Home of the Brave (Raine Stockton Dog Mysteries Book 9) by Donna Ball Page B

but Melanie ignored them, pushing at her glasses as she tried to catch her breath. “Um, Raine,” she managed, “there was a man down by the lake.  Kind of creepy looking.  He was watching us.  And he had a gun.”
     

     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    B uck said, “I’m real sorry to have to bring you this news, Jessie.  It’s a hell of a thing.”
    They sat on Jessie Connor’s front porch, a narrow corridor with just enough room for four rocking chairs, two of which looked sturdy enough to support a man’s weight.  Buck sat in one of them, Jessie in the other.  Jessie’s walker sat to one side of his chair, his oxygen tank beside it, while Jessie, disregarding both, sucked on a cigarette.  Buck, keeping one eye on the oxygen tank, had made sure he chose the chair closest to the steps.
    “Blessed day in the morning,” muttered Jessie, the cigarette dangling between his lips.  “Burnt up, you say.  Who’d do a thing like that?”
    “Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out,” Buck said.  “The investigators found a couple of oxygen tanks inside the car.  Makes sense they might’ve accelerated the fire.”  He paused to give Jessie a chance to make the connection between the cigarette he now smoked, and the oxygen tank at his feet.  Buck saw no light go on in the other man’s eyes, so he went on, “Do you normally keep oxygen in your car?”
    “Now what’d I do a fool thing like that for?”
    “So that would be a no?”
    He drew on the cigarette.  “My boy takes care of all that.  You’d have to ask him.”
    Buck made a note.  “The thing is, there was a body inside the car.  We don’t know who it was yet.”
    Jessie’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a fact?  Well, served him right, if you ask me.  Burnt up, you say?”
    Buck nodded patiently.  “Yes, sir.  What I was wondering is if you could remember exactly when was the last time you saw the car in your garage?”
    A cylinder of ash half an inch long extended precariously from the cigarette.  Buck watched it warily.
    Jessie said, “Like I told you.  I don’t drive no more.  All I know is that when my boy went to get it to drive me to town on Tuesday, it was gone.”
    “You son lives with you, right?”
    The ash cylinder dropped harmlessly to the knee of Jessie’s twill pants.  He brushed it off absently with a speckled hand.  “That’s right.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “At work, I reckon.  He does odd jobs here and there, you know.  Can’t find nothing permanent since the plant closed.”
    Buck nodded sympathetically.  “I’d like to talk to him when he gets a chance, about when was the last time he saw your car.”
    Jessie grunted. “Hell, I can tell you that.  Drove me to church on Sunday, drove me home.  Stabled her in the garage.  Next thing I knew …”  He stopped and frowned at the nearly dead end of his cigarette, which glowed faintly ruby. “Wait a minute.  I reckon he might’ve taken it out Monday night, to his meeting.  It was raining, I recollect, and he don’t like to drive the jeep in the rain on account of the roof leaking.”
    Buck looked up from his notes, interested.  “What meeting?”
    “He used to drink, you know,” Jessie confided.  “Don’t no more.  Goes to meetings instead.  Do you reckon it was one of them drunks that stole my car?”
    Buck gave him a reassuring smile.  “No, I don’t think so.”
    “Well, served them right for burning up, if they did.”
    “Yes, sir.”  Buck stood.  “We’re going to send you a copy of the police report in the mail.  You’ll need it for your insurance company.  It might take a week or so, though.  Meantime, if your son would give me a call when he has the chance, it sure would speed things up.”
    “Yes, sir, I’ll tell him, I surely will.”  Jessie let the cigarette butt drop to the porch floor and ground it out with an unsteady toe. 
    Buck moved closer to the steps.  “You know, Jessie, you really