Crunch Time

13

Outside, the sun was shining, but the air was still cold. The plows had rammed dirty walls of ice onto the roadsides. Even so, the pavements were still swathed with thin blankets of snow. Driving would be treacherous, and I had enough problems without ending up in a ditch. I opened the side door of my van and carefully flung in my tote, followed by the plastic bag of detritus from one of Donna’s rentals. Maybe this evidence wasn’t technically from adulterers, maybe it was just from sort-of-young, sort-of-thin people, teenagers even, seeking a thrill. But it was something, and if Ernest had been investigating this couple, the evidence might be connected to his death.

Once inside my van, I turned on the engine and wished I’d worn gloves. It was twelve forty-five, and I was unaccountably hungry. The enchiladas were a memory and the coffee cake was calling. I unwrapped it, broke off a hunk, and chewed thoughtfully while staring at Donna’s list. The one rental she’d checked, the one where the lovebirds had made their most recent nest, was way out by the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. I wasn’t sure I had the time, the tires, or the tolerance to find a house in that area. Worse, there was no way to find out if the plows had been through the vast labyrinth of dirt roads that lay around the preserve.

I rewrapped the cake, poured myself some coffee, and stared again at the address. I knew Tom would be furious if I drove out there and poked around in an empty house, alone. But Donna had been on her way to do just that, right?

I could hear Tom’s voice in my head saying, You’re not Donna.

Wait a minute, I thought. I had a friend who lived in that area, not far from the rental, if I was judging distances correctly. Sabine Rushmore was a librarian whom I had known for years. I’d catered the retirement party she’d held at her house. She was sixty-five, but you’d never guess it. Except for her long, frizzy gray mane, she didn’t look a day over forty. My theory was that she kept herself youthful with her work as a peace activist, her long treks to remote parts of Colorado and the Mountain West to hunt for dinosaur bones, and of course—of course—the labor she put into growing organic vegetables. To me, it all sounded exhausting, but Sabine thrived on the activity.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know Sabine’s home phone number. There was no way the privacy-obsessed staff at the Aspen Meadow Library would give it to me, even if Sabine needed a kidney and I had one on ice in the van. And anyway, I thought, as I punched the buttons for Information, what if Sabine’s number was unlisted? What if she lived so far off the grid that she didn’t even have a phone?

Well, glory be. There was a Rushmore listed on the same county road as the rental. I punched in the number and couldn’t believe it when Sabine answered.

“Goldy, wow, I can’t believe you’re calling,” she said, out of breath. In the background I could hear crunching noises, and I guessed she was digging out her driveway. “It’s so good to hear from you. Gives me a chance to give up on clearing snow.”

I pictured her steep, rutted dirt driveway. “Don’t you have anyone to help you?”

“Not at the moment. Greg’s taken the four-wheeler into town for supplies for our horses. I wanted to surprise him. Anyway, I’m almost done.” She took a deep breath, then said, “Good thing I brought my phone outside in my pocket, huh? Maybe I subconsciously wanted an interruption. What can I do for you?”

I explained that I was hoping she could come with me on a bit of a hunt, sort of like one of her fossil-seeking expeditions.

“It’s really exactly like looking for dinosaur bones. Only easier,” I said.

“Goldy the caterer. Making the link between pastry and paleontology, eh?” she asked, a smile in her voice. “Sounds more like one of your crime-solving capers. I remember you found a body in the library once.”

“Hey,” I said in protest, “it wasn’t my fault the guy was murdered there.”

“And,” she continued, “you said the perpetrator of another murder was in the library at the same time.”

“Aspen Meadow Library is a popular place.”

“So what I’m asking, Goldy, is this: Are we going to need to be armed when we go on this expedition of yours?”

I thought of Arch using the weeder on our would-be intruder. “Well, it might not hurt if we took some sharply pointed garden equipment. Just kidding. I think the perps have fled.” I rushed on to give details that she would have to promise not to tell the paper: that apparently, a couple had broken into an A-frame near her, to have sex, most likely, and I wanted to see if there was anything left that would help me aid the real estate agent in figuring out who they were. “The agent was on her way out there when I volunteered to make the trek,” I told her.

“I know the house,” Sabine said. “The owner’s home-based business collapsed. He had to move his family back in with his wife’s parents down in Denver, where he’s working in a restaurant. Their house has been for rent for a while. People don’t like to commute to Denver from way out here.” She took a deep breath. “Yeah, sure, come on ahead.”

I said I would see her in less than half an hour and turned the van in the direction of the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. I knew there would be no wrath equal to Tom’s if I did not tell him what I was up to, so I put in a call to his voice mail. I informed him of everything Donna had told me and added the caveat that he couldn’t put it into the sheriff’s calls in the paper. And, I said, I had a friend who was going to go into the empty house with me. By the way, I concluded, had he been able to question Charlene Newgate? And did he have the canvass, time of death, and ballistics and accelerant results back from Ernest’s murder and the arson? “Just curious,” I said, “trying to help.” I could imagine Tom shaking his head.

I drove down to Aspen Meadow Lake, which blazed with sparkles from the afternoon sun. Vestiges of snow laced the water’s edge. There was no traffic, so I pulled over. Something was niggling at the back of my brain after the call to Tom. Oh, yes, the informal dinner gathering at the Bertrams’ place on Thursday, so everyone could remember Ernest. I wanted to help.

I dialed SallyAnn Bertram’s number and put the phone on speaker. As her number rang, I turned right onto Upper Cottonwood Creek Road. When my tires skidded to the left, I inhaled sharply. Slowly, I started up the winding road. I needed to be on the lookout for black ice as well as snow that might have blown over it. An innocent-looking swath of white stuff could conceal a hazard that flipped your vehicle.

When SallyAnn answered, I identified myself and said I wanted to help out with the potluck supper on Thursday night, when the department was going to gather to remember Ernest. What did she need me to bring?

“Oh, Goldy, you’re a dear! I don’t know what to tell you, because I haven’t even started to organize this thing, but I do know somebody is bringing hamburgers, because John wanted us to have this outside, so we can grill. But now I worry that it will snow again, or even rain, and if it rains or snows, everyone will have to come inside. That’s really terrible, because this place is such a wreck, I hate to imagine what everyone’s going to think when they walk through our doors. I think John has that disorder, you know, where someone hoards stuff? He built a six-car garage on our property, and it has one truck in it, plus a bunch of junk, including the lawn furniture that we never did bring out this summer. But John, you know? When he can’t find something in the garage? He buys a new tool or other thingamajig, and puts it into one of the closets in the house. So our closets are all spilling over with stuff. What’s supposed to be our living space is now filled with junk, and we don’t have room for these people that he invited over here without even telling me—”

“SallyAnn, wait a sec.” I had to interrupt her, because not only was she having a panic attack, she was about to give me one. And anyway, I’d just cleaned out Donna Lamar’s refrigerator. That was all the mental space I could give to decluttering in one day. “One thing at a time,” I said slowly. “Can you get a pen and paper?” When she rummaged for those, I heard what sounded like pots falling onto the floor. Maybe John wasn’t the only one with a hoarding disorder. “First of all,” I said, “let me bring something hot, because the weather has turned cool. If one of the guests is bringing hamburgers, then how about if I bring homemade cream of mushroom soup? Everyone seems to like it, no matter what the weather.”

“Okay, but I don’t know what to do about all the mess—”

“No problem there, either. I’ve already arranged a cleaning lady who owes me a favor to do some extra work. I’ll pay her to clean up your house Thursday. How about that?”

“Oh, would you?” SallyAnn’s stressed-out tone went from agony to relief. “Does she have a whole team? ’Cause that’s what we’re going to need.”

“We’ll work it out. How many people have said they’re coming?”

“So far, about twenty, although I haven’t been keeping a list. I suppose that I should, now that I’ve found the paper, although I’m having to use an old tube of lipstick to write down what you’re telling me. But listen, we’ll probably have double that number, at least. I don’t want to run out of food, and if everyone decides to bring salads, then we’ll really be in a mess. . . .”

A new worry. Could SallyAnn’s doctor prescribe her a tranquilizer?

“Find a pen and keep it, with the paper, by the phone,” I said sternly. “When people call, write down their names. Ask them to bring potato salad or dessert. Everybody loves those dishes with hamburgers, and if you want, I can bring a large tossed green salad with the soup.”

“Omigod, Goldy, you’re saving my life, thank you so much.” Her breath caught. “I suppose I shouldn’t be going on about my own hostess problems when Ernest . . .” She couldn’t finish the thought.

After a pause, I reassured her. “The sheriff’s department will figure out who did this, don’t worry.”

“But he’s gone,” she wailed.

“I’m sorry, SallyAnn, I didn’t realize you were close.”

“We weren’t—I mean, we used to be, but after he had to leave the department, we sort of drifted apart, even though his house is up the hill. . . . Now I feel awful.”

“Well, let me ask you this. Did Ernest seem sick to you?”

“Sick, you mean, like the cancer? We didn’t even know he had cancer until he was dead. You see, after he became a private investigator, we didn’t get together with him too often. But come to think of it, last time we saw him, he looked a little thin. He said it was getting sober, you know. But don’t most people eat more when they’re recovering from alcoholism? Well anyway, I guess he didn’t, because the last time we saw him, he said he was hiring someone to fix dinners for him a few days a week. I offered to bring food over, but he knows my cooking, so he, you know, declined. Nicely, but still. Anyway, the last time we saw him was a couple of weeks ago. He really seemed to like that gal—oh, you’re not supposed to call anyone a gal anymore, but anyway, he was excited about having her cook for him. He liked her, and that seemed to brighten up his mood, you know?”

“He liked her?”

“Well not like he was falling in love with her, but then again, maybe he was, and he just didn’t tell us, the way he didn’t tell us about the cancer. Wait. Is this the woman who was living in the house when it burned down? The one whose aunt or whoever she is whacked John with her baton?”

“Yes, but—”

“Are they coming to the party?”

“Not if you don’t want them to, but the women have been through hell. Boyd has been staying with us, to . . . provide extra protection for them, since someone torched Ernest’s house. Tom and Boyd don’t think they’re safe anywhere else. So, if you want Boyd at the party, the women will have to come. Yolanda caters with me, and her great-aunt really is a lovable old bird, once you get to know her. Tough, but not without charm.”

“Well, I do want Boyd at the party,” SallyAnn said, sounding uncertain again. “Ernest really liked Boyd. Everyone likes Boyd. So I suppose we have to have the women, too.”

“Great.” I slowed before a hairpin curve. “I’ll send the cleaning lady over. We’ll be there with soup and salad. Say about six?”

“Thanks, Goldy, thanks. Sorry to be so disorganized about all this, it’s just that Ernie’s death threw us for a loop.”

“Ernie?”

“Well, Ernest. In the department? John was the only one Ernest allowed to call him Ernie. Ernest called John ‘Bert,’ so they could be Bert and Ernie. It was their little joke. You know how cops need their humor.”

“Indeed I do.”

We signed off, and I carefully negotiated the turn. Once again my wheels skidded sideways. I wanted to call Penny Woolworth, the spying cleaning lady, to talk about this new gig. But I didn’t want to be distracted.

I turned right onto the long dirt road that led to the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. The byway had been plowed once, but now snow, mud, and ice had combined into a frozen sludge that my tires chewed through sometimes and skidded through other times. I sighed. It was already just past one. I absolutely had to be home by three at the latest, so Yolanda and I could pack up for the Breckenridges’ dinner.

I was startled when a car raced up behind me and then overtook the van. It was a silver BMW that must have had four-wheel drive and snow tires worthy of a Sherman tank. Snow spewed over my windshield, and I was forced to slow.

I turned on the wipers and shouted, “Thank you very much,” but of course the driver couldn’t hear me.

As the wipers swept snow from the glass, I saw something. Or thought I saw something. It was a bumper sticker, a familiar one. Had it been Secretaries Do It Behind the Desk? I hurried up and sent the van into a one-eighty skid that left me cursing. I hadn’t been able to see who was driving the BMW, but it had taken every bit of growing-up-in-Jersey driving to keep from landing in the snow-covered pasture that lay to my right.

I turned back around with the idea that maybe I could catch up with Charlene’s vehicle, if that was what it had been. But the driver was zipping along at a clip my van would have had trouble managing going downhill, on dry pavement. And anyway, now the road was headed uphill. Where could the BMW have been going? That was the question, and not an easily answered one.

Before Furman County bought the enormous ranch that made up the preserve, people had built everything from gigantic houses to log cabins on the property surrounding the ranch. Either the rich had wanted the mountain view or folks wanted to farm or ranch. Taking into account Charlene’s fur, car, grandson in parochial school, and altogether new lifestyle, I would have guessed her boyfriend was in that big-house-with-a-view category.

When I crested the hill, the BMW had disappeared. I motored along past five dirt roads going right, left, and sideways, with no clue as to where the silver car had turned. Unlike Sabine, I was no expert at tracking, and numerous vehicles had left their tire prints in the snow. I cursed silently and encouraged the van along to the turnoff for Sabine’s.

She met me at the bottom of her driveway. Tall, with a commanding presence, she wore a cap that I was sure she had knitted herself, from wool she’d spun from her own sheep and dyed using vegetables she and Greg had grown. She wore thick, unfashionable specs with shades she flipped down when she needed sunglasses, like now. Her frizzy hair radiated like a gray halo from a ponytail at the nape of her neck, and her ankle-length olive-green overcoat looked as if she’d bought it from an army veteran who’d survived the Nazi assault on the Ardennes forest. She’d apparently taken seriously my quip about using sharply pointed garden equipment as weapons. At arm’s length, she held two long-handled garden spades. Sabine Rushmore, pacifist, prepared for battle.

“There you are!” she said brightly when I hopped out of the van. She eyed me up and down. The skin at the sides of her eyes crinkled with worry. “You need boots and gloves? I’ve got some up in the house.”

Knowing her home lay half a mile up the murderous incline behind her, I demurred. “But thank you for setting out on this expedition with me. Do you want me to get the address, or do you know exactly where this place is?”

“I know it.”

I set off behind her. She insisted on carrying both “weapons,” as she called them. Even though I was wearing sneakers and lighter clothing, was bearing no arms, and was more than thirty years younger than my compatriot, she left my butt in the dust. Or in this case, in the snow. I huffed along and finally called to her to stop.

“Is it much farther?” I panted, bending over to deal with the stitch in my side.

“Just around the next bend. Are you all right?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It’s all that high-fat-content food you make, Goldy. It’s slowing you down.”

Since the last thing I needed at this point was a nutrition lecture, I said merely, “Lead on.” She smiled before trotting away.

After a few more minutes of muscle-squealing agony, I followed her up a driveway that had not been plowed but that had a set of tire prints in it—going in and coming out. I wondered if the lab at the sheriff’s department could or would trace them. I doubted it. Tom had more serious crimes to investigate at the moment. And anyway, if the break-and-enterers were also adulterers, Father Pete would have pointed out that adultery wasn’t a crime. It was a sin.

Ahead of us, tucked into a stand of lodgepole pines, stood a tiny red one-story A-frame. The deck out front needed paint. On either side of the small front door, white crisscrossing on the windows plus black shutters with cut-out heart shapes indicated the house had been built in the seventies, when trying-to-be-Swiss style was all the rage in Aspen Meadow.

No one had shoveled the walkway to the deck. The place looked forlorn.

“Following the tire tracks,” Sabine called, “it looks as if your lovebirds broke in around this corner.” She disappeared, and I was suddenly worried. What if something happened to Sabine? Tom would have my neck.

The sound of breaking glass brought me quickly around to the side of the house. Why hadn’t I had the presence of mind to ask Donna Lamar for a key to this place? Sabine had used her garden implement to shatter what remained of the second window in the back door. The original breakers-in had smashed the first pane in the door. Sabine reached in and opened it.

“I didn’t know if your husband would want fingerprints from that other windowpane,” she said by way of explanation.

“Wait,” I said, pointing down. “They parked, then walked through the snow to this door, instead of the front door. They broke one pane of glass, and you broke the other. Why come back here?”

“They must have thought their vehicle would be out of sight,” said Sabine. “Hello?” she cried into the interior, which echoed.

“Sabine, wait,” I said. Again thinking of Tom and my fragile neck, I hustled ahead of her to make sure the place was empty.

“You are not going anywhere,” Sabine said, holding out an arm like a crossing guard. “I am strong, fearless, and sixty-five years old.” She reached back through the door and picked up her garden spades, which she had leaned against the house. “Nobody messes with me.”

Sabine ordered me to stay put while she traipsed through the two bedrooms, her gardening spades at the ready. She checked the two bathrooms and the closets while I pretty much stayed in the living/dining/kitchen area. At one point, I sneaked over to the kitchen and checked the cabinets and refrigerator. They were empty, except for an opened box of baking soda in the fridge.

Back in the living/dining/kitchen area, we looked around for clues as to who could have broken in before we broke in. The place was cold and dark, as A-frames tend to be. There was a solitary skylight, which let in some sunshine as well as water. Either Donna or the owners had put a bucket on the shag-carpeted floor to catch the trickle from the leak, and the melting snow made irregular plops.

“Looks like they had a fire,” I said, eyeing the tiny, bleak fireplace.

“You know Sherlock Holmes would go through those ashes,” Sabine announced. She put down her spades, picked up one of her bags, and hustled over to the hearth, where she got down on her knees. She began methodically sifting the gray dust, bit by small bit, over to one side of the hearth.

I looked around. What was missing? Something, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Wait: the fire.

“Where do you suppose they got their wood?” I asked Sabine, who was still intent on the cold ashes. “Could they have brought in an armful from their vehicle? Or several armfuls? I didn’t see any pieces of dropped bark between the driveway and the back door.” I remembered the sleeping bags and cheese wrappers. Was it possible these folks backed a truck full of supplies into each of their love nests whenever they went for a roll in the hay?

“The home owners used to chop their own wood from their land,” Sabine said. “We do, too. All of us out here cut down some trees, to keep the fire danger down. That big wildfire out in the preserve? It started less than a mile from here.”

“But . . . when we came in, I didn’t see a pile of firewood beside the house.”

“Check out back,” she said without lifting her eyes from her ash sifting. “The owners’ store of wood should be covered with plastic. Up here, we tend to get more snow than in town. You have to keep the logs dry, in case you lose power and are completely dependent on your fire to keep you warm.”

Off I went. Sure enough, once I rounded the back wall of the house, I saw a block the size of two cars—the woodpile. It was covered with green plastic. Huh . . . what would Sherlock Holmes do? He’d look down.

The fresh snow had filled in old, deep boot prints, so I carefully followed them. The prints went to the woodpile, then back to the front side of the house, to the deck, where there was another door. Bark and kindling littered the path. So they had parked, smashed a window to get inside the back door, and then gone in and out of the front door with firewood.

At the woodpile, I followed their trail to a spot where there was a showering of chips. The snow was tamped down with boot marks. I pulled back the plastic and saw where an entire section of logs had been depleted. Unfortunately, the thief had not left a sweatshirt with his name on it.

And then, from deep in the woods, there was an eruption of gunfire.

Damn it.

I dropped to my belly, with the woodpile between whoever was shooting and yours truly. “Sabine!” I screamed. “Did you hear that?”

She had come out the back door with its two broken windows and was looking for me. “Don’t worry,” she called. “We hear shots fired all the time. It’s not even hunting season. The bastards!”

“You hear shots fired all the time,” I muttered, as I got to my knees and brushed snow off my clothes. “Great.”

“Still,” she yelled, “we should probably leave. We are technically trespassing.” As if to punctuate her words, another round of gunfire, closer this time, went off.

“Crap!” I hollered as I fell on my stomach again. Was my yelling more or less likely to rain bullets on us? Wait a minute. I’d seen something. Where? Not on top of the woodpile, not beyond it, but . . . below it. I inched sideways.

From this angle, between the snow and the bottom of the woodpile, I saw that something silvery had become wedged. It wasn’t a coin. It was too flat. As my frozen fingers tugged on the tiny gray corner of whatever it was, a third round of gunfire went off.

“Goldy?” Sabine cried. “You’re not in the best of shape, and I don’t want us to try to outrun those shooters, whoever they are.”

“Okay, okay.” I pushed hard on the lowest log close to the silvery gray thing. The wood moved a tiny fraction. I slammed my shoulder into the woodpile. Nothing. “Sabine!” I hollered. “Duck down and come help me!”

“With what?” Bent at the waist, she trotted toward me. She was covered with ashes from the fireplace.

“Help me push this woodpile over,” I said when she arrived.

“Are you mad?”

“Not mad, not angry, and certainly not insane. On three, push.” We set our arms out straight against the logs. I counted, and Sabine and I heaved and groaned. The woodpile crashed over.

“You really must have hated those logs,” said Sabine, brushing off her gloves. “And now we need to get going.”

I bent over and scooped up a credit card that was partially covered with snow. Once more, gunfire exploded, closer still. Even though I was consumed with curiosity, I couldn’t indulge it. My heart was pounding with the amount of effort it had taken to upend the logs, and I was worried about getting away from the shooter. I shoved the card in my pocket without reading the name.

Sabine motioned for me to follow her. Still bent at the waist, she jogged to the house, retrieved her gardening tools, and started trotting up the driveway. I raced after her, slipping and sliding wildly, as eager to get away from that A-frame as I’d wanted to get anywhere in my life. But I had, as they say in Tom’s business, a clue.

Sabine, bless her sweet heart, waited for me at the end of the A-frame’s driveway. Worry creased her face. “Are you going to make it?” This, from a woman three decades older than yours truly, propelled me the rest of the way to her house.

Once we were inside Sabine’s hand-built log cabin, I pulled out the credit card. Printed at the bottom was the name Sean Breckenridge. I showed it to Sabine, who raised her eyebrows.

She said, “This calls for some hot herb tea.”

I built a fire in her hearth and swathed myself in a homemade crocheted afghan. As I began to warm up, I wondered about Sean Breckenridge.

I didn’t know him, really. He and Rorry had been living in Aspen Meadow for only a few years, and when Rorry had parties, Marla told me, she hired a Denver caterer. Rorry and Marla had become friends at the country club pool, where Rorry took her son for swimming lessons.

I knew Rorry from church, but only a little. Sean and Rorry’s son, who I guessed was now in kindergarten, came to the altar for a blessing when his parents took communion. The little guy was dark haired and adorable, and possessed an amazing collection of checkered shirts and cowboy boots. He seemed to be wearing a new pair of boots every time I saw him, but always the same cowboy hat. As the mother of a son, I knew enough to tell him his outfit was “really cool” but to stop there. The little boy had looked at me with serious eyes and actually tipped his hat. He’d said, “Thank yeh, ma’am.” I’d managed not to laugh.

Sabine returned with a tray and two hand-thrown pottery mugs, from which a steam emerged that smelled like lawn clippings. She said, “Maybe it’s not as big a deal as we think it is.” She settled into a rocking chair and blew on her tea. “Maybe Sean and Rorry just have so much money, and such a big house, that they go out looking for, you know, adventure while their son is in school.”

“Adventure. Right.”

“Well, Goldy, you don’t know he was up to something else. With someone else.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” I took a deep breath. “What do you suppose that person or those people were shooting at? Do you think they saw or heard us?”

“I can’t imagine they did,” she said. Her nose and cheeks were smudged with soot. “I wish I’d found something. May I just see the card one more time?”

I placed the credit card on the coffee table Sabine and her husband had made, she’d told me when I did her retirement party, from a door salvaged from an abandoned church.

“It could have been stolen,” I said. “Or, if he’s the one who dropped it, he could have done it when he was lifting logs,” I said, remembering how he’d dropped his keys when he was trying to carry his camera. “Credit cards are weird that way. They can work their way out of your wallet. Any man who was exerting effort like that, back and forth to the house, if he had a wallet? The card could have just fallen out. Then the guy’s boot wedged it under the pile.”

Sabine shook her head again and handed me the card. “I notice the expiration is in two years. So it’s a current card.” That information settled over us for a few minutes. “Well, old friend,” she said, standing up, “I have to go take care of the horses. Hay, water, stuff like that. You’re free to stay as long as you want, but I need to get out to the barn.”

I scrambled to my feet and checked my watch. One-forty-five already! I had no idea our little escapade at the A-frame had taken so long. “I have to skedaddle, too. But, wait. Sabine, are you the one who called Donna about someone at the A-frame?”

She shook her head. “No. But there are other people who live out here. It’s just hard to see their houses with all the trees.”

“Has there been any other, you know, suspicious activity in the wildlife preserve? Some reason for people to be shooting?”

Sabine divided her ponytail just below the rubber band, then pulled it in two sections to tighten it. “Well, there’s Hermie.”

“Not Hermie Milkulski.”

“The very same. She’s an animal-rights activist, do you know her?”

I sighed. “Yes.”

“Did you know she lost two fingers a couple of months ago, when she was trying to close down a Nebraska puppy mill by herself? The owner shot her hand.”

I shook my head. “So that’s how it happened.”

“Unfortunately, yes. And since she was trespassing, the owner was within his legal rights. I heard she promised her son that she wouldn’t go out of state anymore, nor would she go into places alone. Now, apparently, Hermie only acts locally. When she suspects some kind of abuse is happening, she just calls Furman County Animal Control.”

“She doesn’t go out of state, and she doesn’t go alone,” I echoed. Hermie had done more than call Animal Control. She’d hired Ernest to do her dirty work. It wouldn’t help to tell Sabine this, and I knew Tom would not appreciate my sharing this tidbit.

Sabine shrugged. “Whenever the Animal Control people don’t find what Hermie thinks they should find, she raises a stink. She was here once, asking me a bunch of questions. Some guy near here has a legit breeding operation on his farm. But Hermie claimed this was cover. She actually used that word.” Sabine sighed. “Anyway, someone who bought a puppy from this breeder called Hermie and said the puppy got sick and then died. According to Hermie, the buyer said it was the veterinarian himself who suspected a mill. Also according to Hermie, Animal Control went out and couldn’t find anything. Hermie insisted that the mill, or mills, were hidden in sheds, or kennels, somewhere on the breeder’s property. Now, wait for it. Hermie thought this breeder knew he was onto her, words she also used. So, even though she’s left-handed, and she’d lost those fingers from her left hand, she learned to shoot a pistol with her right.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I were. And she told me she was ‘withdrawing from society.’ ”

I thought for a minute. “So . . . Hermie thought illegal breeding was going on out here? Would that occasion gunfire? Or could Hermie be the one shooting?”

Sabine shrugged. “When Hermie showed up at my door, she was acting half crazed, asking if I knew back roads in the preserve that would lead onto private property. I told her, I don’t. Plus, you know how it is out here. There really aren’t good maps.”

“So . . . she never found the place?”

Sabine said, “I don’t think so.”

“Do you know if she had any evidence of deplorable conditions?”

“I don’t. But then I began to have suspicions. At the feed store, I ran into a bald guy, a very smarmy character, buying lots of bags of puppy chow. I held the door open for him—”

“What?”

Sabine closed her eyes and shook her head. “I mean, I have nothing to go on, but he put out bad vibes. When I asked him if he was raising puppies, he told me to get out of his way. After Hermie visited, talking about all her suspicions, I found myself wondering about that guy. Yes, Hermie is very excitable. She told me she was thinking of hiring an investigator to find the secret kennels, and get proof of the abuse for Animal Control. But listen, I really need to go feed the horses. Does that answer your questions?”

“All but one, Sabine. Did Hermie say the guy she suspected was raising beagles?”

Sabine’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. She said, “How did you know?”