Linda Crowder - Jake and Emma 01 - Too Cute to Kill

by Linda Crowder

  Too Cute

  to Kill

  A Jake and Emma Mystery

  LINDA CROWDER

  ISBN-13: 978-1481884839

  © 2012 Linda Crowder

  First Edition

  2014 Second Edition

  Cover Art by Carla Gabriel Garcia

  All Rights Reserved Including:

  The right of reproduction in any form, or by any mechanical or electronic means including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, in whole or in part in any form and in any case not without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  This work is fictional. Any resemblance to any human being, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to three people, whose love and support have been a constant inspiration to me. Without their faith in me, my life would be a lonely place.

  My husband, Allen Crowder

  My mother, Lucy Miller

  My sister, Sue Cooper

  1

  Emma stopped on her way to the barn to listen to the distant whistle of a freight train moving through town. She couldn’t see the lights of Casper tonight, cloaked as it was in the November snowstorm. Even the ever-present sound of the traffic was hushed. Emma loved snows like this, the fat flakes drifting aimlessly down all around her. It was like being in a snow globe.

  She sighed as a gust of wind reminded her of how cold that snow could be and she hurried to the shelter of the barn. Charlie met her at the door, jumping around her excitedly as Emma switched on the light and shut the door against the wind.

  Emma greeted the puppy, rubbing his ears as Charlie put his paws on Emma’s chest and tried to lick her face. Charlie wasn’t really a puppy but it was hard to think of the boisterous black lab as anything else.

  Charlie was a rescue dog. Someone had tossed him from a car when he was three months old, abandoning him in an empty field on a cold January day. It still made Emma’s blood boil to think of such cruelty.

  Standing patiently behind Charlie was Casper, his fur as white as Charlie’s was black. Casper had been on his last day at the shelter when Emma and Teddy had discovered him. He was a born runner, digging under or jumping over fences when he was a younger dog.

  Even at the ripe old age of thirteen, Casper always kept his eye out for an unguarded door or an unlatched gate. Charlie could be trusted to stay with Emma but outside the dog run, Casper had to be on a leash.

  It was his only fault though, thought Emma as she hooked the leash to his collar. She’d been a cat person all her life and had never been very fond of dogs. It had been Teddy who insisted on getting a dog and Emma had only reluctantly agreed.

  That all changed when she laid eyes on the large, pure white husky-shepherd. She had named him Casper, after the friendly ghost. At that time, she never even heard of the city in central Wyoming. She certainly hadn’t imagined that ten years later she would be living there.

  It was fate, she supposed. Her life had changed so much since that day at the animal shelter. Teddy had disappeared from her life, fading away after the divorce as if he’d never known her.

  At first, Emma had been hurt by the failure of her marriage, then horribly lonely. She had gone out on a few dates with friends of friends but she hadn’t really been looking for anything serious so soon after her divorce.

  Then she met Jake Rand. Emma hadn’t expected to fall in love with him. When she first saw him, he was proudly holding up the head of a bull elk he’d just shot, grinning at her from the picture on a colleague’s office wall. Emma didn’t exactly disapprove of hunting, but something about that picture made her shudder.

  When she met him at a juvenile justice conference in Chicago a few months later, she’d had trouble reconciling the outdoorsman in the picture with the articulate attorney speaking on a panel addressing special needs youth. Introducing herself afterward, she mentioned the photo. He’d laughed heartily and launched into an animated account of what had been his first elk. They’d exchanged business cards.

  After the conference, they struck up an e-mail friendship that led to phone calls and gradually turned into love. When they decided to get married, they debated for weeks whether she should move to Wyoming or he should move to California. In the end, Emma opted for the relaxed pace of the Casper lifestyle and she’d never regretted it.

  Emma opened the barn door and Charlie bolted out into the storm. Casper walked sedately, stopping here and there to sniff the wind. If it were warmer, Emma might have been tempted to loiter between the house and barn, enjoying the evening and the quiet but the wind was biting and she urged the older dog to quicken his pace.

  “You’re going to spoil those dogs.” Jake looked disapprovingly at her as he opened the door. Charlie barreled past him and plunked down in front of the fire that was burning cheerfully in the pellet stove.

  Emma smiled up at Jake as she unhooked Casper’s leash and he joined Charlie by the fire. “And how would that be different from the way you spoil them?” she teased. “It was too cold for Charlie in the barn. It’s supposed to be below zero tonight.”

  “Not this early in the season,” he countered. “You just like having them near you.”

  Emma put away Casper’s leash and wrapped her arms around her husband. She reached up to kiss him. “I like having you near me.”

  Jake smiled and returned her kiss. “You could spoil me instead of the dogs.” A long, loud cat hiss interrupted them. Peachy had discovered the dogs.

  Peachy was not fond of dogs and she didn’t see any reason why two of them should be allowed to invade her living room. She was standing doorway between the living room and the hall leading to the bedrooms with tail puffed and back arched.

  “Oh stop that,” Emma laughed, letting go of Jake and walking over to the angry cat. “The dogs aren’t going to hurt you. You have plenty of house to share.”

  The cat disagreed, but stalked silently to the couch. She jumped up and curled up on her blanket – placed in just the spot where she liked best to nap. The cat cast a wary eye on the dogs. They hadn’t paid a bit of attention to her.

  “Where’s the monster?” Emma asked, looking around for the white ball of fluff that had been terrorizing the house since last winter.

  Jake found the kitten in the breezeway one morning. She was cold and bedraggled with her eyes barely open. He brought her to Emma, who immediately fell in love with the tiny baby mewing pitifully his hand, not even strong enough to stand.

  She nursed the kitten to vibrant health, much to Peachy’s disapproval. From the time she could stand, Sparky was the bane of Peachy’s existence, pouncing on the older cat mercilessly and begging her to play.

  Peachy would ignore her, driving Sparky to jump onto her back and bite at Peachy’s ears. Then Peachy would roll the kitten and the two would wrestle, the intensity of the battles increasing as Sparky grew from kitten to cat.

  Peachy was a regal queen of the house who preferred to rule from her favorite throne if a lap were not available. Sparky was a fireball – into everything all the time, racing around the house in what Jake had dubbed her “kamikaze kitty” mode.

  “Up to no good, I’m sure,” answered Jake as he turned back to the breezeway. “You know how she is when the weather changes.” Emma nodded.

  Just then, Sparky came racing down the hallway and made a running leap at Emma. This was one of Sparky’s most endearing tricks. Emma had shared her life with a long line of kitty friends but only once before had a cat jumped into her arms like Sparky did.r />
  Emma watched Jake bring in a forty-pound bag of pellets to fill the stove. Built in the 1970’s, the house had electric heat. Jake had the pellet stove installed after their first eye-popping electric bill. Now they never had to turn on the baseboard heaters and the house stayed comfortably warm. The fact that stove made an inviting fire was a bonus.

  Jake picked his way past the sleeping dogs to pour the bag of pellets into the stove’s hopper. It was amazing how much floor space two dogs could cover. Casper lifted his head and thumped his tail on the floor as Jake stepped over him then went contentedly back to sleep. Charlie didn’t even flinch.

  Emma put Sparky down and the cat hopped up to snuggle with Peachy, who hissed with annoyance but allowed the younger cat to keep her paws warm.

  Walking to the bank of windows that faced Casper Mountain, Emma looked out at the night. There was a yellow glow coming from their neighbor’s horse barn. The snow was falling thickly now.

  Emma noticed the lights of a car coming down the county road. She shook her head and turned away from the window. “Thank God I don’t have anywhere to go in this weather,” she thought.

  2

  Emma woke to the sound of Jake singing in the shower. She smiled. It was nice to hear him so lighthearted. She nestled down in the warm bed and tried to go back to sleep.

  “Ugh,” she grunted as a cat landed heavily on her stomach. Sparky was not a large cat but she landed like a cannon ball when she wanted attention. She had been sitting on top of the headboard, waiting patiently for Emma to wake up and was not about to let her go back to sleep.

  Emma removed the cat and grudgingly got out of bed. She dressed warmly and followed the scent of coffee to the kitchen. Jake didn’t drink coffee but he always made a pot for Emma in the morning.

  Emma opened the back door for Casper and Charlie, who were not so patiently waiting. The dogs tumbled over each other into the fenced back yard, running and barking and chasing each other in the snow. Emma closed the door against the cold and started breakfast.

  Sunday morning meant waffles and Emma had Jake’s ready on the table when he came from the bedroom. “Good morning, beautiful.” He greeted her with a kiss and sat down at the table. “Did you take the dogs back to the barn already?”

  “Just let them out back for now,” answered Emma. “I was hungry. I’ll run them out to the barn after breakfast.”

  “They can hang out with us this morning if you want,” said Jake. “It’s going to be a cold one.” Emma agreed and they spent a leisurely morning reading the paper and watching football. By early afternoon Jake decided it was warm enough in the barn to let the dogs go back outside.

  They put on their coats and Emma put both dogs on leashes. Charlie was never as happy about going out to the barn as he was going in so it was best not to give him too much leeway.

  Casper stood by the door waiting. His heavy coat with a warm undercoat was made for Wyoming winters and while he loved being near his humans, Casper liked it best outside.

  Emma and Jake didn’t own horses so they had converted the barn and corral into a king-sized doghouse with a quarter acre dog run. An old couch served as Casper’s dog bed. A matching easy chair was for Charlie.

  Jake filled their heated water dish from the frost free tap while Emma poured dry dog food in their dishes, topped with a little chopped up antelope meat from Jake’s last hunting trip as a Sunday treat.

  Cats began to appear in the barn. Some dropped down from beds in the rafters and others pushed through the cat door in the barn wall. Emma chatted happily with each cat as it rubbed against her legs or jumped onto the shelf where she fed them away from the dogs.

  “All cats present and accounted for,” She cheerfully reported. Living in the country posed hazards for unwary barn cats so Emma did a daily “cat count” to be sure everyone came home safe. Leaving the animals happily eating in the barn, they latched the door and headed for the house.

  “What’s that?” Jake looked where Emma was pointing. Something dark was piled up next to the fence along the county road, partially buried by the snow.

  “Looks like a trash bag,” he grumbled. Emma understood his annoyance. Country people got used to strangers dumping trash on their land. That didn’t mean they liked it.

  People who were too cheap to pay the landfill fee drove out to the country to dump appliances, furniture and the occasional junk car. The landowner then had to pay to haul away and dispose of that garbage.

  Usually, people would dump trash at the edge of their property, away from the house. This lessened the possibility that she might catch them in the act. Now someone had dumped trash practically in her front yard! Emma wondered angrily how these city people would feel if she dumped her trash in their yards.

  Lost in these thoughts, Emma trailed after Jake as they walked toward the fence. He stopped suddenly and turned Emma around, pointing her away from the pile and toward the house. “Go back into the house,” he told her. “Call the police.”

  “Why?” Emma asked. “What’s the matter?”

  “It isn’t trash,” said Jake, his voice low and serious. “It’s a person. A body.”

  “Oh my God, are you sure? Are you sure he’s dead? Maybe he needs help.” Emma tried to turn toward the fence but Jake held her arm.

  “There’s a good six inches of snow on top of him, Em. Trust me, he’s beyond help. Now go call the police.”

  Shaking, Emma realized Jake was right and went inside. She told the dispatcher what they thought they found – God, she hoped Jake was wrong – and waited while the dispatcher spoke with a patrol car. He came back on the line to tell Emma not to touch anything until the officer arrived.

  She went outside to let Jake know the police were on their way. He was standing about five feet away from the fence. There were footprints in the snow leading up to the fence and back to where he was standing.

  She looked at his face. His jaw was set. “Was it….” she stopped. She knew the answer. He nodded. “Go back inside,” he told her. “I’ll wait here for the police.”

  Emma went back to the house and waited. A deputy arrived from the Sheriff’s office, his truck blocking access to the area where the body lay.

  Emma watched the deputy get out of his truck and walk to the body. He crouched down for a moment then straightened and spoke briefly with Jake. Returning to his truck, the deputy spoke into his radio and returned to stand beside Jake.

  Another officer arrived, followed by a vehicle from the Coroner’s office. Emma turned away from the window. She shuddered at the thought of the work they were doing. She wondered who the dead man was and how he ended up against her fence along a lonely country road.

  Six inches of snow, she thought, remembering what Jake said. How long would he have had to be in that spot to have been buried in six inches of snow?

  “How did he get there?” she asked out loud. The two cats only stared silently back at her.

  Country people knew the dangers of sudden storms. People could become disoriented in a white out and freeze to death if they couldn’t find shelter. It didn’t happen as often now but it did still happen.

  Emma wondered if this man was the elderly relative of one of her neighbors, come to visit for Thanksgiving. Perhaps he woke up in the night and became confused in unfamiliar surroundings. Perhaps he wandered off into the storm with no one realizing he was gone.

  But why didn’t anyone come looking for him in the morning? No, thought Emma. That can’t be what happened. She didn’t want to follow where her next thought led. What if it wasn’t an accident?

  A knock on the door brought Emma back to reality. She opened it to a deputy who asked a few questions, wrote down her answers and started to leave. “Do you know who that poor man is?” Emma asked.

  The deputy turned and looked back at her. “No ma’am, except that it isn’t a man; it’s a woman.” Emma’s face showed her surprise. “I thought you’d seen the victim, ma’am. Your husband said you didn’t know
her.”

  Emma shook her head. “I only saw her from a distance. We thought it was a bag of trash by the fence but when we got closer, Jake realized it was…a body…and he sent me in to call the police.”

  The deputy nodded. “You’d better come take a look then. Tell us if you know who she is.” Emma put her coat on and reluctantly followed the deputy. Jake stepped between her and the fence. “Is this really necessary? I told you we don’t know who she is.”

  “Yes sir. It’s just a formality but we need your wife to see if the victim is anyone she knows.” Jake looked down at Emma with a question in his eyes. She smiled up at him and squeezed his hand. “It’s ok,” she whispered. He stepped aside and Emma walked up to the fence.

  She looked down into the face of a stranger, feeling a wave of relief that this poor soul was no one she knew. She’d never seen a body outside of a funeral home and she was shocked at how white the dead woman’s face was. Even her lips were gray.

  She was lying on her side, bent as though she’d been sitting up against the fence and had fallen over. Emma couldn’t see any sign of violence, no obvious injuries to tell her how the woman had died.

  She wasn’t dressed for the storm, thought Emma. The woman was wearing a wine colored sweater with charcoal gray slacks and practical but professional shoes. Why would she wander into a storm without even wearing a coat?

  Emma stepped back into Jake’s waiting arms. She felt shaken, more so than she had expected. The deputy stood watching her with a mixture of sympathy and professional detachment.

  She shook her head in answer to his question. She didn’t know the woman, but she didn’t think she would ever forget her face. Jake helped her back into the house, made sure she would be all right and went back outside.

  Emma got herself into the bedroom, pulled off her shoes and climbed into the bed. She pulled the blankets up around her and shook from the impact of what she’d seen.

  Sparky jumped up beside her and offered what kitty comfort she could. Peachy sat by her feet at the end of the bed. Emma tried to get the woman’s face out of her mind but it haunted her. Who was this woman and how did she come to be alone and wandering in a Wyoming snowstorm?