Wounded (a mystery and a sweet romance)

Wounded: Chapter 5

Voices outside woke Tara the next morning. Remembering the previous night’s events, she didn’t do more than pull on a sweatshirt and stuff her feet into shoes before walking outside to see if anything had been discovered.

A knot of people clustered in front Sam’s cottage. Tara spotted Jasmine and another woman standing at the back of the cluster and talking. She headed in that direction.

Before she reached the women, she spotted something inert on the ground at the front of the crowd. Her stomach gave a queasy flip. It looked like a pig. A dead pig.

“...know it was Ashcroft, that bastard,” Sam was saying.

“Uhm.” Tara cleared her throat and raised her hand.

Jasmine and the other woman looked at her, but she needed Sam’s attention.

“I was up last night,” she said, speaking loudly so she would be heard. She misjudged the group’s attentiveness, though—everyone was already turning in her direction and falling silent. Her voice sounded like a shout. “Er, sorry, but I was awake at 12:30 last night, and I looked out my window. Someone was out in those woods with a flashlight or something. That’s when the dogs started barking. It was too dark for me to make much out, but I did see a man run into the grasses over there, and a minute later I heard a car engine start up out on the road.”

Sam waited for Tara to finish, then nodded. “I’ll let the police know.”

“I, uh, wanted to point out,” Tara said as Sam turned away, “that it wouldn’t be the neighbor, right? He wouldn’t drive all the way over here. He could just cut across the woods.”

Sam glanced at the pig. “We’ll find out.”

Tara didn’t like the sound of that. She thought about arguing further, but didn’t want to alienate the people here by defending him. After all, she didn’t know if she should defend him. Yes, she had evidence that he had been a good person and had suffered a terrible loss, but that didn’t prove he wasn’t responsible for the animal slaughters. Who knew what darkness might lurk in his heart now?

“I wonder if the police will come out this time to look for evidence,” Jasmine said. The group was dispersing under an order to, “Get to work everyone,” but she and her friend remained.

The second woman looked to be in her thirties, a curvy gal with strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a braid. She had a helmet tucked under her arm that reminded Tara of something a fencer would wear. Belatedly, she realized it must be for beekeeping. Oh, was this her mead maker?

“I think they’re tired of hearing from us,” the woman said, “but maybe since it’s a pig instead of a chicken this time...”

“Does the gross weight of the mutilated carcass affect its newsworthiness?” Tara asked.

The two women shrugged.

“Tara,” Jasmine said, “this is my friend Mandy. She’s a woodworker and our beekeeper. She stuck around after her husband gave up on us and moved back to the city.”

“Ex-husband,” Mandy said with a grimace. “Speaking of carcasses I wouldn’t mind seeing mutilated...”

Jasmine stared at her. “I didn’t think it was that bad. Didn’t you say you were still friends?”

“I said we were still on speaking terms, something that changed when he dragged that smooth-talking lawyer into things. As if...” She waved a hand. “Never mind. It’s a boring story. No sex, scandal, or drugs. Just... a parting of the ways. Followed by extreme bitterness.”