Blood Sins Read Online Free PDF Page B

mountains. And lots of birds. But . . . now that I think about it, my wife's bird feeders haven't been very popular. Not even doves or cardinals, and we generally have dozens of them about the place all winter." He shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. "Like I said, probably nothing to do with these killings. Just something weird, is all."
    "Okay. Anything else you can think of?"
    "Nah. I'll call if I think of anything, but I told Robin here--"
    "Officer Keever, Pel. Come on," she protested.
    "Well, then, Officer Keever, I'll be Mister Brackin to you."
    She rolled her eyes but then caught Sawyer's and subsided. "Right. Sorry, Mr. Brackin."
    Satisfied, he finished: "I told her everything I remembered from the time Jake started barking and I saw the body."
    "Not an easy question, but I suppose you don't recognize her?" Sawyer asked.
    "Shit, Sawyer, her own mother wouldn't recognize her."
    "I had to ask."
    "Yeah, yeah. If I've ever seen her before, I can't tell by looking at her now. Look, can I go? It's not like you don't know where I've lived for the last sixty years of my life, and I'm not going anywhere except home. My feet are freezing, I want my coffee, and Jake wants his breakfast."
    Sawyer nodded. "Yeah, go ahead. Sorry to keep you."
    With a grunt that might have been meant as thanks, Brackin headed downstream toward his place, avoiding so much as a glance at the corpse in the river.
    "Wildlife," Sawyer murmured, more to himself than anything else.
    "Chief?"
    "Nothing." Mildly, he added, "Robin, when you're fighting an uphill battle to be taken seriously, it helps to act like a professional."
    "I know. Sorry, Chief."
    "Just don't make me sorry I cleared you for fieldwork, that's all I'm saying."
    She nodded, now wearing a slightly anxious expression.
    Her face was an open book, Sawyer reflected, betraying her thoughts and her emotions equally. Which certainly gave the lie to the whole inscrutable Asian stereotype, since Robin had been born in China. But, adopted by the Keevers at the age of three, she had been brought up in traditions a long way from Asian. That Southern rural background had left her, twenty years later, with an accent that was pure Carolina Mountain, an occasional turn of phrase that would have astonished and possibly horrified her ancestors, and a slight chip on her shoulder that came from being different from most everyone around her.
    Sawyer could relate.
    But all he said was "I gather Pel didn't see anything helpful."
    "He claims he never went within twelve feet of the body, and the lack of footprints on the bank there bears him out," the young deputy reported crisply. "Ely had a look around while I waited with Mr. Brackin, but he didn't see anything out of the ordinary."
    Sawyer glanced past her, up the shallow bank to where their cars were parked just off the road, and noted that Robin's sometimes partner, Officer Ely Avery, was leaning a hip against their cruiser, obviously trying not to look bored.
    There was a second cruiser parked up there, possibly intended to fend off curious onlookers who had not appeared, and the two officers in it, Dale Brown and Donald Brown (no relation, they always explained), appeared just as bored and/or equally detached from the situation.
    No taste for or even interest in homicide investigation there. Sawyer made the mental note, then returned his gaze to Robin Keever's earnest young face. She was smart, more than capable, and she was ambitious; he'd known that for a while now.
    But more important at the moment, she's fully engaged and intensely curious. Good.
    Because he damn sure needed all the help he could get. Nothing in his years as a small-town cop had prepared him for anything even remotely like this.
    "I checked with the station soon as I got here," Robin went on, "and we have no reports of missing persons fitting--well, no women reported missing from anywhere in the county."
    "Yeah, I checked too." But the last female missing person had turned up in this same