A Bobwhite Killing Read Free Page A

they were already dead, and the last time, he was right there when a man was shot. Right there! I know because I was right there, too. And then when that sweet little girl student of his got shot—“
    “Bernie!” Geez Louise, she was making me sound like a walking death trap. I’d be lucky if I didn’t get handcuffs slapped on me right then and there and hauled off to jail without even getting my Miranda rights read to me. In my peripheral vision, I could have sworn that I saw the two deputies getting ready to pull their guns.
    Bob White, sensitive high school counselor and closet homicidal maniac. Thank you again, Bernie.
    “Sounds like we’ve got even more to talk about,” Sheriff Paulsen said, as the ambulance crew finally made it down the slope and hunkered down around Jack’s body. Right behind them were the other six people who’d signed up for a weekend of birding with leader Jack O’Keefe. Standing just beyond the old wagon in a tight clump, they could almost have passed for a small brood of abandoned chicks, their faces ashen and lined with strain.
    “You know, I’d kill for a cup of coffee right about now,” Bernie announced. Then she pointed up at a bird in a tree behind the covered wagon. “Yellow-billed Cuckoo.”
    All of us, including the sheriff looked up.
    “Ow,” Shana moaned.
    “What is it?” I almost grabbed one of the paramedics away from Jack’s body. If Shana was going into labor, there was no way I was going to coach her through it.
    “My back hurt when I looked at the Cuckoo,” she complained, rubbing her knuckles against the small of her back. “Although, to be completely honest, it hurts when I do anything these days.”
    Great. Just what I wanted to hear. The pregnant lady was in constant pain. “I think you should go with the paramedics, Shana. Get checked out. Make sure you—and the baby—are okay.”
    “I’m fine, Bob,” she assured me, even while tears continued to track silently down her face. “And I’m not having a baby.”
    I looked at her in complete disbelief, and she smiled, her eyes regaining some of their sparkle.
    “I’m having twins.”
    Okay, so I was right. She did have a whole pod in there.
    Holy shit.
     

Chapter Four
     
    It was one o’clock in the afternoon, and four of us were trying to eat a late lunch at the old-fashioned A&W drive-in across the street from the Inn & Suites in Spring Valley. Despite my considerable apprehension about her delicate condition, Shana hadn’t gone into any kind of premature labor or distress during our visit with the sheriff, and while she still looked a little pale around the gills, I could see her old stubbornness kicking in.
    “I’m going to find out what happened,” she vowed over her mostly untouched burger basket. Her gorgeous eyes were red-rimmed from crying. “My children are not going to grow up with their father’s murder unsolved. I swear it.”
    “I’m sure the sheriff isn’t about to let this slide, Shana,” Tom assured her. “She had everyone in the county down there at the station running around. I bet you she’s already got leads to follow, and by tonight, she’ll have a suspect in custody.”
    “I hope you’re right, Tom.” She gave him a watery but grateful smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
    “Ah, about the children,” I tentatively began.
    Three pairs of eyes swung to mine.
    I swallowed. “How pregnant are you, Shana?”
    Her green eyes lightened. “Well, let me see,” she looked down at her imposing belly and patted the top of its mound. “I’d say I’m definitely pregnant.”
    I rolled my eyes, while Bernie chuckled. “Could you make this any harder for me?” I asked Shana, feeling the heat in my cheeks.
    “I’m due in two months, Bob,” she relented. “Is that what you want to know?”
    I nodded. “That would be exactly what I wanted to know. And you’re not at risk here, or anything like that?”
    She shook her head. “No, I’m not going to