RECENT RAIN HAD WASHED away the intruder’s scent trail, but the dead critter wasn’t all that difficult to hunt down. The stench of putrefying meat pulled me to a bank on the far side of the property where a lazy gardener had tossed what turned out to be a raccoon carcass rather than burying it the way he ought.
I’ll come back with a shovel later, I promised myself. My mother wouldn’t be able to smell the rot from inside her home, but I could. And it appeared I planned to stay for a while to ensure small woodland critters were the only beings who ended up dead on my mother’s doorstep in the near future.
An extended lap around the perimeter turned up no recent signs of life (or death), though. So I returned to the rental car relieved and ready to rest. My head was throbbing, my feet were s
