Page 5

5

T ess

“Not again,” I said, and then I put my head in my hands and sighed.

Even a little over one short year ago, I would have shouted, cried, or yelled. I’d have been shocked to come home and find a dead body.

But, like I said, that was more than a year ago. Now, to my instant shame, I caught myself wondering how long all the police stuff would take and how long it would be until I could go to bed. It had been a really long day.

That was a person. Is a person, I reminded myself, and my usual compassion and sympathy, emotions that life had battered lately, returned in a flood of sorrow.

Jack was already on the phone with Susan. We never needed to call 911; we had all the members of the sheriff’s office on speed dial. He spoke briefly and then ended the call.

“Susan and Lizzie are on their way out. It’s Andy’s day off.”

“I bet they draw straws to see who has to respond to phone calls from us.” Then I raised my head and gathered my gumption, as Aunt Ruby would say. “Should we go out and look? In case it’s anybody we know?”

Jack shook his head. “Nope. We don’t want to contaminate the crime scene. In fact, I’m going to back up out of the way, so they can get in there easier.”

Since my little house wasn’t far outside of town, we could already hear the sirens. Sheriff Susan and our new Dead End deputy, Lizzie Underhill, were almost here. Susan was a great sheriff. She’d had to fight to keep her job when Dead End’s former sheriff, a scumbag murderer, had been in the office. Now that she was in charge, life in Dead End was a lot better. Criminals probably avoided our town, since she wouldn’t let them get away with anything.

If they knew that.

How would they know that?

“Maybe there’s a criminals’ texting tree the way we have one for the town.”

Jack gave me an odd look. “Tess? Do you want to go inside and make some coffee? I know you’re exhausted, and I can stay out here and deal with this. I bet they’d appreciate the caffeine.”

I knew he was coddling me, but I was too tired to be offended by it. “Sure.”

Suddenly, I realized what was itching at my mind. “Lou! What if they went inside and catnapped Lou?”

Before Jack could answer, I slammed the truck door open and headed for my house. The door was still locked and didn’t look damaged or like anybody had tried to force it open.

“Tess.” Jack was behind me. “She’s fine. I heard her when we rolled down the windows. And there’s nobody else … alive … on the property.”

I sometimes forgot that Jack has superior tiger hearing.

Still, my fingers shook when I fitted my key into the lock—locking doors in Dead End is another relatively recent development—and finally got the door open. I was so happy to see my cat I almost cried.

“Lou!” Formerly a stray who’d showed up on my porch one night in a rainstorm, Lieutenant Uhura was the first feline love of my life. She weighed about eight pounds, but it was eight pounds of pure love. I dropped my bag, rushed over to the couch, and happily cuddled her in my lap.

“I’ll make coffee and check the security camera footage,” Jack said. “You stay here. That’s Susan now.”

I kept forgetting that the Fox brothers set me up with cameras after one of our many misadventures. That would come in handy.

Sure enough, lights and sirens filled my driveway and then, only a few minutes later, Susan walked in.

“Again?” She sighed and leans back against the wall.

“Sorry. You look tired. Rough week?”

“You could say that.” She looked up when Jack walked into the room with three mugs of coffee. “You, sir, are a gentleman.”

I waited for her to drain half the mug in one long gulp. “Do you know who it is?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s Quark.”

I stared at her. “It’s an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter?”

“What?”

Jack sighed. “We’ve been watching a science series about the Large Hadron Collider.”

“Oh.” She still looked mystified, but shook her head. “No. It’s a deputy from Riverton named Quark. No first name that I know of. Or maybe that’s his first name, and he has no last name.”

Lizzie knocked on my door.

I waved her in. “Hey, Lizzie. Just walk in. Everybody else does.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. Lizzie was nearly six feet tall and sturdy. She looked like she could throw a bad guy to the ground and put him in cuffs. No problem.

Of course, she might also be able to do that because she was almost a werewolf.

“Just Tess, please. Or should I call you Deputy Underhill?” I felt bad. Maybe they tell deputies to stick to protocol and I was messing things up.

“No, Tess. Lizzie is fine.”

Jack held up a mug of coffee, but she waved it off. “No. Thanks. Actually, I wanted to talk to you as well as to the sheriff.”

“Me? I mean, of course. It’s my garage. I was at work all day, then I came home to change clothes and feed Lou, and then?—”

“No,” Lizzie said. Then she pointed at Jack. “You. The dead guy is a werewolf.”

“So, you knew him,” Susan accused. “Why did you lie?”