Stutter Creek Read online

  “What?” she asked. “Are you travelling ‘indognito’ or something?”

  Another wag of the tail convinced her she was right. But she was so taken by his doggy grin that she cautiously walked back to her car, retrieved her keys, which he seemed very curious about, and went back inside the cabin for a doggy bribe.

  Beth was not surprised when the dog accompanied her to the door and stopped. However, she also wouldn’t have been surprised if he had followed her inside and made himself at home. He acted as if he belonged there.

  All she could find in the way of doggy treats was an unopened package of Oscar Meyer Wieners.

  He liked them just fine; in fact, she quickly discovered that he would do almost anything for a hot dog. By the third one, he was on his back and she was rubbing his belly. She wondered what had caused the mass of scar tissue on his shoulder, but he didn’t seem too sensitive about it.

  After the fourth hot dog, there was no turning back. She tried to read his tag again, but he still twisted away when she touched his collar. Beth thought it wise not to push her luck.

  For just a second, she wondered if the dog could possibly have anything to do with the spirit of her father. She’d always been intrigued by the idea of reincarnation, but after a few minutes, she knew it couldn’t be true. This dog was so goofy he would definitely have been a comedian in another life. On the other hand, her father did love to goof around. Nah, she thought. That’s even more ridiculous than the texting.

  Finally, after the sixth hot dog, the big mutt suddenly shot to his feet, ears at attention, and cocked his head to one side as though he needed to concentrate on a sound. Then, before she could even react, he was gone. He’d cleared the porch, the steps, and the circle drive in three leaps.

  “Hey,” she called after him. “It’s not nice to eat and run!”

  She went back inside, washed her hands, and decided to go on into town. At least now I know what made the gosh-awful racket crashing through the woods and running around on the porch. Better get some dog biscuits, though, she thought, smiling. Hot dogs might get expensive. She was pretty sure she’d see the big galoof again. At least she certainly hoped so.

  She didn’t see the dog anywhere when she pulled out of the drive, but she was certain he lived nearby. If he had been a stray, his coat would have been matted and he would’ve eaten ALL the hotdogs whether she offered them, or not.

  There were no more distractions. Beth actually began to feel relieved, happy almost. She’d read more than one article that said dogs are good for the soul. They can supposedly help alleviate depression and anxiety, too. In the back of her mind, she was reiterating her earlier thoughts about visiting the Sandy Animal Shelter. Lots of animals need homes. If one didn’t find her when she got back, as they usually seemed to do, then she would just have to search them out on her own. It gave her something to look forward to. It had been quite a while since she had lost Ladybug.

  Feeling better having made the decision to move forward with something, Beth relaxed and began to enjoy the drive. She’d always loved driving the Camaro. Maybe she had been a teenage boy in another life, she thought, laughing inwardly. Nothing like a good muscle car on an open road. The weather was grand, a beautiful late winter day. Beth rolled her window half way down and let the tangy fragrance of pine and snowy moisture drift through the little car. She wished her dad were here to share the ride.

  “Dad?” she called out softly. “You there?”

  No response.

  She picked up the cell phone and checked for a signal or even a belated message.

  Nothing.

  The two-lane road was twisty with curves and hairpin turns. The tall pines crowded the road on both sides stippling the surface of the pavement in alternating patterns of sunlight and shadow. Driving required all her concentration. Only once did she let her mind drift back to the apparition of the little boy she thought she’d seen on the way to the cabin two days earlier. She still had no clue as to what she’d actually seen. The trooper had promised to contact her if he had any news.

  Stutter Creek started and stopped, trickled and babbled, crossed beneath the road or ran alongside it all the way to town. The Drugstore was on the west side of the street. It still sported batwing doors and wooden sidewalks. A metal historical marker planted at the corner of the quaint business boasted that the old building had been in continuous use since 1867.

  Beth parked in one of the slanted spaces on Main Street. There was a hitching post in front of the drugstore, and to the right of it, one could still make out the ancient circular marks where barrels of pickles had once stood.

  She straightened her spine and pushed through the swinging doors. Her dad always pretended to be an outlaw stopping in for a drink when they came here. The historical marker said the building had served as the town’s saloon at one time. It still amazed her that she was walking on the very boards that Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett might have trod.

  The teenage girl behind the long polished oak counter was petite and blonde. She smiled cheerfully at Beth. “Anything I can help you with?” she asked.

  Beth ordered a Sarsaparilla from the soda fountain. She’d always splurged and ordered the old fashioned drink made with real syrup and soda water. Even now, she liked to watch the girl pull the pearl-colored handles on the antique fountain as she concocted the sweet, foamy drink. The little drugstore also served breakfast, plus a variety of sandwiches for lunch, and dinner.

  When the waitress set the drink in front of her, Beth took a long pull from the straw and sighed, “Mmmm, just as good as always.”

  “So, you’ve been here before?” the girl asked politely.

  Beth nodded. “Last summer was the first one I’ve missed since I was a child. My dad has a . . .” She had to stop as she realized the cabin was now hers. “I mean I have a cabin a few miles away. We used to get up here two or three times a year.”

  The girl was very astute. “Lost your dad, huh?” Her voice was sympathetic without sounding fake.

  Beth nodded and took another pull on the straw. She didn’t trust her voice.

  “So sorry to hear that,” the teenager said, extending her hand over the counter. “My name is Allie. I just came to work for my Uncle Joe here after I graduated last year. I’m from Pine River.”

  Beth grasped her hand warmly over the counter. “And how is Uncle Joe?” she asked. “He used to give me a lollipop every time I came in here when I was younger.”

  Allie laughed. “He still does that with kids.” Her face darkened perceptibly. “He’s getting up in years, you know. High blood pressure, diabetes.” She smiled a little. “He still comes in at least once a day to check up on me. I like to think I’m helping out. Aunt Martha is here most of the time, too. She walked over to the Post Office a few minutes ago.”

  Just then an older couple came in and took a table near the back. There were only four tables in addition to the counter, so it wasn’t difficult for Beth and Allie to overhear their ongoing conversation.

  “Such a shame,” the woman’s husband said. “Just not safe anywhere anymore.”

  Allie was drawing glasses of ice water for the couple, obviously regulars, when her Aunt Martha came scurrying in the door waving a sheet of paper showing the black and white photo of a young woman.

  “Look at this!” she blurted. Then she saw Beth and changed her tone as she grabbed her in a mini-bear hug. “Bethie, you poor girl. I heard about your dad and I am so sorry. He was always one of my favorite people.” She drew back a little, took hold of Beth’s chin and looked her over carefully. “So how are you doing? Huh? Why, I never saw a father and daughter as close as the two of you.”

  Beth had no defense. She began to blubber.

  “There, there, dear,” Martha patted her kindly. “Didn’t mean to make you cry. Got such a big mouth on me sometimes!” She continued hugging and patting while Beth dug tissues from her purse. Allie smiled ruefully and made it a point to engage the older couple in a spi
rited conversation as she placed the glasses of water on their table and took their orders for club sandwiches.

  When Allie returned to the counter, Martha said, “Allie, dear, can you hand me the Scotch tape? I think it’s in that drawer there.”

  The efficient girl opened a loaf of bread with one hand while rummaging through the indicated drawer with the other. “What is that?” she asked, nodding toward the picture in her aunt’s hand. She continued to work, pulling on transparent plastic gloves before toasting the bread and slicing tomatoes for the sandwiches.

  “Terrible thing,” Martha said, holding it up for both of them to see. “Young college girl from Pine River, gone missing night before last. On her way to work, talking to her friend on the phone then POOF, she’s gone. No one’s seen hide nor hair since!”

  The woman at the back table, obviously listening, piped up, “That the college girl we been hearing about, Martha?”

  Taping the MISSING picture to the inside of the glass door so that it faced out, Martha replied, “Yes, I just picked it up over at the post office. Don will be delivering the rest of them on his route today. The girl’s family stopped there to ask about posting them around the village, and Don volunteered to take a stack himself.”

  The man and woman looked at each other then shook their heads. “Did you talk to the family?” the man asked.

  Martha shook her own head, a look of consternation crossing her kindly face. “Oh, no . . . I wouldn’t want to interfere. Looked like it might’ve been her sister, though. You could see the worry written all over her pretty face.” She tsked and clicked her tongue as she rounded the end of the counter to wash her hands and help her niece. With her back to the room, she said, “We’ve all got to be so careful nowadays. Especially you, Allie, pretty young girl like you. Why, you could almost pass for twins, you and that college girl on the poster.”

  The gentleman from the back table spoke again, “That’s true, young lady. Can’t be too careful. Besides all that, I heard tell there’s a new fella in town. Rented a box down at the Post Office.”

  “Really?” Martha sniffed. “Well, he hasn’t been in here, yet. Surely he’ll be by to say hello if he’s planning to make his home around here.” She shook her head, a gesture that indicated she was amazed that anyone could come to Stutter Creek without visiting The Drugstore. “And why would he rent a P.O. Box if he wasn’t planning to stay?”

  The question was obviously rhetorical. No one bothered to answer. They were likely all thinking the same thing. If the guy hadn’t shown himself, but had rented a post office box, then he probably didn’t want a lot of folks knowing where he lived. That was a rather chilling thought in light of the MISSING GIRL poster they’d just taped up.

  Beth was fascinated by the small town gossip. She’d never realized everyone knew absolutely everything about everyone else. She’d always had her dad as a buffer. He was the one everyone chatted up when they were here. She was beginning to think she’d been quite the wallflower.

  Leaving the Drugstore, she stopped and studied the picture of the beautiful young woman again. She was a lot like Allie, young, blonde, and fair. Beth felt a lump of fear forming in the pit of her stomach, and she said a silent prayer for the young woman’s safety. She also hoped the big dog would be at her cabin when she returned. With him there, she would feel much safer. In light of this, she might even try to entice him to stay.

  On the way out of town, she stopped at the Corner Market, topped off her gas tank, and bought a large box of Milk Bones. She didn’t recognize the cashier; therefore, she didn’t have to explain herself. If it had been Juanita, the owner, she would have been there a while. It was only when she was back on the road that she realized someone at the drugstore or market would probably have known where the dog belonged. However, when she checked her cell phone, she actually showed three bars so she pulled off the road into a turn-around and called Cindy.

  It was so good to talk to her best friend that she deliberately left out the part about seeing the boy. She also did not tell her friend about the missing girl from Pine River. Beth did tell her all about the big dog, though. He seemed like a safe topic. She also drew Cindy into a discussion about the afterlife.

  Turned out Cindy wasn’t the least bit surprised when Beth admitted she thought her Dad’s spirit was still around. “Oh, you just wouldn’t believe the strange happenings some of my patients have told me about after their loved ones passed away,” Cindy related. “Footsteps in the hall, lights that went on by themselves, cold drafts . . .”

  Beth came very close to telling Cindy the whole truth, cell phone and all. But something held her back. Maybe because she was afraid of how it would sound when she actually said it out loud.

  After a few minutes, the two hung up. “I’ll try to call you again in a day or two,” Beth told her. “But don’t worry if I don’t. Remember, I have to drive almost all the way down the mountain before I can get a signal.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  A New Mexico State Trooper found Amanda’s car two days after she was reported missing. The investigators were not surprised to find lots of different prints in the car of a college student. However, they were somewhat perplexed when a few of those prints appeared to belong to a child, especially since they were very fresh, and only in the back of the vehicle.

  “So it looks like she was telling the truth when she called her friend at work,” the senior detective muttered to her rookie partner.

  They looked at each other.

  Woody James agreed with a nod. “Puts a whole new light on the case.”

  Senior Detective Kendra Dean plopped down at her desk, slipped her reading glasses on, and reread the initial report. The two of them had just returned from impound where they’d watched forensics process the vehicle.

  She nodded absently as she read everything she’d just witnessed. As she nodded, her hair moved back and forth. She’d been a detective long enough to know that when you’re called out at three a.m., hair and makeup were the last things you wanted to worry about, but as it brushed her ears, she knew she needed it cut again. The short, carefree hair and lack of makeup completely suited her no-nonsense personality.

  “Obviously killed in the car—”

  Detective James looked up. “What makes you say that? We don’t have a body yet.”

  Kendra Dean barely shrugged. “Didn’t you see the condition of that dash? The hair all over the place? Someone put up one hell of a struggle. Some of that hair appeared to have been ripped out by the roots.” She waited for the younger detective to catch up with her thinking, to visualize it in his head the way she had. “Someone came in the passenger side, grabbed her, she put up a good fight, kicked hell out of the underside of the dash, he grabbed her by the hair, smashed her head against the window and—”

  James nodded. “Okay. Yeah, I see what you mean.” They were both appalled by the obvious violence that had occurred inside the victim’s car. “But what makes you so sure she isn’t still alive somewhere?” His raised eyebrows and crinkled forehead told the senior detective that he wasn’t being a smartass, just trying to understand.

  Kendra leaned back in her chair. She pushed her reading glasses up on her head. “Imagine you’re the perp: he wants the woman bad enough to go into her car, probably using the kid as bait—”

  Det. James started to interrupt, but Kendra held up one hand and continued.

  “—she puts up a struggle, he has to get control. What’s he do? Hit her? Drag her out of the car, what?”

  Woody James thought carefully before answering. “He didn’t hit her; not much anyway. Not that much blood.”

  Dean nodded encouragingly.

  “So,” he continued. “He gets control quickly, maybe by using the kid as leverage, you know. Do what I say or the kid gets it . . .”

  “That’s possible,” she agreed. “But I don’t really see it that way.”

  He waited.

  “We don’t have anything that puts the k
id in the front seat of the car. Kid, probably a boy according to what the victim told her friend, was only in the back, if the prints are correct, and I think they are. But Amanda, she was all over the front seat and the front floorboard.”

  James nodded. He’d forgotten about the floorboard. There had been more hair and fibers there; smears of semen on the front seat. Detective James shook his head as images of the young woman’s pain and terror flooded his mind. “I see what you’re saying, now. No way she lived through that kind of a struggle without shedding a lot of blood. Strangulation then?”

  Nodding absently, Kendra slipped her glasses back in place on the bridge of her nose. “Can’t be sure, of course. But I say we get that cadaver dog back out here. Time to start searching for a body.”

  Detective James tapped his pencil against the report. “I sure hope you’re wrong—no offense, of course. In that case, what do we tell the family?”

  “Nothing,” she snorted. “We don’t know anything for sure. It’s all speculation. Get that dog up here, but don’t splatter it across the news. Tell the state boys to come in quietly.” She peered over her half-moon glasses at the young man itching to do something. “Just remember, one dead girl is a news report; two dead girls will mean serial killer headlines.” She took the glasses off, laid them on the desk. “We’re not ready for headlines, yet.”

  “So you really think the arm case in Yellow Bend is related to this one?” the young detective asked.

  “Let’s hope not,” Detective Dean replied. “But the press will think so, that I can almost guarantee.” She turned back to the report. “Can’t wait to get that DNA report. I’ll bet money that creep is already in the system. Too bad there were no fingerprints. We’d have him already.”

  ***

  Shaniqua Patterson hung up the phone. “Fired,” she said. “That girl is so fired.” She pulled Sherylyn’s time card from the stack and headed toward the night manager’s office.