Carolina Moon

behind dark glasses. “I’ll have to ask you to stay here. The sheriff’s inside. He’ll need to clear you.”
    “This is my sister’s place.” J.R. snatched at the cop’s sleeve. “My sister lives here. Where’s my sister?”
    “You’ll have to speak with the sheriff. Please stay behind the line,” he ordered, and strode into the house.
    “Something’s happened to Sarabeth. I have to—”
    “Hold on.” Carl D. grabbed his arm before J.R. could rush forward. “Just hold on. Nothing you can do. Let’s just hold on.”
    He’d already spotted the dark stain on the dirt outside the chicken coop, and a second smearing near the overgrown grass.
    Sheriff Bridger was a hefty man with a face seamed by years and weather. His eyes were faded blue and set in by lines that looked burned into the skin by the sun. He scanned the area as he stepped out, took a moment to wipe beads of sweat from his brow, then walked toward the waiting men.
    “Chief Russ.”
    “That’s right. Sheriff, I brought Mr. Mooney here up to fetch his sister. Sarabeth Bodeen. What happened here?”
    Bridger shifted his pale eyes to J.R. “You brother to Sarabeth Bodeen?”
    “Yes. Where’s my sister?”
    “I’m sorry to tell you, Mr. Mooney. We had trouble here, sometime early this morning. Your sister’s dead.”
    “Dead? What are you talking about? That can’t be. I talked to her not two days ago. Not two days back. Carl D., you said they had police here, right here, looking out for her.”
    “That’s right, we did. And I lost a man this morning, too. A good man with a family. I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Mooney, and I’m sorry for theirs.”
    “J.R., you sit down now. I want you to sit until you get your legs under you.” Carl D. opened the car door, nudged his friend down on the seat. J.R.’s face was alarmingly red, and his big frame had started to shake.
    “You mind having somebody bring him some water, Sheriff?”
    With a nod, Bridger turned to signal the uniform. “Purty, bring Mr. Mooney here a glass of water.”
    “You sit here, now.” Carl D.’s knees popped like firecrackers when he crouched down. “Just sit here and catch your breath. Let me do what I can do.”
    “I just talked to her,” J.R. repeated. “Friday evening. I talked to her.”
    “I know it. Just you sit here until I get back.” He stepped away from the car, moving until he was out of J.R.’s hearing. “Can you tell me what happened here?”
    “We’ve been putting it together last few hours. Flint, he caught the two-to-ten shift. We didn’t know there was trouble until his relief showed up, and found him. Over there.” Bridger gestured toward the coop.
    They’d taken his man off to the morgue, zipped into a black bag. He was not going to forget it.
    “He caught a round in the back. Took him down. He was young, strong. He tried getting back to his unit here, crawled over fifteen feet with that round in him. Had his weapon out. Had his weapon in his hand. Somebody put a gun in his ear and pulled the trigger.
    “He was thirty-three years old, Chief Russ. Got a ten-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl at home. I take responsibility they’re without a father now. I sent him out here. We knew Bodeen was dangerous, but we didn’t know he was armed. Never used a firearm in any of his other doings. The motherfucker shot my man in the back.”
    Carl D. wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “And Miz Bodeen?”
    Sarabeth. Sari Mooney, who’d sat on his ma’s front porch, ate at her table.
    “My guess is she knew he was coming. Had a suitcase packed. There’s an empty coffee can in the bedroom, and looks to me like she might’ve kept her house cash in it. Gone now. Door was open, unforced. She let him in or he walked in. He shot her twice. Once in the chest, once in the back of the head.”
    Carl D. shoved the sorrow aside, eyed the situation of the house, the land. “Guess you’ve done a canvas.”
    “Yeah. Talked to the neighbors. Finally got somebody to say they heard what maybe was gunshots about five, five-thirty this morning. People mind their own around here. Nobody paid any attention to it.”
    The heat was merciless. Carl D. dragged out a handkerchief and rubbed it over his face as sweat soaked through his fishing shirt. “How the hell’d he get here?”
    “Can’t say. Hitched a ride, maybe. Stole a car. We’re looking into it.”
    “For the money in a coffee can? Don’t sit right. She had a suitcase