Shepherd's Crook

by Sheila Webster Boneham

  “What if she sold them but didn’t want to tell Evan?”

  That possibility hadn’t even been on my radar. Then again, if no one came forward, maybe it would be Summer’s little secret. Hers and the buyer’s. Still, it didn’t make sense to me. “Why would she do it at an event, though, with lots of people around? And, come on, he’s her husband.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “But that would be pretty stupid. I mean, they must have been insured, so the insurance company will investigate, right? And the police.” At least I thought they would be insured. Tom must have felt me staring at him because he turned toward me and our eyes met and I knew that we were thinking the same thing.

  “Maybe she staged a theft and Ray found out,” said Tom.

  “But hanging?” It wasn’t a typically feminine way of killing, and even if she wanted to, how would she manage it? He would have fought back, and how would she pull him off his feet?

  I was pretty sure I didn’t ask the question out loud, but Tom said, “Summer’s strong. I saw one of the sheep lie down in the arena, and she lifted it back onto its feet. What do those babies weigh? Must be over a hundred pounds, right?”

  “The ewes are one-fifty to two hundred. More sometimes.” They felt like more when they ran me down in the instinct test. Thank goodness they’re light on their feet.

  “Ray wasn’t a big man. Maybe one-forty? I think Summer could hoist a guy his size a few feet off the ground, especially with leverage.”

  I thought about the rope over the cross beam in the storage room and knew Tom was right. “But he wouldn’t just stand there while she slipped a noose over his head and pulled him up.”

  Tom shrugged. “Maybe she conked him over the head with something.”

  That was certainly possible. There were plenty of potential head-

  conkers in that storage room—at least one shovel, a rake, several buckets. I thought I remembered seeing a toolbox, but I couldn’t be sure. And Ray’s attacker could have brought a weapon with her. Or him.

  “You know, Evan acted shocked when he opened that room and found Ray, but what if that was all an act?”

  “But you said he got sick. How would he stage that?”

  Good point. “I don’t know. Maybe the realization of what he’d done?” I thought about Ray’s swollen, discolored face. “Ray wasn’t very pretty after hanging there for … I don’t know how long. Maybe the sight of him made Evan sick. Maybe coming face to face with what he’d done.” I thought of Evan and Ray standing by the arena gate. “Tom, remember when you went to say hi to Evan and Ray on Saturday? Did you notice any, I don’t know, hostility between them?”

  “Now that you mention it, there did seem to be something going on,” said Tom. “They were fine with me, but it felt awkward. I didn’t stay long.” We had turned onto East State, and Tom asked, “You coming home with me?”

  “Drop me at my house and go bond with your puppy,” I said. “I want to have another look for Bonnie.” Then I turned the conversation back to potential suspects.

  “What about those two goons I saw? They seemed to be hassling both Ray and Evan, but I think they scared Summer as well.”

  “Maybe something to do with the theft of the sheep?”

  “Like cops, you mean?”

  Tom shrugged.

  I thought for a moment before I said, “I don’t think they were cops. Or insurance investigators.” I didn’t want to sound overly dramatic so I kept my next thought to myself. Maybe Ray or Evan—or both of them—were involved in something more deadly than insurance fraud or sheep rustling.

  twenty-seven

  The after-work rush was just revving up when I pulled onto Coliseum and headed east to look for Bonnie. I debated whether to walk the property, or cruise the surrounding roads and talk to the neighbors again. Volunteers had already canvassed the neighboring farms and subdivisions, but someone may have seen Bonnie since then, or taken her in. I wasn’t sure I had decided until I pulled up along the west side of the arena and shut the engine off. I let Jay out and picked up his leash, but there was no one else around so I clipped the clasp to the loop end and slung it over my shoulder like a bandolier.

  If I hadn’t been looking for a lost dog, it would have been a perfect April evening. It was cool enough to invite a long walk, and tender bits of green were showing everywhere. Even the long-

  established grass under our feet had a freshness that comes only in that narrow space between winter’s cold and summer’s heat. We crossed to the roadway alongside the pole building and walked toward the scene of the crimes.

  The yellow tape the police had put up to warn people off the storage room had been pulled down and tossed to the side of the concrete apron in front of the door. I don’t know why I thought I’d find Bonnie in there if the detective and crime-scene techs hadn’t, but I tried to picture the interior of the room, and whether there were any places for a frightened smallish dog to hide. Had there been bags of feed leaning against the wall, or was my memory mixing this room with another somewhere?

  I should have realized that if the police had released the scene they wouldn’t just drop their trash on the ground, but at the time I was in the throes of a decision. To snoop or not to snoop. I grasped the cool metal knob and turned. I expected it to be locked, but I didn’t expect it to bite me.

  I jerked my hand away and looked at the long bubbling scratch along the outer edge of my palm. A couple of expletives shot out of my mouth and I shoved my wounded flesh between my lips and licked the blood away before I looked at it again. The scratch didn’t seem to be deep, but it bisected some enthusiastic capillaries. I found a scrunched-up tissue in my pocket and dabbed at the blood. It kept coming, so I flattened the tissue, pressed it hard against my palm, and bent to look at the doorknob.

  A tiny bit of metal jutted from the bottom edge of the key slot. Several scratches marred the surrounding surfaces, and they were too bright and clean to have been there long. Jay tilted his nose toward the knob and sniff sniff sniffed. “Interesting, huh, Bub?” Not for the first time I wished he could speak. I didn’t need my dog to tell me someone had jimmied the lock. Who would do that? And why?

  I turned the knob. The door swung out with a long, low moan and Jay growled behind me. I shushed him and peered into the storage room. The gloom made it hard to see, especially after the bright light outside, so I felt cautiously along the wall for a switch. A bare bulb responded, but there still wasn’t much to see. Other than a broom in the corner, the tools I remembered from Sunday morning were gone, and I assumed the police had taken them. One thought led to another, and I pulled my phone out, dialed Hutchinson’s number, and left a message on his voice mail. After I ended the call, I called back. “Hutch, I, uh, I opened the door and cut myself on the knob where it was jimmied, so, um, my fingerprints and blood are on it. Just so you know.” Right. Just so you know I’m a big dope.

  I stepped onto the concrete stoop and elbowed the door shut. I wondered whether I should re-rig the crime-scene tape until Hutch had a chance to check it out but decided I had tampered with enough evidence for one day. Jay was looking toward the far end of the building, ears forward and nose working. “Come on, Bubby, you’re good at finding lost souls,” I said. “Let’s find Bonnie.” He trotted a few steps, then stopped and let out a short, soft booffff. Something moved just past the far end of the building, about where Ray’s truck was parked, assuming it was still there.

  Bonnie? Had she come back to Ray’s truck?

  Almost as soon as I thought of Bonnie, I knew it wasn’t her. It was too big. And it was brown. Jay growled, and I laid a hand on his neck and whispered, “Quiet.” We crept a few steps farther, and I realized I was looking at the back of a person. A large person in a shapeless brown suit. It was the heavy half of goon and gooner. I told Jay to sit, pulled his leash over my head, and clipped it to his collar. I
f these guys were armed and belligerent, the last thing I wanted was for Jay to go near them.

  I took a step backward and was about to turn and retreat when his skinnier half stepped into full view. He grinned and raised his right hand in a gesture that didn’t register at first. Then I realized he was pointing a finger gun at me. A thrill of electricity ran through me, but I resisted my inner chicken. What’s the first thing to remember when faced with a dangerous animal?

  Don’t run!

  twenty-eight

  I squared my shoulders and walked to within speaking range of the two men. The skinny one’s threatening gesture had confirmed my assessment of them as thugs, and a strange brew of fear and anger was whooshing through my veins. They might scare me, but I wouldn’t let them scare me off.

  “What are you doing?” It was a silly question, since Ray’s truck door was open, and it was now obvious that they had jimmied the storage room door as well.

  “Just out for a walk,” said Skinny. He had eyes too pale to be called blue and a ragged scar from jaw-hinge to nose.

  “In Ray Turnbull’s truck?” Shhh, Janet. Don’t be foolhardy. “This is private property,” I said, surprised at how firm my voice sounded, “I’ve already called the police, so I think you’d better leave.”

  Skinny’s buddy slammed the truck door and turned toward me, hands in his pockets. Jay stood up and stepped between me and the men, and I could almost feel his muscles tense through the air

  between us. The fat man glanced at my dog, then back at me. “You own this place?” I guess I expected him to have a Joe Viterelli sort of voice, low and gruff, but he sounded more like Porky Pig. “Cuz if you don’t, maybe you the one better leave.”

  “I have the owner’s permission to be here.” Sort of. I would have if I had called him. “And I’m sure you don’t.”

  Fatman seemed to consider that, but Skinny let out a goofy laugh and turned deadly serious. “Maybe we should have a little chat, long as we’re all here together.” Before I could ask what on earth we would chat about, he continued. “Where’s your friend, what’s her name these days? Summer?”

  Summer? Of course it made sense they knew her, or at least knew who she was, if they knew Evan and Ray, but what did he mean about her name? “I have no idea. I haven’t seen her since Sunday.”

  “Know where we can find her?” It was the fat one, and I realized with a start that he had edged into a position slightly behind me, although well out of reach.

  “As I said, no idea.” I had just pulled my phone out and was trying to decide whether to call 9-1-1 or Hutchinson when it rang and I answered. “Ah, Detective Hutchinson. Good timing … Remember those two men I mentioned?” The goons glanced at one another while I kept talking. “They’re here at the crime scene …” I turned my gaze past Skinny to the road. “Yes, I see you … Good, you can talk to them when you get here.”

  Both men turned their heads toward the road. It was empty but for a black SUV approaching in the distance. Skinny tipped an imaginary hat at me before they climbed into their gray sedan and drove away, and I restarted my lungs and spoke into the phone again. “You still there?”

  “What’s going on? Are you okay?” It was Tom.

  I filled him in.

  “I think you should get out of there.”

  A giggling fit took me, but I managed to say, “I scared them away.”

  “You’re sure they’re gone?”

  “I watched them drive away. I’m fine.” Silence. “Really, everything’s fine. Jay and I are going to walk around the property and then I’m outta here.” I promised to call when I left.

  I let Jay off his leash and started down the narrow grass-studded dirt lane that skirted the field. Jay trotted ahead but never got more than fifty or so feet away before he checked in with me. We had been walking for five minutes or so when he stopped short ten yards in front of me, head high, ears forward, body still. The cornrow stubble ran at a right angle to the lane and blocked my view of whatever had his attention. He glanced at me, then turned, crouching slightly, muscles tense. I scanned the field but saw nothing other than the broken gold of last year’s crop. Then something moved. I caught bare glimpses as something black rose above the chopped-off stalks and disappeared. Again.

  Bonnie.

  twenty-nine

  Jay leaped out of his crouch and raced into the field, and I started to run toward the spot where he had started. Then a scream, and an explosion of black against the pale blue sky. I stopped and swore. Crows. I walked on to where I could look down the row to where Jay was now sniffing something, his back end turned toward me. More dead things, I thought, stepping into the field. The ground was borderline muddy from the rain earlier, and globs of heavy clay glued themselves to my shoes. I stopped, debating whether to continue or retreat.

  I called my dog, and he looked over his shoulder at me. “Come,” I called. He looked at the thing on the ground, but turned and came running. “Good boy,” I said, scratching his ear and squinting to make out what was so interesting to dogs and birds. My heart did a little flip when I saw that it, too, was black. I ignored the muck and walked on. Jay trotted ahead, again blocking my view. He stooped, turned toward me with something in his mouth, and trotted back. As he closed the distance, the object in his grasp became clear, and I whispered, “Thank God.” Jay sat in front of me and dropped the dead crow at my feet. We left it there, and as we resumed our walk on the grass-strewn lane, I recalled reading that crows and other corvids mourn their dead. I felt a tinge of guilt for having crashed the funeral.

  The rest of our reconnaissance was uneventful and unrewarding, and I felt sadness drop over me like wet wool. I stared at the ground as I trudged toward my van. What else can go wrong? I wondered. No sign of Bonnie. Her owner dead, apparently not by his own hand after all. And the joy of bringing a new puppy into our lives—our lives, I acknowledged—dampened by the city council’s arbitrary pet limit. We now exceeded it, and Tom had two weeks to get out of his house. Under normal circumstances, we would just move forward and figure it out. But Councilman Martin’s arrival next door made our situation anything but normal. One thing I knew for sure was that if the bill passed, Tom and I would rehome ourselves before we’d rehome any of our animals.

  “Janet!”

  The voice startled me out of my walking stupor. Giselle stood between my van and her own car watching Jay and her Maltese, Precious, say their doggy hellos.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Same thing you are, I guess?” Giselle picked Precious up and I stroked the little guy’s cheek. “I got out of class and thought we could take another look around for the dog. We walked around inside the building,” she waved a hand toward the long pole building, “and the pens and arena.” She heaved a long sigh. “I don’t even know that dog, but I’d like to think someone would look for Spike if something happened to me.”

  I felt my forehead crinkle. “Who’s Spike?” As far as I knew, Giselle had just one little dog, and he had just one horrifying name. Precious.

  Giselle’s carefully applied blusher deepened a shade and she giggled. “Oh, Homer says Precious is a ridiculous name for a dog, especially a boy.” The little white dog in her arms let out a sharp yip, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he agreed with Homer Hutchinson. “He’s been calling him Spike, and, well …”

  “Spike’s a fine name,” I said, gripping Giselle’s arm, “but tell me!”

  A funny little smile took hold of Giselle’s mouth, and when she looked into my eyes, bright lights were dancing in hers. “We had, umm, kind of a date?”

  “Ha! That’s great!” My sense of calendar time kicked in, and suddenly I was confused. “Wait. That was yesterday …” It was, wasn’t it? “I just gave Hutch your phone number …”

  “He called me yesterday and we, umm, met for dinner.” She let out a long sigh and added, “He brought me flo
wers.” Once she started talking, Giselle let the story rip, and by the time she finished, my cheeks hurt from grinning. “He didn’t leave until almost midnight. And tonight …”

  A whoop that seemed to come out of my mouth cut her off. “Tonight? This is great, Giselle. I’m so happy for both of you.” I’m not much of a matchmaker and I would never have thought to put the two of them together, but in retrospect, they were perfect for each other.

  “Me too,” Giselle said. We girl-chattered a bit more, and then she shifted to a less cheerful topic. “So I guess someone knocked that man …”

  “Ray.”

  “Yes, Ray. Someone hit him, you know, his head, with something and then hanged him, and apparently he had a record, a police record? And I guess he was a gambler so maybe that’s why …”

  “Hutch told you all this?” That seemed odd to me. The investigation was very new, and in my not-as-limited-as-I-would-like experience, the police didn’t share many details with civilians.

  “Not exactly?” Giselle has obviously not completely conquered her habit of speaking in questions when nervous. “I heard him on the phone, I mean, he didn’t really know I could hear because I came back from the bathroom and … I heard a little?”

  Jay was lying near the fence, and as I gazed at him, I thought about how he had always been happy to see Ray when we went to the Winslows’ place. In fact, all the dogs liked the man, including his own, and I tend to trust canine and feline assessments. To Giselle, I simply said, “Ray wasn’t the friendliest guy around, but I never picked up any, I don’t know, ‘bad guy’ vibes. Are you sure Hutch was talking about Ray?”

  “Pretty sure?” said Giselle. “I mean, who else could he have meant? He said, ‘So it wasn’t suicide,’ and then he listened for a while, and then … I don’t remember exactly what he said, but something about getting a copy of the records from the Reno police and then he said, ‘picked the wrong bookie,’ and then he saw I was back and he cut off the call.”