Joe stood up from where he and Melia had been sitting with red and swollen eyes and arms around each other. Ron was sitting on the other side of his granddaughter. He also had an arm around her.
“Thanks for coming, Bo,” Joe said.
“Is Herc still alive?” Bo asked.
“The vet is operating on him. He said he’s lost a lot of blood, and he can’t believe Herc almost made it back to the farm.”
“Of course, we have no idea how far he walked to get there,” Bo reasoned.
Joe shook his head. “No, I guess not, but the vet also said he must be a strong dog to have walked any distance at all in his condition.”
“Any idea how long he’ll be in surgery?” Bo asked.
“No, but I guess it might be a while.”
“Joe, tell me exactly where you found him.”
Joe explained and then said, “You can see our tracks in what snow is left on the ground.”
“Jim and I will be back. I’m going to see if Two Face can backtrack and take us to where Herc was shot. It might not help us, but then again, maybe it could.”
Joe looked at Ron, and then his eyes lingered on Melia’s tearstained face. Neither she nor Ron had stood up.
“I’ll call you as soon as we learn anything,” Bo said.
“I’m not feeling too well,” Ron said as he slowly and laboriously got to his feet. “Since you men are going back to where Herc was found, perhaps you could give me a lift home so Joe and Melia will still have a truck to drive when they’re finished here.”
“Do you need me to go too, Grandpa?” Melia asked, concern etched into her already sad face.
“No, Melia, I’ll be fine. I just need to rest. You stay here and keep Joe company,” he said. “Oh, and let me know how Herc does.”
Melia promised to do so, and the two lawmen and the farmer left the clinic.
Belle Bayle tried to move, but her thin body was not cooperating very well. The pain in her face was excruciating. Bryan had hit her lots of times before but never as hard as he had this time. She finally managed to reach her face with one hand. She touched her jaw, and it moved and grated in an unnatural, painful way, so painful that she screamed. It was badly broken. Fear stoked her to greater movement. She had to get away before her husband returned, but she was not sure how she could manage it. The old car she’d driven for years had finally died, and Bryan had towed it into the backyard where he’d left it to rot away along with a lot of other junk that had accumulated back there over the years.
Belle wanted out now. She’d pushed Bryan too far today, and now, fear of what Bryan might do to her when he came back caused her to attempt again to get to her feet.
Bryan probably had their other car, which was not in great shape either but seemed to get him around just fine. She listened for him now. She couldn’t hear him, so she was pretty sure he’d left.
She finally managed to get to her feet and leaned unsteadily against the wall. Blood still seeped from her mouth. She wiped it with the back of her right arm.
She couldn’t repress another scream of pain as the motion caused her broken jaw to move, grating and crackling.
Belle felt very dizzy, but she had to do something. She was desperate for help. Finally, by keeping her bloody hands on the wall to steady herself, she walked slowly and unsteadily into the kitchen where she’d left her cell phone on the counter. She punched in 911.
“Help . . . me . . .” she tried to get out when the call was answered. “My . . . husband . . .” She knew she wasn’t sounding right and couldn’t get any more out. She simply could not talk properly with her jaw broken and her mouth full of blood. She coughed, causing her to double over, and a tooth that had been under her tongue flew out and dropped onto the kitchen counter. The dispatcher asked her who and where she was. She tried to talk, but she could only groan. She was attempting to give her address, and finally managed to say a couple of words, but she only had it partly out, and even that was garbled when she began to choke on the blood in her mouth and throat.
She’d kept a pen and notepad on the counter, and she managed to get a hold of them both with her bloody hands. Slowly and painfully, she wrote, Bryan killed Emil and me. It took all the energy she had. When she’d finished, the pen slipped from her trembling, bloody fingers and fell on the floor. The pain and dizziness overcame her, and she fumbled for her phone again. She could faintly hear the voice of the dispatcher still coming from the phone, but she could not respond. Belle fell face forward onto the floor, smacking her face violently on the faded linoleum. Her cell phone slid underneath the kitchen table.
She couldn’t cough, she couldn’t even scream. She felt blood going into her lungs, drowning her. After a minute Belle Bayle’s heart stopped beating.
Bo was pleased with Two Face’s progress. He could see Herc’s tracks at times in the snow, and he saw spots of blood along the way, staining small amounts of snow crimson. But he didn’t pay a lot of attention to that as Two Face was tugging relentlessly on the leash. He had Herc’s scent, and he was not to be delayed.
Jim was in the county SUV and patrolling the area as he awaited Bo’s call to tell him where to meet him. They didn’t want to waste valuable time walking all the way back to the Brady farm when Bo finally led them to wherever it was that Herc had been shot.
Bo had his portable radio on his hip, and he could hear the constant calls being made to various officers of different jurisdictions. He had mentally tuned it all out, knowing that Jim would call him on his cell phone if he needed to talk to him. Before long, that is exactly what happened.
“Bo,” Jim said, “a Price City officer has been dispatched to a call at an address that sounds like it could be the Bayles’ place. The dispatcher could only say that a female voice requested help, but the voice was indistinct, and it sounded like the caller was choking and groaning. She didn’t get an address or a name before the person calling failed to continue to respond. They’ve discovered the address now and are on the way. Should I go there too?”
“Maybe you should,” Bo agreed. “I don’t have any idea how far I still have to go, but we’re right on Herc’s tracks. We’ve crossed some roads and long empty spaces. We’ve also had to make detours, as the collie did, around fences and other obstructions. Call me if you learn anything. I’ll let you know when Two Face finds where Herc was shot.”
Two Face continued to pull hard on the leash, and at times, Bo jogged so the dog could make better time. The snow was very light, and in some places, it had melted away, leaving only mud behind. He checked his watch. They’d been tracking for almost an hour. He hoped they would soon reach where Herc had been shot.
Five more minutes passed and then ten. They came to a dirt road, and as soon as they were on it, Two Face slowed down and began to shift his head back and forth. Bo peered closely at the ground and could see traces of blood. Suddenly, Two Face stopped, whined, and looked up at Bo. Bo studied the small pool of blood for a moment and then told his dog to continue on. Obediently, Two Face did as he was told, but a short distance up the road, he stopped again. Then he whined once more, barked, and attempted to pull Bo back the way they had just come.
“Good boy, Two Face,” Bo said. “This must be where he got out of the car. The guy who took Herc probably shot him as he was running.”
Two Face watched Bo’s face, waiting to see what he wanted him to do next. Just then, Bo’s cell phone rang. “What do you have, Jim?” he answered.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Jim said. “It looks like somebody did a number on Belle Bayle.”
“What do you mean?” Bo asked.
“Her face is a mess. She’s bloody, and she has a shattered jaw.”
“Is an ambulance there yet?” Bo asked.
“They don’t need one. She’s dead,” Jim said. “Her husband and their car are gone.”
“Did Bryan do it to her?” Bo asked as he and Two Face slowly walked back to where Herc had been shot.
“The dispatcher said she was having a hard time understanding Belle, but she is sure she tried to say she needed help, and she thinks she heard the word husband. The city officers will listen to the tape, but we all think it must have been Bryan. Should I come get you now?”
“Yes, and then I want to go to the Bayle place and have a look around,” Bo said. He then told Jim about where he believed he was and ended the call.
As he was waiting for Jim to arrive, Bo took several photos of the spot the blood first appeared and then some of the trail heading off the road. Jim roared up in the SUV just as Bo was putting his cell phone back in his pocket. He had Two Face get in the back seat and then climbed in the front with Jim. “Let’s get back to the Bayles’ as quickly as we can.”
As Jim drove, he told Bo as much as he knew about the crime scene, which wasn’t a lot since he’d mostly stayed out of the way and let the Price City officers conduct their investigation during the short time he was there. When Bo and Jim arrived, they exited the county SUV, passed the crime scene tape that had now been placed around the house, and entered through the broken front door.
Bo briefly talked with the city detective, Gary Costello, who was now overseeing the investigation. “Do you mind if I look around?” Bo asked. “I’ll be careful not to disturb anything.”
“Sure, Deputy Buckley,” Costello said. “We’ve really not done much yet.” He waved a hand around. “As you can see, there’s a lot of blood on the floor and on the walls. At some point, I need to talk with you and your partner about this woman. I understand you were here not too long ago.”
“That’s right,” Bo said. “We’re working a case that involves them. We will help in any way we can.”
Bo was careful not to step too close to where the body lay on the floor of the small kitchen, but he did look closely around the room. Jim, standing beside him, asked, “What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know, just whatever I might see that is of interest,” Bo said as he noted a bloody pen on the floor against the kitchen counter. “She touched that pen,” he said, pointing toward it. Then he looked up at the surface of the counter. He quickly spotted a notepad smeared with blood partially hidden by a dirty casserole dish.
“Detective Costello,” he said. The detective looked up from where he was kneeling close to Belle’s body.
“See something?” Costello asked. “I heard you say ‘pen’ to your partner.”
“Yes, there’s a pen right there at the base of the kitchen counter. It’s bloody, so I think your victim may have touched it. Also, there’s a small pad of paper on the counter with blood on it. You might want to look at that pad and see if she happened to write anything.”
“I’ll do that,” Detective Costello said as he rose to his feet, stepped carefully around the body, and with his gloved right hand, picked the pad up. He read it to himself, and then he turned to Bo. “Isn’t Emil the name of the murder victim you guys found out in the country?”
“Yes, and I’m the investigating officer on that case now,” Bo said. “What have you got there?”
“I think your murder case is solved,” Gary said with a grim face as he walked toward Bo and Jim. “Take a look at this.”
Bo pulled on a pair of latex gloves and then accepted the proffered notepad. “This is a huge break,” Bo said with excitement. “She says her husband killed Emil.”
“I thought Will Merianos was the investigating officer,” Costello said. “How did you come to get assigned the case?”
“Sheriff Hermock promoted me to detective first thing this morning and told me to take over the case,” Bo said as he thought about all that had occurred since then. It had been a busy day to say the least.
“Merianos has been assigned to the patrol division,” Jim added.
Despite the question in Gary Costello’s eyes, Bo made no effort to clarify. He read the note again. “I think Mrs. Bayle was trying to solve your case for you as well.” He held the note out to Gary, who took it and read it once more.
“It appears that you’re right, although we suspected her husband from the very beginning.”
“We need to find him fast,” Bo said.
At that exact moment, Bryan Bayle watched from almost a block away as the sun sunk low in the sky. He cursed Belle for calling the cops on him. All he’d done was hit her one time to teach her a much-needed lesson. This was not good. Now the cops would be after him. The car he’d driven here, which was not his, was well hidden, and he could use this one or steal a different one if he needed to.
It seemed to Bryan that having so many police cars at the house was unusual for a simple little thing like a domestic disagreement—for that is what he considered it to be. He and Belle had had them before, but she’d never called the cops. He kept thinking about the fact that the two officers who’d been harassing him earlier were there, and that made him nervous. He thought about it for a little while, and suddenly, he figured out what was probably happening. Belle was probably spilling all the beans, and that would be very bad. She knew way too much.
He needed to slip home in the middle of the night, take Belle with him, and order her to stay someplace where she couldn’t be found. He would have to come back, however, for he had other interests to take care of. He continued to watch, but suddenly, he jerked in surprise as a hearse pulled up in front of his house.
Surely . . . she was not . . . no . . . she couldn’t be dead! He didn’t hit her that hard. There must be some mistake.
But when several men came out a few minutes later with someone on a covered litter, he knew he had a serious problem. He’d always managed to get away with the things he did, even the really bad things, but this? The cops would be hot on his trail, and he’d have a hard time blaming it on anyone else. He couldn’t let them catch him. They’d say he murdered Belle, but all he did was give her a little smack to remind her to behave herself. Well, maybe a big smack, but not one hard enough to kill her.
It was time to get away from here. He had several things to do. At least he had a safe place to stay, and that was where he headed. When he arrived, he was invited in with a hug and a kiss. Life wasn’t so bad, he guessed. He had to be careful. The cops were looking for him, but they would not find him. In fact, if they did see him, they wouldn’t know him. His girlfriend could help him alter his appearance so radically that no one would know him.