Mountain Sheriff

Other foods, however, such as vegetables or anything low-fat, had Mitch in his sheriff’s uniform, scowling at her in disapproval. For obvious reasons, she avoided those foods.

She took another bite of pie, closed her eyes and was startled when Mitch popped up in her daydream wearing a black tuxedo and standing at an altar.

Her eyes flew open, her heart pounding. Her wedding? The one she’d imagined and planned since age four?

On this, she was not mistaken. Mitch in a black tux, she in white satin. Or maybe white silk. Or lace. The imagined wedding changed, depending on her mood. But the groom never had.

“The pie all right?” Betty asked as she stopped on the other side of the counter.

“De-e-elicious,” Charity said, closing her eyes again and licking her lips in true delight, hoping to see Mitch in that wedding tux again. No such luck. She opened her eyes as Betty refilled her diet cola.

Betty Garrett was a pleasingly plump bottled-blond on this side of fifty but who could pass for thirty-five in a pinch and had a talent for attracting the wrong men the way a white blouse attracts blackberry jam. She’d married and changed her last name so many times that most people in town couldn’t tell you what it was at any given moment. Right now Betty was between men, but it wouldn’t last long. It never did.

“I just put a couple of lemon-meringue pies in the oven in case you’re interested,” Betty said.

Interested? Lemon meringue was her second favorite.

“I figure this Bigfoot sighting will bring ’em in for sure. Did last time,” the older woman said. “I decided I’d better make some extra pies.”

Bigfoot sightings packed the town. The curious drove up to Timber Falls in hopes of seeing what some called the Hill Ghost or Sasquatch.

“I heard the No Vacancy sign is already on at the Ho Hum and a half-dozen campers are parked over by the old train depot,” Betty was saying. Everyone wanted to see Bigfoot and prove the legendary creature’s existence.

None as badly as Charity Jenkins, though. Every journalist dreamed of that one big story. The Pulitzer-prize winner. Charity yearned to write about something other than church dinners and wooden decoys. The truth was, she desperately needed one big story. It was the only way she could make everyone in this town see that she wasn’t like the rest of her family, she was a normal level-headed woman and a serious journalist. All right, she didn’t care about everyone in town. She just wanted to prove it to Mitch.

She took the last bite of her pie, savoring it, eyes closed. No Mitch in jeans or a tux. She opened her eyes, disappointed.

“Where do you put it all?” Betty asked with a shake of her head as she took the empty plate.

Charity was blessed. Probably because she was a fidgeter. She couldn’t sit still. Nor did she ever stop thinking. Like right now. Between planning how to play the Bigfoot sighting in tomorrow’s paper, she was thinking about Mitch and if her banana-cream-pie fantasy had any credibility.

Just the thought of Mitch standing next to her at the altar was enough to burn up a whole day’s worth of calories. She and Mitch had a history, an off-and-on-again attachment that went as far back as shared glue in kindergarten.

Right now they were at a slight lull in their relationship: he pretended he was a confirmed bachelor and she pretended she was going to let him stay that way.

This morning she’d been so excited when she’d seen the present on her doorstep. She’d been so sure it was from Mitch. Who else? But he’d sworn it hadn’t been him. And why pretend he hadn’t left it if he had? Then again, why pretend he wasn’t wild about her when he obviously was? She’d never understand the man.

“Would you look at this place?” Betty said, shaking her head. The café was full, everyone talking about the Bigfoot sighting. “I can’t believe these fools are still arguing over Bigfoot after all these years.”

Charity glanced around the small café. It was the only place in town to sit down and eat, plus it was the place to get homemade pies and cinnamon rolls and the latest scuttlebutt.

As she picked up her diet cola, she had an eerie feeling that someone was watching her. It wasn’t the first time, either. She turned and caught a flash of black on the street outside. Her breath caught as a black pickup drove by. It was the same black truck she’d seen last night by her house and again on her way to Betty’s this morning. Both times she’d had the feeling the driver was watching her.

She shivered as she watched the truck disappear up Main Street. While she could only make out a large shape behind the dark-tinted windows, she could feel the driver watching her through the rain. Her stomach tightened, remembering the present she’d found on her doorstep this morning. Could one have anything to do with the other?

RAIN HAMMERED the roof of the Sheriff’s Department patrol car, mist rising ghostlike from the drenched pavement, as Mitch drove out to the address Wade had given him for Nina Monroe. A swollen gray sky hung low over the pines as if closing in the tiny town, limiting more than visibility.

Mitch dreaded another rainy season in Timber Falls, especially one that appeared to be starting a month early and could last until at least April. It wasn’t just the endless rain or the dull overcast days. Without fail, the rainy season seemed to bring out the worst in the residents.

One year, Bud Harper hung himself from a beam in his garage just days before the sun shone. Another year, a local guy shot up the Duck-In bar when he caught his wife there with another man. And twenty-seven years ago, during the worst rainy season of all, Wade and Daisy Dennison’s baby girl Angela disappeared from her crib, never to be found.

It was always during the rainy season that strange and often horrible things happened in this small isolated town deep in the Cascades. It was as if the gloomy days, when the rain never stopped, did something to make the residents behave more oddly than usual. As if on those days, the only place to look was inward. And sometimes that was as dark as the day—and far more disturbing.

And if the rain wasn’t bad enough, there was the forest that surrounded Timber Falls, imprisoned it, really, and constantly had to be fought back as if it was at war with the tiny town. As he drove past the city limits, the forest formed almost a canopy over the two-lane highway, a tunnel of green darkness over the only road out.

To the clack of the wipers, he turned off in front of a cottage-style house with a dozen smaller bungalows lined up behind it. Years ago, the place had been a motel. But not long after Wade Dennison started his decoy factory, Florence Jenkins had taken down the motel sign and started renting out the bungalows as apartments.

It was about the same time that Florence discovered her hidden powers. The sign out front now read: Madam Florie’s. Under it was her Web site address.

Nina Monroe had been renting from Charity’s Aunt Florie, Timber Falls’s self-proclaimed clairvoyant.

Mitch braced himself then climbed out of his patrol car and hurried through the pouring rain to the front door.

When an elderly woman opened the door, he tipped his hat, dreading this more than he’d imagined. “Mornin’, Florie.”

“Sheriff. I’ve been expecting you.” She smiled knowingly, her eyes twinkling in her lined face. “Saw that you’d be by in my coffee dregs this morning.”

He nodded. If Florie could see the future in her coffee cup, more power to her. He just didn’t want to hear about his own future. He wanted to be surprised.

She motioned him in with a dramatic sweep of her arm, reminding him of some exotic, brightly feathered bird. Florie was sixty if she was a day. Her dyed flame-red hair swirled around her head like a turban. She wore a flamboyant caftan, large gold hoop earrings, several dozen jangling bracelets and a thick layer of turquoise eye shadow.

Florie and her much younger sister Fredricka, Charity’s mother, had been raised by hippies in a commune just outside of town. Freddie still lived on the old commune property with a dozen other people but seldom came into town. While Freddie raised organic vegetables, Florie predicted the future to tourists in the summer and locals during the rainy season—another reason Mitch had cause for concern during the rainy season.

The old motel office was painted black and had recessed lighting that illuminated the only piece of furniture in the room—a purple-velvet-covered table with a crystal ball at its center. Florie had had the ball shipped in from a store in Portland. It gleamed darkly, as if mirroring the weather outside.

“I suppose your coffee dregs also told you why I’m here,” he said as he entered. “Or maybe Wade mentioned it when he called you about Nina Monroe not showing up for work?”

Florie gave him an annoyed look and pointed to a sign on the wall in the entry that read No Negative Thoughts. A series of other small signs advertised palm, tarot and crystal ball readings.

“I was concerned after what I saw in my cup this morning,” she said, lifting one tweezed dyed-red brow as she waited for him to ask.

No way was he going there.

“It involved my niece Charity,” she added, not a woman to give up easily, a trait she shared with her niece.

“I understand that Nina Monroe rents from you and she didn’t come home last night,” he said, cutting to the chase.

Florie nodded, obviously disappointed by his lack of curiosity about those telltale coffee dregs.

“How do you know she didn’t come home last night and then leave again before you got up?” he asked.

“Because I was up until daylight.” At his surprised look, she added, “My Internet business—horoscopes, tarot cards, psychic readings, all by e-mail. You really should get your chart done. I’m concerned about your aura.”

He had worse things to worry about than his aura right now. “I need to see Nina’s bungalow.”

Florie stepped behind a dark-velvet curtain. She came back with a key attached to a round small cardboard tag.

When he reached for the key, she took his hand and turned it palm up.

“Ah, a long life line with a single marriage.” She beamed and dropped the key into his palm.

He shook his head. His palm lied. His parents’ marriage had more than convinced him what his future didn’t hold—a wedding.

“‘Aries’?” he asked, reading the lettering on the key’s tag.

“I try to match my guests and their bungalows based on their horoscopes. Better karma.”

“So Nina was an Aries?”

“No, the Aries bungalow just happened to be the only unit I had open when she showed up.”

He reminded himself that Charity shared Florie’s genes. All the more reason to keep Charity at arm’s length. Several car lengths would be even better. “So what was Nina?”

Florie shrugged. “She wouldn’t tell me her birth sign. Can you believe some people aren’t interested in enlightenment?”

He could. “Nina rented the bungalow in September?”

“Drove up in that little red compact of hers looking for a room. September nineteenth. I remember because she didn’t even have a job yet. But that very afternoon, she got one at Dennison Ducks. Kismet, I guess.”

Or something like that. “No need for you to come out in the rain with me.”

Florie took a bright purple raincoat from the closet and a pair of matching purple galoshes. “I wouldn’t dream of letting you go alone. I’ve been picking up some really weird vibes from that girl,” she said, and stepped past him and out the front door.

He followed her around back through the rain to the first of twelve bungalows, the one with the Aries symbol on the door.

Standing on the small porch, he felt a sudden chill as if someone had walked over his grave. Florie knocked, then cautiously unlocked the door.

“Oh, my!” she cried as the door swung open on the ransacked bungalow.

“Stay here,” he ordered, and stepped inside to look for Nina Monroe’s body in the mess.

Chapter Three

“You all right?” Betty asked, looking concerned.

Charity turned back to the counter as the black pickup disappeared from view in the steady torrent of rain. “I just thought I saw…” She shook her head, catching herself. “Nothing.”

She didn’t want it all over town that she thought somebody in a black pickup was following her. Or that she’d found a present on her doorstep, a palm-size heart-shaped red stone in a small white box with a bright-red ribbon and a small card that read THINKING OF YOU in computer-generated letters. No name.

“Is it me or is the whole town on edge today?” Betty said. “Kind of gives you the creeps thinking that Frank might really have seen Bigfoot.”

“Yeah.” Charity turned again to look through the rain to the dense forest beyond the street. The foliage was so thick that not even light could get through in places. Who knew what lived there?

Charity shivered. “Frank’s a pretty reliable witness,” she said. “He saw something. Something he thought was Bigfoot, at least.”

Betty nodded and moved away. Behind Charity, several other diners began arguing amongst themselves.

“All Frank saw was a bear,” said one.

“A bear that walks on its hind legs?” said another.

“It was dark,” a third put in. “Probably just saw a shadow move across the road.”

“I say it’s some ancient ancestor. You know, a former race of giants.”

“Who just happens to live in the Timber Falls mountains and never comes out? Puh-leeze.”

Charity had heard these arguments for years.

She went back to thinking about Mitch. No hardship there. She’d so hoped he’d left the present. Just as she hoped he’d change his mind about marriage. She knew he wanted her, but just not on her terms. If she’d settle for anything else…

Well, she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. No matter how tempted she was. She was the one in the family who was going to do it the right way, not like her mother, who had three daughters—Faith, Hope and, what else, Charity—and hadn’t bothered to get married until all three were old enough to be bridesmaids.

It was embarrassing to come from a family of not just old hippies but screwballs. Was it any wonder Mitch was scared to death to marry her and have children, given her genes?

That was why she had to show him. He’d been surprised when she’d gotten her journalism degree and started her own newspaper. Now all she needed was a Pulitzer-prize-winning story. She would change the family’s image, even if it killed her, by doing everything the way it should be—right down to the wedding in white.

“Charity, tell them,” Betty called to her from across the café. “Tell them about all those Bigfoot sightings going years back and all over the world.”

“It’s true,” Charity said, pulling herself away from her daydream. “A creature like Bigfoot has been reported in every state except Hawaii and Rhode Island. More than two hundred sightings going back to ancient man and probably untold numbers of people who have seen something and kept it to themselves because they were afraid of being ridiculed.”

“Yeah, then how come no one’s ever found any Bigfoot bones?” another customer asked.

“Maybe they bury their dead,” someone replied.

“Or the bodies decay too quickly in this kind of climate,” someone else suggested.

“Or Bigfoot is nothing but a myth,” still another said.

“Charity, you really believe Bigfoot exists, don’t you?” Betty asked as she refilled her diet cola.

A woman who hung on to the belief that one day she’d get Mitch Tanner to marry her? Oh, yeah. “He not only exists, but one of these days I’m going to prove it.”

“You do that!” Betty said, and shot an indignant look at the customers who laughed.

Charity could just imagine a photo of Bigfoot on the front page of her paper. Imagine the look on Mitch’s face. He’d have to take her paper seriously then, wouldn’t he? And her, as well.

But he’d also have to apologize to his father. Lee Tanner had become the laughingstock of Timber Falls a few years ago when he’d stumbled across a Bigfoot on his way home from the bar—and reported it. No one had taken him seriously because he’d been drunk. But Charity had seen the truth in his eyes. Lee had seen something out there that night. Something that scared the hell out of him.

“A confirmed Bigfoot sighting could really put Timber Falls on the map,” said Twila Langsley.

Twila had put Timber Falls on the map six years back when Charity and Mitch had discovered some of Archibald Montgomery’s mummified remains in the huge carpetbag Twila carried, the rest of him in a trunk at the end of her bed.

Archibald had been Twila’s beau, and she, it seemed, had killed him more than fifty-odd years ago to keep him from running off with her best friend, Lorinda Nichols. Archie, the slick devil, had been romancing them both.

Twila did five years at the state pen. She got out on good behavior in time to celebrate her ninetieth birthday.

No one in town felt any ill will toward her. She just wasn’t allowed to bring her old carpetbag into Betty’s—even if all she carried in it now was her knitting.

“I don’t think even Bigfoot could put Timber Falls on the map,” Betty said.

“If there is a Bigfoot, it’s got to be smart,” one of the customers noted. “Smart enough to know we’d cage it or kill it if it came near us.”

Betty laughed. “Smarter than my ex-husbands, then.”

Charity thought about having another piece of pie, unable to get the image of Mitch Tanner in the tux out of her mind. Did she dare hope it meant what she thought it did?

She finished her soda and had started to leave when she saw the black pickup again. Her heart lodged in her throat as the pickup slowed. She could see the shadow of someone behind the tinted glass just before the driver sped away. One thing was certain. Whoever was driving that truck was following her.

“DID YOU FIND HER?” Florie asked from the doorway of the ransacked Aries bungalow.

Mitch shook his head. He didn’t find a body, but he feared Wade was right about Nina Monroe’s being in trouble.

“I told you I was picking up weird vibes,” Florie said.

Mitch was picking up more than a few of his own.

The bungalow was tiny, just a living area, bedroom, bath and kitchenette, all furnished with garage-sale finds.

In the bedroom at the back sat a sagging double bed and a scarred chest of drawers beside an open closet door. The bath had a metal shower, sink and toilet. No storage.

It was obvious someone had searched the place, looking for something that was small enough to conceal under a couch cushion. Or in a toilet tank. Or at the back of a drawer. Drugs? It was Mitch’s first thought.

“Any idea what they might have been looking for?” he asked Florie on the off chance she’d done more than pick up bad vibes.

She shook her head. “The girl didn’t have much. I don’t even think she owned a suitcase. The day she checked in here all she had was that old compact car and whatever she had stuffed into a large worn backpack.”

He glanced through the open door of the bedroom. A stained and frayed navy nylon backpack lay on the floor, open and empty. “She talk to you about where she was from?”

“Didn’t talk at all. I barely saw her. Got up early and came in late.”

“Any friends stop by?” He knew Florie kept a pretty good eye on the comings and goings of her tenants. The crystal-ball business was fairly slow in a town the size of Timber Falls.

“There was a guy. A couple of nights ago.”

Mitch’s ears perked up. “What did he look like?”

“Didn’t get a good look at him. It was too dark. She never used her porch light. But he was tall as you, wore dark clothing. I got the impression he didn’t want to be seen.”

“What did he drive?”

Again Florie shook her head. “He must have parked down the road,” she said. “But they had one heck of a fight.”

“About what?”

“That, I can’t tell you. I could just hear the raised voices for a few moments, then nothing.”

“You didn’t recognize the man’s voice?”

“That darn Kinsey had her stereo on too loud in the Aquarius bungalow next door,” Florie said. “You know she’s gone and dyed her hair cotton-candy pink. Like I’m going to let someone with pink hair cut my hair.”

He nodded. Kinsey had come back from beautician school determined to make her mother’s shop, the Spit Curl, hip.

Mitch moved to the bedroom, wondering who the man was Nina had been arguing with. Florie stayed in the bungalow doorway. Only a few items of clothing hung in the closet. Probably just what had fit into the backpack. Either Nina couldn’t afford more or she hadn’t brought all her belongings to Timber Falls.

A bell jangled outside. “It’s my private line,” Florie announced. “I’m going to have to take it. One of my clients needs me.”

He could tell she hated to leave. This was probably the most excitement she’d had in years. But money was money. “I’ll be here.”

She nodded as the bell jangled again, then took off hunkered deep in her coat against the rain.

Mitch looked around the room, hoping to find an address book or some clue where Nina might be.

The room was bare except for the bed and four-drawer dresser. There were no knickknacks, no photos, no personal items other than clothing in here or in the living room.

All of the drawers in the dresser had been pulled out, the sparse contents dumped on the floor. All except the bottom drawer.

He moved to the dresser, squatted down and pulled on the stuck drawer. Empty. Still squatting, he glanced under the bed. Nothing but dust balls.

The lack of clothing bothered him. Even counting what Nina was last seen wearing, the woman had only about four days’ worth of clothes.

That seemed odd to him. But if there were more belongings, where were they? And why did she leave them behind when she’d come to Timber Falls?

It made him wonder if this was only to be a short stay.

He started to get up, shoving the drawer back in as he rose. It stuck. He had to pull hard to get the drawer to slide out again. As he did, he heard a soft metallic clink.

Withdrawing the drawer completely, he turned it over, curious what had made the sound. There were several pieces of torn masking tape stuck to the bottom. Something had been taped there but had broken loose.

Setting the drawer aside, he crouched down and felt around under the dresser until his fingers touched something small, metallic and cold.

His heart leaped as he withdrew a tarnished-silver baby’s spoon and saw that the handle was in the shape of a duck’s head. The same shape that had made Dennison Ducks famous. Even through the tarnish, he could read the name engraved on the spoon’s handle: Angela. He felt a chill spike up his spine.

He’d heard that Wade Dennison had hired a jeweler in Eugene to make specially designed silverware for each of his daughters. First for Desiree, then two years later for Angela. Could this be Angela Dennison’s baby spoon? And if it was, what was Nina doing with it twenty-seven years after the baby had disappeared from her crib?

CHARITY RAN through the rain to her old VW bug parked in front of Betty’s and sat for a moment with the heater running as she tried to shake off her chill.

She’d seen the black truck again and there was no doubt in her mind that it was following her. Worse, she thought, looking at the small white box with the bright red ribbon sitting on her passenger seat, she suspected the driver had left her the present.

She stared at the box for a long moment before picking it up. There was no writing on it, not even a store logo. She opened the lid again and parted the white tissue paper.

Earlier all that had registered was that the stone was heart-shaped. She’d been so excited about getting a present from Mitch that she hadn’t noticed that the stone was also blood-red and cold to the touch. She shivered as she turned the stone over.