Victoria Nelson - Blood Trail Part 10

"Never a beaver around when you need one," she muttered, wis.h.i.+ng she'd brought an ax. She had,however, uncovered two facts about the murderer. He had to be at least five foot ten, her height - any shorter and his shoulder wouldn't be level with the place where the rifle barrel had rested - and the odds were good that his hair was short and straight. She dragged a handful of needles and a small branch out of her short, straight hair. Had her hair been long or curly, she'd never had made it out of the tree alive.

"Excuse me?"

The shriek was completely involuntary and as she caught it before it pa.s.sed her lips Vicki figured it didn't count. Her hand on her bag - it had made a useful weapon in the past - she whirled around to confront two puzzled looking middle-aged women, both wearing high-powered binoculars, one of them carrying a canvas bag about a meter long and twenty centimeters wide.

"We were just wondering," said the shorter, "what you were doing up that tree."

Vicki shrugged, waning adrenaline jerking her shoulders up and down. "Oh, just looking around." She waved a not quite nonchalant hand at the canvas bag. "You out here to do a little shooting?"

"In a manner of speaking. Although this is our camera tripod, not a rifle."

"It's illegal to shoot on conservation authority property," added the other woman. She glared at Vicki, obviously still unhappy at having found her up in a tree. "We would reportanyone we found shooting out here, you can be certain of that."

"Hey." Vicki raised both hands to shoulder height. "I'm unarmed." As neither woman seemed to appreciate her sense of humor, she lowered them again. "You're birders, aren't you?" A recent newspaper nature column had mentioned thatbirders was now the preferred term;bird-watcher having gone out of vogue.

Apparently, the column had been correct.

Twenty minutes later, Vicki had learned more about nature photography than she wanted to know; learned that in spite of the high-power binoculars the two women had seen nothing strange on the Heerkens farm -"We don't look at other people's property, welook at birds," - and, in fact, didn'teven know where the Heerkens farm was; learned that a .30 caliber rifle and scope would easily fit into a tripod bag, allowing it to be carried into the woods without arousing suspicion. Although neither woman had ever come across a hunter, they'd both found spent sh.e.l.l casings and so were always on the look out. With middle-cla.s.s confidence that no one would ever want to hurt them, they laughed at Vicki's warnings to be careful.

There were two bird-watching clubs in London as well as a photography group run by the YMCA that often came out to the conservation area. Armed with names and phone numbers of people to contact - "Although the members of thatother club are really nothing more than a group of dilettantes. You'd do much better to join us." - Vicki bade farewell to the birders and tromped off through the bush, willing to bet big money that not everyone with a pair of binoculars kept then trained exclusively on birds and that someone was shooting more than film.

"Henry Fitzroy?" Dave Graham peered over his partner's shoulder at the pile of papers on the desk.

"Isn't that the guy that Vicki's seeing?"

"What if it is?" Celluci growled, pointedly turning the entire pile over.

"Nothing, nothing." Dave went around to his side of the desk and sat down. "Did, uh, Vicki ask you to check into his background?"

"No. She didn't."

Dave recognized the tone and knew he should drop it, but some temptations were more than mortal man could resist. "I thought you and Vicki had a relations.h.i.+p based on, what was it, 'trust and mutual respect'?"

Celluci's eyes narrowed and he drummed his fingers against the paper. "Yeah. So?"

"Well ..." Dave took a long, slow drink of his coffee. "It seems to me that checking up on the other men in her life doesn't exactly fit into those parameters."

Slamming his chair back, Celluci stood. "It's none of your d.a.m.ned business."

"You're right. Sorry." David smiled blandly up at him.

"I'm just looking out for a friend. Okay? He's a writer, G.o.d knows what he's been into."

"Right."

Seemingly of their own volition, Celluci's fingers crumpled the uppermost paper into a tightly wadded ball. "She can see who she wants," he ground out through clenched teeth and stomped out of the office.

Dave snickered into his coffee. "Of course she can," he said to the air, "as long as she doesn't see them very often and they meet with your approval." He made plans to be as far out of range as possible when Vicki found out and the s.h.i.+t hit the fan.

By 10:27, Vicki was pretty sure she was lost. She'd already taken twice as long coming out of the woods as she'd spent going in. The trees all looked the same and under the thick summer canopy it was impossible to take any kind of a bearing on the sun. Two paths had petered out into nothing and a blue jay had spent three minutes dive-bombing her, screaming insults. Various rustlings in the underbrush seemed to indicate that the locals found the whole thing pretty funny.

She glared at a pale green moss growing all around a tree.

"Where the h.e.l.l are the Boy Scouts when you need one?"

Six.

Vicki saw no apparent thinning of the woods; one moment she was in them, the next she was stepping out into a field. It wasn't a field she recognized either. There were no sheep, no fences, and no indication of where she might be.Settling her bag more firmly on her shoulder, she started toward the white frame house and cl.u.s.ter of outbuildings that the other end of the field rolled up against. Maybe she could get directions, or use their phone ...

"... or get run off for trespa.s.sing by a large dog and a farmer with a pitchfork." She was pretty sure they did that sort of thing in the country, that it was effectively legal, and that it didn't matter because she wasn't going back into those woods. She'd take on half a dozen farmers with pitchforks first.

As she approached, wading knee-deep through gra.s.s and goldenrod and thistles, she became convinced that no one had worked this farm for quite some time. The barn had a faded, unused look about it and she could actually smell the roses that climbed all over one wall of the white frame house.

The field ended in a large vegetable garden. Vicki recognized the cabbages, the tomato plants, and the raspberry bushes - nothing else seemed familiar.Which isn't really surprising. She picked her way around the perimeter.My vegetables usually come with a picture of the jolly green. ...

"Oh. h.e.l.lo."

"h.e.l.lo." The elderly man, who had appeared so suddenly in her path, continued to stare, obviously waiting for her to elaborate further.

"I, uh, got lost in the woods."

His gaze started at her sneakers, ran up her scratched and bitten legs, past her walking shorts, paused for a moment on her Blue Jays' T-s.h.i.+rt, flicked over to her shoulder bag, and finally came to rest on her face. "Oh," he said, a small smile lifting the edges of his precise gray mustache.

The single word covered a lot of ground, and the conclusion it drew would've annoyed the h.e.l.l out of Vicki if it hadn't been so accurate. She held out her hand. "Vicki Nelson."

"Carl Biehn."

His palm was dry and leathery, his grip firm. Over the years, Vicki had discovered she could tell a lot about a man based on how he shook hands with her - or if he'd shake hands at all. Some men still seemed absolutely confused about what to do when the offered hand belonged to a woman. Carl Biehn shook hands with an economy of movement that said he had nothing to prove. She liked him for it.

"You look like you could use some water, Ms. Nelson."

"I could use a lake," Vicki admitted, rubbing at the sweat collected under her chin.

His smile broadened. "Well, no lake, but I'll see what I can do." He led the way around the raspberry bushes and Vicki fell into step beside him. Her first view of the rest of the garden brought an involuntary exclamation of delight.

"Do you like it?" He sounded almost shy.

"It's ..." She discarded a pile of adjectives as inadequate and finished simply. "... the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"Thank you." He beamed; first at her and then out over the flower beds where a fallen rainbow, shattered into a thousand brilliant pieces, perched against every possible shade of green. "The Lord has been good to me this summer."

Vicki tensed, but he made no other reference to G.o.d.And thank G.o.d for that. She had no idea if her admiration had broken through the elderly man's reserve or if he simply had none when it came to the garden. As they walked between the beds, he introduced the flowers they pa.s.sed as though they were old friends - here adjusting a stake that held a blood red gladioli upright, there swiftly beheading a dying blossom.

"... dusty orange beauties are dwarf hemerocallis, day lilies. If you make the effort to plant early, middle, and late varieties, they'll bloom beautifully from June on into September. They're not a fussy grower, not hard to work with, just give them a little phosphate and potash and they'll show their appreciation. Nowthese shasta daisies over here. ..."

Having spent most of her life in apartments, Vicki understood next to nothing about gardens or the plants that grew in them but she could - and did - appreciate the amount of work that had gone into creating and maintaining such an oasis of color amid the summer-toasted fields. She also could appreciate the depth of emotion that Carl Biehn lavished on his creation. He wasn't soppy or twee about it but the garden was a living being to him; it showed subtly in his voice, his expressions, his actions. People who cared that much about something outside themselves were rare in Vicki's world and it reinforced her first favorable impression.

An old-fas.h.i.+oned hand pump stood on a cement platform, close by the back door. Carl led the way across the lawn toward it, finis.h.i.+ng his enthusiastic monologue about the new heritage roses just as he reached for the handle.

"The cup appears to be missing again, Ms. Nelson. I hope you don't mind."

Vicki grinned. "I may just stick my entire head under if that's all right with you."

"Be my guest."

For all its apparent age, the pump worked smoothly, pulling up clear, cold water with only the slightest taste of iron. Vicki couldn't remember the last time she'd tasted anything as good and the sudden shock of it hitting the back of her head erased much of the morning's stickiness. If the pump had been a little higher off the ground, she'd have stuck her entire body under it.

Flicking her wet hair back off her face, she straightened and indicated the pump. "May I?" When Carl admitted that he wouldn't mind, they changed places. There was more pressure against the handle than Vicki had antic.i.p.ated and she found herself having to lean into the mechanism. Gardening had obviously kept her elderly benefactor in good condition.

"It really is incredible," she murmured. "I've never seen anything like it."

"You should have seen it last week. Then it was really something." He stood, wiping his hands dry on his pants and gazing proudly out over the vast expanse of color. "Still, I have to admit, it doesn't look bad.

Everything out there from A to Zee, from asters to zinnias."Vicki stepped back as a b.u.mblebee, leg pouches bulging with pollen, flew a slightly wobbly course just past the end of her nose. From this angle, she could look out over the flowers, to the vegetables, to the fields beyond. The contrast was incredible. "It looks like shredded wheat out there. How do you keep the garden watered? It must be almost a full-time job."

"Not at all." He rested one foot up on the cement platform and leaned a forearm across his thigh. "I use an underground irrigation system, developed by the Israelis. I merely turn on the tap and the system does all the work. Just to be on the safe side, however, I've run a water line out into the garden with a hundred feet of hose, in case a specific plant needs a little attention."

She waved a hand between the brown and the green. "I just can't get over the difference."

"Well, sometimes even the Lord needs a little help, his wonders to perform. Have you been saved, Ms.

Nelson?"

The question came so unexpectedly, in such a rational tone, that it took Vicki a moment to realize what had been said and a moment beyond that to come up with what she hoped would be a definitive reply.

"I'm an Anglican." She wasn't, really, but her mother was, sort of.

"Ah." He nodded, stepping back off the platform. "Church of England." For just a second, caught between the sun and the concrete, the damp sole of his shoe left a print - concentric half circles of tread last seen pressed into pine gum in the crotch of a tree.

Her expression carefully neutral over a sudden surge of adrenaline, Vicki put her own foot up on the platform and bent to tie her shoe. In the heat of the sun, the print dried quickly but it was a definite match.

Unfortunately, so was the print she left behind.

A quick look told her they were wearing the same brand of running shoe. A brand that seemed to cover the feet of half the civilized world.

s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t!Good news and bad news. Or bad news and good news, she wasn't quite sure. Evidence no longer pointed directly to the feet of Carl Biehn but her suspect list, based on the sneaker print at least, had just grown by millions. There'd be small differences of course - size, cracks in the rubber, wear patterns - but the possibilities of an easy match had just evaporated.

"Are you all right, Ms. Nelson? Perhaps you should sit down for a moment, out of the sun."

"I'm fine." He was watching her with some concern so she pulled up a smile. "Thank you, Mr. Biehn."

"Well, maybe we'd best see about getting you back where you belong. If I could offer you a lift somewhere. ..."

"And if you can't, I most certainly will."

Vicki turned. The man standing in the doorway was in his early thirties, of average height, average looks, and above average self-opinion. He leered genially down at her, his pose no doubt intended to show off his manly physique - which, she admitted, wasn't bad.If you like the squash and health club types. ...

Which she didn't.

Slipping on a pair of expensive sungla.s.ses, he stepped out into the sunlight, hair gleaming like burnished gold.

I bet he highlights it.A quick glance showed he wore blue leather deck shoes. Without socks. Vicki hated the look of shoes without socks. Although odds were good he owned a pair of running shoes, she somehow doubted he'd be willing to ruin his manicure by climbing a tree. Which was a pity as he seemed to be exactly the type of person she'd love to feed to the wer.

Beside her, she heard Carl suppress a sigh.

"Ms. Nelson, may I introduce you to my nephew, Mark Williams."

The younger man grinned broadly at his uncle. "And here I thought your only hobbies were gardeningand bird-watching and saving souls." Then he turned the force of his smile on Vicki.

Some expensive dental work there,she thought, picking at a bit of dried pine gum on her T-s.h.i.+rt and trying not to scowl.

"Ms. Nelson got lost in the conservation area," Carl explained tersely. "I was just about to drive her home."

"Oh please, allow me." Mark's voice stopped just short of caressing and more than a little past what Vicki considered insulting. "If I know my uncle, once he gets a lovely woman alone in a car all he'll do is preach."

"Please, don't put yourself out." Her tone made it more a command than a polite reply and Mark looked momentarily nonplussed. "If you wouldn't mind . . ." she continued, turning to Carl. Being preached at would be infinitely preferable to being with Mark. He reminded her of a pimp she'd once busted.

"Not at all." Carl was doing an admirable job of keeping a straight face, but Vicki caught sight of the twinkle in his eye and a suspicious trembling at the ends of his mustache. He waved a hand toward the driveway and indicated Vicki should precede him.

It wasn't hard to connect the car with the man. The late model, black jeep with the gold trim, the plush interior, the sunroof, and the rust along the bottom of the doors was practically a simulacrum of Mark.

The ten-year-old, beige sedan with the recent wax job just as obviously - although not as loudly - said Carl.

Vicki had her hand on the door handle when Mark called, "Hey! I don't even know your first name."

She turned and the air temperature plummeted around her smile. "I know," she told him, and got into the car.

The very expensive stereo system surprised her a little.

"I like to listen to gospel music while I drive," Carl explained, when he saw her looking at enough lightsand b.u.t.tons and switches to fill an airplane c.o.c.kpit. He stopped the car at the end of the driveway.

"Where to?"

Where to, indeed; she had no idea of the address or even the name of the road. "The, uh, Heerkens sheep farm. Are you familiar with it?"

"Yes."

The suppressed emotion in that single word pulled Vicki's brows down. "Is there a problem?"