Tracking Game

by Margaret Mizushima

  Zach grunted. “You have no right to do this to me.”

  Mattie patted him down, tipping him from one side to the other as she searched his front pockets. She found only a cell phone. She opened the screen to the call history and found the outgoing call to Wilson’s phone, just as she’d suspected she would.

  Zach lay still under Robo’s guard until Mattie told her dog to back away.

  “Okay, Zach, you can sit up now.”

  With his hands cuffed behind, he struggled to sit. He glared at her with baleful eyes.

  “Tell me what you know about Wilson Nichol’s death,” she said.

  “Go to hell!”

  If I was in his shoes and just got a knee in the nuts, I wouldn’t want to talk to me either. She grabbed the collar of his jacket. “Stand up.”

  After helping him to his feet, she pointed toward the steep side of the rocky ravine. “We’ve got some climbing to do to get out of this draw.”

  Robo hustled to Zach’s side so he could escort their captive up the incline.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Robo escorted Zach Irving out of the draw while Mattie followed. Her dog held his head high and waved his tail, so proud to be completing this last duty of fugitive apprehension. Life seemed so simple for Robo: rest and relax when you can, take pleasure in a job well done. He didn’t lie awake at night wondering if he’d done the right thing. She loved him for it.

  While they walked to where Brody was waiting with his two captives, Mattie hoped a little time would give Zach Irving a cooling-off period. She still wanted to question him about his connection to Wilson Nichol’s murder and see if she could uncover a link to Nate Fletcher’s. Even though the evidence pointed to him as the killer in both homicides, his motive remained murky.

  Why would Zach kill Nate Fletcher right before a hunting trip he’d paid good money for? And if Wilson Nichol had presented a business deal to Zach that would benefit them both, why would he kill Wilson? The puzzle pieces seemed misshapen and didn’t quite fit.

  Brody studied her as she approached, and she gave him a thumbs-up to let him know all was well. Tyler and Ben Underwood sat on a log, their hands cuffed in front. Under his billed cap, Tyler was red in the face, his eyebrows gathered into a pained expression. If Flint’s information had been correct, Mattie guessed that Tyler regretted ever agreeing to lead this tiger hunt for Kasey. If so, maybe she could get him to talk.

  On the other hand, Ben sat with his shoulders back, observing everything around him with an air of confidence. His face still wore that friendly mask she’d begun to associate with him. He would be one cool customer in a poker game. She remembered how the two had acted when she’d first met them—Ben had acted open and friendly, while Zach had been shut down and nervous. At the time, both had been guilty of preparing to participate in illegal wildlife activity. But had one or both of them already committed Nate’s murder? Was Ben just better at hiding it?

  Her cell phone pinged with an incoming text, and she took it out of her pocket to check. It was from Stella, and it read, Z. IRVING WAS IN COURTHOUSE MONDAY AM ASKING ABOUT TAX STATUS OF REDMAN RANCH. TAXES ARE DELINQUENT. WILSON NICHOL WENT THERE GETTING THE SAME INFO THREE WEEKS AGO.

  That was interesting. It not only confirmed what Flint had said earlier about foreclosure but indicated that both Wilson and Zach knew the ranch was floundering, too. She slipped her cell phone back into her pocket.

  Zach’s horse was nowhere in sight, but Brody and his two prisoners mounted up and began a slow plod downhill to join the others. Mattie and Zach followed behind on foot.

  Robo was still escorting Zach on his left side, and Mattie moved up to walk on his right. “I have something I’m curious about, Mr. Irving.”

  “I won’t talk to you about this hunt without the advice of an attorney,” he said, closing his lips in a thin line.

  “I’d like to talk to you about a completely different subject.”

  He sent her a sidelong glance. “What’s that?”

  “What’s your interest in the Redman Ranch?”

  He jutted out his chin. “I heard it’s a nice piece of property that the owners might want to sell.”

  But as far as she knew, the owners weren’t at all interested in selling the land. “Are you looking to move here, Mr. Irving?”

  “Hardly.” He smirked. “I’m a residential real estate developer. Nothing illegal about that.”

  “Agreed, but I’m wondering how you learned about this particular property.”

  “Wilson Nichol contacted me about it. I decided to come to Timber Creek to see it.” He threw Mattie a hard look. “That’s why I came here.”

  She wanted to keep him talking, so she didn’t mention the illegal game issues.

  “What exactly did Mr. Nichol tell you about the Redman property?”

  He shrugged. “He thought I might be interested in subdividing the property to sell for building sites. He was pretty excited about its potential, and I told him I’d see if the project would be feasible.”

  “And when did you speak with Tyler Redman about it?” Mattie asked, testing a theory.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t speak with Tyler. Wilson said he didn’t want me to discuss it with the family yet.”

  That was odd. Wouldn’t a developer speak to the landowners first? “Why not?”

  “He said the family was having some financial problems and he didn’t want to get their hopes up until he knew if I was interested in the project.”

  Something seemed shady about the way Wilson and Zach had been going about it. “I see. So did you discuss it with Tyler after Mr. Nichol’s death?”

  “Actually, I didn’t. I need to run a feasibility study and talk to my partners back home before approaching Tyler. If we decide not to go forward, there’s no reason to share the project details with him now.”

  This still sounded backwards to her. “I’d think you’d want to involve the landowners prior to doing the work of a study. What if they don’t want to sell? You would have done all that work for nothing.”

  Zach grimaced. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Besides, from what I understand, the land will be for sale one way or another.”

  Mattie figured she already knew what he was talking about, but she wanted to determine how much Zach knew. “How so?”

  “Wilson said the land would be for sale either by owner or through a bank foreclosure.”

  Mattie started to get a sick feeling. Zach had confirmed her suspicion—Wilson Nichol, a friend of the Redman family, had been acting on his own, circling the land along with the bankers, like buzzards waiting to pick it off.

  Why would Wilson instigate a plan to subdivide the property without involving the family? Did he hope to offer them a way out of their financial problems, or did he hope to make money off their misfortune? The answer might have died with him, but Mattie would have bet her monthly wage on the latter.

  She pressed on. “To your knowledge, are any of the other Redman family members aware of you discussing the possibility of subdivision with Mr. Nichol?”

  “I’ve never discussed the project with anyone but Wilson. I don’t know who he might have involved.”

  The fact remained that Zach Irving’s burner phone had called Wilson Nichol prior to his murder. “Why did you call Wilson Nichol late Sunday afternoon?”

  Zach’s eyes widened, and he shook his head. “I didn’t call Wilson this weekend. Our last conversation was Friday, and that was in person, right after he showed us the ranch property.”

  His surprise seems genuine. “By us, you mean you and Mr. Underwood?”

  “Right.”

  She decided to pursue more information in a roundabout way. “Where did you get the cell phone you had on you?”

  “That’s not my phone.” He shrugged as if answering her question was of no matter to him. “Eve Redman gave me that phone yesterday.”

  Eve? Kasey’s sister?

  Yesterday meant she’d given Zach the phone on Mond
ay, not Sunday when Wilson had been killed. Did that mean Eve had had the phones in her possession on Sunday afternoon? Did it mean she’d been the one to call Wilson? Mattie’s scalp prickled.

  “She handed them out to all of us,” Zach went on. “One to me, one to Ben, and one to Tyler. She said she’d programmed the numbers and showed us how to contact each other.” Though he kept walking, Zach turned his head to look at her fully. “Eve’s up here, you know. Back at the camp.”

  Was this his way of diverting suspicion, or was he just being honest? Given the way he’d opened up while talking about the potential real estate transaction, Mattie believed he was telling her the truth. Her pulse quickening, she fell back a few steps so she could observe him while she considered this new information.

  Eve had passed the GSR test the night of Nate’s murder, but a good jacket, gloves, and a shower would have done the trick. And Eve was a tall, slender girl; her shoe size would probably match the prints left at Wilson’s crime scene. Was it possible that she’d killed Wilson? After all, she’d seemed hostile toward him when Mattie had observed her at the ranch.

  But then what about Nate? What would be Eve’s motive to kill her own brother-in-law?

  Kasey’s passionate statement to Stella that none of the kids would ever consider selling the ranch—it was their home, their heritage—resonated with Mattie. Eve probably felt the same way toward the ranch as her sister. Nate’s gambling and inability to pay back the Redmans had jeopardized their home and their livelihood. And Wilson had plotted to take that away as well.

  As they breached the last rise and could look down at the scene where Cole and Glenna were working on the tiger, Mattie knew what she was going to have to do. She needed to find that campsite and apprehend Eve Redman so that the girl could be interrogated for the murders of Nate Fletcher and Wilson Nichol.

  And unlike Robo, she would have no satisfaction at all when the job was completed.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  By the time Mattie reached the others, Brody had made his two men dismount and they were huddled together on a log a short distance away from where Glenna, Cole, and Flint were still working on the tiger. Robo escorted Zach over to join them while she checked in with Brody. Then she pulled Tyler aside for a private conversation.

  “Tyler, was this fiasco your doing?” she asked, fully aware that it was not but hoping to put him on the defensive.

  “No!” His denial was adamant. “This was all Nate’s idea.”

  She’d hoped challenging him with her question would start him talking. “So how did you get involved?”

  “Kasey asked me to do this.” Tyler started off all blustery, but quickly fizzled as he realized he’d just implicated his sister. “She didn’t plan it either, but Nate had already collected money from these yahoos, and she couldn’t afford to refund it.”

  Mattie pulled the cell phone she’d confiscated from Zach out of her pocket and held it up. “Did you set up these cell phones so you could all communicate with each other?”

  He stared at the phone for a moment, and she could see his wheels turning, trying to figure out if she was trying to trap him in a crime.

  She reassured him. “There’s no crime connected with providing these cell phones for the group, Tyler. It’s a simple question. Are you the one who prepared the phones?”

  He shook his head. “No. Eve did that.”

  “Did she have the phones this Sunday before you came up here on Monday?”

  “As far as I know.” His eyes widened slightly, and Mattie thought he might be thinking about his sister. “Eve had nothing to do with this, but she came up to help cook and take care of camp. We left her there this morning because she didn’t want to come with us. She was upset. Said she didn’t have the stomach for what was going on.”

  Didn’t have the stomach to hunt down the tiger, but what about killing two men in cold blood? “Why did she come on this trip, then?”

  “To help Kasey.” Tyler’s tone was impatient. “Maybe you don’t get it, but we’re a family. We help each other when times are tough.”

  That dig about family hurt, even though Tyler would know nothing about her or her history. “And times have been tough for your parents lately, haven’t they? What do you know about Wilson Nichol asking these guys to take a look at buying your parents’ ranch?”

  Tyler scowled, and she realized it was more in anger than in surprise. “Wilson wanted to offer Mom and Dad a way out, but I told him to forget it. We’re working on a way to pay off the bank. We’re going to find a way to save the ranch.”

  Like Nate’s life insurance policy? “How?”

  “Selling the calf crop early, for one thing. And Eve is looking into wind technology to see if we could set up windmills on our land. We have plenty of space, and lots of wind blows through that valley.”

  “Does Eve know about this deal that Wilson was working on?”

  Tyler took on a pained expression. “Yeah, she was with me vaccinating calves when Wilson came out to talk to me about it. I’ve never seen her so mad. She told him to get his nose out of our business.”

  Everything he said was leading to Eve. Mattie just wanted to pinpoint one more thing. She held up Zach’s phone again. “Could Kasey have had these cell phones on Sunday?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think so. Kasey has been out of it since Nate. She asked us to take over.”

  Not one hundred percent definitive, but enough to point a finger in Eve’s direction. “So Eve is up at your campsite waiting for you to come back. Can you call her?”

  Tyler shook his head. “There’s no cell phone service up that high. I don’t think she even brought a phone with her.”

  Mattie pointed at the log where the others were sitting. “Go ahead and sit back down.”

  “Someone needs to go up and let her know what’s going on before sundown,” Tyler said with concern. “She’ll be worried and start looking for us. I can take you there.”

  Mattie didn’t like the sound of that. Tyler wasn’t in the clear yet, and the last thing she wanted was to be up in the high country with a brother and sister who might have plotted the murder of two men. “Go ahead and sit down,” she repeated, and made sure he followed through before going to talk with Brody.

  * * *

  Cole had stabilized the tiger’s shoulder with bandage and tape, doing the best he could for damage control. After raising the blindfold, he tapped the cat’s eyelid. A little twitchy. He injected another small dose of BAM into the buffalo cap on the IV he’d placed earlier in the foreleg beneath the injured shoulder. If this tiger came out from under the sedative, he would be less likely to use his damaged leg to swipe with those dangerous claws.

  Glenna shook out a large wildlife net and spread it on the ground alongside the cat. “Let’s wrap him in this first. Then I have a light tarp we can use to secure him.”

  While squatting at the head and shoulders of the limp animal to pick it up, Cole noticed the sharp teeth inside the slack jaw and hoped the sedative held long enough to recover him at the zoo, where personnel would know how to handle him. On the count of three, he and Glenna lifted the cat and lowered him onto the net, where they trussed him like a Thanksgiving turkey.

  Cole glanced at Flint. “How’s that travois coming along?”

  Flint had woven rope between two poles to make a hammock-like sling.

  “Almost done. Just tying off the last rope.”

  With the net securely in place, Cole and Glenna made short work of wrapping the tiger inside the lightweight canvas tarp. His limp tongue protruded from his mouth, and Cole moistened it with water from his canteen. Flint brought over the travois, and the three of them started the process of loading the bundled tiger onto the hammock.

  “Do we have a horse that will pull this?” Flint asked. “I mean, this tiger’s asleep, but the horses are still going to be afraid of it.”

  “One of mine will do it.” Cole had already thought of that, and Mountaineer was his top pic
k. The horse was steady and had previous experience hauling logs and firewood from the forest. He would do the job. Unfortunately, that left Mattie without a mount, but Duke was stout enough to carry the two of them.

  Cole headed toward where he’d tied the horses. One of the Redman geldings had come running downhill without a rider earlier and had crowded in among them. After releasing Mountaineer’s tie rope, Cole secured the other gelding into the open spot.

  Mountaineer gave the tiger a walleyed look while Cole led him past. He sidestepped as Flint and Glenna lifted the poles on the travois, but Cole coaxed him to stand still while they pulled the contraption forward and anchored it to the saddle. They were ready to go.

  This method of sedation meant they needed to get this tiger off the mountain ASAP. They didn’t have time to wait. Cole looked to see what was going on with Mattie and Brody, who were wrapping up their conversation. He caught her eye, and she walked off to the side, nodding for him to join her and Robo. He handed Mountaineer’s reins to Flint and followed.

  She stopped a short distance from the others. “You’re ready to go?”

  He nodded. On close inspection, he could see the scratches on her face and dirt on her clothes, but he knew she’d brush him off if he mentioned it, so he held his tongue about that. “I had to use Mountaineer, but Duke can carry the two of us.”

  “We’re not going with you, Cole.”

  Her words surprised him. “Aren’t we all going down together?”

  Mattie met his gaze. “Eve Redman is still up at their camp. We need to get her and bring her in, too.”

  Cole glanced at the three prisoners, cuffed and sitting on logs or leaning against boulders. “Are you all going?”

  “We don’t know yet. Brody called the sheriff for backup.”

  Cole didn’t like the idea of splitting off from Mattie to leave her in the wilderness, but she wouldn’t be alone, and he had to move that tiger. Mountaineer began to paw the ground, punctuating Cole’s feeling of urgency. He needed to get this show on the road.