I could imagine her holding her thumb and index finger to the phone. “Well, don’t you worry, that kit is as good as gone once I get back inside. Do you still hide your key under the flowerpot on the porch where every burglar would look? I locked up after the paramedics left.”

I thought I heard a stifled laugh. “Yes, silly. Can you…”

“That’s not Jake, I hope.” It was Margot’s unmistakable voice.

“I’ve got to go now, Patty. Thanks for calling,” Bonnie said before the line went dead.

***

Fred and I went back down to Bonnie’s the minute she hung up. It was reasonable to assume the police might get a warrant to search her house for the manicure kit, so I needed to get it before they did. We were down the path and up her stairs in record time. Fred must have thought I wanted to play, for he hadn’t seen me run so fast since he was a puppy. He nipped at my heels on the way down, nearly tripping me. He was the first one up the stairs, and I expected him to continue the game he liked to play of pretending he was a fierce guard dog and growl at me when I would come up our stairs, but this time he lost interest in the game and was sniffing the flower pot. I tensed up when I saw the circular stain where the pot had been. Someone had moved it.

I tried in vain to remember if I had seen the stain earlier. Was it the old lady who moved it? I peeked through the beveled glass window of the door in case she had brought someone with her I hadn’t seen; someone she dropped off to do the dirty work, while she drove away to divert suspicion. My heart was beating so fast that I was sure whoever might be in there could hear it.

Then Fred, who had lost interest in the flower pot’s new location, turned and barked. The bark was short and to the point, not his repetitive alarm bark, but his, “What’s up?” bark.

I held a single finger to my lips, telling him to be quiet, and went back to checking for the intruder. The beveled glass made it too blurry to see inside, so I slowly crept over to the next window. I saw nothing unusual, and no movement inside, so I went over to the flower pot. I half expected the key to be missing, but it was there when I looked under the pot. Perhaps it was one of the paramedics who had moved it, and my paranoia had gotten the better of me.

“Stay out here, Freddie, and warn me if anyone shows up,” I said, turning the key in the lower lock; the one I had set from inside before closing the door after they took Bonnie away. But the door still wouldn’t open. Someone had used the key to lock the deadbolt. It could only mean that the old lady had moved the pot, used the key to gain entry, and locked everything after she left. Which also meant, she had to know the key was there in the first place.

Once inside, I went to Bonnie’s bedroom where she said I would find the manicure kit in her top vanity drawer, wrapped in a plastic grocery bag. She had one of those old vanities you see on late-night television shows from the thirties. It was complete with a round mirror and little padded stool. I quickly looked in the mirror to see if I was being watched. That, too, was something I’d seen in one of those black and white movies.

Relieved, but disappointed the trick didn’t work when the only apparition I saw was myself, I opened the top drawer. Bonnie’s kit was there, exactly where she said it would be. I opened it half expecting to see her nail file, or what was left of it. In the back of my mind I imagined the old, gray haired lady had planted the broken handle where the police could find it.

I took the kit and checked the rest of the house looking for the file in case Gray Hair put it somewhere else. I looked in the dresser drawers, the bathroom, and even under the bed, but found nothing. If it was here, she did a great job of hiding it.

My next stop was the kitchen, where I knew Bonnie kept a box of doggie treats for Fred. I didn’t think she would miss one or two. I was ready to leave with Fred’s biscuits when I saw a copy of Tom Sawyer on the table. That was weird, for Bonnie never mentioned having a copy. It had to have been put there by the intruder, and the only reason I could think of was that I had been right about someone trying to frame Bonnie. I stuffed the book in the plastic bag with the manicure kit, and was about to leave when I noticed the sink cabinet was slightly ajar.

Bonnie always chided me about leaving cabinet doors open, so it struck me as odd that she would do it herself. I went over to close it, and discovered it was the trash can she kept there that was keeping the door open. I looked inside and saw a blood-soaked, paper towel. Inside the towel was the broken, glass handle from Bonnie’s nail file. Even without the benefit of six years of college, I knew it was hers, because her name was printed on the protective sleeve.

***

Fred was waiting quietly when I came back out. To my surprise, it looked like he was obeying orders and sitting where he could see anyone coming up the road. “Good, boy,” I told him, and gave him one of Bonnie’s treats.

It was gone in a millisecond and he looked up at me begging for more. He ate the second one even faster, but instead of asking for another, he turned toward the road and cocked his head to the side. I couldn’t hear anything, but I could see a big cloud of dust down toward Upper Bear Creek Road. Someone was headed our way. I didn’t have to guess who. If the book had been left to frame Bonnie, it would be the cops with a search warrant.

We made it back to our cabin in time to see two sheriff’s SUVs pull into Bonnie’s drive.

***

My first instinct was to hide the evidence in my cabin, but the devil’s advocate inside my head whispered that my place was probably next on the sheriff’s search list. Fred and I could try to make our escape in my Jeep, but the voice in my head said I’d be caught before I got off our road. Fred solved my dilemma by running toward the trail leading up our little mountain. The hill behind my cabin was part of the Denver Parks system. Technically, it was out of the jurisdiction of Jefferson County, though, I had a feeling that wouldn’t stop them from coming after us no matter who owned the property. There were over five thousand acres up there, so I was sure to find someplace to hide the manicure kit and book where the cops couldn’t find them, assuming they didn’t bring out the bloodhounds.

Fred was halfway on his way to the top of the hill when I caught up with him. Any other time I would have never caught up to him but he had stopped to sniff out something. When I got closer, I saw a dark hole under a rock ledge. Fred had found some critter’s den. I was afraid he would run into it and wake a sleeping bear or mountain lion. I wanted to call him back, but didn’t want to chance being heard by the deputies below. Sounds up here could travel for miles.

I walked over to Fred and whispered, “That’s not a good place to hide the bag, old boy. The owner of that den might eat it for breakfast.”

My fears were allayed when he didn’t go into the den, and ran over to a rock pile several feet away. He looked at the rocks then looked back at me and barked. “Shh, Freddie,” I whispered.

He barked again, so I rushed over to see what was so important before he did it again. He’d already started digging by the time I reached him. At first I thought he’d found another creature. I wasn’t worried about snakes because I’d never come across one in the twenty years I lived up here. And I knew it couldn’t be a large animal, so I assumed it was a marmot or chipmunk. It was neither. There was no hole, just a pile of rocks. Then it hit me. He had found the perfect hiding place. I could bury the plastic bag under the pile of rocks. Any bloodhounds should be distracted by what was hiding in the larger den. I looked at Fred in amazement. He sat there with a huge grin on his face. His dumb human finally caught on, or so I thought. Maybe I was imagining things; no dog is that smart.