Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

there in the first place?”
    Scott stood up and picked his hat up off the night table. “I can’t,” he admitted. “Not yet. But when I went to talk to Russell Lang, and he told me his story about going into the ditch on Wednesday evening, I asked him if he saw anyone who might back up his story. He said he only saw one other person on the road that evening. It was Jim Leonard, just drunk enough to be profane, Lang said, riding a mule toward his own place.”
    “A mule,” Shaw repeated.
    Scott smiled. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time. There’s mules galore. But now—now I’m thinking that two and two just might make four.”
    “Here’s another two for you, if you want to make six,” Shaw told him. “Charlie-boy told us he saw Jim Leonard cutting across our property on that same Wednesday. Said he was on a mule and loaded down with saddlebags.”
    “Well,” Scott said, and stood up.
    “Are you going back into town?” Shaw asked his cousin, as he headed out the door.
    “First I’m stopping by John Lee’s place to see if he’ll show me that still. Then I expect I’m over to the Leonards’ to arrest Jim.”
    Alafair started to sit up, but Doc Addison pushed her back down and sat in the chair that Scott had vacated. “Oh, you think he’s the one who killed Harley?” she wondered. “Are you going to let Miz Day go?”
    Scott shook his head. “Not so fast, Alafair. I’m suspicious of Jim Leonard, now, but I’m going to arrest him for assault, and moonshining while I’m at it. And Miz Day hasn’t unconfessed yet.” He set his hat back on his head.
    “I’ll walk you out,” Shaw said. “I’ve got to drive in and pick up all those kids before they wonder what happened to me.”
    “What are you going to tell them?” Alafair pressed him. “I don’t want them scared on my behalf.”
    Shaw blinked and shrugged. “I’ll just tell them that you bumped your head a bit, I reckon.”
    “Tell them that a jar fell off the shelf in the pantry and smacked me. Then I fell and struck my jaw. That sounds reasonable.”
    “I’ll do it,” Shaw said with a laugh. “Doc, can you stay with Alafair until we get back?”
    “Be glad to,” the doctor assured him.
    After the men had left, Alafair looked over at the doctor, who was sitting with his arms folded across the chest of his neatly pressed black wool suit, gazing at her with a wry look in his blue eyes.
    “He’ll be gone at least an hour, Doc,” Alafair told him. “You don’t have to baby-sit me.”
    “Oh, I think I do,” Doc Addison assured her. “Otherwise who knows what mischief you’ll be getting into next.”
    Alafair emitted an exasperated puff, and shifted a little in the bed. “Well, then, you might as well help yourself to a glass of buttermilk and a chunk of bread. There’s pie in the cabinet.”
    “I’m fine. Do you need something to nibble on, yourself?”
    “I couldn’t eat a thing. Stomach’s still unsteady.”
    Dr. Addison helped her take the headache powder, and a companionable silence fell for some minutes. The doctor reached into his bag and pulled out a book, and Alafair stared at the ceiling.
    “How’s Miz Doc?” she asked, at length.
    “Ann is fine. Busy as a bee.”
    Alafair made an interested noise, and then asked the question she really had in mind. “Doc, I’m worried about that child I saw in the woods. It’s colder than all get-out, and he wasn’t hardly dressed to speak of. He looked familiar to me, but I’d swear I haven’t seen him before.”
    Doc Addison lowered the book into his lap. “Did he seem ragged or ill-cared for?”
    “No, not a bit of it,” she confessed.
    “Well, he probably belongs around here somewhere. You know youngsters hardly feel the cold. He may have been running home when he came across you. What did he look like?”
    “Eight or nine years old, I’m guessing. Smallish for his age, but healthy. Had a head full of black curls. Rosy-fair cheeks and freckles on his nose. Big green eyes.”
    “But for the green eyes, he sounds like Gee Dub when he was that age,” Addison observed.
    Alafair considered this. “Why, yes, he does! That’s probably why he looked familiar to me. There was something about him. I wish I knew who he was. I wish I knew he was home safe.”
    “I wish you’d stop worrying,” Doc Addison admonished. “It doesn’t sound to me like he was in any distress. He’s probably just some boy from around here whom you haven’t seen