The Dead Season by Donna Ball Read Free Book Online Page A

for each other when we had to, and even though she had only been back from Florida a few days herself, Maude had no problem moving in with her two dogs for a week to run the kennel and take care of Mischief and Magic while I was gone. In fact, I think she was as bored as I was with the extended holiday, and she was glad to have easy access to the training facility, which would give her goldens a head start on the competitive season. She was not, however, quite as enthusiastic about the details of the expedition. “No offense intended, my dear, but young people are hardly your specialty. Haven’t you told me over and over you’d rather have dinner with a golden retriever than a child any day? Why would you willingly agree to take an entire bevy of them on a wilderness hike?”
    I felt compelled to defend myself. “Well, I did okay with Melanie, didn’t I? She wasn’t exactly a little cupcake when I first met her.” She had, in fact, been a holy terror, and if the truth were told, it had been my dogs, not I, who had turned her around. Now Melanie was one of my favorite people, and the experience had suggested that there might, in fact, be other children in the world I could learn to like. “Besides,” I added, “these are teenagers, not children, and I’m just going along as a field specialist.” Whatever that was.
    “Troubled teenagers. What kind of trouble, do you suppose?”
    “Well, I don’t think any of them have served time. According to the website, rebelliousness, anger, disrespect, the usual.”
    “Hmm. Sounds a good deal like you when you were a teenager. Perhaps you’ll be of use after all.”
    “Thanks a lot.”
    Maude had clerked for my father, a district court judge, until his retirement, and had been practically a member of the family for as long as I could remember. She had pulled me out of more than one scrape as a teenager, and if she hadn’t, I doubt I would’ve grown up to be the respectable citizen I am today. “Anyway, that only goes to prove there’s hope for anyone.”
    “True enough. You’ve checked this fellow out, I suppose?”
    “Sure.” I guiltily remembered the video Miles had sent me, which I had not had time to watch. “That is, I’ll give Buck a call in a minute, but you don’t get the money for a building like that one unless you’re legitimate.”
    “I’m certain you know what you’re doing, my dear. What time shall I report for duty?”
    I arranged for her to mind the kennel while I ran errands the next day, and as soon as we hung up, I dialed the sheriff’s office. I was both surprised and oddly relieved when the dispatcher informed me that Buck was on vacation. In all the time we’d been married, the only vacation time Buck had taken was a few days here and there to go fishing. Of course, he hadn’t been sheriff then.
    And he hadn’t had a cute new girlfriend to go on vacation with.
    “You know things are dead around here this time of year,” she went on, “and I hear the weather is great in Florida. He’ll be back next week though if you want him to call you.”
    Florida? The farthest he had ever taken me was to the next county for a movie on Saturday night. And he hadn’t even told me he was leaving. The two of us might be estranged, but we did still talk.
    I guess things had really changed.
    I said, “No, umm, that’s okay. I just called to ask someone to check on something for me.” I explained to her about New Day, and she volunteered to do a computer search while I waited on the phone. A few minutes later, she came back with a clean report: permits and licenses in order, no complaints.
    “Oh, wait a minute,” she said, just as I thanked her absently and was about to hang up. “Here’s something. APB on a missing person last year from Bullard County, some kid went off a hiking trail. But he must’ve turned up because they closed out the case a couple of days later.”
    “Okay, sounds good, then,” I told her. “Thanks for your