“Where do you want to move it to?”
“It’s kind of ironic you expectmeto have a plan for this. How aboutyoucome up with some great ideas?”
“We can’t bury it,” she said. “Even with the warm snap, the ground’ll be frozen until April.”
“We could toss it in Lucky Peak?”
“That reservoir gets dragged three times a year! At least!” She patted the baby’s back again, trying to coax out a burp. “Could we just go out to the Boise National Forest and do a dump-and-drive?”
I explained about the bloody scissors and how they were currently in the Boise PD’s possession. Since Miranda used them to stab Connor, they probably had her fingerprints on them too. Boise PD had likely been unmotivated to run prints on scissors not connected to an actual crime. But if a body with wounds matching those scissors turned up, they’d surely find the motivation.
“Aaaargh!” Miranda said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I have a chest freezer in the garage that could work until the ground thaws.”
“Now you’re talking.” Better to keep Connor at her house than mine.
“How about Friday night? I could get my husband to take Tater to visit his mom. If I elevate my ankle and ice it like crazy, hopefully it’llbe okay to limp on by then. I’ll just have to find somewhere to put forty pounds of elk meat.”
“Does your husband look in the freezer?”
“Please! He thinks cooked food drops from the sky every night at six.”
The warm snap should start Saturday. Friday would be cutting it close. But what choice did I have? “In high school, you never would’ve been voted Most Likely to Help Tilly Turner Hide a Corpse.”
“As long as at our thirtieth reunion I’m not voted Least Likely to be Paroled by Our Fiftieth.”
“So it’s a plan?” I asked.
As if in agreement, Tater Tot let out a giant baby belch.
Thirty-Five
With Ralphie and Errol possibly cruising the streets of Boise looking for me because I’d stolen their grenades and blown up two of their snowmobiles, I kept my head down as I hustled Little Sister into the vet clinic. All the animals in the waiting room were blessedly calm except for a healthy-looking parakeet that kept screeching, “I’ve been shot!” I checked in with the bouffanted receptionist, then sat in a chair holding Little Sister by the collar. His ear didn’t look good, but I needed to get this show on the road. I had to meet my kids at the bus stop at three thirty. (Normally I could ask Emmylou to meet them for me, but not anymore. The thought gave me a pang—and not just because I needed the childcare assistance. Life was lonelier without Emmylou.)
“I’ve been shot!” shrieked the parakeet.
“I don’t know about you, but that bird’s wreaking havoc on my nervous system,” the receptionist said, to no one in particular.
A moment later, a muscular guy in scrubs appeared behind the doggy gate. “Little Sister?” he called.
My whole body prickled with the sort of sensation you get when you walk into a coffee shop and see your ex behind the counter, because I recognized the vet tech. The leash slipped from my fingers. Little Sister bounded toward the muscular man with arms inked in tattoos of Labradors and wiener dogs, stopped short, spun in a circle, and barked.
“Snowflake?” Harlan said. “Where’s your pop?”
I had the urge to flee from the man I’d crawled under Connor’s bed to avoid. But when Harlan leveled me with a questioning gaze, instead of sprinting for the door, I followed Little Sister through the doggygate. I hated to admit it, but I might have become a little bit attached to that dog.
Alone in the exam room, door closed, Harlan got to work taking Little Sister’s vitals. He leaned over to press his stethoscope to the dog’s chest.
“Why do you have Snowflake?” he asked, not looking up.
“His owner was a friend of a friend who wasn’t up for dog ownership,” I lied. “Heard he was kind of a jerk.”
“Jerkabout sums it up,” Harlan said, warming to me. “Not even Connor Johnson’s own dog likes him. Isn’t that right, Snowflake?” He typed information about the dog’s vitals into a computer on a rolling cart.
Little Sister wagged his tail in agreement.
“Was Snowflake already a patient here?” I asked, my heart thrumming in my chest.
“Nah. Connor called me a while back and said the dog tore his ear on an old nail.”
