Chapter Four
With the wind knocked out of her, Paige couldn’t get her bearings. Her back seemed glued to the cool tile. As her eyes came into focus, she could see Blanche through the still open front door, sprinting across the driveway and behind the barn. It took a few tries to get to her feet, and she was still unsteady by the time the sheriff’s car pulled in.
“My neighbor broke into the house and was hiding in the closet.” Paige struggled to catch her breath.
The seasoned deputy put his hand to his gun. His nametag read Dunn. “Was he armed? Did he hurt you?”
“It was a woman, and I don’t think she had a weapon.” Paige put her hand to her side. “But, she knocked me down when she heard you coming and ran back toward her place.” She pointed past the barn.
“Wait, you’re saying she lives to the west? In the old Erikson place.” Deputy Dunn scratched his balding head. “It’s been empty for years.”
“Not anymore. Blanche moved in late October.” Paige said. “She’s been helping me with the morning milking.”
“Blanche, who?” The corners of his nose lifted as though he were smelling something he didn’t like.
She opened her mouth then shut it. She’d never asked. It was always only Blanche. “It should be a matter of public record.”
Dunn ran his hand across his chin, peering the direction she’d pointed. “Got a friend who’s been wantin’ to buy that place and turn it into condos for a coon’s age. He promised me one of ‘em if I greased the wheels, so to speak, but the owners aren’t sellin’.” He looked to her with concern. “It’s possible your perp’s a renter, but more than likely she’s an uninvited guest, if you get my drift. Squatter. Are you up to checking it out?”
“Definitely.” Paige rushed out the door despite the stitch in her side. “It’s faster through here.” She gestured to a path by the barn that dipped through a gulley.
The older officer huffed trying to keep up. “So tell me what we’re up against? Is this woman big and bulky or young and wiry?
“Well,” Paige hesitated. “She’s strong but a little shorter than I am and at least ten years older, maybe more.”
“Did she look homeless?”
“Not at all.” Paige turned to face him. They’d reached the driveway and could see the large home in the distance. “I first met her here. She was driving a silver sedan. It looked almost new. She gave me the impression that she’d recently come into some money, either through retirement or divorce, so she could start fixing the place up.”
From a distance the home looked opulent with Greek pillars holding up a generous front pediment, but as they drew closer, she noticed the pillars were vinyl, and the siding had moss growing in the creases. On the front door a lockbox, the kind realtors use, lay at an angle. Paige hadn’t been this close to the house since she'd met Blanche.
“Not looking good.” Dunn peered in the windows. “Nobody’s lived here in forever.”
She swallowed as she took in the unmowed lawn and weeds pushing through cracks in the sidewalk and driveway. “I’d lost one of my goats and thought it might have wandered over here. She was standing right over there and told me all her plans. But I never saw her inside.” A walk around the side of the house confirmed her suspicions. The top rim of the emu pens sagged like telephone lines after a hurricane, and waist high weeds had taken over the yard.
She’d never felt so foolish. “Why would someone do this? She was at my place almost every day for the last two months.”
Dunn looked as confused as she felt. “I’ve got to admit it’s strange, but if she had money, she was probably aiming to get more of it. Aren’t you Bill Lindon’s niece?”
“Yes.” She blinked back the emptiness at the sound of her uncle’s name.
“Didn’t you get a good insurance payout at his passing?”
She shook her head. “It barely covered the medical bills. Except for the house, I’ve got almost nothing but student loans.”
Dunn’s chin wrinkled. “But she wouldn’t have known that. Could have found your name in the obits to pick you as a target. Should we head back and see what evidence she left behind? We still might find her.” He marched that direction.
Paige wanted to salute him. “Yes, sir.”
As Deputy Dunn slid back the large barn door, he whistled. “Might have known Bill’s niece would keep her establishment ship shape. Carrying on the Lindon tradition?”
“Well…” Paige was about to explain, but Petunia started braying at the sound of their voices. The nanny lifted up on her hind legs as high as she could, so her head was peeking over the top of the stall.
Dunn went to pet the waiting goat. “Looks like she’s going to be a momma soon.”
“A few more weeks.” Paige’s smile dimmed. “She’s carrying the last of King’s seed. He’s the stud I was looking for when I met Blanche. I never found him.”
“Must have been hard to lose so much at once.” Dunn lowered his head for a moment and then raised it, looking more determined. “So who all do you have helping around here? Maybe they could tell me more about Blanche, and we could get to the bottom of this.”
Thinking back over the last months, she was surprised that no one had been there but Blanche. “I’m sorry.”
“Maybe Jim from the farm store saw her when he dropped off feed or the farrier when he clipped the goats’ hooves last or the vet when you had ‘em wormed?”
She usually did all those things herself. “I’d been hoping to hire someone, but for now it's been just me. That’s why I was so grateful when Blanche offered to cover the morning milking,” Paige said.
Dunn’s brows furrowed. “So you invited her on the premises, and she was still here when you left?”
“In the barn, but never in the house, does that make a difference?”
“It could on the breaking and entering charge.” His face seemed to fall. “Is there a bathroom in the barn?”
“No,” Paige admitted.
“She could use that as a defense for entering the home, and if she’s older, who wouldn’t let her off? Unless she stole something. Let’s see.”
They rushed back to the house, and he took out a handkerchief to turn the knob. His whistle was louder than before. “Ms. Lindon, she did a number on this place."
Paige could feel the color rising in her cheeks. “No, I’ve have a lot of orders lately. It’s been hard to keep up.” She shuffled through the invoices on the couch, counted the tins on the chairs and checked the packaging on the counters to make certain it was all there. “Nothing is missing.”
Dunn was kneeling in front of the kitchen counter and held up a used piece of packing tape. “There were some boxes here recently.”
Paige blinked. He certainly was good at his job, but she had to confess. “I put those in my car just before I discovered Blanche in the closet. It’s why I came home, to get more inventory for my booth at the market, and then I went to update my records and...” She rushed to her computer to check her bank account. It was as abysmal as ever but untouched. “Another dead end.”
“What about the bedrooms?” he asked.
“Bedrooms? There’s nothing of value in there.”
Dunn was already to the hall. “Receipts, credit cards, checkbook. If she’s an identity thief, it wouldn’t take much. And it could be months before they actually move on it.”
“Okay,” she had heard the book fall in the back room. What if it wasn’t the wind? “My room is to the right.”
The deputy had already made a left. “I don’t think this room was touched.”
She rushed to the threshold. Uncle Bill’s bedspread didn’t have a wrinkle on it. She kept it the same way he had while he was alive. The nightstand was dust-free and the rug freshly vacuumed. If the deputy had opened the closet, he would have found it still filled with her uncle’s pressed clothes. Paige shut the door, feeling more alone than before. “That’s not my room.”
They went the other direction and stopped at the
entrance. A pile of dirty clothes filled one corner, and her dresser drawers sat askew, but she could tell Dunn’s attention rested entirely on the pitchfork sticking from her mattress like an overgrown lawn dart.
Concern filled his voice, “Did she throw that at you?”
“No,” her cheeks burned. “I threw it.”
“If you caused this woman injury, even if provoked, you could be held liable.”
“She wasn’t in the room at the time. I only thought she was.” Paige marched through the doorway in an attempt to miss the deputy’s disappointed expression. One look at the top of her dresser, and she knew it was exactly as she’d left it.
“Ms. Lindon, I don’t…”
“Wait a second.” Paige didn’t want to hear what he’d say next. She decided to comb the room herself. There had to be some evidence that Blanche was here. That the woman even existed. The bookshelf was a mess, and her chemistry textbook looked to have tumbled on the floor, which reminded her of the open window. Would any fingerprints have been obliterated when she closed it? She turned to ask the deputy but found him staring at her in a way that made her squirm. She wanted to explain how she’d been working every night into the wee hours, how she’d doubled sales while producing everything alone. She was working harder than ever and yet could never catch up, like she was running up a down escalator that kept going faster and faster. But she stopped herself. It would simply make him more certain that she’d lost her mind. Elaine’s taunt about her being a crazy goat lady echoed through her head.
Her chest felt hollow and her throat tight, but she refused to allow herself to cry. Biting her bottom lip hard enough to distract herself, she pivoted and rushed to the bathroom. Turning the water on full, she splashed her face as much to wash away tears as to pull herself back from her depressing thoughts. The cold water extinguished her burning cheeks. After a minute she turned off the faucet, feeling decidedly better. Reaching for the towel on the rack, she paused. It was folded.
She grabbed the towel, recalling the events of that morning out loud so Dunn could hear them. “I used my new blend of cardamom soap this morning for the first time. It’s supposed to relieve stress, but it wasn’t working. I was so worried about Blanche because I wanted her gone. I’d washed my hair and was drying it with this towel when I heard one of my goats bawling through the window.”
She spoke as much to the police officer as herself. “Then I threw the towel into the bathroom and ran out to the barn.” She rushed to Dunn’s side. “Blanche was milking and had clipped the doe’s ear in the stanchion, don’t you see?”
His face was blank.
She held up the folded towel. “Here’s the evidence. I threw the towel on the bathroom floor. I'm sure of it. Now it’s folded.” Dunn seemed to be processing what she said, and she could feel hope lifting her. “See? She was here. I told you.”
“The bathroom, huh?” Turning, he walked back out to the living area before facing her again. He rubbed his chin while scanning the room once more. “The way I see it, we might want to let this one go,” he said at last.
“What are you talking about?” Paige clutched the towel.
“Well, Ms. Lindon, a woman who no one else has seen, who is older and shorter than you, who was volunteering to milk your goats for free, broke into your house to use the bathroom. Did I leave anything out?”
In the pause that followed Paige accepted how hopeless the situation was. Still, she couldn’t swallow that letting it go was the right thing to do. “If this is officially reported, I suppose that’s good enough. Then if something else happens, I have documentation.”
He nodded. “Alright, but I have a few more questions.”
Paige felt her mind beginning to clear. She took out her cell to check the time and remembered it was dead. She had to get back. “How much longer do you think this will take? You see I left my booth with a stranger and . . .”
The deputy lifted his hands as if stopping traffic. “Wait, you let a stranger milk your goats and another watch your booth? Don’t tell me you took candy from one of them.”
She didn’t respond to his belly laugh except to fold her arms.
Dunn grew serious again. “I’d suggest you hightail it back to your booth, close it for the day and then return here. I can watch the place till you get back. Then get a good night sleep, get your thoughts together and head down to the station for an official statement tomorrow. From the way I see it, you could use the break.”
“No.” Losing two days of work was something she wouldn’t consider. And what if Blanche was looking for her next target right now? Someone else to lie to and steal from? No matter how tired she was, she couldn’t let that happen. There was only one decision. “I want to go to the station now.”
“If you’re sure.” Deputy Dunn headed to his car. “We could do a search of mug shots if she’s in the system and maybe even get a composite drawing. It could take a while.”
“That’s alright,” she said even though she knew it wasn’t, but what other choice did she have?
***