The Sheriff's Wife: The Sheridan County Mysteries, #0

By Erin Lark Maples

When she stumbles over a body on a favorite hiking trail, the sheriff's wife becomes the chief sleuth in this prequel to The Sheridan County Mysteries.

Summer is gorgeous in the mountains of Sheridan County, Wyoming, where Jo Wolf takes to the hiking trails to enjoy the scenery inbetween her volunteer responsibilities as the organizer, caretaker, and defacto hiring manager for a rural school nestled among the ranches. A wife of a local sheriff, she wants to adopt a burro so that their own family ranch feels complete.   Despite the fresh air, cool creeks, and kindhearted neighbors, Jo is struggling to hire for the upcoming school year. Whether frightened by proximity to bears or too attached to city lights, she can't find a teacher who will stick around. But when she stumbles over a stranger's body in the woods, her to-do list shifts as she takes on the role of sleuth. If Jo can't identify the murderer in time, she won't make it to the first day of school.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lodestar Literary
• Release date: Jul 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201489205

Erin Lark Maples

From the desert southwest, Erin spent childhood summers along the banks of Piney Creek where she fell in love with Sheridan County. An award-winning science teacher, avid archer, and hack watercolorist, she was made for the outdoors.  Erin and her family divide their time between WY, WA, and AZ because life is too short to play favorites. The Sheriff’s Wife is a prequel to The Sheridan County Mysteries. Book one in the series, The New Teacher, releases in Fall of 2022. Follow her on social media @erinlarkmaples

Book preview

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Chapters & Contents

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The New Teacher

Like the series prequel?

Read the Series!

Acknowledgements

About Erin

Copyright

1

It wasn’t the first time Jo saw a body. Nor would it be the last.

You can’t be a sheriff’s wife and not see a thing or two that will keep you up at night, rattle your dreams. Josephine Candalaria knew this when she said I do to her college sweetheart. A life with Clint Wolf meant exposure to the underside of Sheridan County.

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The ride up the trail that morning was bumpy, jarring Jo to the point that her teeth clattered together at each patch of washboard gravel. A summer crowded with tourists tearing up trails with their ATVs and mountain bikes was hard on the road. Jo leaned over the handlebars of the borrowed quad as she climbed the hill. She navigated the gaping potholes that threatened to wrench her off course. As squirrels zipped among the branches her eyes were on the ground, seeking Clint’s keys.

Gravel peppered the well-used trail. Jo scanned for a flash of silver or brass. A ring of yellow, red, or blue. The colorful plastic labels told Clint which key was for the shed and which was for his toolbox. Her phone lost its signal a half mile back, so checking for the ping of the location tag was useless.

The late August breeze tugged a few of Jo’s curls from the confines of her helmet. She had to reach up with one hand to free them from her mouth while she steered with the other hand. The scent of dried pine sap, warmed by the sun, perfumed the air. Crows cawed at each other across the branches, audible over the rumble of the motor. Jo preferred hiking—silent footfalls doing little to disrupt the music of the forest. Today, she had a mission, one that needed more ground covered than Jo could manage on foot.

The Penrose Trail snakes up the eastern side of the Bighorn Mountains. A Wyoming offshoot of the Rocky Mountains, the range of massive peaks spill into Montana. Almost two hundred miles of pristine beauty. America, wild and unspoiled, on their doorstep. These mountains called to her, kept her close, and she couldn’t picture a life outside their presence.

Jo eased the machine around the curves with care. This trail wasn’t designed for the amateur rider, whether on ATV or horseback. More than one person—and their mount—had gone off the side of the steep banks, tumbling between the trees. Some were knocked unconscious on boulders, broke limbs, or worse. Some would be found wrapped around a Douglas fir, stunned and fragile. Those who lived to tell the tale were airlifted to Sheridan Memorial. Others became a cautionary story.

Sunlight through the trunks warmed the back of Jo’s neck as she rode. After a few miles, she lifted her rear off the seat to flex her calves. At that moment, she spotted a fuchsia rectangle, a bright-pink beacon against shades of tan and gray. Jo braked into a small cloud of dust. The small, shiny coin purse lay in the dirt, in stark contrast to its surroundings. When she bent to reach for the item, she caught sight of a pair of bluish-pink feet, unmoving, a few yards up the trail.

Confronted with the figure of a human, prone in the pine needles, Jo froze.

Jo reached to free her pack from the bungee straps that secured it to the rack behind her seat. She swung her right leg up and over the quad to dismount onto the gravel. Her first-aid experience as an avid backpacker kicked in.

Jo checked for a pulse. Checked for breathing. Signs of life meant assessing for CPR, offering the person water from her pack. She would provide comfort while they waited for an emergency team to arrive and take over. Then prayers, a silent request for a speedy road to health. A short helicopter ride. A good nurse. Rest.

Those days, she would have a story of hope to share at dinner that night with Clint. A reminder to take care, be prepared.

This would not be one of those days.

2

Penrose Trail hadn’t been on her Monday to-do list. Clint and Theo had been fishing on Medicine Lodge Lake, and Clint thought the keys had fallen out of his pocket somewhere along the descent from the mountain top. Her wonderful, brilliant husband was notorious for losing things. She liked to think he left pieces of himself everywhere, so as to be remembered.

Jo would make an outing out of the chore. She needed rose hips for winter tea, would collect some boughs to start a wreath for the front door. His folly was a good excuse for fresh air and foraging for her. She borrowed the quad that morning from a friend in Story, a former fellow county school board member.

Thanks again, she said. I swear, if I have to rekey all our doors again, I’ll pull my hair out.

Anytime. If I’m gone when you get back, just toss the keys under the mat.

Headed into town?

I’m going to attack the weeds threatening to engulf the old schoolhouse. I managed to keep the majority of barn swallows at bay, but the dandelions pay me no mind. We want it to look welcoming for the new teacher, am I right?

Hiring another teacher was on her to-do list. Jo loved lists, which was important because she never seemed to rid herself of a need for them. The one in question read: ad for applicants, web postings, suffer through a phone call with Karen.

This would be a chore as she’d repeated the process twice before, both in the last year. One new hire quit at the first blizzard. The second had headed up to hike Walker’s Prairie with his dog. Only the dog was found.

I’m on it, don’t you worry.

She’d call the district offices when she got back. For now, the woods beckoned.

The crisp, dry air frizzed out her hair, warmed her skin. She’d added a thin jacket and a few snacks to her daypack, in case.

Jo climbed into the driver’s seat and aimed for the mountains. If she was lucky, she’d find Clint’s keys and be back in a couple hours to make a fresh pot of coffee for when he came home. He liked to hear about her days, a welcome break from the burglaries, domestics, and squabbles that painted his own.

You make it sound like I flounce about the house, domesticated and compliant.

Not at all. You make changes with the power of the pen. That is more difficult than my line of work any day.

He was right. Jo planned to be a teacher, but life and its disappointments got in the way. Shook intention up and gave it a run for its money. Part of Jo’s coping involved volunteering, an investment of hours in community projects, like the Banner School, that would make their corner of the world a better place. A place where families would want to raise their children. Where Jo could be a part of that experience.

As she eased the quad up Penrose Lane toward the trailhead, she pictured herself and Clint that evening. The two of them relaxed in the Adirondack chairs he’d built for the deck, sunset painting the sky in front of them. She’d hand him his keys, he’d tell her she was irreplaceable, and they’d trade stories across the dinner table.

Now, seven miles up the trail, confronted with the lifeless figure, Jo knew the conversation would be anything but ordinary.

3

L ong day, Clint would begin.

Jo would wrap her shawl around her shoulders to settle into the chair. That a fact?

Clint’s unburdening had become part of their routine. They’d take to the big, wooden chairs on their back porch as the sun set, and then under the twinkling of stars in an impossibly black sky he would tell her the day’s laundry list. He spared her some details. This