Hunting Hour

by Margaret Mizushima

  Chapter 9

  Mattie pulled up in front of the feed store, a small white clapboard building on the highway. Anchored to the roof was a hand-painted sign in yellow and black that read, “Rancher’s Supply Feeds.” The temperature was mild, so she rolled down her windows and left Robo in the back. This would take only a few minutes.

  A bell over the door jingled as she stepped inside, and immediately the thick, sweet scent of grain mixed with sorghum assailed her. Right inside the door, baby chicks, peeping like mad and looking like tiny balls of yellow fluff, scurried around inside a large cardboard box with a heat lamp hanging over it. Mattie scanned the room quickly, taking in the colorful paper bags of livestock feed stacked at the front, the larger burlap bags of feed stashed at the back.

  A young man wearing a dusty green canvas apron came from a back room. He stood about six foot three, as tall as the sheriff, but that’s where the similarity ended. While the sheriff was built like a fullback, this kid—probably in his early twenties—was thin as a rail. It looked like a stiff wind could pick him up and blow him away. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “You can. I have some questions about your feed.”

  The kid had earnest brown eyes, longish dark hair, and had managed to grow a scruffy beard. “I’ll try to answer them. The owner left for lunch, but he’ll be back around one.”

  “And who’s the owner?”

  “Moses Randall.”

  “And your name is?”

  “I’m Jed. Jed Franklin.”

  When Mattie shook the hand that he offered, she noticed he had a firm grip and his fingers were bony. “I see you have feed in both paper sacks and burlap bags. What’s the difference?”

  He led her down the aisle to show her the different types of feed. “The difference is mostly in whether you want to buy in bulk or not. Most of this stuff comes in the smaller paper bags, or you can buy the larger size that comes in burlap. We’ve got feed here for chickens and other fowl, pigs, goats, cattle, and horses.” The paper bags rustled as he tapped them. “What are you looking for?”

  “What kind of feed comes in the larger size?” Mattie moved toward the stacks of burlap bags, which looked full and heavy. When she ran her fingers over it, the burlap felt coarse and scratchy, bringing the abrasions on Candace’s face to mind, and dust from the grain inside the bag filtered through the weave of the fabric. One of these dirty bags could definitely cause an allergy attack for someone as susceptible as Candace.

  “Cattle and horse feed come in the larger size. Some of the pig feed too,” Jed replied. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

  Mattie could tell he thought he was going to make a sale. “How many of these large sacks of feed do you sell each day?”

  “Oh . . . it varies. Some days, none. Some days, a rancher comes in and we load up the bed in his pickup.” The kid tried again. “What type of feed do you want? Horse?”

  “That’s what you said comes in the larger bags, right? Feed for horses, cattle, and pigs. So it’s mostly ranchers and farmers that buy the large size?”

  He seemed to finally get it that she wasn’t here as a customer and it was information she was shopping for. “Pretty much. Town folks need the chicken feed, a few keep goats. The folks living outside of town are usually the ones that buy in bulk.”

  Outside of town, like Brooks Waverly’s family.

  “Tell me, does Mr. Waverly buy his feed here?”

  “He does. He buys feed for both cattle and horses.”

  She realized it might have been fortuitous that the owner had left for lunch, because this kid didn’t seem at all reticent to talk. “I suppose you keep records of who your customers are.”

  He paused, thinking. “Well, there are credit card slips. Some of the big customers keep an account, and Mr. Randall bills them once a month.”

  “Does Juanita or Burt Banks buy the feed in the large bags?”

  Jed’s face darkened. “Juanita isn’t here today. I suppose you know about her daughter, you being a police officer.”

  Mattie nodded and waited for him to answer her question.

  After a pause, during which she could literally see him thinking about his coworker and her daughter, he gave himself a slight shake and turned back to their previous conversation. “As far as I know, they don’t have big animals. Juanita lives here in town.”

  “Did you know her daughter?”

  He bowed his head. “I’ve seen her. She’s come by the store a couple times. Can’t believe she died. Poor Juanita.”

  When he raised his eyes and met Mattie’s, she saw genuine sorrow and sympathy there. She nodded to indicate her agreement. Wondering which other ranchers and farmers bought feed in bulk, she decided to test her boundaries. “Could I see a list of people who keep accounts?”

  A look of regret crossed his face. “Mr. Randall keeps the accounts in his office. We make a note of a sale on the day sheet and pass it on to him. I’d better not take you in his private office, but I’m sure he’d be glad to talk with you when he gets back around one o’clock.”

  “Do you know how many people around here buy the large bags? Just a guess.”

  He seemed puzzled but continued to try to be helpful. “Gosh, I don’t know. Maybe fifty or so.”

  Not as bad as they thought, if they narrowed it down. “You’ve been a lot of help. Thank you for your time.”

  He smiled, sort of a boyish grin. “Sure. Do you want to buy some chicks?”

  Mattie moved toward the door where the chicks were on display. They’d stopped cheeping earlier, but as she approached the box, they got with it again. “No, thanks,” she said, smiling. “I have a German shepherd who might not take kindly to sharing his yard with chickens.”

  The kid grinned back at her. “I guess not.”

  Mattie said good-bye, and the bell over the door tinkled as she let herself out. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been able to look at the customer list. It was enough to know it existed, and if they needed a copy of it, she was sure they could get a warrant. Judge Taylor wouldn’t drag his feet this time, not with the death of another teenager under investigation. He’d learned that their team didn’t ask for warrants without solid reason.

  Robo greeted her with his sharp grin as she climbed into the Explorer. Around fifty customers that bought feed in bulk didn’t seem too overwhelming. Of course, there might always be the customer that bought the odd bag here and there, but at least it was a place to start. And the most valuable nugget she’d gleaned was that burlap bags held cattle, horse, and pig feed.

  The kids from farms and ranches would be the ones most likely to have access to the empty bags. Like the quarterback, Brooks Waverly.

  *

  By midafternoon, they’d interviewed the town kids, Casey Rhodes and Josh Barnaby. Their stories were close to identical, and the parents seemed as dismayed to hear about their offspring’s wayward behavior as the law enforcement officers had been. Both boys confessed to sexting with the victim—there was no use denying it when Stella produced proof—as well as setting up appointments to “hook up” with the girl in a threesome.

  Mattie’s gut flinched when she heard it.

  Both stated that they were innocent of any foul play centering around her death and, with parental permission, allowed Stella to swab the inside of their cheeks for DNA samples. Both denied ownership of the black cap Robo had found on the hillside.

  The boys also insisted that their fling with Candace had ended, and they had no qualms about throwing Brooks Waverly under the bus. Both indicated that Brooks was the one currently involved with Candace.

  When the parents escorted their sons from the interview room, Mattie had the distinct feeling that the boys might be grounded for life, or at least she hoped they would be. Rhodes’s father actually smashed his son’s cell phone under his boot right outside the station door in the parking lot.

  Mattie stood by Rainbow’s desk in the lobby waiting for Brooks Waverly and parents to a
rrive, so she was first to notice the long, sleek Cadillac glide into the parking lot. It bore license plates that proclaimed, “HOTSHOT,” and she knew that Justin McClelland, Timber Creek’s sole attorney, owned that car.

  When McClelland didn’t get out of his car to come inside, she decided he was waiting for someone, and she had a suspicion she knew whom that someone might be. She excused herself from her conversation with Rainbow and went to Stella’s office.

  She tapped on the door and stuck her head inside. “Justin McClelland is waiting out in the parking lot. Probably for our next appointment to arrive.”

  Stella pushed her reading glasses up to the top of her head and gave Mattie a pained look. “Okay. Thanks for the heads-up. Let them wait in the interview room for a while.”

  By the time Mattie returned to the lobby, McClelland was leading the way into the station with Brooks Waverly and a man who had to be Brooks’s father. Brooks was a tall, muscular kid with auburn hair, handsome features, and dark-brown eyes surrounded by thick lashes that any girl would love to have. When Mattie saw him at school, he was typically polite, well liked by teachers as well as students, but today, his handsome face appeared tight with stress, and his friendly smile was absent. His father was an older version of Brooks—a little thicker around the waist, a few gray hairs at the temples—and he also wore a grim expression.

  Mattie decided to treat the teen like an adult and met him halfway across the room with her hand outstretched. “Hello, Brooks. Thank you for coming in.”

  “Deputy Cobb.” The kid’s familiar smile flashed briefly while he shook her hand. “This is my dad, Jack Waverly.”

  When they shook hands, Jack took hers in a strong, callused paw. She wondered if his grip reflected the strength within him.

  “Mr. McClelland,” she said, showing that she didn’t need an introduction to the attorney as she offered a handshake. His dark, bushy eyebrows made a solid slash over his eyes and were his most outstanding feature. McClelland had on his signature Stetson hat and Western suit that he wore during all seasons of the year, including summer. He stared at her nametag and repeated her name aloud while he shook her hand.

  “Let me show you to the room where we’ll conduct the interview, and I’ll let Detective LoSasso know you’re here,” Mattie said.

  “Thank you,” McClelland said, taking the lead.

  Mattie ushered them into the interview room, where four hard-plastic chairs sat around a utilitarian stainless-steel-topped table. There were no other furnishings, and Mattie had always considered the place cold and bare.

  “I’ll get us another chair,” she said, leaving to go to the staff office, where Robo was having a midday nap on his cushion. When she returned with a plastic chair she’d found beside one of the staff desks, McClelland had arranged three of the others on the far side of the table. She placed the one she had in hand next to the chair in front before leaving them alone again.

  She found Stella in Sheriff McCoy’s office, evidently talking strategy. “They’re waiting. McClelland’s got them all sitting on one side of the table. A united front.”

  “That’s fine,” Stella said. “We’ll see how cooperative they plan to be and take it from there. I know I’m going to want this kid’s DNA, and Sheriff McCoy can get us a warrant if we have to go that way.”

  Mattie nodded and then followed Stella to the interview room, where all was silent. She wondered if even a word had been said in her absence. The three men stood when she and Stella entered the room, shaking hands with Stella as she introduced herself.

  McClelland smiled warmly at the detective while he assured her he remembered her well. Stella had once interviewed him as a person of interest during the Grace Hartman investigation, and he’d ended up asking her to dinner, which the detective had declined.

  “Let’s all have a seat,” Stella said, taking direction of the interview, and the three settled back into their chairs, with Brooks seated between the two men. “Thank you for coming in with Brooks today, Mr. Waverly. Your son has come to our attention as someone who can provide us with information regarding the death of one of our local students, Candace Banks.”

  Jack inclined his head slightly, but it was McClelland who spoke. “I want it made clear for the record that Brooks Waverly and his father are here today of their own free will and plan to provide whatever information they can for the purpose of assisting you with your investigation. As long as said information is for said purpose and not aimed at an attempt to deceive or maneuver culpability on the part of my client in the aforementioned young lady’s death.”

  Stella sat back in her chair and aimed her too-sweet smile directly at the attorney. Mattie knew the detective well enough to tell that she was suppressing laughter. “Mr. McClelland, believe me when I say that I would never attempt to deceive or maneuver. You’ll know what information I need and why I need it when we get there.”

  And with that, Stella turned her full attention to the teen. “Do you know Candace Banks, Brooks?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Have you called her on her cell phone and texted her?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is she one of your friends?”

  Brooks squirmed slightly. “You might say so.”

  “How did a girl from the junior high get to be one of your friends?”

  “She’s friends with a lot of us older kids.”

  “Is that unusual, older kids befriending someone that much younger?”

  Brooks looked down at the table. “Not really.”

  “I have her cell phone, Brooks. I’ve read the texts, seen the pictures.”

  Brooks blanched.

  “I need to see that cell phone,” McClelland interjected.

  Stella gave him a withering look. “You’re way ahead of yourself, Counselor. It’s not available, nor is it appropriate, for you to see it at this point.” She shifted her attention back to Brooks. “Please explain your relationship with Candace, Brooks.”

  Jack Waverly turned sideways in his chair so he could look at his son, but Brooks kept his face tilted downward toward the table. “I . . . I was having sex with her,” he muttered, barely audible.

  Jack’s eyes narrowed, and he shifted slightly away from his son, but he didn’t say a word. Well coached by his attorney, Mattie thought.

  “Let me clarify. You were having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl. Were other boys at the high school having sex with Candace?” Stella asked, evidently wanting to see how much Brooks would say.

  “Yes.” Brooks looked up at Stella, possibly seeing a way to avoid being singled out. “A bunch of guys have had sex with her. She’s willing to put out for anyone. She . . .” His words trailed off as he apparently realized he wasn’t making himself look any better.

  Stella prompted him. “She what?”

  Brooks shook his head, looking down at the table. “I was going to say she was the town tramp, but that’s not a very nice thing to say about her.”

  “Especially now that she’s dead, right?” Stella tapped a nail on the table. “Tell me about the last appointment you had scheduled with her.”

  Brooks swallowed. “The one yesterday?”

  “Wait, Brooks,” McClelland said. “What appointment are we talking about, Detective?”

  “Brooks had an appointment scheduled with Candace Banks at three thirty yesterday afternoon. It’s documented in the cell phone texts.”

  “I never saw her,” Brooks said to McClelland. “She wasn’t there.”

  McClelland seemed to be considering the information and then nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “I was supposed to meet Candace on Smoker’s Hill . . . yeah, at the time you said. But I got hung up in a meeting with the coach about baseball practice, and by the time I got up there, she’d left. She wasn’t where we were supposed to meet. I figured she’d gone home, so I left too.”

  Brooks fanned his hands, palms down, on the table, and Mattie noticed scabs on most of his knuckles. He’
d worn a long-sleeve T-shirt, so she couldn’t see if he had scratches on his forearms. She’d already looked at his feet to see what type of shoes he wore—tennis shoes, like the other boys had worn, not smooth-soled boots. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been wearing boots yesterday.

  “What time did you go up the hill?” Stella asked.

  “I left the gym about four o’clock. I remember checking the time on my way out.”

  “We’ll be confirming your story with the coach, Brooks,” Stella warned.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Who else has been with Candace?” Stella asked.

  Brooks studied the detective’s face. “I’d rather not rat out anyone. Besides, if you have the cell phone, then you already know.”

  Stella smiled at him, but somehow, there was no humor in it. “You might reconsider your position on that. This is a homicide investigation. Homicide. That means someone killed Candace. Withholding information is a crime.”

  McClelland raised his bushy unibrow and turned to his client. “It’s not ratting out your friends, Brooks, it’s cooperating. Go ahead and say what you know about the others.”

  Brooks wore a strained look on his face, but he gave up the names of the two boys who’d already been interviewed as well as two others.

  “Were any of these boys jealous when you started seeing Candace?” Stella asked.

  “Nah. It was my turn.”

  Mattie’s stomach lurched. Stella kept a calm demeanor while she took her time, slowly looking back and forth between Brooks and his father, searching their faces. Crimson leached into the son’s pale complexion and he hung his head, while the father’s expression grew stony.

  McClelland broke the prolonged silence by clearing his throat. “Is that all, Detective?”

  Stella threw him a look that could kill. “No, Mr. McClelland, that is not all.” She leaned toward Brooks. “It appears you have no respect for this young girl, Brooks, even now, after her death. Did she mean so little to you that you might have hurt her?”