02-A Book to Die For (2014) Page 12

  Fred answered with a bark. He was giving me his let’s play look. He barked again, then ran up the road to where the game camera had been.

  I closed the shed’s door the best I could, and started for my cabin. I was in no mood to play fetch. Someone stole the only hope I had to beat Shelia’s lawsuit. The last thing I wanted to do was play with sticks.

  Why would Bonnie steal the tank? I asked myself over and over. At least an hour had passed since the discovery of the break-in. I was sitting on the porch in the rocker Bonnie had given me, racking my brain for answers. I even asked Fred twice, but all he would do is run back up the road each time I asked. I didn’t want to play so I quit asking him and resorted to talking to myself.

  It was pretty obvious I had implied someone used the tank to commit murder. I didn’t want to confront Bonnie with the theft. Maybe it wasn’t her and it would only hurt her feelings. Besides, what motive could she have to possibly kill Lonnie? No, it had to be Charlie Randolph. Unless it was someone at the Little Bear who overheard me say the explosion wasn’t an accident, but that didn’t make sense either. What were the odds a perfect stranger killed Lonnie?

  All this deductive reasoning brought me back to Charlie as the murderer, but he could never have ripped the lock off my shed. Not in his physical condition. Of course, he could have sent someone to do his dirty work. Then there was also the possibility Bonnie might have called Margot and she in turn called Jonathan to tell him I had his tank. After all it was Jonathan’s tank, but why would he come up here in the middle of the night and steal it? All he had to do was knock on my door and demand it back or worse yet, send the law to get it.

  Fred barked again, and pointed back up the road. Golden retrievers were never bred to point out game, but Fred did a pretty good imitation of an Irish Setter. Then the synapses finally connected. Who said beer will fry a dog’s brain? It seemed to be doing wonders for Fred.

  “Damn, Fred. You’ve got to be the smartest dog since Lassie.” I finally realized what my dog knew all along. The tank wasn’t taken last night. The intruder who tried to blow up my motor home must have taken it. He wasn’t after me at all. It was a subterfuge to hide the theft of the propane tank.

  However smart my dog was, he still couldn’t tell me how I was going to get the tank back so I could prove Lonnie’s accident wasn’t my fault.

  “So what now, Genius?” I didn’t really expect Fred to answer. It was a habit I had cultivated to help me think. “Got any more ideas? Like how to track down that tank?”

  Fred sat looking at me, taking it all in. “Exactly what I was thinking,” I said to him. “Julie said the camera had a GPS chip just like my cell phone. Let’s see if we can’t hack into it and track it down. Whoever stole Julie’s camera did so because they thought it might have taken a picture of their getaway vehicle, and I’ll bet you dollars to your slimy sticks that it’s the same person who killed Lonnie.” Fred didn’t really tell me all this, vocally or through telepathy, but he would have if he could.

  We went back to my cabin and booted up my laptop. There was a good chance the camera took more than one picture of the getaway vehicle. The one that got loaded to the server wasn’t much help, but what if there were more?

  Within an hour I found an app for my smart phone that would pinpoint the GPS chip within a few feet, but it required the chip’s IP address. So I went to a site that specializes in shady software and found another app that would display the IP addresses of any device broadcasting within a few hundred yards. There was a good chance that Julie’s cameras would be within a few digits of one another. If this spy app could tell me the addresses of her other cameras, I should be able to figure out the address of the missing one. With luck, I will find the camera and get the pictures of my intruder from the camera’s SIM card.

  “Let’s go back up the hill, Freddie. We’ve got some snooping to do.” I said to my bored sidekick. The excitement of the internet search had put him to sleep at my feet.

  I didn’t need to ask Fred twice. He was up and out the door before I could finish loading the spy app. I caught up with him at the intersection of the road and our mountain trail. He took off again, running to where the missing camera had been and picked up something before running back to me.

  Fred wouldn’t last a day as a bird dog. He loved to retrieve, but never learned that a retriever was supposed to drop the fowl at his owner’s feet. Fred wanted me to grab it and play tug of war. I could see now that Fred’s prize was the cable Julie used to attach her camera to a tree. I ignored Fred and walked over to where he found the cable. He followed me like a shadow, with the cable between his teeth.

  I let my eyes drift to Fred’s cable. I could see it had not been a clean cut. The cable was made with dozens of steel wires wound together, and they were all frayed and uneven. It must have been some kind of ax, or dull blade, used to cut the cable.

  “Guess we won’t be asking for an APB on Bullwinkle, Freddie. If it was an elk, he’s toothless now. Look at this tree. They nearly chopped it down trying to cut through that cable.”

  Whoever took the camera must not have planned on stealing it. I doubt if he even knew it was here until he saw the flash. An image of surprise on his face flashed in my head. I wondered how long it took him to realize it was a game camera and not lightning or some other flash that had just snapped his picture leaving a crime scene.

  I reached for the cable. Fred took my action as a sign that the game was on. He tightened his grip and backed up a few feet. He was daring me to try and take it from him. “Damn it, Fred. Give me the friggin cable.” It was all he needed to take off up the trail.

  I chased after him until we reached the part of the trail close to where the bear had been dissected. Fred smelled death in the air. He dropped the cable and went straight to the scene of the crime. The bear was long gone after being removed by Julie’s crew, but I could see Julie’s second camera. She had installed it after finding the bear carcass, so I turned on my phone and started the IP sniffing app. Within a few minutes I had an address and the cable. When Fred saw me pick it up, he went into receiving mode waiting for me to throw it. “Forget it, Freddie. This is evidence and I’m sure Julie won’t appreciate dog spittle contaminating it. Now shall we get back to work?”

  Although I knew where the third camera was hidden, I used it to test my theory. After switching to the locator app on my smart phone, I tried an IP address one greater than the bear camera. Sure enough, there it was on the map. Then I tried an IP address that was one less than the bear camera. The app found it almost immediately. The location was on West Colfax. I switched to satellite view and zoomed in.

  “What the…” I said out loud. Fred turned his head as if to hear me better. He had been sitting and watching me. “The camera is in the middle of Randolph Motors’ parking lot. Why am I not surprised?”

  I was still staring at the satellite image when my phone started ringing. I nearly dropped it into the jaws of my wide receiver. “Bonnie, I was just thinking of you.” I didn’t mention that my shed had been ransacked and the propane tank missing was why I was thinking of her.

  “Then you didn’t forget you promised to give me a ride?” she asked.

  “Not at all. Fred and I were out for a hike and lost track of time. Are you ready to go into town? We can be at your place in fifteen minutes.”

  “Thank you, Jake. You don’t need to rush. The service manager said he would leave my keys in the showroom if I don’t get there before six. As long as I pick it up before they close is fine.”

  I didn’t tell her how happy I was to give her a ride to Randolph Motors. It was the perfect cover for me to check out the exact spot where the GPS said I’d find the missing camera. The satellite image I saw was several weeks, if not months, out of date, which made visual identification impossible. I assumed it was in a vehicle, but which one was impossible to tell from the map image.

  Randolph Motors had been in the same location for over sixty years. It was a
landmark of sorts. Just like thousands before me, I found it without any help from my GPS, but landmark or not, Bonnie had my smart phone in her lap with the locator app turned on.

  “Isn’t that your girlfriend, Jake?” She asked when I drove into the parking lot. She had spotted Julie at the side of the service building, talking to a couple cops by the dumpsters. I could see a DOW agent standing in one of them holding what looked like a game camera.

  “Funny, Bon,” I answered while looking for a parking place. I didn’t remind her that Julie had dumped me less than twenty-four hours ago. I chose a parking spot next to a familiar looking truck. We were about as close as we could get to the action without drawing attention to ourselves.

  “I think they beat us to it,” Bonnie said, handing me my phone. “That looks like the camera you described.”

  We watched as the DOW agent climbed out of the dumpster with the camera in hand. Julie must have been in charge. Her partner handed her the camera before he hit the ground. I could see it was in pieces.

  Julie handed the security case back to her partner, who was now on the ground, and opened the back of the camera. I didn’t have to be a lip reader to see what she said. Her language didn’t seem to offend her partner; however, all the cops stopped talking and looked at her. She must have sensed their stares. She spotted us when she looked up from the camera to say something. She handed the camera back to her partner and came over to my Jeep. Fred recognized her and barked out a hello.

  “What are you doing here, Freddie?” she asked when she reached over to pet him on the head. He had half his body out the rear window by now. Then she stooped down to look at me.

  Her expression was all business. Not even a carnival fortune teller could have guessed we had been lovers. I knew better than to tell her how much I missed her, and wanted her back. It would be like throwing water on a grease fire.

  “Bonnie needed a ride,” I answered for Fred. She left her car for service yesterday. What’s going on anyway? I didn’t know you were into dumpster diving?”

  I thought I saw her beautiful green eyes turn a shade lighter. “For a minute there, I thought you figured out a way to track the camera. I know you’re smart, but not that smart. Are you?”

  “Is that what was in the dumpster?” I asked, trying my best to act surprised.

  She didn’t answer right away. She just stared into my eyes like she was able to read my thoughts. Finally, she broke the trance and spoke. “Call me later. We need to talk.” Then she turned and walked away.

  I was still watching her ponytail swing back and forth, and feeling depressed when Bonnie woke me from my self-pity. “I think she’s on to us, Jake,” she said.

  I put the Jeep in gear and drove over to the service area where a familiar looking face came to greet us.

  “Long time no see, Amigo. You come to trade in the old tin-can?”

  “Mario?” I asked. I didn’t recognize him at first in clean clothes and a tie.

  “Yeah. My cousin works here as the service manager and put in a word for me,” he said, grabbing my door jamb so I’d have to run him over if I wanted to leave.” It don’t pay much, but the checks don’t bounce.”

  His phony smile told me he would make a great car salesman. “Well, Mario. I’ll be sure to see you first if I ever win the lotto.” Bonnie had already left so I started my Jeep hoping he’d let go.

  He must have realized he was wasting his time trying to sell me a car and removed his hand from my Jeep, but not before sticking a card in my face. “I’ll be waiting, Amigo,” he said and left.

  Fred rode shotgun on the way home. When he wasn’t sticking his head out the window to bite the wind, he would lay it on my lap so I could rub his ears. I was still thinking about why I had to ruin a perfectly good sex life by falling in love when we turned off I-70 onto Evergreen Parkway and Fred spotted McDonald’s. He barked once, then looked at me with his sad-puppy eyes.

  “Okay, Boy, as long as you don’t tell Julie.” I realized too late that there was a fat chance of that.

  I pulled into the drive-up lane behind a familiar looking truck. It had camouflage paint and bumper stickers plastered on the tailgate. They included stickers supporting the NRA, chewing tobacco and one that read ‘I Got High in Colorado’, and right under that was one with an ‘I’ a heart and a picture of a marijuana leaf. I had seen dozens of stickers like these, except for the references to marijuana, on pickup trucks in Missouri last summer, but only one recently; that was at Bonnie’s barbeque. This truck wasn’t Alec’s, and the driver wasn’t him, but it was all I needed to put the pieces together.

  Fred gulped down his McDouble in record time. We had stopped at a picnic area in Bergen Park to make my call and eat our burgers. While waiting for Bonnie to pick up, I gave Fred my hamburger. She answered before he could finish it.

  “What’s the matter, Jake? Did you break down or are you just lonesome?”

  I couldn’t think of a cute comeback and I really wasn’t in the mood to give one. “Are you home yet, Bon?”

  “Almost. I’m crossing our little bridge now. Is something wrong? You sound upset.”

  I started to say I knew why the barbeque blew up, then had second thoughts. I needed more time to think how I was going to tell her Alec was making meth. “We need to talk about Alec and that propane tank, Bon. Can I stop by?”

  Silence. Then I heard fear in her voice. “Are you going to tell the police, Jake?”

  “Police? Why would I do that?”

  More silence. This time the pause was much shorter. “Because if you don’t, you will be an accessory. I can’t do that to you, Jake.”

  “Let’s not talk about this over the phone. You never know who’s listening. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” I hung up before she could say anymore.

  It actually took me closer to an hour. I got caught up in a traffic jam just before the Safeway shopping center. Someone had run into the back of a septic-pumping truck. The smell was so bad, I decided to pull off and make a pit stop at the liquor store. They had Canadian Club on sale, so I bought a pint for Bonnie and a twelve pack of Keystone for me and Fred. It took most of my cash, but I figured it might help her open up about Alec. It appeared to be working.

  “I can be dense sometimes, Bon Bon. I should have seen it was Alec long ago,” I said while mixing her a glass of CC and coke. She had invited me and Fred into her kitchen. She was sitting at the table while I fumbled around by the sink. “It wasn’t until I realized the tank was filled with anhydrous ammonia that I put two and two together.”

  She had her head in her hands and seemed depressed until I mentioned her nephew. “You think Alec killed Lonnie?” she asked.

  I handed her the drink and paused before getting my beer from her refrigerator where I had put it to keep cold. “Who said anything about Lonnie? I’m talking about meth.”

  “Meth?”

  “Yeah, I think I saw it in a movie, or maybe I read it somewhere. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the tank wasn’t filled with propane. Alec filled it with anhydrous ammonia to make meth. At first I thought Alec had accidentally switched the tanks with your grill, but that theory evaporated with the smell of the septic truck. Ammonia stinks a lot worse than propane and the barbeque tank didn’t have a smell.”

  She looked confused. “Septic truck?” she asked. “What are you talking about, Jake?”

  I joined her and Fred at the table, “At first I thought that’s why it was leaking. Anhydrous ammonia is very corrosive and can’t be stored in regular propane tanks without leaking after a while. Then when we ran into a traffic jam involving a septic truck, I realized your tank didn’t smell. I must have taken the wrong tank from Jon’s roofing yard. I thought it was the one from your barbeque because of a cut hose. Evidently someone didn’t have a wrench to unscrew the regulator and just cut the hose.”

  Bonnie finished half her drink while I explained how meth is made using ammonia. Somewhere toward the end of my lecture, she needed
a smoke so we moved out to her porch.

  “So it was Alec who broke into your shed? He wanted his tank back, didn’t he?” she asked before taking a long drag on her cigarette.

  “Exactly what I thought,” I answered.

  “What about the camera, Jake? What if they see Alec’s truck in those pictures? It’s bound to come out sooner or later.”

  I moved my chair away from her smoke, pretending to get a better view of Fred. He was more interested in chasing Chatter the squirrel than listening to our conversation. “There won’t be any pictures. Alec, or whoever took the camera, was smart enough to remove the memory card. That was the first thing I noticed when Julie showed us the camera.”

  “I’m sorry, Jake. I should quit these nasty things, but they help calm me at times like this,” she said while dropping the stub in one of my empty beer cans. “Does Julie know about the meth?”

  For a person who had put away close to a pint of whiskey, I couldn’t fathom why she wasn’t already calm, but let it go. “Not unless she figured it out herself. My lips are sealed.”

  She poured the rest of her Canadian Club into her glass, taking it straight this time. “I’ve got to fix myself something to eat before my blood-sugar goes haywire. Would you and Fred like to stay for dinner?”

  “No, but thanks anyway. We stopped at McDonald’s on the way back.” I didn’t mention that Fred ate both our hamburgers. “By the way, Bon. Does Alec work for Chuck?”

  She stopped short of entering her house. She stood with one hand on the doorknob and turned to face me. “Not that I’ve heard. Why do you ask? Oh, I see where this is going. It’s because of the camera, isn’t it? You think Alec threw it in Chuck’s dumpster.”

  “You see right through me, Bon.”

  “I’m sorry we dragged you into this, Jake. Families should keep their dirty laundry to themselves,” she said and went inside, closing the door behind her.