Pineland Serenade by Larry Millett

Author:Larry Millett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pineland Serenade;fiction;mystery;Minnesota;whodunit;murder;crime;small town;revenge
Publisher: Millett & Ahern
Published: 2020-09-22T21:23:49+00:00

25

When I reached woods around five-thirty, I saw a red BMW in the parking lot. Cassandra presumably had a rental car and she’d be just the type to go first-class with a Beamer. There are times when your gut is way ahead of your brain, and I could feel my stomach tightening as I parked next to the car. I checked the driver’s side door and was surprised to find it open. The interior was clean and tidy, nothing in disarray. I looked in the glove compartment and found a Hertz rental agreement with Cassandra’s name. Not good. What was she doing out here in the woods by herself? It didn’t feel right.

I wondered why Cassandra hadn’t locked the car. Was she just in a rush or had someone grabbed her, or worse? I popped open the trunk latch. My stomach was double knotted by the time I went around to look into the trunk. It was empty.

I closed the trunk and looked out toward the old forest, a dark green wall at the edge of the parking lot. The mix of snow and rain had stopped, patches of blue poking through the clouds as angled shafts of sunlight sliced through the big trees. But night wasn’t far away and once it clamped down Cassandra would be lost to the woods. A stiff wind had come up from the northwest, crashing through the crowns of the pines with a whooshing, jet-engine roar. I suddenly thought of my Hopper print, with its ancient American darkness closing in on the lonely gas station. Paradise County is like that, the woods and their hidden mysteries never far away, mocking the thin claims of civilization.

Although I had no proof anything was wrong—for all I knew Cassandra had a deep interest in forestry and was simply out for a hike—I felt a roiling sense of unease. I got out my cell phone and called 911. I identified myself to the operator and asked that a sheriff’s deputy be dispatched at once to the park.

“What is the nature of the emergency?” the operator asked.

“I believe a woman named Cassandra Ellis may be in danger.”

Everybody in Pineland knew about Cassandra, and the mention of her name had an immediate effect.

“All right,” the operator said, “we’ll send out a unit. Will you meet the deputy there?”

“Yes, I—”

The crack of a gunshot tore through the wind, close enough to startle me.

“I’m hearing gunfire,” I said. “Send more deputies. I’ll be in the woods.”

A well-maintained trail circles through the park, and I ran toward it. The wind was still blasting through the trees, and if Cassandra was somewhere in the woods I doubted she could hear my voice above the roar, but I tried anyway.

I called out her name and said, “It’s Paul Zweifel. Where are you?”

No response. I called out her name again. Nothing.

The park’s pines stand in dense, huddled groves, and once I started along the trail the parking lot quickly faded from view. Nothing much blooms in

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