Page 24 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow
“Nice,” I say, extending my hand.
Smits snorts. “Nicewould have been her accepting the job she was offered with the feds instead of coming back here to a post she could have gotten out of high school.”
“Ignore him,” Josie says. “My boss feels the need to make sure everyone knows how well-educated his deputy is, and my dad just likes to brag. Good to see you again, Sam. I was planning to check in later today, bring the welcome pie Mom baked.”
“Sorry to call you out,” I say.
“Not at all. I just wish you didn’t need to. Your message said someone left a dead animal on your doorstep.”
I nod and lead them over. “It’s under that,” I say, pointing at a garbage bag stretched on the ground, weighed down with rocks, after a turkey vulture swooped in. I put on gloves and reach down for the plastic. “It’s a rabbit.”
“Seems to be a bumper year for them,” Smits says. “We’ve had them all over the roads. There was a coyote cleanup early this spring, and that’s cut back on natural predators.”
He’s gently telling me that a dead rabbit outside my cottage isn’t unusual. I don’t comment. I just gently pull back the bag.
“Yikes,” Josie says, her hand flying over her nose and mouth. “That’s a mess.”
“Something tore that rabbit up good,” her dad says, hunkering down.
Something.Not someone. Between the turkey vultures and the impromptu covering, it’s no longer obvious how the body had been arranged. It just looks like a dead rabbit, which settles the butterflies in my gut but doesn’t help convince the sheriff.
I tell him what it had looked like.
“Huh,” he says.
“My aunt can confirm that,” I say. “We should have gotten a photo, but we weren’t exactly thinking about that.”
“I can imagine.” He rises from his crouch, rubs his mouth and looks around. “Well, it’s definitely not a natural death.”
You think?I bite my tongue and keep my expression neutral, but Josie gives a soft snort.
“Could have been predation,” he says. “You have a couple of bald eagle nests on your property. Nice to see them in the area again. They might rip a rabbit up like that. Maybe leave the pieces in a way that makes it seem like a deliberate arrangement.”
I open my mouth, but he beats me to it with, “Or it could have been deliberately arranged, as you said.”
I shove my hands in my pockets. “After what my father did, I wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting any Paynes around.”
He tilts his hat back and scratches his forehead. “I think folks are good at understanding that one bad apple might spoil a barrel, but that doesn’t apply to people. All I’ve heard is sympathy for what you went through.” He looks at me. “No one blames you, Sam. At all.”
Guess he hasn’t spoken to Ben Vandergriff.
He turns to Josie. “I’d like you to swing by once a day, check on Sam and her aunt.”
“That’s not nec—” I begin.
“Got it,” she says. “At the very least, having the local police coming and going will make people think twice about harassing you. Or trespassing on the property. You said you thought someone was in your shed?”
“Someonewasin there. Last night, I went to get a hatchet and saw him.”
Her head snaps up, as if I have her full attention. “Him? A man?”
“The size suggested a man. I heard a grunt and the shuffle of feet on the dirt floor, and then I saw a figure. I took off. I don’t know whether he chased me. I don’t think so.”
Smits mutters under his breath. “Useless son of a bitch.”
“Dad…” Josie’s voice warns that we can hear him.
“You know who it was?” I ask.
