“Right.”
Hercules nuzzled my hand and I began to stroke his fur. His attention was still on Hope. “I think John was actually on the lakeside property. He alluded to having been there. It’s rough, hilly, boggy-in-places terrain. Could some kind of cut down Jeep or truck have caused the injuries that Dani had?”
“It’s possible,” Hope said. She rubbed at the creases in her forehead. “I’d have to see it to be sure. That still doesn’t answer the questions though; how did John get a vehicle?”
“The big red barn.”
“You mean Hollister’s? The place that sells the vegetables?” I could see the skepticism on her face. I would have felt the same way if not for the conversation I’d had with Maggie and Roma the night Maggie made pizza.
“They have a little under-the-table side business selling old vehicles for off-roading—I’m guessing they’re not licensed, either. I know John knows the place because he brought me a bag of apples from there as a thank-you for all my help.”
Hope got to her feet.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m going to drive out there and see what I can find.” She pulled her keys out of her pocket.
I stood up as well and set Hercules on the floor. “You’re not going to call Detective Foster?”
“And tell him what? John Keller has a hole in his alibi and we think he’s the killer because the victim’s girlfriend thought there was something off about him?”
“I’m going with you, then,” I said.
“You’re not a detective.”
“And you’re not on this case.”
We stared at each other for a moment. “We’re taking my car. It has four-wheel drive,” Hope finally said.
I grabbed a hoodie and my phone. Hercules followed us. I stopped in the porch and bent down to his level. “You can’t go with us. Stay here.” I wanted to say “No walking though the door” but with Hope standing there I couldn’t. He immediately looked at Hope.
She shrugged. “Does he get carsick?”
“No,” I said, “but on occasion he will try to give directions.”
“What the heck,” she said. “Let him come. Maybe he’ll bring us good luck.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
She nodded. “We’re just a couple of women driving around with our cat, looking for a little piece of land to buy to build a getaway, maybe plant some flowers, make a fire pit, explore the woods in some kind of off-road vehicle.”
I smiled at her. “You’re good.”
She smiled back. “I didn’t get the badge for sending in two box tops and answering a time-limited skill-testing question.”
14
The big red barn was up the road a little from Wisteria Hill. Unlike Roma’s place, which was set back from the road, the barn and the old farmhouse were easy to spot. The farm stand was out by the road with the barn off to the right and the old house on a slight slope of land to the left. Both the old house and the barn had a list to one side, as though they’d gotten tired of standing upright over the years.
Hope pulled in next to a couple of cars. “Look at the pumpkins, check out the squash and apples. Watch. Listen. That’s it.”
“Stay here, please,” I said to Hercules as we got out of the car.
There were a couple of ladder-back chairs by the end of the vegetable stand. Hope walked over to them and tipped her head on one side as though she was trying to picture them arranged somewhere. Gerald Hollister spied her and headed in her direction. I made my way over to the bushel baskets, arranged on a couple of long low tables. Two other women were checking out pumpkins. And I realized I knew the woman waiting on them. Her son was one of the new first-graders added to our Reading Buddies program.
I could get bits and pieces of Hope’s conversation with the old man, and she wasn’t getting anywhere. He offered the two chairs to her for way more than I knew they had to be worth. And when she mentioned she’d heard he might be able to help her with an off-road vehicle he told her flat out whoever had told her that was steering her wrong.
Hope took it all in stride, shrugging and saying it must have been someone else. She pointed at the old barn and asked if Hollister had any more chairs. He told her no—another lie, I was guessing.
Meanwhile the two women had found their pumpkin at last. Bella Lawrence—Lawrence because she wasn’t married to her boy’s father, the old man’s son—came up quietly behind me.
“Hello, Ms. Paulson,” she said in her soft voice. Then she pointed at a basket of apples. “Haralson are good if you looking to make pie,” she added in a slightly louder voice. “So are Honeycrisp.”
“What about these?” I asked, moving over to the end of the makeshift table as far away from Hope and the old man as I could get.
Bella shook her head. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a braid, and her face, devoid of any makeup, made her look like a teenager—too young to be the mother of a six-year-old. “Those are SnowSweet. Good for eating, not for pie.”
She lowered her voice again. “The old man is lying to your friend,” she said. “I know she’s a police officer. She talked to Duncan’s class when they toured the fire station.”
Neither one of us was any good at undercover work it seemed.
“Please don’t tell him,” I whispered.
She smiled. “What he doesn’t know doesn’t hurt him. Anyway, I owe you. You should hear Duncan read now that he’s in your Reading Buddies. He isn’t going to be stuck here, that’s for sure.”
I picked an apple from the top of one of the baskets and pretended to be considering it just in case the old man was looking our way. “So he does have some off-road vehicles?” I said.
“A truck and an old Jeep.”
“Has anyone used either one of them lately?”
Bella picked up the basket of apples directly in front of me. “Good choice,” she said. She led me around behind the mound of pumpkins. “You know that thing planned for the lake? The resort?”
I nodded. “He doesn’t want it to happen. He figures the county’ll make him fix this place up and come after him for tax on all the stuff he’s selling. This guy came looking for something off-road.” Her eyes met mine. “I listen because it’s good to know things. He said he could stop the development from happening but he didn’t want anyone to know he’s been over on that land.”
I described John.
“That’s him,” she said. She took a pumpkin from the pile. “Is that everything?” she asked.
“It is,” I said. “Thank you.”
Bella dumped the apples into a paper bag and I paid her for everything. As she handed the bag of apples to me she bent her head close to mine. “If you want to look at that Jeep it’s parked in a lean-to out to the back of here. Head that way.” She pointed down the road. “Watch for a peeling green post and some yellow tape around a tree. That’s the road you want.” She straightened up and gave me a practiced smile. “Thanks for coming. Stop by again.”
I set the apples and the pumpkin on the backseat. Hercules immediately stuck his nose in the bag.
Hope slid behind the wheel with a fake smile plastered on her face.
“Turn right,” I said.
She glanced at me, eyes narrowed, but put on the right-turn blinker. “That was a waste of time,” she said once we were on the road. “And why did you want to go this way?”
“Because John did rent an off-road vehicle from Gerald Hollister and I know where it is.”
“How do you do that?” Hope asked, shaking her head, a smile starting to spread across her face.