LITMIR.BIZ

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he’d arrived on scene that the body had been discovered by a teenage kid.

      “In the kitchen with the dog,” Deputy Adam Benson said from behind Cameron. “He’s pretty freaked out.”

      “I can imagine,” Cameron replied. He moved past Adam and headed down the hallway to the kitchen. There was nothing more he could do in the bedroom. His team was well trained and the coroner stood by to move in after the crime-scene team had taken their photos and done their work. In the meantime he had to speak to Jeffrey Lawrence, the young man who had found Dorothy an hour earlier.

      Dorothy’s kitchen was painted a cheerful bright yellow, with white and yellow gingham curtains hanging at the window. Despite the day’s chill the sunshine streamed into the windows with welcome heat that battled with the cold air drifting down the hallway from the bedroom.

      Jeff Lawrence sat at the small, wooden kitchen table, his blue eyes red-rimmed as he hugged a wiggly, small furry mutt close to his chest.

      “I can’t get the picture of her out of my head,” he said as he swallowed hard in an obvious effort not to cry. “It’s like burned in my brain...all that blood and the smell.”

      “I’m sorry you had to experience that. What were you doing here so early in the morning?” Cameron took the seat opposite the young man at the table.

      “It’s my job...to walk Twinkie every morning before I go to school. I’m a senior and trying to save up some extra money for college.” Twinkie whined at the sound of her name and licked the underside of Jeff’s pointy chin.

      “How long have you had this arrangement with Dorothy?”

      “Since the beginning of summer. She and my mom are good friends and that’s how I know...knew Dorothy.” His eyes welled up with tears once again. “My mom is going to be so upset about all of this.”

      Cameron waited a minute for the kid to get himself back under control and then continued, “How did you enter the house this morning?”

      “I have my own key. Sometimes Dorothy worked the night shift at the Cowboy Café and she’d sleep in late in the mornings. If she didn’t answer when I knocked, then I used my key to come in and usually found Twinkie on the foot of her bed. Whenever Twinkie saw me she’d jump down and we’d go for our morning walk.”

      “Is that what happened this morning?”

      Jeff’s head bobbed like one of those big-headed dolls people put on their dashboards or desks. “Everything was the same as usual. I knocked on the door and when Dorothy didn’t answer I went ahead and let myself in. I walked down the hallway to her bedroom and Twinkie was curled up at her feet, just like usual. But this morning Twinkie didn’t jump off the bed when she saw me. She just whined and whined and I thought maybe she was hurt. So, I walked over to her and that’s when I noticed the blood...and the smell. I didn’t touch Dorothy, I knew she was dead. I just grabbed Twinkie and left the room and then called 911.”

      “You did the right thing,” Cameron replied. There was no way Jeff was involved in the crime, at least not at the moment. The kid had the green cast of somebody on the verge of puking. He petted the dog as if the silky fur were the only thing holding him together.

      “What’s going to happen to Twinkie? Dorothy doesn’t have any family, and I can’t take her. We already have a big dog, Zeus, who would eat this little girl for lunch.” Jeff looked distraught. “Twinkie is a great dog, friendly and well trained. I mean, I’m sorry about Dorothy, but you need to find a good home for Twinkie.” Jeff looked at him pleadingly.

      Great, Cameron thought. Not only did he have another murder to try to solve, he also had the faith of a softhearted kid depending on him to find a tragically orphaned mutt a good home.

      “Gather up all her doggie stuff, and I’ll see what I can do,” Cameron said. “Then go home. We’ll probably have more questions for you later, but right now I’d prefer you not talk to anyone about this crime except with your parents.”

      Jeff nodded and got up from the table. As he began to gather up all things Twinkie, Cameron went back down the hallway where he met the coroner, who told him what he already suspected.

      Time of death was between one and three in the morning, cause of death was a quick, clean slice across the throat. Dorothy’s hearing aids were on the nightstand. She’d never heard her screen being removed and the unlocked window sliding open. She’d never heard her killer’s approach.

      “It’s just like the other two,” Deputy Benson said. “Three women killed in their beds, their throats cut.”

      “And all three worked as waitresses at the Cowboy Café,” Cameron added. He frowned, thinking of how this latest murder would affect Mary Mathis, the owner of the café.

      He couldn’t help the way his heart softened as he thought of her. He’d had a thing for Mary since she’d taken over ownership of the café five years before and for the three years prior when she’d worked as a waitress there...unfortunately it was an unrequited thing.

      He couldn’t think about that now. He had plenty of other tasks ahead of him to find this killer who was tormenting his town.

      Throughout the afternoon, his men canvassed the neighborhood to find anyone who had witnessed anything unusual, but Grady Gulch was a typical small Oklahoma town where most people were in their beds and sleeping in the wee hours of the morning.

      Twinkie spent part of the day either snoozing on the rug in the living room or being walked by one of the deputies on scene. Cameron had already decided he’d take the pooch home with him for now and in his spare time try to find her a good home.

      As Cameron attended to his duties overseeing the crime scene and directing his deputies, he couldn’t help but think of the other two victims. Candy Bailey had been a young woman killed in her bed in a small cottage behind the Cowboy Café. Shirley Cook had been a middle-aged woman murdered in her bed in her home.

      Now Dorothy, sixty-four years old and looking to retire and putter in her garden after years of waiting on other people, was instead murdered while she slept.

      He tamped down the unexpected rage that threatened to build inside him, a rage directed at the killer, who moved like a shadow in the night, who sought out the vulnerable and killed them without remorse and left no clues behind.

      Who was this person? A native of Grady Gulch or one of the new members of town who had brought with them a dark soul and an evil directed at the waitresses of the popular café?

      Before the night was over he needed to have a sit-down with Mary. It was something he dreaded, first telling her that another of her waitresses had been killed, although by the time he got to her she probably would have already heard. But he wanted to pick her brain as to why somebody might be targeting these women who worked for her.

      The fact that the first two murdered women had worked at the café he might have written off as a strange coincidence, but three dead waitresses made a definite pattern that had to be explored. A serial killer, just what he needed, some creep who had chosen this place—his town—to play out some murderous fantasy or whatever darkness was in his mind.

      He stepped outside on the front porch and looked around the neighborhood. It was late afternoon and everything that could be done here had been done.

      Despite the grimness of the situation he couldn’t help the small smile that curved his lips as he watched Adam Benson holding Twinkie’s leash and heading toward him up the sidewalk.

      Cameron had a feeling when Adam joined the force a month ago he hadn’t considered that one of his official duties would be walking a dainty little dog named Twinkie.

      The Benson family had been to hell and back in the past two years. Adam’s sister Cherry had been killed in a car accident, his eldest brother Sam had tried to kill a woman and remained in jail awaiting trial on attempted murder charges. Adam’s youngest brother Nick had left town soon after Cherry’s death, leaving Adam alone to deal with the family ranch

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