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

next to the cluster of people.
    “Good morning, Dr. Remington.”
    The voice was cool and very formal. It belonged to a slender woman with fine features, dark brown hair highlighted with strands of gray, and piercing brown eyes. Her right hand rested lightly on the grip of the Glock on her hip.
    “Morning, Investigator Hotchkiss. Give me some room here, people!” The old man glared at two deputies who stood in front of the body.
    “He’s all yours,” the investigator said.
    The group shuffled back to let the doctor through. The old man knelt down in the grass. His knees were killing him, and he’d probably get blood on his white socks. No doubt he’d hear about that later.
    “He’s dead all right. Looks like a shotgun to me. Of course, you’ve probably figured that out already. Help me up.” The coroner sat back on his haunches with effort and groaned. A deputy grabbed his arm and pulled him up. “Let me know when you’re done, and I can get him outta here. Don’t take all day either. It’s gonna rain.”
    He half-limped back to wait with the ambulance crew while the investigator directed her people to process the scene.
     
    *****
     
    Jim squeezed his pickup between a trooper’s car and an unmarked police vehicle. He could see Toby standing by a patrol car on the opposite side of the road, smoking. He nervously flicked ashes from the end of the unfiltered cigarette. He took another drag.
    Toby was medium height and rangy. It was hard to pin an age on him, but Jim’s best guess was somewhere in his 50s or early 60s. His receding hairline extended his forehead and ended in a fringe of stringy gray hair that fell to his shoulders. He was some cousin or other on his mother’s side of the family, who’d always been the butt of everyone’s jokes. Toby was an easy target. His favorite topics were UFOs, Nostradamus, and a lot of other sci-fi stuff.
    Jim felt a couple of drops of rain and looked up. The wind had picked up; trees were swaying in the stiffened breeze. The sky was overcast. Tobias furtively crossed the road to meet him, taking another deep drag on the cigarette.
    “Somebody blew his chest wide open. They’re gonna blame me. I just know it.” Toby’s voice trembled. He threw the cigarette on the dirt road and ground it out. He tapped on a pack he took from his shirt pocket, pulled out another, and lit it.
    Jim clapped him on the back. “You don’t know that. How’d you find him?”
    “I was huntin’ turkey this mornin’, pretty early. Shot a nice fat gobbler and he kinda tumbled into the field.” He paused and smiled. “It was a perfect shot. Anyway, I went out there to find him and saw D. B.’s truck up there.” He jabbed his thumb toward the black truck. “I went over to tell him he was trespassin’. But, when I got to the truck, he was just laying there with a god-awful hole in his chest.”
    Tobias shuddered and sucked down another lungful of nicotine.
    “Did you hear anybody shooting while you were hunting?”
    Tobias flicked ash from the end of the cigarette between his fingers.
    “No. Nothin.”
    Jim watched the group of gray uniforms break up and head down toward the road. The ambulance crew and crusty Doc Remington walked toward them. Tobias ground out his cigarette. He recognized Investigator Hotchkiss right away. Thanks to Gracie, their encounters were getting to be a regular occurrence, which wasn’t a good thing. She motioned for Toby. For a second, Jim thought the man might bolt.
    “Hang on, buddy,” he said grabbing the man’s arm. “I’ll stick around if they want to ask any more questions.”
    Toby nodded and exhaled slowly. His eyes narrowed, looking back up toward the black pickup. Jim could just see the top of a dark tarp flanked by Dan Evans and one of the Harwood brothers in the waving ocean of green.
    “I guess he finally got what he deserved,” Toby muttered under his breath.

Chapter 5
     
     
    Gracie set out a couple of plates, since Jim decided to