Danger on Her Doorstep

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?”