Free Winter at the Door by Sarah Graves

along the top of a ridgeline. “So what’s this Brantwell guy like? Missy’s dad, I mean?”
    Chevrier glanced at her. “Last night in the bar,” Lizzie explained, “Missy’s cousin said something about how she was lucky he wasn’t home. Because she was getting in late.”
    Across the valley the sun was already thinking about setting, the distant treetops sharply cut out against a glowing red sky.
    Chevrier’s lower lip pursed judiciously. “Like I said, he’s got a lot of workers on his farm. Pays good, treats ’em fair as far as I’ve ever heard. Well spoken, decent looking. He’s on the county board of commissioners, belongs to the Chamber of Commerce, and so on.”
    In the shadowy valleys between the ridges, lights in houses and yards began going on. “That’s where he is now, in New York at a meeting on milk prices,” said Chevrier. “He’s kind of like the County’s unofficial ambassador for stuff like that.”
    “Travels a lot, then, does he?” The relief in Missy’s eyes last night when she was reminded that her dad wasn’t at home had been impossible to miss.
    Chevrier shrugged. “Pretty often. Once a month, sometimes more, he’ll be away a few days. He’s got a good foreman working for him, Tom Brody, manages the farm.”
    He shot another glance sideways at her. “Why, you think he might make problems for Henry about last night?”
    “No, no.” It wasn’t as if Henry was related to Missy, or—heaven forbid—married to her. Henry was just a local screw-up of the small-town variety as far as Lizzie could tell. She leaned back in the seat. “I doubt he’ll even hear about it. I just wondered.”
    They drove on in silence until Rascal thrust his flop-eared, foul-breathed muzzle between the truck’s two front bucket seats.
    “The dog needs his teeth cleaned,” she said. “And a bath.”
    “That reminds me,” said Chevrier. “Got a favor to ask you.”
    “No,” said Lizzie at once, knowing what was coming. The dog liked her, and she’d heard Chevrier say his wife didn’t like it.
    Nevertheless, when she got out of Chevrier’s vehicle on Main Street, Rascal got out, too, and could not be persuaded back in.
    “Thank you,” Chevrier said sincerely. He’d be airing his vehicle for a week. “It’ll only be until I find someone else.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” Lizzie said sourly, still thinking about Carl Bogart and the others. But Chevrier couldn’t stay to talk about that now, either; he had a meeting with drug enforcement guys from Bangor to get to.
    It occurred to her, though, that even if she didn’t want the dog for company, she could use him for an alarm system. Also, when Dylan Hudson started hinting around about staying overnight again, as he inevitably would, she’d be able to point out to him that she already had one mutt.
Ba-da-bump …
    Meanwhile she had one more chore on her to-do list, so once she saw that the lights were still on in her office—
    She’d given her new helper Spud his instructions and left him to it; if there was disappointment coming in that department, she’d deal with it later, she decided as she crossed the street with the big hound keeping a surprisingly calm pace beside her.
    He hopped into her Blazer as if he’d been doing it all his life, too, and moments later they were heading back out of town. “Good dog,” she told him, and he eyed her gravely in reply; then she turned her attention back to her errand again.
    When she’d mentioned her plan to Chevrier, he’d told her she wouldn’t be able to miss the Brantwell place, and as it turned out he was right. The long, well-maintained driveway was fenced on bothsides with posts and barbed wire, and at the top a sizable complex of farm buildings spread away on both sides of the large, well-maintained, white clapboard house.
    Big farm is right
, she thought as she pulled up alongside two cars, Missy’s yellow Jeep and a newish Cadillac Escalade. As she got out, a man came out of the