Chapter 6. When Doves Cry
WHEN DOVES CRY
WHITNEY
Once I could gather my wits, I scrambled down the ladder and ran outside.
The ground was saturated and slick. My right foot slid out from under me and I went down on my left knee in the deep mud.
The muck sucked at my boots and coveralls as I struggled to get back up.
The wind gusted against my back as if it, too, were trying to hold me down.
A current carried aloft a single black-and-white-striped feather.
The feather performed aerial maneuvers in front of me.
The wind died down and the feather danced across Tyler’s shoulders before dropping to the ground at the base of the barn wall.
Finally, I managed to stand. “Tyler?” I cried. “Tyler? Are you okay?”
If there were an award for stupid questions, I would have won first place with that one, hands down.
He had a pitchfork sticking out of him, for goodness’ sake!
The man’s button-down was soaked with blood, the fluid from the five separate wounds now forming one large stain.
His back was still, no telltale rise and fall of breath.
But paramedics had performed miracles before, bringing people back from the brink of death.
Maybe the tines had missed his vital organs. Maybe it wasn’t too late for him.
I whipped my phone from the pocket of my coveralls and dialed 9-1-1, my hand shaking so hard I nearly dropped it. “Send an ambulance! A man was impaled with a pitchfork!”
The dispatcher asked me the address. I’d never have been able to remember it in my discombobulated state, but luckily it was in the text Gail had sent the morning she’d first contacted me. I pulled up the text and rattled it off.
“An ambulance is on its way,” the dispatcher said. “Was it an accident?”
“I don’t see how.” I gulped. “I was in the barn so I didn’t see what happened, but I heard a shout and sounds of a fight, and then a car drove off fast.”
“I’d better send law enforcement, too.”
She kept me on the line while getting in touch with the first responders.
Though the rain lessened to a drizzle, at least for now, the wind was back at it.
A strong gust hit me full force, causing me to stagger backward into the barn.
With the rear barn doors closed, the wind had no escape and created a whirlwind inside.
The papers that had fallen from Tyler’s backpack twirled in the air around me, a tornado of computer printouts, receipts, handwritten pages with ragged edges that indicated they’d been torn from spiral notebooks.
There was even a colorful greeting card in the mix.
I put the dispatcher on speaker and tucked the phone into my breast pocket, then desperately dashed around the cavernous space, grabbing at the papers.
They could be important, maybe provide clues as to why Tyler had been killed.
He was an investigative reporter, after all, one who’d written many exposés, revealing people’s deepest, darkest secrets.
Maybe one of those people had sought retribution here today.
The wind died down for a moment, and I took advantage of the reprieve to carry the paperwork I’d managed to collect over to my car.
Lest another gust wreak havoc, I climbed inside, closed the door, and placed the messy stack on the passenger seat.
I pulled out my phone and went through the documents one by one, snapping a screenshot of each page.
Once law enforcement arrived, they’d take Tyler’s documentation into evidence.
This was the one chance I had to collect evidence and see for myself what clues Tyler Yee might have been carrying in his bag.
There had to be something in these pages that Tyler didn’t want his killer to get their hands on.
Why else would he have flung the bag up into the hayloft?
Fate had tasked me with ensuring his killer was brought to justice. How could I refuse to help?
The sound of a siren told me help was arriving.
I ended the call with the dispatcher and stacked the papers on the seat of my car for safekeeping.
After grabbing my umbrella, I headed out front.
I held the handle of my open umbrella in my right hand and raised my left arm like the Victory Garden’s mother scarecrow to show I posed no threat.
A deputy from the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office pulled up in a large SUV, the lights atop it flashing.
The driver cut the siren and engine, and slid out.
He had dark skin and a stocky build. His campaign hat was protected by a clear rain cover that resembled a shower cap, and his waterproof sheriff-department-issue duster hung open just enough for me to see a nametag that identified him as G. SWISHER.
“I’m Whitney Flynn.” I lowered my left hand. “I’m the one who called.”
Deputy Swisher’s gaze went from me to the pitchfork, then moved down to Tyler Yee’s prone body. “Who is that?”
I gulped down the emotion trying to choke me. “Tyler Yee.”
“Friend of yours? Family?”
“No,” I said. “I guess you’d call him a business associate. I just met him last week. He’s a freelance reporter. He’s doing a story on the barn. My cousin and I were hired to renovate it.”
The deputy took one look at Tyler and offered an accurate summation of the reporter’s condition.
“He doesn’t look so good.” The deputy crouched next to Tyler and put two fingers to his neck.
Frowning, he squeezed the talk button on his shoulder-mounted radio.
“Cancel the ambulance and get me a medical examiner.”
Even though I’d assumed Tyler had likely perished, having his death confirmed caused me to teeter on my feet.
“Let’s sit you down.” Deputy Swisher stood, took my arm, and guided me over to his SUV, where he relieved me of my umbrella, opened the back door, and helped me into the seat. He closed my umbrella and placed it on the floorboard.
I sat sideways, slumped over with my elbows on my knees, the heels of my muddy boots on the running board.
Once the dizziness passed, I looked up at the deputy.
A pair of doves swooped in behind him, landing on the edge of the hayloft door.
They turned to watch us, cocking their heads and issuing their somber cry, as if mourning Tyler’s death. Coo-ooh-ooh. Coo-ooh-ooh.
The deputy gently prodded me. “What happened here?”
I took a deep breath to steel myself before going over the events. Tyler shouting. The sounds of a physical altercation. The backpack being tossed up through the hayloft door and the papers fluttering out of it. A car door slamming and a vehicle driving away.
“Did you see the vehicle?”
“No. Sorry.” If I’d had my wits about me, I would have looked down the drive. The vehicle probably hadn’t had time to make it to the main road before I’d reached Tyler’s body. But I’d been too shocked to think clearly.
The alarm on my phone blared, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I pulled it from my pocket, jabbed the icon to turn it off, and looked up at the deputy.
“The owner of the property will be here soon. We’re supposed to meet at noon to go over the design for the barn remodel.
That’s why Tyler Yee was here. To get information for his story. ”
“Hold tight,” Swisher said. “I need to put cordon tape across the drive. Can’t have anyone disturbing the crime scene.” He squeezed his shoulder mic again to contact dispatch. “Send a detective out to Leipers Fork. We’ve got a homicide on our hands.”