Hide nor Hair (A Jersey Girl Cozy Mystery Book 2) by Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa Page B

Sure, you could get a sandwich or a burger there. The grub was pretty good as far as bar food went, but there was nothing on the menu that was tempting or exciting. The inside was dark and on the dreary side. Guys stopped in during the day for a cold brew—generally blue-collar types who couldn’t face the remainder of their workday without a little booze in their system. The rest of the regular clientele consisted of frustrated teachers and, of course, journalists fighting deadlines. Once in a while, the Crier ’s advertising department and accounting people would pop in for a liquid lunch, especially on those frustrating days when sales were down, and it looked like jobs might be lost.
    Willy and I took an empty booth and ordered drinks from Vic, the cheerless, ever-efficient bartender, and reviewed the photos taken with Willy’s Nikon.
    “See this?” Willy said, clicking to one of the photos. “Take a good look. What does it look like to you?”
    I looked at the small screen and squinted. “I don’t know. It’s long, yet it looks like it’s crumbled or something. Could someone have shot a deer?”
    “In the middle of a field?” Willy asked. “Gee, that’s sporting.”
    Vic came by with the drinks, and Willy swallowed a mouthful of his double vodka martini. I sipped at my gin and tonic—regular tonic, not diet. Vic didn’t believe in using low-calorie mixers.
    “Okay, go over a few more shots and see if you got it at a better angle,” I told him.
    Willy pulled up a few more pictures taken from a slightly different perspective and stopped at one in particular. “Ah-ha!” he said. “See? See?”
    I did see something. A deer? What had I been thinking? It looked more like a body, but I couldn’t be certain. “You have to download them and see if you can enhance the shot, or enlarge it. Can you do something with them to make them clear? Do you have software that can do things like that?”
    “Tons of programs expressly for that purpose,” Willy said. “Give me a minute to finish my drink, and we’ll go.”
    “Are you okay to drive?” I asked.
    “Are you?”
    “I’m fine. I’m not even finishing this,” I told him, pushing my glass aside. “I’m still shaking just from being up in that flying coffin. I need a Xanax or something—something better than gin.”
    “The only thing better than gin is vodka,” he told me and then drained his glass.
    * * *
    Ken Rhodes and Meredith Mancini joined me at Willy’s desk. We looked over Willy’s shoulder as he went through the process of enlarging the shot and adjusting the focus.
    “Has anyone been reported missing?” Meredith asked. “Are the police looking for someone from the nursing home or the hospital who might have wandered off?”
    Ken shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything.”
    “There aren’t any posters up, and there wasn’t anything on the news. Wouldn’t one of the beat reporters be onto a story like that?” I asked.
    “They would,” Ken said. “None of them are.”
    “So maybe it is a deer, or a very big dog. Maybe even a cow,” Meredith suggested.
    We all turned and glared at her.
    “A cow?” Ken asked. “In the middle of an empty field? How do you figure it got there? I know, maybe it hitchhiked six miles from the nearest farm and someone shot it.”
    Meredith blushed a deep, embarrassed crimson. “Maybe it had mad cow disease, and it walked there and just died.”
    Willy turned his attention back to his computer. I laughed. Ken Rhodes didn’t. Meredith’s innocence was lost on him.
    “Hold on! Got it! Take a look at this!” Willy said.
    We leaned in closer to get a better look at the monitor. Although the image was still grainy, it sure looked like a person. I could definitely discern a scrap of clothing—some sort of beige patterned print—but most of the body was obscured by the dying grass and weeds in the field. I couldn’t imagine how Willy spotted this on our descent, but he did have a sharp