The News in Small Towns (Small Town Series, Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

truck.”
    Ten minutes later we were sitting across from each other at the counter made of nailed-together 2 by 12s, drinking hot, rich coffee from hastily washed-out cups.  Banks of rudely mounted fluorescent lighting cast a ghastly glow over everything.
    “Okay, Sue Ann,” Clarence began.  “Doesn’t The Courier have better things write about than some kid’s prank?” 
    “If you think it’s a prank, why are you carrying around that twelve-gauge?” I parried.
    Clarence shrugged his big shoulders and sipped from his cup.  “Guess you got me there.  Truth is, the whole thing makes me a little uneasy.”
    “What was a dead goat doing in your dumpster, Clarence?” I asked.
    “I can’t imagine,” he said.  “Unless some kids thought it would be a good idea to leave a carcass at a vegetarian grocery.”
    “They would have left it where people could see it,” I told him.  “Probably right in front there.”
    “Yeah.  I guess.”
    “Who found the goat, anyway?”
    “Me.  When I went to throw away the day’s garbage I saw it.  Called the sheriff, but he just sent Dollar out.”
    So much for the law enforcement agencies of three counties, or whatever Mark had told me.  “Did you see what kind of goat it was?”
    “No mystery, there, Sue Ann.  It was a young Alpine—just a regular dairy goat—mostly black.  Belonged to Ray Colley.”
    “How’d you find that out?” I asked.
    “He’s about the only one in Jasper County who keeps dairy goats—I’ve probably sold you hunks of cheese that came from his place.  After Dilly left last night, I loaded the goat in a produce box and drove over there.  It was one of his all right.”
    “Colley’s a County Commissioner,” I said, but I was really thinking out loud.  “Do you think somebody might have gotten mad at him and killed one of his goats as kind of a revenge thing?”
    “Colley lives half a dozen miles from here,” Clarence answered.  “And just like you said earlier, if it was to snipe at him, why not just leave it where he could see it when he got up in the morning?”
    “I guess you’re right about that.”
    Clarence sat silently over the dregs of his coffee.  “You didn’t see whoever ran out in those woods?” he finally asked.
    “No, just a blur that looked like legs running.  Could have been a deer, I guess, but I also heard a voice just before I came around the corner.  I’m pretty sure somebody was back there, but where could they go?”   Clarence was silent.  “Clarence?”
    “Sorry, Sue Ann.  What were you askin?”
    “If somebody was back there, where would they go?  Who owns those woods back there?”
    “God’s testicles, Sue Ann, there are thousands and thousands of acres between here and Hanson’s Quarry.  “I own a few; paper company owns a lot more.  Some of it’s swamp, some forest.”
    “Are there any roads?”  I asked.
    “None that anyone knows about.  Used to be a few farms way on back there.  Remember Rabbit Foote?  I heard that his grandpa used to own a couple of hundred acres back there, but that was a long time ago.  Rabbit never came back from Kuwait and the rest of his family are dead now.  May Barnes had a place out there, too, somewhere.  I remember going out there with Pop to pick some radishes and carrots once.  She let me sit on her tractor, but she died when I was about five.  Guess the forest has taken all that back for itself.  Even the dirt road we took to get there is probably gone by now.”  Clarence hesitated for a moment, then went on.  “There was another crazy old family out there, too.  Must have been way out because nobody I’ve ever talked to ever seen the place.  Family’s name was Tilly or Tolliver or something like that.  But they must have cleared out, or died off like the rest.”
    “Listen, I see your mom coming over, so let me ask you one more thing.  How was the goat killed?  Was it like one of those cattle mutilations you read