Valerie Hansen - No Alibi

Andy eased up to Smith, sniffed his shoes and pants legs, then ducked his broad, black head under the man’s hand as if greeting a trustworthy old friend.

Wiggling his fingers slightly, Smith scratched the dog’s velvety ears. “I think I get to stay.”

“Looks like it,” Julie Ann said with a surprised expression.

“You didn’t think we’d get along?”

“Actually, no. Andy was abused by his former owner. He doesn’t usually take to strangers.”

“I see. Well, since your excuse for ordering me to leave is gone, now what?”

“We talk.” Adjusting the holster for comfort, she chose a seat at one end of the hanging porch swing and gestured to the empty place. “Since you’re already here, I suppose I may as well go ahead and fill you in on the details. Then we can check around back for clues.”

“Boyd didn’t look?”

She shook her head slowly and pressed her lips into a thin line. “Nope. I guess he assumed I was just a panic-stricken woman who imagined a prowler because I was too high-strung.”

“Did you actually see anyone?”

“No. But Andy was sure there was someone on the back porch.”

“Could he have been mistaken?”

Shivers ran up Smith’s neck when she answered, “Not unless doorknobs turn all by themselves.”

Julie Ann did her best to relate the most recent events in a way that sounded calm and self-assured. If she hadn’t sensed Smith’s growing tension as she spoke, she might have thought she’d been successful at masking her own fear. Now that the supposed danger was past, she did feel a bit silly for having been so frightened.

“So, after I called the sheriff, I dug out Grandpa’s old pistol. I don’t intend to take it to work but it did seem like a pretty good idea to keep it handy here. At least until I figure out what’s going on.”

Seeming to sense her continued anxiety, Andy wagged his tail and laid his chin on her lap.

“If I’d heard that big moose barking inside your house, I sure wouldn’t have opened the door.” Smith stood. “Why don’t you put the dogs up while I grab a flashlight from my truck? Then we’ll walk around back and check it out.”

“Do you really think we might find tracks or something?”

“I hope not,” Smith said. “But if we do, I intend to phone Harlan myself and tell him what I think of his deputy’s careless treatment of a crime scene.”

Julie Ann led Andy and Bubbles to the screen door and ushered them inside, firmly closing the heavier, paneled door while Smith went to fetch the flashlight.

“Nothing actually happened,” she said when he returned.

“Only by the grace of God.”

Agreeing but not commenting, Julie Ann followed him off the porch and around the side of the house. Truth to tell, if Smith had not been beside her, she would have gone back into the house with Andy and locked the doors again instead of proceeding into the shadowy depths of her garden.

The enormous hydrangea at the corner of the porch was merely an innocent plant. She knew that as well as she knew her own name, yet its leaves seemed to flutter and reach for her like grasping hands. The shade trees cast creepy, moonlit shadows on the lawn. A whip-poor-will’s call sounded plaintive and eerie. Every normally innocent sound or sight made her tense up as if she were about to be attacked.

Her palm rested atop the pistol grip. She didn’t know if she could actually shoot anyone who threatened her but she wasn’t going to hesitate to bluff if the need arose.

When Smith put out his arm to block her forward movement, she almost ran into him. “What?”

He pointed the flashlight beam. “If those are your footprints, you have a lot bigger feet than I thought.”

Staring at the imprints, she gasped. Her mouth was suddenly so dry she couldn’t swallow. “I—I don’t wear boots with a waffle sole. I never have.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

Smith reached into his pocket and took out a cell phone. Julie Ann hugged herself and listened while he made a call to Harlan and explained what they’d found.

As soon as he hung up, she asked “Is he sending Boyd back?” The disgusted expression on Smith’s face answered her question even before he spoke.

“No. They’re busy with an accident out on the highway. No one’s available.”

She saw him tilt his head to eye the sky and noticed that the previously clear evening was starting to look suspiciously cloudy. “Do you think it’s going to rain before they can get here?”

“Knowing Arkansas, that’s a strong probability. Especially this time of year. Can you think of any way we can shelter those prints to preserve them?”

“I suppose we could put a box or something like that over them but if the rain is heavy, it’ll probably wash the whole thing away.” Frustrated, she clenched her fists. “Nobody believes me. I tell them there’s a prowler and nobody believes me.”

“I do,” Smith said.

Julie Ann sensed the truth of his statement though she could not clearly see his face. Of course, they were standing there staring at proof in the narrow beam of light so it wasn’t exactly a stretch for him to vouch for her veracity. Still, she was grateful. “Thanks.”

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