Read The Homeplace: A Mystery for Free Online

mornin’?”
    Mercy felt the blood drain from her face. “She was supposed to, but she didn’t show up. Didn’t even call. That’s not like her.”
    Marty glanced at Paco.
    “What’s this about?” Mercy looked from Marty to Paco and then back to Marty.
    Paco raised a hand and answered. “We just need to ask her a few questions. That’s all.”
    “What’s going on?” Mercy’s voice trembled. “Tell me, Marty. You tell me now.”
    *   *   *
    Birdie recognized the old pickup. She pulled off the road at Bobby Jackson’s alfalfa field and rolled her window down. Some mornings Pop Weber would stop to talk when he saw her. Some mornings he’d just drive by.
    The old man hunched over the steering wheel and never looked her way as his truck rattled by.
    Birdie let out a breath. A naked, dead boy cluttered up her mind, and she didn’t need to talk to anyone this morning.
    Square bales, some still tinged with a bit of green, stretched across the field in neat lines. Birdie stepped up to the closest bale and plucked out a handful of hay. She held it to her nose and sniffed. Fresh cut, like the hay with the buffalo. Three rows down from where she’d left the truck, the bale at the end of one line was missing. Mashed weeds still damp with last night’s frost showed where a truck had backed up to the fence from the dirt road.
    Birdie walked closer and hunkered down on her heels where the missing bale had been. She snatched a stalk of straw from the ground, mashed it between her front teeth, and studied the ground at the edge of the field. What she saw in the powdery dust, near a strand of sagging barbed wire, stopped her breath.
    She fished her cell phone from her jacket and took a picture of the spot in the dirt. She checked to be sure the image came out clear, then punched in the sheriff’s number and hit Send. When sent showed on the screen she dialed his number.
    The sheriff answered. “What are you up to, Hawkins?”
    “I just sent a picture. You get it?”
    “Just a second.”
    She imagined Kendall tipping back his hat and staring down at his phone.
    “Where are you?” he asked.
    “Six miles south. That section of ground the Fords lease to Bobby Jackson. He cut and baled last week. Every row is nice and even ’cept one.”
    “What are you gettin’ at?”
    “A bale’s missin’ from the end of one row. And that footprint in the picture is right next to it. You best send some of the state boys over here.”
    “I’ll see to it that they’re on the way, pronto.”
    “Yeah, pronto.” She hoped she wasn’t right.
    Birdie looked down at a barefoot print in the powdered dirt between the fence line and the rows of cut alfalfa. Toes pointed to the road. She knew enough from tracking deer and coyotes to know the track was fresh. Probably made last night.
    The shaft of straw fell from her mouth, and Birdie couldn’t think of one reason why a naked boy would lug a bale of alfalfa from the field. But it was the track beside the barefoot print that troubled Birdie most. It was a smooth-soled boot print with a Tony Lama logo on the heel. Just smaller than her own.
    *   *   *
    Mercy looked up from her cell phone. “It went straight to voice mail,” she told Chase and the two deputies.
    Marty fidgeted with his coffee cup. “What about her father?”
    Mercy stared at her phone. “I gave Victor the day off. He usually closes for me on Saturday nights, but with the pancake supper over at the church, we’re plannin’ on closin’ early.” Her stomach boiled with too much coffee and too much worry. “He said he was going to drive to Lamar to see his brother.” She shook her head before Marty could ask. “Victor doesn’t have a cell phone. Says he doesn’t believe in them.”
    “Then try his house.”
    “He won’t be there.”
    “Try anyway.”
    Mercy found his number and hit Send. She tapped her thumbnail on the Formica tabletop in rhythm with the ringing phone. “Victor?” She covered the