Free Murder and Moonshine: A Mystery by Carol Miller

and covered in flaking rust. Their formerly white paint had turned dingy gray. The windows were streaked with dirt, and the screens were shredded. It all looked terribly tattered and pathetically forlorn.
    “He’s got plenty of money to buy Fox Hollow,” Daisy mumbled crossly, “but he still won’t spend a nickel to fix up this place.”
    “What was that?” Sue said, parking the ambulance.
    “Nothing. Ready?” She took a deep breath. She wasn’t any more eager to climb out of the vehicle than Sue, although for an entirely different reason. Sue dreaded the dogs. Daisy dreaded their owners.
    “Ready?” Sue echoed apprehensively, gazing at the growling collection of canines awaiting her. “I don’t know. You’re sure it’s all bark and not bite?”
    “Positive. Let me go first, and they’ll come around to my side. When I’ve got their attention with the ham, then you can go. They probably won’t even notice you once they’ve started in on the bones.”
    “Which trailer is Rick’s?” Sue asked.
    “The one on the right.” Daisy furrowed her brow as she looked back and forth between the two dented doors. There was no sign of either Rick or Bobby. “It’s strange they haven’t come out yet. Their trucks are both here.” She gestured at the two pickups parked toward the left in between a fire pit and a scorched charcoal grill.
    “Maybe I should keep the engine running,” Sue said, “just in case they don’t answer and we have to sprint back to the ambulance to avoid getting mangled.”
    “I think we’ll be okay.” Daisy suppressed a chuckle. For a robust woman, both in girth and personality, Sue was awfully timid when it came to pooches. Maybe she had gotten a set of razor teeth locked into her thigh once in the past and was now doubly shy. “Well, wish me luck.”
    Sue watched as Daisy scooped up her bag of bones and opened the door. As predicted, all the dogs immediately galloped around to her side. Before her feet even touched the ground, she was enveloped in a giant woofing, whining, yapping heap of fur and paws. Sue may have cringed in anticipation of the first savage bite, but it didn’t come. Tails were wagging. Tongues were drooling. Daisy acknowledged them in their self-determined pecking order. She scratched the thick backs of the rottweilers first, then rubbed the broad heads of the blueticks. The black-and-tan coonhounds came last, pushing their muzzles against her for their share of the affection. Finally she doled out the ham bones, smartly scattering them away from the ambulance and the trailers.
    “Okey-dokey,” she called to Sue when she had finished. “All clear.”
    Sue was visibly impressed. “You’re like a dog sorcerer.”
    Daisy laughed and shook her head. “No. It’s just basic doggie hierarchy. I’ve met Captain and Morgan before, so they know my scent. They’re the alphas. If they accept you, all the rest will too. Pack mentality. And a bit of meat bribery never hurts.”
    While Sue started toward the trailers, Daisy returned to the ambulance and pulled out a second bag.
    “More bones?” Sue asked.
    “No. This is for the boys. Bribery in the form of baked goods.”
    It was Sue’s turn to laugh. “What’s the old saying? The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”
    Daisy grinned. “Hey, you want cooperation. This is the best way I know to get Rick and Bobby to cooperate.”
    “I’ll have to remember that.” Sue stopped for a moment and listened. “Gosh, it’s awfully nice in here when it’s quiet, isn’t it?”
    In comparison to their former hullabaloo, the dogs were now silent, only breaking into an occasional tussle over an unclaimed bone. A soft Appalachian breeze rustled the crowns of the pines. A woodpecker pounded the bark in search of an insect. On some distant branch a squirrel chattered.
    “This is the best part of not having any neighbors,” Daisy remarked. “No car doors slamming. No lawn mowers firing up first thing Saturday