Page 47

“I know. Dave was reading about it this morning, I think. He mentioned it. ” I snapped the rubber band free and unrolled the fat bulk of paper. “He mentioned a place. A name. There. ”

I dropped my finger down onto the print, just below a follow-up story on a missing person case.

Benny adjusted his glasses and peered closely at the paragraph indicated. “Near the cabin at Dyer’s field,” he read.

“And what’s another word for cabin? ‘House. ’ I think that the missing word is ‘house. ’”

He abandoned the paper to me, and Tiggy abandoned my lap because it wasn’t big enough to hold both her and the Times Free Press. I kept reading until I heard the recording buzz over the speakers.

They’re here again…house…Dyer house.

“I think you’re right. So, roughly—‘They’re here again at the Dyer house. ’ Who’s here again?”

I waved the front page at him.

“The Marshalls. Last night was their third night of investigation; and the shots were fired while they were on the road—the one that runs alongside Dyer’s field. ”

“Ah. ” Benny grinned. “Which, one might assume, is where the Dyer’s house is located. You think the ghosts were trying to warn us?”

I grunted a negative. “Warn us? I doubt it. The Dyer house is a ways off from where we were. I remember those two ghosts now, and how they were talking to each other. I think they were just exchanging information between themselves. The one dead guy was telling the other dead guy, ‘Hey, those nuts are back, over by the house. ’ And the other one says, as if to clarify, ‘The Dyer house. ’ That’s more logical than anything we’ve gotten so far, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely. Much more logical than, ‘The bargain was up. ’ What does that mean, anyway? If it wasn’t so clear I’d think we must’ve misheard it. But that’s what it says, plain as can be. ”

“God only knows. Was that all of it, or is there more?”

“That’s all of it. ”

Benny toyed with the computer while I quickly scanned the rest of the article, reading key parts out loud.

“It says that one bullet landed in a cameraman. Or an assistant. One of their people, anyway. The other two or three shots—they don’t seem to know how many were fired—either went wild or hit trees. ”

“Did the guy die?”

“No, he lived. He’ll be okay. He took it in the shoulder, through his back,” I continued. “‘The identity of the shooter is not known, nor is any motive suspected. ’”

“Huh. ” Benny pressed a button, and the computer’s CD tray extended. With two fingers he lifted the disc out and slipped it into a sleeve; then he put the sleeve into a case on the bookshelf. “That’s interesting, but not real

helpful. We’re going to need to go back. ”

“I agree. When? And under what conditions? Have you got any suggestions?”

He swiveled in the stool and leaned his back up against the desk. “Since it’s still closed, we’ll have to go at night, obviously. ”

“We should pick a different trespassing point. Something closer to Dyer’s field. Can we do that?”

“I don’t know. But I can find out. Let me blow some time on the Internet this afternoon before I go to work. I’m betting I can score us some maps or directions or something, unless you’d rather do the honors. ”

“You can do it—or get Jamie to look it up with you. You guys know the area a lot better than I do. You get us directions, and I’ll get us supplies. Equipment. Whatever we need. ”

“Be careful what you offer. You could end up spending thousands of dollars,” he warned, but I spied the gleam in his eyes. I didn’t have thousands of dollars to throw at the project, but I could throw a few hundred at it without starving; and the prospect of a proper investigation would keep Benny on board indefinitely, which pleased me.

“For starters, I was thinking we could pick up some infrared film. I don’t know if Dave has any good filters for working with IR, but it’ll probably give us some extra image information in the dark all the same. The pictures might not be as clear as they’d be in the daytime, but they’ll be a heck of a lot better than snapping shots in the dark without a flash. ”

“What will they look like? Like crazy negatives? Like, black and white?”

I shrugged. “It’ll depend on whether or not Dave’s got color filters and if I remember how to use them properly. Anyway, we may not want to get too close to the Dyer house if there’s shooting around there, but I’ll borrow one of his good cameras with a telephoto lens—and we’ll be able to spy like the pros. ”

“I like the sound of that. But where would we buy infrared film around here?”