Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

the cow. I was making breakfast when she come in and told me.”
    “Did you go out to see?”
    “I did go, after breakfast, about sunup. It wasn’t anything unusual, like I said.”
    “Were there mule tracks in the snow?”
    Mrs. Day shook her head. “I didn’t see any. But I wasn’t really looking.”
    “So he must have rode off before the snow started. Did the mule ever come back?”
    “No. Lord, I didn’t think of that. We’ll need that mule.”
    Scott leaned back against the wall, relaxed but sharp-eyed. “How do you reckon Harley got back here and got himself shot in the head up next to the house in time to get covered up in a snow drift?”
    Mrs. Day began to cry. “I don’t know. Lord Almighty.”
    “Did you hear any shots in the night?”
    “Not a one.”
    “Such a small caliber pistol would be pretty hard to hear in the house, Scott,” Alafair offered.
    Scott’s gaze shifted briefly to Alafair and back to Mrs. Day, but he didn’t acknowledge her comment. “Where’s your kids, now, Miz Day?”
    “They’re with my sister-in-law, all but the two outside there.”
    “John Lee, too?”
    A look of terror passed over Mrs. Day’s face and she burst into sobs.
    Scott leaned forward again. “Miz Day, where is John Lee?”
    “I don’t know. I sent him into town to notify you, then he was supposed to go ask my sister-in-law to come get the kids. I know he did, ’cause she come, and said she talked to John Lee, too. I thought he was still at her place.”
    “How did he get into town without the mule?”
    “He borrowed a horse from the Tuckers.”
    Scott glanced over his shoulder at Shaw, who was still leaning imperviously on the door sill. Neither Shaw nor Alafair changed expressions.
    Mrs. Day stretched out both her hands toward the sheriff, imploring. “John Lee couldn’t have done it, Sheriff Tucker,” she wailed. “Not John Lee. I stood on the porch my own self and watched Harley chase him around ’til he forgot what he was doing and went to the barn. John Lee came back to the house, then. We all ate dinner, then did our chores, just like always. I never saw Harley again after that ’til we found him this morning. After we settled in, none of us went out again all night. I know it because we all slept in here that night to be close to the stove. It was cold. And that mule was sure gone the next morning. I saw with my own eyes.”
    Scott didn’t argue with her, but the look in his eye was skeptical. He nodded. “Miz Day, if I was you, I’d be worried about John Lee. Somebody shot your husband and stole your mule and now John Lee is gone. If he shows up, or you hear word of him, you let me know right quick, you hear? Now, I got to go back into town, but I’ll be back as soon as I can to hear what Dr. Addison has to say. I want you to stay at home until I tell you otherwise, ma’am. You understand?”
    She nodded, snuffling.
    Scott turned around. “Shaw, can you or Alafair stay out here with Miz Day and the girls ’til I get back in a couple of hours?”
    Alafair stood up. “One or the other of us will stay here, don’t you worry,” she said firmly, addressing herself to Mrs. Day. “We won’t abandon you.”
    Scott walked out onto the porch with Shaw, and Alafair patted Mrs. Day on the back. “I’ll be right back,” she soothed. “Just going to have a word with the sheriff before he gets away.”
    When she found the men at the end of the porch, she confronted Scott with her hands on her hips. “Scott Tucker!” she exclaimed in an angry whisper. “Did you have to be so rough with the poor woman? Ain’t she been through enough?”
    “Murder’s been done, Alafair,” Scott answered.
    Alafair puffed and looked out into the yard at the two little girls playing in front of the house, both red-cheeked and runny-nosed, apparently unaware of how cold it had gotten. Leave it to the men to be so legalistic, to completely remove the heart from a situation that was practically unbearable as it was. But it was no use to argue. One couldn’t explain light to the blind or sound to the deaf. Best to let them stomp around blind and deaf and take care of the seeing and hearing yourself.
    “Did y’all loan John Lee a mount this morning?” Scott was asking.
    “No,” Shaw assured him. “And none of my stock is missing, so none of the kids did, either.”
    “He never even came by that I saw,” Alafair added.
    “You really think he might have done it?”
    “Oh, I suspect he