A Nose for Justice by Rita Mae Brown Read Free Book Online

books of Marks and Reed.
    In Nevada people began to say, “The Reed touch” instead of “The Midas touch.” By 1960, no one thought to discount the slender, still very attractive Jeep born in 1924. Most people liked her. Those who didn’t were generally those who had been stupid enough to belittle her way back when. And people being loyal to their own tragedies, bewailing of their fate—a fate they created but would never accept responsibility for—became part of the family jewels, so to speak. Every one of the Filberts, Isadores, and Larsons hated her. At least now they had sense enough to fear her. Good thing.
    The war taught Jeep Reed that anyone who acts like an enemy is an enemy. Kill the enemy. That’s the job of a soldier, sailor, airman, marine. Remove the threat to your people. That kind of thinking is now considered antiquated, but Jeep still believed it. She wouldn’t kill her enemies physically but she crushed them otherwise.
    Peering down at the skeleton before her, she thought,
This man had been someone’s enemy
. Three ribs on the left side bore distinct, smooth, deep incisions. He’d been stabbed twice by someone powerful. The deceased had heavy bones, was around five foot ten inches tall, and symmetrical in form with large good teeth.
    He lay faceup.
    “Must have had a killer smile.” Jeep steadied the camera box with both hands, focusing on his skull.
    “If he graduated in 1887, he would have been what, twenty-one or twenty-two at graduation?” Mags, like Jeep, was falling under the spell of this long-dead man.
    “Somewhere around that. To make it easy, let’s say twenty.” Jeep placed the camera on the broad, cold seat of the ATV parked next to the grave. “Hewas probably in his thirties, at the most early forties, when he met his Maker. His teeth are all there. Given the time in which he lived, most people lost a few or all by the time they reached middle age.”
    “Here’s the thing.” Mags looked down, then at the surrounding earth where the other stalls once stood. “When a body decays, it blows up full of gas. He was only three feet down. Why didn’t the earth swell up? And dogs would smell him down there. We can’t, of course.”
    King, laying near the heater, raised his head.
“She’s not so dumb.”
    “I trained her.”
Baxter barked on the other side of the heater.
    In his four years of life, King had somewhat gotten to known Mags on her visits, which were usually just long weekends. He liked her just fine but he figured she was like most of her species: limited senses, limited sense, and appallingly self-centered.
    From down below in the hole, Enrique considered Mags’s point. “Well, the horse, shod, moving around in the stall, that would keep tamping the earth down. That’s the only thing I can think of.”
    Jeep knelt at the edge of the grave for another shot. “The boys should be back to work tomorrow. Roads have to be a little better now that the storm’s passed. I’ll call Pete. I imagine at this point we’ll be low on his to-do list, but that’s fine with me.”
    “Wouldn’t be fine if it was a crisis.” Mags teased her.
    “Then I’d be number one.” Jeep smiled back.
    “Whoever killed this guy laid him out with respect.” Enrique stepped up and out with a hand up from Mags. “He wasn’t dumped facedown or rolled onto his side. He was laid flat, faceup, legs straightened and arms by his side. Respect.”
    “Curious.” Jeep sighed.
    Mags studied her old great-aunt for a long moment. “You’ve seen so much death. Isn’t this just one more body?”
    Enrique looked at his mother. He’d never really thought of that.
    “You get used to death as you age. Doesn’t mean I like saying goodbye, but I’ve learned to celebrate the lives of the departed. Do the same for me when my time comes.”
    “Mom, don’t say that.”
King loved his human.
    “I guess we should enjoy the interludes between goodbyes,” Mags said.
    “They seem fewer and farther