Shepherd's Crook by Sheila Webster Boneham Read Free Book Online

slippers.” I sighed. “My dad’s size.”
    Daddy’s been gone for years.

eleven
    Sunday morning found me wishing I had drunk one fewer vodka lemonades the night before. If I hadn’t needed to get to the trial grounds by eight o’clock, I would have wrapped my throbbing head in an ice pack for an hour or two. As it was, Tom had snuck out early for a field training session with Drake, and I had slept through the alarm clock. I barely had time to get dressed, grab my dog and my camera, and hit the road. Thank the caffeine gods that my favorite java drive-through was on the way.
    I parked my van just about where I had the day before, but there was no way Jay was staying there unattended. He trotted beside me as I crossed the part of the field roped off for parking, which was filling up with vans and trucks and other dogmobiles. In the distance, several people tossed discs for leaping dogs, including Kathy, the woman I had met the day before with Edith Ann. I made a mental note to try to get some good shots to send her as a thank you.
    The arena and adjacent pens were still empty, so Jay and I headed up the well-traveled roadway toward the big corral. Evan was loading the hayrack with breakfast for the woollies, and the sweet scent of fresh hay wound around me as I approached. Jay stopped to sniff at a door in the side of the building, whining softly, but he came to me when I called.
    â€œGood morning.”
    Evan turned, brushing the front of his sweatshirt with his fingers. “Hi, Janet.”
    â€œAny news?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    He nodded, sniffed, and rubbed his cheek against his sleeve. “Damn hay dust gets me.”
    Right . The mental version of a photo I had taken of Evan holding a newborn lamb, still steaming, came to me. In the picture, he sat on the ground, his thigh pressed into the ewe’s hip, the lamb cradled in his arms. The expression on his face would have done St. Francis proud.
    â€œRay usually does this.” He glanced around and added, “Usually beats me by an hour.”
    Evan had no sooner stopped speaking than Summer’s voice crackled behind me. “He’s nowhere to be found. We’ll have to make do.” Okay, so she didn’t fire him. She stopped beside me, her mouth smiling with no collaboration from her eyes, and said, “Maybe Janet can help for a bit.”
    My hand massaged the big killer-sheep bruise on my hip, but my mouth said, “Sure, happy to.”
    Summer turned back the way she had come, and Evan picked up a galvanized bucket and said, “Be right back. I’ll switch this out for a wheelbarrow.”
    I stood close to the fence and breathed in the almost tangible fragrance of sheep and half-chewed hay. I like to watch animals eating. Unlike too many people, our nonhuman kin nearly always look deeply satisfied, no matter the fare. The sheep nearest the fence eyed Jay as she—or perhaps it was a wether—chewed, and I would be hard pressed to say whether the look was thoughtful or indifferent.
    Something clanked behind me and the whole flock jumped away from the fence, snorting and baaing. Jay spun around; I flinched and turned. Evan stood just outside the door Jay had sniffed, not the big sliding door, but what looked to be the way into a storage room. He folded at the waist and stumbled away from the building. The bucket rocked back and forth on the narrow concrete apron. I crossed the roadway, my heart racing even before I looked into the room and wished I had not.
    Ray Turnbull hung from a crossbeam, a length of rope knotted around his neck.

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