Buffalo Bill's Defunct (9781564747112) Read Online Free

blotches on the black surface almost obscured the partial drawing of a flute player with an odd, rayed headdress. The musician curled over his instrument, but the tip of the flute was missing. The figure looked like a petroglyph but surely wasn’t. Before she applied for the library job, Meg had read up on the attractions of the National Scenic Area. Petroglyphs featured large in the prehistory—upstream, she thought, near The Dalles on the Oregon side.
    Leaving the doors open to air the garage out, she went back into the kitchen. She set the rock fragment on the counter, washed her sticky hands, and returned to her Scotch. Should she call someone? Not 911—there was no emergency, probably no crime, though she had read that looting was a problem at Native American sites throughout the West. She thought of Neill. She owed him a thank-you. She could mention her “find” to him, ask his advice.
    Conscience eased, she stirred the soup and went back to unpacking kitchen goods. One thing led to another. By nine o’clock she had eaten soup and artisan bread, rearranged her grandmother’s china in the glass-fronted dish cupboard, and was off in what had been the ground-floor bedroom setting up her office. The sun had long gone down. Apart from a passing motorcycle and the barking of an occasional dog, the silence of the neighborhood was absolute. When the brisk knocking came it startled her. She dropped a handful of paperbacks.
    Another knock resounded. Kitchen door. She straightened, creaking a little, walked into the kitchen, and peered out.
    It was Rob Neill.
    She glanced at her watch. Nine-fifteen. Late to be paying a friendly visit.
    “Hi,” she said, opening the door. “Come in. I want to thank you for Todd and Jake. They did a great job.”
    “Good.” He stepped past her. He was paint-free, wearing a sports jacket and polo shirt over pressed levis. Formal attire after yesterday’s paint-speckled jeans and sweatshirt. “Are you aware your garage doors are open with the light on?”
    She smacked her forehead. “I forgot. I was carried away by the thrill of unpacking. Have a chair.” She waved vaguely at the kitchen table. “Can I get you a drink?”
    “No, thanks.” He remained standing. “I chased the county commissioner’s dog out of your garage. He was digging at something.”
    She stared at him, frowning. “That’s strange.”
    “The commissioner’s dog is worse than strange. One of these days he’s going to eat a baby.”
    “Don’t you have a leash law in Klalo?”
    He sighed. “We do. The commissioner is a Libertarian. He does not believe in leash laws. Towser was Born Free.”
    Her memory conjured up a fat, truculent face and high-pitched voice. “Ah…Commissioner Brandstetter? I met him.”
    “Right.”
    “When I said strange I didn’t mean the pit bull.”
    “Rhodesian Ridgeback. A hundred pounds of playful pooch.”
    “Whatever. I meant the garage. Is the smell gone?”
    “I didn’t sniff.”
    Meg saw the shard on the end of the counter by the cell phone. She’d put both items there out of reach of dishwater. “I found this.” She handed the shard to him and described her venture into the garage, the area of disturbed surface, the dead-cat odor.
    Frowning, he took the piece by the edges. He seemed to frown a lot. He didn’t say anything for a long time.
    “It couldn’t be anything important…. I thought about calling the sheriff’s office….” She shut up.
    “Do you have something I could put this in, an envelope or a baggie?”
    The ghost of Feckless Meg, teenaged rebel, rose in her, and she almost denied possessing anything as incriminating as a baggie. He was a cop. Reason triumphed. She yanked open the drawer to the left of the sink and found a self-sealing plastic bag.
    He slipped the shard into it and laid the bag on the counter. “Shall we have a look?”
    “Not if I’m going to be jumped by a Libertarian hound.” She dug in a lower drawer. “Here’s a