by Sharon Pape
As soon as they arrived at Sierra’s house, she let Frosty out in the backyard to attend to doggie matters while she started the coffee. He hadn’t been outside long when he started barking full throttle as if he’d been ambushed by a band of starving zombies with a yen for dog stew.
“Could you go see what’s got him in such an uproar?” Sierra asked as she measured the grounds into the filter. “I’m afraid one day he’s going to corner a snake or a coyote back there. He doesn’t seem to realize when he’s outmatched.”
“But I certainly do,” Jaye said, stopping with her hand on the doorknob. “Exactly how many snakes and coyotes have visited since you moved in here?”
“None, or at least none that Frosty or I have seen. If you’re worried, turn on the outside lights. There’s also a flashlight in the pantry.”
Flashlight in hand, Jaye switched on the lights and headed out the back door. The elderly woman who’d lived there for three decades before Sierra had let the property return to its natural state of high desert scrub. When Sierra had still been riding her home-buying high, she’d talked at length about whipping the land into shape, buying some ornamental plants and maybe even seeding for grass. But getting her bakery up and running while she was teaching herself the art of baking had barely left her with time to breathe.
Since the backyard wasn’t large, it was immediately obvious that Frosty had to be somewhere else. His barking had taken on a hysterical, high-pitched quality. Jaye tried calling his name, but when he didn’t appear she followed his barking around to the left. Whoever had installed the outdoor lighting had clearly not anticipated a need for it on the side of the house, so she had to rely completely on the old flashlight’s narrow amber beam. She found Frosty frozen in place in the darkness, still issuing the doggie equivalent of a call to arms. Jaye couldn’t see any reason for his distress until she used the flashlight to follow his line of sight. She gave a startled yelp of surprise when the beam revealed what appeared to be a woman sprawled facedown on the ground a good twelve feet away.
It took Jaye only a moment to throttle down from her initial shock and shift gears into action. She moved forward cautiously, half expecting the woman to jump up and apologize for stopping there to take a nap. But the woman didn’t move. Frosty’s barking had ebbed to a breathless chuffing now that he’d done his job and summoned the troops, but he kept his distance, clearly not interested in accompanying Jaye on a closer inspection.
When Jaye was at the woman’s side, she ran the beam of light down the length of her body and noticed that her limbs were splayed at odd angles like a rag doll flung aside by a child who’d moved on to other toys. She considered the possible reasons why a person might be lying there. There weren’t many. Either the woman was a victim of foul play or she’d been felled by a stroke, a heart attack, or some other fatal condition. Or maybe she wasn’t dead at all. Fighting a sudden case of squeamishness, Jaye managed to hunker down and check for a pulse in her neck. It was only then, with the flashlight so close to the woman’s head, that she realized her dark hair was thoroughly matted with blood.
Sharon Pape is the author of the Portrait of a Crime Mysteries and the Crystal Shop Mysteries. She lives on Long Island with her family.