Dead Set Page 4

  Samuel’s tragic death could have been the final blow. Instead, she was finding real satisfaction in seeing his dream become a reality, seeing his dream become hers.

  Agatha fell asleep on Wednesday night feeling quite optimistic. She dreamed of walking the Pumpkinvine Trail in Shipshewana, surrounded by her grandchildren. She was in the middle of the trail, pointing out a redbird in a nearby tree, when she became aware of a banging, like the banging of a drum in a parade. She turned to look back in the direction they had come to see what was making that terrible racket on such a lovely day, but all she could see was a large shadow splayed across the trail. She glanced down to see the grandkinner crowded around her, tugging on her hand. Their expressions were frightened, and fear gripped Agatha’s heart. Were they in danger? What was happening? The drumming was closer now, louder and more insistent. Agatha looked around, felt the ground shake a little, and reached out to protect the children.

  Which was when she nearly toppled out of her bed, a squeal of fright escaping her lips.

  “Shh,” Gina hissed.

  Strangely the banging from her dream continued.

  “Someone’s downstairs.”

  “What are they doing?” Agatha didn’t feel like she needed to whisper. She didn’t think anyone would hear her over that racket if she were to shout at the top of her lungs.

  “Looking for more treasure, apparently.” Gina checked her pistol to be sure it was loaded, then tightened the belt on her house robe.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Downstairs. Do you mean to stay up here until they destroy the entire house?”

  “Maybe we should call Tony, or just wait until he gets here.”

  Gina shook her head. “Tony should be here already. He should at least be on his way.”

  They both stared at each other in the light of the moon that shone through the window. Why wasn’t Tony already here? He’d arrived at practically the same moment as the teens two nights ago.

  “Maybe he’s lying low, waiting for the police.”

  “He wouldn’t do that, Agatha. He knows you’re here. He would storm the Bastille to get to you.”

  “Huh?”

  “France? 1700s? Never mind.” Gina pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her robe and tossed it at Agatha. “Call 9-1-1, then call Tony.”

  Her hands shaking, Agatha managed to make the call to the police, who then insisted on keeping her on the line. “Ya. Ya. We’ll stay upstairs. We won’t try anything stupid.”

  Only then did she realize that Gina was no longer in the room. Agatha dropped the phone on the bed. She could hear the dispatcher’s voice calling out to her as she crept toward the hall, but she couldn’t just sit there clutching a phone and hiding. She couldn’t let Gina go downstairs alone and confront these people.

  “What are you doing?” She hissed into Gina’s ear. They were standing at the top of the stairs, trying to peer down. “We’re supposed to wait for the police.”

  “We can’t wait. They’re tearing your house apart, Agatha.”

  There was another loud crash and it seemed as if the wall they were standing next to actually shook.

  “I don’t think these are teenagers.”

  “Nope.” Gina’s face hardened. “Stay here, Agatha. These people could be dangerous.”

  She hurried down the stairs, her feet as light and quick as a cat crossing hot pavement. Agatha had to rush to catch up with her. When she did, Gina reached over and turned on the main light switch. Two men turned and stared at them. Both were wearing ski masks, and both were in the process of knocking holes in Agatha’s walls.

  Gina raised her pistol. “Stop right where you are and drop that sledgehammer.”

  Agatha thought they might actually do it.

  She certainly would have.

  It was plain that Gina meant business.

  The one nearest to them, a tall man who had been knocking a hole in the far wall of the dining area, dropped his hammer and dashed toward the front door.

  Gina gazed down the barrel of her pistol, carefully training the sight of her gun on him.

  “Don’t,” Agatha shrieked, causing Gina to flinch, jerk up on the pistol, and put a hole in the ceiling.

  That got the second guy moving. Gina aimed again, but the lights had suddenly gone out. She pulled the trigger and glass shattered.

  “There’s a third guy...coming from the kitchen.” Agatha had seen him as he reached for the light switch, plunging them into darkness. “And stop shooting. They’re leaving.”

  Gina wasn’t listening. Gina was Texan to the core, and she’d prepared most of her adult life for this moment. She rushed down the stairs, out onto the porch, and shot at the vehicle that was fishtailing out onto the road.

  Agatha had to give her credit—she was accurate, even under pressure. The back window of the van exploded in a shower of glass, but the van kept going.

  Tony skidded around the corner of the house, his hands raised. “Stop shooting,” he shouted.

  Gina lowered the gun. “They got away, but at least we’ll be able to find their van. I shot out the back window.”

  It was at that moment that the Hunt Police Department pulled into her driveway.

  Tony and Gina ran toward the officers, explaining about the van with the shattered window and the burglars headed away from Hunt. The officer radioed dispatch for back-up, then peeled out after the van.

  Agatha had already sunk onto the top porch step. Gina stomped back into the house.

  Tony squatted in front of Agatha, reaching out to grasp her shoulders. “Are you okay, Agatha?”

  “Oh, ya. For sure and certain I am, other than my heart which is beating like a drum in a band.”

  Tony leaned toward her until their foreheads were pressed against one another, and they stayed that way for a moment. Agatha breathed in the essence of him—not the soap and shampoo and light cologne. She breathed in his steadiness and his affection for her. She felt her heart rate slow and her shaking stop. Finally, she pulled back and said, “We best go inside and check on Gina.”

  Chapter Five

  Tony let out a long, low whistle as they walked through the bottom floor of Agatha’s home. Every single wall had a large hole busted in it. Some walls had more than one. Agatha stood in the middle of the kitchen, turning this way and that, her mouth partially open but no words coming out.

  Gina clumsily patted Agatha on the shoulder as she passed by. “I’ll make us some tea.”

  “I need to go check something.” Tony waited for a nod from Agatha, then dashed outside.

  It was incomprehensible that all three of his cameras had failed to catch the burglars. He checked each one, though he stayed back a good six feet. Using his flashlight, he was able to see what they’d done. Perhaps Bannister could get some boot prints from the area around the cameras. He doubted it. August in Texas meant the ground was dry and dusty—not the best conditions for forensics.

  He snapped a few photos with his phone’s camera, then hurried back inside to join Agatha and Gina.

  “Anything on the cameras?” Agatha looked hopeful.

  He hated to disappoint her. “Whoever did this knew about the cameras, knew where each one was located. They disabled them.”

  “Without having their picture taken?”

  “Yes. That’s why I didn’t receive an alert. They had to have walked up behind the cameras.” He stood behind one of the kitchen chairs and mimed what the burglars must have done. “They carefully reached forward and popped out the memory card—effectively shutting it down.”

  He shook his head in disgust. He should have thought of that possibility. “Tell me what happened in here.”

  Gina went over the last half hour in detail. As she was describing shooting out the back window of the van, Agatha seemed to rally.

  “Every single wall, Tony. They knocked holes in every wall—even my master suite. Why would they do that?”

  “You know why. They think someth
ing else is hidden here.”

  “But there isn’t!”

  “We can’t know that.” He waited for her to raise her gaze to meet his. “We’re going to figure out who’s behind this treasure hunt. Bannister was dead set against reopening the case, but now he’ll have no choice. We’ll get the Hunt PD on this, and they’ll catch the guys.”

  He reached for her hand and squeezed it once. They sat there in silence, sipping their tea and staring at the container of oatmeal cookies. No one was hungry. He looked around and saw that Agatha was right—the destruction was thorough. She hadn’t merely been burglarized. The burglars had been a virtual wrecking crew.

  When they heard the blip of a siren, Agatha wearily rose and walked to the front door. Gina stood to follow, but Tony reached out and stopped her. “Thank you, for what you did tonight.”

  “You mean shooting at those jerks?”

  “I mean keeping Agatha safe.”

  She cocked her head, studied him a minute, then said, “You’re not the only one who cares about her, Tony.”

  He smiled and nodded. “Good to know.”

  Tony understood the moment he stepped outside that something else had happened. Bannister hadn’t sent one of his officers. He’d come himself, at one thirty in the morning.

  “What is it?” Tony asked, stepping closer to Agatha and reaching for her hand.

  “We need Agatha and Gina to come with us.”

  “Because?”

  “There’s a body, half a mile down the road. We need them to tell us if it’s one of the burglars.”

  “But...we didn’t see them. Not really. They were wearing masks, and most of the time it was dark.” She turned to Tony then. “Why were they wearing masks if they’d disabled your cameras?”

  “They couldn’t know if we had more cameras hidden inside your home.” That would have been a good idea. Why hadn’t he thought of it? Because he hadn’t taken the threat seriously enough. He hadn’t realized that Agatha might truly be in danger.

  “We can’t help you, Lieutenant Bannister. We didn’t see anything.”

  “I understand, but if you’d just come with me—” He started to say more, then stopped himself, and nodded toward the police cruiser. “Tony can come too, if you’d like.”

  When she still didn’t move, he added. “I know you’ve been through a lot, Agatha, but this could be important.”

  She seemed to rally at that. “Of course. Could I...” She glanced down at her night gown and robe, then up at Bannister.

  “Of course.”

  She slipped back into the house, Gina close to her side as if she still needed protecting.

  Tony waited until they were out of earshot to turn toward Bannister. “Why do you think it’s connected?”

  “A burglary and a murder within half a mile of each other? You know our crime stats here in Hunt. It would be unusual to have two major crimes in the same month, but on the same night? They’re related.”

  Tony nodded. Bannister was right. But how had someone ended up dead? Tony stepped closer to the man who had been his arch-nemesis for too long. They needed to protect Agatha and Gina. If that meant working together, then that’s what they’d do.

  “Gina fired her Smith and Wesson three times. One’s in the ceiling in the living room. Another went through the front window of the house.”

  “And the third? Does she think she hit someone?”

  “Wasn’t sure. She did manage to blow out the back window of the van as they were driving off. It’s possible that she hit someone and didn’t realize it. Could that be the body?”

  “Doubtful. This was a bullet in the back—through the heart, close range.”

  That stopped Tony. As a detective, he’d worked his share of murder cases, but few of them were up close. The kind of person who was willing to kill someone else usually did so from a distance.

  By the time Agatha and Gina returned, dressed and looking as if they’d calmed somewhat, another cruiser had pulled into the drive. Officers Griffin and Barella stepped out. Tony went over and spoke to them, told them about the cameras, and asked them to look for boot prints. Then he climbed into Bannister’s cruise, in the back seat with Agatha, which put Gina up front with Bannister. Those two had clashed in the last murder investigation, but it seemed that Gina understood the importance of cooperation in this case.

  The drive took less than two minutes. The weeds along the side of the road were trampled where a vehicle had pulled off, but it was in the direction going towards the B&B—not away from it. Crime scene tape had cordoned off the area, though no news teams or rubberneckers were out at this hour. That would happen soon enough.

  Tony walked between Gina and Agatha as they approached the body lying face down in the weeds. They stopped a few feet shy of the body to give Agatha and Gina a moment to process what they were seeing. The victim looked to be a young male, probably five foot nine inches, and there were no signs of a struggle. He’d known the person and didn’t believe them capable of pulling the trigger. He’d been wrong.

  Bannister explained to the women that the victim had died of a gunshot wound. Gina jerked her head up at that, but Bannister quickly put her fears to rest. “Close range. It wasn’t you. Plus, there’s no glass here from a shot-out window. There would be if they’d stopped after you hit them.”

  Tony added, “It’s doubtful they would stop this close to the scene while they were in the process of getting away.”

  “I agree.” Bannister looked at the body, then his officers, and then Agatha. “It’s possible that they were on the way to your place. They pulled over, told this young man to get out, then shot him in the back. We haven’t moved the body yet, but I suspect he bled out quickly. The bullet must have pierced the heart.”

  Tony knew that Agatha heard Bannister, that she understood what he was saying, but her attention was now completely on the body.

  “Can I...”

  “Yeah. Just don’t touch him.”

  She moved closer, hugged her arms around herself, and stared down at the back of the young man. His face was visible, in profile, and lights from the police vehicles cast him in a garish glow.

  Agatha and Gina pulled in a shocked breath at the same moment, at the moment of recognition. But it was Agatha who turned to Tony, her posture straighter and her voice sad but certain. Her expression was one of resolve, as if she understood that once again she’d landed in the middle of something that would have to be endured.

  “It’s Kolbe Burke, one of the men working on my renovation.”

  “He was working for Derrick Dewald?”

  “Yes. He’s been at my house the last two days. He...he seemed like such a nice young man. I can’t believe he was caught up in this, whatever this is, and I know he wasn’t one of the men who broke in tonight. He’s...much shorter than the other men. The ones in my home tonight, the men wearing ski masks—they were taller, bigger in every way. So how did Kolbe end up dead on the side of the road?”

  “That’s for us to figure out, Agatha.” Bannister turned to Gina. “Do you agree? This man’s name is Kolbe Burke?”

  “It is.” Gina looked up, her gaze darting around as if the rest of the outlaws might be hiding in the shadows, waiting to pounce.

  But Tony knew that wasn’t going to happen. Whoever had done this, whoever had broken into Agatha’s, was either long gone or lying low. Either way, he vowed to himself in that moment that he would find them. Until they did, he wasn’t going to let Agatha out of his sight.

  Bannister called over another officer and instructed her to take Tony home and take Gina and Agatha to headquarters so they could give an official statement.

  Gina’s scowl became even more pronounced. “Can’t that wait until morning?”

  “Best to do it while the memory is fresh,” Tony explained.

  Gina shook her head, hands on her hips, eyes on the body. “As if the image of this young man is likely to fade.”

  Tony suspected Agatha was too tir
ed to argue. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be.” She squeezed his hand, then trudged over to the waiting police cruiser.

  Once again, she and Tony sat in the back, and Gina rode shotgun. The officer drove the short half mile back to Tony’s. Two police cars now sat between his house and Agatha’s. The Hunt police department only had eight vehicles in all—with two at Agatha’s and three at the site of the body, that didn’t leave much for the rest of their area. It would be an all-hands-on-deck kind of night. Tony had experienced a few of those in his time on the force, and he didn’t envy the officers involved. At the moment they were pumped with adrenaline, but in a few hours, exhaustion would begin to take its toll.

  He opened the door to the cruiser, exited the vehicle, then opened Agatha’s door. Squatting so that they were eye to eye, he didn’t speak right away. Instead, he waited for Agatha to focus on him. “I’m going to pack up a few things and head back to your house.”

  “You’re not coming with us?” Agatha looked out of the vehicle’s front window and seemed surprise to find they were in front of Tony’s house.

  “Look at me, Agatha.” He waited until she slowly turned her gaze back to him, until she raised her eyes to his. “You’re going to be fine, and I’m going to be staying at your house until this is resolved.”

  “But...”

  “Now’s not the time to argue, Agatha.” This was delivered in a weary voice as Gina sank further down in the seat. “People are trying to tear down your house—literally. And you saw what they did to Kolbe. They might be idiots, but they’re dangerous idiots.”

  The officer—Gracen, that was her name, the newest recruit on the force—was looking into the rearview mirror, studying them.

  “Officer Gracen will see you to the police station.” Inside, Tony’s focus and adrenaline was building—locked and loaded on whoever was leading this crime spree, but he strove to keep his voice calm, soothing, assured. “You’ll fill out a form, tell them what you saw—”