Bitterroot Lake, Alicia Beckman [good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT] 📗

ago came flooding back. Three stories, rose pink with white trim and deep mauve accents, the scalloped edges of the tiny black shingles on the roof dusty but distinct. Lace curtains hung in the windows, the three-sided turret as mysterious as ever.

A shadow moved and she jumped. “Oh, Bastet. You scared the—what are those doing there?”

On the floor, next to the cat’s paw, lay three shiny pennies.

“What are you trying to tell me, Jeremy?” She looked around as she spoke, as if her husband might be hiding behind a stack of crates or perched on an old cane-seat chair.

She slipped the pennies into the pocket in the waistband of her black pants.

A small thud startled her and she glanced around, spotting Bastet’s bright eyes in the dim room. The cat had jumped onto a domed-top trunk against the far wall, next to a stack of leather suitcases.

The McCaskills weren’t packrats. They were hoarders.

She didn’t remember the trunk. Whose it was or what it held, she had no idea. She set Bastet on the floor, where the cat immediately began licking a paw and washing her face.

Sarah undid the two large brass buckles on the front of the trunk and pushed the lid with the heels of her hands. It didn’t budge. She groped at the ends of the trunk for more buckles, finding only thick leather handles. She gave the tongue another tug, then tried again.

The lid remained firmly shut.

She shone the flashlight on the front of the trunk and craned her neck, spying a small brass keyhole she hadn’t noticed earlier. It couldn’t be hard to pick an old lock like that, could it? Unless the key was around here somewhere.

But what was so valuable that it had been locked away for decades?

She carried the cat out of the apartment and closed the door, then made her way down the unlit staircase. The windows on the ground floor level were as filthy as the ones upstairs, and she played the flashlight beam across the rows of tools. No keys. Had her mind been playing tricks on her?

Not for the first time. When, she wondered, would be the last?

 12

“Squat.” Nic spat out the word and dropped a white paper bag on the table outside where Sarah sat, facing the lake. “They told me squat.”

“Care to be more specific?” Sarah asked.

“I should have ignored the letter,” Janine said, taking the seat across from Nic. No sign of Holly. “Then none of this would have happened.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have broken your phone, but Lucas would still be dead,” Nic said. “And you’d still be a suspect, unless you had an alibi. Which, bottom line, you don’t.”

Lucas. Still stirring up trouble from the grave. Metaphorically speaking.

“Would she?” Sarah closed the notebook in front of her, the start of a list of repairs and other projects. “Be a suspect, I mean. She never filed an official report against Lucas, so even if they dug that deep in his background, they wouldn’t find a link.”

“Somebody had to know,” Nic said. “His wife, his partner, his therapist.”

Sarah and Janine snorted in unison, almost as if they’d rehearsed.

Nic threw up her hands. “I’m being theoretical here. He has to have told someone. No one keeps a secret like that his whole life.”

“What was there to tell?” Janine opened her own white paper bag. “He never thought he did anything wrong.”

When it came to Janine, maybe, but the rest? The wreck?

“Well, they know now. The price of honesty.” Nic made a noise like an unhappy horse. “The prosecutor was in trial today, so no chance for a meeting. I called a friend to ask about her—turns out she beat Lucas for the job a couple of years ago, handily. Rumor is, he never got over it and took every opportunity to slam her. But from what I hear, she’s fair. She won’t let his behavior affect her prosecution.”

“Did you see Leo?” Sarah asked.

“Spent most of an hour with him.” Nic peered inside her paper bag.

“And?”

Nic raised her head and bit her lip. “Preliminary autopsy results confirm the cause of death was the gunshot. Manner, Leo wouldn’t say, but it’s gotta be homicide.”

Sarah shuddered. Ugly word. An ugly death she didn’t wish on anyone.

“Apparently Lucas was known to keep a gun in the office,” Nic continued, “but it isn’t there now. No sign of it in his house or car. Good chance the killer used his own gun on him and took it with him.”

Or her.

“Leo won’t find anything to connect the shooting to me,” Janine said. “I know how it looks, but I didn’t kill him.”

“There’s reasonable doubt, right?” Sarah said. “Don’t they have to show no reasonable doubt before they can charge her? I forget how that works.”

“To charge her, all they need is probable cause to believe she committed the crime. Then, at trial, they have to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The words hung in the air, meaning nothing, meaning everything.

“So, what next?” Sarah asked.

“Meet with the prosecutor,” Nic replied. “Talk to people who knew Lucas. My guess is they’ll release the body in a day or two. His mother is widowed. Lives out of state with his sister.”

Lucas Erickson had a mother. Everyone did, but she hadn’t given his any thought. Poor woman.

“They’re on their way up,” Nic continued. “The ex-wife is taking charge of funeral arrangements. Two kids—boys. Middle-schoolers.”

He had kids. There would be a funeral. She should go.

God help me. She couldn’t go to another funeral, not now. No one would expect that of her. Hardly anyone in Deer Park had any inkling she’d ever known Lucas Erickson.

The back door squeaked open and footsteps crossed the deck. Holly set a bag and a can of pop in front of her. “We got you lunch.”

“I’m not hungry. But thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Holly took the fourth spot and carefully tore her bag to make a place mat, kept from blowing away by her Mountain Dew can. Sarah watched as her sister set the pickle at