Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(57)

“Go on.”

“So what are they going to do?” she asked. “Are they going to storm a public library and start asking about a package that was left on the doorstep? Would they call that kind of attention to themselves in a public place knowing what they just did to a poor old man? No, I think they did surveillance. They were watching for me the entire time.”

Joe felt another chill. “They saw you take it out of the building in a Twelve Sleep County Library tote bag. Then they followed you at least to our access road.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” she said. “But they’re not from here. They knew what road I took, but they didn’t know there was another house at the end of it. Maybe they looked into Lola’s trailer and saw the tote bag and thought it belonged to me.”

“Oh no,” Joe said. “They killed Lola for a bunch of romance novels instead of a Nazi photo album.”

“And if they’re desperate and violent enough to kill two old people because of it, I doubt they’ll just go home,” she declared. “They realized they’d made a mistake—that they’d gone to the wrong house. So at least one of them came back this morning to scout things out. That was the gargoyle.”

“Whew,” Joe said. “I’ve got to really think this over. This is a lot to digest.”

“There could be holes in it,” she said. “But how many times have I been wrong about things like this?”

He couldn’t think of any. There had to be at least one time, he thought. But no instance came to mind.

“It’s the only explanation,” she said. “The only thing that connects Bert Kizer and Lola Lowry is that photo album. The photo album that’s in our house right now just a few feet from all of our girls, plus Liv and Kestrel.”

Joe nodded and began to raise his phone to make a call. He was buzzing inside.

“Don’t call the sheriff just yet,” Marybeth said. “He’s completely overwhelmed. Let’s think about all of this and try to come up with something that makes more sense. I doubt the bad guys would come for it tonight with all the activity in our house and all of those cops working just up the road.”

He lowered his phone. That made sense.

“Let’s sleep on it,” she said. “Maybe we’ll wake up tomorrow with another scenario that works.”

“Like I’ll be able to sleep,” Joe said.

“Me either.”

If Marybeth’s speculation was correct, he thought, the gargoyle and his toadie could have come to their house the night before when everyone was sleeping. Instead, they’d gone to Lola’s trailer. It had been a close call.

Marybeth was thinking along the same lines. “If I hadn’t dropped those books off to Lola, she might still be alive.”

“Don’t say that. If you hadn’t, you might have been targeted.”

They looked into each other’s eyes, each running would-have, could-have instances through their heads. There was no reason to say them out loud. They’d been together so many years it was no longer necessary.

Finally, Marybeth said, “What is it about that album that would motivate someone to kill for it?”

Joe shrugged.

Marybeth stood up and hugged herself against the cold. “I think I’ll go back inside and pour myself a big glass of wine.”

“Good idea. I’ll be right behind you. But I’m going to walk our tree line first just to make myself feel like we’re safe tonight.”

“Take Daisy.”

“Of course.”

She turned to him with a sad smile. “Is this the worst Thanksgiving we’ve ever had?”

“Yup.”



* * *



—

Flashlight in hand and Daisy snuffling the grass, Joe walked the tree line at the edge of the property. He saw nothing of note except the cow moose lurking in the dark timber. Her eyes glowed back like two orange sparks in the beam.

Daisy stopped abruptly at a game trail that wound out of the trees from the woods. She braced her legs stiffly and her tail shot back and forth like a metronome. It was the stance she took when she narrowed in on a game bird hidden in the brush.

The gargoyle had left his scent, Joe thought. He’d used the game trail to walk through the forest from the county road to their house that morning.

Joe swept the trees with light, but no one was there. Then he called Deputy Tom Bass. Since Bass was the rookie in the department, Joe asked, “Are you on duty tonight?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Doing time at the newest crime scene?”

“Affirmative,” Bass said. Bass was new enough, Joe thought, that he still spoke in radio jargon rather than simply saying yes.

“Could I ask you a favor?” Joe said. “Could you swing by my house a few times tonight and let me know if you see anything suspicious? Like a guy on foot in the trees?”

Bass hesitated. Then: “Sure, I could do that.”

“Keep an eye on the county road for parked SUVs as well.”

“What’s going on?”

“It’s just a precaution. You might have heard that my wife saw someone on our place this morning. We don’t want him to come back.”

Joe didn’t want to explain yet the possible connections between the gargoyle and what happened to Lola, and certainly not to Bert Kizer or a wild theory involving a Nazi photo album.