UNEASY PREY Page 15

  “Good.” Pete frowned at the final item on the list and hoped she had more details on it than she had on the jewelry. “What about this gun?”

  Marcus’s head snapped up.

  Pete wasn’t the only one who noticed. “Marcus, go out to the kitchen and finish clearing out the fridge,” Janie said.

  Pete had seen the contemptuous look the boy gave his mother before. It was the same smoldering glare he’d used on the kid he beat up at that school.

  “Marcus, do as I say,” Janie said, her tone sharper this time.

  He held his mother’s gaze for a moment longer before vanishing into the rear of the house.

  Janie gave Pete an apologetic smile. “He didn’t know Gram kept a gun.”

  Pete hoped Janie was right about that. “What kind of gun?”

  “I don’t know much about them. It was kinda small.” She held up her hands in an awkward attempt to illustrate the size.

  “Was it a revolver or a semi-automatic?”

  She gave him a blank look.

  “Did it have a cylinder? For the bullets.”

  Her gaze shifted for a moment. “Oh. I know what you mean. Yes, it had a roller thingie that held the bullets.” She gave him a weak grin, pleased with herself for being able to answer his question. “Gram’s had it for years. Kept it in a box on the top shelf of her bedroom closet. For protection.” Janie seemed to realize what she’d said, and her shoulders sagged. “I guess it didn’t do a lot of good.”

  They rarely do, Pete thought. He held up the paper. “Is that all?”

  “I think so. If I discover anything else is missing, I’ll let you know.”

  Pete tucked the note and his glasses into a pocket and thanked her. He glanced into the room where Marcus had disappeared, hoping to have another talk with him, but the boy was nowhere to be seen.

  “Please, Chief. Talk to Mr. Troutman again. It’s hard enough dealing with losing Gram without him constantly hanging around.”

  “I think he’s just lonely.”

  “I’m sure he is, but I have too much to do to keep an old man company.”

  Pete thought of Harry and made a mental note to call him later. Maybe even stop in at Golden Oaks. “I understand. I’ll speak with him. By the way, I have a spare key to this house back at the station. I’ll drop it off one day. Or you can stop in and pick it up if you want.”

  “You mean the one I left with that young Officer Metzger? He already returned it to me.”

  “No. This is another spare.”

  She frowned. “How did you get another spare key?”

  “Your grandmother gave it to Mr. Troutman at some point. I confiscated it.”

  Janie’s frown deepened.

  Pete reached out to give her shoulder a comforting pat. “They were friends. He checked up on her.”

  “Yeah, well, just like her gun, Trout didn’t do a whole helluva lot of good either.”

  SIXTEEN

  Cleaning stalls had always been therapeutic for Zoe. While most folks seemed to find the earthy aroma of horse manure offensive, she thought of it as sweet perfume. Today, though, the mounds of “road apples” were frozen rock-hard, as was the sawdust bedding. Mucking the stalls involved more chiseling than scooping.

  Even so, she appreciated the strenuous labor. Sweating allowed her to work out her aggression toward her mother, who had bitched and moaned the entire drive back to the Krolls’ farm.

  Not to mention Zoe’s frustration with the state of her mother’s “gift.” Kimberly’s “making amends” was likely to break Zoe’s meager bank account. Pete was right. She should turn it down.

  But where else could she stable her horse? Keeping Windstar on her own property meant no boarding fees. Sure, there would be some initial unavoidable expenses to repair the fences and the barn, but she could recoup it by bringing in boarders. Perhaps even some of these same horses she’d come to know and love while managing Mr. and Mrs. Kroll’s farm.

  By the time she’d finished cleaning the last stall, she felt more hopeful. She had a plan. Fix up her barn first. Put the house with its missing doors, plumbing, and appliances on the back burner. Pete wanted her to stay with him. So be it.

  For now.

  She sliced through the twine on a bale of hay. As she gathered an armload of the stuff, the man-sized door in the end of the barn closest to the farmhouse swung open and a female voice drifted in. “Hello?”

  Zoe set the hay down and squinted at the silhouetted figure in the doorway. “Yes?”

  The woman stepped inside. “I stopped by to speak with Mrs. Kroll, but there’s no one at the house. I’ve learned with farmers to always check the barn.”

  With a jolt, Zoe realized her visitor was Lauren Sanders. Mr. Kroll had a doctor’s appointment, but that was none of the reporter’s business. “Is there something I can do for you?” Zoe made no effort to mask the chill in her voice.

  Lauren approached slowly. “Ms. Chambers.” She extended a hand. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I’d like to speak with you too.”

  The feeling wasn’t mutual. Zoe eyed the reporter’s gloves—too thin for the brutal cold, but still more functional than fashionable—and shook the offered hand. “I don’t know what I can tell you.”

  “I heard the Senior Killers’ hideout was discovered and your mother is the owner of the property. I hoped I could ask you a few questions.”

  “Senior Killers?”

  “It’s the name the media is using for these criminals. I’m not the one who came up with it.”

  Zoe wanted to point out that only one person had died. Giving these guys a name made them sound like serial killers. However, she figured her argument would be lost on the reporter.

  Lauren reached into her ever-present tote bag and pulled out a notebook. “Do you mind?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. I’m busy.”

  Lauren looked around at the empty stalls. “I’m envious, you know. I’ve always loved horses. Dreamed of living on a farm. I took riding lessons for a while when I was a kid, but my younger brother was deathly allergic and would have horrible reactions from my clothes when I’d come in the house. So my mother made me quit.”

  The melancholy in the woman’s voice struck a chord. Zoe tried to imagine a life without horses. While Kimberly was never the most supportive mother, at least she never blocked Zoe’s equine passion.

  “I’d be happy to help,” Lauren said. “Maybe earn a few minutes of your time?”

  The woman wasn’t dressed for barn work, but if she was willing to get her dark wool coat covered in hay for the sake of an interview, who was Zoe to stop her? Besides, Zoe never turned down help. “Sure.” She scooped up an armload and strode away. “Two flakes per stall.”

  “Flakes?”

  Zoe froze. Had Lauren’s sob story been fiction, geared at playing on Zoe’s sympathy? Or had the riding lessons not included any of the mundane tasks of horse ownership?

  Zoe set the bundle down in front of a stall, grabbed a compacted section roughly four or five inches thick, and held it up. “When a hay bale is cut open, it separates into segments. About this much is what we consider a flake, more or less.”

  “Oh.” Lauren looked at the bale a moment before shoving her notebook back in her tote. She gathered an armload of hay and crossed to the stalls on the far side of the barn.

  At least she hadn’t tagged along behind Zoe.

  The reporter may not have known the terminology, but she did a competent job of distributing the hay. Zoe kept an eye on her for a few stalls, decided she’d grasped the concept, and left her on her own. A few minutes later, they met at the final stall. As predicted, Lauren’s wool coat was covered in dried grasses. She even had a few pieces of hay stuck in her hair.

  If nothing else, Zoe had the smug satisfaction of dirtying up the woman. “Now you look like
a farmer.”

  Lauren gave a short laugh. A cloud of fog circled her head. “That was fun. Can I help with the grain and water?”

  “No. I’ll wait until I bring the horses in for the night to fill the water buckets. If I do it now, the buckets’ll freeze. And the rattle of grain brings the horses running better than calling them.”

  “So you’ll do that later. I get it.” Lauren gazed toward the doors open to the pasture. “I never got to do any real work where I took lessons. They let me brush the horses, but that was all.”

  A good explanation for not knowing what a flake was. And Lauren had lent a hand, so Zoe figured she owed her a few answers as payment. “You said you had some questions.”

  Together, they strolled toward Lauren’s tote bag. “Yes. I’d like to speak with your mother as well. Where’s she staying?”

  “She’s not. She’s either at the airport waiting for her flight, or she’s already in the air headed back to Florida.”

  “Oh.” Lauren paused in her stride. “I was under the impression that she’d just arrived.”

  “It was a short visit.” Zoe heard the bitterness in her own voice. She swallowed, determined to keep her rocky relationship with Kimberly private. “My mother doesn’t like Pennsylvania’s winters.”

  Lauren retrieved her notebook and pen. “Why were you out at the old Engle farm this morning?”

  Of course most of the area residents knew it as the “Engle farm.” Zoe’s ancestors, the Millers, hadn’t owned the place in ages. Around here, a change in ownership took decades to be acknowledged by the locals. Even once she took possession of the property and made it her own, her neighbors would still call it the Engle farm.

  “Excuse me?” Lauren jarred her out of her reverie.

  Zoe blinked. “Huh?”

  “What were you and your mother doing out there this morning?”

  “Oh.” She debated how much to divulge to the reporter. While she didn’t feel her family business was anyone else’s concern, the transfer of ownership would be a matter of public record soon enough. She explained how the Krolls’ place was being sold and how her mother had no need for the old farm and had offered to transfer it to her.

  “That was nice.” Lauren jotted something in her notebook. “But that still doesn’t explain why you went over there this morning.”

  “My mother wanted to check it out while she was here.”

  “Why?”

  The question took Zoe aback. “Pardon me?”

  “Why would she want to look at property she already owned? Couldn’t she simply have turned over the keys to you? If there were papers to sign, you could have met anywhere to do that.”

  Was the reporter implying that Kimberly had some part in the stolen goods stashed at the farm? Or that Zoe did? “She hadn’t seen the place in years. It’d been out of the family for decades. The previous owner, James Engle, passed away last summer and left it to my mother in his will.”

  “Speaking of the previous owner, he died under some rather gruesome circumstances, didn’t he? And right there on that farm, if I understand correctly.”

  The mental image of the old farmer hanging from the barn rafters jarred Zoe back to the awful emergency call she and Earl had responded to last June. If Lauren Sanders wanted to write some kind of exposé about the farm’s long criminal history when Zoe hoped to eventually live there, the reporter was going to have to do it without her help.

  “I’m done.” Zoe started toward the feed room. Lauren could watch her lock up as a final lesson in horse care.

  “Wait,” the reporter called after Zoe.

  She didn’t stop.

  “Wait. Please.”

  Zoe didn’t turn around, but the muffled sound of footsteps across the dirt floor told her the reporter was following her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Zoe spun to face her and waited.

  “Sometimes awkward questions are a hazard of my job.”

  “Past events at the Engle farm,” Zoe said, carefully measuring her words, “are a matter of public record.”

  Lauren appeared ready to debate the issue, but instead pressed her mouth shut and nodded. “You’re right. And that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about anyway.”

  Zoe crossed her arms and decided to give the reporter one last shot. “What exactly do you want to talk about?”

  “This case. The robberies. The stolen goods. The men who are taking advantage of our senior citizens and who murdered Mrs. Andrews.” Lauren appeared sincere enough.

  “I don’t know what I can tell you that the police haven’t already released.”

  “You’re a deputy coroner, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you have inside information on the murder investigation.”

  Not really.

  “And you and your mother discovered the van used in the crimes. Right?” The reporter paused, waiting for Zoe’s reply.

  Zoe recognized the trick Lauren was trying to use on her. Pete had told her about one of his interrogation techniques. Just be quiet. Suspects hated silence and often would start to babble, spilling more than if Pete had asked questions. She smiled to herself. Living with a cop had its advantages.

  Lauren finally must have decided Zoe wasn’t going to volunteer anything. “Can you give me an idea of what kind of evidence you found?”

  “Sorry. I know better than to contaminate a crime scene. I backed off and let the police do their jobs.”

  The answer didn’t appease Lauren. Zoe sensed the woman was trying to read her. After a moment, the reporter exhaled, her breath again hanging in the bitterly cold air. “Look. I know you have no reason to trust me. But this is more than just news to me. Lives are at stake. I want to find out who’s doing this as much to stop them from hurting more elderly people as to get a front-page byline.”

  Zoe still wasn’t sure she believed Lauren’s story about her love of horses. She was even less sure about the sincerity of this admission. Lauren was either a reporter with a heart of gold…or a master manipulator.

  “Can we go someplace warm?” the reporter asked, a pleading note in her voice. “Sit down and talk? I promise to keep the farm’s history out of it. But I’ve been talking to victims from all over Monongahela County, including Janie Baker. I know you two are friends. I’ve gotten close with her too.”

  Which could explain the reporter’s presence at the funeral home last night.

  “Between the two of us, we might be able to put together what we know to solve Mrs. Andrews’ murder and stop these criminals from hurting anyone else.”

  Manipulation or not, Lauren had a point. Mr. and Mrs. Kroll wouldn’t be back for a while yet, and Zoe still had a couple of hours before she had to be on duty. “All right. You go on ahead to the house. I’ll finish up and meet you there in a few minutes.”

  Lauren smiled. Not the controlled one, Zoe had seen before, but an earnest one. Or at least it seemed earnest. “Excellent.” Lauren stuffed her notebook and pen back in her tote, hooked it over her shoulder, and strode toward the door. Then she paused and looked back at Zoe. “Do you want me to wait and give you a lift?”

  “No, thanks.” Zoe didn’t know how many more times she’d get to take this particular walk. She wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity even if it was frigid.

  Lauren flashed another smile and slipped outside.

  The idea of cooperating with the woman set Zoe’s nerves on edge, but if together they could put an end to this crime spree, it might be worth it.

  Pete swung by the station to check in with Nancy and make a few phone calls. The first was to Baronick to update him on the gun, jewelry, and cash Janie had reported stolen from her grandmother’s house. The detective reported they were still inventorying the property seized at the Engle farm.

  “I left a unit to keep an
eye on the place for when these assholes come back for their goodies,” Baronick told him.

  They made arrangements to meet in the morning. There would be no weekend off for Pete. Not until they busted these guys.

  His second call was supposed to be to the Sanders woman. He couldn’t put her off indefinitely. But as he pondered a good excuse to avoid her, his cell phone rang.

  “This is Debra at Golden Oaks Assisted Living,” said the voice on the other end.

  His heart threatened to burst out of his chest.

  “There’s no emergency…” she continued.

  He refrained from saying, then why the hell are you calling?

  “…but your father insisted I phone you for him. He wants to speak with you.”

  Pete was about to tell Debra from Golden Oaks he’d stop in tomorrow afternoon, but Harry’s voice on the phone stopped him. “Son? Is that you?”

  “Yeah, Pop. What’s up?”

  There were some shuffling noises on the line before Harry replied in a conspiratorial whisper, “I seem to have myself in a jam.”

  “What do you mean? What kind of jam?”

  Harry’s voice lowered even more. “I’ve managed to get lost. I’m at some sort of hotel. I don’t know how I got here, and your sister isn’t around. I’m afraid something’s happened to her.”

  Pete closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You’re fine, Pop. Nadine’s fine too. You’re…” He hesitated to tell his father he was in a nursing home. “You’re on vacation.” A lie, but Harry wouldn’t remember it in another five minutes anyway.

  “Vacation?” He wasn’t whispering anymore. “Since when?”

  “I’ll stop in to see you tomorrow.”

  “What? No. Wait.” More shuffling sounds, and Harry’s voice once again dropped. “Look, there’s something strange going on around here.”

  “Are you okay, Pop?” Stories of nursing-home abuse jumped into Pete’s brain. “Is anyone mistreating you?”

  “No. Heavens no. I mean…as far as hotels go, this one’s pretty nice.”

  Relieved, Pete asked, “Are you getting enough to eat?”