Dead Dancing Women by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli Page B

without Dolly there. Maybe Joslyn would ask me in, tell me what bothered her so much she’d been afraid to open the door to us.
    First I had dog business to see to. I hurriedly scrawled a note to Simon, asking him to drop by with the puppy. Then I grabbed up my car keys and purse and drove to the top of my drive where I left my car.
    Putting Simon’s note into my mailbox meant pulling the mailbox door open. I’m not a slow learner. I already knew what could happen when you lifted lids and opened doors. A beating heart or an upright foot, anything could be in there. It took all I had to open the mailbox, stick the note inside without looking, then slam the door shut. Whoever was doing this to me knew what they were doing. Everywhere I turned seemed treacherous now—the woods too dark, trees too close. Willow Lake Road was too empty—there should be cars, traffic, people walking. What I’d loved about this North Country before—the emptiness and quiet—seemed a trap. Any misstep into a dark shallow of weeds and saplings could mean death.
    I stood for a moment trying to recapture my place, my woods, my northern world. Sun and warmth and blue sky. It could be summer again. A day to work in my garden, cut back the iris and the lilies, tear out the tomatoes, rake a few of the beds, empty clay pots I would store in the shed until next spring. What a great day for getting my hands dirty, doing a last weeding of all my beds. Anything but tracking a murderer with Deputy Dolly. Anything but thinking about dead things.
    I hesitated at the edge of the road, putting off walking up Harry’s overgrown drive alone. Nothing was as friendly nor as accessible as it once was. With this change, with my small world made dangerous, I didn’t feel I belonged up here the way I had.
    Voices came from some place off in the woods. Male voices, calling one to the other. Men, where they weren’t supposed to be. It frightened me, until I remembered—the police, hunting for more of Ruby Poet—whatever was left of her to find. I felt a little safer, knowing the police were in the woods along with whatever else was out there. Nobody was going to sling a leg or some other body part at me with the cops around. I started up Harry’s dark path just a little braver than I’d been before.

    The first thing I looked for was Harry’s old black car/truck, but it wasn’t behind the house. No one answered the door either. No smells met me. The house had the empty, nobody-home feeling that houses can get. I listened for Harry’s chain saw off in the woods, but all I heard was a muffled call from one of the searchers. I walked around back, in case he was in the kennel. Nobody there but his dozen or more dogs, who went crazy, barking at the sight of me and leaping at the chainlink fence. I imagined the men searching the woods for Ruby Poet could hear and maybe the noise would draw them this way. Harry would hate that. Probably why he was gone—because he couldn’t tolerate the thought of the police in his woods. Harry was a very private man. I’d violated his privacy enough already. I didn’t want to be the cause of men swarming over his property.
    I went back the way I’d gone in, and walked on down to Joslyn Henry’s house. A couple of police officers, standing by the road, nodded as I passed, then went on talking, bending over a map they’d spread across the hood of their patrol car.
    It felt good—the walking, getting some exercise. I didn’t mind the half mile in to Joslyn Henry’s house either. I was sure the police had been there before me, probably asking the same questions I was going to ask, but Dolly and I agreed we had to cover a lot of ground again and again, if we were going to get anywhere.
    Another closed door. No answer to my knock or my, “Yoo-hoo. Mrs. Henry!”
    Nobody home there either. I couldn’t help but take a little time to walk