Mad Dog and Englishman: A Mad Dog & Englishman Mystery #1 (Mad Dog & Englishman Series) by J M Hayes

his wife had been among the team’s most ardent boosters because their oldest boy, the Reverend’s brother, Tommy, had been a big and mean-for-his-age sophomore lineman. This magnificent yard and home had been a natural place for a celebration. It had been a memorable night for Mad Dog. Janie had intercepted the first of his passes as he drove her home afterward, but then she’d let him fumble under her blouse and skirt and they’d soon achieved an even grander prize.
    It wasn’t Janie’s trim little bottom, beckoning from within bright panties under a short skirt—scarlet under gold—he followed through the door this time, just a memory. Mad Dog wondered briefly what had become of Janie, and if she ever thought of him and their season of trial and Eros.
    It was cooler in the house than outside, but not by much. And quiet, though you couldn’t have heard a pin drop because of the plush pearl-grey carpet that lined the foyer.
    “Mr. Simms?”
    Still no answer. Mad Dog knew he should leave, go back to the Maddox farm his mother had made sure he inherited and call Mrs. Kraus or Englishman to report his failure from there, but something drew him.
    There was a living room to the right of the foyer and a dining room to the left. At the rear there was a closet, a hall, and a stairway to the second floor. Old Man Simms was sprawled near the top of the stairs, his eyes watching Mad Dog’s progress. Actually, his line of sight was slightly lower, almost straight down the steps, as if he were wondering how he could descend from up there. He certainly wasn’t going to do it himself, not with his neck at that unnatural angle and the life gone out of him. He’d been dead for a while. Mad Dog could tell because the spot where the patch of scalp had been removed was dried and crusted. But for that you might have thought he’d simply slipped and fallen. Mad Dog’s second corpse of the day had been more gently handled than the first. It didn’t matter much, though. Mad Dog felt himself go wobbly in the knees and found himself sitting on the carpet, not quite knowing how he got there. A phone stood on a table nearby. Mad Dog reached out, picked it up, and punched in his brother’s number at the Sheriff’s Office.
    ***
     
    Sunday was usually Bertha’s biggest day. Under normal circumstances she outdrew the Buffalo Springs Non-Denominational Church. On a day when the only competition were the Methodists down on Jackson and the Lutherans out on Poplar, or the Buffalo Burger Drive Inn over where the highways intersected across from the Texaco, she had been swamped. By mid-afternoon, virtually every rumor had poured through Bertha’s doors, been swapped across her formica tables, passed along the sweep of her counter, and washed up against the booths by the back wall. Most of the tale tellers had long ago given up and gone home when the stranger walked in and ordered a glass of iced tea. Bertha swiped the counter in front of him with a rag that smelled strongly of disinfectant but left a suspicious grey film behind. She was aggressive with it, challenging almost, as if she were waving a weapon under his nose.
    It was impossible to tell if the glass she served his tea in was clean because it was sweating almost as much as he was after his walk from the courthouse. He took a chance and sipped it and smiled at her when it tasted like tea and not the stuff on the rag.
    Bertha and her four remaining customers kept wary eyes on him while he drank, eyes that shifted innocently away whenever he looked in their direction, then flashed back at the first opportunity. Everyone was keenly aware that no arrest had been made yet. Peter Simms’ murderer still roamed free. Strangers, who might normally be greeted with enthusiasm at least equal to the money they might be willing to spend in the county were, today, treated as if they might momentarily don a hockey mask and begin pulling the starter rope on a bloody chain saw.
    The compact man with