Shunning Sarah Read Online Free PDF

women in the area recently?”
    He shook his head, unwilling to disclose other details. But that moment gave me the opportunity to show him the photograph we found outside Josh’s house. I didn’t ask him if the boy was Josh. I pretended I knew it was.
    “I bet he looks better here than when you pulled him out of that hole.” That’s a little reporter trick to confirm things we suspect without sources realizing their information is crucial.
    Beside verifying Josh’s identity, Sheriff Eide assumed because we had the photo, we had the cooperation of Josh’s mother.
    “She thought it best he not go on camera just now,” I said.
    The sheriff agreed, explaining they needed to interview him again, once he calmed down. “What a mess for the kid. Spending the night with a corpse.”
    That was a keeper of a sound bite. “How was Josh found?”
    “His dog got him in trouble and his dog got him out. The animal led his mother to the sinkhole. She went straight home to get the backhoe.”
    Then the sheriff started warming up to me and digressed fromthe case at hand to tell me about a backhoe theft he investigated a few years earlier. He solved the crime in a matter of days when the culprit parked the stolen vehicle in his front yard with a For Sale sign.
    “Wish they could all go that easy,” he concluded.
    Haunted by some cold cases myself, I knew just what he meant. But I also knew that violent crime—particularly homicide—seldom happened in places like Fillmore County. Residents might be uneasy once word spread and that was probably why the sheriff was nervous when I first arrived. I assured him media coverage often brought tips from the public.
    “When was the last time a murder happened in your county?” I asked.
    “Not in my lifetime.” He had to be nearly fifty. A long time for an area to be homicide free.
    I knew that first cops on the scene to rural murders seldom had homicide training. They spend much of their shift writing speeding tickets, giving drunks Breathalyzer tests, and investigating drug sales. I hoped they hadn’t done anything to mess up the evidence before the forensics team arrived.
    “So Sheriff, how long have you been in office?”
    “First term.”
    I tried to be positive. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and solve this killing fast. Then you can count on smooth reelection for the rest of your law-enforcement career.”
    “Somehow I don’t think so.” He glanced back to the commotion going on at the crime scene van. “We’re missing an important clue.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Her face.”

CHAPTER 12
    D own in the pit and down on his prospects, Josh Kueppers had blasted the dead woman’s face away with his shotgun. The sheriff hadn’t gotten a conclusive answer whether the boy’s finger slipped on the trigger or whether Josh simply wanted to end his stare down with death.
    It really didn’t matter. Either way, the investigation was stalled because the victim is the starting point for most homicide cases. The face, the chief means of identification in most murders. So who was she?
    All this rich debate over identity would enhance my story. Might even make it a two-day story.
    So I was surprised when the news desk ordered us to drive back and package the piece for ten. I’d expected them to send the satellite truck and have me broadcast live from the scene for that feeling of immediacy that producers relish in newscasts.
    That would also have allowed me more time to try to land an interview with Josh. Instead, I’d have to settle for neighbors with no real firsthand information.
    I tried arguing, but Ozzie, the assignment editor, told me not to bother. Then he confided in me the real reason for pulling back on my story. “The new boss is mad at you.”
    “But I haven’t done anything wrong yet,” I insisted. “I’ve actually done something right. Landed an exclusive.”
    “It’s not what you’ve done or not done, Riley, it’s where you’ve done it.”
    “You lost