A Bad Day for Scandal Read Online Free PDF Page B

construction and hell-raising businesses.
    “Howdy, Stella. Your evening go all right?”
    Mindy knew better than to pry into the particulars of Stella’s business, but she was a well-raised kind of girl and couldn’t help making a polite inquiry.
    “Not sure yet,” Stella said, following Mindy back toward the pens, where the bleating sounds of excited alpacas let her know their unexpected outing had come to an orderly end. “This one might have to simmer for a while. Tell you what, you mind if I get in there with them and work on my alibi?”
    “Not a bit,” Mindy said, and then she sat on the fence and chatted with Stella about her worthless brothers and the latest scrapes they’d managed to get into while Stella smeared alpaca shit on her clothes and endured the friendly scrutiny of a dozen gentle, curious creatures, one of which managed to eat a couple of bites of her jacket before Mindy intervened.
    *   *   *
    Stella was back in her driveway twenty minutes later. Her damn garage door was seriously in need of a service call. It wouldn’t go up and down at all. For a few seconds, Stella chided herself for letting Priss’s big payoff slip through her fingers . It was tainted money, she tried reminding herself, but she couldn’t avoid the feeling that tainted money would spend just as well as any other sort.
    As she got out of the Jeep, however, she noticed something she had missed in the swirling drifts of crystalline snow—the sheriff’s truck was still parked under the sugar maple at the edge of her front yard.
    Her heart sped up in her chest as she let herself in the front door. In the kitchen, the dishes were lined up tidily in the drying rack, and dish towels were draped over the oven handles to dry. Sitting at the head of her kitchen table, flipping through an old issue of Quiltmaker, was Goat.
    “Hey, Dusty, ’bout time you got those alpacas put up. How far did they get this time, anyway?”
    Was she imagining things or was there a devilish glint in Goat’s eye?
    “Most of ’em just wandered into the back pasture, but a couple got through the fence and ended up over across the road on Monroe’s land,” she said carefully. “We had a heck of a time with those two. Took me and Mindy nearly an hour to wrangle them back in the pen.”
    Stella lifted her leg to point out the streaks of mud and alpaca excrement on her jeans. She felt a little silly about planting that particular evidence—it wasn’t exactly mood-setting—but careful planning like this was what separated amateurs from professionals.
    Goat started to get up out of his chair, but then his nose twitched like a rabbit’s and he glanced up and down Stella’s clothes. “That’s not just mud on your duds, is it.”
    “’Fraid not. We had to get in the pens with them. You know how it is, get an alpaca riled up, and it takes a while to settle them again.”
    “I didn’t realize that. It, uh, does seem kind of funny that Mindy called on you in particular. You know what I mean? She could have called the Monroes—”
    “They’re over to Sikeston visiting Cressa’s folks.”
    “Or the Spitzers, they’re alpaca people. Seems like they might be a little better at the wranglin’, no offense. I’m just surprised Mindy would ask such a favor, seeing as you had company and all.”
    Stella examined Goat carefully for subtext. Was he suspicious? Was he accusing her of making up a bogus outing, perhaps?
    “It’s just that … well, I showed alpaca, in Four-H.” Blatant lie. “Got ribbons, did okay in the pee-wee division. I know how they handle, you know? It takes a special touch.”
    “Yeah?” Goat advanced slowly, causing a shiver to launch itself right around the base of Stella’s spine and slither and quiver its way upward. “What kind of special touch?”
    He came to a halt when he was mere inches away, tilting his head down so he could regard her closely with those inky blue eyes. Stella sighed in anticipation and