She glared at him. “No, I can’t. I work for the unit in Denver.”
“Poor damn guys.” He glanced at her with pretended shock. “Oops. I didn’t mean to say the quiet part out loud. Sorry.”
She was flaming mad. Her lips made a thin line. She glared at the road straight ahead. “I spent years in college for this!” she growled, waving a small hand at the horizon.
“Yes, I’m sure it must be a real come-down, having to waste your brilliance on a cold case in the backwoods.”
She glanced at him. He sounded pleasant enough.
She shifted in her seat, drew in another breath, and sneezed again.
“Any particular reason why you didn’t check a weather forecast before you came here?” he asked.
She grimaced and stared down into her lap. “Weatherby.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Weatherby,” she repeated gruffly, averting her face. “I found him dead in his cage this morning.”
He felt a twinge of guilt. He had a pet of his own, one that kept him mostly dateless. He wasn’t sharing that with Lucrezia Borgia here, however. “What killed him?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” she said huskily. “Vet’s doing an autopsy.”
He stopped at a traffic light. “Had him long?”
She nodded. “Seven years.”
Her voice sounded rusty. He could imagine she was grieving. If he lost Bert, he’d be grieving.
“Sorry,” he said after a minute.
She drew in a breath. “Yes. Me too.” She glanced at him from red eyes. “You got a pet?”
He nodded. “Just one. Bert.”
“Had him long?”
He nodded again. “Nine years.” He smiled. “He’s a lot of company.”
“So was Weatherby.”
“Give it time. It’s as hard to lose a pet as it is to lose a human sometimes, they say.”
“You ever lost a pet?”
“No. But a friend, and a partner, yes.”
“Oh.” She moved again. “Sorry.”
“Thanks.”
She sat back in her seat, peering at him. “You ex-military?”
He laughed softly. “What gave it away?”
“Your posture,” she said simply.
His eyebrows arched.
“There’s a way military people carry themselves,” she explained. “It’s different from the way most people walk.”
“Well!”
He sounded impressed. She felt a tiny skirl of pleasure. Most people weren’t impressed with her, despite her credentials. In fact, most people didn’t like her. It was a fact of life that she’d accepted long ago. A lot of it was due to her relatives. The rest . . . well, she was shy, and she didn’t really know how to interact with other people. She never admitted it, of course. She never showed weakness to the enemy. And the enemy was, pretty much, everyone.
* * *
Gil pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office and glanced at the black SUV she drove to the precinct.
“Nice vehicle,” he said.
She managed a shy smile. “Thanks. It’s got a great sound system.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I like . . . music,” she said hesitantly.
“Yeah. Me too.”
He got out and opened his door. He started to open hers, but she made it ahead of him and walked into the sheriff’s office. Her luggage was right where she’d left it.
“You didn’t leave your gear in your SUV,” Gil remarked, gesturing toward her bags.
“It’s got a lot of specialized equipment in it,” she explained. “I wanted it to be safe.” Then she flushed, because it sounded as if she thought Benton was full of thieves. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out,” she blurted out.
“No worries,” he replied.
Gil walked her into Jeff’s office.
The sheriff had been on the phone, but he hung up. “Well?” he asked.
She moved a step closer. “The body was positioned as if it was tossed there, not as if it had been placed or fallen,” she began. “There was a button missing at the neck. I saw a depression at the back of the head, which was slightly turned to the left, as if the body had taken a blow there or had fallen and hit something very hard. It wasn’t a deep depression, so I don’t think it was an assailant who put it there.” She paused, aware of two pairs of very interested eyes. “The shoes were missing. That’s curious, because I haven’t seen such a thing in many cases of this sort. There were socks on the body, however. That’s all I have so far.”
Gil let out a soft whistle. He’d looked at the body longer than she had, but he hadn’t noticed those things. She was extremely observant.
“When we get the remains to the morgue, I can do a more in-depth assessment,” she added.
“I’ll look forward to hearing about it,” Jeff said, smiling and nodding.
“You’d better get to a motel, reserve a room, and change into something dry before you catch cold,” Gil added, staring down at her.
“Good idea,” she stammered, then turned toward the sheriff. “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Nemara Landreth, from the crime lab in Denver.”
The sheriff smiled. “Jeff Ralston, sheriff.” He nodded toward her companion. “He’s my undersheriff, Gil Barnes. And our newest crime scene investigator.”
She just nodded awkwardly. “I’ll go get a room and come back in the morning. About eight thirty?”
“Eight thirty’s fine,” Gil replied.
She nodded again. “Well, okay, then. Thanks.”
She left the room. Minutes later, they heard the SUV pull away from the parking space.
“What do you think?” Jeff asked Gil.
Gil sighed. “I think we’ve got a perplexing case. And I hope she’s what we need to help solve it.”
“Time will tell,” Jeff said.
“You got that right!” Gil agreed.
CHAPTER 2
The motel was at the edge of town. It wasn’t much to look at, but the double bed was comfortable and the door had a solid lock.
Nemara stretched out on the bed after a bath and a change of clothes. She was wearing sweats, gray pants with a gray pullover, and her hair was curling like mad. She couldn’t tame it, no matter what she tried.
She fought tears. It was so hard to realize that Weatherby wouldn’t be waiting for her in her apartment in Denver. She missed him so much. The local vet was having his ashes put in an urn for her. She would place the urn on her dresser and hoped that would help her heal. She’d talked to several other grieving pet owners who said that they’d done the same with their deceased pets, and it did ease the pain. She wasn’t sure. But she was willing to try anything.
It had been such an awful week. Weatherby’s death was the last straw. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She knew she wasn’t making a good impression here. She hadn’t expected to. Men didn’t like her. They always felt that she was showing off when she was just using the expertise she’d achieved in college. They shunned her or made fun of her. Occasionally, one would treat her as a sister and moan about whatever girlfriend was treating him badly. There hadn’t ever been one who liked her for herself. She didn’t expect it, anyway. She was too odd to suit most men.