My brilliant deductive reasoning ended when Fred dropped a stick at my feet. At least I thought it had been brilliant, though I’m sure Deputy White would compare it to a night-light — dim and dull. I threw the stick back in the water then headed toward the parking lot. It wasn’t two minutes later I felt Fred trying to put the stick in my hand.
“No, Fred!” I said a little too loud. “We need to get on home and do some research on those kids. I don’t even know their names.”
He had a limited vocabulary, so I doubt he understood what I’d said, but he did know the word NO, and dropped the stick.
***
Fred was still pouting when we got home. I wasn’t sure if it was because he thought I’d yelled at him, or he was mad that I’d cut his swim too short. Whatever it was, he wanted to let me know he didn’t like it. I ignored him and let him stay outside to sulk while I went in to boot my computer.
It didn’t take long to get the names of the punk kids. A search with the keywords ‘missing’ and ‘Park County’ returned an article on the search underway on Mosquito Pass for a Jennifer Dawson and Cory Weston of Lakewood. Another search, this time using ‘Cory Weston’ and ‘Lakewood, Colorado’, gave me an address on Saulsbury. I quickly checked my notes for Craig’s address. They lived on the same block.
I couldn’t wait to share my knowledge with someone and gave Bonnie a call.
When she didn’t pick up, I called her cell phone. “Did you hear the news, Jake?” she asked before I could tell her about my fortuitous research. “They found those kids in a mine on Mosquito Pass.”
“Are they okay?”
“No. They’re—”
My phone beeped and cut her off momentarily. “Hold on, Bon. It’s the Park County Sheriff calling. I better get it.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Don’t say a word to them until you talk to a lawyer, Bonnie. I’ll ask Harvey first thing tomorrow and see if he can help you.” Bonnie’s twin sister, Margot, didn’t let me finish talking before adding her two-cents. I had just finished telling them about my conversation with Deputy White and how he wanted us to sign a written statement. Bonnie and Margot were at a boutique in Evergreen when her call had been interrupted by the Sheriff’s office. When I called back, Margot insisted I come down and tell them everything White had said. After I’d told her I wouldn’t be caught dead in a boutique, we agreed to meet at the coffee shop two doors down.
I knew better than to interrupt Margot by suggesting a lawyer wasn’t necessary, especially one like Harvey Goldstein, Denver’s finest. Margot was a major pain in my neck last year when she and Bonnie had talked me into re-writing a manuscript their father had written. Little did I know it would lead to a trail of deceit and murder and get me accused of negligent homicide. I hadn’t seen Margot since then, and it still amazed me how alike, yet different, two twins could be. I suppose it was the money.
Margot had married well and didn’t mind spending on anything that would make her look younger. Bonnie’s dead husband left her with a mortgaged house and a Social Security check that barely paid the utilities and grocery bill. She couldn’t afford the expensive facials, and beauty treatments her sister could. Margot looked twenty years younger, from a distance. Sitting next to her in the coffee shop with her makeup, Botox, and tired face lift, she looked like a clown.
Bonnie winced after sipping her latte. “I can’t afford a lawyer, Margot. You know that. And don’t even suggest paying for one. I don’t need your charity.”
Other than being too sweet for my taste, I knew there was nothing wrong with her coffee that a little bourbon wouldn’t fix. I tried to stop the argument that was sure to follow. “Whoa, you two. White only wants a statement. He just called to let me know they found the bodies and thank me for telling him about the transmission fluid. He said they would have missed it otherwise.”
Margot looked at me with swollen eyelids. “Transmission fluid?”
I hesitated answering, wondering if she had been crying. Had they been arguing before I arrived? Then I saw the scars and realized it must have been from her latest elective surgery.
Bonnie didn’t wait for me to speak. “Jake told him it wasn’t the kids because their truck didn’t have an automatic. He got all that from a little spot of oil on the ground.”
“Except I didn’t take into account a power-steering pump,” I said, cutting back into the conversation.
Both sisters sat their drinks down at the same time and looked at me, four gray-blue eyes wondering what I had just said.
“I’m pretty sure the early Datsuns didn’t have power-steering, so it never occurred to me that it was the pump that was leaking. Someone must have added it. Anyway, those pumps use a fluid that looks exactly like transmission fluid.”
Margot looked annoyed. She had fished out a compact from her purse to check her eyelids while I was talking. “That’s nice, Jake, but what did the sheriff say about the kids?”
“I was getting to it, Margot. White said they found the Datsun in a pit half a mile from the mine. That’s when they decided to check out all the mines in the area. The kids were in the one where we saw the footprints in the snow. The old rotten floor gave out on them, and they fell fifty feet straight down.”
Margot didn’t wait for me to continue and put away her compact. Evidently, she was satisfied with what she had seen in the mirror, or maybe it had cracked and she didn’t want us to know. “All the more reason you need a lawyer, Bonnie. I won’t be surprised if they say you two ditched the truck after throwing the kids down the mine shaft. I know these cops. They’ll pretend you’re their best friends and then slam it to you.”
Bonnie’s eyes turned a shade darker. “This isn’t a television cop show, Margot. All they want is a statement. If I go in there with a lawyer, I might as well hang a scarlet M on my chest.”
“I still think it’s a trick. They’ll find out you were in that guy’s house sooner or later. You should let them know before they find out. That’s why you need a lawyer.”
“You told her we went into Appleton’s cabin?” I asked, raising my voice.
Bonnie lowered her head, and stared into her latte. “She’s my sister, Jake. I guess I let it slip.”
I took a deep breath and cleared my throat to get their attention. “We don’t even know if the burglary White mentioned was Appleton’s. Nor do we know if they suspect murder. Are you forgetting they said Appleton killed himself? Why incriminate ourselves and make them think otherwise?”
“Because Bonnie will be charged for withholding evidence when they find out she was there. Ow! Why’d you kick me?”
“Because everyone’s listening,” Bonnie answered.
I hadn’t seen Bonnie kick her sister under the table, but looked around to see that we had indeed become the coffee shop’s main event. “Well, if you gals don’t mind, Fred’s been alone in the car too long, and I need to get going,” I said, getting up and reaching for my wallet. It was a white-lie. I had left Fred home on my front deck, but it was all I could think of to make a quick exit.
“I’ll get it, Jake,” Margot said when I opened my empty wallet in front of her while trying to extract a credit card. “And I promise not to call Harvey — for now.”
Fred ran out to greet me with a tennis ball in his mouth when I drove into my driveway twenty minutes later. I hope if there is such a thing as reincarnation that I come back as a Golden. They have a way of making one smile no matter what. I took the slimy ball and threw it down the hill, knowing it should give me time to make it to my porch before he came back to drop it at my feet.