Gray Ghost Murders (9781101606070) by Keith McCafferty Page B

doesn’t know is that Julie went to the antique store in Ennis and bought the biggest branding iron on the wall. It was from a ranch called the Triple Star R and it’s got three stars circling a capital letter R, the whole thing being like, yea big.” She made a circle the size of a soccer ball with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands.
    â€œHow do you know all this?”
    â€œOne of the neighbors breeds Aussie shepherds. She’s friends with the woman. Do you want to hear or not?”
    Stranahan faced both hands up—
go on
.
    â€œSo anyway, they drink another bottle of wine and she takes him to bed and they do the nasty, ’cause she knows it will make him pass out afterward. Plus like she’s feeling sorry for him knowing what’s going to happen and he deserves a goodbye fuck, the fucker. Once he’s snoring she turns the main water supply off in the basement. Then she builds a fire in the woodstove and sticks the iron in it. She leaves it there while she drinks another glass of wine and contemplates the shitty state of her marriage. When it’s glowing a bright red she straddles good old Gordon and brings her hands over her head and hesitates—the heart or the belly? She decides belly ’cause she’s afraid he’ll have a heart attack if she aims high.”
    Katie made a downward stabbing motion with one fist on top of the other. She made a sizzling sound.
    â€œHe sits bolt upright like someone stuck an adrenaline needle in his heart. I mean, you can imagine. Then he starts running around the house, screaming. He turns on the shower, figuring to stop the burn with cold water, but there’s no water. And the wife, standing at the door, says, ‘Gee, Gordon, I wonder what happened? Somebody must have turned the water off.’ By now he’s like making animal sounds and people on the block are turning on the lights, wondering what’s going on. They see this naked man running in circles around his yard, keening like a skunked puppy. Finally he finds a little ditch that’s damp ’cause it rained the day before and he flops himself down in it. Somebody 911s and when the medics arrive they see this guy with his bare butt sticking up and a bunch of people standing around in PJs.”
    Katie paused. “Anyway,” she said, “she branded the bastard. She says the thing she’ll never forget was the smell. When she stuck the iron on him it smelled like the neighbors were having pork barbecue.”
    â€œJesus,” Stranahan said.
    â€œI knew I shouldn’t have told you.”
    â€œWhat happened to them?”
    â€œHe’s up in Deaconess. Julie was arrested, but old Gordon said he didn’t want to press charges. If he did it would be public and everybody in town would know. But pretty much everyone does anyway. So”—she bent down and rubbed her face against the muzzle of Lothar—“are we done here? Those clouds look like hail to me. I don’t think we’re going to find a bullet.”
    â€œI have one more idea,” Stranahan said. “So far we’ve just searched the vicinity of the burial sites. But where the second guy was buried, it’s so thick up there you can’t see the spot until you’re standing on it. But that aspen stand on the left is more open. Maybe that’s where the shooter saw him, and he shot him and the guy ran into the timber where he died. The bullet would be buried in the open ground, the one place we really haven’t looked.”
    â€œYou’re thinking like an elk hunter,” Katie said. “Not a murderer.”
    Stranahan shrugged. “It wouldn’t take long to sweep it.”
    â€œYou just want more of my company, admit it.”
    â€œHumor me, as Martha would say.”
    â€œShe’s a piece of work, isn’t she? I thought she’d be like, more human once she was getting laid regular. But Harold doesn’t seem