Foal Play: A Mystery by Kathryn O'Sullivan Read Free Book Online

hunch, on her dreaded gut. Oh well. It didn’t matter. She’d get the impressions with or without his help.
    “Rodney, get the men around the house. Let me know if you find any footprints,” Bill called to his deputy and turned back to Colleen. “Anything else?”
    Colleen was stunned. He had done what she asked without question. He made it hard for her to stay mad at him when he acted like that. Maybe she should be the one who started the apologies.
    “Bill, about this morning,” she said, but before she could continue a car rounded the corner and blinded them with its headlights.
    Colleen and Bill raised their hands to shield their eyes from the light. The car slowed and stopped before them. The engine and lights still on, they heard the car door open and slam closed. Colleen squinted and tried to make out the driver.
    “Hey, cut the lights,” Bill said.
    A hulking shadow emerged from the dark and waddled into the light.
    “Bobby,” Colleen said to herself, a sinking feeling in her stomach.
    “Mind turning off those lights, Bobby?” Bill asked, gently this time.
    Bobby disappeared and the lights went out. He shuffled toward them.
    “I’ll handle this,” Bill said to Colleen and walked to meet Bobby halfway.
    Colleen watched Bobby as Bill talked to him about what had happened. In her experience, when people arrived to find their home damaged or destroyed by fire with a loved one having perished inside they were distraught, an expression of anguish on their faces. Colleen found it curious that the younger Crepe seemed oddly calm. But everyone reacted to loss differently, she reminded herself. Perhaps she misread Bobby’s reaction. Perhaps his lack of emotion meant he was in shock.
    Colleen surveyed her team to see how they were doing with the salvage and overhaul—a critical stage in the firefighting process. A rekindled fire was something to be avoided at all costs. If firefighters had to return to a scene due to a rekindle it often meant the loss of resident lives and firefighter jobs. Her guys were nearing completion and would be able to take-up soon. Movement from the azaleas near Myrtle’s house caught her eye. Colleen stared at the bushes and waited. The plants rustled again. Something or someone was in the shrubs.
    Colleen cautiously approached the foliage at the edge of the property. The image of the man with the gun at the Currituck Beach Lighthouse flashed through her mind. She hesitated then moved forward, reasoning that nobody would shoot her with so many emergency and law enforcement personnel present. She inched closer to the brush.
    “Hello?” she said. Nothing. “Is someone there?” Again nothing. Colleen exhaled and tipped her hat back. She was tired. Her mind was playing tricks on her. It was probably a possum or raccoon. She turned away.
    “Burn burn burn,” came a voice from behind her.
    Colleen whipped around and came face to face with Crazy Charlie. Charlie Nuckels was a large, thick man, the kind who could have been a strongman in the carnivals when they still traveled up the East Coast from Gibbtown, Florida. Unfortunately for Charlie, the community, and vacationers, Charlie had no awareness of his immense size. After Charlie had accidentally jumped on children twice while playing in the sand and once nearly drowned a nine-year-old girl while boogie boarding in the surf, Colleen and Bill had agreed that Charlie needed to be barred from the beach. They hadn’t wanted to ban him but it had become unsafe not to. Charlie wasn’t so much crazy as mentally different. The local kids had nicknamed him Crazy Charlie decades ago, mostly for the bizarre things he said, and the name had stuck.
    “What are you doing here, Charlie?” Colleen asked.
    “Burn burn burn,” he said, bouncing up and down.
    “It’s okay. The fire is out. You don’t need to worry,” she said, trying to reassure him.
    “Burn burn burn!” Charlie screamed back at her.
    “Shut him up!” shouted Bobby,