The Wild Hog Murders Read Online Free PDF Page B

lethal than rock salt. Or that even if they didn’t, one of the hunters would shoot back.
    Then there was the dead man. Not to mention a killer on the loose.
    Rhodes sighed, stood up, and called the dogs. Speedo reached him first, and Rhodes gave him a good petting before going back inside with Yancey bouncing along behind.
    Ivy was in the kitchen. She’d fed Sam his breakfast of what Rhodes assumed was a delicious blend of turkey and giblets from a foil package. Rhodes was faced with the less appetizing prospect of miniature rectangles of shredded wheat, to be covered with nonfat milk. It was a little like eating hay, but Rhodes knew it was supposed to be good for him.
    “Any calls?” he asked, sitting at the table.
    “Not a one,” Ivy said. She handed him the milk carton. “Did you think the killer might have turned himself in this morning?”
    “Too much to hope for,” Rhodes said.
    He poured the milk on the cereal and watched Yancey edging toward Sam. The cat turned and looked at Yancey. That was all it took. Yancey scooted from the room and down the hall.
    “I have to go now,” Ivy said. “You be careful today.”
    “I’m always careful,” Rhodes said.
    “Right,” Ivy said. She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “Sometimes I forget how careful you are.”
    She left, and Rhodes finished the cereal. Sam looked at him as if hoping Rhodes would give him the milk that was left in the bowl.
    “You wouldn’t like it,” Rhodes said. “Trust me.”
    He ran water in the bowl, then put it and the spoon in the dishwasher.
    “You behave yourself today,” he told Sam, but the cat didn’t deign to answer. The cat never did.
    *   *   *
    The crime scene looked hopeless. The churned-up ground didn’t take tracks, and no one had helpfully dropped a driver’s license. Rhodes scanned the area for more than an hour without turning up a thing.
    He had a feeling that Ruth Grady was having the opposite kind of luck in fingerprinting the car. She would be finding more prints than they could possibly sort out. Maybe she’d find something useful in the car itself, but Rhodes didn’t think it was likely.
    The county had bought a metal detector a few years back, and Rhodes had brought it along. He wasn’t going to give up on the scene until he’d tried everything. He slipped on the headphones and turned on the machine.
    After another half hour, he was ready to quit, but he kept going. After ten more minutes, he got a faint signal. It took him a few seconds to zero in on the object, which was hidden under a leaf in a hog track.
    A shell casing. Rhodes picked up a convenient nearby stick and stuck it in the casing’s opening. He put the casing in a paper bag and set it aside while he searched some more.
    Eventually he quit without finding a second. Either the shooter had picked it up or it had eluded him. Well, one was good enough, Rhodes figured. Now all he had to do was find a gun to match it to. It was possible, even likely, that the killer had ditched the gun—in a creek, in a ditch, even somewhere else in the woods. If he hadn’t, however, the shell casing might very well prove useful later on.
    Rhodes gave up on the crime scene after another half hour and walked back through the woods. He didn’t know where the hogs holed up during the daytime, but he was sure they weren’t anywhere nearby. Or if they were, they were quiet and well hidden. If there was any solution to the problems they caused, Rhodes didn’t know what it was. Live traps didn’t work. Hunting didn’t work. Rhodes wouldn’t be surprised if the whole countryside was overrun by hogs before long, and after that the towns.
    He got back to the car and started for the Chandler place. He’d just turned around when a call came through from Hack.
    “Mikey Burns has the answer,” Hack said.
    “The answer to what?” Rhodes asked.
    “The hogs.”
    “He told you that?”
    “He just got off the phone.”
    “What’s the answer?”