Mattie nodded as if she already knew. “Can you give us the names of any of these women?”
“Nah. Juanita, she doesn’t even know. She just suspects. But he’s never home, never around. He’s tomcattin’ around somewhere.”
“Have the kids ever said anything to you about him being abusive toward them?”
Rosie shook her head. “No, there’ve been no complaints. Really, he’s rarely home. Never spends time with the kids that I know of.”
“Juanita hasn’t shared any suspicions about abuse with you?”
“No.”
There seemed to be no waffling regarding her answers, so Mattie had to take them at face value. “Do you have any idea who might have hurt Candace?”
Rosie’s eyes filled, and this time, tears spilled over. She let them fall. “No, I wish to heaven that I did. I would like to see the person who killed that sweet child suffer.”
Mattie looked at Stella to see if she had any more questions. The detective withdrew a business card from her pocket and handed it to Rosie, thanking her for her time and giving the standard instruction to call if she thought of anything that might help them with the case. Mattie thanked her as well, and they took their leave.
After entering the SUV, Mattie and Stella looked at each other. “Neither of these women suspects that Candace has been abused by her father,” Stella said. “And if he’s got another woman, that could explain where Burt was yesterday afternoon.”
Mattie started the engine and set off toward the station. “He could’ve been up on that hill with Candace.”
“When we talk to him, we’ll pin him down on exactly where he was.”
The knots in Mattie’s shoulders were so tight they hurt. “And I think we should confront him about his relationship with his daughter.”
“Question, Mattie, not confront. I don’t have any preconceived notions about it. Don’t let your past color your judgment on the case.”
Mattie shrugged.
“Your instincts are usually good, but I’m not sure this time. Right now, I like Brooks Waverly the most for this one.”
Mattie pulled into the station’s parking lot and steered the Explorer into a space. She sat for a few moments, thinking about it. “Maybe so, but I’m not ready to lock in on him yet.”
“I agree. We still have a lot of work to do.”
Mattie let Robo out the back, and he ran to sniff the lot before coming back to join her at the station door. Once inside, she and Robo went to the staff office, while Stella went to hers. Mattie sat and turned on her computer.
She’d retrieved the slip of paper with the license plate number on it that Rainbow had checked out earlier. Although the vehicle had been clean, there was something about the men’s furtive behavior that Mattie couldn’t let go. After opening the DMV website, she plugged in the numbers and letters on the plate and waited for the registration to load. It took only a few seconds.
A silver Nissan Pathfinder registered to Merton Heath. City of residence: Denver.
She went into the Colorado Crime Information Center database, and after typing in the name Merton Heath, his name and record popped up on her screen. She scanned through it. Merton Heath—registered sex offender.
Having trouble taking a full breath, Mattie sat back in her chair and stared at her computer. She scrolled through the information. He had been convicted of molesting a minor.
A pedophile. In Timber Creek. The day after a child’s death. What were the odds?
And she’d driven right past him.
Her body tight with anxiety, she strode from her office to tell Stella and the sheriff what she’d found. They needed to put a BOLO out on that vehicle ASAP. She wanted every cop in the state to be on the lookout for this guy.
Chapter 11
Cole sat in his truck, waiting at the end of their lane for the school bus. Angela was staying at school for a yearbook meeting, so Sophie was riding home on the bus alone. She was capable of walking down the lane by herself, but Cole liked to meet the girls when he could.
Brakes squeaked and pneumatics hissed as the driver stopped the bus and opened the door to let out Sophie. The girl grinned and waved while Cole hopped out of the truck and hurried around to the passenger side to let her in. He waved at the bus driver as she forced the bus in gear and rumbled off.
“Daddy!” Sophie said as she approached. “Wait’ll I tell you what Cindy Martin got last night!”
“I can’t wait,” Cole said, boosting Sophie up into the passenger seat. “Tell me now.”
“Baby chicks!”
“No!”
“Yes! She brought pictures of them to school and told us all about ’em. She got two, and they have yellow feathers, and she has to keep them under a heat lamp until they grow bigger, and she has to feed them in jar lids because they’re so tiny, and she keeps their water in a special pan that automatically waters them—but only a little bit at a time so they don’t fall in and drown.” She paused for a breath. “And can I have one? Can I have a baby chick, Dad?”
He figured that was coming. “Let’s talk about that. Baby chicks are a big responsibility, Sophie. I’m not sure you’re ready for that.”
“I’ll be nine next week, and I’ll take care of them. I feed Belle and Bruno most of the time.”
True.
“We don’t have a chicken coop, so where would we put them?” Cole asked.
“They live in a box at first. We could build them a coop behind the clinic. Out by Mountaineer’s pen.”
Mountaineer was Cole’s horse, a roan gelding that could handle any mountain trail. He’d been invaluable last fall when Cole rode him up into the wilderness during the first snowstorm of the season to find Mattie.
“Build them a coop? I thought you were asking for just one chick.”
Sophie looked down at her lap for a split second before looking up and grinning. She wasn’t much of a fibber. “One chick would be lonely. We’d have to get at least two. Please, Daddy.”
“Remember, no begging allowed, and no whining,” Cole interjected. He knew Sophie could escalate quickly, and he wanted to nip it in the bud. “You’ve made your point. Let me think it over.”
Sophie settled back in her seat, obviously trying to control herself. “Just one more thing, okay?”
“Okay . . .”
“The chicks are on sale at the feed store, so we wouldn’t have to go anywhere far to get them, and they could be my birthday present, and I would take care of them and help you build their pen.”
“That was several more things, not just one. But you’ve presented your case well, and now I’ll think about it while we go have a snack.”
“Okay, but we’ve got to decide soon, because they’re on sale now, and we might miss out if we wait too long.”
“Enough,” Cole said, ending the discussion. “Now, tell me what else happened today?”
Sophie’s face fell as she told him about how her teacher had broken the news about Candace’s death at school. “Robby Banks came to school today, but he started crying and had to go home.”
Cole slid Sophie a sideways glance as he drove slowly down the lane toward home. “Maybe that was better for him anyway. To be home.”
“Yeah, but Robby likes school. He’s real smart too.”
“Maybe that’s why he decided to come to school this morning. You know, because he likes it there. Then it got to be too much for him.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She leaned back against her backpack, a frown on her face as she considered it.
Cole was sorry to see her mood had shifted. He decided to go get the chicks as soon as she’d had her snack. He would let her pick out three, just in case one didn’t make it, and he would set them up at the clinic until the chicks grew large enough to be transferred outside. But he’d tell her later, after she’d eaten a snack and cheered up. He didn’t want to reinforce her melancholy by giving in now.
*
The chicks peeped and cheeped while Moses Rand
all, the feed store owner, rang up the sale of three of them, a sack of chicken feed, a heat lamp, and a water dispenser, the supplies costing quite a bit more than the chickens.
“So this is your birthday present, huh?” he said to Sophie, raising his silver eyebrows. An elderly man, Moses had kept the feed store going for over a decade and catered primarily to ranchers and farmers.
“Yes, I’m going to be nine,” Sophie said, looking up at him and hopping on one foot in her excitement.
“Well, I’ll throw in the cardboard box for free then.”
Big of him, Cole thought as he paid the bill. But the price to pay for Sophie’s joy over these chickens was more than worth it.
A kid with a scruffy beard helped carry out their purchases while Sophie twirled and danced on the way to the truck.
“Careful now, Sophie. Don’t run into anything,” Cole said as he followed her. He opened the truck door and shoved up the seat so the kid could deposit the cardboard box containing the chicks in the back. Cole thanked him while he helped Sophie get in.
“I’ll sit in the back with the chicks,” Sophie said.
“You take care of those little birds now, you hear,” the kid said to Sophie with a teasing smile.
Sophie grinned back at him, her freckled cheeks bunched. “I will.”
The kid waved as he turned to go back inside the store.
“Don’t forget your seat belt,” Cole said as he turned on the engine.
“Be careful, Daddy. The chicks aren’t buckled in. Drive slow.”
Cole did as he was told, driving one mile out of town to their lane and then going past the house to the clinic. His cell phone rang as he pulled up in front of the building. He took it from his pocket and answered: “Timber Creek Veterinary Clinic.”
“Hey, doc. This is Gus Tilley.”
This was the fourth time Gus had called him since bringing Lucy in this morning. “What can I do for you, Gus?”
“Something happened to Lucy’s eye. Can you take a look at it?”
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure. Looks like she got hit. Or something.”
Unbidden, Cole’s mind conjured a memory of a horse he’d seen when he was in vet school. The horse had been hit in the face, and the blow had popped its eye out. Although the owner swore the horse must have hit its head against something, the faculty vet had shared with the students his suspicion that the owner might have actually hit the horse with a rope or a whip himself, although it couldn’t be proven. The sight of the injury to the poor horse had been unforgettable, but in all his years of practice, Cole had never found cause for an eye injury to be anything other than accidental.
“How bad is it?” Cole asked.
“It’s swollen. Tears coming out of it. She keeps it shut.”
It was almost four o’clock, and Cole still had a couple hours of patients scheduled. Besides, if true to form, Gus was probably calling from a phone at the edge of town. “Can you bring her in?”
“Yeah. I can get there in about forty minutes.”
“I have other clients scheduled, but come on down. I’ll work you in.”
After disconnecting the call, Cole realized that Gus must have straightened out the phone situation at his house. Earlier, he’d expressed concerns about pretty much everything, from wanting to know if he should still be treating Dodger’s ear to wondering how a person could impregnate a horse. Cole had found himself delivering a talk on Artificial Insemination 101 between seeing other clients. It seemed odd that Gus was still fixated on Lucy being pregnant, despite the fact that she wasn’t.
He helped Sophie carry in chicks and supplies, and they set up the cheeping babies in the kennel room.
“I’m going to name this one Chicken Little,” Sophie said, cradling the smallest chick in her hands. Although Cole had warned her that the smallest chick in the group might not be the healthiest, she’d insisted they get it anyway.
“Hi, hi,” Tess called from the front of the clinic. She’d come back to help with the late afternoon schedule.
“We’re back here,” Sophie called to her. “Come see.”
Cole left the two of them to marvel over the chickens while he prepared for his first client. His appointments went smoothly, and within a half hour, Tess told him that Gus Tilley had arrived. He finished up with the dog he had on the exam table and went to the equine treatment area, noticing that Sophie was still in the kennel room with the chicks as he went through. He experienced a feeling of déjà vu as he rolled back the double door and revealed Gus and Lucy waiting on the other side, like they had been this morning.
But this time Lucy didn’t look so good. Her left eye was swollen shut, the hair and skin under it wet with tears.
“Bring her on in, Gus.”
They secured Lucy inside the stocks, and Cole snugged her lead rope down tight to the front, so she couldn’t move her head freely. He examined the external part of the eyelid, noticing an abrasion above the top of it.
“There’s an abrasion here,” he told Gus, showing him the spot.
“I saw that too.”
“She probably bumped her head against a post or something. I’ll get some things and take a peek under the eyelid.” Cole went into the clinic to retrieve an ophthalmoscope, a bottle of fluorescein dye, suture, and a surgical pack. As he went by the pass-through, he called to Tess. “I might need your help.”
She was finishing up with his last client. “I’ll be right there.”
“Daddy, come look at my chicks,” Sophie said as he traveled through the kennel room with his hands full.
“Can’t now, Sophie-bug. Later.”
She hopped up, hurrying to open the door for him. She followed him into the equine treatment area, moving slowly and quietly as she’d been taught. Cole was impressed, knowing what kind of energy the child needed to harness.
“You know Mr. Tilley, Sophie,” Cole said, more as a reintroduction for Gus than Sophie. He felt certain that Sophie hadn’t forgotten the man’s name since meeting him last night. He placed his supplies on the stainless-steel exam table beside the stocks.
Gus tugged his cap and gave Sophie a shy glance.
“Come see my new baby chicks, Mr. Tilley,” she said.
Immediate distress filled the man’s face, and Cole could tell that he’d been thrown a hardball by the invitation. “Gus is busy right now, Sophie. We’ve got to examine Lucy’s eye. You can stand over there and watch if you’re quiet,” he said, gesturing toward the front of the room in an area where she would be out of the way.
“I’ll go outside and play with my ball,” Sophie said, choosing that over standing still and being quiet. “If you want to, I can show you the chicks when you’re done, Mr. Tilley.”
“She’s a nice kid,” Gus murmured after Sophie went outside.
“Thanks. I kinda like her. Do you have kids, Gus?”
“Me? Oh, no. Never been married.” Gus shuffled, kicking one boot against the other.
“Well,” Cole said, turning back to business and picking up the ophthalmoscope, “let’s see what we’ve got going on here.”
Gently, he pried the swollen lid open and shone the light into the eye, peering through the ophthalmoscope. Lucy tried to toss her head, telling him the eye was sensitive to light, but the pupil constricted normally. The eye’s sclera was reddened, looking like it had suffered a blow of some kind, but he couldn’t detect any foreign bodies. The conjunctiva was also red and irritated. While he was looking at the eye, Tess came quietly into the room.
“I’m going to use a fluorescein dye, so I can see if there’s any damage to the eyeball itself,” Cole explained to Gus as Tess handed him the bottle. With her help, he pried the eyelid open again and delivered the drops. After Tess handed him the ophthalmoscope, he examined the eye. This time, the fluorescent-green stain allowed him to see if there might be an injury to the cornea, as well as any small amount of debris that might be irritating the eye.
While Cole
was looking through the ophthalmoscope again and concentrating on what he was seeing there, Gus said, “What do you see, Doc?”
“There’s a small abrasion here on the cornea. It’s not too bad, but it’s going to need treatment several times a day if we’re going to get it to heal.”
“What do you think caused that?”
“It’s hard to say, but with the abrasion over her eye, I think she might have knocked her head against a fence or the side of her box stall.”
“She’s been in the corral today, like you said. It has a loafing shed at the end that she can go into.” Gus took a few steps back and placed his hand on Lucy’s neck, rubbing it fondly with a circular motion. “She’s used to that corral. I don’t think she’d bump into anything accidentally. Do you think someone could’ve gone in there and hurt her?”
What’s with these assumptions that someone is hurting his animals?
“Do you think that’s possible, Gus?” Now Cole studied the owner instead of the horse.
Gus hung his head, continuing to rub Lucy’s neck. “Maybe.”
“Do you have any idea who might have hurt her?”
He shifted his feet, looked distressed. “No. But somebody.”
Cole had a niggling thought. Could that somebody be Gus himself? Was he projecting his own actions onto others? “Did you accidentally hit her when you were working with her, Gus?”
The man’s head snapped up and he looked Cole in the eye. “Lord, no. I was inside the house, cleaning. When I came out to feed her, she was like this.”
Gus looked sincere enough, and Cole didn’t think he was lying. “Then maybe something spooked her. She swung her head and cracked it against a fence or a post. These things happen.” Cole turned back to the horse’s eye. “This should heal up without me having to sew it shut. You’ve caught it before it ulcerated. I’ll clean it and put some ointment in. You’ll have to put the medicine in twice a day.”
“I can take care of it, Doc. Just show me what to do.”
With Tess assisting, Cole used eyewash to flush the eye. Lucy squinted tightly, and Cole knew it was painful for her. He showed Gus how to apply the ointment. “She’s not going to like this, Gus, so you’ll probably need to tie her real snug in order to treat her. This eye is painful, and she’ll be sensitive to light. Can she stay inside the barn in a box stall?”
Hunting Hour Page 11