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out murderers, too.

Chapter Four
    Keith’s voice woke me the next morning. I pulled on jeans and stumbled downstairs toward the coffeepot, then headed for his office and stood in the doorway listening to his questions. He was obviously talking to Sam.
    â€œAnything?” I asked after he had hung up the phone.
    â€œYes. It’s just as Sam suspected. There were a couple of bullet holes in Diaz in addition to that gash on his throat.”
    â€œThey were able to do an autopsy that quickly?”
    He gave a wry smile. “Yes, they have a funny way of expecting the worst from out here by now.”
    The KBI sends a couple of observers to our county right away for any autopsies of unattended deaths when Sam calls and even hints there might be trouble.
    â€œGod, I don’t want to go through this again. But we can’t will this away. We can’t control something like murder.”
    Keith glanced at me. I knew I looked like hell and he didn’t look any better. Our jobs were killing us. “Neither one of us can keep up this pace, Lottie. I want us to get together with Sam next week and do some serious planning. I have some ideas for overhauling the department.”
    â€œYeah, well good luck with that.”
    He laughed. “Stonewall Sam will come around. You’ll see. He knows we’re overwhelmed.”
    ***
    We were interrupted by a car coming up the lane. I went to the kitchen and glanced out the window. “It’s Zola,” I called. “Today isn’t her day. What is she doing here?”
    Zola Hodson is my cleaning lady. She had come in answer to an ad when I realized I could no longer keep up my household while holding a job at the historical society and serving as the undersheriff of Carlton County. Now I couldn’t do without her managing the house.
    â€œForgot to tell you,” he muttered, “she’s going to work for me a couple days a week.”
    â€œZola?”
    â€œYes. Turns out her estate work included animals.”
    He felt my hard look. We talked most things over. Hiring Zola without so much as a word to me had a sneaky feel to it. As though he thought I might object to his working with a woman. Chagrined, I knew I had won a major victory. When we first married, Keith’s sense of men’s work and women’s work was seared into his brain. It took a while to get him to forget gender and give competence a chance.
    â€œThat’s wonderful. I’m just shocked, that’s all. I shouldn’t be. There’s nothing she can’t do.”
    â€œYou think you were shocked. She answered my ad in the High Plains Journal for a part-time ranch hand and of course, when she showed up, I knew there was no way I could do better.”
    â€œYou’ve needed more help for a long time, Keith. We’ve both needed to say ‘uncle’ and get our lives straightened out.”
    But I didn’t appreciate his hiring Zola without a word to me. Did he think I would throw a hissy fit? He had run the same kind of silent maneuver last spring, when he became a deputy sheriff behind my back. I had been livid over the underhandedness of his move. It was a done deal, made by him and Sam without discussing it with me. Worse, I knew he had made the move simply to protect me. His wordless hiring of Zola brought back memories of my week of bewildered rage before I settled down and began to appreciate his quiet assistance.
    We watched her come up the walk. Today she was dressed in light blue coveralls and work boots. Zola Hodson is the Eighth Wonder of the World. When she first came into the historical society office in a dazzling white shirt with starched crisp jeans and wearing black boots with silver tips that matched her silver hand-tooled belt buckle, I thought she looked like a model. She was whippet-thin and the answer to my prayers. I was drowning, going under from overwork. Her coal black hair was cut in a polished wedge. But it was