Shepherd's Crook (5 page)

twelve

If I never see
another hanged body, I will still have seen one too many. I had seen several murder victims in the past year, but this was the worst. The last thing I wanted to do was enter that room, and I doubted there was any chance Ray was alive, but someone had to be sure. Evan was busy upchucking on the far side of the roadway, so someone was me. I put Jay in a down-stay and, without looking again at Ray's horrifying face, I stepped over a beat-up boot and started to reach for his wrist but hesitated. Three of his fingers were twisted in crazy directions, and swollen. I was sure they were broken. I forced my own fingers to grip his wrist.

Cold. No pulse.

I spun around and staggered out of the room, pulled my phone out, leaned against the side of the building, and slid to the ground.
Deep breath, Janet, deep breath.
Jay scooched up close beside me and placed a paw over the crook of my elbow as if to say, “It's okay, I'm right here.” My hand seemed to be soldered to my phone at first, but I finally managed to punch in
9-1
-1. It took a couple of tries before the dispatcher deciphered the message. She offered to stay on the line with me until the first responders arrived, but I declined, and dialed again. I wanted a cop I knew. I called Homer Hutchinson.

Once he recovered from the initial shock, Evan was so fidgety I thought my head might explode, so I sent him for coffee for both of us, preferably with a big shot of something very strong, early morning be damned. He was ten yards down the roadway when I called after him. “Evan, wait!”

He stopped and turned around.

“What about Bonnie?”

“What?”

“Ray's dog. Bonnie. Where is she?”

“Oh, God.” He looked like he might lose it again.

I knew I should stay put to deflect
lookie-loos
and wait for the police or sheriff or whoever would have jurisdiction. But if Bonnie was missing, the sooner we started looking for her, the better. Ray might have left her in his truck or wherever he was staying, but that seemed unlikely. I couldn't remember ever seeing Ray without the little
black-and
-white dog. If she witnessed Ray's death, she might have run off, terrified. Then I remembered how she had barked at the fat guy in defense of her master, and my insides contracted. Whoever killed Ray might have hurt her—or worse. Especially if she had tried to protect him.

“I'll look.” Evan's voice brought me back to the moment. “I'll get your coffee first.” I told him to forget the coffee, and he took off.

I called after him, “I'll help as soon as the police are done with me.”

Although I couldn't see him, knowing that Ray was hanging dead a few yards from where I stood gave me the shakes. There was no one nearby, so I scurried through the big sliding door, put Jay in his crate with a
cheese-stuffed
chewy toy, and grabbed my folding chair. When I
re-emerged
from the building, the sound of approaching sirens took me back to the first murder investigation I'd been near, almost a year earlier.
What happened to my quiet, boring life?

And what makes you think this is murder?
The more I thought about that, the more the answer slipped from my grasp. Ray wasn't a big man, but he had lived a life of physical labor and he appeared to be healthy and strong. It was hard to imagine anyone bettering him without a struggle, and other than his boot on the floor, nothing in the storage room suggested a struggle, at least not in the brief look I'd had. I remembered thinking that Ray seemed angry on Saturday, although he was always a bit sullen. Then again, several people had seemed angry on Saturday—Summer certainly, and Evan, and the fat guy I'd seen with Ray.

I got to my feet and paced back and forth across the roadway a few times, trying to force other images to replace my vision of Ray's dead face. It was going to take a long time to bury that one, I knew.

The next part of the morning was a blur of police officers, EMTs, the coroner, and I don't know who else. It seemed as if dozens of people were milling around, although I was in such a state of
semi-detachment
that I can't really say. About twenty minutes in, Hutch arrived and disappeared into the storage room. If you had told me a year earlier that I'd ever be happy to see Detective Hutchinson, I'd have said you were delusional. He had been one of the detectives assigned to the first murder investigation I was party to, and we had not hit it off at first. Not even close. I had been reminded in the interval that first impressions may be way off. Evan hadn't come back, and one of the police officers went to find him. He was, after all, the first person to find Ray.

I was in something of a daze when Hutchinson
re-emerged
from the storage room, calling back to whoever was in there, “Go ahead and take him down.” He stood in front of me, shoved his notebook into his breast pocket, and said, “That was rough.” I nodded. “Stay here, okay? I'll be back.” And he walked away.

The coroner, a tall, gray man with gray hair and a rumpled gray suit, stepped out of the room, followed by two EMTs guiding a gurney. Ray's body was covered with a white sheet, but I still turned away as they loaded him into the ambulance. A police officer followed, a large plastic bag with writing on it dangling from one hand. It held a single cowboy boot. I have no idea how much time passed before I looked around and realized that everyone had cleared out and I was alone again.

I told myself at first that I had to stay there, had to wait for Hutchinson, but a voice whispered,
he's a detective—he'll find you
. I walked around the end of the long building in time to see the ambulance turn out of the gate and onto the county road. A city police car and a sheriff's department car were parked near the arena, and I could see men and women in uniforms talking to people in the spectator area. Some of the spectators were, of course, also competitors, and many had dogs by their sides. The general public was well represented, too, and all sorts of people, young and old, were exploring the vendor and information booths and watching the action.

I caught sight of Evan talking to two men in dark suits behind one of the booths. As I watched, I wished I had my camera so that I could zoom in on them. The taller guy was so thin he seemed to swim in his jacket as he edged back and around, positioning himself slightly behind Evan. The heavier man was speaking, and I wondered whether the strain across his suit coat would pop the button that held the fabric over his belly. It was the same fat man I'd seen with Ray on Saturday. He raised his hand and poked Evan in the chest, and Evan stumbled back and raised his hands, palms out, toward the man.
Don't watch, Janet
, whispered my prissier angel.
Too bad you don't have your camera,
said my inner troublemaker. As the men walked toward the parking area, Evan pulled his baseball cap off and threw it on the ground. He bent over, hands on his knees, and stood that way for a few seconds before he picked up his cap and worked his way along the backs of the booths, away from the parking area.

thirteen

I got Jay from
his crate and set out to look for Bonnie. I called Giselle Swann, thinking she would help put the word out on the Internet, but had to leave a message. For once I wished I had a smartphone so I could post to social media myself. Who else could I count on? Sylvia Eckhorn, mother of twins and most energetic woman in the world, answered her phone from the cereal aisle of Costco. She promised to put the news on Facebook, Twitter, and a few other places. Someone somewhere would eventually see a black-and-white Sheltie on the loose. At least I hoped so.

The morning events were delayed by a couple of hours, but aside from the ones trying to cop a view of the murder scene, people mostly went with the flow. Other than taping off the area around the room where Ray died and questioning me and Evan and a few other people, even the police saw the value in letting the day's events continue. By early afternoon things were almost back on schedule, and between laps around the property, I got to watch a bit. It gave me a good chance to ask everyone I saw to be on the lookout for Bonnie. The parade of herding breeds was lovely, and the dogs got plenty of applause. The group was well represented, too—Shetland Sheepdogs, Australian Shepherds, Pembroke and Cardigan Welsh Corgis, Australian Cattle Dogs, Summer's English Shepherd, and more. Border Collies, of course, and a Pyrenean Shepherd.

Judging by upright ears and sharp gazes, the spectating dogs seemed to enjoy the event as much as their owners, and I turned my camera on them from time to time. The result was several stunning head shots plus a couple of
fifty-pound
lap dogs squeezed into folding chairs with their people and a Corgi sacked out
belly-up
in a stroller with a toddler. I hadn't planned to shoot a photo essay, but as I panned the audience for interesting shots, Kali, a
red-merle
Aussie I knew from Illinois, opened a cooler, finagled a soda bottle out of it, and handed it to her owner, Kim Johnson. I got the whole hilarious sequence and decided to surprise Kim with the best shots. There was also a cute black
tri-color
Australian Shepherd sitting in a folding chair and wearing sunglasses and a pink floppy hat with “Lilly” embroidered across the front. I took several shots of her and made a note to track her owner down after the parade.

The herding demonstration, featuring a Corgi, a Border Collie, and an Aussie, was popular, but the real crowd pleaser was the
disc-dog
competition. My little friend Edith Ann was spectacular—she flew as if she had sprouted wings, and missed only one disc, which Kathy, her
partner-in
-sport, later attributed to her own “crappy toss.” Edith Ann left the field bouncing and wagging and grinning. Kathy came out panting. I smiled to myself as I checked my photos and caught up with her to get her email address. She'd get a surprise in a week or so.

By late afternoon, Evan seemed to have gone to ground, but Summer was standing in the shadow of a big pin oak, watching as things began to wind down. I walked over and told her I needed to go home and regroup, but would be back later to help search for Bonnie, and the next day, too, if necessary. She nodded at me.

“It was a lovely weekend,” I said, realizing how dumb that sounded even as the words came out. At least I didn't add,
aside from the hanged man and missing animals.
“Well, you know …”

Summer barely answered. She was very pale, her eyes rimmed in crimson, and I could see that she wasn't as impervious as I had thought. She put her hand on my arm and started to say, “I appre …,” but her gaze slipped to something behind me and she froze. By the time she said, “Talk to you later,” her body was already turning away, and in the next heartbeat, she was gone.

Maybe if I had looked right away, I'd have known what startled her, but I was a bit startled myself and I watched her for a few seconds before I turned around. Nothing and nobody stood out at first. Then I noticed two men standing near
Dogs-on
-Wheels. The fat one tossed a
wadded-up
hotdog wrapper on the ground and unbuttoned his straining jacket. The tall, skinny one was stuffing what looked like a Coney dog into his mouth. They were the same two I had seen talking to Evan earlier.
Who are they, and what the heck is going on?
That was, of course, the Janet Devil voice, the one that gets me into trouble. The other one was trying to drown her out.
Who cares? Not your beeswax.
I hadn't chosen a side in that argument yet.

It was past
four-thirty
by the time I made another tour of the grounds, picked up a bit of trash, packed up my stuff, and finally slid behind the wheel. As I reached for the key, the emotional weight of the weekend fell over me, heavy and black.

I could barely breathe. I had plenty to deal with running my photography business, planning a wedding, and merging my household with Tom's. The last thing I needed was to get dragged into another murder investigation.
But here you are again, Janet
. I forced myself to take some nice, long, healing breaths.
In, one, two, three.
My neighbor and best friend, Goldie, had taught me to do this.
Out, one, two, three, four.
Count to ten
… eight, nine, ten.

Twelve missing sheep.

One missing dog.

And a dead man.

fourteen

One of these days
I'll learn to see household chores through to the end. It will be part of the “get organized, stop procrastinating” self-improvement project I've been putting off for a while.
Okay, for decades
. Saturday had not been the day, though, and when I pulled the shower curtain back and reached for a towel, my arm on autopilot, I came up empty. My bath towels, all three of them, were still in the laundry room.
I told you to set a timer to remind yourself
, said that know-it-all in my head. I shushed her and looked around. For once I had not dropped my dirty duds on the bathroom floor. No, I had deposited them in the hampers in my bedroom, colors to the left, whites to the right. Besides, they stank of sheep and I no longer did, so I would have been reluctant to use them even if they were handy. The only bit of fabric in the bathroom was a navy blue washcloth. It wouldn't cover much, and besides, navy is just not my color.

I said some of those words I've been trying not to say and dripped my way across the three steps to the door. I listened carefully, then opened the door a crack and listened again. The house was still. Tom and the dogs weren't back yet, and the feline contingent must have been asleep in some secret lair. I tried to remember whether the kitchen blinds were wide open or down with the louvers at a
modest-making
tilt. Either way, the light was so much brighter outside than in that I figured a peeper would have to press his nose against the glass to see anything. I ran for it.

Maybe it was the day's stress that set me off, but by the time I left the hallway and scampered around the tote bag I'd left at the end of the hallway, I was flapping my
bare-naked
arms and laughing like a nutcase. Eight
tippy-toes
and a pirouette later I was in the kitchen, face to face with Leo, my lovely orange tabby. I stopped, still laughing, and reached out to stroke his cheek in greeting. His eyes went wide and his fur went wider as he flattened his ears against his neck, hissed, and backed away.

“Aww, Leo
mio
, it's just me.”

Leo relaxed slightly, gathered himself, and levitated onto the counter. He stared at me for a moment, then stepped closer and sniffed, as if confirming that it was in fact me, not some otherworldly demon that sounded but didn't act like the woman he knew. Once he was convinced, he sat down and squinted at me, and I leaned in to bump noses. I didn't linger, though, as goose bumps were beginning to rise on my arms and who knows where else.

I flipped the light switch in the laundry room, visions of nice fluffy clean towels flapping in my head. Until I opened the dryer. Empty, but for a used dryer sheet and the
well-worn
kitchen towel I had used for Pixel's pedicure. For half a moment I was confused. Then I opened the washing machine and said
Aww, crap.
I said a few other things, too, before I started yanking the damp towels and clothes out of one machine and throwing them into the other.
Why can't they invent a machine that does it all?

A car door closed somewhere nearby. I froze and listened. Tom's voice filtered faintly into the room. I figured I had enough time to race back to the bedroom and grab some clothes because he usually took the dogs through the gate and into the backyard. I heard Tom's voice again. “Here. Go on in.”
Who's he talking to?
Leo dropped off the counter across from me with a muted thud and trotted out of the kitchen. I held my breath and listened. A knock followed by the clink of keys, the noisy
front-door
hinge, and another voice. My neighbor Goldie.

“Janet? Where are you? Oh, hello, Mr. Leo. How's my little man?”

With one hand I grabbed the laundry basket that held the laundry room door open and half slid, half lifted it out of the way. With my other hand I pushed the door closed, turning the knob to soften the sound of latching.
Okay, now what?
As I raised the laundry basket, meaning to set it on top of the dryer, its edge caught the open flap of the giant box of detergent that I'd neglected to stow against the wall. The tilt of the box traveled through the plastic basket, up my arm, and into my brain, but not in time for me to stop its momentum.
Whup.
The front of the box hit the floor and white powder with magic blue sparkly bits whooshed across the vinyl.

I grabbed the rooster towel from the top of the dryer and backed up against the wall, straddling the detergent box and trying to figure out how to use the terrycloth rectangle to best effect. It didn't offer much. I held my breath and listened.

The back door opened and Tom's voice came into my hiding place, loud and clear and much closer. “Mmmm. What's that?”

“Tomato basil bread. I baked an extra loaf for you two.” Goldie, much as I loved her, was the bane of my
weight-loss
efforts.

Tom said something I couldn't make out, and then, “Where's Janet?”

She's trapped nekkid in the laundry room
, I thought, wishing for two things. First, that Tom would leave the dogs outside for a bit so they wouldn't give me away. And next, that something would make Tom and Goldie go out with them for any crazy reason so that I could scamper back to the bedroom. If either of them had been alone, I would have braved the run back to my bedroom
au naturel
, but the two of them together ratcheted up the embarrassment factor. I wondered whether this was how the sheep felt when a dog had them cornered in a pen.

“Janet? Where aaaaare you? I have fresh bread!”

“I didn't see her outside. She must be changing or something,” said Tom. The refrigerator opened, and Tom asked, “Beer?”

For the briefest moment I still hoped he would leave the dogs outdoors. If Tom and Goldie moved out of the kitchen, I might be able to grab a big wet towel from the dryer and sneak past them. But my hopes were dashed when something
thump thump thumped
hard against the outside of the laundry room wall and snuffling sounds filtered up from under the door, followed by a soft little whine, which anyone who hears dog spoken as much as I do would understand to mean, “In here! She's in here!”
Traitor!

Goldie wasn't fluent enough in dog to have gotten the message, but Tom was. I grabbed the doorknob just as it began to turn, and heard Tom say, “What the … Janet? Are you in there?”

I leaned in and pulled the door open a crack. “Yes, but, umm …”

Tom pushed the door a little farther. “What are you …” His eyes traveled from my face to the arm I held across my breasts to my red rooster loin cloth and he broke into the biggest grin I've seen since my brother got his Corvette. “Nice outfit!”

“Could you please get me some jeans and a top? And stop laughing.”

“Who's laughing?” He did a Groucho Marx with his eyebrows.

Jay wedged his head and shoulders past Tom and sniffed my knee.

“That tickles,” I said, stroking his chin and easing him back out the door. “Come on, Tom,
please
get me some clothes.”

“Okay, but only because Goldie's here.”

He was still laughing when he got back from the bedroom.