“Were any of these boys jealous when you started seeing Candace?” Stella asked.
“Nah. It was my turn.”
Mattie’s stomach lurched. Stella kept a calm demeanor while she took her time, slowly looking back and forth between Brooks and his father, searching their faces. Crimson leached into the son’s pale complexion and he hung his head, while the father’s expression grew stony.
McClelland broke the prolonged silence by clearing his throat. “Is that all, Detective?”
Stella threw him a look that could kill. “No, Mr. McClelland, that is not all.” She leaned toward Brooks. “It appears you have no respect for this young girl, Brooks, even now, after her death. Did she mean so little to you that you might have hurt her?”
Brooks looked into Stella’s eyes. “No, ma’am. I did nothing to hurt her.”
“That’s debatable. I could argue that you and the others hurt her a lot by the way you treated her. Did something happen between you and Candace yesterday afternoon, Brooks?”
“I told you, I never even saw her yesterday.”
“Did something get out of hand?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Did you kill her, Brooks?”
“That’s enough,” McClelland said.
“No, I did not,” Brooks said, leaning forward and clutching the edge of the table. “I didn’t kill Candace.”
Stella persisted. “Was there an accident? Were you playing around, and she died by accident?”
“No! I didn’t even see her. She wasn’t there when I got to our meeting place.”
Jack Waverly pushed back his chair, looking like he wanted to lunge up out of it.
“That’s enough, Detective,” McClelland said. “You must stop badgering the boy.”
Stella sat back in her chair. “The boy,” she repeated. She appeared to be weighing the words, and in her mind, they’d fallen short. “A boy. I guess that’s what you are, Brooks. Even though you thought you were man enough to have sex with a girl who was little more than a child.”
Mattie keenly observed Jack Waverly. He must be a good poker player; that wince was barely detectable.
“It’s time to wrap this up, Detective,” McClelland said.
Stella relaxed back into her seat and placed her hands on the table as if she had all the time in the world. She adopted a pleasant attitude as she readdressed the teen. “All right, so you didn’t see Candace yesterday. Do you know who did?”
“No one that I know of.”
“Someone was up on that hill with her,” Stella said with an edge of impatience. “Brooks, do you know who killed Candace?”
“No, ma’am,” Brooks said, giving Stella eye contact, acting sincere. “I don’t know anything about how she died. I didn’t know she was dead until I got to school this morning.”
“Could you roll up your sleeves and show me your arms, Brooks?” Stella asked. Like Mattie, she’d evidently noticed the scabs on the teen’s hands.
Even while McClelland protested, Brooks pushed up the sleeves of his tee, revealing scabbed-over patches that looked like partially healed road rash and a few slashes that appeared more recent.
“How did you get so bunged up?” Stella asked.
“Baseball.” He fingered a long scab on his forearm. “Sliding practice.”
“Even these?” Stella waved a finger over the fresh scratches.
“I got those trimming my mom’s rose bushes last night.”
Stella looked at the father. “Is that true?”
He nodded, his lips tight, his face red. He looked like a volcano about to erupt. Mattie couldn’t tell if he was mad at Stella, his son, or the entire situation. Possibly all three.
Stella reached inside a manila envelope she’d laid on the table and extracted the evidence bag containing the black cap. “Brooks, do you recognize this?”
Brooks glanced at his father, so Mattie did too. While Brooks examined the cap, she continued to watch Jack, and she noticed his eyes narrow.
“No, ma’am,” Brooks said. “I mean, lots of us guys wear these when we train, but I don’t recognize this one specifically.”
Stella tapped a pink-painted nail on the bag. “It doesn’t belong to you?”
Brooks squinted at it. “No. I have one that looks sort of like it, but that one’s not mine.”
“Lots of you guys wear them?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you don’t know whose it is?”
“No, ma’am.”
“But you’re sure this one doesn’t belong to you?”
Brooks shook his head. “It’s not mine.”
A muscle in Jack’s jaw contracted as he gazed at his son. After observing his father’s body language, Mattie wished she had a way to prove that Brooks was lying.
“Mr. Waverly,” Stella said, shifting her attention to the father. “What do you do with your old feed bags?”
“My feed bags?” Jack asked, his voice gruff.
“Yes, sir. The bags that your cattle feed comes in, once they’re empty.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” McClelland asked, his tone harsh.
Jack crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “It’s no secret. I store them in the feed room, and then I take them back to the feed store so they can be used again. We get a discount for returned bags, and that’s what most ranchers do.”
Stella nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Waverly. I only need one more thing, and then I’ll let you go. I’d like your permission to swab your son’s cheek for a DNA sample.”
“I recommend against that, Jack,” McClelland said.
Stella kept her attention focused on Jack. “If he’s innocent, there’s no reason he shouldn’t cooperate now.”
“I’m innocent, Dad,” Brooks said, and for the first time, his eyes brimmed and his chin wobbled before he reset his face.
Jack looked at Brooks and then indicated his permission by giving a brief nod. “Go ahead. What’s most important here is that a young girl is dead.” His eyes grew fierce as he held his son’s gaze. “A man would step up and help the police, even if it’s only to eliminate himself so they can move on to the next guy.”
Brooks nodded. Message received, Mattie thought. She respected this father’s integrity.
“Thank you, Mr. Waverly. I couldn’t have said that better myself.” Stella withdrew a DNA kit from the pocket of her suit jacket. It took mere seconds for her to swab the teen’s open mouth.
Handshakes were exchanged, and Mattie escorted the three from the interview room and back through the lobby, her purpose to observe them in the parking lot. But McClelland was too experienced to allow her to see nonchoreographed movement. With a glance her way, she heard him say, “Let’s go back to my office.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Jack said, heading out the door toward his car, a silver Toyota 4Runner. “We can talk over the phone.”
The two cars pulled out of the lot as Stella walked up behind her.
“What do you think?” Stella murmured.
Mattie shook her head, sadness washing through her. “I’d hate like anything to find out that our killer is that kid. But after what we learned at the feed store, those marks on his arms, and the evidence you found on the phone, we’ve got to consider him a suspect. Besides, I think he was lying about that cap not being his.”
Stella nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ll call the parents of those two new boys and set up interviews.”
As Mattie and Stella started back toward their offices, Brody came out of his.
“I got ahold of the bartender from the Hornet’s Nest,” he said. “She says she knows exactly who Burt Banks is, and he didn’t stop by the bar at all yesterday. He lied about his alibi.”