The Travelling Detective: Boxed Set Read online

  “Do you play `Go Fish’?” Stormie asked.

  “I haven’t played it since I was about your age,” Elizabeth answered. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how.”

  “Then we’ll teach you again.”

  “Why don’t you take a cookie and go for a walk around the yard with Chevy?” Shirley told her daughter.

  “He likes to play ball,” Elizabeth said. “If you throw one for him, he’ll bring it back to you.”

  “You can use one of the tennis balls in the garage,” Al added.

  Stormie grabbed a cookie from the plate and headed for the door. “Come on, Chevy.” He scurried out the door after her.

  When she was gone Shirley told Al about the bones and about her mother being questioned by Corporal Hildebrandt. He gave a low whistle. “What an awful grave. What are the police doing about it?”

  “They didn’t tell us anything,” Peggy said.

  “Did Hildebrandt say if he is going to be questioning you some more?” Al asked.

  Peggy nodded. “I told him I’d be here for the evening and then be going home later.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go out tonight. We should stay with you.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll be okay.”

  * * * *

  “How old are you, Stormie?” Elizabeth asked, as she scrutinized her cards for the number ten Stormie had asked for.

  “I’m five,” Stormie said proudly, as she held up one hand, fingers spread.

  “You sure are good at this game.” Elizabeth looked at the one card Stormie had left in her hand.

  “Do you have a ten?” Stormie asked again. “You can’t cheat.”

  “Darn,” Elizabeth said with a smile and handed over the ten.

  “I won again,” Stormie exclaimed, laying the last two cards on her pile. “That’s six games.”

  “Yes, and now it’s time for bed,” Peggy said.

  “Aw, do I have to?”

  “You do. Go brush your teeth while I put the cards away.” She gathered the cards and shoved them in their box. “I’ll be back after I read her a story,” she said to Elizabeth, following Stormie into the hallway.

  Elizabeth picked up the bowls that had held chips and pretzels and carried them to the dishwasher. She wandered into the dining room thinking about the games they had played. Her reason for a poor performance was years of not playing, but Peggy’s was obviously from a lack of concentration. Sometimes she had to be asked twice if she had a certain card and other times she forgot to pick up from the pile. Elizabeth couldn’t blame her for being preoccupied. She’d be doing a lot of thinking, too, if a skeleton had been found on her property.

  Peggy had just come back down the hallway when they heard a vehicle pull into the drive and stop at the front.

  “Shirley and Al are home,” Elizabeth said.

  “No,” Peggy replied, heading towards the front door. “They park at the garage. It’s probably the other guests.”

  Elizabeth followed Peggy. It was mid-July so there was still plenty of daylight to see the police car through the screen. When Hildebrandt and a woman officer emerged, Peggy opened the door and stepped out onto the verandah, gently closing it behind her.

  Elizabeth picked up Chevy and tucked herself to the side out of sight, feeling a little guilty for eavesdropping.

  “Good evening, Corporal Hildebrandt and Constable Martin,” Peggy said, solemnly.

  “Mrs. Wilson,” Hildebrandt said.

  They stopped at the foot of the steps. If they wanted to come further they didn’t ask, nor did Peggy invite them. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “About the bones found in the septic tank on your former property.”

  What else? Elizabeth shrugged.

  “I don’t know anything about them,” Peggy said flatly.

  “We just want to determine when you bought the property, and from whom you bought it,” Martin said, patiently.

  Elizabeth couldn’t see the officers from where she stood. But she had a good view of Peggy.

  “Why?” Peggy asked bluntly. “Do you think the owner of the land was the killer?”

  Elizabeth was taken aback by her directness.

  “What makes you think the person was killed?” Martin asked.

  “Well, I doubt someone would jump into a septic tank to commit suicide.”

  Well put, Elizabeth smiled.

  “Could you tell us when you and your husband bought the place?” Martin asked.

  “We bought it twenty-one years ago,” Peggy answered, adding, “And that tank was there already.”

  “Did you and your family use it?”

  “No. We put in a new one when we moved in.” Peggy folded her arms across her chest in a defensive stance.

  Elizabeth risked a peek and saw Hildebrandt refer to his notes before asking. “Who did you buy the acreage from?”

  “Martha and Warren Davidson.”

  “Do you know how long they owned it?”

  “No,” Peggy said bluntly.

  “Do you know where the Davidsons live now?”

  Peggy shrugged. “Last I heard they were in Lethbridge.”

  Chevy began to squirm in Elizabeth’s arms. She was sure the officers didn’t know she was standing just inside the door listening and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. She stepped back further and quietly shushed Chevy as Hildebrandt continued.

  “Did anyone disappear from this area during the time you owned it?”

  “Other than my husband, and his lover, Julia Clarke, no.”

  There was a moment of silence while the police absorbed this statement. Oho, thought Elizabeth, this is getting good. She wished she could see their expressions.

  “What is your husband’s name?”

  “Harry Wilson.”

  “You said he disappeared. What do you mean?”

  “I mean one day he packed his bags and left.”

  Okay, that answers my question, Elizabeth thought.

  “When was this?”

  “Nine years ago.” Peggy’s tone was becoming defiant.

  “Have you heard from him since?”

  “No. And I don’t like the direction these questions are going. I won’t answer any more.” Peggy opened the screen door and walked straight past Elizabeth into the kitchen.

  Elizabeth sneaked a quick look out the window and saw the officers conferring with each other before getting into their car and driving away.

  Chevy struggled in her arms, and when she set him down he whined at the door. He wanted to go for his evening walk, but she wanted to go into the kitchen and see if Peggy was okay. Then, although she was finding this exciting, she had to remind herself that it really wasn’t any of her business.

  Her dilemma was solved when Shirley and Al drove in the yard. They must have met the police car on the road, so would ask Peggy about it when they came in. They could provide her with the support she needed—for, while they’d talked openly in front of Elizabeth earlier in the evening, it was family business and she was only a visitor.

  Elizabeth decided to phone her father and sister. However, Chevy had other ideas and whined at the door again. She opened the door and he hurried outside and down the steps. Elizabeth followed, stopping at her vehicle for his leash.

  * * * *

  Peggy heard Al and Shirley drive up and she waited for them to come inside.

  “What did the police want?” Shirley asked, as soon as they entered the kitchen.

  “They were asking questions as if they think I killed whoever was in the tank,” Peggy replied indignantly.

  “So they think the person was murdered?” Al asked, pouring him and Shirley a cup of coffee.

  “They haven’t come right out and said it but from the looks of the skull, I would say it’s a safe bet.”

  Shirley sat with her mother and held her shaking hands. “You’ve certainly had your share of trouble lately.”

  Peggy
’s voice quavered. “You know, if they treat this as a murder and there is an investigation, it is going to open up a lot of old wounds from the past.”

  Shirley looked at Al. “We know. We were discussing that this evening.”

  “All the stories about your father will be told around town again. Everyone will begin rehashing it and even those who are new to the community will be gossiping about it.” Peggy felt close to tears.

  Shirley nodded. “I don’t think there is anything we can do to stop it.”

  “I’m just afraid that other things will be discovered, too.”

  Chapter 4

  It was almost dark when Elizabeth and Chevy stepped out of the house, but the moon was half full, giving enough light to see by. They left the yard and headed down the gravel road. Because she spent most of her day driving, she didn’t get much exercise, so most evenings, after and she and Chevy had eaten, she liked to take him for a walk, even if it were just up and down a street or around and around a campground. It made them both feel better and she usually slept well afterwards.

  Chevy scampered from one side of the road to the other picking up scents of various wild animals and occasionally leaving his own mark. As they walked she went over the big event of the day—human bones found in a septic tank! What were the odds of her coming across a mystery two years in a row? Was this some kind of curse, a dead body making its way into every trip she took? But she couldn’t help being intrigued. How had they got there? Had the person been murdered, like Peggy suggested, and the body disposed in it?

  Peggy had said that her husband, Harry, and his lover, Julia Clarke, had disappeared nine years ago. But of course Harry hadn’t just vanished without a clue, he’d left town intentionally. And if he had done that then he was an unlikely candidate for the victim. From the way Peggy had spoken Elizabeth had the suspicion that he and Julia had left together which would eliminate her, also.

  If the person in the septic tank had been murdered, the killer might still be living in the area. Which brought her to the matter of when the body had been put there. Before Peggy and Harry owned it, after they owned it, or after Harry left?

  She shook her head. Too many questions, too few answers right now. She’d just have to wait and see what developed over the next few days.

  They’d reached the crossroads before Elizabeth realized, or maybe she’d subconsciously planned it all along, that Peggy’s old place was just down the road. She walked until she could see the old house. The police had cordoned off the driveway with yellow tape. It was probably to keep the gawkers from traipsing through the yard, as she doubted there was any evidence left to protect.

  She had always been inquisitive, as she liked to term it, even as a kid. More than once her mother had told her that some things were just none of her business. But her inquiring nature always won out. She would ask lots of questions or hang around watching other people when something important seemed to be happening, like earlier tonight. As a kid she devoured the Nancy Drew and Trixie Beldon mysteries. She’d spent much of those years wanting to solve crimes. Alas, there had been no criminal activity that needed cracking in her neighbourhood and so she’d had to be content with just reading about it.

  Elizabeth looked both ways. The road was quiet. Although she knew that this was one of those instances that were none of her business she ducked under the tape and moved over the flattened grass to the septic tank. It was closed but the smell still lingered in the air. She went to the garage. As a house it had probably had two larger bedrooms, or three smaller ones. She peered in the opening made for the garage doors. There was a wall dividing the garage into two sections, one of which was for vehicles. The floor of the vehicle area had been removed and tufts of grass grew on the ground. The other section, as she could see when she peered through a window, was a workshop.

  Elizabeth took a slow look around the yard. There was nothing she could see that would give her a clue as to what had taken place. Of course, she didn’t really expect to see anything. Whatever had happened, had happened a long time ago. She called Chevy and headed back towards the bed and breakfast. When she saw vehicle lights coming towards her, she snapped on the leash. It must be Peggy, as there didn’t seem to be a lot of traffic on this country road. She stood to one side of the road where she could be seen in the headlights.

  Peggy stopped and rolled down her window. “I sure didn’t expect to see you out here.”

  “Walking Chevy.” Elizabeth held up the end of the leash. “He figures it should happen every evening.

  “Well, I’m glad I saw you,” Peggy said. “I want to apologize for the way I acted tonight. I wasn’t very hospitable.”

  “I can imagine it’s quite an unsettling feeling to learn a skeleton has been found in a septic tank on your property.”

  “Former property,” Peggy corrected. “And it’s more of a shock to think that someone murdered the person and then dumped him or her in that tank.”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  Peggy glanced in the direction Elizabeth had come. “Did you look at the place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not much to see, is there?”

  “Was it a farm or an acreage when you owned it?”

  “It was twenty acres. We’d lived in Fort Macleod the first few years of our marriage but Harry wanted to live in the country. We bought the acreage and moved on the mobile home. He fixed up the old house enough to make it into a garage and work area. He drove the ten kilometres to work in town every day. I had a part time job and rode with him three days a week. After he left, I moved back to town.”

  Chevy began pulling on his leash and whining, impatient to get moving.

  “Are you going to be around tomorrow?” Peggy asked

  “I’m heading to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Pincher Creek and the Crowsnest Pass, but I’ll be back in the evening.”

  “Well, if you have any questions about the area, I’m working from four until nine.”

  Elizabeth watched her drive away then she and Chevy resumed their journey. Even though she sometimes felt a little fearful about wild animals, she enjoyed her walks at night in the country. It was a treat to her city eyes to see a full sky of stars. Even in the moonlight she was able to easily make out the Big and Little Dippers, the extent of her knowledge about astronomy.

  It had been a long time since she’d been stargazing; in fact it took her back to her childhood. After her grandmother’s funeral, her mother had told her that everyone who died became a star. They’d gone out into the yard and she could still hear her mother’s voice as she said. “Now, Grandma is a star. Let’s see if we can find the one that is her.” They had spent the next hour trying to pick out which one might be her grandmother. Elizabeth now scanned the sky and wondered which star was her mother.

  When she got back to the B&B the front door was closed but unlocked. She heard voices in the kitchen and looked in to let Shirley and Al know she was back. They just nodded at her, so she headed up the stairs.

  In her room she took out her cell phone and dialled her father’s number. He answered on the second ring.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Elizabeth.” He sounded relieved. “Where are you?”

  “I’ve made it to the B&B. I had supper with the mother of the owner, played `Go Fish’ with her and her granddaughter and walked Chevy.” She omitted the discovery of the skeleton. No use in worrying him.

  “Sounds like you’ve had a full day. You must be tired.”

  “Getting there. And how was your day? Did you go to the museum with Terry as you had planned?”

  “No. I didn’t feel up to it.”

  That was his answer to most activities his children tried to do with him, and none of them knew how to get him to change his mind.

  “Well, maybe next week,” she said cheerfully.

  “Yes, maybe.”

  “Will you let Sally know I called?”

  “Sure.”

  When she hung up she called her sist
er, but the answering machine picked up.

  “Hi, Sherry. Just wanted to let you know I’m at the B&B and if you could phone Terry, I’d appreciate it. Hope everything’s alright—I’ll call tomorrow night to see how your visit went with your doctor.”

  Usually in the evening she went over what she’d seen during the day and then planned the next day. Tonight, though, the same questions about the skeleton ran around and around in her head. It wasn’t long before she decided she was wasting her time, so she got back to the real reason she was there—to find out about the area, the people and their history. She pulled out the tourist brochure from her jean’s pocket and continued reading where she’d left off.

  Fort Macleod is southern Alberta’s oldest settlement. The downtown district, on 24th Street between Second and Third Avenues, was declared Alberta’s first provincial historical site on May 14, 1984. There are many wood frame buildings that date back to 1890s and some brick and sandstone ones from the early 1900s.

  Now those she had to see.

  * * * *

  Dick Pearson sat and stared at the bottle of rye sitting in the middle of his kitchen table. After today, he needed a drink. At least, that was what he’d been telling himself since leaving the police station. That was why, instead of coming home for a shower after dropping off his suction truck and picking up his half-ton truck, he’d stopped in at the liquor store and bought a bottle.

  Now that it was on his table, however, he was having second thoughts. It had been years since he had wanted a drink this bad. Nine years, in fact, the very same day he’d had the fight with Harry, and he remembered that day clearly. He’d been driving past the Wilson acreage early in the morning on his way to his first pump-out. Peggy and Harry were walking to their car and Harry had two suitcases in his hands. They were yelling at each other. As Dick watched, Harry had suddenly dropped the suitcases, clenched his right hand into a fist, and raised it in the air.

  Dick had braked hard and jumped out. Seeing him, Harry lowered his fist and grinned. “Well, if it isn’t the Lone Ranger to the rescue.” Harry knew about Dick’s feelings for Peggy and over the years had tormented him about them.