The Hen of the Baskervilles(41)

When we reached the edge of the woods, we found two Shiffleys already there. One of them shifted slightly when he spotted us, and I decided to pretend I hadn’t noticed him hiding his rifle behind a nearby tree. The other had climbed over to our side of the fence and was examining what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary patch of pine needle–covered ground.

“What was that?” Michael asked.

“Could be a fox,” the kneeling Shiffley said.

“Weren’t no fox,” the temporarily unarmed one countered. “Maybe someone trying to imitate a fox. And doing a damned bad job of it.”

“Sounded pretty good to me,” the first one said.

“And to me, too,” I said. “But I’m no expert.” Though I’d heard plenty of their shrieks since Michael and I had moved to our converted farmhouse some years ago. At first I’d been alarmed, thinking they’d come from an animal or even a child in horrible pain. These days I usually just nodded and said, “The foxes are out tonight.”

Why did such a familiar noise unnerve me tonight? Was it just my nerves?

“You can’t really tell much from these pine needles.” The kneeling Shiffley stood up and brushed off his hands. “Could have been a fox.”

“No way,” the other said. “If it was a fox—”

He was interrupted by two loud popping noises.

“Gunshot,” both Shiffleys said in unison. They began running toward the sound. So did Michael and I, though we weren’t keeping pace with the Shiffleys.

I actually wasn’t trying too hard to keep up with them.

“Oh, Lord,” I heard one of them say. “He’s been shot.”

“Who?” I asked.

“No idea,” the other one said. “Call Randall.”

“Call the chief first,” the first one countered.

“Isn’t Vern here tonight?” the other asked.

“Call 911,” Michael said. “I’ll go see if I can get some help. Stay together, all of you.”

“He’s got no pulse,” one of the Shiffleys said.

“Sssh,” I hissed. “Are those running footsteps? Turn your flashlights on,” I added, pulling mine out of my pocket and following my own orders. Michael did the same thing, and the two Shiffleys were silent—one kneeling by the body while the other punched buttons on his cell phone. We all kept quiet for a few moments, scanning our surroundings with the flashlights, but we could only see a few yards into the fog.

“Nothing,” the kneeling Shiffley said. “Someone give me some light down here. I need to see if there’s anything I can do for him.”

I shifted my flashlight beam toward his voice and the body he was kneeling beside came into focus. Person, not body, I corrected myself, but when I moved the beam up to the head, I realized maybe I’d been right the first time.

“We’ve got someone shot down here at the fair,” the other Shiffley was saying into his cell phone. “At the gate to the Midway.”

“It’s one nineteen,” Michael said. “In case someone asks. Like the chief.”

Then he took off again, running, toward the agricultural section.

“No,” the Shiffley on the phone was saying. “No idea who he is.”

“Oh, damn,” I muttered.

“Yeah, I don’t think he’s going to make it,” the Shiffley said.

“It’s Brett Riordan,” I said.

He was lying on his back in the open gate between the main part of the fair and the Midway, with his head toward us and his feet pointing toward the barns. He was wearing dark pants and a dark hooded jacket with the hood pulled up around his face. His eyes were wide and staring, and there was a bullet hole in his forehead.





Chapter 17

“Shouldn’t we be giving him some kind of first aid?” It was the Shiffley who’d called 911.

“Not sure there’s anything we can do,” the kneeling Shiffley said. “Two shots, one in the head and one in the throat. Either one could kill you, but both?”

The first one shook his head. And then he began telling Debbie Ann what had happened and where we were.

There were trickles of something dark on Brett’s forehead—blood, no doubt. I was glad the flashlight leached out the colors so I was seeing it in black and white. I made sure not to let the flashlight beam drift any higher than his forehead, because there was probably an exit wound that would give me nightmares.

Within minutes of our call to 911, a figure appeared out of the fog from the barn side of the fence. Another Shiffley, by the long, loose-knit shape of him. Since the gate was blocked, I climbed over the fence to greet him. When he got close enough I realized it was Vern Shiffley.