Marta Perry - Murder in Plain Sight

“Both.” No point in trying to put Adam off. He knew everything that went on in the township. “It’s too bad you weren’t in on that case.”

Adam shrugged. “Didn’t happen in Spring Township. And I don’t know as I’d have done things any differently.”

They reached the drive, and Adam went directly to Jessica’s car, obviously knowing which was hers. He flashed his torch inside. “Did Ms. Langdon lock the car?”

“I don’t think so. I doubt it.” She shouldn’t have to lock her car when it was parked outside his house. This ought to be safe.

Adam gave him a searching look. “This is really bugging you.”

Tough to hide your feelings from someone you’d known most of your life. “I don’t like the idea of some cretin coming onto my property. Threatening a guest in my house. That’s all.”

“Uh-huh.” Adam’s raised eyebrow expressed doubt. “Let me get the note secure, and then I’d better have a word with your…guest.”

He pressed his lips together to keep from snarling. Adam hadn’t even met Jessica and he was jumping to conclusions about their relationship. It was laughable.

Except that his own anger was revealing just how much he’d begun to care about Jessica.

“A PIECE OF PAPER CAN’T hurt me,” Jessica said for what seemed like the tenth or twentieth time. She shoved away the photocopy Trey had made before his cop friend took away the original threat.

She shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he knew the township police chief well, or that they had played high-school football together. They’d had the easy, ragging banter that betrayed their closeness, even with a serious undertone.

She, Trey, Leo and Geneva were sitting around Geneva’s kitchen table, mugs of hot cocoa in front of them, Geneva having insisted they needed something soothing after the excitement. Adam had tried to be encouraging. Leaving a threatening note was a criminal act, and he took it seriously, but since no one had seen anything…

“I don’t understand how the prowler got away so quickly, without our seeing or hearing anything.” Trey looked anything but relaxed now. His big hands clenched the mug.

“Isn’t it odd that the dog didn’t hear him?” Jessica was making a determined effort to sound as if this sort of thing happened to her every day, but she couldn’t stop shivering inside.

As if he sensed what she didn’t say, Trey put his hand over hers in a brief, hard grip before taking it away. “Poor old Sam doesn’t have much hearing left. He’s fine if you’re in the room with him, but I doubt that he could pick anything up from that far away.”

“I should have had the motion-detector lights on.” Guilt wrinkled Geneva’s brow. “Trey always says that, but I hate to turn them on because it frightens away the animals, and now look what’s happened.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jessica said quickly. “If someone was determined to do this to the extent of following me here, he’d have found some other way.”

“That determination is what bothers me the most.” Trey touched her fingers again, almost absently, before wrapping his hand around his mug. “The idea that someone is so obsessed with this case that he’d go to this length-” His jaw tightened. “He came onto our property.”

He came close to Geneva-she was sure that was what Trey was really thinking. No matter what Trey did, the ugliness grew nearer to his mother.

“There’s a lot of nasty feeling out there,” Leo said. “Haven’t you been reading the Call-In Column of the paper?”

“I avoid it whenever possible,” Trey said. Seeming to notice Jessica’s confusion, he smiled slightly. “You don’t want to see it. People can call the newspaper anonymously. All the nutcases in the county get to see their libelous rants in print without having to put their names or e-mail addresses to their words. Cowardly.”

“Not libelous, though,” Leo said with his lawyer’s exactitude. “The newspaper does stop short of that. But it does display all the worst in human nature. Seriously, Trey, you ought to look at the column. There have been a number of comments about the big-city lawyer trying to get a killer off. It’s not surprising that someone with marginal intelligence and less common sense would attempt to frighten Jessica away.”

“Not that little intelligence,” she found herself saying. “Someone had enough imagination to think of taking a photo of me and drawing an X over it.”

“Probably saw it on a television crime show,” Leo muttered. “Nothing but gory crimes on TV these days.”

“You’re right about that.” Geneva gave a fastidious shudder. “I’d rather watch an old movie. Some of the classics from the forties…”

“Let’s try to stick to the point.” Trey wore the harassed look he so often did when he talked to his mother. “I agree with Jessica. Someone had to find the photo-”

“Take the photo,” she said. She tapped the paper. “That picture was taken today, when I was leaving the jail.”

“It wasn’t a copy from the newspaper?” Trey shot the question at Leo, who shook his head.

“No. I’ve been watching the papers carefully, in case we need to file a change-of-venue motion.”

“What is this little drawing at the bottom of the page?” Jessica pointed to the tiny figure in the corner of the page…black lines, entwined in a pattern.

“I had a look at it through the magnifying glass,” Trey said. “It resembles a hex sign, but I’ve never seen one exactly like it.”

“Hex sign?” Her mind scrambled for an association with the words. “Isn’t that some sort of folk art?”

“Pennsylvania Dutch,” Geneva said. “They commonly use symbols resembling flowers and birds. You’ll see them painted on barns and furniture. My husband collected them-there’s a wall full of them in his den.”

Jessica peered more closely at the tiny design. “I thought a hex was kind of a curse.”

“Some people believe they’re a protection, but if you ask any Pennsylvania Dutchman, he’ll insist they’re ‘just for pretty.’” Geneva shrugged. “They’re an old tradition. Most people have probably forgotten why they put them up.”

“Why put it on an anonymous threat?” Leo frowned. “I don’t like any of this.” He peered at the copy again. “Hex signs sometimes feature distelfinks and bluebirds, but I’ve never seen one that resembled a raven.”

A raven. Her face must have given something away, because Trey turned to her.

“Jessica? What is it?”

“Probably nothing.”

His fingers closed over hers, compelling an answer. “Tell me.”

They were all looking at her. She’d have to tell it, whether it sounded foolish or not.

“Last night I heard someone walking past my room. He or she paused by my window for what seemed like a long time.” She tried to smile. “It was probably only seconds. Anyway, eventually the person moved on. I opened the drapes a bit to see if I could spot him, when something hit the window.”

Geneva made a soft exclamation, and Trey’s hand was hard on hers.

“I called the night manager, of course. When he came, we found a dead bird beneath the window. He said it was a raven. He thought it had killed itself smashing into the window.” She took a breath. “But I touched it. It was cold and stiff. Someone had thrown it.”

“You…” Trey seemed at a loss for words. “You should have called me. Or the police. Why didn’t you say anything?”

She shrugged. “What could anyone do?” Somehow it didn’t seem as intimidating now that she’d told them about it. “I was afraid that if it got into the papers, it would just encourage more of the same.”

“It looks as if we’ve still gotten more of the same,” Leo said, his voice dry.