Spells Trouble - Kristin Cast (mobile ebook reader .txt) 📗

out the latest call from Earl, he would come back to the precinct and watch Trish light up as she chose which of her many stickers to add to the poster board. It was a small thing, childish even, but it was a thing they shared only with each other.

He pulled behind Earl’s pickup and put his car in park. “It’ll give us a reason to open up that new pack of stickers you bought. Big, silver disco ball–looking stars, weren’t they?”

Trish’s laughter made his chest tighten.

“Oh, you caught me.” She giggled. “I can’t hide anything from your sharp investigative skills. And I just cannot stay out of that darned craft store.”

Dearborn dug through the first-aid kit for the aspirin and popped a couple before he unbuckled his seat belt and threw open his door. “If Earl’s going to beat last year’s record, we’ll need all the stickers we can get.”

He unclipped the flashlight from the belt fastened around his waist and shined the light through the back window of the truck. Empty.

A faint acrid, smoky scent wafted toward him on the crisp night breeze. He took a deep inhale and followed the smell into the grass away from the tree and the truck and the suspected ruckus.

Dearborn winced as he craned his neck to talk into the transceiver. “Someone’s been out here smoking—probably kids. I’ll take a closer look and make sure they didn’t leave any cigarette butts behind. Don’t want this whole field going up.”

“Ten-four.” Trish was silent for a moment before she came back on the radio, her voice light and airy in that hen-like way it got when she came across a juicy bit of town gossip. “You know, old Earl hasn’t been the same since Debbie left him for that spin instructor over in Chicago.”

Raindrops splatted against Dearborn’s back and the grass swayed around his shins. Each burst of wind through the fields brought with it the steady whoosh of waves on a coastal shoreline. Dearborn paused and savored the moment before resuming his march through the grass.

“That was back a year or so after the town put in the train,” he said as he cast his beam back and forth over the blades’ puffy tops. “What was that, five years ago now?”

A whole world of changes had happened on the heels, or maybe on the tracks was a more fitting description, of the new commuter train that ran in a loop from Chicago through Joliet, Bloomington, Champaign-Urbana, Rantoul, and Kankakee before bisecting Goodeville. It had saved the town from a fate too many small Midwestern municipalities had succumbed to and brought with it thriving shops and train cars packed with weary city folk desperate for the sappy slow pace of picturesque Goodeville. The commuter train had also brought Trish to Goodeville. Dearborn didn’t have one complaint.

Papers rustled as Trish came back over the radio. “Five whole years this August. You know, old Earl was a member of the board that decided to bring the train into Goodeville. Without it, Debbie would be home and you wouldn’t have to deal with the old coot calling every other day and sending you out on wild-goose chases. If that’s not old Earl’s bad luck, I don’t know what is.”

Dearborn paused and sniffed the air. The scent had died. He took a few steps to the right, back toward Earl’s empty truck and the road and the olive tree, and sniffed again. There it was. He wiggled his nose and followed the scent like a basset hound.

“Yeah, poor Earl,” he murmured into his walkie-talkie as he left the grass and crossed the road.

“Poor Earl? If you don’t mind me saying, you should really be thinking, poor you.” She sighed. “In as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never even come close to finding your Debbie.”

Gravel crunched under his boots as he passed through the white cones of light from his high beams. “I don’t need a Debbie, Trish. I have you.” Through the steady hum of the radio, he could practically hear her plump cheeks flush with heat. He scratched the back of his neck as warmth pricked his own.

Dearborn cleared his throat and pressed the talk button. “I’ll check in after I’ve sussed out the situation. I’m headed right toward the olive tree.” Another sniff. “Maybe Earl stumbled onto something real this time.”

“He would love that.” Trish clucked. “Be safe out there.”

The line went quiet as Dearborn headed into the stretch of grass. He wiped the spits of rain from his face and rubbed the tip of his square nose. The closer he got to the tree, the thicker the stench. It bit at his nose and made his eyes water.

“Earl,” he called as he swept the beam from his flashlight over the grass. “Where’d you get off to?”

The gravel crunched behind him and he spun around. He squinted through his tear-swirled vision. “Earl?” he hollered once again as he shined his flashlight along his car, Earl’s truck, and then the road’s shoulder. The white light struck something shiny. The hairs on the back of Dearborn’s neck bristled. His mouth went dry as his fingers found his gun holster. His eyes burned and tears and rain and snot leaked down his face as he quickly, expertly closed in on the glinting metal.

Sheriff Dearborn’s stomach hollowed as the scene came into view. The buckles of Earl’s suspenders twinkled in the flashlight beam like trapped lightning bugs. The old man’s fingers threaded through the tall grass as if he laid there, peacefully staring up at the stormy night’s sky. Bile burned the back of Dearborn’s throat as he shined his light on Earl’s face. Blood streaked the man’s wrinkled brow and cheeks, and rain pooled in the raw red hollows where his eyes had been.

Hazelnut and sick coated Sheriff Dearborn’s tongue and he pressed the back of his hand against his mouth. He was a leader, and with a death like this—a murder like this—his town would need him