Read Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming for Free Online Page B

“I’ll be right out on the porch with my husband when you’re done.”
    Alafair left her and walked quickly through the house to the porch. Shaw was sitting in a cane-bottomed chair with one foot propped on the rail, playing cat’s cradle with a piece of string, to the vast amusement of the two little Day girls. He looked over at his wife when he heard the screen door, and assessed her expression at a glance. He leaned forward and eased the cat’s cradle over the pudgy fingers of the eldest girl. “You girls go on out in the yard and practice for a spell,” he instructed, and they scampered away. Shaw stood up. “What is it?” he asked Alafair.
    “Where’s Scott?” she asked.
    “He’s around to the side of the house looking the place over. For some reason he’s got his suspicions up. He can’t tell me why. I figure he’s been doing this depressing business too long.”
    “I’d say he’s got the second sight.”
    Shaw’s eyebrows went up. “Did the wife tell you something?”
    “No. She’s so glad to be shet of the old sot that she doesn’t know if it’s day or night. But I think I found something that shows that he was helped out of this world.”
    Shaw regarded her skeptically. “What?”
    “There’s a bullet hole behind his ear.”
    “A bullet hole!” Shaw echoed, loudly enough that Alafair shushed him. “I didn’t see no bullet hole in his head when he was laying out in the yard,” he added, more discreetly.
    “It’s behind his ear, I told you, and it was all caked with blood and dirt. I didn’t see it either, at first.”
    “Why wasn’t his head blowed off?” he insisted, unable to accept that a bullet hole in somebody’s head could get past him.
    Alafair’s amusement at his attitude momentarily overcame her horror at her discovery. “Well, it would have to be a pretty small caliber bullet, wouldn’t it? I didn’t have time to check for powder burns around the wound. Go look for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
    “Oh, I believe you know a gunshot wound when you see one,” Shaw conceded. “What I can’t believe is that me and Scott missed it.”
    “You weren’t looking. The point is that Harley Day didn’t just freeze to death.”
    “Which ear was this wound behind?”
    “Left.”
    Shaw’s gaze wandered into space as he visualized how the body had lain. “Well, he was on his right side. Could it be that somebody shot him while he was lying there drunk? He couldn’t have bled much.”
    “It would have killed him instantly. And it was cold.”
    Shaw nodded. “What does she have to say about it?”
    “I didn’t say anything to her, though she may have seen the wound by now.”
    “You expect she done him in?”
    “No,” Alafair assured him firmly. “I don’t think she’s sorry he’s dead, that’s for sure. But she doesn’t act like somebody who just did an act of murder.”
    “Well, now. If she was scared of him, and driven to desperation, I can see her doing it like this,” Shaw speculated thoughtfully. “Little gun, a woman’s gun. She gets him right in the head while he’s passed out in the mud like the pig he was.”
    “Makes sense. I’d be tempted myself if I was in her situation. But it don’t feel right. She just don’t act like a woman with something to hide.”
    Mrs. Day came out onto the porch, and they fell silent. The woman was white. “Mr. Tucker,” she began, “would you kindly come in here and have a look at something for me?”
    Alafair and Shaw glanced at one another, then followed Mrs. Day into the house. She led them into the kitchen where Harley’s remains lay neatly washed, combed, and dressed in his cleanest overalls and least mended shirt. Mrs. Day put her hand on her late husband’s cheek, and with some effort, pushed his head over to the side. “What do you make of this?” she asked.
    Shaw bent down for a close look. He examined the little wound carefully for a moment before he stood and looked down at Mrs. Day.