sun. At a break in the bushes, we paused to look out
over the field and saw movement in the dried weeds
less than fifty feet away. A warning squeeze of his hand
made me keep still. At first I couldn’t make out if they
were dogs or rabbits or—
“Foxes!” Dwight said in a half-whisper.
A pair of little gray foxes were jumping and pounc-
ing. With the wind blowing in our direction, they had
not caught our scent and seemed not to have heard our
low voices.
“What are they after?” I asked, standing on tiptoes to
see. “Field mice?”
At that instant, a big grasshopper flew off from a tuft
of broomstraw and one of the foxes leaped to catch it
in mid-flight.
Entranced, we stood motionless and watched them
hunt and catch more of the hapless insects until they
spooked a cottontail that sprang straight up in the air and
lit off toward the woods with both foxes close behind.
So no, not all insects died in winter.
“There are always blowflies in barns and sheds,”
Dwight reminded me. “They may hunker down when
170
HARD ROW
the mercury drops, but anything above thirty-five
and they’re right back out, especially if there’s blood
around.”
We rode in silence for a few minutes. I was carefully
keeping under the speed limit. With all he’d had to cope
with today, I didn’t need to add any more stress. So
what if we missed the opening face-off?
“If it turns out Harris died on Sunday, what’s this
going to do to your ED case?” he asked.
“Not my problem. If it can be proved that he died
before I signed the divorce judgment, then that judg-
ment’s vacated. If he died afterwards, then it proceeds
unless Mrs. Harris dismisses her claim.”
“And if nobody can agree on a time of death?”
“Then Reid and Pete get to argue it out. They or the
beneficiaries under Harris’s will. With a little bit of luck,
some other judge will get to decide on time of death.” I
thought about Flame Smith, who had clearly planned on
becoming the second Mrs. Harris. “I wonder if he made
a will after the separation? Want me to ask Reid?”
“Better let me,” Dwight said. “Could be the motive
for his death.”
“I rather doubt if Flame Smith swung that axe,” I
said.
“You think? I long ago quit saying what a woman will
or won’t do.”
