“Excuse me?”

“I’m next to a field full of goats that keep tipping over on their sides and my dog just found a man in a ditch. I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

“And where is this body located?” The bored tone in her voice suggested she wasn’t too impressed. How many dead bodies turned up in Fenton County?

“I’m at the farm just south of 27078 County Road 24.”

“Okay, ma’am,” she said in that same flat tone. “Now, are you sure he’s dead? Perhaps he just needs medical attention.”

I inched closer to Mr. Sullivan, as though he might reach out and grab me. He wore black dress pants with black loafers and a black wool coat. His open, blank stare was the only confirmation I needed. Along with his pale-blue skin. “No. I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

“I already have a deputy on the way, ma’am,”

“Thank you,” I mumbled. To my surprise, I could already hear faint sirens.

A sheriff’s car turned down the road and stopped several feet before reaching me. I was relieved to recognize the deputy who climbed out of the car door.

“Deputy Miller!” I said. He’d been the officer who had watched over us the most at the farm during the Crocker mess. When Crocker’s men showed up at my property, Deputy Miller had pretended to be one of them. But it turned out that he’d been working with the state police as an informant the whole time. In fact, he’d been the one to keep Muffy safe until Mason and me were found. Muffy loved him and she was an excellent judge of character.

“Rose!” the dark-haired man called out as he approached. Muffy ran up to him and Deputy Miller squatted down to pet her. “Hey, girl! How you doin’? Did you miss me?”

Muffy answered by licking his hand and filling the air with a stench that would make paint peel. Deputy Miller stood, scrunching his nose and waving his hand in front of his face. “Muffy, we need to make you a police dog and send you into tense situations in lieu of tear gas.”

I was usually offended when someone insulted my little dog, but Deputy Miller was one of only a handful of people besides me who appreciated her scrappy appearance and thought she was cute. And besides, he had a point.

“I had a strange call reporting that someone had found a dead body here in a field full of dead goats.”

“That’s only half right.” I grimaced.

He stopped in his tracks. “There’s a small herd of goats eatin’ grass over there, so I’m guessing that’s the part that’s wrong.”

I pointed to the ditch behind me. “The goats came back to life, but the guy in the ditch still looks pretty dead. I’m pretty sure it’s Mr. Sullivan from the bank.”

He made a less-than-eager face. “Okay, let’s check this out.”

Muffy got excited and started to bark and run circles around the deputy.

Just then, the goats bleated and fell to the ground, the thuds filling the air.

“Again?” I shouted, turning to Deputy Miller while pointing to the field. “They keep tipping over!”

“They’re supposed to do that. They’re fainting goats.”

Why in tarnation would someone want a field full of fainting goats? “Well, they certainly live up to their name.”

He stood and inched closer to the ditch, leaning over the man’s body while I hung back on the road. “Yep, he’s dead all right. And you think it’s Mr. Sullivan? Do you know him?”

“Only from dealing with him at the bank.”

“How’d you find him?"

“Muffy found him. We were on a walk.”

He squatted next to the ditch, still examining the body. “I wonder how he got here. Do you think he knows your neighbor?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t met my neighbor yet.”

I expected some sort of rebuke, but the deputy seemed indifferent. “I’m gonna have to call a detective and the coroner.” His gazed lifted to mine. “And the chief deputy sheriff.”

I cringed. “Are you sure you have to call him?”

“He gave us very strict instructions to notify him in case you were involved in any messy situations.”

I put my hands on my hips. “You’re kidding me!”

“He was very adamant.”

“I’m sure he was.”

The deputy walked back to the patrol car and squatted to rub Muffy’s head while he made his calls. I held my own phone in my hand, racked with indecision. Everything in me wanted to call Mason, but after last night’s debacle in Jasper’s, I didn’t want to risk some sort of confrontation between him and Joe. I could handle Joe on my own, and didn’t want Mason to be any more upset than he’d been last night.

About ten minutes later, a car I didn’t recognize turned down the gravel road while I rested my backside on the hood of Deputy Miller’s cruiser talking with the officer.

I didn’t recognize the detective who got out of the car. A middle-aged man with thinning hair parted to the side, he walked up to Deputy Miller and me with a scowl on his face that looked somewhat permanent based on the deep grooves carved into his jowls.

“Where is it?” he barked.

Muffy hunkered down near my feet and released a low growl.

The detective didn’t look amused.

Deputy Miller bent down and gave Muffy another rub on the head, then stood and pointed to the ditch. “Ms. Gardner was out walking with her dog Muffy—”