Danger on Her Doorstep

The hinges had been pulled free of the aging wood. The break-in job probably hadn’t been very difficult—a crowbar would do it. But what disturbed him even more was the fact that whoever had made entry into the house hadn’t even tried to hide what they’d done.

Why weren’t they more careful? Why weren’t they afraid?

“Gideon?” Maggie’s voice came out too highpitched.

He turned his attention back to her and realized the situation was catching up with her. This couldn’t be easy for her to see. “Let’s have a seat a second,” he suggested, taking her by the arm and guiding her toward an old double glider by the garage. The rusty old swing had obviously spent too many winters outside, but it looked sturdy enough to hold them.

Gideon sat down beside her.

“What was it?” she asked, the fear in her blue eyes magnified by the curvature of her thick-rimmed glasses. “Why was there a team investigating my father’s death? Do you think someone may have killed him?”

So she’d put two and two together already, had she? Gideon recalled from their school days that she was pretty bright. She obviously hadn’t missed anything this time, either, though he wished he could go back in time and replay his first phone call to her. If he’d had to do it over again, he’d have told her from the beginning that there was some possibility her father had been murdered.

Because if anything, it was worse having to tell her now.

“We suspected he may have been murdered.” He watched her carefully as she absorbed the news. No screams, no crying, not even a gasp. She just kept staring at the broken cellar door.

After a minute, she took a gulp and asked, “And the fact that somebody broke into the house?”

“It’s hard to say at this point,” Gideon said, tempering his response, “but there’s a very good chance the two are related.”

She nodded slowly. “Why would the murderer re turn?”

“I don’t know.” Gideon didn’t want her getting any more worked up than she already was. Besides, they needed to call the sheriff’s office. If it had been his house, he’d have placed the call already. But then, his house, though only a couple of blocks from this one, was inside the city limits, and the Holyoake cops would have answered the call. The house on Shady Oak Lane was outside of town, and therefore in the sheriff’s territory.

Since he wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with the ongoing sheriff’s investigations, he needed to leave well enough alone. The last thing he wanted to do was make it look as though he was trying to heavy-hand a case. If he ever wanted to be sheriff again, he needed to respect the boundaries that had been erected. Which meant Maggie would need to place the call.

“Do you have your phone on you? Can you call the sheriff’s office to come investigate?”

She looked up at him with wide eyes. Funny, he’d always thought her plain before. Mousy brown hair, dorky glasses, a little on the short side. But close-up, her thick, long eyelashes fluttered against her lightly freckled cheekbones. Maggie Arnold was pretty.

Gideon shook off his thoughts, wondering what had gotten into him. Whoever had broken into the house could be getting away while he sat there thinking about how Maggie Arnold looked. Worse yet, whoever had murdered Glen Arnold could be plotting to kill someone else. “Do you have your phone?” he asked again.

Maggie blushed and pulled a cell phone from her pocket. “Sorry. I’m still trying to sort this out.”

“Leave that to the sheriff’s department,” he advised.

Gideon paced the brick patio while Maggie placed the call. He couldn’t see any footprints, but the weed-filled backyard was an untamed mess. A crowd of people could have gone tromping through without leaving any discernible marks. When Gideon heard Maggie say goodbye, he returned and sat down by her again.

“They’re on their way,” she reported, her expression now more drawn than frightened.

“That’s good.”

“Yes.” She looked away from the cellar door and met his eyes. “So tell me. What makes you think my father was murdered?”

Gideon tried to state the facts as simply as possible. “About twenty minutes before I discovered his body, your father called the sheriff’s office. He asked to speak to me specifically. You know I used to work for him on the weekends and summers back in high school, correct?”

“That’s right.” Maggie nodded. “You helped him fix up his rental houses.”

“He taught me most of what I know about construction,” Gideon confessed. “That’s part of why I chose to become a handyman while I’m suspended from being sheriff. Construction is the only thing I know besides law enforcement.” He shrugged. “Anyway, your father always felt comfortable talking to me and had called about little things before, so I wasn’t even sure this was an official call until we got into the conversation.”

“What did he say?”

Gideon shook his head, trying to recall the older man’s words exactly. “He said he had something I had to see. At that point I thought it was just some new discovery he wanted me to take a look at. You know, he once found a Civil War musket in a box of balusters he bought at an estate auction. I thought it was something like that from the way he was talking. I asked him to tell me more about it. That’s when—” Gideon broke off as a sheriff’s cruiser pulled into the bricked parking space alongside the garage.

“I’ll finish the story later,” he assured her as she rose to her feet. “You don’t mind if I hang back for now, do you? I’m not supposed to get involved with investigations.”

“Do what you have to do,” Maggie said quietly, though Gideon could still hear the fear in her voice.

As promised, Gideon stayed on the swing while Maggie spoke with the officers who’d arrived. He knew Deputy Bernie Gills and had worked with him closely for years. The man had some annoying habits and wasn’t particularly professional or friendly when he didn’t want to be. But he was a competent officer ten years Gideon’s senior, and Gideon had never encountered any major problems with him.

The woman driving the vehicle was someone Gideon had only met twice before—Kim Walker. Kim had grown up in Holyoake but had been a police officer in Des Moines for almost a decade. She had faithfully applied for deputy positions on the Holyoake force whenever any jobs had come open. Though she’d narrowly missed out on those positions, the County Board of Supervisors had chosen her as interim sheriff. The way he understood it, they’d wanted someone new—someone free of any possible ties to the meth production ring that had brought Gideon down. Probably a good idea, as long as she was up to the job of being sheriff.

Gideon sat back and watched while Bernie and Kim split up to check the house.

Maggie returned and sat next to him on the swing. “They’re going to make sure there’s no one still around,” she explained.

“That’s good.” It was what he’d have done. While he didn’t want to judge Kim’s work—she’d been rightfully appointed, after all—he still felt a lot more comfortable knowing she was proceeding according to the book. Step one was always to secure the location.

“Do you think I should ask them about…?” Maggie paused, her blue eyes watching him, full of trust.

“About the ruling on your father’s case?” Gideon supplied.

She nodded and looked relieved. Obviously she felt hesitant to speak the words out loud.

He understood how she felt. For the same reason, he hated admitting the fact that he was no longer sheriff. Somehow, saying it out loud made it more real. “If I were in your shoes, I’d give them the third degree. They have a responsibility to your father and to you, as well as to the safety of everyone in Holyoake County. If your father really was murdered, then there’s a killer out there somewhere.” He stopped when Maggie looked nervously back at the cellar door.

Guilt stabbed him. He hadn’t meant to make her more afraid, but he felt impatient with the sheriff’s office for not thoroughly addressing that aspect of the case two weeks earlier. In his mind, it was unconscionable that Maggie hadn’t been told the bare facts of her father’s case. But then, part of that was his fault. He’d been the one to call her to notify her of her father’s death. Not wanting to reveal over the phone that they suspected Glen Arnold’s death to be a homicide, Gideon had planned to tell Maggie those things in person once she arrived in town and they’d had a chance to investigate further. But his brother’s arrest had spoiled those plans, as well.

Much as he knew he needed to remain completely uninvolved with the homicide case, on a purely personal level, it was far too late. Glen Arnold had been a mentor and friend. And now it appeared as though whoever had killed him had another mission to accomplish, if the splintered cellar door was any indication.

“I don’t want you to worry,” he offered, noticing that she’d clenched her hands into tight little fists.

“Too late,” she said, her faint smile failing to make the statement a lighthearted one.

“Maggie, can you advise us in here?” Kim called from the first-floor doorway.

“Coming.” Maggie hopped up and followed the sheriff into the house.

Gideon leaned backward on the creaky swing and tried not to feel impatient. As he’d reminded himself a thousand times over the past two weeks, there was nothing he could do to help anyone until his case had been decided. If he tried to get involved before then, it would only make things worse. He watched carefully from his vantage point on the swing, but could see little of the inside activity from the backyard.

Letting his eyes wander over the unkempt grounds, Gideon assessed what he could of the setting. The house sat on a large lot just outside of town. There was another older home about half a block away, with a family living there—the Swansons. They were peaceful people, as he recalled. Mr. Swanson was a schoolteacher and his wife stayed home with the kids. If it hadn’t been for some large shade trees and the thick row of lilac bushes between the two properties, Gideon might have hoped the Swansons would have witnessed something, but between the distance and the visual obstructions, that seemed unlikely.

The other side of the street was a field of soybeans, while on the left side of the house the yard tapered off into what was once probably a well-kept garden area, though it hadn’t been that in eighty years or more. An aging shed marked the rear corner of the property. Beyond that, the wooded hillsides of the Loess Hills sprang up where the Nishnabotna River Valley ended. He wasn’t sure who owned the woodland.

As he sat taking in the surroundings, Gideon thought he saw a movement by the distant garden shed. He turned to look just in time to see a light-haired figure disappear behind the shed. The tallish female figure reminded him of Kim. But what would she be doing over there? Had she found a trail to follow after all?

Curiosity overcame his determination to stay uninvolved, and he hopped up, ambling in the direction of the shed. “Kim?” he asked as he neared the spot, not wanting to startle or surprise her, especially if she had her sidearm drawn. “Sheriff Walker?”

He was nearly to the shed when he heard the woman’s voice behind him.

“Are you looking for me?”

Gideon spun around. “Oh. There you are.” She’d obviously come from the direction of the house—not from back around the shed. “You’re wearing tan.”

“Yes. It is the official color of the Holyoake County sheriff uniforms—” Kim eyed him cautiously “—although I believe the tag calls it khaki.”

Hoping he hadn’t offended her, Gideon tried his best to look apologetic. “Sorry. It’s just that I thought I saw a woman—I had assumed it was you—going back around the shed. But she was wearing light blue.”

“City cops wear light blue and black,” Kim noted.

“I don’t think it was a city cop.” Gideon stepped back toward where he’d seen the figure, “I wonder if it was someone related to the break-in.”

By now Bernie and Maggie had come up from the basement and approached them. Bernie had apparently overheard much of their conversation. “A woman?” he asked skeptically. “It would take a pretty big person to push through those cellar doors. My guess is you’re looking at a good-size guy, maybe two guys. That door was solid.” Bernie spoke with an extra-authoritative air, and didn’t bother to wipe the smirk off his face when he was finished.

Gideon realized it gave the deputy no end of satisfaction to correct his former boss. And though there was plenty Gideon could have said, he knew Bernie well enough to know arguing with him would only make the situation worse. No, he was in a powerless position now, and he had to behave accordingly. “All I know,” he said patiently, “is that just a few moments ago I saw a light-haired female figure walk past here and disappear behind the shed.”

“I don’t see anyone. Where is she now?” Bernie asked.

“I don’t know.” Gideon tried to remain patient. He’d worked with Bernie just fine for years—but that had been when the deputy was trying to cooperate. The circumstances were very different now.

But Kim was already looking where he’d indicated. “Give him a break, Bernie. He’s right—someone was here, probably a woman. We’ve got footprints.”

Maggie was relieved when the sheriff and her deputy finally left. Though she was glad they’d investigated the matter thoroughly, she couldn’t get her mind off what Gideon had been in the process of telling her when the officers had arrived. But even as she and Gideon tromped back toward the house, she saw the sheriff’s patrol car return.

Deputy Bernie Gills leaped out before the interim sheriff had brought the vehicle to a complete stop. He ran up to Gideon and confronted him. “All right, where is it?”

Gideon looked confused, and possibly slightly annoyed. “Where’s what?”

“My Taser. I left it in the cruiser and you were the only person out here. Don’t tell me you didn’t take it.”

Maggie took a step back as Gideon turned his fierce glare on the deputy. “Bernie, what would I want with your Taser? I carried my own for years.”

“Yeah, and you obviously didn’t want to give it up when you stepped down, did you?”

To Maggie’s relief, Gideon didn’t let the argument escalate. “I don’t have your Taser, Bernie,” he stated flatly. “I don’t know anything about it.”

The deputy stared down his former boss for several long seconds before he finally said, “I’m watching you, Bromley. Everybody in Holyoake knows you’re dirty. It’s just a matter of time until the DNE proves it.” He headed back to the passenger side of the cruiser and climbed inside, slamming the door as the car drove away.

Maggie watched the marked vehicle as it rumbled away. She glanced back at Gideon in time to see the stern cleft between his brows relax slightly.

“Sorry about that.” He looked around them. “I don’t know what might have happened to his Taser. That car was within my sight almost the entire time it was back here, except for when I went around the other side of the shed.”

“Maybe he just misplaced it,” Maggie offered as she led the former sheriff back toward the house.

“Maybe.” Gideon sounded unconvinced. “Maybe another officer might, but Bernie’s downright particular about things.”

Maggie didn’t like the sound of that. Between people sneaking around, stealing things and trying to break into the house, she didn’t feel very comfortable around the old place. She also felt bothered by Bernie’s comment about Gideon being proved guilty.

They headed back down to the basement and Gideon pounded the door frame back into place using long nails from the pouch of the tool belt he wore around his waist. Maggie waited for his pounding to stop before asking him the question that was on her mind.

“What’s the DNE?”

Gideon gave the door frame a couple of hard tugs and scowled at it. But the extra nails he’d pounded into place seemed to hold it, and he faced her with a sigh. “DNE stands for the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement. They investigate illegal narcotics operations—in my case, they’re trying to sort out the extent of my brother’s meth operation, including trying to determine whether I was involved.”

“How long does that usually take?” Maggie asked. She could tell Gideon wasn’t happy about discussing the topic, but the question had been worrying her. Once his case was resolved, he wouldn’t be available to help her. Whether he ended up going to prison or just back to his job as sheriff, Maggie was concerned about whether he’d have time to work on her house at all.

“Simple cases can be resolved in a matter of weeks, sometimes ten days or less. But in the case of my brother’s operation, catching Bruce and his men was just the tip of the iceberg. The DNE hasn’t told me much, but I know their methods well enough to know that it’s going to take a long time to sort out everything in my brother’s case, maybe even several months.”

Gideon slammed the drop bar into place, then pulled out his hammer and pounded in a few more nails. His loud pounding told Maggie their conversation was over.

Once Gideon seemed satisfied that the cellar door was secure, he followed Maggie as she climbed the interior stairs. The rooms upstairs were dark, and dusty old furniture filled the first floor, their odd-shaped forms looming like monsters, capable of hiding killers in their shadows, compelling her to quicken her steps as she made her way through the rambling old house toward the front door.

Though it was getting dark outside and the front foyer was dim, Maggie wasn’t ready to leave. She had a feeling her questions had already probed deeper than what Gideon had wanted to discuss. But at the same time, she needed to know more about how her father had died. She simply wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise. There was so much that still hadn’t been explained.

When she’d asked Bernie Gills about the accidental-death ruling, the deputy had shrugged off her concerns.

“He fell down the stairs. I’m sorry to say it, but he was getting older. Probably wasn’t so steady on his feet. And hauling all those tiles, well, a guy has to be careful when he’s working alone,” Gills had said.

Maggie wasn’t sure if she felt hurt because the loss of her father was still so fresh, or if she felt stung because of the deputy’s vague insinuation that her father had been careless enough to fall to his death. She didn’t like to think that her father was a careless, sloppy man, but then, how else could she explain the mysterious illness that had stricken the people living in one of her father’s rentals twenty years before? Everyone had said her father’s negligence was to blame. The shame she felt over it was the primary reason she’d left town immediately after graduation, and the reason she still felt uncomfortable showing her face in Holyoake. Facing Gideon Bromley, whose young niece had nearly died from the incident, was even harder.

But right now, Gideon was the only one who could answer her questions. “Do you agree with Bernie’s conclusion about how my father died?” she asked Gideon as they paused by the front door.

The stern-faced man scowled, making his expression even fiercer. “I don’t like to say negative things about my coworkers, but Bernie had a habit of cutting corners when he could. It doesn’t escape my notice that he wrapped up your father’s case quickly, right before Kim was appointed interim sheriff. He never appreciated having a supervisor question his report.”

“So you think…?” Maggie couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“I think it’s possible Bernie didn’t want to have to look for a murderer, so he ruled your father’s death an accident before he’d fully examined all the possibilities.”

It was as she’d feared. “You never finished telling me why you suspected it wasn’t an accident.”

The formidable man leaned toward her, his dark eyes black in the dying light. Maggie thought about turning a light on, but his shadowed gaze held her eyes, and her fear kept her rooted in place.

“Your father called me,” Gideon began again where he’d left off in his story earlier, “and said he’d found something in the basement that he wanted me to see. I asked him what it was, but he said I wouldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. I wish I could recall his exact words, but I know he said it was very suspicious, whatever it was. When I got here twenty minutes later, he was dead.”

“So that’s the reason you think he might have been murdered—because he found something suspicious inside the house?”

“Yes. That, and when I found him, his pockets were all turned inside out.”

Maggie took a startled step back, and the old floorboards groaned along with her. “Someone searched his body before you got there?”

“That’s what it looked like to me. I can’t imagine your father running around with his pockets inside out—that just wasn’t like him. I knew him well enough to know that. His wallet was lying beside him on the floor, but from what we could tell, nothing was missing. We took fingerprints. Most of them matched your father’s, but there were a few that still hadn’t found a match when I was last on the case.”

Much as Maggie tried to tell herself it didn’t make any difference, the idea that her father may have been murdered made his death that much more difficult to bear. She bit down on her lower lip to keep it from trembling.

Gideon obviously noticed her distress. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“No.” She sniffled and tried to work her face into a smile. “I’m glad you told me. I was thinking about moving into this house since we’re going to be working on it anyway, but I’m not going to do that as long as the cause of my father’s death is unresolved.” She stopped short as the expression on Gideon’s face tightened. “If you want to work on the house, that is. I didn’t mean to assume—”

“It’s fine. I’ll take the job, if you’re offering it. I owe your father, you know.”

Maggie wasn’t sure she understood what he meant. “You mean since he taught you about carpentry?”

“I suppose that.” Gideon’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “And because I failed to catch his killer.”

Not willing to think about that subject any longer, Maggie said, “It’s getting dark, and I really don’t want to stay here any later this evening. Can I meet you tomorrow morning to talk about plans for the house?”

Gideon nodded and reached for the doorknob, easily opening the door that had given Maggie so much trouble earlier. “Sure thing.” They arranged when to meet, and Gideon extended his hand toward her as he thanked her again. “I appreciate having some work to do. This project should give me plenty to get my mind off everything else that’s happened.”

Reluctantly, Maggie shook his hand, once again surprised by the warmth she felt at that simple contact, and by the glittering blackness of his eyes in the dusky room. “I appreciate your willingness to take on the job, in spite of its complexity.” She fumbled over her words as she looked up at him, feeling an odd connection with the man who knew her father so well. With the man who’d found her father’s dead body.

THREE

Gideon arrived at the house on Shady Oak Lane ten minutes early and settled his tool belt around his hips where his gun belt used to sit. The weight of the hammer and measuring tape weren’t equal to that of his gun and billy club, but it nonetheless felt good to wear the tools of a trade again, even if it wasn’t his chosen trade.

He grabbed his clipboard and circled the property, watchful for any signs of disturbance or clues that may have been missed before. It bothered him that Glen Arnold’s murderer was still at large, without even so much as an investigation under way to catch him. If Gideon had anything to say about it, the murderer would be caught. He might not be sheriff any longer, but he’d ensure the future safety of Glen Arnold’s daughter. He owed the man that much.

As he came around to the front side of the house, he saw Maggie drive up in her father’s truck, looking even smaller than usual behind the wheel of the full-size pickup. Poor girl. She looked skittish as she hopped out of the front seat, glancing around nervously as though her father’s murderer might leap out of the bushes at any moment. Even from across the yard, he could see the fear on her face, the same vulnerability that had crossed her expression so many times when they’d spoken the day before.