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Deputy Brown followed me over to Bonnie’s Jeep after we left the sheriff’s office. As usual, Fred acted like I’d been gone a year when I let him out. His tail was going faster than a helicopter rotor. “Fred, I’d like you to meet Deputy Brown. She’s going to take us for a little ride.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of anyone changing so quickly. The minute I let Fred out of the Jeep, Deputy Brown seemed to melt. When I asked Fred to shake her hand, he sat on his rear and offered a paw and a smile. “Well aren’t you the gentleman?” she said, returning the handshake. She was quite attractive now that I’d seen her smile.
***
“MIND IF I ASK WHERE we’re going?” It was a question I didn’t need to ask because once we’d turned off Highway 65 onto Highway 7, I had a pretty good idea we were headed for Crammer’s farm.
Deputy Brown unconsciously scratched Fred behind the ears. She had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on him.
“Still playing dumb, Jake?” She said it with a smile, thanks to my best friend; albeit it was one most people would call a polite smile, but I took that as progress. Fred was curled up between us on the front seat of her county four by four with his head on her leg.
I tried to give her the best Alfred E. Neuman look I could muster. “What do you mean, Deputy?”
She turned toward me, even though we were on a road with more twists and turns than a roller coaster. “I read your file, Jake, so you can stop the act. If I had your IQ, I wouldn’t be working in this cow town.” Once more, I felt her trying to get into my head. It was probably my imagination. I’d been watching too many sci-fi movies lately.
“Okay, but what’s so important at Crammer’s farm that you want Fred and me to go with you?”
“You’ll see when we get there.” She turned her attention back to driving with an entire split second to save us from going into a ditch. I didn’t know if I should be relieved because we didn’t die, or disappointed she was no longer looking at me. Her gray eyes were hypnotizing; I felt like I could look into them for hours.
***
CRAMMER’S FARM DIDN’T look as haunted as it had earlier in the morning. The sun had found its way through the morning clouds which made it look more like a scene from an old black-and-white horror movie. If it hadn’t been for the half dozen sheriff’s vehicles, it would have been a pleasant picture. Deputy Brown parked on the road by the cemetery in exactly the same spot as I had earlier. She got out of her truck and went over to the coroner’s van, but not before telling me to stay put.
Fred sat up on the truck’s bench seat and watched the deputy talking to the coroner. The fact that the woman Brown was speaking with was the coroner, came to me from several years of watching CSI. She was dressed in a light-blue jumpsuit and wore gloves like I’d seen the last time I was in the hospital. My powers of deduction were also helped by big yellow letters on the back of her jumpsuit that read, CORONER. She nodded her head a couple times, then pointed toward two guys lifting a body bag into the back of the van. Deputy Brown promptly left the coroner, walked over to the men, and said something to them. Even Alfred E. Neuman would have known the stiff was the same one Fred had found the night before. Ironically, I was focused on Deputy Brown instead of the corpse. Her hair was sticking out the back of her police cap in a ponytail. It reminded me so much of how Julie had looked the first time we’d met. My gaze was broken when one of the men handed her an evidence bag and she turned and headed back toward us.
***
FRED ACTED LIKE DEPUTY Brown was his new best friend when she approached us. His tail wagged and his rear shook back and forth. Brown ignored him and walked up to me. Whatever resemblance to Julie I’d seen was gone, replaced by the frown I’d seen on the deputy’s face when we’d first met.
“Is this yours, Mr. Martin?” She was holding the clear, plastic evidence bag an inch from my face. Though I’m farsighted and couldn’t focus on the contents, it was impossible not to recognize the Denver Broncos’ colors and logo.
“I was going to tell you about that. Honest, I was.”
She turned on her mind-reading radar and simply stared.
I began to think about the four-star jail cell she mentioned earlier, and wondered if dogs were allowed to visit the inmates. “Okay, it’s my flashlight. I lost it when I fell into an open grave and landed on a corpse. I assume it’s the one they just loaded into the van.”
She continued to stare. Her face was as blank as a freshly washed blackboard.
“And we were here again this morning,” I said.
Her eyes came alive. Someone must have scratched their fingers on her blackboard. “This morning? Before you came to the office?”
“It’s why we came in, or rather, I did. I don’t think Fred cared one way or the other. When I saw tire tracks leading to the grave, I thought you’d already discovered the body. Then, before I could check on my flashlight, Fred decided to blast the car horn and alert whoever was snooping around in Crammer’s barn, so we set a new land speed record and fled.”
“Someone was snooping in Crammer’s barn? Did you see who it was?”
“No, but he made Jack’s beanstalk Giants look like midgets. Oh, and he drove an old pickup I didn’t recognize. I didn’t tell you because...” I took a deep breath before continuing. “Well, because it made me look guilty. I hope you don’t think I killed him.”
Dimples formed at the corners of her mouth, and I no longer felt her radar. “I know, Jake. Why don’t we head back to town? I know a little mom and pop that has the best lunch in town. Then you can tell me what you and Fred were doing snooping around in a cemetery in the middle of the night, and don’t give me the lame excuse that you were reading tombstones.”
“You know I didn’t do it? How?”
Her dimples grew larger. “The coroner said the corpse has been dead for at least a week. You were still in Colorado when he died.”