This is an excerpt from the latest Ned McNeil cozy, Murder By Moonlight. Usually, Ned enjoyed a walk through autumn woods, but today something went painfully wrong.
I sang as I drove, windows rolled down. Ulysses didn’t object, so I took that as a sign of approval. My mind was on the events of the past week, the seeming resolution of Ruth Gregory’s lawsuit, the birth of Gerald and Coradee’s baby, and Marvie Saunders’ book of poems, when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a movement through the trees.
Was it a deer or a coyote? I pulled to the side of the road and stopped. A tall, human figure slipped from behind a tree in the distance, and disappeared behind some bushes. His movements were clearly furtive. This was not the action of someone out to enjoy a walk through the woods. This person didn’t want to be seen; had he been watching me as I passed?
I grabbed my jacket from the seat beside me, opened my door and then the back door for Ulysses. I didn’t have a leash on him, but that was all right. He would come when I called him and he loved the opportunity to roam free for a while.
Hurrying between trees and pushing past bushes, I shouted out, hoping the walker would hear and respond. “Hey, there. Hello. Are you out to enjoy this beautiful day?”
Birds sang and a crow cawed from a distant tree. I didn’t see any sign of the man. Shrugging, I turned back toward the road.
“I guess he didn’t want to talk,” I said. “Come on, Ulysses, let’s go home.”
The woods were strangely still. Ulysses didn’t bark an answer and I didn’t see him anywhere. Where had he gone? Was he in hot pursuit of a rabbit? With his homing instinct, surely he wasn’t lost.
My heart beat faster. Climbing up on a stump, I scanned the woods as far as I could see. Funny how the trees all looked alike. They grew thickly, dark and mostly leafless, crowded among sumac thickets and other bushes.
I had always enjoyed walking in the woods, but now, those once-friendly trees took on a menacing look. Jumping down from the stump, I listened. Far in the distance, I heard a bark. Ulysses! Was he in trouble? I began to run toward that bark, heedless of the thorn bushes that reached out to snag my jacket. I stopped, panting for breath, and listened. Ulysses barked again. This time, he sounded closer.
Clouds now covered the sun and the wind had a cold bite to it. Hopefully, it wouldn’t rain until I could find Ulysses and reach the shelter of my car. I trotted past thorny bushes and fallen limbs. Again, Ulysses barked.
“I’m coming, fellow,” I yelled.
But, where was he? Sliding down a small gully on a thick carpet of leaves, I clambered up the other side, panting and sweating.
As I topped the small rise, a large, gray building loomed in front of me and beside it was Ulysses. He was barking at something inside. The building looked familiar, but surely I hadn’t been this way before.
“Ulysses!” I yelled. “What in the world are you doing?”
As I got closer, I saw that the building was a barn. Not just any barn, but the Saunders barn. The burned-out rubble of the farmhouse lay over the hill.
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