I decide to search the desk first, only to discover it’s locked, too. I go back to the key chain and try the smallest key, which fits. I tug open the pencil drawer. It contains a phone message pad. Yellow sticky notes. A roll of postage stamps. A tube of lip gloss. Letter opener in the shape of a Toledo sword. Finding nothing of interest, I go to the second drawer. I see a box of fine-point Sharpies. A tin of handmade thank-you cards. A small dictionary. Box of tissues. Hand cream. I’m about to go on to the file drawer when, tucked beneath a roll of utility tape, several pieces of lined notebook paper catch my attention.

I pull out the papers; there are four, each of them folded twice. Though I’m wearing latex gloves, I touch only the corners and unfold the first one. Scrawled in blue ink are the words: Dale sends his regards from hell.

Surprise rattles through me. Quickly, I go to the second note, unfold it, and read. I know you were there. I page to the next sheet. You could have stopped them. The final note contains a single word: Murderer.

The notes are cryptic, threatening, and frightening. Someone had been terrorizing Julia Rutledge. But who? And why?

I turn on the Tiffany lamp. Light rains down on the four letters lying side by side on the desktop. That’s when it strikes me that they’re similar to the ones Norm Johnston gave me earlier. They’re written on the same type of paper, the same color of ink, and I’m pretty sure that if that handwriting isn’t the same, it’s damn close.

“What the hell is going on?” I whisper.

The only answer is the pound of rain against the roof and the echo of anxiety in my voice.

*   *   *

I try to reach Norm on his cell phone twice on my way to the Painters Mill City Building, where the town council meeting room and offices are located. When I call his office line directly, I’m informed by the administrative assistant that he called in sick this morning.

“Shit,” I mutter, and make a quick turn into the Dairy Dream, which is closed for the season, turn around, and head in the opposite direction. Worry nips at my heels as I head toward the Maple Crest subdivision where he lives, and I crank the speedometer up to sixty. The lighted waterfall cascading from atop a stone wall greets me as I make the turn into the subdivision. The homes are spacious and new here, the oversize lots professionally landscaped. My tires hiss against the wet blacktop as I look for Walnut Hill Lane. Another left, and I spot the stucco-and-stone ranch three houses down.