“How long ago did they divorce?”

“Oh gosh, eight years maybe?”

“Any tension between them?”

She shakes her head. “Divorce is probably the best thing they ever did for each other.”

“Did he have any work done on the house recently? Or hire any casual laborers? Anything like that?”

“Did that remodeling six or seven years ago.” She shrugs. “He’s handy and liked to tinker, so he did a lot of the work himself.”

“Does your dad have a cell phone?” I ask, knowing that many times it’s helpful to check incoming and outgoing calls.

“He just upgraded his iPhone.”

“You’ve been a big help, Mrs. Harrington.” I motion toward Glock. “Officer Maddox will walk you to your vehicle. This is a crime scene now, and we need to protect any evidence.”

A round of fresh tears well in her eyes. “My poor dad. Shot like some old dog.”

I give Glock a nod and he gently ushers her toward the door. “This way, ma’am.”

I watch them disappear into the rain and then tug out my cell and hit the speed dial for Tomasetti, knowing he can get a crime scene unit out here faster than I can. Worry flickers inside me when he doesn’t pick up, but I presume he’s in the shower or on another line. I call my dispatcher instead. “Call BCI and request a CSU. Tell them we’ve got a possible homicide.” I give her the address. “Check County records and get me the names and contact info of Michaels’s neighbors. I’m particularly interested in a neighbor with the first or last name of Seymour. See if he’s got a sheet.”

“Okay, Chief.”

I ring off in time to hear the coroner call my name. I walk back over to where he’s kneeling next to the body, his gloved hand hovering near the bullet wound. “I’m guessing, Kate, but I’d venture to say the slug penetrated the stomach. If that’s the case, there’s no way he walked from the house to the barn after sustaining this wound.”

I scan the interior of the barn, trying to get my mind around what might have transpired. “Is it possible Michaels was already hanging, perhaps by his own hand, and someone entered the barn and shot him?” I ask the doc.

“Possible, but doubtful,” he replies. “There’s only a small window of time that he was alive, after he was hanged. Once the carotid artery and jugular veins are blocked, unconsciousness would have occurred within minutes. Death may have taken another ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Maybe someone shot him to disable him and then strung him up,” Glock says as he comes through the door.

“Hell of a way to kill someone,” Maloney adds.

I look down at Dale Michaels’s body. “Unless maybe someone thought he deserved it.”

CHAPTER 4

It’s nearly 4 A.M. when I arrive home, exhausted and in need of a shower. Once the coroner’s office transported the body to the morgue, Glock and I spent three hours searching both the barn and the house. As is always the case when murder is suspected, the question of motive is forefront in our minds. That question was addressed, at least in part, when we found eighty bucks and a gold class ring lying in plain sight on a night table. In the study, there was a sleek MacBook Pro, which I sealed in an evidence bag and sent to the lab. A flat-screen television in the living room. All those items are coveted by thieves: they’re valuable, easy to transport, and quick to sell. And I was able to comfortably rule out robbery as the motive.