A Bobwhite Killing Read Free

like I’d landed in the middle of the first night of a B-rated television mini-series—one that not only featured a murder, but an impending birth. The fact was, weddings are over in a day, but murder cases can drag on for weeks.
    I didn’t even want to think about how long labor could go on.
    Wait a minute.
    “What did you say?” I asked the sobbing Shana. I lifted her chin off my chest and looked her in the eyes. “You didn’t kill Jack. You told us he left early to find the Cuckoo, and you’ve been with the rest of us since coffee at the hotel. Whoever did this—whoever shot Jack—was here at the camp with Jack not that long ago. This isn’t your fault, Shana.”
    Before she could answer me, three uniformed officers rounded the corner of the wagon and started barking orders at us.
    “Step away from the body, please,” said the woman wearing the sheriff’s jacket.
    “Don’t go anywhere,” the deputy instructed us. “We’ll need statements.”
    “I need an ambulance,” the third officer said into his walkie-talkie.
    I helped Shana to stand up, and we moved away to give the officers room.
    “I already checked for a pulse,” I told the sheriff as she bent to drop her hand on Jack’s neck. “He’s dead.”
    “And you are?”
    “Bob White. I’m one of the birding group that Jack’s … that Jack was going to be leading today.” I tilted my head to indicate Shana, who stood next to me, her arms wrapped around her expansive stomach. “This is Shana O’Keefe. The dead man is her husband, Jack O’Keefe.”
    The sheriff gave us both a quick once-over with her hard eyes. “And you were comforting the widow, I take it?”
    I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks, though my rusty beard probably hid it from the sheriff.
    “They’re both old friends,” I said, bristling at her innuendo. “Actually, I was trying to keep Shana away.”
    “Didn’t look like you were being very successful, Mr. White.” She tapped her shoulder patch. “I’m Sheriff Paulsen. This is my county. And it looks to me like we’re going to need to talk. The three of us.”
    Oh, boy . I was really excited about that idea. Especially since the sheriff seemed to be spinning her own version of what had happened.
    “You got to talk to me, too!”
    We all turned to see Bernie poking her head around the corner of the wagon. She’d obviously made a full recovery from her faint and managed to escape Tom’s supervision. Her cheeks were flushed, but she was clearly eager to be included in our upcoming chat with the sheriff.
    “They’ve been with me all morning,” Bernie offered. “Me and the other birders. We had coffee at the hotel about 6:00 a.m.. Then we split up into three cars to come over here, but we stopped at the sewage ponds to see if we could spot any ducks, but all we saw were some turtles. Believe me, it’s a slow day for birdwatching when you got a bunch of birders standing on the side of the road talking about turtles.”
    “Bernie,” I said, trying to catch her attention. Judging from the deepening frown on Sheriff Paulsen’s face, I was pretty sure Bernie wasn’t scoring any points with her morning play-by-play. Turtles were obviously not high on the sheriff’s list of suspects at the moment. But Bernie was on a roll.
    “Anyway, then we drove over here, and after we parked, Bob and Tom took off in this direction, and Shana and I were still up the hill when Tom came to tell us about Jack.” She paused to take a breath. “Besides, everyone knows that Bob wouldn’t kill anyone. He’s the sweetest man I’ve ever met. He just seems to find bodies a lot.”
    Thanks, Bernie. Not exactly what I would have shared at that particular moment, but hey—what are friends for, right?
    Sheriff Paulsen’s dark eyes locked back on mine. “Is that right?”
    I started to shake my head and put my hand out in a qualifying kind of gesture.
    “Absolutely!” Bernie gushed. “The first two times he found bodies,