Maple Syrup Mysteries Box Set 1: Books 1-3

  I let the button go. No one responded. But I’d forgotten to say over again. Maybe the person on the other end didn’t know I was done, the way Russ hadn’t.

  “Is anyone at Sugarwood receiving this? Over.”

  The line lay silent, and my watch read 5:41. Now that the rental shop was closed for the night, Dave would be gone and not monitoring the radio. Noah and Russ should both be in their homes already, and neither of them probably listened to the walkie-talkie receiver for the fun of it at night.

  I smacked a hand into a branch beside me. So my choices were to stay here and keep trying in vain to raise someone on the walkie-talkie…and likely freeze to death. Or I could go out searching for the snowmobile…and likely freeze to death.

  Or I could try to walk back to the Sugarwood buildings. If I knew which direction to head in, that option gave me the best chance of success for both surviving and getting help for Erik, assuming he was still alive. If I went in the wrong direction, I’d still end up dead from hypothermia.

  I’d rather die trying than die curled up in a giant pile of sticks.

  I re-holstered the walkie-talkie, crawled out of the hole, and wound my scarf over my head so that it covered as much of my face as possible. If I made it out of this alive, I’d like to also keep my nose. It was one of my best features.

  The question now became which direction to head. I turned slowly in a circle. Everything looked the same in all four directions, just trees and the occasional blue sap line.

  Sap lines!

  Next time I saw Russ, I was going to plant a big kiss on his wrinkly cheek. I could follow the sap lines back to the sugar shack.

  I slogged through the snow to the nearest one and trailed along beside it.

  Time seemed to flatten after that, and I refused to check for fear knowing how long I’d been out here—and how our chances of survival dropped the longer I was—would make me give up. All I could focus on was dragging one foot in front of the other.

  With each step, the snow seemed thicker and deeper, even though I knew logically that couldn’t be possible.

  I tripped, grabbed for something to stabilize me, missed, and tumbled to my knees.

  It was important I get up. That little voice inside my head that always sounded suspiciously like my mother yelled at me to get up. But my legs seemed to be made out of soft-serve ice cream.

  I’d failed. I wasn’t going to make it after all, which also meant help wasn’t coming for Erik. I’d failed us both.

  My throat clogged and I swallowed hard. For once my parents were right. Crying wouldn’t help. The tears would only freeze on my cheeks.

  And as long as I was conscious, I had to try something.

  I fumbled with the holder for the walkie-talkie, my fingers about as limber as German sausages. As futile a hope as it was, Russ or Noah might have forgotten to turn off one of the receivers and might have gone back to one of the buildings for something. It was the epitome of the old grasping-for-straws cliché, but I had to grasp something.

  “Sugarwood. Need help.” My words came out all slurry and garbled. Even if I reached someone, they’d have fun trying to understand me now. “Over.”

  “Nicole?” Dave’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie. “Is that you?”

  I stared at the handset, blinking around frost-crusted eyelashes. Dave shouldn’t still be in the rental shop at this time of night. Did hypothermia cause auditory hallucinations?

  I struggled to pull the frayed ends of my thoughts back together. “Are you at Sugarwood? Over.”

  His laughter came through the handset first. “Yeah. After you left, the ideas started flowing.”

  “I’m stranded in the bush.” Each word took me forever to form. “Need help.”

  “I thought I’d just write a couple of pages after locking up, before I went home, so I didn’t lose the ideas. Guess I lost track of time instead.”

  He kept rambling like he didn’t hear me.

  Grrr. He didn’t hear me. Russ said these things didn’t work like cell phones. Until he let go of the button on his end, he wouldn’t hear anything I said.

  “Over,” he finally said.

  I was struggling to keep my eyes open now. That couldn’t be a good sign. “I. Need. Help.”

  “Are you drunk? I can barely understand you.” He chuckled. “I’ve heard of drunk dialing before, but never drunk radioing. Wonder if I can fit that in my story somewhere…”

  Dear Lord, let him have released the button. “Stranded in bush. No coat.”

  “What?” His voice lost the I’m only half listening to you tone it’d had before. “Are you serious? Hang on. I’m calling Russ.”

  “Hurry,” I croaked.

  “I have him now and we’re getting out some maps, but you’re going to have to tell us where you think you are. The bush is too big otherwise.”

  I forced my brain to focus. “Started near where I was checking sap lines.” My teeth chattered hard enough to send spikes of pain down into my jaw. “Hid in a brush pile, then followed the lines toward Sugarwood.”

  The pause after I finished felt like years.

  “Okay,” Dave finally said. “Russ is taking the other snowmobile and he called Noah. He’ll start looking for you with the sleigh too. And I’ve called 9-1-1. Hang on, okay? Stay awake.”

  Easy for him to say. Course anything was easier for him to say. My body felt like I’d overdosed on sleeping pills.

  “Nicole! You need to answer me.”

  I could hear the frantic note in his voice now, but responding to it took energy I didn’t have.

  I didn’t remember closing my eyes, but the next thing I knew, Dave’s face peered into mine and he called my name.

  My eyes must have drifted shut again, because when I opened them the next time, the forest around me was moving.

  I blinked and my vision cleared. The forest, it turned out, was standing still, and I was moving. Trees and the dark sky splattered with stars slid slowly past above me.

  I tried to move my arm, but a blanket pinned it next to my body. Whatever I laid on was hard and straight. And I was warmer.

  This was definitely not how I pictured heaven. “I’m not dead.”

  The words came much easier, and they sounded the same when they came off my lips as they had in my head.

  “Nope. You’re still alive.” Dave’s voice floated down to me from somewhere above and behind my head. “I wasn’t sure when I found you though. I radioed Russ and Noah to let them know. We’re just about back now anyway.”

  I’d been thawing for a while then. “How did you find me?”

  “Russ and Noah were gonna start at the back of the bush and work forward, but when you stopped talking to me, I figured I oughtta start from the front just in case you got farther than we thought. So I packed up a sled and snowshoed out. It’s a good thing you didn’t have your coat on after all, too. That green color in your sweater isn’t found in nature.”

  “They call it evergreen.”

  Dave snorted.

  I freed my arms and peeled down the blanket. Turned out Dave had layered me in two blankets, not just one. Little bubbles of warmth shifted with me as I moved. I plucked one out. He’d packed me in with a whole crate full of the snap-and-go glove warmers. Smart man.

  I squiggled around until I could sit up a little while keeping the bottom blanket wrapped around me. I was safe, but Erik wasn’t yet. “I need to call the police.”

  Dave pointed ahead of us. I craned my neck so I could see what he was pointing at. Red, blue, and white lights flashed through the trees.

  “You can talk to them live as soon as we pass this last row of trees.”

  23

  “He’s awake and asking for you.”

  For a second I didn’t recognize the disembodied voice coming from my cell phone or what they were talking about. Then it clicked.

  I rubbed a hand over my eyes. “Thanks, Officer Dornbush. We’ll be right up. What room is he in?”
br />   Quincey Dornbush gave me the number.

  I slid my feet to the floor. The row of plastic hospital chairs I’d been sleeping on had left a matching line of aches down my side. Russ sat next to me, his head propped against the wall, his mouth hanging open. A soft snore vibrated his chest.

  Officer Dornbush had said I should go home and sleep, but since Russ had already put my puppy to bed, I wanted to stick close so I’d be around when Erik came out of surgery. The search-and-rescue team had found him shot through the shoulder out in the woods. Apparently, the cold had worked in his favor. The doctor thought that if he’d been warmer, he’d have been dead by the time they found him.

  And since I stayed at the hospital, Russ, of course, insisted on staying with me, just like Uncle Stan would have.

  I gently shook him. He jerked awake with a snort-cough, and we headed upstairs.

  We found Officer Dornbush in the chair next to Erik’s bed. As we entered, he stopped mid-sentence and jumped to his feet. He motioned me to the chair.

  Erik’s face had the same gray cast as edible kindergarten paste. An IV still poked from the back of his hand, and his left shoulder was in a sling. He smiled up at me, then winced.

  I dropped into the chair. “Next time,” I said, “I vote we take backup even if we don’t expect the bad guys to be there.”

  His eyebrows drew down. “Next time?”

  I’d forgotten that joking wasn’t really his thing. I held up my hands. “Kidding. How do you feel?”

  “About like I look, I imagine.”

  I almost said That bad, huh? but thought better of it. He might not interpret that as teasing, either.

  Erik jerked his chin toward Officer Dornbush. “I asked Quincey to bring you up so you could hear the news as well.”

  If it’d been Mark, I would have wilted because he hadn’t called me up, desperate to know that I was okay. With Erik, though, it seemed natural that he called me up to share about the case. Our relationship was a different one—more like an indulgent older brother-type with his kookie little sister—but it felt right. I was starting to like it rather than regret it.

  I looked up at Officer Dornbush.

  He folded his hands in front of him. A smile split his face. “Well, you’ll be happy to know that we caught the organizer of the dogfighting ring. His name is Al Cahoon. The gun he had on him matches the bullet we pulled from our second victim and the one we found in the tree after your intruder shot at Mark. Once we have a chance to test it, we’re confident it’ll match the one the doctor took from Chief Higgins’ shoulder as well. He lawyered up, but with all the guns and drugs we found, along with the dogs, his lawyer advised him to take the plea. He confessed to all three.”

  I grinned at Erik.

  I wasn’t sure whether it was the wound and blood loss or something else, but his face looked drawn. “And Paul’s murder?”

  Officer Dornbush widened his stance a touch as if bracing himself. “Unfortunately not.”

  I felt my head shaking, but it was almost as if it belonged to someone else. “He’s obviously lying.”

  Officer Dornbush and Erik exchanged a look. I glanced at Russ, but he shrugged. He seemed to be on my side with thinking Cahoon must be the killer.

  Erik fisted his good hand on top of his blanket. “He’s never getting out, Nicole. Another murder charge wouldn’t lengthen his sentence. What he bargained for was the ability to choose where he’d spend the rest of his life.”

  “Sometimes,” Officer Dornbush said, “crimes go unsolved. This might end up being one of them.”

  It didn’t make sense. He had to be lying. We’d done all this to find Paul’s murderer. To come up empty-handed now was unbearable.

  But the part of me that would always be governed by my upbringing and my training as a lawyer knew the truth. The hole in my theory was still there. If they’d killed Paul, why not take my puppy at the same time? Even if they couldn’t find the disk Paul hid under the filing cabinet, my puppy was in the kennel, in clear sight.

  “What reason did Cahoon give for killing Craig?” I asked.

  Officer Dornbush’s at-attention stance relaxed like he was happy I’d moved away from asking about Paul. “Cahoon knew someone stole the Great Dane he was training up, and he figured—rightly—that whoever took her wanted to expose his business. Her microchip would have made her original owner easy to track and her theft easier to prove. So he had his contacts looking for the dog. Craig must have figured out she was at the Fair Haven shelter because he told Cahoon he had her.”

  It was no wonder my instincts had been going as haywire as a compass around a magnet. I wanted to like Craig because he worked at the shelter and said he was helping aggressive dogs, but subtle cues must have been triggering my subconscious not to trust him.

  My legs jittered with the need to move. I rose to my feet.

  Russ frowned and poked a stiff finger toward the chair. Since I’d warmed up and eaten, I felt much better, but Russ continued to act like I’d come down with pneumonia and needed to rest.

  I glared at him, but dropped back into my seat. Arguing with him now about my well-being would only sidetrack us from what I really wanted to talk about.

  When I looked back at Officer Dornbush, his grin was much too amused. I narrowed my eyes at him as well, and he ran a hand over his mouth. It softened the grin but didn’t wipe it away completely.

  I slid my hands back and forth along the arms of the chair since I wasn’t allowed to pace the room. “Why would Cahoon kill him if Craig was going to give him my Great Dane puppy?”

  “The dog wasn’t there when Cahoon came to pick her up. Craig swore he didn’t know where she went, and Cahoon didn’t believe him. He assumed Craig was going to use the dog to blackmail him for a higher cut instead. Apparently, he got a piece of the profits from any dog he turned over to Cahoon’s operation.”

  My stomach turned over, and I was suddenly glad Russ made me stay seated. “It’s my fault. I took the puppy home with me.”

  “It’s not your fault,” three male voices said at once.

  It was so sitcom-ish that I wanted to crack up, but I held my laughter inside. If I started to laugh, the rest of my self-control might go with it and hysterical laughter could end up in tears. “At least I know you’re all in agreement.”

  I leaned back in my chair and a yawn broke free. The sleep I’d gotten on the hospital waiting room chairs hadn’t made up for all the energy I’d burned trekking through the woods. It was time for us to leave soon since Erik couldn’t be feeling any perkier than I was. “What’ll happen to the dogs?”

  Erik shifted his position on the bed like he couldn’t find a comfortable spot to rest. “We’ll return the stolen dogs to their owners, and the others will be sent out of state for rehabilitation and adoption.”

  This time my yawn broke free. “Why out of state?”

  Erik cleared his throat, and I sat up straight. His nervous tic didn’t bode well for what was coming next.

  “Maybe we should talk about it when you’ve had a chance to rest up,” he said.

  It felt like someone had surgically implanted a plank into my spine. Even my mother couldn’t have critiqued my posture. “I’d rather know now.”

  “Michigan law prohibits dogs confiscated from a dogfighting ring from being adopted within the state.”

  The pause stretched as if he was hoping I wouldn’t make him spell it out. I knew what he meant, but I was going to make him say it anyway. Because I didn’t know if it would sink in as reality unless I heard it out loud.

  His jaw was tight, like he didn’t want to say it any more than I wanted to hear it. “I’m sorry, Nicole, but that includes the Great Dane puppy.”

  24

  A worker from the Michigan Humane Society was at my door precisely at nine o’clock the next morning. Any other time I’d waited for someone to deliver or fix something, they’d been late or had told me they couldn’t specify a time. The one instance when I’d wanted
extra time, the woman had to be prompt.

  I left the puppy’s little purple collar on her, attached the matching leash, and sent along the toy she seemed to have selected as her favorite. From my time fake working at the shelter, I knew the dogs there didn’t have toys, and a puppy should have a toy at least. At the last second, I threw all the other toys I’d bought for her into a plastic bag and handed them over as well.

  Moping after she was gone might not have been the most mature response, but I moped around the house for the rest of the morning. By early afternoon, I couldn’t stand the emptiness anymore. I needed to do something valuable.

  I called Russ, but he refused to allow me to work.

  I walked another lap around the house. My puppy’s crate stared at me as I passed.

  Sometime today they’d probably be releasing the stolen dogs back to their owners. If I could find out when that was happening and who was handling it, I might be able to wheedle my way in and go along. Those were visits I’d love to be a part of, especially since I’d met some of the owners through our lost pets group. And there was one dog especially that I’d like to know if they found and would be returning to his owner—Bonnie’s Toby.

  I called the police station. When the receptionist answered the phone, I asked for Officer Dornbush.

  “He’s not at the station right now,” the man said. “You can leave a message if you’d like.”

  Drat. If I couldn’t reach someone today, they might have returned all the dogs or at least have made arrangements for who would do it before I could take part. “Could you just tell him that Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes called? He knows my number.” As hard as I tried to hide it, a note of disappointment filtered into my voice.

  “Dawes? Like Stan Dawes?”

  I swear sometimes it seemed like my uncle had been the town celebrity. “My uncle.”

  “Aw, man. He was a stand-up guy. Hang on and let me radio Quincey. If he’s okay with it, I’ll give you his cell phone number.”