Free Doggone Dead by Teresa Trent

packed my lunch today, so I’ll head on over. I got somethin’ I want to talk to you about.”
    Within ten minutes, my dad pulled up in his squad car and stepped through the squeaky gate of the chain link fence. “Hey Butch, how ya doing there, fella?” Butch ran up to him in full-tilt crazy mode.
    “He’ll love you even more for part of your sandwich.” My dad straightened up in his blue uniform, a little thin for a man in his fifties, but that probably had something to do with how hard he worked. A faint whiff of Old Spice drifted over.
    He settled down on the park bench next to me as Zach, grown tired of playing, now slurped on his milkshake. Pulling a ham sandwich out of a baggie, he motioned to Zach. “Say, Zach, why don’t you go play with Butch for a minute while I talk to your mother.”
    “It’s hot out there.” Zach’s cheeks were red from his exertion. Butch had settled down next to him, panting so hard his tongue looked like it would fall out of his mouth.
    “Just give me a minute. Why don’t you go squirt Butch with the hose?” There was a “dog washing” area with a garden hose hooked up over at the former drive-through area of the Dairy Queen.
    “Okay.” With the idea of having permission to play in the water, Zach shot off the bench.
    My dad swiped at some sweat on his nose. “Artie at the coroner's office says it was blunt-force trauma. Somebody beaned him on the head pretty good.”
    “Do you have any idea who might have done it?”
    “Not yet, and the murder weapon is definitely that concrete pedestal you found in the bushes. There were pieces of Grayson’s brain on it.”
    “So what are you going to do?”
    “It’s more like what you’re going to do.”
    I wadded up my wax-coated burger wrapper. “I don’t work for the police, did you forget?”
    “Libby Loper is a prime suspect because of the fact that Grayson was stealing her blind. We’ve questioned her some, but I think she might be hiding something. A few harmless questions couldn’t hurt. I’d like you to go over and offer to help clean and reorganize her house – and in the process if you come across something, then leave it there in an obvious place,” he said. “It is part of what you do, after all. You write organizational tips in the paper all the time. Well, here’s your chance to use some of them. What do you say?”
    “I say it’s crazy. What if she figures out what I’m up to?”
    “If we are going to issue a search warrant anyway, what’s the difference? Your efforts will help the rest of us to actually find something before Christmas.”
    “Okay,” I consented.
    “Now that’s the cowboy way, darlin’.”

Chapter Thirteen
     
    The next morning as I ate my cereal and watched the sun shine through the kitchen windows, I unfolded the latest edition of the Pecan Bayou Gazette. Looking for my pictures of the Bonnet Farm, I didn’t have to search too long. My picture of the shed was front and center, but not with the headline “Watermelons Bountiful at Bonnet Farm.” Instead it said, “Lt. Judd Kelsey Accused of Planting Evidence.” The picture I had taken of the outbuildings showed the many tourists visiting the farm that day. My little Miss Watermelon hopeful and her mother were there, and my father was bent over, looking like he was placing something on the ground near Coop Bonnet’s red Corvette. I couldn’t believe Rocky put this in without telling me about it first. I read the article below the photo.
    Judd Kelsey was accused by Clay Bonnet of planting drug paraphernalia in the car of his son, Coop Bonnet, leading him to be arrested for possession on Tuesday. The new district attorney, Adam Cole, is pursuing an investigation of Officer Kelsey, who has been put on limited duty until the issue is resolved.
    “I was sure he was planting something on my son’s car, and then he comes up with a bag of pot,” said Clay Bonnet. “This is police harassment, and we will fight it all the way