“Well, we’ll be able to have Monday together then,” Julia said. “And if you can only spend part of the time with us, that will have to do. We have so much to tell you, so much to share. We can’t wait indefinitely, Mattie. Abuela never sleeps late. I’ll start packing now, and we’ll be on the road within a few hours.”
Mattie still didn’t know for certain if she could delay her vacation time to next week. Maybe under the circumstances, her sister was right. If Julia and her grandmother were willing to make the drive, so be it. If she had to work, at least she would still have her mornings and evenings with her family. “My house is small, and I don’t have beds for you. I’ll make a reservation for tomorrow night at the local motel. You’ll be comfortable there.”
“What’s the name of it?”
“The Big Sky.”
“I’ll make the reservation, mi hermana. You take care of your business today, and we’ll see you soon.”
“Text me when you stop for the night so I know where you are,” Mattie said. “And Julia, thanks. I can’t wait to see you.”
“I love you, mi hermana pequeña. Is your work dangerous?”
“Not really.” The thought of the rushing water, the fallen timber, and the many unknowns associated with investigating this crime scene gave her a twinge of anxiety. “I love you too. Be safe as you travel.”
As they said their good-byes, tears stung Mattie’s eyes. It was hard to take in, having family who would drive across the country to be with her. She planned to go up to Hanging Falls and finish her work today, no matter what the conditions. She needed to be able to spend time with Julia and Abuela when they arrived.
Mattie hurried to dress for work while Robo watched her, his eyes eager. She would skip their usual morning run, since she knew he would get plenty of exercise when they headed into the high country.
“Are you ready to go to work?” she asked, as she removed her service weapon from its safe in her closet.
Robo pivoted, his toenails skittering across the hardwood floor as he scurried through the living room to the front door, where a clean leash hung doubled on the knob. She’d sent the contaminated one to the station along with other pieces of evidence.
Robo snatched his leash and came trotting back to her, the blue nylon strap dangling from his mouth, while she went into the kitchen to get the gallon jug of fresh water she’d prepared before dressing.
“All right,” she said, taking his leash from him. “Let’s go load up.”
She carried the leash to her unit while Robo rushed ahead. She opened the rear compartment of the Ford Explorer that had been converted to meet her dog’s needs. He hopped in and circled so that he could watch her secure the jug that contained his water supply, check her other supplies, and close the hatch. By the time she climbed into the driver’s seat, he was standing at the front of his cage, ready to navigate. She smiled at him, her spirits rising.
Her phone signaled the arrival of a text. She checked it while she turned on the engine. It was from Cole, and it included the address of the woman he’d mentioned the night before. The rest of the message told her he loved her and he would see her later. She wondered when that would be, knowing she had a full day’s work ahead of her.
It took only a few minutes to drive to the station. Although it was a quarter to seven, Brody’s cruiser and Stella’s silver Honda were lined up beside the sheriff’s Jeep. She hurried to unload Robo and followed him to the door, where she made him wait to allow her to enter first, her way of reminding him that she was alpha in their small pack. As a high-drive male shepherd, Robo needed frequent reminders that she was boss or he would try to take over, a problem that could be hard to reverse with these high-energy patrol dogs. It was best to stay on top of his training at all times so that she didn’t have to worry about it.
Rainbow, the daughter of two hippies who’d settled in Timber Creek and the department’s unlikely dispatcher, sat at her desk on the other side of the lobby. She favored colorful, flowing, tie-dyed tunics over leggings, and today was no exception. She wore her headset atop her long, blond hair, which was tied back with a purple chiffon scarf. Mattie gave Robo permission to greet her while she went to clock in.
Rainbow leaned over the dog as she fondled his ears and cooed, making him grin. “Hey, Mattie,” her friend greeted her as she approached the desk. “What are you doing here?”
Even though she’d arrived early, Mattie felt pressed to meet with the investigative team, but she still needed to touch base with Rainbow, who’d helped her out many times when she truly needed someone. “I’m not going today after all. My sister and grandmother are coming here so I can get some work done on this investigation.”
Rainbow’s eyes widened with surprise. “Oh my gosh. We always need you and your boy, but I don’t know. There’s something wrong about you losing part of your vacation.”
“I’ll get the days back another time.”
“You’re more driven than I am. Maybe I can meet your family while they’re here.” Rainbow raised a finger as she listened to her headset.
She didn’t have time to wait, so Mattie signaled Robo to follow and went back to the staff office to get a cup of coffee. “Let’s go to the briefing room,” she said, and he took off in that direction. When they entered, she found the others had already gathered.
“Good morning, Deputy,” McCoy greeted her. “Thank you for being here.”
Brody raised a brow and gave Mattie a nod as she took her place at the table while Robo settled in beside her.
The briefing room was serviceable, sparsely furnished with several rectangular tables, plastic molded chairs on aluminum frames, and a rolling whiteboard upon which Stella had already begun laying out the case.
She’d written John Doe at the top of the board, and she’d deviated from her typical procedure of posting a photograph of the victim. Mattie remembered the man’s missing eyelids and nostrils, which had been nibbled away by aquatic life.
“We have very little to go over this morning, so we’ll share what we know and establish our plan for the day,” Stella said. “I received some positive news from CBI lab this morning. Our victim’s hands were starting to deglove in the water, but they were able to salvage the skin on the fingers and get prints.”
Mattie knew the process. The term deglove referred to when the skin on the hands became so waterlogged that it peeled away like a glove. Sometimes the victim’s prints could be captured by slipping the skin from a finger onto a technician’s finger and then taking a print from the tissue by rolling it as they would that of a live person. “How long do they estimate the body was in the water?”
“Probably two to three days in very cold water,” Stella said. “The skin sloughs much faster in warm water.”
“We’re lucky for that, then,” Mattie said, thinking she could vouch for how cold the water was. “I take it they’re running the print.”
“It’ll take several hours to run through the database, but we hope to have an identity by noon,” Stella said. “Unless we get it sooner than that by following Cole’s lead.”
“I have his client’s address now.” Mattie took out her cell phone and read it aloud for the others.
“Out east of town,” McCoy said. “If this man has been dead for two days and if he resided near here with his family, why haven’t they reported him missing?”
“Good question,” Stella said. “I guess it’s possible they don’t know he’s missing yet. Which means we’ll have to break the news that we believe their loved one is deceased—subject to verification, of course. We’ll also have to interview them to get all the information we can.”
“And to see if we can rule them out as suspects,” Brody muttered.
Family always needed to be looked at in a homicide investigation, which Mattie felt was a shame, but the fact remained that victims of murder often knew their killers.
“Mattie and I can team up to do it,” Stella said, sending her a look. “And maybe we
can poke around a little while we’re at it.”
“We can if we go first thing,” Mattie said, feeling the pressure of all she needed to get done that day. “I also need to get back up to the falls to search for evidence.”
“I should be a part of that,” Brody said.
Mattie nodded at him. “With this break in the rain, the runoff might have subsided enough to get in there.”
“Anything else, Detective?” McCoy asked.
“Not at this time. We’ll have more from the lab later today.”
McCoy nodded. “Then let’s get to work. We have a lot to get done during the next twelve hours.”
NINE
Mattie turned off the highway onto a crude and narrow private road, barely more than a dirt track, through short and stubby pastureland. The grass was green from the rain but lacked the lush density and length of an irrigated meadow. A cluster of buildings about a half mile away marked their destination.
As they drew near, Stella verbalized what they could both see. “Looks like five trailer houses and a barn with some corrals.”
The homes were all single-wides and lined up next to each other. The barn was a modular affair made from pine board-and-batten siding with an A-frame metal roof. Horse runs surrounded it, and although Mattie wasn’t sure how many there were, it looked like the runs were attached to indoor box stalls, several of them filled with horses. Corrals made of panels made the place look thrown together or at least temporary, because as she and Stella drew near, she could tell that someone was building more permanent corrals beyond the paneled ones.
A tall man came out of the barn as Mattie pulled up and parked. “We might as well start here,” she murmured, dreading the interview. Giving a family notification of death was never easy, and this time it was made even more difficult by their not knowing the identity of the deceased.
The man was dressed in blue denim pants held up with suspenders and a light-blue chambray shirt with white buttons. He wore his dark beard cropped to about an inch in length, covering only his jawline. A hat with a broad, circular brim sat on his head, and a black patch covered his right eye. He watched them park, and as they exited her unit, he lifted one hand in greeting, his facial expression pleasant.
“Hello,” Stella said, rounding the front of the SUV. “Are you Mr. Solomon Vaughn?”
This was the name Cole had given them for his clients: Ruth and Solomon Vaughn.
“No, I’m not,” the man said, walking forward and extending a handshake. “I’m Isaac King, but Solomon lives here too. Can I help you?”
Another man came to the doorway of the barn, carrying a push broom. He was also tall, thin, and, save for the eye patch, dressed and groomed as a carbon copy of Isaac. Mattie had the immediate impression that these folks must practice the same religion, although she was unsure at the moment exactly what that would be. The second man set his broom aside and came out to join them.
Isaac turned and lifted his palm in a gesture toward the new man. “This is Solomon.”
Solomon’s dark eyes searched Mattie’s as he extended a firm handshake first to her and then, when Mattie introduced her, to Stella. Mattie could tell he wondered why the police had come to his property, but he didn’t ask.
Stella edged her way into the interview. “It’s nice to meet you both. You’re fairly new to Timber Creek.”
“Yes,” Isaac said. “We’ve been here about two months now, just getting started building our place. We hope to call this home for many years to come.”
“It’s a beautiful site to build on,” Stella said, indicating the mountain range to the east.
“Yes, I’ll enjoy God’s masterpiece every day during morning and evening prayers,” Isaac said, his smile crinkling the corner of his uncovered eye, giving him a warm and friendly appearance despite the pirate’s patch that he wore.
A woman rounded the corner of the first trailer, followed by a girl and a dog. Even though they were dressed in unusual calf-length blue dresses with white pinafores and caps, it was the dog that caught Mattie’s eye—a gorgeous German shepherd with the sculpted head and fine bone structure of a female.
Solomon glanced at the two and introduced them as his wife and daughter, Ruth and Hannah. Both women offered handshakes, although Hannah dropped her eyes as if bashful when she stepped up to shake Mattie’s hand. The dog seemed attached to the girl more than the woman, so Mattie murmured a compliment about the dog, and Hannah gave her a shy smile in return.
“This is Sassy,” Hannah said, glancing up to meet Mattie’s gaze before leaning over to pet her dog. At that moment, Robo barked from inside the unit, making Sassy’s head go up in alarm. She growled and barked a warning, leaving Hannah’s side to head toward the SUV, where Robo continued to sound off. Hannah hurried after her dog, calling her back and making her obey, while Mattie went to her car and told Robo to stop.
Both dogs settled after their brief outburst, but evidently Solomon had already had enough. “Hannah, take Sassy back to the house, please.”
The girl did as she was told without protest, perhaps more readily than most teens, but under the circumstances, that might be too quick a judgment. Perhaps the girl didn’t want to aggravate Robo either. Ruth had stayed, and Mattie rejoined the group.
“Are there others living here besides you?” Stella asked, sweeping the threesome with her gaze before settling on Isaac.
“Yes,” Isaac said, his voice deep and solemn. “We have five families living here, all sisters and brothers sharing in our new lives in this new land.”
His grand manner of speech made Mattie wonder if he was a preacher. At the same time, movement at the barn door caught her eye and two other men appeared, one older, with pepper-and-salt hair and the same coloring in his beard, and the other quite young, maybe in his late teens or early twenties, his hair and beard sand colored. Both men hung back by the barn.
“Is anyone in your group missing, a man who might be in his twenties?” Stella asked.
“No one is missing,” Isaac said. “All were present and accounted for at morning prayer.”
“All right,” Stella said. “So everyone who moved here two months ago is still here?”
Ruth smoothed the side of her skirt with her palm. “One young man left recently, but he’s not exactly missing. He left to return home to his parents. He decided this wasn’t where he wanted to live after all.”
“His name?” Stella asked.
“Luke,” Ruth said. “Luke Ferguson.”
“Does he still have extended family living here?”
“Not any relatives by blood,” Isaac said. “But we’re all family here.”
Mattie thought these people might be able to identify their victim, since the men’s manner of dress, hairstyles, and beards seemed to match.
“Did Luke have any identifying marks such as tattoos or birthmarks?” Stella asked.
“He had a purple birthmark on his neck,” Ruth said, placing her palm on the left side of her own, in exactly the same spot as their victim’s birthmark. “Why do you ask?”
Mattie observed all of them closely while Stella continued—not just the three in front of her but also the men who stood outside the barn listening. This would be the most important time to detect responses that might indicate guilt.
“We found a young man who’s deceased, and it’s possible it might be Luke,” Stella said.
“Deceased?” Ruth echoed, looking stunned.
“Where?” Isaac asked, his face registering surprise. “When?”
Solomon’s brow knit with concern, and the two men at the barn walked out to join them. The younger man looked especially worried, and he took off his hat and held it by the brim at his side. Everyone seemed genuinely alarmed.
“This young man we’re trying to identify was found in the mountains up by Hanging Falls,” Stella said. “Do you know the place?”
“Why yes,” Isaac said. “Several of us rode up there a couple weeks ago to give the horses we�
�re training some trail experience.”
“Was Luke with you then?” Mattie asked, wondering if the young man had been familiar with the spot where he’d been buried.
The older man who hadn’t yet been introduced was nodding as Isaac answered. “He was with us. It was shortly afterward that he decided to go back home.”
“Did he say why he wanted to leave?” Mattie asked.
“He said he missed his old way of life,” Isaac said, his appearance saddened. “I counseled with him extensively, but he was adamant. You see, he’d only joined us when we moved here.”
Mattie wondered about transportation. “How did he leave? Was he driving his own car?”
“No,” Solomon said, frowning. “I dropped him off at the bus stop in Hightower last Wednesday. Are you certain this person you found is Luke?”
“No, we’re not certain,” Stella said, her face sympathetic. “We’re still trying to identify this young man. We came here because of a suggestion that his clothing and style of beard might be similar to yours. And in fact, that appears to be the case.”
It seemed like an awkward thing to bring up, and Mattie felt uncomfortable with it, but profiling of one kind or another often led to more information as long as one kept an open mind. And none of these folks seemed to take offense.
“How can we help you?” Isaac said.
“Do you have any items of Luke’s? Toothbrush, hairbrush, comb? Even any items of clothing might help,” Stella said.
Isaac turned to the older man. “This is Ephraim Grayson. Luke stayed at his house. Ephraim, do you know if Luke left anything?”
“No, ma’am,” Ephraim replied, looking at Stella with dark and serious eyes. “He shared a room with my son here. Abel, did he leave anything in your room?”
“No, sir.” Abel shook his head, looking at his father. “He didn’t have much, but he took everything with him.”
“Do you have a photograph of the man you found?” Isaac asked. “Perhaps we could help you that way.”
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