Deadly Assumptions

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  DEADLY ASSUMPTIONS

  Copyright © 2018 by Terry Odell

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  A Note From the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Sign up for Terry Odell's Mailing List

  Further Reading: Seeing Red

  Also By Terry Odell

  To Dan, for always being there.

  DEADLY ASSUMPTIONS

  A Mapleton Mystery Novella

  Terry Odell

  Copyright © 2018 by Terry Odell

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Chapter 1

  THE DOOR TO FINNEGAN’S opened, swirling a gust of freezing Colorado air inside. Gordon Hepler could have chosen a table in the dining room where he’d be out of the wind, but too many people eating Mick Finnegan’s wings, drinking his beer, chatting and laughing amongst themselves were in there.

  He’d chosen a seat at the bar for the quiet. Not because he wanted to sit in the seat Dix used to occupy.

  “Tough day?” A familiar presence slipped onto the stool beside him. Ed Solomon.

  Gordon ignored the question and stared at his half-finished boilermaker.

  Solomon motioned to Mick, pointed to Gordon’s drink. “I’ll have the same.”

  “I don’t need you here,” Gordon said. “Go home to your wife and kids.”

  “Not until I finish my drink.”

  Mick placed the beer and shot in front of Solomon, and Ed lifted the beer glass. “To Dix. Good cop, good chief, good friend. Hard to believe it’s been two years.”

  Gordon glared at his friend, but raised his glass. Not trusting his voice, he tapped his glass to Solomon’s.

  “You’re thinking about your dad, too, aren’t you?” Solomon lifted his glass again. “To another good cop, good friend.”

  “Why the hell are you doing this?” Gordon asked.

  “You were at the cemetery today, visiting Dix and your father. They mean a lot to me, too, Chief. They made us who we are. They deserve to be remembered. Celebrated. Not wallowed over.”

  “You saying I’m wallowing?”

  “If the shoe fits.”

  Gordon pounded back his shot. Motioned for another.

  Solomon chuckled. “I can remember when you first took the position as Chief of Police. You stopped coming to Finnegan’s. As if it was okay for mere cops to have a drink, but the chief wasn’t allowed the same indulgences.”

  “I’ve learned a few things since then.”

  “And you’ll learn a lot more.” Solomon sipped his beer.

  The door opened, admitting another gust of wind along with two patrons.

  Solomon adjusted his jacket. “Gotta hand it to Colorado. Sunshine at breakfast, raining at noon, freezing snow before dinner. I remember another day that started like this one. Back when I was a rookie. Your father was my training partner.”

  “I know,” Gordon said. “He told me a story or two.”

  “He ever tell you why I never moved away from Mapleton? Why I gave up my aspirations to be a big city detective, solving major crimes?”

  Gordon gripped his beer glass with both hands and watched the bubbles. “Thought it was because Mary Ellen wanted to live here.”

  “That was why we moved here. Not why we stayed.” Solomon glanced toward the door. “Snow’s coming down harder. As long as we’re going to be stuck here awhile, let me tell you about the case that led to my decision to stay in Mapleton.”

  Gordon smiled inwardly. He knew he’d never shut Solomon up once he got started on one of his stories, so he nodded.

  “I’d been on the force two weeks. Greener than green. Trying to do everything right, prove myself. Second-guessing everything. Constantly afraid I was screwing up. That if I couldn’t make it in Mapleton, I’d never get a chance at being a big city cop. Your father was a tough taskmaster.”

  “Tell me something new. I grew up with him, remember.”

  “But he was fair. Looking back, I know everything he put me through was to make me a better cop. It was on a day much like this one. Started sunny, but a typical spring snowstorm came in from nowhere. I was looking forward to clocking out, going home to Mary Ellen, and sitting by the fire. And then we got the call.”

  Chapter 2

  FIFTEEN YEARS EARLIER

  M-Five, suspicious activity at Maple and Aspen. Potential prowler. See the Kretzers.

  My training officer, Archie Hepler, cursed under his breath. I knew he didn’t think I’d heard him swear, but in the two weeks I’d been riding with the man I’d learned to read his moods, and right now, it was definitely a bad one. Fifteen minutes from end of shift, whiteout conditions on the road, and sub-freezing temperatures. The kind of day Hepler had been grumbling about since the weather had shifted from bright blue skies to a near blizzard two hours ago. Another thing I’d learned in my short time in Mapleton. Weather could turn on a dime.

  “You going to respond, Solomon, or sit with your thumb up your ass?” Hepler said.

  I grabbed the mic. “Mapleton Five, en route.” I replaced it in the cradle and asked, “Shouldn’t we go code two? Visibility sucks.”

  Hepler gave me his slow down look. “Relax, Rookie. Dispatch gives the code orders. How many calls like this have we fielded? How many have turned out to be bona fide emergencies? No point in risking our lives in this weather.”

  “We have to respond to all calls as if they’re the real deal, right? We can’t assume it’s a false alarm. Isn’t that what Chief Dixon says? Assuming makes an ass out of you and me.”

  “Good to know you listen to Dix.” Hepler cranked up the heater in the squad car, hit the defrost, and turned the windshield wipers to max. “Me, I should’ve listened to my wife and punched my ticket after I’d put in my twenty.”

  I heard the mixed emotions in my partner’s voice. With Gordon, his son, away at college, and his wife many years dead, the job was all he had left. It had been obvious since the first day I’d been partnered with Hepler that he loved the job. He never went through the motions, always went the extra mile.

  Hepler took the turn onto the road leading toward the Kretzers’ neighborhood. The plows hadn’t been through these back streets yet, and he kept the car to a crawl. “Keep your eyes peeled for anything that doesn’t belong.”

  Not that either of us could see anything but snow.

  “Why not use high beams?” I asked.

  “You drive in the snow much, city boy?”

  Hepler knew damn well I had moved to Mapleton from California three weeks ago.

  He flipped on the high beams, which made things look like we were jumping through hyperspace as the light reflected off the swirling flakes. He turned them off. “That answer your question?”

  “Yes, sir.” I continued my fruitless attempts to make out anything unusual outside the car. “From what you’ve said, the Kretzers aren’t the sort to make frivolous calls.”

  “Very true. Especially not on a day like this. Rose would rather deal with things on her own than put someone on the road.”

  “So, it’s possible there is a threat.”

  “It’s possible Rose or Sam saw something they believe is a threat. In this kind of weather, it’s easy to confuse creaking branches or a deer seeking shelter with a prowler. Which is why we’re going to check it out.”

  Hepler swung the cruiser down the road toward Aspen Lake, leaning forward, peering through the fat snowflakes the wipers couldn’t keep ahead of. He uttered another curse.

  A block from the Kretzers’, I let Dispatch know we were arriving on scene. When Hepler stopped two doors from the Kretzers’, I groaned. “I know it’s procedure to park away from the location in question, but nobody could see us if we pulled into their driveway.”

  As if he’d bend the rules. Not while he was my training officer and I was the city boy rookie. I reached for my parka.

  Another chuckle. “I have half a mind to let you run this one solo. If it was anyone but the Kretzers, I’d probably do it.”

  All I knew about the Kretzers was that they were in their sixties. Sam ran a bookstore in town, and I’d seen Rose, his wife, around, but wasn’t aware of her having a job. Her rep
utation was as Mapleton’s mother hen.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Hepler stepped from the vehicle and shrugged into his parka, pulled his winter hat low on his head and shoved his hands into gloves. “Because Rose—especially after calling us out in these conditions—will insist we come inside and partake of her baking. A nosh, she’ll call it. A hot cup of coffee and a piece of her apple cake will hit the spot.”

  I ducked my head against the curtain of snow. Ice crystals bit at my face. “So you don’t think there’s a serious threat.”

  “If there were, Dispatch would have let us know.” Hepler trudged up the sidewalk. “Get a move on, city boy.”

  I dashed after him—if you could call trying not to slip and land on my ass dashing. We arrived at the Kretzers’ door, which was immediately opened by the tiny, bird-like Rose.

  “Archie. Come in from the cold. Both of you. Sit, sit.” She waved an arm toward the living room. “I’ll get some coffee.”

  Short gray hair. Black slacks, a blue cable-knit pullover with a necklace of blue and silver beads. Light, citrusy perfume. A German accent colored her speech.

  “Sam,” she called over her shoulder. “Archie and—” she looked at me, quizzically, through glasses that magnified her blue eyes.

  I extended a hand. Not procedure, but everything about Rose, and Hepler’s reaction to her, said we’d left procedure out in the snow. “Ed Solomon, ma’am.”

  She placed her bony hand in mine and bobbed her head. “Ach, so. The new officer. From California.”

  Procedure was definitely outside, buried in the deep freeze. “That’s right. Glad to meet you.”

  Sam entered the room. Tall, lean, wearing charcoal-gray slacks and a gray sweater over a red-and-white checked shirt. A red tie. Old school attire. He extended his hand. “Sam Kretzer.”

  I returned the handshake and introduced myself. “I’ve been in your bookstore. Very nice.”

  Pleasantries—again, not procedure—finished, Hepler strode to the couch, hiked his pants, and sat. I followed, taking a seat in an upholstered wing chair near the blazing fire. Rose scurried out of the room. Sam lowered himself to the sofa alongside Hepler and adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Thank you for coming. It is not a good day to be out. I closed the shop early, trying to beat the storm.”

  Another German accent.

  Hepler pulled out his notebook, and I did the same, noting the date, time and location. Later, I knew he’d ask to see it, to go over my notes, offering suggestions as to what information I should have collected. On rare occasions, he praised me for catching a detail he hadn’t written down. I think it had happened twice since I’d come on board.

  I still got a warm glow of pride remembering those moments.

  “We should wait for Rose,” Sam said. “She’s the one who noticed the footprints.”

  At the word, I perked up. Maybe this would be a case after all. “Where were they?”

  Hepler cleared his throat and shot me his you’re the rookie look. I shut up.

  Rose must have heard, because she said, “In the yard,” as she came in, wheeling a cart with a silver coffee service, delicate floral-print cups and saucers, plates, and a cake topped with sliced apples. The aromas of coffee, apples, and cinnamon swirled together into a mouthwatering combination.

  Rose took a knife to the cake. “I went out to work in the garden.” She passed plates of cake around. “This was early, when the weather was still nice.”

  Our conversation stopped while she served the coffee and took a seat next to Sam. She continued. “Our property extends beyond the three acres with the house and the yard we maintain. The rest we leave to nature, and sometimes kids come through, or hikers—we don’t mind, right, Sam?”

  He forked up a mouthful of cake and nodded his agreement.

  Hepler, I noted, had put his notebook on the sofa beside him and was working on his cake. His glance said I was the record keeper of the moment. I managed a sip of coffee before returning to taking notes.

  Rose said, “Since the footprints were by the rosebushes at the edge of our maintained yard, I wasn’t concerned. I did my yard work and came in to fix lunch.”

  I waited. I’d learned it was usually better to let people tell their stories without interruption. Often, asking questions cut off the flow as they tried to limit their responses to fit what you asked.

  I took advantage of the momentary silence to grab a mouthful of cake. No wonder Hepler hadn’t minded making the call.

  “Tell him why you called, Rose,” Sam urged. “Lunch has nothing to do with it.”

  She gave him an indulgent smile. “If I didn’t need basil for the tomato soup, I wouldn’t have gone to the shed for the shears, and then I wouldn’t have seen the mess.”

  Chapter 3

  HEPLER PUT DOWN HIS cake plate and picked up his notebook. I assumed—with silent apologies to Chief Dixon—that Rose and mess weren’t words that belonged in the same sentence. I clicked my pen in anticipation.

  “What kind of a mess?” Hepler asked. “Vandalism?”

  Sam reached over and held Rose’s hand. “Nothing so drastic,” he said. “It appeared as though someone had been using the shed for shelter.”

  I made my notes.

  “Was anything missing?” Hepler said.

  “Nothing obvious,” Rose said. “Inventory, we don’t do. If a pot is missing or a packet of seeds, I wouldn’t notice. But things were moved. I thought it was kids, and went back to making my soup.”

  Kids in a garden shed? This didn’t jibe with what Hepler had said earlier—that the Kretzers didn’t make frivolous complaints.

  Hepler picked up his coffee, sipped, and set the cup in the saucer. “When was the last time you were in the shed?”

  Rose and Sam exchanged a questioning glance. “When we bought the plant food, wasn’t it?” Rose said.

  “Ja,” Sam said. “That would have been last Thursday. We returned from the shopping trip around two in the afternoon.”

  Hepler cut his eyes in my direction and bobbed his chin. My turn to ask questions.

  “Everything looked normal then?” I said.

  Credit to the Kretzers, neither seemed to think Hepler’s handing the interview off to me meant their concerns weren’t important enough to require the attention of the experienced cop.

  Both nodded.

  I went on. “Do you keep the shed locked?”

  Both shook their heads. “It is gardening equipment,” Rose said. “Pots, a wheelbarrow, fertilizer, tools. Nothing valuable. Someone should need these things so badly, they can have them.”

  I wasn’t sure whether I’d be out of line with my next question, but sometimes people needed a nudge in the right direction. “What made you decide to call the police? If, as you said, you saw the disturbance earlier, why did you wait until now?”

  And make us come out in the storm, not to mention work past end of shift.

  “Because of the storm,” Rose said. “After lunch, I wanted to take another look. Sam came with me, and we agreed it appeared as if someone had been living in the shed. Not kids playing. In a trash can, which should have been only for compost, there was garbage.” She wrinkled her nose. “Food, empty cans. Beer.”

  “The beer doesn’t rule out kids wanting to experiment,” I said. With Rose’s mother hen reputation, I wondered if kids figured she wouldn’t turn them in even if she caught them in the act. “You want to file a trespassing complaint? I can get a form from the car.”

  Rose flapped a hand. “Ach, nein. No, of course not. We thought you might find this person, make sure they had shelter. A person could freeze to death out in the cold.”

  Sam spoke up. “Officer Solomon is right, Rose. If it was kids, they’re home and warm by now.”

  I shot a hopeful glance Hepler’s way. “As long as we’re here, we should look at the shed. See if there’s any evidence to point us toward your visitor.”

  Hepler stood. “My partner has aspirations of becoming a detective. I keep reminding him Mapleton’s force is too small for detectives.”

  I stood as well. “Which means we all assume any duties that come our way. I’ll be glad to have a look.”

  Sam lifted a hand. “In this storm? Nonsense. Nothing shouldn’t keep until tomorrow.”