I opened my mouth to unreel a string of reasons why that was unnecessary, humiliating, and impossible.
"While," Leonard Tallgrass went on, "mi amigo takes me to that field and Mr. Quicksilver does a thorough nose job on it."
I objected. "Quicksilver isn't a drug-or bomb-sniffing dog, and he certainly isn't a cadaver dog."
"I told you the moment we met, Miss Delilah. He isn't much dog, but he's a lot of something else."
At that point, Quicksilver went to Leonard's chair and sat, after glancing his agreement at me.
My necklace shrunk into a plain, career-woman circlet at the base of my throat that wouldn't protect me from a mosquito bite, much less a vampire fanging.
It was The Three Amigos (like the movie) and an animated hair against my self-respect.
Guess who won?
I programmed the cow pasture directions into Ric's GPS and revved up Dolly for our return to Wichita. At least she wouldn't be getting her undercarriage dusty on unpaved country roads.
Chapter Ten
WITH THE GUYS off in Leonard Tallgrass's pickup to examine the cow-killing ground, we girls had time for less gory expeditions of our own.
First I stopped at a centrally located, low-profile place I knew, the Thunderbird Inn (Tallgrass would approve) to book a room for Ric and me. When I called Ric with the info, we agreed to meet there when it got too dark for field explorations.
Suited me. An unloaded Dolly and I made a beeline straight for my Wichita place of employment ... before I'd been effectively driven out of it by a lecherous vampire, a scheming weather witch, and a rogue personal tornado.
Most TV stations are modest one-story buildings attached to tall broadcast towers occupying high ground where land is cheap, far from the city center. WTCH-TV had the usual long entry driveway and suburban neighborhood.
I reflected that by now the male investigative team of two guys and a dog was sniffing and sifting through a cow-patty-laden field I'd last seen by the gleam of a flashlight illuminating mutilated cattle corpses.
Another lovely Wichita memory, but it wasn't as scary to me as all the "missing time" in my growing-up history. Right now, my major problem was to park Dolly discreetly. The aim was to avoid contact with anchorman Undead Ted Brinkman and Sheena Coleman, the station weather witch, during this hit-and-run visit.
I eased Delilah behind the far side of one of the station's mobile broadcast vans.
Wichita was having a quiet news day. Videographer "Slo-mo" Eddie Anderson had been happy to hear from my cell phone and was at the station as of ten minutes ago. One never knew when news would break out, so I slipped around the building to the back loading dock.
I'd have to scale it in my mid-heeled suit pumps and black leggings, worn under a mini-length navy shirtdress, the casual opposite of my conservative hose-and-suit-wearing on-camera self. Eddie was an ace camera guy, but the lanky, morose type who was always down on "management," so he was a born liaison for a disgruntled ex-employee.
"Delilah," he greeted me with a whisper when I'd clambered the four feet up to the loading dock and eased into the slightly open end of the steel security curtain. "Man, it's been no fun fest with only the supernaturals running the news desk. You look like being gone agrees with you."
"I'd had some bad days before Sheena sent a 'freak' tornado to take out my rental house. Sorry I didn't stick around to say good-bye."
Eddie scratched at his scrawny new mustache. "Can't blame you. They stole your paranormal news beats and then flaked out on covering them. They even rescheduled the interview we had cancelled, with the old lady at Sunset City retirement place. Then the new regime sent me back to Sunset City with Sheena, but her interview was pretty boring."
"Really? That old woman, Caressa Teagarden, moved to the Vegas Sunset City. At least I found her there after I arrived."
"Well, she must have been swept up and out in that targeted tornado of yours, because the old dame Sheena interviewed was named Lili West and she was a total fox of forty-something, like all of those artificially preserved Sunset City senior citizen residents. Your old Caressa lady looked senior. Kinda cool to see these days."
I smiled, knowing what he meant. "She still does. Was Lili West at the same address as our aborted assignment?"
"Yeah, come to think of it. No general manager has ever done that to me, called me back from an