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the kitchen.
    The young deputy followed me into the kitchen. “Angie, please. The sheriff wouldn’t like it.”
    Not a great argument with me either. “Anderson, let me worry about the sheriff.”
    He made a frustrated sound but didn’t bother to argue with me anymore. Maybe he was finally realizing that it was waste of time.
    Oliver whimpered when we were in the kitchen. I bent over to pick him up. I should have left him at home or at least with my mother in the foyer, but taking Oliver everywhere I went was second nature to me. When I’d left my house in a panic it hadn’t occurred to leave him behind. I tucked him under my arm like a football and surveyed the damage in the kitchen.
    In actuality it looked much better than it had the day before. The broken French door was boarded up and all the overhead cabinetry had been removed.
    A new set of white French doors leaned against the wall.
    I stepped through the working side of the French door, which was wide-open.
    Outside the activity around the trailer immediately caught my attention. Two crime scene techs walked around the trailer brushing their shoes back and forth over the grass as if looking for something. The coroner, who, in a strange twist of circumstances, I had seen on several occasions since moving back to Ohio, stood at the foot of the trailer writing on a clipboard and shaking his head. I didn’t know his name. All I had ever heard Mitchell call him was “Doc.” I wondered if it was time we were formally introduced since our paths seemed to always be crossing. Two deputies from Mitchell’s department stood on either side of the coroner. All three men were looking down at something on the ground. One of the deputies took pictures of the object with a large and expensive-looking camera. I knew it must be Griffin’s body. Despite my unquenchable curiosity, I was glad I couldn’t see him.
    Petunia, Jonah’s one-hundred-plus-pound white, tan, and brown spotted Nubian goat, came up to my side and bumped her head against my hip. According to my Amish friends, she did this because she liked me. I wasn’t so sure. It seemed to me that she did this to see how much force it would take to knock me over. She had knocked me to the ground on more than one occasion.
    Right now, it wouldn’t take much to topple me. The news about Griffin’s death still hadn’t completely sunk in.
    Oliver wriggled in my arms, and I set him on the ground next to the goat. Petunia gently—much moregently than she ever had to me—bumped his head with hers. “What are you doing here, Petunia?” I asked the goat.
    She bumped my hip again. This time with a little more force that made me take a step back.
    I pointed at the dog and goat. “You two stay away from the crime scene, okay?”
    They both stared up at me with soulful eyes as if they understood my every word. I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment if they did. This wasn’t their first crime scene either.
    Jonah stood a few feet away at the edge of my mother’s pristine tulip garden with another deputy. Jonah held his black felt hat in his hands and fiddled with the rim. “
Nee.
I told you. I arrived here at six this morning. I wanted to have an early start. The Braddocks were eager to complete the project. I thought if I could do some prep work before the rest of my workmen arrived, we could go straight to work. I was about to start taking out the old French doors when I noticed something unusual near the steps of the trailer. I went to check it out.” He gripped his hat a little more tightly. “That’s when I found Griffin.”
    “Did the Braddocks let you in the house? How did you get inside?” The deputy wanted to know.
    He swallowed. “No. Mrs. Braddock told me where they kept the spare key in the garden yesterday so that I could come and go as I needed for the job.”
    “Weren’t you afraid of disturbing the Braddocks so early in the morning? Six o’clock seems to be an early time to be on the job.”
    Jonah