Julia Spencer-Fleming - I Shall Not Want

He felt her inhale. Then stillness. Finally, she said, "Are you all right?" Her voice was unsteady.

"Yeah. Or I will be." He took her shoulders and pushed her to arm's length. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For last winter. For letting go. For treating you the way I did. I've been an asshole, Clare, but I love you, and I swear to God, I'd rather die myself than see you hurt." Lyle's words about letting the press know there was nothing to be found at St. Alban's took on a new and terrible urgency. "Whatever the hell piece of information we're missing, these guys looking for it want it bad. And they're junkyard-dog vicious. I don't want you alone until we've found them. Go to the Ellises' house, get your deacon to move in with you, whatever you have to so you're not by yourself."

"I can't promise that." He couldn't tell if it was anger or anguish in her voice.

"Russ!" Lyle called.

"Please, Clare. I don't expect you to do anything because I ask you to." She flinched at that. "But do it for Amado. His death at least gives us a warning. Don't waste it."

"Russ!" Lyle was impatient.

He left her with one glance over his shoulder. Walked back into the circle of cold light, inching his fingers into his glove once more. All around, the oak and maple leaves whispered and hissed in the wind.

"Take a look at this," Lyle said. He and Kevin-pale, stiff-faced, but functioning-had rolled the body to one side. Doc Scheeler, kneeling, was tweezing some sort of short hairs or fibers from where they had crusted on the blood-soaked shirt. There were a lot of them, black and pale golden and tan where they weren't stained with blood.

"What are they?" Russ asked.

Scheeler held a small tuft up before slipping it into an evidence bag. "I can't be certain until I inspect this under the microscope, but I'm pretty sure it's hair. He brought it with him; it isn't on the pine needles beneath the body. I'm just finding them in one area, here, where the body rested on the ground, but that may not signify much. They could have appeared elsewhere and then blown off while he was exposed up here."

"Maybe he was laid someplace where there was a lot of hair," Lyle said.

"Or wrapped in a rug or blanket," Russ said. "That would jibe with his being transported here. If somebody didn't want to get blood all over the trunk of his car."

"A dog blanket," Kevin said. He looked at Russ. "You know. You put an old blanket on the sofa or on the backseat of a car? So the dog won't shed on the good stuff underneath."

Russ examined the hairs again. Sharp-tipped, two or three inches long. Black and tan. He remembered their last visit to the Christies: Kevin hurtling into the cruiser, half an inch away from being savaged. He looked at the young officer. Saw him nod.

"German shepherds," Russ said.

This time, they went at dawn, warrant in hand. They had the animal control officer with them, a rawhide woman whose sleepy expression concealed an ability to think fast and move faster. P.J. loved animals, but Russ had no doubt she could put down the German shepherds if needed. He had dated one of her older sisters in high school. All the Adams girls had a ruthless streak a mile wide.

P.J. had said the dogs were likely to be asleep by morning, and she was right. Kevin opened the gate slowly and quietly this time, watching the drive every second, but no ravening beasts showed up to try and take a chunk out of him. The sky arched overhead, rose and pearl, and grasshoppers whirred out of the grass as they drove up the lane.

Russ parked in the same spot he had two weeks before. This time he could see how badly the house and barn needed painting. The Christies had inherited a lot-he glanced at the century-old maples shading the house and the fields and woods falling away in every direction-but they were lousy stewards.

Getting out of the car, he could hear the sheep bleating. Another car door ca-chunk ed, and Lyle walked up to stand at his side. "If anybody's hiding in the sheep pen, you're going in this time," he said.

"Are you kidding? That's what we brought Kevin for." Russ turned away from the house. Kevin and Eric were in backup positions and P.J. was readying a trank gun, muzzles and restraint straps dangling off her belt. "Ready?"

"Yep."

They mounted the porch steps. Russ rang the doorbell. Nothing happened. He rang it again. The door jerked open, revealing a twenty-something blonde in a baggy T-shirt and pajama bottoms. Her face was creased from sleep. "What is it?" she asked.

Russ dredged the sister's name out of his memory. "Isabel?" he said. "We'd like to speak to your brothers."

She blinked several times and rubbed her face. "Why?"

MacAuley pushed against the door, opening it farther. She stepped back. "We want to ask them about Amado Esfuentes."

She came awake. "Amado? Why?"

"He's been killed," Russ said. "We believe your brothers may have some knowledge of the murder."

She clapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes went wide and white-edged. Oh, hell . Looks like Kevin was wrong about their relationship-or lack thereof.

"Are you sure?" she whispered. "Are you sure it was Amado Esfuentes? Not one of the others?"

"We've positively ID'd him," Russ said. "I'm sorry."

"He was tortured." MacAuley had dropped his usual easygoing persona. "For information he may have possessed. Over many days. He must have thanked whoever put a bullet in his head."

Isabel Christie made a sound like an animal in a trap. She backed away even farther. Russ stepped into the house.

"You knew him, didn't you?" He kept his voice sympathetic.

She nodded.

"I met him a couple of times, too. He was a good-hearted, hardworking young man, with his whole life ahead of him. He didn't deserve to die like that." He bent down so he was speaking to her face-to-face. "Will you help us?"

She nodded.

"Where are your brothers?"

She took a deep breath. "Bruce…" Her voice wavered. She stopped. When she started again, it was steady. "Bruce is in the fifth wheel next door." From the corner of his eye, Russ could see Lyle turn and point Kevin and Eric to the trailer. "Neil's upstairs. Donald and Kathy were fighting last night, and he took off after she locked him out of their bedroom. He's prob'ly at his ex's house. Desiree Dwyer."

"I thought she was out of town."

She pointed in the direction of the dining room. "Different ex." Russ and Lyle followed, skirting the long table and heavy Victorian chairs, into the minuscule back hallway. A narrow staircase rose steeply to a windowed alcove.

"Isabel," Russ said. "Could you call your brother downstairs?"

She looked at him. There were purple shadows beneath her eyes that hadn't been there when they arrived. "You think they did it?" she whispered.

"Evidence with the body points toward your brothers, yeah."

She took another deep breath. Her face smoothed, became a mask of normalcy. She faced the second floor. "Neil!" she yelled.

"Wha'?" A single snarling male voice, muffled by a door.

"Giddown here!"

"What the hell for? Jesus Christ, you know what time it is?"

She took a few steps up until she was level with the second-floor landing. "The ram's busted the gate again. He's at the ewes."

They heard feet thudding on the floor, accompanied by steady cursing. "Donald!" The unseen voice-Neil-bellowed. "Git your lazy ass out of bed. The ram's out!"

A door thudded open against a wall. "Shut up!" a woman yelled.

Russ winced. "The fiancée," he told Lyle.

"He ain't in here," she went on. "He's coolin' off downstairs."

"No, he's not," Isabel said loudly. "He went to Desiree's."

"Uh-oh," Russ said.

" What? " The shriek rose like a siren. "That no-good, belly-crawling, rat bastard son of a bitch-"