“Why are you in pain today, mijita?”
“Oh, I tangled with a guy I had to arrest last night. It’s nothing.”
Frowning with concern, Mama T followed her to the door. “Take care now,” she said after giving Mattie a last hug. “Vaya con Dios.”
While Mattie jogged toward home, she tapped the screen on her phone to dial into the office.
Sam Corns, the weekend dispatcher, answered. “We’ve got a problem, Mattie.”
“I figured.”
“Dr. Walker found human remains up near Redstone Ridge.”
Her stomach twisted. Cole had taken his kids with him on a trail ride up there today.
Sam continued. “Sheriff is getting a party together to go up. He wants you and Robo in on it.”
“All right. I can get to the office in fifteen minutes.”
“You’ve got a half hour. Dr. Walker is arranging a string of horses to carry you all up there, and he needs that much time.”
Again, she felt a tug of queasiness in her midsection. She wanted nothing to do with riding a horse. “Did Dr. Walker have his kids with him?”
“He didn’t say.” Sam paused. “Oh yeah, the sheriff said Doc had to take his kids home before he loaded up more horses.”
“I’ll be in soon.” Mattie ended the call, remembering next to call and cancel her yoga lesson with Rainbow.
Cole’s kids were beginning to deal with the trauma of Sophie’s kidnapping last month, and now this. He’d looked forward to this trail ride all week; how quickly things could go wrong. Human remains—she hoped the kids hadn’t been exposed to them. She loved those kids as much as if they were her own, and they’d suffered their share of hardship this past year.
She frowned as she picked up her pace.
FIVE
Robo’s throat squeaked, making Mattie look at him in the rearview mirror. He stood behind her on his carpeted platform and yawned, his pink tongue curling, distinct against his black muzzle.
“You still tired?”
He gave her a lazy tail wave and stared out the windshield.
“Looks like you’re ready to go to work.”
A black German shepherd with tan markings and weighing in at one hundred pounds, Robo was a credit to his breed. He’d been her partner for a year now, and Mattie couldn’t imagine being without him. Although the county had bought him for narcotics detection, he’d also proven himself worthy in patrol and search and rescue, finding people both alive and dead.
Best of all, he’d become her trusted friend.
She drove the few blocks to the sheriff’s station and pulled into the lot where several cars were already parked: Sheriff McCoy’s silver Jeep, Chief Deputy Ken Brody’s cruiser, and Detective Stella LoSasso’s personal car, a silver Honda. Mattie unloaded Robo and went inside to find them.
They were in the briefing room, clustered around a plastic cooler marked BIOHAZARD that sat on one of the tables. Although the contents inside the container would be sealed, Robo was already sniffing the air in the room and he quickly homed in on the ice chest.
“Good, we’re all here.” A large African American man with a deep voice and an unflappable manner, Sheriff McCoy was quick to take charge. “How much do you know, Deputy?”
“Very little. Sam said that Cole Walker found human remains up at Redstone Ridge.”
“He and his daughters went there to scout mountain sheep for a relocation project he’s doing in a few weeks. When they arrived at the burn area, their Doberman found a charred boot with the remains of a foot inside.”
“Skeletonized?”
“No, fresh.”
Mattie cringed. Once again, she hoped the kids hadn’t seen it.
McCoy gestured to the cooler on the table. “We have it on ice, ready to send to the forensic lab in Byer’s County.”
“Did Cole find the body?”
Stella answered. “He wanted to get his kids downhill to safety. He didn’t search for a body.”
Mattie stared at the ice chest. “We need to take it back up there with us.”
“Why?”
“To use for a scent article, so Robo can find the rest of the body.”
Her three colleagues looked at each other in silence.
Brody cleared his throat with a harsh grunt. “Makes sense.”
It seemed like the chief deputy was beginning to support her suggestions for how to use her dog on the job. He’d been her worst opponent when Robo was added to the department a year ago, but he’d done a complete about-face when she’d been able to show that she was up for the job.
Stella remained skeptical. “What about contamination? This is the only evidence we have that someone died recently. We need to get its DNA into the system as soon as possible.”
“Could we take a sample from it and send that over for DNA matching?” Mattie asked
Stella considered it. “I suppose so.”
“Does it smell like decomp?”
“Oh yeah,” Brody said.
Mattie unclipped the lid from the cooler and lifted it enough to peer inside at the evidence—a scorched boot encased in a plastic bag, lying on bags of frozen, blue gel. She glimpsed jagged bone and blackened flesh at the boot’s opening.
Closing the lid, Mattie looked at Stella. “If Dr. Walker’s dog brought it out of the forest, it’s already been removed from any crime scene we might look for, and there’s already been uncontrolled contamination. I’ll keep the boot inside the chest, and I’ll control any sniffing that Robo does. Since it’s ripe, he won’t need to get too close.”
Sam Corns rapped at the door and peered inside. “Dr. Walker is here.”
“Send him in,” McCoy said, and then he looked at Mattie. “We’ll take it with us as you suggested, Deputy.”
“I’ll take care of the DNA sample and be ready to go in fifteen minutes.” Stella took the ice chest with her as she left the room.
Cole came through the doorway, a grim expression on his face, his eyes searching out Mattie. A warm feeling washed through her as their eyes met, even though they kept their greeting low key. Although they’d deepened their relationship over the past few weeks, they’d kept it private.
Robo jumped up, and Mattie let him go to greet Cole.
“I have five horses loaded in the trailer and ready to go anytime,” he said, bending to ruffle the fur between Robo’s ears.
A horse for everyone in the group. “I can go on foot if you need to use one as a pack animal,” Mattie offered, hoping that would be the case.
Cole looked up from petting Robo and seemed to be studying her.
“We’ll all go up on horseback,” McCoy said. “It’ll be faster. If we need to pack something out of the high country, you or Deputy Brody might have to come down on foot.” He went on to explain to Cole that they were taking the ice chest with them so they could use its contents as a scent article.
Cole nodded. “I’ll strap it on behind one of your saddles. I’ve already got tarps and short-handled spades behind mine.”
“I’ll take it,” Brody said.
“We’ll leave in fifteen minutes,” McCoy said.
The others filed out of the room while Mattie and Cole held back. “Did the kids see what was inside the boot?” she asked.
Cole’s expression darkened. “Bruno brought it to Angie. Sophie didn’t see it.”
Mattie released her breath. “Poor Angie.”
“She’s really shaken.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be all right. I’m more accustomed than the kids are to dealing with flesh and bone, though it’s a sight I wish I could unsee.” As they followed the others from the room, Cole continued in a low voice. “I’ll put you on Mountaineer. He’s sure-footed and he’ll stick to the trail without you having to guide him. You’ll be okay, Mattie.”