Chapter 12

I slept in a little late the next morning, but it was Saturday and not a real day at work for me. Even thought I knew I'd have to take a little time to see if I needed to get to looking for George out where I knew damned well he was.

The rest of my brood were already awake too, but they'd left Millie to watch over my remains when I woke. She started me out with a pretty damned good blowjob before she let me up to go shower and dress.

By the time I was back down to the kitchen there was a pile of breakfast waiting for me. I cleaned it up pronto, gave all my girls a goodbye kissing and fondle, and then went out to my car to head to the office.

Apparently no one had noticed the fire marking the last resting place of George Kershaw. I went back to my office and called Carol on my cell phone.

"Hello," she said, after she picked up the phone.

"No big deal cutie, but you'd better call in my office and ask to speak to me," I told her, and then we hung up.

Ten minutes later Shirley paged me and had me pick up the phone. Carol was using her head and kept her call in an official business tone.

"Sheriff this is Carol Kershaw. My husband was out on a campout with a couple of local boys last night and he hasn't returned."

"Well, maybe they're just still having fun. Just in case we'll check things out to be sure. Don't worry about a thing Mrs Kershaw," I said, and then hung up again.

I'd have thought someone would have at least smelled the smoke and done some poking around and I hadn't quite decided how I was going to handle things. I did need to go out and tell Shirley to get started on some missing person papers though. I walked out to her desk, but the cure to my ills came walking in the door as I did.

Apparently George had let out some of his land for deer hunting leases. A great white hunter from out near Dallas had come in to report the burnt up car he found while he was scouting around in his lease looking for a place to put up a deer stand. He was upset because he told us he thought there had been a body in the car when it burnt up.

"You haven't touched anything at the crime scene have you?" I asked.

"No sir, I haven't, but my dogs found it first and I'm afraid they did stir up some of the bones in the car," he said.

"Dogs. You do know it ain't legal to hunt deer with dogs in Texas don't you," I said, meanwhile I was ready to kiss him on the mouth.

"Well yes sir I did. But I wasn't hunting on this trip. I was just down here trying to look for sign and maybe find a place to put up a stand. The dogs ain't trained to look for deer or nothing. They're actually guard dogs and I was just letting them have a run while I was down here," he said.

"Well that's more like it. I like a man who takes good care of his dogs. Would you have time to show me where you found this car?" I asked.

"I'd be glad to Sheriff."

When it rains it pours, and thankfully it was about to open up and pour right now. We'd just made it outside when the sky opened up and provided a track washing out turd floater. My Dallas informer was raring to go though so he jumped into his nice new four-wheel drive pickup and headed out with me following him.

It was raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock all the way back into the woods where George was waiting and it was still coming down when the guy got out to show me the car which I couldn't have missed even if I hadn't known exactly where it had been parked.

I put on a slicker and got out to look around and the guy got out to help me look I guess. Even though I knew exactly who it was I found the vin number and wrote it down, putting the little notebook right back in my slicker pocket.

One thing I noticed right away was George had bought himself a tinderbox on wheels. That fire had really done a number on him. All the meat had boiled off his bones and gone up in smoke I guess and the hunter's dogs had scattered old George out pretty good.

In short it was the kind of fucked up crime scene a department that was really looking for clues would hate. It suited me fine though, perfect in fact. After a few minutes looking around I thanked the guy from Dallas and took my ass back to town.

It didn't take Shirley ten minutes to find out who the vin number belonged to. I told her I'd go and inform the widow Kershaw and went back to my office to call the coroner.

"Dr Jeb," I said, when he picked up the phone."

"Is that you Jake?"

"Yep, it's me, and I've got some sad news for you. It looks to me like George Kershaw burned himself up in his car last night. No, I don't have any idea why he was out on some of his land and I don't know how in hell he got his car afire with his dumb ass in it.

"One of those hunters from Dallas he leases land to found him and the guy had a couple of dogs with him. The dogs actually found George first and I'm afraid they scattered his bones some before the owner saw what they were fooling with and made 'em quit."

"So in other words you've got a crime scene for me to look at and most of the county has already been out there looking around."

"Not exactly, but my guess is you'll need the experts from two or three of those TV shows to help you figure out old George was out in the woods drunk and burned himself up."

"Shit. Can you come get me and run me out there?"

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

When I got to his house Dr Jeb came outside with his slicker on, and it was a good thing cause it seemed the sky was making up for the little spot of drought we'd been having so far this summer. Jeb wasn't in a good mood and he allowed on the way out his rheumatism had started playing hell since about ten minutes before the bottom fell out this morning.