Read Online The Body in the Landscape (A Cherry Tucker Mystery Book 5) by Larissa Reinhart - Free Book Online

cheeks warmed. “ My Uncle Will— ”  
    “You told me about him. Anything else?”
    “I just can’t shake this odd feeling I have.”
    Holt’s voice softened. “You saw something very disturbing today, it’s understandable.”
    “It’s not just that—” I stopped, knowing feelings didn’t count as facts, particularly with police. “Has the coroner seen Abel Spencer yet? I just thought if your coroner is like ours, it’s not like they have a lot of bodies to examine. Did they give a cause of death?”
    “Blunt force trauma. His head struck the rocks in the creek when he fell.”
    “Was he drunk?”
    “If you know procedure so well, you’ll know it takes much longer for the BAC report to come back,” she snapped.
    “Sorry. Everyone thinks Abel took a drunken spill. I just wondered if they were right.”
    “Not everyone thinks that.”
    “What do you mean?” I tried to control the excitement in my voice. “Do you think differently ? You know I didn’t smell alcohol on him.”
    She pulled in a breath. “I think we’ve talked enough. Tell Mike one of us will come out to check on that cake.”
    Her hang-up came before any goodbyes could be said, but I was too stunned to care.
    Sweet drippings of bacon, I had a suspicion that Rookie Holt had a suspicion that Abel’s death was suspicious.
    But were we alone in our suspicions?

      
    Back in my room, I nibbled on peanut butter crackers and Coke, my thoughts hopping between bloody cakes, dead bodies, and troubles at home.
    In the next room, a TV kicked on, blaring the local six o’clock news loud enough for me to hear the weather report. I grabbed my own remote, slid back on the bed, and caught the three-day forecast for clouds, rain, and storms.
    “Those poor dogs.” I wondered how quickly the police would find Abel’s pack dry and loving homes.
    The weather forecast reminded me of my soaked art supplies. The police had returned my easel, tackle, and watercolors. I had left the easel to dry in the bathtub but left the waterlogged pad and paintings on the desk. A smear of blue among the greens and browns caught my eye. Lifting the paper, I realized I had painted Abel’s hat without knowing what it was. Just a daub of royal blue.
    Lucky I chose that spot in the forest to paint, I thought, or no one would have found Abel’s body before the hunt.
    Not that anyone would expect a visitor from the contest to park herself in a glen to do a bit of landscape painting. The area I had chosen wasn’t in the reserve across the road, but in the forested area ringing the lodge and its farm fields proper. Unlike Goldilocks, I hadn’t wandered far. Followed a path of cleared trees until I reached a spot I liked, not knowing fifty yards farther, the clearing dropped into a shallow ravine.
    Maybe too lucky.
    I walked the curling paper to the bathroom trash and returned to grab my phone from the rustic nightstand. I flipped it open.
    Behind me, the newscaster announced breaking news on Big Rack Lodge. I spun around to watch. An aerial view showed footage of the lodge grounds, then panned out to show the surrounding woods and farmland. Tiny cows ambled in a field and the metal blades of a windmill caught the sun, obscuring the camera’s lens for a moment.
    Old footage, I mused, since I hadn’t seen the sun since arriving at Big Rack.
    The angle tilted, then steadied on the spot in the woods where I had found Abel’s body. The announcer described the tragedy that had temporarily suspended the big hunting contest. The view of the woods shrank a bit until it showed the triangulation between my landscape spot near the ravine, a small homestead of trailers, and the lodge cottages. Almost ninety-degree angles between the three places.
    “One of those trailers,” the reporter announced, “was the last known place the deceased, Abel Spencer, had been seen before his death.”
    I jumped as I saw myself leaving the Swinton police station, outed as the lodge guest who had