Tightening the towel, he prowled forward and crouched. Miranda trailed behind and wondered that her breakfast didn’t come straight back up.
The pile of viscera and fur had once been a raccoon. The characteristic ringed tail was about the only thing still intact.
“Did something kill it and leave it here?”
Ethan’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “Not something. Someone. Looks like it was hit by a car to begin with. But somebody gutted it right here on your front porch.”
Miranda squelched the rise of nausea. “Who would do something like that? Why?”
“I don’t know. To send a message, maybe. I don’t like it. The vandalism didn’t worry me overmuch. That was petty. This…this is something else. Somebody’s targeting you.”
The idea of it was utterly absurd. “Why on earth would anybody target me?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure as shit going to find out.”
Ethan rose, an incongruous picture with the towel riding low on his hips and a gun in his hand. Suds still clung to his shoulders.
“Is everything okay, Miranda?”
At the sound of the older woman’s voice, Miranda swore softly. Of course, of course one of the Casserole Patrol would be out for her morning walk, when Ethan was standing on the porch in nothing but a towel. She stepped around him, shooing him back inside. “Everything’s fine, Miss Betty.”
“What’s that on your porch?”
Miranda automatically shifted to try to block the old woman’s view of the raccoon as she came up the front walk. “Nothing you need to worry about, Miss Betty.”
“Why Chief Greer. Good morning.” Her wrinkled cheeks split with a delighted grin.
“Mornin’, Mrs. Monroe.” His voice was low and easy, as if he hadn’t just raced out of the shower.
“Been wondering who was gonna take you off the market. Good for you, young lady.” Bright blue eyes scanned him from head to toe. “If I were younger I’d have made a play for that myself.”
“Uh...”
“While I concede he is a fine view in the morning, we’ve got to finish getting ready for work. You enjoy your walk now.” Miranda put an arm around Miss Betty’s shoulders and steered her back up the walk.
By the time she got the woman on her way, Ethan had sensibly retreated inside and their reputations were mutually ruined but good. Miranda had a hard time caring. She was a lot more concerned with who’d been prowling around her house after three in the morning, carving up roadkill in some kind of macabre message of…what? Had they been waiting for her when Ethan brought her home? If he hadn’t been with her, would they have stopped with just leaving the grisly offering?
Gooseflesh rose on her arms and Miranda hugged herself. Getting ahead of yourself. It was probably just a vicious prank. Because this was Wishful. It didn’t make sense for it to be anything more serious than that. Ethan’s paranoia was rubbing off on her. She’d worked too damned hard to shake off the inherent suspicion of city life and embrace the simple of home to let some asshole drive her back to that stress and misery.
Either way, she was getting really damned tired of whoever wanted to make her life difficult. Casting a searching glance around, wondering if the perpetrator was still watching, Miranda squared her shoulders. No matter who’d done it, this thing was left with the intention of getting to her. So she wouldn’t give them what they wanted. Circling around to the shed in the backyard, she went in search of a shovel. She’d take care of this mess and they’d both go on with their days, focused on the important stuff. She wasn’t going to give this asshole another thought.
“The police chief, on the front porch, in a towel!” Clay crowed it as if he’d just won a game of Clue when he answered the door.
“Shut up,” Ethan groused, shouldering him aside so he could bring in his guitar.
“Oh no. I gotta know how you ended up mostly naked on Miranda’s front porch just as one of the Casserole Patrol was going by. I deserve that much explanation since you’re late.”
Ethan set his guitar case on the sofa. “That’s actually related to why I was late.” He unpacked his Taylor and began checking the tuning as he explained about the gutted raccoon.
Clay’s amusement faded. “Why the hell would somebody do that?”
“I don’t know. Just like I don’t know why somebody would slash all four of her tires.”
“Jesus, when did that happen?”
“Night of the bonfire. They may not be related.” Though a knife had clearly been used in both cases. And if they were related, going from destruction of property to mutilation of an animal—even one that had already been dead—showed an escalation Ethan didn’t like. “Either way, I spent a big portion of my day tracking down Harley Forbes to inquire about his whereabouts last night.”
“I heard that’s where Corbett Raines got shot. Is he gonna pull through?”
“Yeah, thanks to Miranda.”
“Is it true Johnny was the one who did it?”
“Afraid so.”
“Shit. I knew the kid was a powder keg, but I never expected him to do something like this.”
“By all accounts and evidence, it was an accidental shooting. Well, partly. Johnny was trying to shoot Harley and Corbett got in the way.” Corbett had corroborated that himself when Ethan went by the hospital to see him, in between checking in with Ralph Slocombe and a handful of others on the list Miranda had given him. He’d been beyond relieved to see the rookie sitting up in bed, albeit swathed in bandages. It’d be several weeks before he healed up enough to get back to work, and Ethan had already called in his two reserve officers to help pick up the slack.
“What beef has Harley got with Miranda?”
“None that I know about. And he claimed to have been asleep on the sofa bed at his cousin’s place last night between three and six, which his cousin confirmed.” Ethan hadn’t had any logical reason to tie Harley to Miranda’s harassment, but figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. He wasn’t sure he believed Harley’s alibi, but couldn’t disprove it. His alibi for the night of the bonfire was equally flimsy. “He was staying there on account of nearly getting shot in his own house.”
“I’m not a fan of the guy, but I can’t blame him for that.”
Strumming his fingers over the strings, Ethan hummed a noncommittal note.
Clay crossed his arms and kicked back against the arm of a chair. “So why’d you go after him?”
“To finally arrest his ass on domestic battery charges.” And it had been so satisfying to see that arrogant prick’s smirk turn to outrage when he’d realized Ethan was serious. He’d managed a whole host of creative suggestions as to what Ethan could do with his manhood by the time he’d been wrestled into the back of the cruiser. Ethan had been a little disappointed the jackoff hadn’t taken a swing at him so he could add resisting arrest and attempted assault of an officer to the list of charges.
“Seriously?”
“Yep. This thing with Johnny was finally enough to push Rene into pressing charges.”
“Well, thank God for that. You think the charges will actually stick?”