Chapter 11 Buster Unearths the Decoy Truth
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Dawn broke over Blackwood Mountain like egg yolks spilling into cold buttermilk—pale, rich, and edged in liquid gold.
Down in the valley, the morning mist was still pinned to the treetops like wet wool, but up on the high terrace of the manor, the air had that sharp, clean pine-needle sting that warned you winter was waiting just behind the rhododendrons with a handful of frost.
It was barely twenty minutes past six, and Friday had arrived with the subtle grace of a runaway freight train.
"If anyone buys that hideous ceramic frog umbrella stand before ten-fifteen, I am going to kiss them directly on the mouth," Birdie announced, her voice muffled behind a mouthful of wooden clothespins and a bolt of navy-and-gold striped bunting.
She was standing precariously on the second rung of an aluminum stepladder propped against the terrace balustrade, shivering in a quilted magenta puffer vest that made her look like an exceptionally fashionable, caffeinated hummingbird.
"And by kiss, Maggie, I mean I will slip a ten-dollar bill into their pocket to ensure they take it across the county line. "
"Don’t insult the frog, Birdie," I said, hammering the metal stake of an official *Callahan & Co.
Estate Preview — Register Here* sign into the gravel verge beside the carriage drive.
"There is a very specific subculture of suburban garden enthusiasts who live for glazed amphibian kitsch. I’ve priced it at forty-five dollars.
By noon, two retired schoolteachers from Hendersonville will be having a civilized fistfight over it in the foyer. "
"From your lips to the patron saint of retail markups," Birdie muttered, hammering a brass tack into the cedar molding with the butt of her staple gun.
Beside the rear liftgate of his Dodge flatbed, Luke Sterling chuckled, the sound low and warm in the crisp mountain air.
He was carrying a stack of four whitewashed directional sandwich boards under one arm as though they weighed no more than a morning paper.
He wore his heavy flannel work jacket, the collar turned up against the breeze, and a faded navy knit watch cap pulled down over his dark, unruly curls.
His cheeks were ruddy from the cold, and when he caught my eye, he gave me that slow, lopsided grin that had been doing entirely unacceptable things to my pulse since seven o'clock on Tuesday morning.
"You ladies want the parking arrows pointing down toward the lower meadow, or are we trusting three hundred antique hounds not to high-center their sedans on Eleanor’s boxwood hedges?" Luke asked.
"Point them to the meadow," I said, blowing a stray strand of hair out of my eyes and tucking my work gloves tighter around my wrists.
"The ground is frozen enough to hold them until two o'clock.
If it thaws after that, well, you own a tow chain and four-wheel drive.
You can charge twenty bucks a pull and fund your retirement. "
"Spoken like a true woman of commerce," Luke said, setting the signs against the stone lion at the base of the steps. He looked past me toward the sprawling, overgrown terrace. "Where’s your shadow this morning?"
"I am right here, Luke, and I resent being called a shadow when I am wearing five hundred square inches of high-visibility fuchsia," Birdie called down from her ladder.
"Not you, Birdie. The four-legged one."
"Ah," I said, glancing over my shoulder. "He’s currently conducting a perimeter sweep."
That was a polite euphemism. Buster, invigorated by thirty-six-degree mountain air and the intoxicating fragrance of damp leaf mold, was currently doing eighty-mile-an-hour zoomies through Eleanor Vance’s neglected Victorian pleasure gardens.
His golden tail was held high like a triumphant yellow battle flag, his floppy ears pinned back against his skull as he banked sharply around a mossy stone urn, skidded across a patch of damp clover, and disappeared behind a ten-foot wall of wild, overgrown blue hydrangeas.
"Buster! Gentle!" I called out, clapping my gloved hands together. "Those shrubs are ninety years old! Respect the horticulture!"
A muffled snort was my only answer, followed by the wet, rhythmic *thwack-thwack-thwack* of heavy brush being parted by eighty pounds of joyful retriever.
Birdie climbed down from her ladder, dusted her palms against her thighs, and picked up her travel mug of dark roast. "Let the hound live, Maggie. In three hours, this place is going to be swarming with estate dealers, curious neighbors, and half the Black Walnut Cove gossips who couldn’t care less about Chippendale chairs but desperately want to see the bloodstains in the carriage house. "
A shadow passed over the morning’s quiet energy. Even with the golden sunlight filtering through the sugar maples, the stone silhouette of the carriage house loomed three hundred yards down the path, wrapped in yellow police tape that fluttered in the autumn draft like dead leaves.
It had been less than seventy-two hours since Julian Croft had been found with his skull crushed beneath Eleanor’s antique brass beam scale.
Sheriff Frank Lawson had officially cleared Callahan & Company to proceed with today’s preview—partly because forty thousand dollars in estate liquidation fees were legally bonded through the probate court, and partly because the two surviving Vance heirs had threatened to sue the county sheriff’s department into oblivion if their cash windfall was delayed by a single weekend.
"Lawson said he’d have two deputies stationed by the gate," Luke said quietly, coming to stand beside me. The faint scent of cedar shavings, cold mountain air, and roasted coffee drifted off him. "To keep folks from wandering off the marked paths."
"Good," I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose where my reading glasses usually pinched. "Between Gregory Vance glaring at everyone like he’s calculating their net worth and Vanessa chain-smoking on the back porch while demanding to know where her grandmother’s pearls went, my nerves are thinner than antique bone china. "
"You're doing fine, Maggie," Luke said softly.
His hand reached out, hovering for just a split second over my shoulder, before resting gently against the canvas sleeve of my coat.
His touch was warm and solid through the heavy cotton.
"Nobody with half a brain thinks you had anything to do with Croft.
The man was a snake. Snakes attract their own kind of trouble. "
Before I could formulate a reply that sounded like a sensible, mature fifty-two-year-old business owner rather than a flustered schoolgirl, a violent spray of rich, dark potting soil erupted from the center of the hydrangea terrace.
*Shovel-scrape. Shovel-scrape. Thud.*
Clods of black dirt arched through the morning sunlight, splattering against the whitewashed garden wall and raining down into the dry basin of the stone sundial.
"What in the world—" Birdie started.
"Buster!" I gasped.
I rounded the corner of the stone terrace with Luke right on my heels.
Tucked into the hollow where the terrace balustrade met the foundation of the manor was Eleanor’s pride and joy: a massive, sprawling thicket of *Hydrangea macrophylla*, their dry, papery mophead blooms faded to shades of vintage lavender and tea-stained parchment.
In the center of the root ball, buried up to his golden shoulders in a crater worthy of an artillery strike, was Buster.
His front paws were moving in a frantic, synchronized blur.
Dirt was flying between his rear legs in a continuous, rooster-tail fountain.
His muzzle was coated in pitch-black loam, his whiskers twitching with volcanic intensity, and he was emitting high-pitched, breathless canine squeals of absolute, unbridled dedication.
"Buster Callahan, cease and desist!" I shouted, grabbing for his leather collar. "You are not a backhoe! Stop digging up Eleanor’s landscaping!"
Buster ignored me entirely. He braced his hind legs against a slab of native slate, shoved his nose deep into the freshly excavated trench, and let out a sharp, resonant bark that echoed off the stone walls of the mansion.
*Clang.*
It wasn't the sound of stone on slate. It was the dull, unmistakable ring of a dog’s toenails scraping against heavy sheet metal.
"Hold on, Maggie," Luke said, his hand closing gently around my arm to pull me back from the dirt spray. He knelt down beside the crater, uncaring of the damp loam soaking through the knees of his denim jeans. "Look at that. He’s not after a chipmunk."
Buster backed out of the hole just far enough to let Luke look, panting heavily, his pink tongue lolling sideways out of his mouth while his tail beat a frantic victory cadence against the dirt.
Luke reached his long arm down into the cavity, clearing away thick, tangled fingers of hydrangea roots that had clearly been disturbed long before Buster took up the cause.
"The dirt down here is loose," Luke murmured, his brow furrowing beneath his cap.
"Somebody dug down twelve inches, laid down a bed of dry river gravel, and packed it back with leaf mulch. "
With a grunt of effort, Luke gripped something solid and pulled.
The earth gave way with a wet, sucking gasp. The root ball creaked, and Luke lifted a heavy, rectangular object out of the ground, setting it onto the flat flagstone terrace at our feet.
Birdie hurried over, her coffee mug suspended midair, her eyes wide behind her tortoise-shell glasses. "Well, bless my soul and call me Gladys. That dog just found buried treasure."