Chloe Babineaux Private Investigator

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It was nine forty-five by the time I left my parents’ house. I was ready to get to work. I had water, shovel, gloves, and chips. What more did I need? A clue to where to dig would have been nice. But beyond that I was ready.

  The ride out to Shloe was nice, and the weather was holding. It was supposed to be about fifty degrees that day. A little cool, but since I was about to do heavy physical labor cool weather was a must.

  I drove up to the barn and got out to look around. I still thought it must be in the barn, but after drinking four cups of coffee, I really had to tinkle. I should have thought of that when I passed the convenience store at the Shloe exit. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, but right then I would have been satisfied with twenty-forty. Not perfect but good enough to remember to tinkle when I had the chance.

  Okay, off to the woods beside the barn. Thank goodness it wasn’t on an incline or I would have had to grab onto a tree to keep from falling. On the other hand, inclines kept your feet from getting wet.

  I didn’t know what all the trees were. I could only recognize pecan, oak, pine, hackberry and a few others. Nope. Not a whole lot of those around except for pine. There were pine trees everywhere and some other kind of evergreen. But then again this was winter the trees didn’t have leaves, so it was harder to identify them. I really needed to learn the trees of my native land. Okay, maybe not. I had gone this long without recognizing trees, what difference would it make if I went a little longer? As long as I didn’t grab onto poison ivy, I’d be in good shape. I was allergic to poison ivy, so I usually didn’t touch any sort of ivy in the woods. You know, just in case one might be poisonous. I know ‘leaves of three leave it be,’ but I didn’t take that much time to count. There was a slight breeze so when it blew the moving leaves in the trees made a slight whispery sound. It sounded very peaceful. So, of course, it made me a little nervous.

  I walked around the barn several times and even out to the surrounding woods, but I still didn’t see where something could be hidden. I walked in the barn several times stomping on the ground and pushing on walls and poles. I needed to get in the Tomb Raider state of mind. Okay, that got me nowhere but having to pee again.

  While I was in the woods, I saw several gravestones. I didn’t recognize any of the names but why would I? They weren’t my relatives. There were Foyts, Metoyers, and Dobards. On the outside of the group closest to the trees was one with the name N. LaName. How odd was that? I guess they didn’t know the person that died. Maybe he or she was found on their land. It was nice of them to go through the effort of burying whoever it was. It was kind of funny the way someone added La to Name. It looked nicer than just putting No Name.

  I was walking out from the woods zipping my pants when my cell phone rang. Rick was checking up on me.

  “Hey, Chloe, where are you?” Cody must have been driving, and he didn’t want to chitchat.

  “I’m trying to get in a Tomb Raider state of mind. Where are you?”

  “We’re running late. We’re leaving now.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. I thought I heard a noise from behind I turned my head to look and saw someone holding my shovel high above… “NOO!”