HardScape by Justin Scott Page B

and the state police investigators would be combing the woods for evidence. As soon as I called them.
    I went back to Rita and said, “Mrs. Long, I’d better call the police. Are you all right here, or do you want to come with me?”
    â€œI can’t leave him here.”
    â€œI’ll come back with a blanket.”
    â€œNo. I can’t leave him here.”
    I misinterpreted her to mean that Ron’s body should not be found on her property, which struck me as both unrealistic and surprisingly cold. I said, “We shouldn’t move him. The police have to investigate.”
    â€œHe’s dead. It doesn’t make any difference. Help me get him inside.”
    â€œInside?”
    She took my heart again.
    â€œThere’ll be animals at night. It’s getting dark. I don’t want him hurt any more.”
    I wished to God I could make things right for her. “I’ll call the police and I’ll come right back with a blanket and flashlights and we’ll stay with him until they come.”
    Halfway to the house I looked back. She was dragging him through the grass. “Christ!”
    I ran to her. The damage was done. She’d gotten her hands under his arms and had somehow moved him ten feet from where the bullet had killed him. She was breathing hard, gasping with each step. The expression of total concentration on her face said there wasn’t a thing she wanted to do other than get her man indoors.
    I took one shoulder and arm, she the other, and we pulled him through the grass, his heels beating a path, the blood trailing down his pinstriped shirt and spilling under his belt. On the mowed lawn, I knelt, worked both arms under him, and carried him, cradled. Rita held his hand, letting it go only to open the front door. At her direction, I laid him down on a couch in the living room. It was upholstered with a silk brocade, but I knew enough not to suggest a towel. She arranged his arms and legs, and when she had him lying there as if he’d dropped off for a nap, she knelt on the Persian carpet, put her head on his shoulder, and wept.
    I went into the kitchen and telephoned Oliver.
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    â€œA guy’s been shot at the Long place.”
    â€œDead?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWho shot him?”
    â€œI have no idea.”
    â€œWho’s there, now?”
    â€œJust me and Mrs. Long.”
    â€œDon’t touch a thing.”
    ***
    Angry, Ollie looked even bigger. “I told you not to touch anything.” He stood close, muscles gathered, ready to throw a punch.
    â€œYou told me too late.”
    â€œYou moved the goddamned body. You’re impeding an investigation.”
    â€œIt’s done.”
    â€œDone, hell. I’ll charge you.”
    â€œYou want me to show you where we found him, while there’s still light enough to see?”
    He did. We walked across the lawn and through the meadow, Oliver fuming at the track we’d scored in the high grass. “Jesus, Ben, you’ve pulled some dumb stunts in your life, but this one takes the cake.”
    â€œWe found him there.”
    â€œStand back.”
    He strung yellow crime-scene tape in a fifty-foot circle around Ron’s blood. It had looked to me when I first saw the body that Ron had fallen dead and hadn’t moved an inch; now, who knew? Rita and I had flattened the grass. Oliver stayed outside the tape, and scanned the dark woods.
    â€œWhat were you doing out here?”
    â€œAppraising the house.”
    He took off his mirrored glasses and fixed me with his pale gray eyes. I had always preferred him in sunglasses. His eyes were reptilian: cold, and stupid. Komodo dragons are stupid, too, but they eat mammals.
    â€œAppraising the house or appraising the wife?”
    â€œAppraising the house.”
    â€œDid you know the guy?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid she?”
    â€œShe didn’t say.”
    â€œSo why’s she