"No donkey?" Rick rubbed his chin.
"No."
"What time did you reach the barn?"
"Four-thirty, give or take a minute," Fair told Rick.
"What time do you think you reached here?"
"Four forty-two. I checked my watch the second I saw him collapsed like that."
"Did you touch him?"
"Yes. If he showed any signs of life I would have done my best. An animal is an animal, and even though I'm a vet, I can fix up a human if it's a crisis."
"Mmm," Rick nodded as Coop moved behind Toby's body.
"One bullet still in him and one came through," she said.
"See if you can find it. Just put down a marker if you do."
As Coop was looking, the rescue-squad sirens wailed.
"This is a hell of a thing," Fair said.
He wasn't shaken by the corpse. He was a medical man, after all, but the fact that he had literally walked up on a man killed only moments before was unsettling. Erratic as Toby had been, Fair certainly didn't wish him dead.
Rick's phone rang. "Yeah." He listened intently. "Okay. Take him in." He clicked off just as Coop yelled, "Got it."
"Good. Got Hy. He tried to get away but finally gave up when he realized he had one squad car behind him and another blocking the road ahead."
"Did he have a gun?"
"No." Rick knew the chances of this being an open-and-shut case were rapidly dimming.
Coop studied Toby, sighed, and walked up to Fair. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Feel sorry for him."
"It was quick." Coop believed that was worth some solace.
Rick jotted down a few details.
"Do you two need me?"
"I know where to find you if I do. Why?" Rick replied.
"I'd like to find Jed and stitch him up. I'd hate for the poor little fellow to bleed to death."
"Go ahead," Rick said.
As Fair retreated back to the barn, Coop flipped open her notebook. "What do you think?"
Rick shrugged as he heard the rescue-squad vehicle turn onto the farm. "Hy Maudant will hire the best lawyer in the country."
"Yep."
"Anything else?"
He glanced at her. "I'd hate to die un-mourned."
21
Crozet shook as though one of the small earthquakes from the Blue Ridge Mountains had rumbled. The news of Toby's demise was on everyone's lips. Humans, being what they are, appear to enjoy horror on some level. The details of his corpse's disposition added additional allure to the sorry story.
The following morning Fair was in the operating room. He called Sheriff Shaw to ask if Harry could search for Jed. He wanted BoomBoom to accompany her. He emphatically did not want his wife out there alone.
The mercury stuck at fifty-four degrees at eight in the morning; the light breezes gave the temperature a cool tang. Since Boom was six feet tall and strong, Harry was glad she agreed to come along. For good measure both women packed a .38 to humanely end Jed's suffering if he were found in bad shape. Fair told Harry that Toby was very upset and kept repeating that Jed had deeply cut his hind leg.
The two women walked through Toby's small barn.
"These little blue pellets do kill the flies, but they crunch." Harry noted the blue dots on the center aisle.
"I don't like them underfoot,"Mrs. Murphy declared.
"Ever try those hanging lanterns filled with kill juice?" BoomBoom asked.
"The smell will kill you, too." Harry looked around again. "No flies here and no Jed."
"Silent as a tomb," BoomBoom said.
Tucker, at their heels, shuddered."Wish you hadn't said that."
"I had hoped that Jed would come back to his stall. Well, let's work in circles around the barn. When we can't see each other, let's come back here and go to plan B."
"Sounds good to me," BoomBoom agreed as she stepped into the feed-and-supply room. "Toby certainly was preparedfor summer. I've never seen so many rolls of flypaper or blue-crystal bait."
Harry stuck her head in the open doorway. "One donkey, and Toby was prepared for a zillion flies."
After an hour of checking through the vineyards and around the house, they reconvened back at the barn.
"Harry, we'd better work in quadrants. There's a lot left to cover, and we won't be able to see each other," BoomBoom, logical as always, suggested.
"Different quadrants or together?"
"Together. Let's stick together."
"You've got a point there," Harry agreed.
"I'm going back to the truck."Pewter had already had enough of the search and was desirous of her mid-morning nap.
When neither Mrs. Murphy nor Tucker mocked her, she changed her mind. After all, she might miss something, and then she'd have to hear about it ad infinitum.
BoomBoom zipped her Barbour jacket up to her neck as the wind picked up. "Kind of raw. You expect May to be warmer than this."
"Yeah. The closest farm with horses is the old Berryhill farm. Let's walk that wayfirst. If there's a mare in season—and this is the time they go in naturally—the little fellow will have picked up the scent long before we will."
"That kind of scent can travel a mile on a perfect day,"Tucker, the scent expert, agreed.
"What worries me, Harry, is we haven't seen so much as one hoof print."
"Yeah." Harry walked alongside the tall woman. "But there's been so much traffic on the farm roads that would wipe them out— most of them, anyway. And he's not shod, so he won't leave a deep print. But if there had been hoofprints, Fair would have seen them."
"He could have stayed on grass."
"He'd have to jump fences," Harry remarked.
"He can jump." Boom smiled.
They carefully examined the ground to the northwest of the barn, moving consistently in that direction.
"Remember when we were kids, how Grandpa Berryhill collected old farm tools? Everyone thought he was crackers. Be worth a fortune now." Harry liked things that were practical and enjoyed Mr. Berryhill's demonstrations of wooden cider presses, carding utensils, and butter churns.
"Line all died out. Not a Berryhill left."
"Kind of cruel, really. They were so prosperous, and then a dark cloud settled over them and just rained misery."
"You never know."
"No, you don't." Harry tramped down a soft, rolling meadow leading to low woodlands, a serviceable three-board fence dividing the open land from the woodland.
Harry grabbed the fence, because the grass, still slick, made the footing dicey. "I can't help wondering if Hy had something to do with Professor Forland's disappearance, only because Toby studied with Forland and still seemed enthralled with him in some way."
"Nah. Doesn't make any sense." Boom-Boom put her left hand on the top rail and gracefully soared over the fence with a push off.
Harry, not to be outdone, did the same. "Well, nothing makes sense until you find the links."
Pewter scooted under the bottom plank, as did Mrs. Murphy and Tucker.
The woodlands, cool and damp, reverberated with the sound of birds calling out their territory boundaries. Most daytime species already had eggs in the nests. Some birds sang for the pure pleasure of living.
"Bigmouths,"Pewter grumbled.
A piercing cry overhead alerted Mrs. Murphy to the red-tailed hawk."She may be a big mouth, but don't insult her. She's fearless. "
Pewter did respect big birds."Nasty beak."
"Ever notice how each bird has the right kind of beak for the food it eats?"Tucker found birds fascinating.
"Must be tough being a human with that flat mouth,"Pewter said."They can't eat off the ground. They can't eat without their hands; well, I guess they can, but what a mess. Their jaws go up and down and that's aboutit."
"True, but they're omnivorous, which gives them a big advantage. They can eat grains and vegetables, fruits and meats.Catsare obligate carnivores. We must eat fresh meat or cooked meat. I really do envy themtheir range of choices, because it allows them to survive about anywhere," Mrs. Murphy said.