Still Waters Read Free Page B

utility lights strung up on the naked skeleton of the resort building to illuminate the tableau with a constant harsh white light that was punctuated by the flashing blue and red of the cruiser beacons. Above it all, Mother Nature added to the display with strobes of lightning.
    At a glance, Dane estimated nearly fifty people in attendance and about half of them were headed his way with bright eyes, raised voices, and cameras. Reporters. Christ. As a life-form, he ranked them slightly above child molesters. They would ask stupid, obvious questions and expect answers he couldn't possibly give. They would dog his heels like a pack of rabid mongrels, slavering shamelessly over every scrap he tossed them. One of the reasons he had left L.A. after his retirement from football had been to shake the damn press that had crowded in on his personal life and the three-ring circus of his divorce. Now they were here too, invading his county, sniffing around for blood and dirt. He looked down at the ground as hand-held lights threatened to blind him.
    “Sheriff Jantzen, does this come as a shock?”
    “Sheriff, did he have any enemies?”
    “Do you have any suspects?”
    “Were there any witnesses?”
    Dane ignored the questions being hurled at him from all sides, knowing that if he paused, if he offered one sentence in answer and gave them an opening, they would pounce. Chief Deputy Mark Kaufman shouldered aside two of the reporters and reached him first. Kaufman was a short, stocky man of thirty-five with a receding line of coffee-brown hair and perpetually worried eyes. His khaki uniform shirt was sweat-stained, and dust streaked his black trousers. He cracked his knuckles one at a time as he fell into step with Dane. “Jeez, we thought you'd never get here.”
    “Who found him?” Dane demanded in a low voice.
    “Elizabeth Stuart. She's that gal that bought the
Clarion
. Moved into the old Drewes place.” He shook his head like a man who'd been dazed. “Brother, she's a looker, let me tell you.”
    Dane's steps faltered at the sound of helicopter blades beating the air. As he glanced up, a spotlight poured down on them. Squinting, he managed to catch a glimpse of the call letters of a Twin Cities television station emblazoned across the side of the chopper. The machine hovered above them, another vulture looking for its share of the victim.
    “Judas Priest,” he snapped. “Don't they have enough crime of their own to report on?”
    He didn't wait for an answer from his deputy, but pushed his way past another half-dozen people, all barking for his attention. Kenny Spencer, the young deputy trying to hold his section of the throng at bay, was clearly relieved to see him and eagerly stepped back to let him into the circle of calm that had been established around the crime scene. The eye of the storm.
    “Evening, Sheriff,” he said, nodding and swallowing nervously, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as his gaze darted from Dane to the reporters. His long, thin face was chalky-white and gleaming with sweat.
    “Hell of a way to spend the evening, huh, Kenny?”
    Kenny couldn't quite muster a smile. At twenty-three, death was something he had seen rarely. The car accident that had claimed Milo Thornson last winter. Edith Baines after her heart attack at the Sons of Norway dance. But this was an entirely different kind of thing. This death had been deliberate and vicious. Someone had literally ripped the life from Jarrold Jarvis, had cut his throat and drained it out of him in a torrent of blood. Kenny shuddered at the thought as his supper threatened a return trip from his stomach. He swallowed hard and turned a grayer shade of pale.
    Dane gave his deputy a pat on the shoulder and forced himself to take another step toward the Lincoln. He didn't blame the kid for being rattled. He wasn't exactly looking forward to this himself. Death was never pretty and it was never pleasant. He'd been a deputy for seven years and a