Don't Close Your Eyes Part 8

"Drop your weapon! We're coming in!"

Natalie placed her gun on the table, pushed it an arm's length away, and sat rigidly in her chair as the front door opened. A man walked in, gun drawn. He shone his large flashlight around the room, then directly into her face. She squinted but didn't dare raise a hand to shield her eyes. "I put down my gun and I'm holding onto the dog," she called. "Please don't shoot."

A pause. Then: "Dr. St. John?"

She recognized his voice. "Sheriff Meredith."

"Who was shooting?"

"I was. Only once."

"You! What's going on?"

"Please take the light out of my eyes, but don't lower your gun. Someone is in here. Someone threatened to kill me."

The light shifted slightly. Blaine remained tensed and growled steadily. Natalie put a hand on her head to calm her. "Who is trying to kill you?" the sheriff asked.

"I don't know. There was a woman's voice. It seemed to be coming from the band area. I couldn't see anyone, though." She hesitated. "She said she was Tamara."

"Tamara? Tamara Hunt?"

That's it, Natalie said to herself. He thinks I'm drunk or crazy. "She said she was Tamara. Then I heard someone coming toward me and I fired."

"I see." The sheriff played the flashlight around the room, but whoever it had been was gone. Natalie knew that even before he searched the band area and backstage. "Back door is open," he said when he finally returned to her. "You didn't come in that way, did you?"

"No. I came in the front door. The padlock was open."

"So you just strolled in."

"I thought someone might be hurt."

"Come out to the car with me."

Natalie followed meekly. He'd yelled, "We're coming in," but he was alone. Clearly he didn't want whoever was inside to know he had no backup. In the patrol car she told him everything that had happened. When she finished, he was silent for a moment, staring straight ahead at The Blue Lady. Finally he said, "Do you know how dangerous it was for you to come here in the middle of the night?"

"I do now."

"But not before?"

"I had my dog. And my gun."

"I a.s.sume you have a permit for the gun."

"Absolutely," she said virtuously.

"But not a permit to carry."

"Well... uh... no. But I have completed a course in marksmanship and gun safety and I finished with flying colors."

"I'm thrilled for you," he said dryly. "You still broke the law."

"Are you going to arrest me?"

"I'm thinking about it."

Natalie's confidence fell further. Was carrying a weapon without a permit a felony or a misdemeanor? What was the sentence? Was she going to end up in jail because of her stupid night stroll?

"Look, Sheriff, I told you I wanted to walk but only in front of my house. Then the dog started barking and ran away. I followed her. She came to the dance pavilion."

"Why the pavilion?"

"I don't know. Maybe she was chasing whoever was inside. Maybe that person had been close to me-I couldn't see in the fog-then ran to the pavilion when the dog started barking."

"The doors were unlocked. Someone didn't decide to hide in there on the spur of the moment," the sheriff said slowly. "The whole thing could have been a set-up to lead you there."

"I guess you're right," Natalie said weakly, horrified by her close call.

"So the dog ran off, you went in hot pursuit, and then you charged into a deserted building. And then Tamara spoke to you."

"I did not charge into the building. I went in cautiously thinking maybe someone was inside and injured," she repeated. "And I told you the person said she was Tamara. I didn't say it was Tamara. I'm not a lunatic." He gave her a doubtful look that said he wasn't too sure. "Actually, the voice was slightly different than Tam's. It was more breathy. A little more dramatic." She hesitated. "I got a call this afternoon, supposedly from Tamara. I'm sure it was the same person."

"A call?"

"Yes. She talked about their mouth being an open tomb."

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"I don't know. It's something from the Bible. Romans, Chapter Three. She just told me that inside."

"I thought she said it on the phone."

"She said it again inside."

"Do you have any idea who made that call?"

"No. We don't have caller I.D. After she hung up I tried star-six-nine but was told that number was not receiving calls."

"Whoever called you has call block."

"Probably. Anyway, tonight she talked about wanting me to be with her even if she had to kill me to do it. It was dark. I couldn't really see, but I could hear someone coming toward me. I was frightened, so I fired the gun."

"You could have killed someone!"

"I didn't aim directly at the voice. I wasn't trying to kill anyone. Someone was threatening to kill me. I was only trying to scare them away, and I guess I did."

"I was driving by when the guy who owns the convenience store flagged me down and said he'd heard gunfire. As I pulled up, I saw something coming from around the back. It was gone by the time I got out of the car." He gave her a hard look. "You were incredibly careless entering a place like the pavilion the night after a murder. And you were equally reckless with your gun."

"I know," Natalie said humbly. "I won't do it again."

"You sound like you're apologizing for a traffic violation."

"Well, how am I supposed to sound?" Natalie flared. "Do you want me to fly into hysterics? Beg? Throw my gun into Lake Erie?"

"Hysterics and begging would be okay, but there's no sense in wasting a perfectly good gun," he said equably.

He's softening, Natalie thought in relief. "Are you going to arrest me?" she asked again.

He thought for a few moments. "No. A night in jail might do you some good, take some of that recklessness out of you, but I'm going to do something foolish. I'm just going to drive you home."

Relief rushed through her. "Are you going to take the gun?"

His eyes narrowed slightly and she almost squirmed under his gaze. "I'll probably regret this, but I'll let you keep it if you promise to act more responsibly in the future. I want you to unload it, put it away, and don't carry it around with you."

"I will and I won't." He looked at her. "I will unload it and put it away and I won't carry it around. Thank you."

"Don't thank me," he said, turning on the ignition. "If you were lured into the building, I have a bad feeling you might need that gun in the future."

MONDAY MORNING.

"You know I'm gonna get killed, don't you? It's almost one thirty. In the morning.'

"So?"

"So my dad's the sheriff, for Pete's sake. If he finds out I'm sneaking around at night with a boy..."

Jimmy Jenkins turned indignantly. "So what? I'm not your boyfriend. You're only eleven, Paige."

"Yeah, I'm eleven and it's late. I didn't know it was so far to this place."

"What do you mean you didn't know? You've been to my house and I told you Tamara Hunt got murdered almost right across the street."

"And down a dirt road. You didn't talk about the dirt road."

Actually Paige Meredith was frightened but she didn't want Jimmy to know it. She wanted him to be her boyfriend, even if he was a year older than she, and that was a lot to hope for. Still, there was always a chance. Unless he thought she was just a scared little kid.

He'd bicycled at top speed to her house this afternoon to inform her of the murder, which was sad and awful and absolutely thrilling to Paige, who was bored silly this summer stuck home with Mrs. Collins. Mrs. Collins was nice and meant well, but she was old-at least fifty-and she talked constantly about her baby grandchildren and recipes. Paige thought the woman was duller than dull, although she always tried to act interested in her stories. Her mother had taught her to be polite.

Her mother wouldn't like what she was doing right now, Paige thought as she and Jimmy crept down the dirt road, walking their bikes because of all the ruts and holes. Daddy had come home very late and Mrs. Collins had been all snippy. After she left, Daddy went straight to bed.

Jimmy had suggested earlier today that they sneak out tonight to see where Mrs. Hunt got murdered. It wouldn't be the first time they'd sneaked out, but never for anything so important as visiting a murder site. When Jimmy came back long after Daddy had gone to sleep and conditions were perfect, she couldn't refuse him without looking like a wimp. She had put her big doll in her bed, pulled up the quilt until only the doll's auburn hair-the same color as her own- showed on the pillow, and crawled out the window onto a limb of an oak tree and skimmed down slick as a cat. Jimmy looked proud of her and her heart had beaten a little faster. His approval was worth the minor risk that she might get caught. It was even worth knowing her mother was frowning in disapproval somewhere in Heaven.

Now she was beginning to have doubts. The night was darker than the last time she and Jimmy had ventured out. Of course then there had been a full moon and now there was only a crescent slice that looked really pretty as it glowed through a fog coming in off the lake, but it didn't put out a lot of light. There were only a few stars, too. And somewhere an owl was hooting.

"The Egyptians believed the owl meant death," Paige said.

Jimmy stopped in his tracks. "What?"

Paige felt silly. She hated it when things like that popped out of her mouth. "I read it."

"You read too much," Jimmy declared.

"But it makes sense. About the owl, I mean," Paige said defensively. "Somebody died here and now an owl is hooting."

"Owls always hoot. It's all they know how to do."

"I still think it's neat."

Jimmy snorted. "I think it's dumb."

Paige was crushed until the next time the owl hooted and Jimmy looked around uneasily. She smiled in satisfaction. He took her more seriously than he pretended.

"Okay, here we are," Jimmy said. They both halted, staring wide-eyed at the mangled branch that had lain on Tamara Hunt's body. Yellow tape surrounded the area.

"That's crime-scene tape," Jimmy informed her.

"I know."

"We can't go past it. We might mess up important evidence."

"I know. Gee, Jimmy, my dad is a cop." Which was, Paige also knew, why Jimmy had befriended her even though she was younger and a girl. His dream was to become a detective like that guy on his favorite show, Street Life, Eddie Salva tore. Jimmy told Paige that Eddie was played by an actor named Paul Fiori who used to be married to some woman who lived right here in this very town? Jimmy was obsessed with Eddie Salvatore. Paige told him her dad said if any detective acted like Salvatore-always bossing around the other detectives, going off on hunches when his lieutenant ordered him not to-he'd get fired. "No way," Jimmy argued staunchly. "Eddie Salvatore is always right." Paige would roll her eyes, but she still thought Jimmy was basically wonderful.

Jimmy had brought a flashlight and bounced the beam around the area. "I see blood."

"Maybe it's blood. I'm not sure. Anything else?"

"Well... no actual clues. But I've got a theory."

Jimmy almost always had a theory. "What is it?"

"I think the murderer is hiding in Ariel Saunders's house."

"That big spooky house you're always talking about?"

"Yeah. The one at the end of this road. Let's go check it out."

"Wait a minute," Paige stalled. "What makes you think the murderer is hiding in that house?"

"I've got a hunch."

Oh, no. Jimmy was being Eddie Salvatore again. "How did you get your hunch?"

"Hunches can't be explained," Jimmy said loftily. "They just are." Which meant he had no idea what he was talking about, Paige thought. "You coming?"

"We've been gone an awful long time."

"You're right. I guess little girls should be home in bed."

"I am not a little girl," Paige answered hotly. "Everyone says I'm mature for my age."