The Magic Of Halloween Night

Chapter 13

Sunday

By the following morning, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. The sky was still dark, but not nearly as dark as it had been the previous day. I called Paisley just to check on her and was happy to find that she was having a wonderful time. I wondered how Aunt Gracie’s leaf tour had worked out with the rain that had been coming down in the area, but I suspected that even if she and Tom had been forced to hole up somewhere and wait it out, they’d most likely been having a wonderful time. Cass had finally been able to get through to the folks out at the movie site and inform them that one of their actors was dead. They assured Cass that they’d take care of informing others back in LA who might need to be notified of the development.

Cass still hadn’t heard from the coroner, but it seemed evident that the cause of death was a gunshot to the back. Trying to figure where Robert had been before his mad dash through the woods was proving to be a difficult task, but Cass and I had talked about it and decided that if the flooding receded enough to make passage along the lake road doable, we’d take a ride out and have another look around.

Cass and I went over the map we had and tried to figure out who made a likely candidate as the killer, but despite our efforts, we came up cold. Given the fact that two men who knew each other had been killed in the same general area only days apart, although admittedly by completely different means, it seemed as if the killer must be someone who’d lived in Foxtail Lake back when we were all in high school.

“Jamison Hanson has lived in the area for a long time,” I pointed out. “I can’t see why he would kill either man, and I’m not even sure Jamison knew either Bill or Robert, but his son, Everson, was a year ahead of us in school, so he would have known both men. Maybe Everson is home for a vacation, or maybe Jamison learned something from his son about the men and decided to retaliate for something that occurred in the past.”

“Seems like a longshot,” Cass said.

“I agree, but I don’t suppose it would hurt to try to talk to Jamison. I know he didn’t answer the door yesterday when we knocked, but he might be home today.”

Cass nodded. “Yeah. Okay. If the water recedes enough so we can get out, we’ll take a drive out there.”

I looked at the map again. It really didn’t seem likely that any of the men and women who lived off the old highway had killed either Bill or Robert, but I really didn’t have another theory.

The rain stopped by ten o’clock, and the road became passable by noon. I decided to drop Alastair and my bag of clothing off at the house on the way out to the Hanson place. I’d need to show up early at the movie shoot tomorrow, so it made sense that I’d spend the night at Gracie’s, which was twenty minutes closer to the highway. I invited Cass to stay with me, so he packed a bag and his dog, and we headed in that direction.

After we dropped the animals off at the house, we headed out of town. Luckily, Mr. Hanson was home today and answered the door when we knocked. We asked if he’d seen or heard anything on either of the Thursday nights in question. He reported that he hadn’t, but he did tell us that he’d noticed Bill’s car in the area a time or two during the week preceding his accident. Cass asked Jamison if he knew whether or not Bill had been visiting one of the other homeowners in the area, and Jamison replied that he wasn’t certain why he’d been out this way, but he did remember him driving south toward town on at least two occasions when he’d been driving north toward his ranch. Jamison said they hadn’t stopped to talk, but they had waved at each other as they passed.

“So Bill had been visiting someone out here during the week before his accident,” I said to Cass after we returned to the truck. “I wonder who.”

“No one we’ve spoken to has admitted to having spent time with the guy,” Cass pointed out. “There are a few folks who weren’t home when we tried yesterday, and then there are the farms on the north side of the old highway. I suppose Bill could have been heading back to town from one of the northernmost farms, but that seems a long way for Robert to have run through the woods before being shot, assuming he was killed by the same person who killed Bill if, in fact, Bill was murdered.”

“I agree,” I said. “It seems more likely that the men visited one of the farms on the south side of the highway. Of course, we’re assuming that both men not only visited the same person but were killed by the same person and that the person they visited is the person who killed them.”

“It would be odd if that wasn’t the case, but I suppose it is possible.” He furrowed his brow. “Bill had an auto accident. In the beginning, I assumed the accident was caused by driver error, but then after Robert’s body was discovered, I started to believe he’d been run off the road. Based on the location of both Bill’s vehicle after the crash and the location of Robert’s remains, it appears as if the men had been visiting one of the nearby farms before their deaths. If it does turn out that Bill’s accident wasn’t an accident and someone did run him off the road, I assume it’s most likely that the men were killed by the same person.” Cass paused and took a breath. It seemed as if he was working things out as he spoke. I recognized the repetition of facts as a common thread when Cass had an idea he hadn’t quite settled on yet. “If both men had been at a nearby farm before their deaths,” he continued, “it stands to reason that it was the landowner they were visiting who killed them. But what if it wasn’t?” He paused and looked me in the eye. “What if someone followed them from town, and then this person who’d followed them killed them after they left the property of whomever they’d been visiting?”

“Jennifer,” I said. “She had dinner with both men on the first Thursday. She was seen arguing with Bill over what may have been divorce paperwork after they left the restaurant. All three people who met for dinner had their own vehicle. I can see how Bill might have driven out here to the country for some reason, only to be followed by Jennifer, who was so angry with him that she run him off the road.”

“And Robert?”

“They were seen arguing earlier this week. If Jennifer killed Bill in order to legally end their marriage, maybe Robert figured out what she’d done, and she killed him as well.” I paused. “This scenario occurred to me before, but for some reason, the idea filtered to the bottom of the list. Still, I think we should take a closer look at Jennifer.”

“I agree. Let’s head up to the resort and see if she’s available for a conversation.”

As it turned out, Jennifer had taken advantage of having two down days to head to Denver to visit a friend, although she was scheduled to be at the shoot early Monday morning. Cass and I talked about it, and he decided to follow me up to the resort the following day. In the meantime, we decided to grab some takeout and head back to the house, where we planned to snuggle and watch the clouds fade from the sky.