Sharon Sala - Wild Hearts

“Did that hit the house? I think it hit the house,” she gasped, and then realized there was no one to answer.

She bolted through the hall into the kitchen, but the power was still on and she didn’t smell smoke. She opened the back door and ran out into the rain to see if the roof was on fire.

From what she could tell, it looked fine. She took shelter again on the back porch, waiting for the next lightning strike to light up the area so she could see if the other structures were okay.

When it came, she saw enough to feel confident her question had been answered. The chicken house was intact. The barn was still there. The security light had been temporarily knocked out, but it was slowly coming back on and from what she could see, she didn’t think lightning had struck the pole.

Wind was blowing rain up on her bare feet and legs as she turned around to go inside. Then she heard her phone and locked the door and ran, dripping water as she went.

“Hello?”

“It’s me. Is everything okay? You sound like you’ve been running.”

Trey.

“Lightning struck something close by. I was out on the back porch looking the place over when the phone began to ring. I’m fine. Thank you for calling.”

“I have a question,” he said.

She frowned. “Okay, ask.”

“Did your dad feed the cattle every day?”

“There are four cows with calves still nursing. He fed the cows ground feed so they wouldn’t lose weight until the calves were weaned. Why?”

“He fed the chickens this morning, but he didn’t feed the cows.”

Dallas’s mind was spinning, trying to see where Trey was going with this, and then it hit her.

“You’re wondering why, if he was going to kill himself, would he take time to feed the chickens but not the cows?”

“It crossed my mind.”

Her voice began to shake. “You don’t think he hanged himself, do you?”

“What I think and what the evidence will show could be two different things.”

She started to cry, but softly now, no longer alone in her quest for the truth. “Thank you, Trey.”

“For what? I didn’t do anything.”

“For not taking the easy way out of this.”

“You forget, honey. It’s not my case. Sheriff Osmond is running the show. He’s the man you have to convince to dig deeper. In the meantime, you could go through the house, specifically your father’s business records, and see if there’s anything there that would help explain what happened.”

“I will. I’ll do it tomorrow,” she said.

Trey hated to hang up, but there was nothing else he could say.

“If you have a question, or if you need help in any way, call me. Will you do that? Will you let me help you that much?”

She sighed. “Yes. I’ll do that. And, Trey, really...thanks for calling.”

“Yeah, sure. Try and get some rest.”

He disconnected before she could say goodbye, and she told herself it didn’t matter, then had to make herself move. All of a sudden the day had caught up with her. She stumbled into the living room, turned off the television and then headed for her room.

She had the bed turned back and was ready to get in when she stopped. She thought about how far it was from here to her nearest neighbor, then about the person who’d killed her dad, and went across the hall to his bedroom to get his shotgun. She checked to see if it was loaded, then put it just under the edge of her bed.

She might not sleep a wink, but it wouldn’t be because she was scared. And she didn’t believe in ghosts.

Four

Dallas’s sleep was fitful, and she was awake before daybreak, sad but determined to find out the truth. Still in her pajamas, she thought even going into the kitchen to make coffee seemed too much to face, but two cups of coffee and a piece of toast later, she got dressed and began to tackle the morning chores.

She walked out on the back porch to a world that appeared to be weeping. Water was dripping from the eaves of the house, from the leaves of the trees, from the crepe myrtle bushes on either side of the back steps. Instead of quiet, she heard the soft patter of the droplets with its own brand of rhythm as she walked away from the house.

The chickens were fussing, ready to be let out of the coop. The cows were bawling inside the corral, waiting to be fed. The normalcy of the morning was somehow comforting, a reminder that some things never changed.

She entered the lean-to against the chicken house, filled a big bucket with feed and a smaller one with what her dad always called “scratch,” part of what chickens ate to help their craw break down and digest their food, and carried them into the pen. She scattered a little bit out on the ground before she opened the coop, and when all the hens raced out to get the feed, she carried the rest of it inside and refilled the troughs. If it rained again, at least they could come in to eat and stay dry. Then she refilled their water, gathered the eggs and headed for the barn.

Remembering the lightning strike, she began looking for signs of what had been hit, hoping none of the cattle had been close. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d lost a cow to lightning, but there were no signs of that. She was almost at the barn when she noticed the burn barrel lying on its side. As she drew closer, she soon realized the entire bottom of it was gone.

That had to be what was hit. She remembered the crime-scene tape and began to look around for where it could have blown. It wasn’t until she started to set the barrel back up that she saw the bottom of it was still there, along with a small wad of what looked like blackened and melted plastic. If it hadn’t been for a tiny tinge of yellow she would never have recognized it as the tape.

“Yes, Lord, I did want that yellow tape burned, and thank you for doing it, but you didn’t have to scare the crap out of me in the process.”

She went back to get the egg basket, knowing she had last night’s and this morning’s eggs to clean and put in cartons. The cows were still bawling, so she left the eggs in the cooler and fed them before she went back.

By the time she made it back to the house it was late enough to call the county sheriff’s office. She got a cup of coffee, then picked up a pen and notepad and sat down at the kitchen table. As she did, she noticed she’d missed a call from Trey. She would call him back after this, she thought, as she punched in the numbers.

“County sheriff’s office.”

“This is Dallas Phillips. I need to speak to Sheriff Osmond regarding the death of my father, Dick Phillips.”

“One moment, please.”

Already the knot in Dallas’s stomach was getting tighter. She interviewed law enforcement regarding death and crime on a daily basis, but this was in regard to her own father’s death, and she felt as if she were insulting her father’s name.

“Hello. Miss Phillips? This is Sheriff Osmond. Your father and I were good fishing buddies. I’m really going to miss him.”

“Oh! You’re Dewey, aren’t you? I didn’t get the connection. Please call me Dallas, and thank you for taking my call.”

“Of course, and I really am sorry for your loss. How can I help you?”

“As you can imagine, I want to know where you are on the case. Trey Jakes told me all he knew, and now I want to know what you can tell me.”

“Then you probably know as much as I do at the moment. We gathered evidence yesterday as we worked the scene. We found nothing obvious that would lead us to believe his death was anything but a suicide, so I’m waiting on the coroner’s findings from the autopsy.”

“I want you to know that I will never believe he killed himself. I spoke to him two to three times a week. I came home at least once, sometimes twice, a month to visit. I never saw a hint of trouble or felt as if he had a worry in the world. I knew my father well. I would have known if something was bothering him.”