The Treasure Seeker Read online

  “No, it’s good they were able to see that’s Rylene is safe,” Doreen said. “This is a small town and in some ways this horrible thing happened to everyone here. They needed to talk about what happened.” She squeezed Ry’s hand. “You’re not in this alone.”

  When they reached the corner, the sound of saws and other power tools met them. “What are they doing?” Ry asked. She looked to her mom for an answer.

  “I don’t know. Seth just said he and the boys were coming over to see what could be done.”

  As they drew closer, Ry’s step faltered when she remembered the scene that had unfolded before her last night. Who could have done this? Trying to imagine the degree of anger needed to inflict such destruction made her stomach cramp. The first thing she noticed was that the old weatherworn wood fence was gone. James and her father were off to one side where they had established a work area by tossing an old door over a set of sawhorses. Daniel and Lewis were manually digging postholes.

  Daniel spied them first. “Hey, reinforcements,” he called. “Who wants to take over here?” He held up the posthole digger and grinned. “This is so much fun. You guys will love it.”

  “You’ve got to do a lot better than that, Tom Sawyer,” Elise said and waved him off.

  Seth met the group of women. “Have you seen Victor yet?” he asked Ry.

  “No. We just got here,” she replied. “What are you guys doing?”

  “We can’t touch anything inside until the insurance company gets over here and does whatever it is they do,” Seth said. “Victor told us the fence back here wasn’t involved so we could start by replacing it. We’ll set it with metal posts in concrete this time and use better lumber.”

  “Dad, I don’t know when I’ll be able to pay. At this point, I’m not even sure I’m going to reopen the store.” Ry was as surprised by her statement as her mom seemed to be.

  “Nonsense,” Doreen insisted. “You love the store. You can’t let some vandal scare you off.”

  Her dad stunned them both by adding, “Maybe she’s right, Doreen.” He looked at Ry. “If you don’t want to reopen, don’t. What we’re doing now won’t amount to much, but it might help you get a better price for the place.” He put an arm around Doreen. “Ry, you go on over to the sheriff’s office and talk to Victor and then call your insurance company. We’ll be here when you’re done.”

  As he started to turn away he lowered his voice slightly. “By the way, Kate came by a few minutes ago.”

  Ry stopped sharply. “She’s here?”

  “No,” he said. “After seeing the shop she was understandably upset.” His eyebrows rose slightly when he added, “She wasn’t too happy when she discovered you’d locked her keys inside the car.”

  Ry cringed. “I shouldn’t have done that. I guess I was a little pissed off at her. Plus, I didn’t know what else to do with them. Did you get the door open for her?”

  He rubbed his hand across his chin. “No. She opened it herself.”

  “So she found the spare keys,” Ry said, relieved.

  “Nope, she was so mad she knocked out the side window with a rock.” He shook his head. “I think it’s safe to assume you two are about to see a big jump in your insurance premiums.”

  They stood silently for a moment before Ry spoke. “I’ll see you guys after I talk to Victor.” She hesitated. “Dad, did you tell Victor about the box I gave you?”

  “No.” He was watching her closely “I didn’t think it was my place to do so.”

  She nodded and left.

  On the way to the police station several other shop owners, customers and townspeople stopped Ry. Their words of comfort and confusion over how something like this could have happened made Ry realize her mother was right. This catastrophe affected the entire town. When she finally had a free moment, she called her insurance agent, Wilma Brown, who was located just across town.

  “I heard about what happened,” Wilma said as soon as she heard Ry’s voice. “Are you and Kate all right?”

  “We’re fine. We were gone when it happened.” She didn’t want to get too deeply into talking about Kate. “What do I need to do to get things started on your end?” she asked to divert any more questions.

  “How bad is the damage?”

  Ry swallowed. “The contents, both personal and business, are completely destroyed.” She heard the gasp through the phone but continued, “There’s also a lot of damage to the building, doors, stairs and window frames.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “It’s a mess, Wilma.”

  “Ry, don’t you worry. I’m going to do everything I can for you. Is the building currently habitable?”

  “No. I’m staying at my parents.”

  “So you and Kate are staying at your parents. I’ve looked over your policy. Do you want to stay on there? If not, Loss of Use is included in your policy.”

  “I think we’re fine for now. Can I let you know in a couple of days?”

  “Of course you can. Now, let’s get the ball rolling. I’ll need a copy of the police report, of course. I also need a copy of your current inventory.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “By that I mean what it would have been as of yesterday. Do you have that?”

  “Yes, I keep it stored on an off-site computer data storage service. I can email a copy to you.”

  “That would be great.”

  “I’m on my way to see Sheriff Orozco now.”

  “Good, he can fax a copy of the police report to me and I’ll get a claims adjuster over there. If you and Kate change your minds and decide you don’t want to stay with your parents let me know and I’ll make the necessary arrangements.”

  Ry used her iPhone to retrieve the inventory report from the off-site storage location and email it to Wilma. She checked her messages again. There was still only the one call from Kate from the previous night. Kate had left a voice mail, but Ry wasn’t ready to listen to it. She knew how mad Kate would have been at being ignored.

  When Ry finally made her way into the police station, she could tell that Victor wasn’t happy with her either.

  “I’m glad you could finally make it in,” he said as he waved her into his office.

  “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t handle any more.”

  He got up, poured two cups of coffee from a pot behind his desk and put one in front of her. “I heard you had a rather busy day.” His dark eyes probed hers as he waited for her to respond.

  “I guess you heard what happened in Bexar County?” she said as she picked up the cup.

  “Deputy Sheriff Ward called me asking about you.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth.” Victor sipped his coffee.

  Ry sat patiently and waited as he dabbed a napkin to his immense handlebar mustache. On most men she would have thought the mustache silly, but somehow it fit him.

  When Victor had finished grooming his mustache, he continued. “I told him you were quiet, that I’d never had a complaint from any of your customers or the locals and that Jackson City was fortunate to have you and Kate as citizens.” He sat down suddenly and picked up a pen. “So, tell me what happened. The longer we wait around, the less chance we’ll have of catching whoever did this.”

  Ry stared into her coffee. She didn’t know where to start.

  Victor seemed to sense her dilemma. “When do you think this started?”

  “I could be wrong,” she said, lifting her gaze from the coffee cup.

  He grinned slightly. “Hey, we all have to be wrong occasionally.”

  Some of the tension eased from Ry’s shoulders. “I think it started when I stopped by the estate sale.” Slowly she filled him in on every detail of what had transpired from the time she stopped at the estate sale until she had found the shop destroyed. The only thing she omitted was the fact that the wrong cardboard box had been damaged during the shooting.

  Afterward, he sat staring at her for a long moment before he began asking her random questions about individual
events. He questioned her at length about the items she had purchased from the sale and then switched abruptly to questions about the cigarette butt she had found beneath the window and her broken truck window. He asked about the man at the estate sale. Had she ever seen him around? Did he tell her anything about himself? On and on he went. Then he asked about the man she shot. Without warning, he surprised her with, “What exactly was in the box that you picked up by mistake?”

  She blinked. “Um, I didn’t look in it too closely, but I remember some Old West magazines, a few books and the metal file box that held the gun.” As she told him, she realized that she hadn’t really looked in the box. Kate had been the one who poked around in it. “Kate may remember something else. She looked in it closer than I did.”

  “Let’s go back to the guy you shot,” he said without pausing. “You said you’d never seen him before.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’re sure there was only one shooter? He was by himself.”

  She started to answer but hesitated when in her mind’s eye she again saw the flash of blue. “I’m not absolutely sure. After the first couple of shots were fired, I looked out. I thought I saw a blue shirt.” She shook her head. “I’m probably mistaken. The guy I…” she swallowed. “…shot was wearing a white shirt.”

  “Could you identify the guy if you saw him again?”

  “No. Honestly, I’m not even sure it was a man. All I really saw was a blue blur.”

  He nodded. “Do you remember anything else?”

  She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. She could see the two weapons clearly, but something wasn’t right. She struggled to figure it out, but whatever it was stayed just out of her reach. Finally, she gave up and told him what she did remember. “The first couple of shots sounded different. They didn’t have that same loud…” she searched for the word she needed to describe the sound.

  He waited quietly.

  “Punch,” she said at last. “The first shots seemed to make less of an impact than the bullets from the bolt-action rifle and it certainly wasn’t the assault weapon he used.” She tried to remember every detail. “I guess he could have been using different size loads in the rifle.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “I followed up with Ward this morning and they found shell casings from a thirty-thirty Winchester.”

  She shook her head. “No. He was firing a bolt-action rifle.” She had a clear image of him working the bolt as he was turning toward her. “My brother James has a similar rifle. I think it’s a Remington.”

  He nodded approvingly. “They found a Remington Model 798 and an AR-15 assault rifle near the body of the man you shot.” He looked down at the papers in front of him. “The guy in the house was shot with a thirty-eight.”

  She leaned forward. “So that clears me. The pistol from the file box was a forty-five.”

  He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “It just means there are some missing weapons. They didn’t find the thirty-eight or the Winchester.” He eyed her again. “It seems the first officer on the scene was a rookie. He failed to check your car.” Victor hesitated slightly. “You didn’t remove anything from the car between then and this morning did you?”

  Ry felt her blood pressure spike. “I did,” she admitted. “I took a jacket out of the trunk last night.”

  “Nothing else was removed?” he persisted.

  “After I took the jacket out, I locked the keys in the car and left.” She flattened the tail of her shirt against her thigh. She could feel his eyes boring into her. “So you think there was someone else involved.” As she said the words, a chill crept down her spine.

  “It seems like there might have been. I recommend you and Kate stay extra vigilant until we can find out more about what’s going on.” He laid the pencil down. “Are you going to be staying with your parents until your place is repaired?”

  She sighed. She hadn’t given it much thought. “I don’t know. I mean I guess so. I can’t live at the shop.” She leaned back in the chair. “When can I start cleaning up?”

  He sipped his coffee before answering. “First, let me tell you that we didn’t find much in the way of evidence. As you can imagine, trying to fingerprint the store was a nightmare. So many people have gone in and out of there that trying to get DNA evidence would have been useless. Even if the perpetrator had left prints behind and we finally caught him, he could simply say he had been there shopping at some point.” He scanned the papers in front of him.

  “We did find an ax in the rubble. We discovered it belonged to the furniture shop behind you. They’d been using it to bust up packing crates and left it out by accident.” Again, he sipped his coffee before continuing. “I’m sure it was the ax used to wreck your place. There were several fresh nicks in the blade and a couple of smudged prints on the handle, but nothing useful. We encountered the same problem with the back door knob. I’m guessing whoever did it was wearing gloves. We found the cigarette butt.” He stopped and frowned. “By the way, did you cut yourself while you were in the shop?”

  “Yes.” Her shirtsleeve hid the bandage. “I cut the back of my arm when I fell against the bedroom doorframe.”

  He sighed. “That’s too bad. I thought we might have gotten lucky with the blood and had some DNA we could use if we ever catch this guy.”

  “What about the cigarette butt? Can’t you get DNA from it?”

  “It wouldn’t do any good. It was found outside the building. I was hoping for something that would put him inside.” He stood suddenly. “Come on. I’ll take you back out front. Deputy Ross will help you fill out all the forms.” He walked out of his office with her. “You can remove the crime scene tape, but I’d recommend you don’t remove anything or clean up any until after the claims adjuster comes.”

  She gave him Wilma Brown’s information and asked him to fax over a copy of the police report.

  He walked her to a small room that contained a table and two chairs. “Ross will be over in a minute.” He shook her hand. “If you think of anything else, let me know. If we come up with something, I’ll call you.”

  It was almost two hours later when Ry finally left the police station.

  Chapter Seven

  By the time Ry returned to the shop, Daniel and Lewis had finished installing the posts and were busy building the six-foot-wide fence panels that would eventually be erected between the posts. James and her father were building a gate. The women were nowhere to be seen.

  Ry stopped to talk to Daniel and Lewis. “Where’s Mom?” she asked.

  Lewis set the drill he had been using down and arched his back. At six-foot-four, he was the tallest of her brothers. His lanky frame made him look even taller. “They went home.”

  “Yeah,” Daniel said. “I think the mess in there really freaked Mom out.”

  “Dang, Daniel, it freaked us all out,” Lewis said. He turned to Ry. “I don’t know how you kept it together. Man, if I came home to find something like that…” He let the sentence trail off and shook his head. “I don’t know if you’re just crazy brave or plain crazy. I can’t believe you actually went inside.”

  “I thought Kate was home,” Ry admitted. “Otherwise, I’m not sure I could have gone in.”

  “Oh.” Lewis nodded.

  “Are you going to try to reopen?” Daniel asked.

  “I don’t know.” She looked around to make sure her father wasn’t within earshot. “To be honest, I’m not sure how much longer I could have kept the store open. Business has been so bad recently.”

  “That seems to be a problem everywhere,” Lewis said. “Our job ratio is down twenty-seven percent from where it was this time last year. Thankfully, that big job earlier this year for Henderson International has helped keep our earnings up.”

  Daniel looked at Ry and smiled. Not only was Lewis the tallest of her brothers he was also the smartest when it came to crunching numbers. When he was younger, they had teased him to no end about being an egghea
d. Now they begged him to prepare their income tax returns.

  If he saw their exchange, Lewis ignored it and continued. “If you like, I might be able to help you reevaluate your business plan. I couldn’t help but notice whenever Annie and I came over that the antique stores here all carry very similar stock. Maybe together we could come up with an idea that’s a little different for you, something that would give you an edge over the other shops.”

  “Thanks, Lewis. I appreciate that. I’ll certainly keep it in mind.” She stepped back. “I guess I’d better go tell Dad what Victor said. Are you guys going to be at Mom and Dad’s for dinner tonight?”

  They both nodded.

  Ry went over to where her dad and James were working on the gate. “That thing looks massive. Will I be able to swing it open?” she teased.

  James grinned at her. “When did you become such a ninety-seven pound weakling?” He was her oldest brother and the most methodical. When he wasn’t working at the construction company, he designed and built beautiful chairs.

  “When we’re finished you’ll be able to open the gate remotely,” her father explained. “That’s more secure than a padlock.”

  Ry suspected her father was going to go overboard on the security measures. She started to say so but stopped and tried to put herself in his shoes. It couldn’t be easy for anyone who cared about her to look at the destruction inside and not be worried. In truth, part of the reason she was not sure if she was going to reopen the store was because she didn’t know if she’d ever feel safe in the building again. Rather than tease or scoff, she simply thanked him. “Victor said I can start cleaning up as soon as the claims adjuster comes out.”

  “It’ll probably take them a couple of days to get someone out here,” James said.

  “Your mother and the girls went back out to the house. She said for you to come on home whenever you’re finished.” Her dad nodded toward her truck. “Victor’s deputy came over earlier and checked the truck. He even checked the interior, but didn’t find anything that was helpful.”