Sight Shot (Imogene Museum Mystery #3) (10 page)

He was right, of course. Dale doesn
’t call for frivolous reasons. In fact, when Dale calls it’s usually about a crime. My shoulders slumped, but I pressed the button and raised the phone to my ear.

“
Hey, Meredith. You’re not busy are you? With the holiday and all? Because I have a couple searchers lined up, and they’re free this afternoon. We’ll need to hurry because it’ll be dark in another two hours.”

CHAPTER
10

I dug my rubber boots out of the closet. Pete called Tuppence, and we all crammed into my pickup. Once we were out on the highway, I noticed Pete had a wry smile on his face.

“
What?”

“
It’s never a dull moment with you.” Pete tousled Tuppence’s ears.

“
I’d have really preferred if Dale hadn’t called.”

“
Me too.” Pete chuckled. “But since he did — what’s this about?”

“
A glass eye I found back when Greg was missing and we searched a marsh along the highway.”

Pete cocked his head.
“A glass eye? What’re the odds of that? The only person I know with a glass eye was Spence Snead, but that was years ago. Extremely realistic, though. Wouldn’t have known it was fake unless you knew his history.”

“
The eye I found was creepy realistic. I thought it was a costume prop or something.”

Pete stretched across Tuppence and put a hand on my knee.
“I have a job tomorrow. Be gone about a week.”

I gave him a doleful look
— a look I’d learned from Tuppence.

“
I know,” he said. “I know.”

I spotted Dale
’s mud-splattered Ford Ranger parked on the shoulder and pulled off behind it. Pete opened his door, and we all exited from the passenger side. I held Tuppence’s collar until I could snap on her leash. Drivers on Highway 14 regularly go 80 miles an hour, and Tuppence is accustomed to the leisurely pace in the campground.

Dale, in jeans and Carhartt jacket, huddled at the open liftgate of an old burnt orange Volvo station wagon with another man and a woman. They were fiddling with what appeared to be a couple fancy weed whackers.

“Hey, Meredith.” Dale nodded. “Pete. Thanks for coming. This here’s Delores Swygart and her son, Yonder.”

“
As in the wild blue—?” The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them. I cringed.

“
Yep.” Yonder was in his late teens and had a scraggly beginner beard that extended about four inches from the tip of his chin. It looked like the dried, frizzled ends of corn silk. He wore a dark green knit cap with ear flaps pulled down.

His mother was proof that gravity defies spandex, although she was giving spandex every conceivable opportunity to hold things up. Spandex couldn
’t possibly be warm enough, which accounted for the multiple pairs of legwarmers that swelled her calves to match her generous thighs. She had a bright red scarf around her neck, but otherwise we were treated to the vision of smooshed and merged horizontal fat rolls clad in gleaming, skin-tight black elastane. I had no idea where you could even buy an outfit like that. Her wiry hair was a shade darker than Yonder’s beard.

Delores acknowledged Pete and me with a brief nod, then dove into the backseat of the station wagon. The car shifted from side to side as she heaved bags of equipment from the floorboards and pawed through them. She emerged with two headsets.

Yonder’s beard flapped when he talked, and his open mouth revealed small pearl teeth. “You work up at the museum? Been meaning to come in and have a look-see.” He gestured jerkily, reinforcing the impression that he was a tall stalk with an upside down ear of corn where his head should be.

“
You’re welcome anytime.”

“
Maybe go over the grounds with this baby.” Yonder patted his weed whacker affectionately with a long-fingered hand.

“
Uh, well, we have a groundskeeper who might be concerned you were taking over his job.”

Pete elbowed me.
“It’s a metal detector.”

“
Oh. Sorry. What kinds of things have you found with your detector?”

Yonder
’s face lit up. “Old stuff — buttons, buckles, coins, jewelry, bits and bridle parts, farm equipment, keys, couple knives. Even got me a meteorite, not a big one, but still—” Yonder framed his hands around an imaginary chunk of space rock to indicate the size. “Ma’s best find so far is a cannonball.”

“
Wow. Ever think of putting your finds on display? I’m sure we could work out a way to do that at the museum.”

“
Yeah?” Yonder’s grin slowly spread. “In a jumble. Hafta polish ‘em up. But I know where everything came from.”

“
I could help you do research on any items you haven’t been able to identify.”

Yonder hooked a headset around his neck and plugged the wire into his detector.
“I’d like that.”

“
Sorry to interrupt the chitchatting, but we should to get going.” Dale led the way to a gravel ramp that sloped the fifteen or twenty foot drop from the highway surface to the marsh below.

We skidded behind him. Tuppence balked and did a sitting slide, front feet splayed. She shook herself to normalcy at the bottom and launched out, nose skimming the ground.

Dale laughed and trotted beside me as I stumbled along at the end of the leash. “Looks like she remembers.”

“
I hope so,” I puffed. “Her scenting reliability is a little sporadic. Could be a rabbit.”

Tuppence came to an abrupt halt at the first large cattail clump and jammed her muzzle into the reedy stalks. She backed out, sneezed violently, and sat panting.

“See what I mean?”

Dale squatted and scratched Tuppence behind the ears while we waited for the others to catch up.

“You’re not on duty today?” I stomped my feet. In spite of two pairs of wool socks, my toes were already freezing.

“
No. This is off the record. Just satisfying my curiosity about something.” He stood and said in a lower voice, “If we find anything, let’s meet up at the Sidetrack later — just you, Pete and me. I’ll explain then.”

“
Sure.” I flashed a smile at Pete who ambled over. Just standing next to him warmed me up. 

Delores and Yonder arrived, holding their metal detectors angled at their sides like long scabbard-clad swords.

“Okay, folks. I’m headed for the clump of firs on the far side of this flat area,  just under that rocky outcropping.” Dale pointed to the northeast. “When we get there, Meredith’ll scout for anything that looks familiar.” He turned and started striding through the marsh, spreading cattails and forging a trail we hurried to follow.

My boots sank a couple inches deep in muck with each step. Tuppence stuck close to Dale
’s heels, the white tip of her tail my beacon through the dense reeds. Delores’s ragged breathing lagged behind me.

About twenty minutes later, the ground rose slightly and became drier. The vegetation switched to thick prairie grass, and we entered a clear area just before the tree line.

I remembered the grouping of three trees of staggered height. They looked like a father, mother and toddler posing for a family picture.

I stopped and scanned my surroundings, picked out a spot high on the highway embankment across the field, and plunged back into the cattails a few paces. Tuppence nosed around, snorting, but didn
’t offer any directional suggestions. Cattail clumps all look the same.

“
Dale?” I called. “I’m not sure, but somewhere near here.” I pivoted, checked my bearing markers. “Yeah, maybe in a ten or fifteen foot radius from where I’m standing.”

Delores and Yonder waded through the weeds to stand beside me.

“We’re going to work in arcing quadrants out from you,” Delores said, “so stay here.”

They settled headphones on their ears, large olive green nodules like growths on either side of their heads. They flipped switches on their detectors, made a few exploratory passes over the mud, and nodded at each other. Delores started on my right
— east, Yonder on my left — west.

I shifted from one foot to the other, fidgeting against the cold. It would have been more interesting if I could hear the beeps Delores and Yonder were hearing
— or not. Neither one stopped to examine the soggy ground. They advanced in expanding sweeps.

I caught movement among the trees on the hillside, then picked out Pete
’s red and black buffalo plaid jacket. Pete and Dale were climbing the hill, stopping every few minutes to confer and point in different directions. They abruptly turned east and skirted a rise then disappeared over a ridge. What were they looking for? Dale’s secrecy about this search had my nosiness antenna on high alert. And here I was stuck in the mud.

Tuppence wedged between my legs and shivered.

“Poor dog.” I rubbed her briskly with my gloved hands. “Maybe I should have let you sleep in the truck, huh? I didn’t think we’d be standing still so long.”

Delores and Yonder returned. Yonder popped off one headphone and said,
“Nothin’ yet.”

They began working arcs north and south from me, heads down, entirely focused on the ground at their feet and the swinging detector coils.

Dale and Pete reappeared much farther east at the base of a bluff and strode in my direction.

Tuppence whined and licked her chops, her tail drooping.

Delores and Yonder trudged back.

“
Is it normal to search for a long time without finding anything?” I asked.

“
Usually tag something,” Delores replied. “Even if it’s small change or worthless bits. Don’t expect many people come this far out and wander around losing stuff.” She sighed and readjusted her grip on the metal detector.

We sloshed out of the marsh and joined Dale and Pete.

“Got something else for you to check,” Dale said. “Gotta hurry, though.” He craned his neck toward the setting sun. “Probably have half an hour of decent light left.” He beckoned and took off at a fast clip toward the bluff.

I hung back with Pete.
“What’s going on?”

“
Not sure. Dale’s pretty tight-lipped. He was estimating distances and trajectories.”

“
For what?”

“
Didn’t say, but I expect for a rifle shot.”

My jaw dropped.
“Hunting this close to the highway?”

Pete shrugged.
“The Snead property includes part of Beane Bluff, runs parallel to the highway for a stretch. You can hunt on your own property out here.”

The Sneads again. They
’d been popping up in many of my conversations lately. Of course, I’d been the one to introduce the topic most of the time. Their history seemed to be intertwined with several members of the community – to be expected in a small town, I guessed.

Delores and Yonder had donned their headsets again and were scanning the rise at the base of the bluff. Dale led the way, turning and stopping occasionally to sight back toward the tree line and the marsh. He seemed to be checking angles.

Pete and I waited under an ancient fir. The bark released a crisp, sweet, sappy odor. Tuppence flopped on the needle cushion at our feet. I leaned against Pete, and he rested his chin on the top of my head.

“
How’s your nose?”

“
I’ll live.” He wrapped his arms around me. “Hey.” His muscles tensed. “Looks like they found something.”