Patrol dogs didn’t always need a scent article to track someone, especially if the target was fleeing the scene of a crime. The guilty often emitted a sweat that left an odor dogs could pick up readily, and Mattie hoped that would be the case here.
“Do you need backup?” Brody called to her as she followed her dog downhill.
“You’ll have to stay here until the others come.” Mattie threw the words over her shoulder. “Follow me when you can.”
Robo showed no hesitation, putting his nose to the ground and trotting away from the gravesite, telling Mattie that whoever left Candace under the brush must have also left a strong scent trail. Maybe this wasn’t a stone-cold killing. Maybe Candace’s death had horrified the person responsible. Someone who knew the child and cared about her enough to pose her in that peaceful way. The thought made her nauseous, and she focused her full attention back on Robo.
Smoker’s Hill was a bare hogback, with its sloping side nestled up to the high school and a ridge running along the top. Robo headed down but away from the school, farther south beyond the area where she’d observed signs of a struggle. Skirting around cactus, yucca, and sagebrush, he continued downhill while Mattie jogged behind, keeping an eye on the terrain at her feet while glancing ahead to spot a possible ambush. Chances of someone lying in wait seemed slim; she supposed the fugitive she was tracking would have tried to put as much distance as possible between him and the girl’s body.
It didn’t take long for Robo to reach the bottom of the hill, and he came to a stop at a rusty barbed wire fence that ran along the barrow ditch beside Highway 12, the major highway in and out of Timber Creek. When Mattie joined him at the fence, he crouched and began to crawl under the bottom strand. She pulled it up to give him more space below the sharp barbs. Once he was clear, she pushed the strand downward so she could squeeze between it and the middle one. A barb poked her in the back and caught her khaki coverall as she scooted through. She pulled away from it, hearing the fabric rip. No matter. She was used to getting tears in her uniforms while following Robo, and Mama T, her foster mother, helped her mend them.
Robo went along the road with his nose to the ground, stopping ten yards away and sniffing in all directions. Then he came back and sat at the edge of the highway. Dead end.
The guy must’ve parked his vehicle here. If he’d parked right, he’d have entered the driver’s side. But who knew? Speculation wouldn’t get them very far.
But the tire tracks left at the side of the road might.
“Good boy.” Mattie patted Robo firmly on his side while he leaned against her legs. He raised his head and bumped his nose on the pocket of her utility belt, the one that held his treat for completing a mission—a yellow tennis ball.
She heard a car coming toward them on the highway, so she pulled Robo into the barrow ditch to watch it cruise past. White four-door sedan, Buick, two passengers—a man and a woman. She made a note of the license plate number in her pocket notebook, despite knowing there would probably be no need to follow up. They were most likely just travelers on the road, not killers. Though traffic on this road was typically sparse, the body up on Smoker’s Hill made her more cautious about people passing through town. She would keep an eye out.
“What’s up?” Brody asked as he made his way down the slope to the fence.
“Dead end. But I’m certain the person we want got into a vehicle right here. Maybe on the driver’s side, which could mean he’d left it here during the time of Candace’s death. We found some tire tracks.”
“Let’s secure this area. Detective LoSasso is calling in the crime scene unit from Byers County, and they can take a mold of this track.”
Robo nudged her utility belt again. Having learned how much his routine meant to him and how important it was to give him what he expected, Mattie leaned forward to pat him on his side. “I need to throw the ball for Robo.”
“I’ll put up the tape. Check back when you’re done.”
Mattie led Robo a safe distance from the highway to a grassy area near an abandoned adobe building, him dancing at her feet while she pulled out his tennis ball. With her heart breaking for Candace, Mattie began to play with her dog.
Robo wore a silly grin as he loped back toward her with the ball locked between his sharp white teeth. He’d finished growing since they’d become partners and had fleshed out, now tipping the scales at about one hundred pounds. He was the most handsome German shepherd she’d ever seen, his glossy black coat lush and thick, highlighted with tan markings.
Her stomach churned as she thought about the posed corpse, suggesting that whoever did it had cared about the dead child. Someone like a parent.
Burt Banks smelled of booze. And he wasn’t home with the kids like he was supposed to be. So where was he? It made her sick to think a father might kill his own child, but this guy had to be their number-one suspect, at least at this moment.
She threw the ball until Robo’s interest flagged and then stored it back in its pocket. After leaning over him, ruffling his fur, and giving him a long hug, she told him it was time to go back to work. He trotted beside her at heel, tail waving, and looking for all intents and purposes ready to go. It seemed that his boundary testing, something common with these intelligent dogs, had ended—at least for now.
Brody had stretched crime scene tape from the fence posts to a spike he’d placed near the asphalt, creating a boundary to protect the tire tracks. While she’d been playing with Robo, she’d noticed several locals stopping to talk to him, and he’d waved them all away. She’d also noticed he’d written down license plate numbers as they drove off, telling her his radar was operating on full alert like hers.
Reminding Robo to heel as they crossed the road, Mattie joined Brody on the other side. “I want to take Robo back along the scent trail and flag any footprints we can find,” she told him.
“Sounds good.” Brody extracted his cell phone from his shirt pocket. “I’ll inform Sheriff McCoy. He and LoSasso are at the gravesite, and I’ve told them about the tracks here. When the CSU gets here, they’ll work the gravesite first. Garcia’s on his way to stand guard down here, and I’ll come up as soon as he arrives.”
Mattie nodded and led Robo back to the wire fence. After crossing through, she began the patter to rev him up and then asked him to search for the bad guy so he would lead her back along the scent trail. She’d never tried this kind of challenge before, asking Robo to go over a scent trail twice, but it was similar enough to one of his other skills—backtracking a thief’s trail while searching for evidence—that she hoped he’d know what to do.
Robo took the command in stride, putting his nose to the ground and taking her back uphill. In the dimming light, she found several prints and partial prints that she marked with orange flagging tape on short metal spikes. Large size, flat sole, rounded toe, and square heel. Maybe a work boot, probably too large for a woman. But again, assumptions could be misleading.
Halfway up the hill, Robo darted off to the left and sniffed under a dense clump of rabbit brush. He stretched forward, his neck lengthening in the pose he used to touch something with his mouth. Then he turned to sit and stare at her.
“What did you find?” Mattie squatted beside him, putting one arm around him to brace her tired body, and peered beneath the plant. A black thermal cap rested against the base of the brush. It looked clean, like it hadn’t been there very long.
Did the killer drop this on his way down the hill?