Page 3 of Bone Echo

She could have said that five minutes ago. “Shoot.”

“Don’t tempt me.” She cleared her throat pointedly. He rolled his eyes and waited for her to continue. “Charlie Foster from down at the hardware needs you to call him. He sounded a little odd, chief, but he wouldn’t say what the problem was. Only that he needed to speak to you as soon as possible.”

Could be that Charlie didn’t want the whole town to know his business. “Give me the number.” Kurt dug around in a drawer for a pen or pencil, nabbed one just in time to write down the digits she rattled off on the countertop since no paper was handy.

“I promised him you’d call him right back.”

Right back in this case meant right after she was through dressing down her boss as regards his parenting skills, or lack thereof. “Will do.” This time he severed the connection before she could say anything else. He entered the number and two rings later Foster was on the line. “Charlie, this is Kurt Nichols. Doreen said I should give you a call.”

“Thank God. I’ve been losing my mind waiting for you to call, chief.”

Something in the older man’s voice more so than his words set off a too familiar alarm. Tension roiled in Kurt’s gut. “What’s going on, Charlie?”

“Lloyd Satterfield was supposed to pick up Pat Oglesby this morning at six sharp to start that repair work here at the store but Lloyd didn’t show. Pat called wanting to know if I’d heard from him but I hadn’t.”

The uneasiness leveled off. “Maybe his truck broke down,” Kurt offered.

“Pat wondered the same thing,” Charlie said. “Finally he got tired of waiting for Lloyd and walked on over there to see if he’d had some sort of trouble.”

Pat Oglesby lived on Highway 52, maybe a mile from the Satterfield home on Molyneaux. Not that much of a hike, not even for a guy as lazy as Oglesby. But it was damned cold. Then again, Satterfield was the one person who appeared able to get the guy to work, which kept him off the booze and out of trouble.

“I started to go over there myself after Pat called that second time, but I can’t leave Sadie here at the store by herself.”

Sadie was Charlie’s wife. With her Multiple Sclerosis she couldn’t get around outside a wheelchair. That didn’t stop her from going to the hardware everyday with her husband just like she had for the past forty-five years, but the effort was a far more difficult task nowadays.

“Pat called you again after he got to the Satterfield place?” So what was the problem? Kurt didn’t want to sound impatient, but the man needed to get to the point.

“I don’t know how to say this, chief.” The strain in Charlie’s tone had shifted to something more troubling. “I mean, I can’t be sure this is as bad as it sounds but Pat was screaming about blood and murder or something crazy like that.”

Adrenaline lit in Kurt’s veins. “I’m on my way. If Pat calls back tell him not to touch anything.”

Kurt reminded himself of all the things this would not be. Gang turf war. Drug shoot-out. Random drive-by shooting. This wasn’t L.A. There was likely a simple explanation. An accident of some sort.

Kurt left his unfinished coffee on the counter and double-timed it up the stairs. He pounded on his daughter’s bedroomdoor the same way he had an hour ago. “Get up, Ella Louise,” he ordered. “You’re late for school.”

He hustled back down the stairs, checked the stove, turned off the coffeepot, grabbed his keys and locked the back door on his way out. He dragged the blanket from the windshield of his Jeep and shook off the snow. He tossed it in the back floorboard and slid behind the wheel. Cranked the engine and waited a minute for it to warm up. Since he’d turned the garage over to Ella, he’d learned to keep something over his windshield in the winter to avoid the time required for scraping and defrosting. He glanced one last time at the window of Ella’s room before shifting into Drive and heading out.

Kurt figured there was some sort of miscommunication between Foster and Oglesby. Maybe Oglesby had gone on a bender last night and was still a little drunk this morning. He’d been known to plunge into a binge now and then when he stayed idle too long which happened more often in the winter. Could be alcohol induced hallucinations or plain old hysteria. Satterfield could have had an accident while using some of his equipment and there might very well be blood. Oglesby may have misinterpreted the situation. Had to be something like that.

People didn’t get murdered in Camden.

That was why Kurt and his daughter had moved here.

CHAPTER THREE

8:20 a.m.

Kurt parked his Jeep behind Satterfield’s work truck. He got out slowly, instincts he hadn’t utilized in years reluctantly resurrecting—just in case.

The Satterfield home was surrounded by a sweeping yard bordered on the west side by dense forest. A pond, the rising sun that peaked past the treetops glistening on its icy still surface, claimed the east side of the property between the house and woods. A few yards behind the house was the massive barn Satterfield had converted into a garage and warehouse for his remodeling and repair business.

An unnatural silence hung in the air. Kurt almost went back to his Jeep for his weapon, but he changed his mind. No need to overreact just yet.

As he continued slowly toward the front door he surveyed the yard again. Where the hell was Oglesby? Foster had said he was here.

“Chief Nichols?”

Startled, Kurt spun toward the voice. Oglesby edged around the west corner of the house. Kurt’s surprise morphed into irritation at the idea that the guy could catch him off guard like that. He really was out of practice when it came to anything other than a routine brawl or minor burglary.

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