Strange Outfit: An Avery Barks Dog Mystery (Avery Barks Dog Mysteries Book 2) Read Free Page B

the authorities would know who had died.  I closed the lid as best I could and pushed the dirt back on top.
    “Chevy, what a good boy you are for breaking into someone’s food stash!  I think you just found the survival food cache of the dead man.”  I gave him a dog cookie as a reward and he munched on it with delight.  Chevy loved praise, no matter the reason.  If I was happy, then he was happy.
    As we returned to the bottom of the hill, Ben had his two dogs outside for their morning potty break.  Chevy ran straight up to his new girlfriend, Princess, and licked her on the head.  A big tan and white dog with shaggy hair sat on the grass and quietly watched Chevy’s lovesick antics.
    Ben walked over to the old dog and said, “This is Bullfrog, king of the couch.”
    I laughed.  Old Ben really had a good sense of humor.
    “How old is he?”
    “Don’t know for sure, but I’ve had him for thirteen years now, so he’s older than that.”
    I sat down on Ben’s front door steps and Bullfrog waddled up slowly to sniff me. 
    I held up a dog cookie I pulled from my jeans pocket and asked Ben, “Can I give him a treat?”
    “Sure, just don’t give him any soft treats, they make him fart!”
    Bullfrog looked up as we laughed.
    “I think the treat won him over,” I grinned as he tried to climb on my lap.
    Ben marveled, “You are a dog magnet!  How does it feel to have a slobbery sixty-five pounder trying to sit on your lap?”
    I remembered how the wallet from the hidden box fell into my lap, “Hey Ben, I found a food cache up on the hill.” 
    I figured that by now he knew about the body found up there yesterday.  He frowned and stepped up the stairs past me into the mobile home.
    A couple minutes later, Ben emerged with one of those stealth cameras that strap onto a tree trunk.  They are motion sensitive and sometimes hunters set them out to take pictures of animals as they walk by an area, day or night.  But I knew Ben wasn’t the hunting type. He asked me to hang the motion camera and aim it toward the food cache. 
    “What time is it?” Ben asked.
    “About eight o’clock.”
    “Go now and hurry back.”
    He’s the boss.
    “Okay.”
    I left Chevy at the mobile home, so he wouldn’t have the chance to dig up the survival cache again. Ben took all the dogs inside for treats while I headed to the cache spot.  It didn’t take me long to hike back up the hill into the woods and discreetly hang the motion camera.  I was done in about twenty-five minutes.
    As I started back down the hill toward the house for the second time this morning, I heard a dog barking non-stop.  It was an agitated and protective sounding bark, which set off an alarm in my head.  My legs moved faster until I found myself jogging down the hill. As I made it to the pasture behind the house, I saw Bullfrog as he stood outside all by himself, barking away. 
    I broke into a full blown run, through the pasture and around the home to the front yard.  The door to the mobile home was flung wide open and swinging in the breeze. I called out for Ben and got no answer.  I yelled for Chevy and Princess, and they were nowhere to be found.  I jumped up the steps and looked inside the mobile home and saw no one. 
    I fumbled with my cell phone and called Rocky.
    “Good morning.” Rocky sounded cheerful.
    “It’s Avery, I’m at Ben’s place.”
    “You’re an early bird.  You don’t need to show up before nine.  I’m coming up the road now.”
    “Rocky,” I interrupted him, “Bullfrog is running loose and I can’t find Ben.  Chevy and Princess are gone too!”  The panic rose as I spoke.
    “I’ll be there in thirty seconds.”  He made it in about fifteen.
    Rocky burst through the front door of the house and ran from room to room. He flew back out and jumped on one of the four wheelers parked in the shade under one of the maple trees.  “I’m going to look out by the old moonshine shed,” he yelled as he sped