The Body in the Landscape (A Cherry Tucker Mystery Book 5) Read online

  Risa’s neck reddened and she busied herself pulling contracts from her briefcase. “Everyone needs to sign. Just check yes or no to the TV appearance, and write an addendum if you want your name used or not.”

  As the contestants examined the fine print of their contracts, I leaned into Todd for a whisper. “I don’t understand why everyone is so spooked by appearing on Bob’s reality show.”

  Todd nodded. “I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

  “Me too. That’s rich folks for you,” I said. “Always worried about appearances.”

  “Rick’s not rich.”

  “True. It’s almost like they don’t want to get caught doing something on camera they shouldn’t.” I slanted a look at the party examining the paperwork. “Except for the ones wanting to be on camera doing stuff they shouldn’t.”

  Five

  Their paperwork finished, the group returned to sipping drinks and comparing hunt stories, which began to sound like episodes of Deadliest Catch. My mind was still on possible reasons for TV appearance refusals. On the off chance Rockin’ The Hunt could be dubbed for Max’s ex-commie homeland, I suspected a few people there might use the show for a Bear tracking device. Rick Miller, on the other hand, had surprised me. Folks of Rick’s ilk normally chambered a “hey y’all, lookie here” whenever someone broke out a camera. YouTube was full of our willingness to look like idiots for the world to watch. And as for the Sparks, why would they care if the cameras caught them stalking Hogzilla? They had said they were regulars at Big Rack.

  These people made not one bit of sense.

  I turned to Todd as I often did in times of confusion. “You want to get out of here for a minute? I’d take another beer, but fresh air is much cheaper at this place.”

  He grinned and nodded.

  “Maybe we can check on something while we’re out.”

  I wanted a distraction. The local phone book had contained Abel Spencer’s address. My lodge room had contained a local phone book. Some would call that a sign. Or standard hotel phone book practice. Either way, I felt a quick visit to Mr. Spencer’s homestead was in order. Just to round out my curiosity on the man. I couldn’t focus on schmoozing while my brain kept taking trips to what’s-the-deal-with-Abel-Spencer land. I’ll admit my brain doesn’t always work like others. It runs along the tracks toward Morbidity and Inquisitiveness Junction. Often with a quick stop at Meddling-ville. We’ll just chalk it up to my artistic nature and not to my need to fix lemonade from my life’s constant barrage of lemons.

  Anyway, Todd was used to my brain if others were not.

  “How was your conversation with the Swinton PD?” I asked Todd while clinging to an armrest as to avoid whiplash on the rutted road we traveled.

  Not a metaphorical road, mind you, although some might find that true as well.

  We had borrowed the keys to Max’s Range Rover and followed the dirt road from the lodge. Evening had not quite sprung, but the clouds had left the late afternoon in what felt like a perpetual dusk.

  “Did they question your motives for being out in the woods?”

  “No.” Todd kept his eyes on the pocked road. “Why? We weren’t trespassing, were we?”

  “Not as lodge guests. But those Swinton police were a bit prickly.”

  “I didn’t notice, but you are more tuned into that sort of thing.”

  “Well, offering to bring casseroles to victim’s families makes Swinton police awfully prickly.”

  Todd cut me a quick worried look. “Baby, you don’t know how to make a casserole.”

  “Exactly. That’s why I thought a personal condolence more appropriate. Which is why we’re headed to Mr. Spencer’s home. Maybe some kin or friends are hanging about. I can give my respects and get on with the weekend.”

  We could hear the dogs before the sorry homestead came into view. Abel Spencer’s property had been carved out of a bit of woods on the edge of Swinton. A house as big as a thimble with rotting steps and sills. The pine tar-stained roof had more depressions than the moon had craters. No vehicles in the drive, although a redneck smorgasbord propagated among the weeds. Old grills and dead lawnmowers. Assorted pipes and wooden wire spools. Even Piggly Wiggly shopping buggies.

  This sort of image was not uncommon in my hometown of Halo. Everyone knows spare parts come in handy. Grandpa Ed threw away nothing. My alleged convict of a brother kept a revolving collection of broken-down vehicles in Grandpa’s barn. True, the farm didn’t have this appearance of a recent tornado touchdown, but I could cut Mr. Abel a break. It sounded like he had been a bachelor. Left to their own devices, men often needed cleaning up after.

  “No yellow tape,” I noted.

  “I thought his death was an accident,” said Todd.

  “But still, any accidental death like this should require some investigation. Uncle Will usually traces the victim’s steps back a couple days before their death.”

  “Maybe the police didn’t make it out here yet.”

  “In that case, we better be careful. Don’t want to leave any unnecessary evidence.”

  “I thought you were just looking to offer sympathies. You didn’t say anything about looking around the man’s property.”

  “Do you hear those poor dogs? I just want to check on them. Where’s the harm in that?”

  Todd gave me a look that said he didn’t believe me for a minute but popped the Range Rover door. That’s the good thing about Todd. He’s got a sense of adventure. Even if he doubted my motives, he’d go along with me anyway.

  We picked our way around the rusting junk, circling away from the house and checking for the mark of recent trampling so as not to disrupt any investigational clues. At least the drizzle had stopped, leaving behind a damp cold that seeped beneath reindeer sweaters and darkened already somber moods.

  Behind the house, the weeds gave way to the soft matting of pine straw. I paused in wonderment. What Abel Spencer had not spent or maintained on his house and yard, he had on a dog kennel. Rubber coated chain-link enclosed a half-acre that included a large cedar shed with doggy-sized doors that looked like a home where Snow White’s small friends could comfortably reside. From behind the fence, an assortment of breeds watched my approach. A yelping beagle. Three galloping Labs. A springer spaniel. Some kind of pointer or setter paced the fence line. And behind them all, a Bluetick Coonhound wailed.

  I ambled toward the fence, speaking in calm, low tones. The dogs greeted me, their eyes piteously sad, the heads drooping, tails pointed at the ground. My heart hiccuped, but I kept my voice strong and easy to buoy their mood.

  “Hey there,” I told the pack. “Are you missing Mr. Abel already? You’re good dogs, aren’t you?”

  The tails wagged in agreement, but without joy. Slick noses pushed through the chain link and I put my palm up for each to smell in turn.

  “We used to have a dog at the farm.” I spoke to Todd, but meant my words for the dogs.

  “I didn’t know that.” Todd’s long fingers fondled a Lab ear.

  “This was before Grandma Jo passed. Daisy was a mutt, not like these pedigrees. She was meant to be a farm dog, but Daisy liked the house. She stuck close to Grandma Jo.

  “Grandpa keeps goats now,” I told the dogs. “They don’t like me much. Or they like me too much. I can’t tell with goats.”

  All but the Bluetick queued up to drop their heads, reminding me of a receiving line at a funeral. They took the scratching without real enjoyment. Once petted, the group broke to resume their anxious wait for Abel.

  “You poor dogs.” I folded my arms to hug out the cold and leaned my forehead against the fence to watch them. “They must have really loved Abel. Glad someone did.”

  Daisy had succumbed to this sort of mourning when we had lost Grandma Jo to cancer. At the time, Daisy had been five years younger than my fifteen, so I had known Daisy the entire
time I lived at the farm. Grandma Jo had been the mother my momma couldn’t be and losing her felt like God had given up on the Tucker kids. He took the most tender of the pair that raised us. I tried to find comfort in Daisy, but she couldn’t be comforted herself. Daisy stopped eating. Couldn’t drink. She wouldn’t move from beneath the kitchen table where she had watched Grandma Jo cook.

  Daisy died two weeks later. Grief killed her. We never got another dog.

  I watched this pack waiting for Abel and felt my heart shatter.

  “They said Abel was a drunk and sneaky,” I said. “But I bet these beauties never went hungry. Look, Todd. Mr. Abel put an a/c unit on the doghouse when he doesn’t even have a window unit on his own.”

  The beagle cut her barking to growl, catching the attention of the Labs. They rushed the fence, barking. I turned. Rookie Holt stood near the edge of the house, watching us with her hands hovering near her belt.

  “Shit,” I muttered beneath my breath.

  “What are you doing here?” She strode forward, her eyes narrowing beneath the brim of her cap. “You’re trespassing.”

  “We were careful not to walk near the house and to watch for anything suspicious or recently disturbed,” I said. “I just wanted to see his dogs. I thought maybe there’d be someone here.”

  “I told you there’s no one. Go back to the lodge.” Rookie Holt notched her chin higher. “And stay there.”

  “Why haven’t you—”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Todd grabbed my arm and hurried me forward.

  “Their water bowl is full,” I called over my shoulder. “Mr. Abel’s got one of those self-watering types. Their food bowl too, but I’m guessing that’s because they’re not eating.”

  The dogs began another barking frenzy. A moment later, the sound of tires churning on damp Georgia clay carried to our non-canine ears. Todd and I paused next to a rusted shopping buggy just short of the drive.

  Rookie Holt halted next to us, then took three steps forward. “Who’s that now?” she muttered.

  We watched an old Blazer emerge from the forested lane and bump into the weedy drive. The Blazer jerked to a stop, reversed, and roared back down the lane.

  “Why did they do that?” I wondered aloud.

  “Saw the patrol car, likely. Rick Miller, that sumbitch.” The words slid from under her breath. Catching her mistake, she flushed. Rookie Holt’s rookie status was not improving. “You two go on and get out of here.”

  We did our version of hightailing under Rookie Holt’s young eyes. I waited to voice my question until Todd had pulled out of Abel Spencer’s weedy drive. “Isn’t Rick Miller the name of the local guy in the contest?”

  “I think so,” said Todd.

  “He must have known Mr. Abel. But the way Rookie Holt said his name, sounds like Rick Miller’s about as popular as Abel Spencer.” I worried my lip as I mulled that over. “I need to talk to him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I just don’t understand how a body lands in the woods and nobody in this town seems to care. Something’s not right here.”

  Six

  Back in the Twenty Point Bar, Todd and I found the contestants as we had left them an hour earlier, save for a few exceptions. Big Rack Manager Mike and Head Guide Jeff Digby had joined them. Rick Miller had disappeared. And an extra hour’s worth of alcohol had been consumed.

  I hesitated before taking our place among the inebriated, wondering if I could slip away again to look for Rick. Talking to Rick about Abel interested me more than mingling with this crowd. But a job was a job and I already had my designated coffee/find-more-about-Abel break.

  “Do you think Rick followed us to Abel Spencer’s?” Todd’s disappointment in Bob Bass had eclipsed my own and he seemed just as reluctant to return to our station. “Why would he leave?”

  “That, my friend, is a very good question.” I pondered those queries for a moment. “Maybe Rick didn’t know about Abel Spencer’s death and heard about it during the hobnob? Drove out to see if it was true?”

  “Who would have told him? The guy barely talked to anyone.”

  “The bartender? Why would Rick follow us? He didn’t know us from Adam.”

  My eyes cut to Max’s, where he had been silently signaling a “get the hell over here and help me” kind of look. Or whatever the equivalent of that was in his country.

  We scooted to the bar to join him in the small cluster of hunters. I hoped I looked as abashed as I felt.

  I had no right to put Abel Spencer’s death over a patron’s needs. No right. Just an overwhelming desire. I had taken this job partly to sit on the mental box containing all the crap from home. The death of Abel Spencer made for a more interesting cushion than celebrity hunters.

  The Bear leaned into my ear. “You were gone longer than I expected, Artist.”

  “Sorry, just had to take care of something,” I whispered. “I’m here now. Ready to dazzle Bob Bass with my charm and get him to forget that although he’s lost a lot of money in your secret casino, you still want to beat him in this crazy contest.”

  “Your understanding is not accurate, but it is enough.”

  Max straightened, but not before flicking a crimson leaf caught on one of my dangling reindeer. “You have been in the woods again? Not the scene of the death, I hope.” His voice fell into a lull in the contestants’ conversation.

  The party turned to stare at me.

  “Sorry for interrupting. Hope we didn’t miss anything.” With their eyes on me, I felt the need to explain. “We were just visiting the house of the man I found in the ravine earlier.”

  “You went to Abel’s house?” said Jeff Digby. “Why would you do that?”

  “Pay respects.” My mumble was lost in Todd’s reply.

  “Cherry thinks there’s more to his fall than an accident.” Todd rubbed his hip where I poked him. “No need to worry about her, though. She does this thing all the time. When she gets a notion something’s not right, Cherry’s like a terrier on a squirrel. Until it’s proved one way or another, she’ll keep barking up that tree.”

  “What do you mean there’s more to it?” said Jeff. “That’s not what the police said.”

  “The police can’t say anything officially until they’ve finished their investigation,” I explained.

  “Then let the police handle it. Can we get back to our earlier conversation?” Jenny Sparks set her empty wine glass on the bar. “I want to make sure I understand what’s going on with the hunt.”

  “We were just talking about the issue of weather,” said Manager Mike. “We’re leaving for the bunkhouse tomorrow afternoon. The contest will start Friday evening. But another front’s moving in. It’ll keep the hog from scenting us but may make it harder to track him. And harder to travel.”

  “The problem is mud.” Jeff Digby let that fact hang in the air. Mud in Georgia is serious. We’re mostly a red clay state, which is great for pottery and bad for pretty much everything else. “We’ve got five all-terrain utility vehicles to take everyone out to the bunkhouse. It’s a long haul on a dry day. We’re going to split up from there, each party with their own guide. But with the rain we’ve had and more coming, even the UTVs might get stuck. If we get the hog, we’ll probably need to bury it out there too.”

  “Eww,” said Peach.

  “That means you,” Bob pointed his rocks tumbler at me, “need to come out with us. I want my portrait done with that pig. Can’t leave him long before he starts stinking, and I’m not standing next to him any longer than I have to.”

  “The weather sounds iffy for working outside. I could easily paint your portrait from a photo when you get back.”

  “Everyone knows it’s better to have a live subject. What kind of artist are you?”

  I kept my mouth shut when I longed to point out that half of the subject in his �
�kill portrait” wouldn’t be “live.”

  “You are known for quick sketching, is it not true, Artist?” asked Max. “You make the winner’s sketch out the doors and paint inside. Plein Air pig.”

  I sighed and nodded.

  “Maybe I could hold a tarp over her,” said Todd.

  “Now you’re cooking with gas,” said Bob. “I like the way you think, boy.”

  Todd beamed. Unlike me, Todd easily suffered fools.

  “What about the business of this death on property?” Clinton Sparks didn’t seem to mind his abruptness, but his wife blushed. “Will the investigation interrupt the hunt?”

  “Swinton police said by tomorrow afternoon, we should be good to go,” said Mike. “Mr. Spencer’s accident was not in the reserve, anyway. We’ve got target practice in the morning and we’ll head out after lunch.”

  “Do you think it’ll hurt Big Rack’s business?” With his eyes on Mike, Clinton sipped from his scotch.

  “What Clinton means,” said Jenny Sparks, “is we’re just such fans of Big Rack, we’d hate for anyone to think badly of the lodge.”

  “I thought Henry and Lois would be here tonight,” continued Clinton.

  “I haven’t seen the Woodcocks yet.” Mike forced a weak smile. “How about we get dinner started? Go ahead and take your seats in the dining room. We’ve got a specially prepared menu.”

  “I hope it includes those pork chops I smell,” I said.

  “Our new gourmet chef’s taking on all the cooking for your weekend,” said Jeff Digby. “Viktor doesn’t recommend eating certain meats or dairy before a big hunt, though. Pigs have a great sense of smell and they’ll get wind of the oils seeping through your skin.”

  “I guess a hog might be offended by pork chops,” I conceded.

  “I’m sure Viktor will have something better than pork chops,” said Jenny. “I love his foie gras.”