The clinic was only about two hundred yards farther up the lane, so Cole and the girls usually walked the short distance, but he didn’t want to keep Gus waiting. He opened the near door of his truck, which carried a mobile vet unit in the bed, and hoisted Sophie up into the driver’s seat, where she scrambled over to the passenger side.
At the clinic, Cole recognized Gus and Dodger standing out front, waiting. One of Dodger’s perky ears was lopped over and rolled back, and even while Cole helped Sophie down from the truck, the dog sat and carefully dug at the inside of the ear with his hind paw.
Gus had changed since Cole last saw him. The tall, lanky man had grown even thinner, and his pale-blue eyes were sunken in his gaunt face. He’d let his sandy hair and beard grow long, both streaked with gray. Cole might not have recognized him if he’d met him on the street.
As they approached, Cole introduced his daughter. “This is Mr. Tilley, Sophie. Gus, my youngest, Sophie.”
Gus cast his eyes toward the ground and took off his battered and stained felt hat. Fingering the brim, he murmured a how-do-you-do, while Sophie chimed in with her friendly hello. Then the man slouched into an anxious-looking heap as he examined the area in front of the clinic, keeping his gaze on anything but Sophie.
As Cole took in the man’s sagging clothes, shaggy beard, and sunken eyes, he wondered if he’d been sick. He turned to unlock the clinic door. “How have you been, Gus?”
“I’m fine, Dr. Walker. You?”
“Can’t complain. Let’s bring Dodger in here to the exam room.” Cole held the door open for the man to enter and then went to swing the exam room door wide as well. Sophie skipped across the lobby, following Gus and his dog and looking pleased with her evening adventure. She went to the far side of the room, grabbed a pair of latex gloves, and pulled them on, getting ready to work. Cole suppressed a smile.
“Let me take a look at you, Dodger,” he said, holding out his hand for the dog to sniff. They’d met before at his place, and the dog seemed as friendly as he’d been on his own turf. “Can we lift him up to the exam table, Gus?”
“I can do it.” Gus easily lifted the dog onto the table and held him steady in a light grasp. Dodger opened his mouth and panted. Nervous.
“So it’s this ear, right? Can you hold his head for me, like this?” Cole demonstrated how he wanted Gus to secure the dog’s head, and then picking up his otoscope, he held the ear firmly so he could take a thorough look. The ear was reddened where the dog had been scratching, but he couldn’t see any foreign objects lodged in it. No grass seed or stem, no ticks, no mites. Nothing but the irritation.
He reached for some antiseptic ear cleanser. “His ear looks irritated, but there’s nothing in there that I can see. I’ll clean his ears out for him. Maybe he once had something in it, and he’s gotten it out on his own. Or he reacted to some grass or something.”
Cole squirted a small amount of cleanser into Dodger’s ear, set down the bottle, and rubbed the liquid into the ear canal. As soon as Cole set down the ear wash, Sophie moved forward to pick it up. She stood beside him, holding the bottle ready so she could hand it to him for the next ear. “I don’t think there’s anything in there now, Gus, but I’ll send this home with you so you can clean his ears out daily for a few days. If it doesn’t get any better, call me and I’ll take another look.”
Gus watched Cole demonstrate how to clean and then wipe out Dodger’s ears. Using a low, conspiratorial tone, he asked, “Do you think somebody put something in his ear and then took it out?”
The question surprised Cole. “Why would someone do that?”
“Maybe they wanted to make him sick.” Gus shifted his eyes away from Cole, giving him a sidelong glance.
“I don’t know why anyone would want to do that. Do you?”
“To get at me.”
“Why, Gus? Are you having trouble with someone?” Cole was thinking of a neighbor dispute. They weren’t unheard of out in the woods. People squabbled over boundaries, water rights, fences, you name it. “A neighbor?”
Gus shook his head, his gaze darting away from Cole’s each time he tried to hold onto it.
“Do you think someone did something to Dodger’s ear?” Cole asked.
“I’m not sure,” Gus said, and he appeared to be backpedaling. “Probably not.”
“Because if you do, we could have someone from the county humane society investigate. There are laws about injuring an animal on purpose. You don’t have to put up with it.”
Gus shifted his feet. “I don’t know. Don’t want that.”
Cole had finished washing Dodger’s other ear. “Let me take one more look in that ear and make sure we didn’t dislodge something when we cleaned it.” Both ears were bright pink after the cleaning, and Cole still found nothing.
Gus lifted his dog down to the floor, both of them looking relieved to end the procedure. Following the two into the lobby, Cole went to the backside of the reception desk to enter the visit into the computer and settle up the charges. He could hear Sophie begin spritzing the exam table with antiseptic spray, cleanup being her favorite part of working at the clinic. He knew she would wipe the table until the stainless-steel top shined.
After paying his bill, Gus turned to leave, leading Dodger across the lobby to the front door.
“Let me know how he’s doing tomorrow, Gus. Give me a call sometime in the morning.” Cole followed him outside.
“I will, Doc. I’ll keep an eye on him tonight.”
It looked like Gus needed rest more than Dodger needed someone to worry over him. “Just get some sleep. Dodger will be okay.”
After following Gus outside, Cole watched him load the dog into his truck cab and drive away. The lop-eared Dodger took his seat on the passenger side, his silhouette in the back window.
Gus seemed stressed or nervous or . . . something, Cole thought. Something seemed off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Chapter 3
Her arm still around Robo, Mattie knelt beside the girl’s body, taking in the details. She let herself slump forward, sharp pebbles digging into her knees. This was the third dead body Robo had found in less than a year. If their mission was to reduce crime here in Timber Creek, they weren’t doing a very good job.
Brody’s knees popped as he squatted beside the girl’s head. Neither of them touched the body. “Blue lips. Suffocation?”
“Asthma attack? Or something worse.” Mattie gestured toward Candace’s face and then her hands. “Several scrapes on her face. Something abrasive against it. And look at these fingernails. Broken. Scrapes on her hands too. She fought.”
A pit opened in Mattie’s stomach. Someone killed this kid.
“Yep. Better treat this one as a homicide,” Brody said, his voice pitched so low, it was a growl.
“What about this posing?” Mattie said, nodding toward the girl’s hands crossed upon her chest.
“Someone who knew her.”
She wondered if it could be more than that. “Someone who might have cared about her?”
“Maybe.”
Mattie roused herself and scanned the area. The rocky outcropping surrounded them, blocking sight from all directions but skyward. It gave her a hinky feeling. Someone could be hidden, watching. “Do you think the killer is still around?”
Brody stood and scanned the area. “Doubt it.”
“Robo could probably find his trail, see where he went.”
Brody nodded. “Do it.”
Mattie stood and gestured away from the girl’s body, encouraging Robo to sniff the perimeter around the site. “Can you find the bad guy, Robo? Find the bad guy. Search.”