screen. When she found what she wanted, she snatched up the phone, punched in a number-Mr. Harrison's, I presumed-and unleashed some of her anger in his direction. More than likely, the poor guy didn't have the foggiest idea what she was talking about.
Mrs. Hill seldom got angry, but I saw that when she did, she didn't hold back. Personally, I was happy to be removed from target status. She demanded he dismiss his driver. He must have disagreed, because she said she 'could be responsible'-her exact words-'for getting a different supplier.' Here we go, I thought. Mrs. Hill listened without speaking, then disconnected.
She looked up at me. Her face flushed as patchy red blotches spread up her throat. 'I'm sorry, Stephen. Mr. Sanders gave me the wrong idea. I should have known you wouldn't start anything.'
'That's all right.'
'No it isn't.' She rubbed her forehead. 'Mr. Harrison's going to dismiss his driver. He had the nerve to say he wasn't responsible for what his driver did when he was off. I tell you.' She slapped her palm on the desk blotter. 'He can be responsible for the type of person he employs, can't he?'
I struggled to keep a straight face. 'Yes, ma'am.'
She waved me off. I cut through the lounge, wondering what Harrison's driver and Sanders had been arguing about and, more to the point, whether he had purposefully been trying to get me in trouble. And if so, why?
The crew had moved on to barn B, and they almost seemed disappointed that I hadn't gotten my butt in trouble. Marty's opinion of Mr. Sanders was, as expected, unrepeatable. I didn't spend much time thinking about it, or the torched jump, but chose to think about Rachel instead.
I checked my watch. Lunch time was half over, which explained the lack of activity on the farm. I went into the lounge, grabbed my sandwich out of the fridge, and switched on the television. I was still channel surfing when I heard a vehicle pull up to the office door. The engine cut off and doors slammed. When someone opened the door and stepped into the office, I pushed myself off the sofa and strolled over to see who it was.
A uniformed cop and another man dressed in ratty jeans and an Orioles warm-up jacket stood on the square of carpet in front of Mrs. Hill's desk. They turned toward the door at my approach.
The uniformed cop glanced at the pocket-sized notebook he held in his palm. He was a lanky black man, a good four inches taller than me, with close-cropped hair and a narrow mustache. 'You Stephen Cline?' he said.
'Yep.' I explained about the burnt jump and briefly described the events of the past five weeks.
He gestured to my face. 'Who you tangled with got anything to do with why we're here?'
'Nope. Someone was drunk at a party.'
'Uh-huh. But not you?'
There was a look of amusement in his eyes which negated any irritation I might have otherwise felt. I glanced at his name tag. DORSETT was printed in all caps. 'Nope. Not me.'
'Let's take a look, then.'
I dropped my orange into my jacket pocket, picked up my half-eaten sandwich, and switched off the TV. Outside, the air smelled of rain and moist earth. The cloud base was low and black, heavy with the threat of more rain. In the east, wispy tendrils of cloud broke free and scuttled across the sky in a wedge of fast-moving air.
We stood in a semi-circle around the jump. I lowered the brim of my cap and huddled inside my jacket while Dorsett's partner crouched down and peered at the pile of charred, soggy wood.
I said to Dorsett, 'Did Detective Ralston send you?'
'Indirectly, through Linquist.'
'When I talked to him on the phone this morning, I thought this was the only damage on the property, but afterwards, we found more vandalism in one of the other buildings.'
'You finished here?' Dorsett asked his partner.
He nodded.
'Show us the way then, Cline.'
'It's that building.' I pointed. 'Down there.'
'We'll take the car.'
I climbed in the back and found it a bit like sitting in a cage. A metal screen separated the back seat from the front.
Officer Dorsett glanced in the rear view mirror and laughed. 'A bit unnerving back there, ain't it?' He slowed to make the turn onto the side lane that led to the implement building. 'Every kid should take a ride in the back seat. See what it's like.'
Kid?
He parked nose to nose with the John Deere 960. They got out. I couldn't. The doors in back wouldn't open from the inside. Dorsett and his partner stood by the car, and the black cop was grinning.
I tried to keep a straight face. 'Funny, real funny,' I said through the glass.
He unlocked the door, and we stood just inside the building's entrance.
Dorsett whistled. 'Could be worse. They could've smashed up everything.' He slid a flashlight from a loop on his belt.
'We had to pull the muck wagon and one of the tractors out of here this morning,' I said, 'so we could get some work done. Hope that was okay.'
He had angled the cone of light along the walls and was reading the graffiti. 'Do you have any enemies, someone who hates you personally?'
'No… Not really. Not like this.'
'Pretty disturbing stuff,' he said. 'And the guy ain't no genius either.'
'You mean the 'y-o-u-r dead' bit?'
Dorsett glanced over his shoulder and grinned. 'Right-o. Can't spell, but he's sure into anatomy and bodily functions, ain't he.'
'Yeah. But most of it's physically impossible.' I watched Dorsett's partner walk back to the cruiser and pop the trunk. 'You gotta hand it to him though,' I said. 'He did get a 12-letter word right.'
'Probably had lots of practice. You sure this ain't directed at you?' Dorsett had turned to face me. 'It sounds personal.'
'Shit, I hope not.'
He stepped closer to the wall and played the light across the dusty ground. 'We might have some footprints here, Mark.'
I edged along the 960 and stopped beside him. Sure enough, a row of prints were distinct in the soft dirt, and what caught my attention most was the fact that they pointed toward the wall-consistent with someone having stood there, painting their sick little message.
Dorsett squatted down. 'Steve, these look familiar?'
'No. They're sneakers. Everybody around here wears boots. Especially when it's wet.' I looked closer. 'There were two of them. See over there?' I pointed to a different pattern tracked through the dirt near Dave's storage room.
'Okay,' Dorsett said. 'We'll take photos and make casts of both sets.'
I leaned against Dave's workbench. 'Now you just need the owners.'
'Yeah, but we find 'em, we'll make the case.' He pointed to a particularly clear print of a left shoe. 'See the wear pattern in the tread on that one? There's a notch out of the edge on the inside heel, see?'
'Uh-huh.'
'We get the guy, and he's still got the shoes, we got 'im nailed.'
I sat on a row of hay and, with increasing fascination, watched them make casts, take photographs, and dust for prints. Maybe we were getting somewhere after all. I finished my lunch and glanced at my watch. I was way behind schedule, and they looked like they were going to be awhile.
I told them where they could find me and hopped off the hay bale. 'After you're done today, can we clean up?'
'Don't see why not.' He straightened up from where he'd been working on one of the footprints, a packet of plaster of Paris in one hand and a wooden stick in the other. 'Just to be on the safe side, though, I'll talk to Linquist and get back to you.'
