Brody’s grin looked grisly in the light’s glow. “Our shooter must have dropped this after climbing through the fence.”
Mattie smiled, sharing a moment of satisfaction with him. “It’s probably loaded with gunshot residue on the outside and DNA inside.”
“We’ll flag it for the investigators to process. What’s the likelihood of some defense attorney saying a glove by the side of the road could belong to anyone?”
“They can say what they want, but when a K-9 with Robo’s credentials leads us right to it on the shooter’s scent track, that’s powerful evidence.” While she spoke, Mattie stroked the top of her dog’s head as he leaned against her leg. All their training and all her documentation in her training journal paid off at a time like this. She couldn’t have been prouder of her partner.
But Robo wasn’t finished. He put his nose back on the ground and tugged Mattie toward the road. Up on the road base, he pinned his ears and circled, sniffing in all directions. Within seconds, he sat and stared at her.
“The scent ends here.” Mattie hugged Robo against her leg as she patted his side and told him what a good boy he was. “We need to be careful. There could be prints.”
Brody lit up the area with the beam of his flashlight, and she spotted sharp ridges and valleys in the dirt. “Right here. Tire prints.”
Robo was beginning his happy dance, signaling the end of the track, so Mattie quickly moved him down into the ditch before he could destroy the evidence he’d just found.
“Good job, Robo!” Brody apparently couldn’t resist celebrating either, and he leaned down to deliver a few victory thumps on her dog’s side.
Robo fawned against the chief deputy’s legs for a split second before coming back to press against Mattie. She knelt and grabbed him in a bear hug.
Brody got down to business. “Okay, let’s get this area taped off and preserve it for the crime scene techs. We’re on our way to catching this guy.”
FOUR
Mattie had deemed the panel van at the crime scene too hot to send Robo in to search, so she and Stella were driving toward the Redman Ranch to notify the family of Nate Fletcher’s death. Evidently still excited from his search, Robo sat at the front of his compartment, panting slightly and staring out the windshield.
“Two o’clock in the morning,” Stella said. “What are the chances that someone will be up and awake?”
“Slim to none.”
Her headlights pierced the darkness, revealing tall telephone poles with a wooden sign posted between, REDMAN RANCH burned into it below their brand—quarter circle, backward R. Mattie turned off the road and crossed a cattle guard, her tires thumping against the metal rails. From there she followed a private dirt road that twisted and turned through grassland pasture and then crossed a sturdy bridge over Timber Creek, which flowed down from the northern mountains and ran through the Redman property.
The ranch headquarters buildings were visible from the highway during daylight, and Mattie remembered them as a cluster of white stucco houses of various sizes with green metal rooftops. A large barn made from weathered planks and surrounded by pole corrals sat at the edge of the buildings.
It wasn’t unusual for a ranch of this magnitude to have more than one house. Employees typically required housing, and it would take several hands to keep a business of this size running. If Cole was right, Kasey Redman lived here on the property, but in which house was anyone’s guess.
As they approached, she could see that light glowed from the windows of the first house they would come to.
Stella pointed at it. “That’s a surprise. I guess we should start there.”
“I wonder why someone would be awake at this hour.”
“Maybe Kasey is waiting up for her husband to come home.”
A sinking sensation tugged at Mattie’s heart. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Mattie pulled up in front of a long, ranch-style home with a flower bed that ran along the entire front wall. The lower part of the wall was stained by mud that had been splashed up during watering.
The home had probably been built decades earlier, and she would guess that this outer layer of stucco covered thick adobe walls, a method of building used by the original Spanish settlers that had carried over into the area’s architecture during the early part of the twentieth century. Though well maintained, the central structure of this house could be over one hundred years old.
Mattie turned off the engine. “How do you want to do this?”
“Let’s find out who lives here and play it by ear. I’ll take the lead.”
Mattie told Robo he was going to wait in the car and then followed Stella up a graveled pathway that led through the grassy yard toward a screened-in front porch. Light from the house filtered into the enclosed area, revealing a wicker table and a daybed set up in the corner.
Stella knocked on the door to the porch. They waited. When no one answered, she glanced at Mattie, shrugged, and knocked louder. After a long minute, a dim light over the wicker table switched on, illuminating the pleasant outdoor space with its faint glow. Soon the door leading into the main house opened, and a figure backlit by indoor lighting came through. A woman dressed in a blue sateen bathrobe walked across the porch. Not Kasey.
Stella spoke up. “Mrs. Redman?”
The woman, tall and lithe with graying red hair, stopped on the other side of the screen, one hand clutching her robe’s collar. “Yes, I’m Lillian. Who’s calling at this time of night?”
Stella held her badge up to the screen. “I’m Detective Stella LoSasso from the Timber Creek County Sheriff’s Department, and this is Deputy Mattie Cobb. May we come in?”
Lillian squinted through the screen, looking at the badge. “Oh my. What’s happened?”
“Could we come inside, Mrs. Redman?”
Lillian opened the screen door. “Of course.” She backed away and stood beside the table while Stella and Mattie filed inside. Her fingers fluttered as they went back to her collar. “Do we have cattle out on the highway?”
It was a common problem in ranching country. The grass was always greener on the other side of the fence, and livestock loved to escape through even well-built fences. At night, cattle on the highway and speeding cars with visibility limited to the depth of headlight penetration didn’t mix. Mattie wished that was the bad news they were here to deliver.
“No, ma’am, your cattle aren’t out that we know of.” Stella motioned toward the inner door. “Could we come inside your house? I’m sure it’s chilly for you outside here.”
Lillian turned and led the way into the house. Warm air washed over Mattie as she stepped inside a large kitchen, its floor covered in dark-gray linoleum with tan and white flecks. Serviceable white cabinets with lighter-gray countertops lined two walls, meeting at a stainless-steel sink in the middle.
Small appliances—toaster, mixer, and coffeepot—sat at the back of the counters, as did various medical items such as stacked cans of a liquid nutritional supplement, a wrist brace, utensils with built-up handles, and rolls of stretchy Ace bandages.
Lillian turned to face Stella, and with the bright overhead kitchen light, Mattie could see that the darkened skin beneath her eyes sagged. In fact, the downward tilt to the lines around her mouth and eyes represented a weariness that didn’t happen overnight. She remembered what Cole had said about Doyle Redman’s recent stroke.
“Mrs. Redman, does your daughter Kasey live here with you?” Stella asked.