Stranger in Cold Creek (12 page)

There was something in there. Hard and rectangular, like a box. Or a book? It moved a little when he touched it, though it seemed to fit snugly into its hiding place. He didn't want to make the slit in the fiberglass any worse, but being too careful wasn't going to make it possible to get the mystery item out of the recess.

Removing his hand, he sat back, trying to figure out if the rectangular object might have something to do with the wiring or the HVAC system. After reassuring himself it couldn't be, he pushed his hand through the opening in the insulation and tried to grab the object again.

This time, he caught it firmly between two fingers and wiggled it until it popped free. Turning it sideways, he pulled it out through the fiberglass and dusted strands of the glass fiber away from it.

It was a small, hard-backed book, wrapped in clear plastic, the end pieces of the wrap taped together at the back side of the thin book. It wasn't a novel or anything like that; the dark blue cover was made of fabric and had no title or any writing at all on the front or back.

The sound of keys rattling in the door sent a light shock through his system, and he almost lost his grip on the book. He pushed quickly to his feet, bracing himself until he heard Miranda's voice down the hall. “John?”

“In here,” he called.

Miranda's footsteps rang down the hallway, moving at a fast clip. She stopped in the doorway for a second, taking in the newly installed drywall. “Wow. You've been busy.”

“I have,” he said, “and I may have—”

“Guess what I found at Delta's trailer this morning.” If she noticed the book in his hands, she didn't give any sign.

“What did you find?”

“Ten thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills.” She looked both excited and troubled, and she walked back and forth in front of him, the emotions warring in her storm cloud eyes. “I have no idea where she could get her hands on that much cash, but there it was, hidden in a secret compartment in her kitchen counter, of all places.”

Hidden, John thought, glancing at the book dangling from his gloved hand. “Wrapped in plastic?” he asked.

She stopped her restless pacing and turned to look at him. “Yes. How did you know?”

He lifted the book in his gloved hand and motioned toward the partially finished wall. “I was putting in the drywall and noticed there was a split in the insulation. I reached inside and found this.”

Miranda took a couple of steps closer to get a better look at the book. “It looks like a journal or a diary. Maybe a ledger?”

“I didn't want to touch it with my bare hands, in case you need to process it for fingerprints.”

“Good idea.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves, probably spares from her search of Delta's trailer earlier that morning. She donned them quickly and took the book from his hands. Carefully she unstuck the tape holding the plastic wrap in place. “Can you go to the kitchen and get me a gallon bag out of the box over the stove? Bring the whole box.”

He retrieved the box of gallon-sized resealable bags and handed her one. “Here you go.”

She passed him the book. “Gloved hands only. And try not to touch it much. I'm not sure we can get prints off that fabric surface, but you never know.”

As he balanced the book flat on his gloved palm, she carefully folded the plastic wrap she'd removed from the book and slipped it inside the gallon bag he'd supplied, sealing it up and setting it on the top of the toolbox by the door. “Now let's take a look at that book.”

He handed over the small blue book. She took it in her gloved hands, trying to touch only the edges and the corners as she opened it. John moved to look at the contents over her shoulder.

Small, neat writing filled the pages, but they didn't form any sort of journalistic narrative. Instead, they were line after line of notes. Names. Places. Short commentary on one or both.
Never pull a con in Vegas. Everybody already knows all the tricks.

“This must have belonged to Delta's father,” John said.

Miranda nodded, flipping through the pages slowly, giving him time to make out the neat writing. “It's almost like a how-to book on pulling cons.”

As they neared the later pages of the book, some of the notes changed. Still names and places, but now notes such as “Does his wife know he's bedding boys?” and “One more DUI and he loses his license.”

“And now we have blackmail,” John murmured.

About ten pages from the back of the book, the writing changed abruptly from the neat, almost printlike writing to a larger, more looping cursive. “That's Delta's writing,” Miranda said.

John looked down at the book. “So you're saying...”

“I'm saying Delta McGraw was following in her father's footsteps.” Miranda looked down at the journal. “And this may be what got her killed.”

Chapter Twelve

One of the small back rooms at Duncan Hardware served as Gil Duncan's office. Inside, he'd crammed filing cabinets, a computer and a multifunction printer. One of those functions was copying, and Miranda spent a couple of hours that afternoon making two sets of copies from Delta McGraw's journal.

“I have to take this book to the sheriff's department,” she'd told John earlier, after a second read through had convinced her that the journal might contain a clue that would help the department solve Delta's murder.

“Don't you want to go back through it again a few times first?” John had asked. He'd sat quietly enough across the table from her while she gave all the journal pages a more thorough reading, but she hadn't missed the impatience creasing his forehead and feathering fine lines from the corners of his eyes.

He was right. She did want to go back through it a few more times. Once the book was in the hands of the sheriff's department, it would be off-limits to her, since Miles Randall had made it clear he wasn't going to let her be part of the investigation.

So she'd just have to run her own investigation on the side, and to do so, she was going to need the information in that journal.

She finished copying the last page and slipped the journal back into the plastic bag. After removing her latex gloves, she took the paper from the copier and bumped the stack against the top of the copier a few times to straighten the pages into a neat sheaf. She bound them together with a couple of rubber bands.

“Here.” John handed her the canvas shopping tote she'd brought with her to conceal the copied pages. She shoved the bound pages inside, and John tucked the whole thing under one arm.

They headed out the back door to the employee parking area, where she'd parked her truck.

“Do you think the sheriff will suspect you've kept a copy?” John asked as he buckled his seat belt.

“I don't know. Maybe. I don't think he's going to make a stink about it, though, unless I get in the way of his investigation.”

“And will you? Get in the way, I mean.”

“I'll do my best not to.”

She could see suspicion in Miles Randall's eyes when she handed over the two bags of evidence, but he didn't comment as she told him where the book had been hidden and how she'd done her best to maintain any potential evidence. “I'm not sure you'll be able to get any prints off the journal. And even if you could, I'm pretty sure the prints will be either Hal McGraw's or Delta's. I think Delta must have hidden the book when she was staying at my place for a couple of weeks.”

“The room was already up that soon?”

“Oh, yeah. We had the builders reframe everything and get the siding and roof up as soon as we could after the tornado. We've just been taking our time with the rest of it, working when we could. But Dad's been swamped with all the orders from other people trying to rebuild, and you know you've been keeping me busy here at the station.”

Randall was silent for another moment. Miranda realized she was holding her breath and let it go in a quiet sigh.

“Okay,” Randall said finally. “But you're still off this case, Duncan. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Randall frowned at the plastic-encased journal. “We'll dust the outside for prints. Nobody touched this at all?”

“John Blake found it, but he was wearing gloves because it was hidden in fiberglass insulation. I wore latex gloves when I held the book. Nobody touched it without a glove.”

“But you looked through it?”

“Of course.”

“What's inside?”

She described what she'd read, being as truthful and complete as she could.

Randall was a good man. A smart man. He knew as soon as she began talking what they were dealing with. The disappointment in his eyes echoed the sadness in her own heart. “She'd taken up her father's work.”

“Looks like it.” Miranda had hoped after Hal's death, Delta would finally be free of his legacy.

Instead, it looked as if she'd chosen to embrace it.

“Guess that explains that ten grand you found at her house this morning.” Randall rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Is there anything in that book that's actionable?”

“I don't know. She made notes about things she believed to be true. But if she had any actual evidence hidden anywhere, I don't know where she hid it. All that's in there right now are leads to go on but nothing we could take to court.”

“Well, we'll see what we can track down from it.” As Miranda rose to go, the sheriff asked, “How're you feeling?”

“A little tired. But improving.” She could probably go to work right now and be fine, but since the sheriff wasn't going to let her anywhere near the Delta McGraw case while she was wearing the uniform, it had occurred to her that having the next few days free to work the case informally might be in her favor. “I'll be fine by Monday.”

“Take care to get some rest, Deputy.” Randall softened the stern tone of his voice with a slight smile.

“Thanks. I'll do that.” She left the sheriff's office and headed for the front exit.

Coy Taylor was just coming on duty when she passed the sergeant's desk. He flashed her a smile. “You back yet?”

“Not until Monday,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. “You're on afternoon duty this week?”

“Yeah. Chambers is covering mornings for the next couple of weeks. His kid starts his first varsity spring practice at the high school this week, and I guess Chambers wanted to be there to watch.” Taylor settled behind the desk. “Heard you went to Delta's place this morning. Find anything?”

“You know I can't say, Sarge. But I'm hopeful we'll get a break in the case soon, and then you'll know all the details.” As a desk sergeant, Taylor wasn't given details on every case they worked, only the parts that had been released to the press. Everything else stayed strictly between the deputies investigating the case.

In fact, she shouldn't be sharing any of the stuff she'd learned with John Blake at all. But since he'd almost been a victim of the same mystery gunman who had gone after her the other day, she figured she owed him the chance to get in on the investigation.

And she could use his help, since the sheriff had more or less banned her from her own case.

“Real shame about Delta.” Taylor shook his head. “She had a real rough life.”

Miranda nodded. “Yes, she did.”

The phone rang, and Taylor shot her a look of apology as he answered. Miranda continued out the door to where John was waiting patiently in the passenger seat of her truck.

“How did it go?” he asked as she belted herself in behind the steering wheel.

“If he knew I was not only investigating this case on my own, but bringing a civilian in on it as well, I think I'd be in serious trouble.”

“So don't let him find out.”

Easy to say, she thought. But maybe not so easy to do.

* * *

“I
THINK
WE
can probably set aside anything that wasn't from the last couple of years.” Miranda looked up from one set of the journal pages she'd copied at her father's store. She looked tired, John thought. Probably should be getting some rest rather than diving headfirst into the blackmail journal. But she'd rebuffed the suggestion when he brought it up.

“I don't know—Delta might have kept up some of her father's blackmail schemes.”

“Yeah, but I'm not seeing anything in Hal's notes that would be worth ten thousand dollars in hush money. Are you?”

John looked at the notes he'd taken from the early set of pages. Most of the crimes Hal McGraw had chronicled in his journal might be worth a couple of thousand dollars to keep them from coming out, but ten grand?

“Of course, I suppose it's possible that money I found came from multiple sources,” Miranda added.

John shook his head. “I don't think so. Not the way you described those packets of bills. It seems as if it all came from the same place.”

“True.” She rested her chin on her folded hands and looked at him across the kitchen table. “So what kind of crime would be worth paying a blackmailer ten grand to cover it up?”

He dropped his pen and mimicked her position. “More to the point, what kind of crime would be worth killing for?”

“Very good point.” Miranda picked up her pen and started marking through a few of the listings in her notes. “By the way, did you notice that a few of Delta's last entries looked as if they were written in code?”

“I did.” He looked down at his own notes and marked through a few that didn't seem likely to stir up a murderous rage. “It looks like some sort of cipher. Did Delta like things like puzzles and ciphers?”

Miranda frowned. “I don't know. She never let me that far into her life, you know?”

“Well, if her father was a con man, she probably had at least a passing knowledge of ciphers and tricks. I'm surprised Hal didn't keep his own book in code.”

“I'm surprised he kept a book at all,” Miranda said. “He never seemed to be the organized sort.”

“Does the first entry date mean anything?” John flipped back to the first page of his copy of the journal. “Looks like the first entry was about eleven years ago. January 12. Does that mean anything?”

“That's Delta's birthday. She would have turned sixteen that year.”

“Sweet sixteen.”

“Actually, on her sixteenth birthday, she was declared an emancipated minor by the courts. I don't remember much about it—I was in my senior year of high school and Delta McGraw wasn't really on my mind at the time. I do know that Hal McGraw didn't try to stop her. I think he knew he wasn't exactly a great dad.”

John tried to put himself in Hal McGraw's shoes. His wife long gone, his own life a series of scams and cons, the law dogging his heels and his daughter officially declaring her independence from him—would that situation make him do a little soul-searching?

Not a guy like Hal McGraw. He'd try to do something to win back his daughter.

“What if that's why he started keeping this journal?” he asked. “What if this was meant to lure Delta back all along?”

“Lure her back?”

“She declared her independence from him right about the time these entries started. Maybe he tried to buy her affection and loyalty. Made a big push to earn more money, give her a reason to stick around.”

Miranda frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe. I do remember some of the girls at school talking about how she was suddenly dressing nicer and wondered how come she suddenly had money after ditching her daddy.”

“He might have been trying to impress her.”

“Could she have known all along what Hal was doing?”

“You tell me. You knew Delta. Do you think she knew?”

“I don't know. But clearly she knew what that book meant, and rather than destroy it, she tried to protect it.” Miranda rose from the table, revealing in her restless movements the troubled state of her mind. She paced to the window and looked outside at a landscape bathed in the ruby glow of the setting sun. “She must have hidden it here when she was staying with me. She was here alone a lot.”

“You said her father had made her his accomplice, right?”

She nodded, still looking out the window.

“So she'd know how to run an extortion scheme.”

“Yes. She would.” Miranda turned slowly to face him. “I just wanted to believe she'd put that kind of life behind her.”

“She didn't have a job, did she?”

“Not recently.” Miranda closed her eyes. “I should have spent a little more time trying to figure out where she was getting the money to live on if she wasn't working a job.”

“But you didn't.”

She shook her head. “I can be as much a loner as Delta was. I get really wrapped up in what I'm doing in my own life and I sometimes forget to touch base with people.”

He could sympathize. “You can't fix what you didn't do. Not at this point. But you can find justice for her. Right?”

“Right.” She pushed her fingers through her hair like a comb, shoving the mass of auburn waves away from her face. “We had some leftovers from yesterday's barbecue. Want me to heat them up for us for dinner?”

“You sit. I'll get the leftovers.”

She didn't argue, sliding back into the chair she'd vacated a few minutes earlier, then straightening the scattered pages before her into a neat stack. John retrieved the leftover steaks and baked potatoes from the refrigerator and piled them onto plates to heat in the microwave. He also grabbed the remaining salad and placed it on the table.

“Hmm,” Miranda murmured as he pulled glasses from the cabinet.

“Hmm what?”

“This entry. It's in Delta's handwriting, and I don't think this notation is code, but I'm not quite sure what it means.” She turned the page around so he could read it, pointing to the note in question.

Hef. Co. clerk—Rem. Alamo Fund. 50K missing?

“Heflin County is the next county over,” Miranda explained. “And there's a Texas-based charity for wounded Texas soldiers called the Remember the Alamo Fund. But I haven't heard anything about missing money.”

“Maybe it hasn't been discovered yet. Or someone managed to pay it all back after getting a note from Delta.”

“So her blackmail was altruistic?” He tried not to scoff, but there had been several packets of hundred-dollar bills hidden in Delta's kitchen counter that would suggest otherwise.

“No, of course not.” Miranda sighed. “I just mean, maybe that was the response to Delta's blackmail rather than paying the money to her.”

“Paying it back would have been about covering his tracks.”

“Or hers. I don't know who the Heflin county clerk is.”