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

roadway, so someone was me. I put Jay in a down-stay and, without looking again at Ray’s horrifying face, I stepped over a beat-up boot and started to reach for his wrist but hesitated. Three of his fingers were twisted in crazy directions, and swollen. I was sure they were broken. I forced my own fingers to grip his wrist.
    Cold. No pulse.
    I spun around and staggered out of the room, pulled my phone out, leaned against the side of the building, and slid to the ground. Deep breath, Janet, deep breath. Jay scooched up close beside me and placed a paw over the crook of my elbow as if to say, “It’s okay, I’m right here.” My hand seemed to be soldered to my phone at first, but I finally managed to punch in 9-1 -1. It took a couple of tries before the dispatcher deciphered the message. She offered to stay on the line with me until the first responders arrived, but I declined, and dialed again. I wanted a cop I knew. I called Homer Hutchinson.
    Once he recovered from the initial shock, Evan was so fidgety I thought my head might explode, so I sent him for coffee for both of us, preferably with a big shot of something very strong, early morning be damned. He was ten yards down the roadway when I called after him. “Evan, wait!”
    He stopped and turned around.
    â€œWhat about Bonnie?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œRay’s dog. Bonnie. Where is she?”
    â€œOh, God.” He looked like he might lose it again.
    I knew I should stay put to deflect lookie-loos and wait for the police or sheriff or whoever would have jurisdiction. But if Bonnie was missing, the sooner we started looking for her, the better. Ray might have left her in his truck or wherever he was staying, but that seemed unlikely. I couldn’t remember ever seeing Ray without the little black-and -white dog. If she witnessed Ray’s death, she might have run off, terrified. Then I remembered how she had barked at the fat guy in defense of her master, and my insides contracted. Whoever killed Ray might have hurt her—or worse. Especially if she had tried to protect him.
    â€œI’ll look.” Evan’s voice brought me back to the moment. “I’ll get your coffee first.” I told him to forget the coffee, and he took off.
    I called after him, “I’ll help as soon as the police are done with me.”
    Although I couldn’t see him, knowing that Ray was hanging dead a few yards from where I stood gave me the shakes. There was no one nearby, so I scurried through the big sliding door, put Jay in his crate with a cheese-stuffed chewy toy, and grabbed my folding chair. When I re-emerged from the building, the sound of approaching sirens took me back to the first murder investigation I’d been near, almost a year earlier. What happened to my quiet, boring life?
    And what makes you think this is murder? The more I thought about that, the more the answer slipped from my grasp. Ray wasn’t a big man, but he had lived a life of physical labor and he appeared to be healthy and strong. It was hard to imagine anyone bettering him without a struggle, and other than his boot on the floor, nothing in the storage room suggested a struggle, at least not in the brief look I’d had. I remembered thinking that Ray seemed angry on Saturday, although he was always a bit sullen. Then again, several people had seemed angry on Saturday—Summer certainly, and Evan, and the fat guy I’d seen with Ray.
    I got to my feet and paced back and forth across the roadway a few times, trying to force other images to replace my vision of Ray’s dead face. It was going to take a long time to bury that one, I knew.
    The next part of the morning was a blur of police officers, EMTs, the coroner, and I don’t know who else. It seemed as if dozens of people were milling around, although I was in such a state of semi-detachment that I can’t really say. About twenty minutes in, Hutch arrived and