Indian Pipes by Cynthia Riggs Page A

“Well, well. That was odd.”
    “That was stupid of me.” Elizabeth blotted her forehead with a paper towel she’d taken from her pocket.
    Victoria moved down the side passage. She brushed against a tall stack and it toppled over, knocking her down.
    “Gram, are you okay?”
    “Yes. Help me out of this mess.”
    Elizabeth moved an old typewriter case off Victoria’s legs. A flattened cardboard box. Used gift-wrapping paper, card still attached. Burned-out lightbulbs, seed packets.
    She moved a wire basket and a flyswatter and a mousetrap with a mummified mouse and copies of the town report for 1975 and an ancient Sears Roebuck catalog.
    Victoria lifted her arm. “Give me your hand so I can stand up without anything else falling onto me.” Elizabeth helped her to her feet.
    The telephone rang. They looked at each other.
    Victoria frowned. “This time, don’t answer.”
    The phone continued to ring. Neither Victoria nor Elizabeth moved until it stopped after a dozen rings.
    Somewhere in the house something shifted, and there was the sound of a heavy object falling.
    “What was that?” Elizabeth stood still. “Let’s get out of here. Now.” She started back down the narrow aisle between the stacks of junk. “You didn’t get hurt when that stuff fell on you?”
    “Of course not. I’m fine. But I’d like to know what made that noise.”
    “We’ve got to get out of here before it gets darker.”
    The diffuse light coming through the dusty windows gave the shadows an undefined quality. The stacks of rubbish and papers began to blend together. Even to Victoria it was as if they were morph- ing into a gray dough.
    The bat circled again, swished low, swooped high, making its eerie clicking noise.
    Once they were outside, Victoria looked back at the house. The mist gave the low sun a sickly green hue. Dusk had reduced colors to shades of gray. The cedar trees across the cove were a dark graygreen. The grasses, dripping with condensation, were a grayish tan. The house itself was almost black. It must have been a lonely placefor a man living by himself with nothing but his computer and piles of stuff that he might find a use for someday.
    “Where do you suppose the computer is?” Victoria turned toward the house. “I’ve got to go back and make one more attempt to find it.” She started toward the kitchen door.
    Elizabeth caught her grandmother’s sleeve. “No way!”
    As Victoria turned to reply, she saw flashing blue lights jouncing along the track that led through the woods. The police Bronco pulled up next to Elizabeth’s car.
    “I might have known.” Casey leaned out her window.
    Victoria walked over to the passenger side. “What are you doing here?”
    “I got an anonymous call from a guy who said there was an intruder at Burkhardt’s place. What are
you
doing here?”
    “Did he have a raspy voice?” Elizabeth asked.
    Casey stepped out of the Bronco, and shifted her belt with gun, radio, and handcuffs to a more comfortable position.
    “Yes, he had a raspy voice. You’re trespassing, you know that.”
    “Nonsense. The door wasn’t locked.”
    “Get in the Bronco, Victoria.”
    “I’ll meet you back at the house,” Elizabeth said.
    The road through the woods was dark now. The Bronco’s headlights magnified every rock and root and pothole.
    Casey listened while Victoria told her about the missing computer and the phone call.
    “You simply must not handle evidence that way,” Casey said when Victoria finished.
    “There was no reason to think I was handling any evidence,” Victoria replied. “You police are calling his death an accident.”
    “Not anymore, Victoria. The Aquinnah police chief called me. That wicked hook you guys found matches the wound on Burkhardt’s skull. They’ve reopened the case.” Casey steered around a large pothole. “The state police are now treating Burkhardt’s death as murder.”

C HAPTER 11
     
    Victoria walked to the police station the next morning