LITMIR.BIZ

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school superintendent, one of Will Porter’s duties, and there were many, was to attend the monthly school board meetings, and tonight was no exception.

      Tonight the school board members, the school principals, the high school secretary and a few interested parents were present as they went through the agenda.

      Porter went through the motions, saying all the right things in the right places, but tonight his mind was not on the business at hand. He did what he had to do for his job and his goals in life, but he had bigger problems at home that he didn’t know how to handle.

      His wife, Rita, was already three-sheets-to-the-wind drunk off her ass when he got home after the meeting, which was really nothing new. But this time she’d used the excuse of grieving for their old classmate Dick Phillips as the reason for her condition, although she no longer needed an excuse to imbibe. All pretense of hiding her addiction was in the past.

      Years and added weight had changed his appearance greatly. He looked more like a used-up prizefighter than a school superintendent, but what he wanted didn’t require good looks. He had aspirations of greater grandeur than being superintendent of minuscule Mystic and could have cared less if Dick Phillips was dead. Rita had spent a good portion of their married life referring to Dick as the one who got away. It made no sense to Will. Dick had never left the farm, while he had gone on to graduate school and had a successful professional career. Then one night, in a drunken stupor, she’d taunted him, claiming Dick’s cock was bigger and he was better at sex.

      That night he’d done an unforgivable thing. That night he’d physically raped his wife. The fortunate part was that she’d been too drunk to remember it. The downside was remembering how much he’d liked it. He’d never thought of himself as a violent man, but he’d learned the hard way that there were times when no other avenue would suffice.

      And right now Will Porter’s dream of running for State Superintendent of Education was imminent, and the only thing holding him back was the drunk in his bed. Now Rita could whine all she wanted about how she’d let Dick Phillips get away, because he was dead, and Will wasn’t a damn bit sorry.

      * * *

      Dallas was sitting in the dark, the television on mute, as she listened to the storm rage on. It fit how she felt, all torn and shattered inside. The thunderstorm hit its zenith just before nine o’clock, rattling windows and pelting the roof with raindrops that sounded more like bullets. Dallas had grown up in this house. She knew every creak and pop the structure could make, but when it thundered, followed by a crack of lightning so close that it lit up the room where she was sitting, she screamed and jumped off the sofa.

      “Did that hit the house? I think it hit the house,” she gasped, and then realized there was no one to answer.

      She bolted through the hall into the kitchen, but the power was still on and she didn’t smell smoke. She opened the back door and ran out into the rain to see if the roof was on fire.

      From what she could tell, it looked fine. She took shelter again on the back porch, waiting for the next lightning strike to light up the area so she could see if the other structures were okay.

      When it came, she saw enough to feel confident her question had been answered. The chicken house was intact. The barn was still there. The security light had been temporarily knocked out, but it was slowly coming back on and from what she could see, she didn’t think lightning had struck the pole.

      Wind was blowing rain up on her bare feet and legs as she turned around to go inside. Then she heard her phone and locked the door and ran, dripping water as she went.

      “Hello?”

      “It’s me. Is everything okay? You sound like you’ve been running.”

      Trey.

      “Lightning struck something close by. I was out on the back porch looking the place over when the phone began to ring. I’m fine. Thank you for calling.”

      “I have a question,” he said.

      She frowned. “Okay, ask.”

      “Did your dad feed the cattle every day?”

      “There are four cows with calves still nursing. He fed the cows ground feed so they wouldn’t lose weight until the calves were weaned. Why?”

      “He fed the chickens this morning, but he didn’t feed the cows.”

      Dallas’s mind was spinning, trying to see where Trey was going with this, and then it hit her.

      “You’re wondering why, if he was going to kill himself, would he take time to feed the chickens but not the cows?”

      “It crossed my mind.”

      Her voice began to shake. “You don’t think he hanged himself, do you?”

      “What I think and what the evidence will show could be two different things.”

      She started to cry, but softly now, no longer alone in her quest for the truth. “Thank you, Trey.”

      “For what? I didn’t do anything.”

      “For not taking the easy way out of this.”

      “You forget, honey. It’s not my case. Sheriff Osmond is running the show. He’s the man you have to convince to dig deeper. In the meantime, you could go through the house, specifically your father’s business records, and see if there’s anything there that would help explain what happened.”

      “I will. I’ll do it tomorrow,” she said.

      Trey hated to hang up, but there was nothing else he could say.

      “If you have a question, or if you need help in any way, call me. Will you do that? Will you let me help you that much?”

      She sighed. “Yes. I’ll do that. And, Trey, really...thanks for calling.”

      “Yeah, sure. Try and get some rest.”

      He disconnected before she could say goodbye, and she told herself it didn’t matter, then had to make herself move. All of a sudden the day had caught up with her. She stumbled into the living room, turned off the television and then headed for her room.

      She had the bed turned back and was ready to get in when she stopped. She thought about how far it was from here to her nearest neighbor, then about the person who’d killed her dad, and went across the hall to his bedroom to get his shotgun. She checked to see if it was loaded, then put it just under the edge of her bed.

      She might not sleep a wink, but it wouldn’t be because she was scared. And she didn’t believe in ghosts.

Four

      Dallas’s sleep was fitful, and she was awake before daybreak, sad but determined to find out the truth. Still in her pajamas, she thought even going into the kitchen to make coffee seemed too much to face, but two cups of coffee and a piece of toast later, she got dressed and began to tackle the morning chores.

      She walked out on the back porch to a world that appeared to be weeping. Water was dripping from the eaves of the house, from the leaves of the trees, from the crepe myrtle bushes on either side of the back steps. Instead of quiet, she heard the soft patter of the droplets with its own brand of rhythm as she walked away from the house.

      The chickens were fussing, ready to be let out of the coop. The cows were bawling inside the corral, waiting to be fed. The normalcy of the morning was somehow comforting, a reminder that some things never changed.

      She entered the lean-to against the chicken house, filled a big bucket with feed and a smaller one with what her dad always called “scratch,” part of what chickens ate to help their craw break down and digest their food, and carried them into the pen. She scattered a little bit out on the ground before she opened the coop, and when all the hens raced out to get the feed, she carried the rest of it inside and refilled the troughs. If it rained again, at least they could come in to

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