“Stupid fuckin’ cows,” he muttered. Besides chickens, they had to be the dumbest animals on earth.

He hit the radio. “Dispatch, this is forty-seven.”

“What’s up, T.J.?” asked Mona, the night dispatcher.

“I got a 10-54. Stutz’s damn cows are out again.”

“That’s the second time in a week.”

“Always on my shift, too.”

“So what are you going to do? He ain’t got no phone out there.”

A glance at the clock on the dash told him it was nearly two A.M. “Well, I’m not going to stand out here in the frickin’ cold and round up these stupid shits.”

“Maybe you ought to just shoot ’em.”

“Don’t tempt me.” Looking around, he sighed. Livestock on the road at this hour was an accident waiting to happen. If someone came around the curve too fast it could be bad. He thought of all the paperwork an accident would entail and shook his head. “I’ll set up some flares then go drag his Amish ass out of bed.”

“Let me know if you need backup.” She snickered.

Yanking the zipper of his coat up to his chin, he slid his flashlight from its nest beside the seat and got out of the cruiser. It was so cold he could feel his nose hairs freezing. His boots crunched through snow as he made his way to the bar ditch, his breaths puffing out in front of him. He hated the graveyard shift almost as much as he hated winter.

He ran the flashlight beam along the fence line. Sure enough, twenty feet away two strands of barbed wire had come loose from a gnarled locust-wood post. Hoofprints told him several head had discovered the opening and ventured onto the shoulder for some illicit grazing.

“Stupid fuckin’ cows.”

T.J. went back to the cruiser and popped the trunk. Removing two flares, he set them up on the centerline to warn traffic. He was on his way back to the cruiser when he spotted something in the snow on the opposite side of the road. Curious, he crossed to it. A solitary woman’s shoe lay on the shoulder. Judging from its condition and lack of snow cover, it hadn’t been there long. Teenagers, probably. This deserted stretch of road was a favorite place to smoke dope and have sex. They were almost as stupid as cows.

Frowning, T.J. nudged the shoe with his foot. That was when he noticed the drag marks, as if something heavy had been hauled through the snow. He traced the path with the flashlight beam, tracking it to the fence and into the field beyond. The hairs at the back of his neck prickled when he spotted blood. A lot of it.

“What the hell?”

He followed the trail into the ditch where yellow grass poked up through the snow. He climbed the fence and found more blood on the other side, stark and black against pristine white. It was enough to give a guy the willies.

The path took him to a stand of bare-branched hedge apple trees at the edge of a cornfield. He could hear himself breathing hard, the dead corn stalks whispering all around. T.J. set his hand on his revolver and swept the beam in a 360-degree circle. That was when he noticed the object in the snow.