Mountain Ice (David Dean Mysteries)

"Directions to where? There aren't any open side roads and hardly a plowed turnoff on this highway for twenty miles. There isn't even a building almost to Silverton!"

"Did you see the smile on her face?" he countered. "I'll bet I hit the nail on the head when I said she was in Ouray to meet some guy. I'll bet there's a third person involved in this mess. All the more reason for us to mind our own business."

Cynthia ignored his I-told-you-so attitude. "Are you going to report what we saw to Sheriff Weller?"

He was about to give an emphatic "no" to her question but then, in an inspirational moment of civic buck-passing, decided that talking to the law might be a pretty damn good idea. After all, every occasion in the past when he'd gotten in deep do-do with the sheriff, it was for holding back information. This time he'd bury Jake Weller in a mountain of minutiae. And maybe keep his own life less complicated in the process.

"What make car is he driving?" Dean asked the question before he remembered futility of such a query. Cynthia's ability to distinguish one motor vehicle from another was limited to trucks, vans, jeeps, limos and all others. Absent these most general distinctions, color was her only detailed observation.

"A blue one," she answered.

"And what did the mysterious stranger look like?"

"He had a beard. And he was tall." To petite Cynthia, tall meant anyone much over five-foot seven. A six-footer, like David Dean was a veritable giant from her reduced point of reference. Then she added, "He had on a red plaid flannel shirt and jeans."

"I'll give Weller a call when I get back," he said, generating a look of surprise on his wife's face.

When the Deans returned to Bird Song, the place was quiet. Gladys Turnbull was pounding away on a lap top computer in a corner of the parlor while young Martha and Donnie played a game of Old Maid on the sofa. Fred O'Connor, back from his second stint at the library and historical museum, was now poring over the newspaper and circling the Saturday garage sales in the classified ads.

"Don't know why they don't put in more information," he muttered.

"What more do you want?" Dean asked, looking over his shoulder. "This one has a whole list of junk, chairs, tables, clothes. It says it's a moving sale."

"But it don't say where they're moving."

"Who cares?"

"Look, if it said they were moving to the south, I'd know they were selling their winter stuff. Snow shovels and stuff, too. If they were going north, I could pick up some duds for next summer...."