8 Sweet Payback Read Online Free PDF Page A

room as he listened. His responses consisted
of “okay” “yeah” and ended with “great, just great.” He concluded the call and
his mouth pulled into a tight line.
    “Trouble.” Sam didn’t exactly
phrase it as a question.
    “Jessie Starkey’s been shot.”
    “He’s dead?”
    “Yeah. I need to call the OMI.” He
scrolled through the numbers on the phone and picked one.
    Sam realized that the waffle iron
was smoking and she grabbed the handle. This second waffle was a very dark
brown and she pried it out with a fork.
    Someone at the Office of the
Medical Investigator picked up right away and Beau couldn’t stand still as he
talked. He outlined the situation in Sembramos. The incident had been reported
as a hunting accident and the body moved. He gave an address and said he would
be there to meet the investigator in an hour. Then he called his own office and
told the dispatcher to get two men up to secure the scene.
    So much for a full Sunday off.
    They ate their waffles in silence,
both of their minds whirling.
    “Can I come with you?” Sam asked
as she cleared the half-eaten breakfasts.
    “Better not. I have no idea what
we’ll find up there.” He’d gone upstairs and come back in uniform, complete
with his holstered pistol and handcuffs and more—ten pounds of stuff around his
waist. “If it truly was a hunting accident, things could be all right. But
until I have the OMI’s report I’m not ruling anything out. That town could be a
tinderbox. I can’t put you in danger, darlin’.”
    But what about yourself? Sam thought as she wrapped her arms around
him and pressed her cheek against the badge on his chest. It never got easier,
watching your lawman husband walk out of the house, not knowing what might
happen.

 
    * *
*

 
    Had he been on horseback, Beau
would have felt like the sheriff in an old Western, riding into an eerily quiet
town while atonal music played in his ear. A tumbleweed actually blew across
the road, borne on the spring wind that had come up yesterday. He passed numbered
cross-streets, the elementary school on his left, the gas station on the right.
Both places seemed buttoned up tight. Same with the variety store and market.
He cruised the entire mile-long stretch of two-lane highway, to where the farm
supply store marked the end of town, without seeing a soul.
    Yes, it was a holiday. That
explained the closed businesses—but still . . . He U-turned, cut over on Third
Street, the only other paved one in town, and cruised back down Cottonwood Lane.
Four cars sat outside the church on the left, where closed double doors didn’t
especially make the place look all that welcoming. He powered his window down
and barely caught the sound of organ music before it wafted away on the
shifting wind. In the next block, the volunteer fire department showed where
the action was. Both of the station’s tall garage doors stood open, the town’s
very dated ambulance backed up to one of them. The local medical investigator’s
black vehicle had pulled up next to it, and two of Beau’s deputies had strung
yellow tape to keep out the dozen or so people who were milling around.
    Leaving an exit path for the MI’s
vehicle, Beau pulled in and got out of his cruiser. All eyes of the townsfolk
seemed to follow him as he ducked under the tape and approached the back of the
ambulance.
    “Hi Ben.” He greeted the older man
who’d served as Taos County’s field deputy medical investigator, under the main
office in Albuquerque, for as long as Beau could remember.
    “Sheriff.” Always a man of few
words, Ben Alison went about his work quickly and efficiently. He climbed into
the back of the ambulance, where Beau could see a pair of booted feet on a
gurney.
    He stepped over, took a quick look
and saw that it was, indeed, Jessie Starkey. The stringy yellow hair and stubbled face were unmistakable; he was wearing the same
clothes Beau remembered from his visit to their home yesterday. A commotion