A Bobwhite Killing Read Online Free PDF Page B

County’s finest.
    Shana, meanwhile, was standing on the opposite side of the room, her hands on her hips and her green eyes blazing with anger. A big bear of an older man I didn’t recognize was patting her right shoulder, speaking hurriedly to her in an obvious attempt to calm her down.
    Good luck with that. Even when she was an average-sized, nonpregnant woman, Shana had had the tenacity of a king-sized bulldog when challenged about anything. Don’t even ask me about the time she insisted we could find a Mississippi Kite near Caledonia, down in the southeastern corner of Minnesota. Since those birds rarely make it north of the Iowa border to nest, I laughed when Shana told me she’d seen one in Houston County the summer before we met. Determined to prove it to me, she’d dragged me down to Caledonia three weekends in a row that following June to look for the bird—three miserably cold, rainy weekends. And sure enough, she found the Kite on our third try, not even a mile from where she’d located it the previous summer. Being the generous, gracious man I am—was, even back then at age sixteen—I conceded that she had been right and vowed to never again question her birding prowess. Shana, on the other hand, was not generous or gracious—she rubbed it in all summer long that she had been right and I had been proven wrong. If I learned nothing else about Shana from that experience, it was that I’d better be willing to take the consequences if I challenged her integrity.
    The way Chuck was doing right now in a hotel room at the Inn & Suites.
    “She killed my father!” he shouted, his finger pointing at Shana.
    “No, she didn’t,” Sheriff Paulsen stated unequivocally. “She wasn’t anywhere near your father at the time of his death, Mr. O’Keefe. She’s got witnesses and an airtight alibi.”
    “She didn’t have to be near him!” Chuck yelled. “She’d get someone else to do it. Do you think she’s stupid? Believe me, she’s not. She’s had this one planned since the day she met my father. Marry the rich old guy, give him some great new cause to distract him, and then stick in the knife when he’s not looking. Oh, and that doesn’t even include the pregnancy part. Now she’s got heirs to claim the family fortune. ”
    For a second, I thought Shana was going to leap over the bed—big belly or not—and go straight for Chuck’s throat, but just as she moved forward, the man behind her grabbed both of her arms and held her back. It didn’t stop her from shouting at Chuck, though.
    “You bastard! As long as Jack was married to the company, you were happy. But you could never forgive him for finding something else to care about when he met me, could you? Especially since you saw me first. Don’t think I don’t know it, Chuck. You were so jealous of Jack and me that it ate you up. And now you want me to be punished for it.”
    She turned briefly to the man holding her arms. “Let me go, Ben. I’m not going to touch Chuck.”
    He did as she asked, but seemed reluctant to let her get too far out of his arms’ reach.
    Shana raked her hand through her chin-length black hair, dragging in a long deep breath. From where I stood in the room’s doorway, I could tell that some of the fire in her eyes had gone out as she looked back at Chuck.
    “If you want to know the truth, Chuck, I do hold myself responsible for Jack’s death. But it has nothing to do with the family fortune.” Her eyes shifted to the sheriff. “Now will you please get my stepson out of here?”
    I moved aside as Paulsen pulled Chuck out of the room and down the hallway. Behind me, Bernie was shooing the other birders off into their own rooms, promising everyone a full report later at dinner at the A&W. I turned to leave, too, but Shana called my name.
    “Bob, please don’t go.”
    The tenacious bulldog had disappeared, and in its place was a very tired, very pale Shana. She indicated the man next to her. “I want you to meet