Ollie Vance - Book One: Secrets and Sparks

Chapter Three

The rest of the week had been quiet and I had not once seen Tristan's shadow darken my door—which was great—because I didn't really want to see his face ever again.

On Thursday though, I walked into the bakeshop and into some alarming news.

Old farmer Duds Packett was found dead in the back of his barn.

"They said his body was so badly mangled that they couldn't recognize him at first," Pearl Rickman, owner of Pearl's Bookstore and the town's biggest gossip, was saying to a group of people who pulled their seats up and huddled around her table shared with a couple of other older women.

"If it weren't for his bright red pajamas that his wife recognized, they wouldn't have known it was him," she added and everyone murmured their shocked comments.

"I haven't heard of an animal attack around here for a long time," Walter chimed in. "And I know Duds was quick with the gun. I don't know how it could've gotten him."

"They did find his gun but it was badly crushed a few feet away. It was in terrible shape," Pearl said. "That's the only thing that's holding them back from declaring it as a simple case of animal attack."

"Here's the chief," Mary Anne muttered under her breath to me as the bakeshop door opened and in came Sheriff Dick Ball. He's the town's police chief and even with a funny name, no one would dare poke fun at him for it because they didn't want to get ground up by this big, burly man with a hefty, gray chevron mustache and a stern glare.

Everyone straightened up at his arrival with another police officer, Amelia Ruck, who was in her late thirties and didn't appreciate being cut some slack for being the only female in the squad.

"The usual?" I asked them both as they stopped by the counter. They often stopped by for lunch and always ordered a pulled pork sandwich with a side of herbed onion rings and a tall glass of sweet, iced tea the only difference being that the sheriff always got a second sandwich.

"Yes, Ollie. Thank you," the sheriff said in his big, booming voice before putting down his hat on the bar. I handed each of them their cold drink as Mary Anne hurried to the kitchen to give Patrick the order.

"How's it going for you today?" I asked them as I started bagging a couple of caramel-filled nut cookies into little paper envelopes with Belle's gold, scripted logo on it. We have daily cookie specials where we hand out samples of the featured cookie to customers. It's popular, trust me.

"I heard it's been a busy morning for you," I added as I handed them each their bag and Amelia beamed at me and mouthed a thank you.

The sheriff glanced at the expectant crowd and sighed loudly. "Yeah, it's been busy, alright. It's not often you get a dead man at four in the morning. We had to bring Dud's wife, Pamela, to the hospital. She passed out at the news and I don't blame her for it."

"Did they track down the animal that did it?" one of the patrons asked. "If it's rabid, it could hurt more people."

Dick didn't even blink. "We don't know for certain yet if it is an animal attack. We've got the medical examiner from the city coming down tomorrow afternoon to look at the body. We do want everyone to be vigilant though. You never know what's out there."

I tried not to shudder physically but I felt sick.

No, not just because of all this talk about dead bodies and gore but because Sheriff Ball was certainly right about one thing—they didn't know what was out there—I did.

I didn't even make the connection until the sheriff's statement. I didn't want to think that Tristan was involved in this, as much as I hated his guts right now, but the timing was right and the kind of friends he kept around certainly made it more possible. Sure, it could be a pack of coyotes but who or what would have enough force to crush a gun without running it over with a tractor?