled forward in a quick twitch, an involuntary reaction. “Definitely, depending on what they believe reality is.” I wiggled my hands into the gloves.

  “And if they’re paranoid or schizophrenic besides, that adds another whole dimension.”

  Vince Weber’s truck came flying down Brandt Avenue, and the tires kicked up the gravel when he slowed down and made the turn into my driveway.

  “That guy drives like a cop,” Smoke said.

  When Weber joined us, he looked ill. His face was ruby red with sweat popping out of his pores and running down the sides of his head.

  “You’re not stroking out, are you, Vince?” I said.

  “Nah, forgot to wear a hat fishing and got burned. And I’m stoked up by your weird discovery.”

  Smoke nudged me with his elbow. “Stoked, not stroked.” Weber was staring at the rabbit and didn’t hear him.

  I rolled my eyes at Smoke then turned to Weber. “What do you think?”

  “Geez, I didn’t think I had a reason to take a picture of the one on my step, but it looks like it’s about the same size. And now that I think about it, it was laying there like it was waiting for me to come out of my door and find it. Since it was turned with the front of its body toward the house, like yours is.”

  “It wasn’t here when I came home earlier today. I’m pretty sure I would’ve noticed it.”

  “And you let Queenie out then?” Smoke said.

  “I did.”

  “She would have found it.”

  “Right.” Of course.

  “It’s like déjà vu,” Weber said.

  “All over again,” Smoke added. He was on a roll. “I’ll bag it up and take it to the vet’s office.”

  “The vet?” Weber said.

  “We’re looking for a cause of death. Since you both got the same surprise delivery, and the rabbits were positioned the same way, it’s obviously not a coincidence,” Smoke said.

  “Yeah,” Weber said.

  “Want me to look up the vet’s after-hours number?” I said.

  Smoke shook his head. “I’ll do it. Here you go, Vince.” He gave him a pair of gloves, and when he had them on, Smoke handed him a medium-size paper bag. “You hold it open and I’ll drop the little guy into it.” They accomplished the task then Smoke pulled off the gloves, inside out.

  Smoke nodded at the bench. “Corky, grab me a bag to dispose of these. And a larger plastic one for outside protection of the rabbit.”

  “Sure.” I got them, and opened one where he deposited his gloves. Next I held up the other bag for Weber, and he put the rabbit carefully inside. Then he pulled off his gloves and disposed of them as well.

  Smoke reached for the evidence bag, but Weber shook his head. “I’ll put it in your vehicle.”

  When everything was secured, Smoke climbed in his Expedition. “I’ll catch you both later.” Then he was off.

  “So, you told the detective about Darcie?” Weber said.

  “I did, after I swore him to secrecy. We both agree that if Darcie did this, she has got some major issues.”

  “Tell me about it. And if it is her, I’m gonna feel like a heel that I pulled you into this whole ball of wax.”

  “Don’t worry about that. At all.”

  He nodded. “Thanks.”

  “I’m going to get a bucket of soapy wat
er to pour on the step so Queenie doesn’t pick up the scent and roll around in it.”

  He winced. “Yuck. Good idea. Then how about we go have a look at what your video camera picked up.”

  8

  Belle and Birdie

  Belle joined Birdie on the branch of their favorite tree and reached for her hand. “What are you staring at?”

  Birdie turned her head to Belle. She did not utter a word, but the pleading look in her eyes displayed the essence of what she thought and felt. Belle had gotten adept over the years at reading Birdie’s mind. After the trauma she’d endured finally silenced Birdie, made her lose her voice.

  “You’re wondering about the woman with that old model red car? It’s Sergeant Aleckson. She was the one in jeans on the property when we were watching the barn burn. We’ve seen her before, you know who she is.”

  Belle leaned closer to Birdie, hoping for the ten thousandth time that she could hear her sweet voice once more. She briefly rested her head on Birdie’s shoulder before answering the next question Birdie had.

  “I don’t know why she was just standing there by the farm, looking around. If she was trying to get the answer to how it happened, she’ll have to forget about it. She’ll never figure it out.” Belle listened to the silence for another minute. “Yes, Birdie, I took care of that, too.”

  9

  Queenie was over the moon when I freed her from her kennel. She begged for attention from both Weber and me, and after we’d given her plenty, I told her to run off some energy in the yard. Queenie raced around the backyard acres like a chicken with its head cut off, only faster.

  “Man, that dog has energy,” Weber said as we headed inside.

  “Energy galore, but she’ll tire out eventually. Let’s see what the camera captured for us, if you’re ready?”

  “Yeah well, I’ll brace myself for the inevitable,” he said.

  Except it didn’t happen that way. We went into my den office, and I logged on to the computer then remotely accessed the footage from the motion-detection camera that was mounted on the front of the house. There was one on the back of the house, also. We’d set the sensitivity level so birds and small creatures didn’t activate them, but larger animals and people did. We’d also set the distance at fifty feet, so the camera in front didn’t click on with every passing vehicle on Brandt Avenue.

  When an image showed up, I felt Vince breathing on my neck as he bent in for a closer view. I willed myself not to shift away. We watched as a person in a white jumpsuit—it was difficult to tell if it was a male or female—appeared on screen approaching from the north side of the house in a crouched-over position.

  “Creeping in from the corn field, of all things,” I said.

  “What kind of garb has she got on? It looks like a space suit.”

  I smiled then squinted for better focus. The creeper was wearing a long-sleeved white jumpsuit, a hooded helmet hat with a nylon veil that covered the face, and elbow-length leather gloves that cradled a furry creature. “It’s a beekeeper’s suit.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is. Head veil, sting-proof gloves.”

  “Is Darcie a beekeeper?”

  “No, but she’s wacky enough to have bought a suit, I guess. In case someone spotted her, it’d look like she was tending to bees.”

  “A pretty good disguise. Clever. But those suits aren’t exactly cheap.”

  “Never priced ’em, but I wouldn’t doubt it. I don’t think money is an issue for her.”

  We watched as she continued in a crouched position with her face toward the ground. When she reached the step, she paused then slowly lowered the rabbit onto it. The camera captured a front, side, and back view of her throughout the process.

  I shook my head. “That’s gotta be hard on her back, bent over like that.” She disappeared back into the cornfield, still hunched over, and out of the camera’s range. The recording was just over a minute long. “Did you recognize anything about her?”

  “Covered from head to toe, creeping along in a goofy way I’ve never seen before? Nah, can’t say I do. Can you play it again?”

  We watched it four more times, pausing to try to pick out any facial features, but it was impossible. “Maybe forensics can look for the best images and blow them up,” I said.

  “She never looks in the direction of the camera. She had to know it was there.”

  “And the camera’s not at the best angle for views of the north side, anyway.”

  “Like I said, she must’ve known it was there,” Weber said.

  “I’m wondering why she’d drop this off in the middle of the day and risk being seen, even in that outfit.”

  “You got me. I told you this morning, my reality is here on earth. Hers is floating out there on some other planet. Here’s hoping forensics can pull up an image that will help us out here.”

  “Do you have a photo of Darcie?” I said.

  He lightly scratched his sunburned head. “Yeah, somewhere, not very recent. Wait a minute. She sent me a selfie a while back. I was going to delete it, but I’m thankin’ my lucky stars right about now that I didn’t.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and clicked and swiped until he found the picture, then he held it up for me.

  I took the phone for a closer view. “Gee, Vince, she’s pretty darn cute.” Darcie had dark brown hair and pleasing features that were complemented by sparkling blue eyes, and a bright smile.

  “Yeah well, you think that because you don’t know her. I used to think that, too, once upon a time. That’s when I learned that sometimes beauty really is only skin deep.”

  I agreed with that. “What’s her height and weight?”

  “She’s maybe five five, five six, on the slim side. I’d say one twenty.”

  “Forensics can give us an approximate height and weight of our delivery person, although the jumpsuit might make her look bulkier in the video than she really is,” I said.

  “I gotta wonder if she’s actually been following me.”

  I gave him back the phone. “If that’s the case, and it turns out she left you the crude gifts besides, that constitutes stalking. What does she drive?”

  “Silver Honda Civic.”

  “There are a fair number of those around. You got her plate number?”

  “Sure.”

  As Vince recited it, I jotted it on the notepad I kept by the computer. “I’ll keep a watch out.”

  “Yeah well, after all this I’ll be on higher alert myself.”

  I inserted a flash drive in my computer and made a copy of the video to turn into evidence in the morning. “What about Mandy?”

  “What about her?”

  “Seriously, are you two together?”

  “Nah, I told you we just hang out. No romance. But she’s still gonna freak out when I tell her. After what she went through with Devin Stauder and all.” Mandy had gotten involved with another deputy, one she thought she could trust, and had nearly lost her life in the process.

  “It might bring up bad memories, but she needs to know. If Darcie’s been keeping an eye on you, she might have seen you together. Maybe that’s what’s caused her to act out this way, do weird things.”

  “Mandy’s gonna freak all right.”

  “I’m going to see if I can track the route the beekeeper took. Where she parked her car.”

  “Yeah, let’s do it.”

  We hiked over to the cornfield north of my house. Weber took a left and walked to Brandt Avenue while I looked for signs in the crops that might indicate where the beekeeper had entered my property. With the dry soil, there were no obvious footprints, making it difficult to spot how the person had traveled. Some of the corn stalks were pushed one way or the next, but that was likely from deer passing through, given some older tracks no doubt made shortly after the last rain.

  “Not seeing much on the road. There are tire tracks where the gravel’s thicker, but they’re not distinct by any means,” Weber called out.

  “No, nothing helpful
here, either. The person probably parked out there, followed along the edge of the field, and then cut over to my place.”

  Weber walked back to where I stood, still scanning the area. “Too bad your camera didn’t catch a better view of her,” he said.

  “Like you said, she must’ve known the camera was there. This land belongs to my grandfather, but a farmer rents the land, and grows the crops. A guy named Leroy. I’ve known him forever. He’s friendly, likes to talk, and stops by Gramps’ house on a regular basis. If Leroy had seen a beekeeper tramping through his crops, we would have heard about it right away. But I’ll check with him, anyway.”

  “That’d be good.”

  It was just after seven thirty when Vince left—still long before sunset—and I needed to rid my body of built-up nervous energy. Queenie was keeping tabs on the backyard through the sliding glass door, her favorite place to watch for animal action. I went upstairs and changed into running shorts and a t-shirt, then collected my Smith and Wesson from the safe, slipped it in its pancake holster, and clipped it on the waistband of my shorts. As I zipped my phone into a side pocket I called out to my dog, “Hey girl, how about a short run?”

  Queenie left her guard-duty position, yelped, and then moved her head back and forth, over and over. Seconds later her whole body was wiggling. “All right, let’s go.” We walked to the end of the driveway, turned right on Brandt, broke into a gentle jog then gradually speeded up. Queenie was trained to run beside me without a leash, and I did my best to maintain a nice, steady pace so she didn’t wear out.

  We’d almost reached the main county road when Smoke’s SUV turned onto Brandt then pulled over and stopped. On a personal level, I was still upset with him over Marcella. But that was personal, after all.

  When we caught up to him, he rolled down the passenger window and leaned out. When he lowered his sunglasses and his sky-blue eyes found mine, my heart did a little pitter-pattering. “The bunny’s body is with the veterinarian. He’ll do the exam in the next day or two,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “Exercising or burning off stress?”