Free When Will the Dead Lady Sing? by Patricia Sprinkle Page A

the street. The buffalo loped after him. Sarge ran after the buffalo. Lance pelted after Sarge.
    Tires squealed. People shouted. I hardly dared to look.
    Hubert was safe on the other side of the street, but the buffalo and a Toyota had collided. Thank goodness, nobody had been going very fast. The buffalo shook its head as if clearing flies. The Toyota’s front end had a buffalo-shaped dent.
    An angry man got out of the car, waving his arms. “Get him out of here,” Lance shouted to Sarge, gesturing at the buffalo. Sarge grabbed the animal’s chain, shaking his free fist at the driver. Lance went to talk to the driver, who was shouting the kind of words I won’t bother to repeat. Your imagination is at least as good as his.
    The homeless man was nowhere to be seen.
    People streamed from Gusta’s party to fill the lawn, discussing what might have happened as if they’d been there. Lance continued to talk to the man in the car. Edward hurried out to join him, and pretty soon he and the driver were both writing something down. I saw Edward motion to Sarge, and he led the poor buffalo to a truck parked down the block.
    Hubert limped to join me, his face redder than a man’s ought to be after a heart attack.
    “That was real smart,” I greeted him. “Just what Gusta expects of her guests. Sit down.”
    He was wheezing in a way I didn’t like. He collapsed into a porch rocker. “Dangnabit, that bum is camping out in my barn, and I can’t get rid of him. Leaves out food to attract mice, uses my woods for a toilet—” He obviously wasn’t planning to discuss the buffalo.
    “How do you know it’s him?”
    He gave me a look that said I didn’t have the sense I was born with. “How many homeless people we got in Hopemore?”
    He had a point. We had poor people, of course, but most of them had relatives somewhere around who could squeeze them in during a financial crisis.
    “Besides,” Hubert said, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe his face, “I saw him once. I’ve run down several times trying to surprise him, and once I saw him out on the edge of the woods, but he saw me, too, and scuttled away before I could catch him.” He stopped to do some more wheezing. “How can I sell the place with him hanging around?”
    “Poor Hubert,” I commiserated. “But Lance said the man is following him around, so just wait a week. He’ll leave with the Bullock campaign.”
    Lance mounted the steps as I spoke. He had been looking worried, but now he chuckled. “That’s me, Pied Piper of the Homeless.”
    I liked this fellow. That didn’t mean I would vote for him if he changed parties, mind, but I liked him. He didn’t take himself too seriously, which I always regard as a virtue.
    He pulled out his own handkerchief and wiped his flushed face. “I’d better get back inside and soothe Miss Gusta. We’ve spoiled her nice party.”
    “You’ve made it a success,” I assured him. “She’ll talk about nothing else for days.”
    He sighed. “Maybe so, but it looks like I’m gonna need a lawyer.”
    When he’d left, I asked Hubert, “Have you asked the sheriff to get rid of the man?”
    Hubert gave a snort. “I told Charlie Muggins at our Thursday-night poker game, but you know Charlie. He loves strutting around in his police chief’s uniform, but he sits there and tells me he doesn’t have the manpower to stake out my barn.”
    “It’s not his jurisdiction anyway,” I pointed out. “It’s the sheriff’s.”
    Hubert glowered. “I may take my shotgun, climb up in the loft, and just wait for the fella to show up. Then I’ll blow him to kingdom come.”
    Guests who were returning to the party looked at him oddly.
    I put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t. I don’t want you appearing before me on charges of murder. And think how Maynard would feel if his children’s grandfather was in jail for life.”
    “There is that,” he admitted, “but I gotta do something. I’m getting desperate. The Realtor