Page 30 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow
I explain about the rabbit. When I finish, he shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back, muttering under his breath.
“It was deliberate,” I say. “By the time Sheriff Smits arrived, it’d been disturbed—by a turkey vulture and then me covering it to protect it from turkey vultures. So it looked like a random pile of parts. Sheriff Smits thought it was a bald eagle kill.”
Ben snorts. “Craig Smits is a cop, not a forest ranger. Eagles pick uprabbits and carry them off. You’d find blood and fur. Maybe not even that much. We had coyotes until the hunt, but there could still be a few. They don’t kill like that either.”
“The rabbit was dismembered. And not eaten.”
“Hmph.” He looks around. “You hear anything last night?”
“No.”
“But you saw someone in the shed.”
“Yes. There aren’t any signs of squatting, though. Just a bare footprint.” I peer up the road. “Gail mentioned checking out the other cottages. Make sure someone isn’t staying in them.”
Another grunt. Then he starts down the stairs. “Come on.” A pause. “Bring the knife.”
I can’t tell whether he’s joking, and I don’t care. I grab the knife.
Ten
Ben heads to my uncle’s cottage. It’s down the lane by the shed, and I suspect he’ll want to divert to the shed first. He does, and I follow, watching as he checks the lock and heads inside. He flicks the light switch on and off.
“That wasn’t working last night either,” I say.
He doesn’t even grunt an answer to that. Just takes out his keychain and turns on a penlight. I walk to where I saw the print, and I point at it, saying, “Here’s the footprint,” but he only shines the flashlight around the rest of the shed, searching and saying nothing. Then he finally makes it over to where I am, as if getting there on his own. He looks at the print. Then he puts his own foot beside it.
“Larger than yours,” I say. “What size are you, nine? That would make these… Ten, eleven maybe?”
He finally deigns to speak. “I was just showing you that it wasn’t me.”
“I never thought it was.”
He looks at the door. “You say it was latched?”
I nod, realize he can’t see that with his light shining the other way, so I say, “Yes. I put the key in and turned it, but I can’t say for sure it was locked. Definitely latched. I know that means someone couldn’t get in unless they were locked in. I didn’t see any other entry points.”
He walks to a spot and kicks at the dirt. When the light passes over it, I see a hole dug under the wall.
“Concrete’s crumbling here.” He points his light directly at the hole now. “Mentioned it to your grandfather. He never replied.”
“That looks small, though. I’m not sure even I could crawl through.”
The light shines up to my face. “You arguingagainstan explanation for how someone got in with the latch on?”
“No, I’d just rather…” I try not to fidget. “I know I saw someone, and I’d rather have a possibility that proves it.”
“Don’t need to prove it to me. You’re the boss. You say you saw someone? I follow up.” He rises and heads for the door. “I’ll fill that hole and replace the lock.”
“If you need to buy anything, I have money in the cottage.”
“There’s a petty cash account with the lawyer. I’ll bill for repair time. I need authorization for any big jobs, like hiring someone to repair the concrete. But I can handle this.”
He walks out. I follow, and he heads to my uncle’s cottage.
“I was told not to touch this,” Ben calls back as he jabs a finger at the cottage. “Not this one and not your grandfather’s.” He continues to the porch. “His exact words were that I wasn’t being paid to maintain them, which implies I could have, on my own time. Didn’t bother.”
“I don’t blame you.”
