Fly by Night (A Gracie Andersen Mystery Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

bodies strained to make it through the trees. Another blast brought the rotund tom somersaulting to the ground below.
    *****
     
    Gracie rolled over, groaning and slapping at the clock to stifle the annoying alarm.
    Haley stood over her face, panting. The long pink tongue hit her cheek. The dog’s tags jingled cheerfully. Too cheerfully and too early.
    “All right. I’m up. I’m up,” Gracie growled as she crawled out of bed. Her mouth felt like cotton.
    She tugged at her hair with a large round brush. As usual, the curls went everywhere and her attempts at straightening them were futile. She pulled the hair back into a tight ponytail.
    The kennel was open just mornings on Saturdays, but customers would show up by 7:30. She’d have to hurry; it was almost seven. Foundation was a lost cause. It was a freckles thing. She brushed on some eye shadow and mascara to look presentable.
    She’d always hated her hair and the freckles that went with it. She was thinking of chopping her hair short, but Michael had loved her long auburn hair. She couldn’t quite bring herself to do the deed. Not yet. Her eyes were her best feature, large and brown flecked with green. Looking in the mirror one more time, Gracie determined that she was as good as she was getting today.
    Haley began barking as Gracie pulled a tank top over her head and jammed into a pair of jeans. Someone was pounding on the kitchen door. Haley was now alternating between barking and whining.
    “Coming. I’m coming!”
    Gracie tripped on a braided rug coming into the kitchen and caught herself on the granite-topped island. Haley was jumping at the door. Jim’s worried face gazed at them through the café curtains.
    “What’s going on? Is something wrong in the kennel?” she asked as she let him in.
    Maybe it was a sick dog or worse.
    “Listen,” Jim began urgently, closing the door behind him. “I have to go see Toby. Something bad has happened up there.”
    She knew by his guarded eyes that he didn’t want to tell her exactly what the bad thing was.
    “Is Toby okay? Tell me,” she demanded.
    “He’s all right, but D. B. isn’t. He’s dead. Toby found him up in Greerson’s Meadow this morning.”

Chapter 4
     
    The road was lined with law enforcement vehicles. Red lights flashed from the tops of the SUVs. Deputies were cordoning off the field, pounding in stakes and winding yellow crime scene tape around them. The Deer Creek ambulance squad stood down below, watching the county coroner’s ancient black station wagon pull up. Ralph Remington, the coroner, dragged his aging body out of the driver’s seat.
    The doctor was ready to retire. His wife, however, had decided he should keep working just to stay out of her hair. The short-and-wide white-haired man wore khaki Bermuda shorts, a Madras plaid short-sleeved shirt, white socks, and black golf shoes. He’d gotten the call just as he was teeing off at Silver Lake Country Club. His first game of the year, and it was over before he’d even had a chance to hook a ball into the water.
    He walked over to the ambulance crew.
    “Don’t go anywhere, boys. I’ll need some help getting the body in my van. I’m in no shape to be hauling anything around, except myself. And that’s questionable some days.”
    “Sure thing, Doc,” Dan Evans answered. “We’ll get the gurney out of your car, if you want.”
    “Have at it, but don’t come up there until I say so. You don’t want to muck up the crime scene.”
    A deputy lifted the tape as the coroner bent to duck under it. The ground squished underfoot, and the alfalfa was still heavy with dew. By the looks of the sky, it was going to rain before too long. They’d better get the show on the road. Two state troopers and a group of sheriff’s department personnel stood around the sprawled body of D. B. Jackson. A dark bloodstain soaked the front of his blue shirt. His sightless eyes stared at the cloudy sky. A Jackson Farms black, club-cab pickup sat