“When the cat says no, little girl, dogs should listen,” Tom said. Jay and Drake sniffed Winnie, apparently decided she was fine, and went back to staring at chef Tom.
I looked at the puppy’s nose. Something was sticking up from the top of the moist black tip. “Did he scratch her there?”
Tom laid a hand over Winnie’s shoulder and neck and pinched something from the top of her nose with the other. He put it in the palm of his hand, looked at it, and held it for me to see. “A bit of his claw sheath.” He turned back to where Winnie had been, but her round little fanny was racing down the hall in search of more fun with Mr. Cat.
I went back to my laptop while Tom retrieved the puppy. He set up a baby gate to keep her in the kitchen, dished up the three doggy breakfasts, and put a leash on Winnie to keep her out of the big boys’ bowls.
“Need any help?”
Tom handed me Jay and Drake’s bowls and grinned at me. “I think she’s going to be a two-handed project for a while.”
Drake and Jay both had drool-globs dangling from their lips by the time I set the bowls down, but they waited for my “free” command before they inhaled their grub. Winnie took a little longer, particular the “sit and wait” phase of breakfast service, which was new and frustrating for a hungry puppy. But Tom is nothing if not patient, and when she managed to sit for five full seconds, he let her eat. I went back to my computer while he handed out carrots for their post-breakfast treat.
My first search was simply Ray Turnbull’s name. Aside from recent news of our Ray’s death, I found links to a curler and broadcaster from Manitoba and a plumber from Florida, but no stockmen from Nevada or anywhere else. That didn’t mean much, though, since Ray didn’t strike me as a guy who would have a website or spend much time on social media. Next I typed in Turnbull + sheep and found someone, but he had a different first name and he lived in England. I found some Turnbulls in the Reno area, but no Rays.
Tom took the dogs out again and I started to shut down my computer, but decided to take one last run at finding Ray. If Summer was hiding behind a pseudonym, maybe Ray was, too. I leaned back and closed my eyes. My mind was still flailing around for a starting point when Tom brought the dogs back in. Winnie took a couple of laps around the kitchen, but her morning romp and full belly had taken the edge off her energy, and she soon flopped down between Jay and Drake, rolled onto her side, and heaved a big sigh.
“Looking for more on Summer?”
“Ray. But no luck so far, at least not under Ray Turnbull.”
Tom poured our coffee and said, “Okay, ten-minute limit, but let’s take one more stab at it.” He grinned at me. “I’m not sure we should be playing detective, but it is kind of fun puzzling out the details.”
We brainstormed search terms and watched the results for anything remotely promising. Raymond Turnbull found nothing new. Ray + Nevada + sheep was equally disappointing.
“Try just ‘Ray Turner,” said Tom. “I read somewhere that people often choose new names similar to their old ones.”
“That seems pretty obvious,” I said, but I tried it. Nothing. Ditto Ray Turn + Nevada.
The ten minutes and our coffee were nearly used up when I had another idea. “You know, I always thought ‘Turnbull’ was the perfect name for a guy who handles livestock. I mean, lately he’s been working with sheep, but what if he used to work with cattle and just made up the name?”
Tom finished his coffee and set the mug on the table. “I bet there are a lot of cowboys named Ray, if that’s even his name.”
“Maybe something else?” I type Ray + Nevada + bull and found a man who braided bull ropes. “What the heck is a bull rope?” We both leaned in to read and learned that a bull rider grips a braided bull rope for the eight-second attempted ride in a rodeo. I typed again—Ray + Nevada + bull rider. That brought up several names, but none fit our guy.
“Rats,” I said, fingers poised for another search string, if I could think of one.
“Time’s up and I’m starving.” Tom stood up and kissed the top of my head. “I need more than two eggs and a piece of toast. Let’s go to the diner.”
He didn’t have to ask twice.
forty-seven
We had such an early start that it wasn’t yet eight when Tom dropped me at home and took off with Drake and Winnie to pack more books. I resisted the urge to do more Googling and focused for a couple of hours on tasks that would pay the bills. As I hit publish on the last set of proofs and they posted to my website, I looked around to see where all the very quiet creatures were. Leo and Jay didn’t worry me, but a silent Pixel could mean trouble. But there she was, curled into a sleeping gray ball inside the bigger curve of Leo’s body. They were on a chair in a shaft of sunlight, and their fur shone like pewter and gold. I carefully lifted my camera and took several shots. The soft clicks of the shutter release woke Jay. He stood, stretched, yawned, and laid his head on my thigh.
“You’re right, Bubby. Time for some fun.” He cocked his head. “Maybe Goldie and Bonnie would like to go with us. What do you think?” Goldie was game, and twenty minutes later we parked at the River Road Trailhead for the Rivergreenway, unloaded the dogs, and headed east along the chocolaty Maumee River.
“She’s such a good girl,” said Goldie, “I don’t know that she even needs that obedience class.”
“She probably doesn’t, but it will be good for you, and help you build a stronger relationship.”
“Oh, I’m going!” Goldie’s laugh blended with the birdsong rising from the beeches and sycamores and oaks along the riverbank. “I’m really excited about it. And I know Bonnie will get me through.” At the sound of her name, Bonnie turned toward Goldie and wagged her bushy tail, then rejoined Jay. The two of them trotted at the ends of their six-foot leashes, but they didn’t pull. “I have very few regrets, but I’m beginning to regret all the years I’ve lived without a pet.”
“Maybe the time just wasn’t right,” I said, although other than college I couldn’t imagine a time in my own life when an animal didn’t fit in. “And you have a pair of lovelies now.”
We walked in silence for a while, the kind of silence that, between simpaticos, feels like communication. The air had that early spring mix of fresh leaves and new grasses and cool mud. We turned around at the one-mile marker and were just in sight of the parking lot when a little white dog trotted into view followed by a woman in leggings and a tunic. Her face was obscured behind big sunglasses, and she was too far away to see clearly at any rate. The dog stopped short and barked at us. “Quiet!” I knew the voice, and waved.
“Giselle! You cut your hair!” When I had first gotten to know Giselle, she’d been very overweight, unhappy, and not very nice to be around. She had tried to hide behind baggy dark clothing, lanky hair, and garish makeup. I still had trouble reconciling that woman with the stylish person in front of us now.
“Do you like it?” She pulled her sunglasses off and smiled when we both said we loved it. “I just had it done this morning. I went for a trim, and saw a picture on the wall of the salon, and, well, ta-da!”
Maybe you should try something like that. It was my pesky inner nag. Every so often she reminded me that I didn’t have to go four months between trims and wrestle with my curly mess for three of those months.
Conversation quickly shifted to the murder investigation and missing persons and sheep, and I knew when Giselle narrowed her eyes at me that she was going to suggest something crazy.
“Janet, maybe we could find an excuse to go look around the Winslows’ place.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think that’s a good—”
Goldie piped up. “You know, I’ve been thinking about taking up knitting again.” I stared at her. “What? I used to knit … When I was a little girl … A little.”
“I knit!” Giselle said. “Let’s go to the yarn shop and see what’s going on!”
“The last time we did something like this—”
“It was great fun and we solved the case,” said Goldie.
“We got in trouble, and no, we didn’t!” Then again, I thought, we did learn things that helped move the investigation along. “I’ll drive.”
An hour later, we pulled into the parking area in front of the Hole in the Wall Yarn Shop. Jay and Bonnie were in the big crates in the back of my van, and Spike was snuggled up on a fleece pad in his tiny carrier on the backseat. It was fifty degrees outside and breezy, so we cracked all the windows for the dogs and locked the van.
No one seemed to be about the place, but Evan’s beat-up old Toyota truck was parked where it had been the last time I was there, although now it faced out, as if set for a quick getaway. A flock of starlings flushed from a trumpet vine that festooned the woven wire fence between the two pastures. Like the last time I was there, the hillside was dotted with sheep, but the sky this time was dappled with pewter and lit by a cold sun.
Goldie stood facing the pasture directly behind the shop and barn, the one with the sheep. “How lovely!”
Giselle and I flanked her and I scanned the flock scattered across the green. I didn’t see Luciano.
“Maybe we should check in the shop?” Giselle said, turning toward the building. Goldie and I followed a few paces behind but stopped when Giselle said, “They’re closed.” She pointed at the sign in the window, then crossed the porch, made blinders of her hands, and pressed them against the glass to peer in. “I can’t see much. The lights are off. Oh!” She knocked on the door. “I thought I saw someone.” We waited. She knocked again, and finally said, “Weird. It must have been a shadow. It looks like a great place. Darn it.”
Goldie snorted. “We didn’t actually come to shop.”
“I know, but still …” Giselle turned toward us and shrugged. “Should we look around?”
Adventure Janet shouted Yeah! Let’s look around! while Sensible Shoes Janet wrung her hands and said Oh dear oh dear, I don’t think we should. The decision was out of my hands, though, as Goldie and Giselle were already crossing the yard toward the pasture gate.
Goldie gripped the gate latch and said, “Maybe they’re out there. Let’s—”
“Stop!” I ran toward her and covered her hand with my own. “Luciano might be out there.”
“Who?” Goldie asked.
“Sounds like a Mafia hit man!” Giselle elbowed Goldie and they started to laugh.
“You won’t think it’s funny if he catches you in his pasture.” I studied the animals on the hillside again and saw no dogs, but I wasn’t about to go into the pasture until I knew for sure where Luciano was. “Let’s check the house and the barn before we go traipsing up the hill.”
The house wasn’t buttoned down as tight as it had been the last time I was at the farm. The curtains were open, and a pot of Johnny jump-ups sat on a blue ladder-back chair by the front door. I didn’t recall seeing them the day before, but couldn’t be sure. No one answered when I knocked, and as we turned to backtrack, my gaze swept the area. At first nothing seemed out of place, but when the sun peeped out from the cloud cover it caught on something near the porch.
“What’s that?” asked Goldie, peering over my shoulder as I picked the object out of the grass.
I looked at Goldie and said, “Shotgun shell.”
forty-eight
“A shotgun shell?” Goldie and Giselle asked at the same time.
“Evan said they’ve been having trouble with coyotes,” I said, but knew that shooting right outside the front door seemed odd. The predators would be after the sheep, especially the lambs, and would have no reason to hang around the house. Canine predators, at least. I thought of the thugs from Cleveland and my fight-or-flight response kicked in. One little voice screamed “Get out of there! You’re all in danger!” while the other insisted on looking for Evan and his dogs. I stared at the empty shell for another few seconds and set it back where I found it.
“Let’s check the barn,” I said, and we hurried back around the house and across the yard.
The sliding door at the end of the building was half open and we stepped onto a dirt floor strewn with bits of hay. It was too dim inside to see well, but the musty warmth of hay mingled with animal scents filled my nose and warmed my soul. A dove cooed somewhere in the rafters, and something moved in a stall ahead and to my right.
“There must be a light switch around here,” said Goldie from somewhere behind me.
A few seconds later a pair of dusty bare bulbs came on above us and I walked farther into the barn. Luciano’s stall was at the far end. I was about ten feet from it and convinced he wasn’t there when a barrage of basso profondo barking knocked me back a step. Something heavy whammed into the wooden barrier between us and Luciano’s big head appeared behind the chain link that formed the upper part of the stall. He kept barking, and I didn’t want to imagine what he was threatening to do to me.
“No problem, big guy,” I said. I backed away slowly until the barking slowed to sporadic, then turned and walked back to Goldie and Giselle. “That answers that question,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“If anyone’s around, they must know we’re here after that ruckus,” said Goldie. “Not very friendly, is he?”
Giselle said, “He’s just doing his job. He’s guarding his sheep and his farm.” She glanced back and added, “But I see why you wanted to be sure of his whereabouts.”
Maybe it was the shot of adrenaline Luciano gave me, but I started to laugh. “Whereabouts? Have you been hanging out with a cop or something?”
We had stepped out of the barn by then and I could see that Giselle’s cheeks had gone bright pink. Goldie saw it, too, and something seemed to click. She said, “Oh my gosh! You’re Hutch’s new lady love! He told me he was seeing someone, but he never mentioned your name.” She elbowed Giselle. “Quite a gentleman. Doesn’t kiss and tell.” Goldie studied the other woman’s face as we walked and added, “You know, he’s really quite smitten with you.” Then, as if to take the pressure off Giselle, Goldie pointed toward the far pasture. “Someone’s up there.”
At first, I saw nothing. Then movement. Something dark, and hard to make out against the silver-green backdrop of Russian olive along the far fence line. “Maybe it’s Evan. Let’s go.”
We reached the gate I had seen the Bouvier open the previous day. It stood open again. There were no sheep in that pasture, though, so it didn’t seem unreasonable to leave the gate unlatched, and I didn’t think much about it as we trudged up the slope toward whoever was up there. The grass was still sopping from the night’s dew, and the clay soil beneath was muddy and slick. We had fought our way almost to the top of the hill when a big charcoal-gray dog appeared from the other side. The Bouvier. And close on his heels was Nell, the Winslows’ English Shepherd.
“Oh my,” said Goldie, a thread of fear in her voice.
“Just stand still,” I said. “I think they’ll be okay.” I pitched my voice higher and said, “Nell. Come, girl. Nell, come.” She did, tail wagging a happy hello. Her big buddy followed her lead, but he seemed to misjudge his braking distance and sideswiped me. “Whoa!” My feet slid backward along the slick grass. I flung my arms out and tried to stay upright, but my toes hit a grassless patch of clay and accelerated faster than the rest of me. My knees hit first, still sliding, although a bit more slowly. I caught the balance of the fall on my hands and collapsed against the wet grass and muck.
“Careful!” said Goldie.
Good idea. I laid my forehead against the ground for a few seconds, gathered myself, and pushed onto my hands and feet. A huge shaggy head knocked into my own, the black nose leather-cool against my cheek. “You big galoot.” I pressed a hand against the dog’s back for support and got to my feet. The Bouvier leaned his thigh into mine and peeked up at me from under his bangs as if
to say he was sorry.
Giselle and Goldie started to laugh. I tried to give them a dirty look, but when I replayed the sight of that big goofy dog slipping down the hill toward me, I laughed as well. I smeared the mud from my palms onto my jeans, patted the dog’s neck, and said, “Who’s out here with you guys, eh?”
Giselle handed me a crumpled but clean tissue and said, “You might want to wipe your forehead.” She cooed to the big dog and reached for the tags dangling from his collar. “What’s your name, fella? Ah, Hugo. Good name.”
Nell had begun running a few yards ahead, turning back to us, running ahead again. “Come on. She wants us to follow.”
“Oh, man, I hope Timmy hasn’t fallen in the well again,” said Goldie. We all laughed, but I secretly hoped it wasn’t something worse.
The downward slope flattened into a small pasture backed by an old-growth stand of hardwoods. Even from a distance I could see that a patch of ground near the corner of the fence had been disturbed, and the closer we got, the colder the air seemed around me.
“What is that?” Giselle whispered.
Shepherd's Crook Page 15