Blood Trail Read Free Page B

you’ve got ceiling damage. You don’t want that, do you?”
    “No,” Joe said defensively.
    “Nobody wants that,” Ed said, nodding, puffing. Then, looking up at Joe and squinting through a cloud of smoke, “Are you aware your ladder fell down?”
    “Yup,” Joe answered quickly.
    “Do you want me to prop it back up so you can come down?”
    “That’s not necessary,” Joe said, “I need to clean the gutters first.”
    “I was wondering when you were going to get to that,” Ed said.
    Joe grunted.
    “Are you going to get started on your fence then too?”
    “Ed . . .”
    “Just trying to help,” Ed said, waving his pipe, “just being neighborly.”
    Joe said nothing.
    “It isn’t like where you used to live,” Ed continued, “up the Bighorn Road or out there on your mother-in-law’s ranch. In town, we all look out for each other and help each other out.”
    “Got it,” Joe said, feeling his neck flush hot, wishing Ed Nedny would turn his attention to someone else on the street or go wax his car or go to breakfast with his old retired buddies at the Burg-O-PARDNER downtown.
    Joe kept his head down and started scraping several inches of dead leaves from his gutter with the spatula he’d borrowed from the kitchen drawer.
    “I’ve got a tool for that,” Ed offered.
    “That’s okay , Ed,” Joe said through clenched teeth, “I’m doing just fine.”
    “Mind if I come over?” Nedny asked while crossing his lawn onto Joe’s. It was easy to see the property line, Joe noted, since Ed’s lawn was green and raked clean of leaves and Joe’s was neither. Nedny grumbled about the shape of Joe’s old ladder while raising it and propping it up against the eave. “Is this ladder going to collapse on me?” Ed asked while he climbed it.
    “We’ll see,” Joe said, as Nedny’s big fleshy face and pipe appeared just above the rim of the gutter. Ed rose another rung so he could fold his arms on the roof and watch Joe more comfortably. He was close enough that Joe could have reached out and patted the top of Nedny’s watch cap with the spatula.
    “Ah, the joys of being a homeowner, eh?” Ed said.
    Joe nodded.
    “Is it true this is the first house you’ve owned?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’ve got a lovely family. Two daughters, right? Sheridan and Lucy?”
    “Yes.”
    “I met your wife, Marybeth, a couple of weeks ago. She owns that business management company—MBP? I’ve heard good things about them.”
    “Good.”
    “She’s quite a lovely woman as well. I’ve met her mother, Missy. The apple didn’t fall far from that tree.”
    “Yes, it did,” Joe said, wishing the ladder would collapse.
    “I heard you used to live out on the ranch with her and Bud Longbrake. Why did you decide to move to town? That’s a pretty nice place out there.”
    “Nosy neighbors,” Joe said.
    Nedny forged on. “What are you? Forty?”
    “Yup.”
    “So you’ve always lived in state-owned houses, huh? Paid for by the state?”
    Joe sighed and looked up. “I’m a game warden, Ed. The game and fish department provided housing.”
    “I remember you used to live out on the Bighorn Road,” Nedny said. “Nice little place, if I remember. Phil Kiner lives there now. Since he’s the new game warden for the county, what do you do?”
    Joe wondered how long Nedny had been waiting to ask these questions since they’d bought the home and moved in. Probably from the first day. But until now, Nedny hadn’t had the opportunity to corner Joe and ask.
    “I still work for the department,” Joe said. “I fill in wherever they need me.”
    “I heard,” Nedny said, raising his eyebrows man-to-man, “that you work directly for the governor now. Like you’re some kind of special agent or something.”
    “At times,” Joe said.
    “Interesting. Our governor is a fascinating man. What’s he like in person? Is he really crazy like some people say?”
    Joe was immensely grateful when he heard the front door of his house