‘Right this way, officers. Part two of the evening tour. McCarty’s barn.’
The barn was small, eight stalls, well lit and clean, with a freshly swept asphalt breezeway. Sonora breathed in the tang of horse and fresh hay. Three of the stalls were occupied, and the horses nickered low in their throats when Sam and Sonora walked in. The doors were open on either side and the wind blew through, making her shiver.
She opened a door into a tack room. Curious bits of leather and rope dangled from hooks on the wall. Pitchforks and shovels were wedged in a corner. A dark green feed bin hugged the front wall. Sonora lifted the lid – both sides were full of a yellow mixture of oats, pellets and corn. She picked up a sticky handful and smelled it, tasted it with the tip of her tongue.
Sam looked over her shoulder. ‘Eat up, Sonora, I’m all out of Starbursts.’
She rolled her eyes at him, wandered back into the aisleway, and slid a stall door open slowly, peering around the edge.
‘Horse?’ Sam asked.
Sonora gave him a look over her left shoulder. ‘Quit following me around and search the other side.’
‘Why? What do you think is in the stall across from this one? A pig?’
Sonora moved across in front of him and slid the door open.
The horse, ankle deep in pinewood shavings, looked at them over his shoulder, then went back to munching from a rack of beige-gold hay. The stall was cozy, well bedded. Beads of water lined the lip of a bucket that had recently been filled with fresh water.
Sam opened the next door. ‘Another horse, Sonora.’
‘Stay with it, Sam. I’m going up in the hayloft.’
She headed up wood slats nailed to the wall outside the tack-room door. The ladder was made for longer-legged people than Sonora – she had to stretch to make each rung. She kept going, slowly, thinking maybe she didn’t like heights.
She pulled herself up and on to the wood flooring. It was dim in the hayloft, dusty, a layer of old hay over aged wood slats. A pitchfork rested against a splintered support beam, and strings of orange baling twine dangled from a nail. Hay bales were stacked to the edge of the loft, leaving an eight-inch ledge for walking.
Cozy.
Strips of dusky half-light filtered in through cracks in the wood. Sonora squinted. Looked for hay bales that were disturbed, coated with blood or bulging with body parts.
‘Shit,’ Sam said, below her. She heard him moving in and out of stalls. Then footsteps, in the aisleway.
Sonora grabbed hold of a support beam and looked over the edge of the loft. Majors and Hill, with McCarty between them. McCarty lifted a hand and waved.
Sonora looked at her uniforms. ‘What?’
‘Mickey said to tell you your kids have been calling. They’re out of emergency meals and want to know what to do about dinner.’
Sonora nodded. ‘Anything else?’
‘Bella is here.’
Chapter Seven
Sonora heard Bella before she saw her – 118 pounds of rustred bloodhound, sitting on the seat of a little beige Mazda pickup. The dog had her head straining over the top of a half-open window. Her ears reached just below the bottom of her jaw, her wrinkled face looked soft and touchable. Rivulets of saliva dripped from her jaw and slid down the glass of the window.
She was beautiful, Sonora thought.
‘Sonora?’ The driver’s door slammed and a woman walked around the back of the truck. She moved slowly, her gait off and clumsy.
‘Helen?’
Helen Murty was in uniform, sort of, looking a very uncomfortable seven months pregnant. She had curly black hair, collar length, brown eyes and a square jaw. Her face was memorable, if not pretty, her skin a smooth deep brown.
Sonora stared at the belly. ‘Oh my God.’
‘If you were a guy, they could prosecute you for that remark.’
‘It’s working with men that makes me act this way.’
Murty put a hand to the small of her back. ‘There’s always some way to blame it on ’em, right?’
‘What I meant to say was congratulations, and don’t you look fabulous.’ Sonora spoke with the two-faced relief of a woman who has been there, and never plans to go back. Then headed, gratefully, back to business. ‘I need your dog, Helen, but you’ll never keep up.’
‘I can handle it. Doctor says walking’s good for me, it’ll make my labor shorter.’
‘Yeah, they always say that. I’ve had two, so don’t give me that macho pregnant bullshit. You up on the details of this situation?’
Helen waved a hand, and the dog jumped, toenails scrabbling the head rest. ‘Be good, Bella.’ The dog sat back down, but her nose was out the window. ‘We’ve got a missing girl, fifteen years old, not a runaway. Crime scene is clear, she went off a horse, and if she’s not dead, she’s hurt bad. Anything else?’
She’s got two little sisters, Sonora thought, looking out over the farm. Dusk had thickened down to full dark.
‘Where’s the horse?’ Helen asked.
‘Disappeared, along with the girl.’
Helen’s mouth opened, closed. ‘Weird.’
‘She could be anywhere. Body stashed God knows where in the fields. Somebody may have stuffed her in a pickup and horse trailer and taken off, in which case—’
‘Bella can still find her.’ Helen had that smug look, like a woman who knows her dog.
‘They may have hit the interstate.’
‘Bella can still find her, even if she got stuffed in a car and driven for miles. We’ll check every exit. Bella will know. She’ll pick the scent up from the car’s exhaust system. You can’t fool this dog.’
‘What about the horse? Will that throw her off?’
‘Not unless she’s riding it, honey. Bella’s trained to scent human.’
‘Everybody’s straight man tonight,’ Sonora said. It was becoming a public service. ‘Helen, it’s awfully dark out.’
‘Sonora, how long you been a cop? I always get called when the sun goes down. Missing kids and felons rarely check my schedule.’
‘I mean you.’
‘Main problem is me falling on my ass.’
‘Anybody else handle the dog?’
‘You know better. Nobody can read her but me, Sonora. Quit worrying. Ernie will be going along for protection.’
‘And Ernie would be?’
‘Shepherd. Can’t remember the officer’s name who runs him, but I called, they should be here any minute. In case we run into the guy took this kid. Bella will track this girl, and Ernie will eat up anybody who gets in our way.’ Helen patted the dog’s head. ‘Your boyfriend’s coming, isn’t he, Bella?’ She looked at Sonora, hand resting on the mound of her belly. ‘It’s a fifteen-year-old kid, you know? My first is almost fifteen. And it’s getting cold out. We’ll go.’
‘Did you just have a contraction?’
‘Braxton Hicks, false labor. I’ve been getting them for weeks. Sonora?’
‘Yeah?’
‘This doesn’t work out, I have a friend who’s got a bloodhound that’s a good cadaver dog. Scent over water, anything. Just give it four or five days to cook.’
Chapter Eight
Sonora could not remember where she had heard the adage that the more wrinkles in a bloodhound’s soft face, the better a tracker the dog would be. Something about the folds of skin catching scent from the air.
She squatted down on her heels and watched the dog run in circles around Helen, who was buckling Bella into a leather harness. Bella’s tail was wagging and her head was up. She looked at Helen with adoration. Helen looked up at Sonora and grinned.
‘The harness means time to go to work. And this dog loves to work.’
Helen looked over her shoulder at a tall, slender man with a pockmarked face and a sour attitude. A German Shepherd sat at his feet with the air of being on coiled springs. ‘You ready, Ernie?’
‘Yeah,’ the officer said, face going soft when he looked at his dog. ‘Ernie’s ready. I am too.�
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‘I wasn’t worried about you, Officer Carl.’ Helen grinned and looked at Sonora. ‘You got that riding boot handy? We need to cast a scent.’
Sonora pointed to the boot, which sat, untouched, in the dust. Helen led the dog close.
‘Scent, Bella.’
Bella was all over the boot, sniffing, circling, then sniffing again. Ernie sat at attention, ears pricked forward, watching Bella with what Sonora could have sworn was envy.
Bella sniffed the pool of blood, went paws up on the fence to sniff the hair, blood clots and tissue. She circled between the bloodstain, the boot and the fence line.
‘Come on, girl, go get ’em. Let’s go, girl, come on, let’s get ’em.’ Helen glanced at Sonora. ‘Don’t worry. She’s in a big pool of scent right now. She’ll find her way clear.’
The dog veered right suddenly, toward the broken slats of fence. ‘She’s got it!’ Helen shouted, voice wavering as she moved out at breakneck speed with the dog. ‘Come on, Carl, get Ernie in gear.’
There was clearly nothing the Shepherd wanted more than to go after Bella and Helen. Officer Carl gave the command and he and his dog headed off in the dark.
Sonora watched them go, feeling left out.
Chapter Nine
Sonora leaned back in the Taurus, closed her eyes.
‘I found a box of macaroni and cheese,’ her son said, over the cellphone. It was a good connection. His disgust came through loud and clear. ‘When are you going to the grocery store?’
‘Soon,’ Sonora said.
‘You always say that.’
‘Maybe you should go.’
‘I have homework.’
‘Oh, are you actually going to do it tonight?’
‘Mom. Don’t yell at me.’
‘There are Oreo cookies stashed under my bed.’
‘Not any more. Look, I’m expecting a call. We’ll eat the macaroni and cheese. I got to go. Oh. Heather has to stay after school tomorrow. ’Bye.’
He hung up and she saw Sam, heading toward the trailer. Sonora slammed the Taurus door and ran after him.
‘Sam!’
He stopped and waited. ‘Kids okay?’
‘Scrounging up a box of macaroni and cheese for dinner.’
‘Mother of the year.’
‘Shut up. I have actual guilt here and you’re not helping.’
She took a breath. The moon was coming up orange, an autumn moon, a harvest moon. Sonora turned her flashlight off, looked up at the sky. You could see a lot of stars, without the competition of neon lights and city jazz.
‘You look cold.’ Sam pulled her jacket up close around her neck. Buttoned the top button. ‘I left Donna Delaney on the phone with Crick. He put out an APB on a teal-green Dually pickup with or without a horse trailer in tow. He’s got a description of Joelle, but he wants something a little more specific than “brown” for the horse.’
Sonora folded her arms and took a deep breath, sucking in cold air. ‘McCarty’s thing about the Coggins test sounded good.’
‘Yeah, I filled Crick in. He didn’t have the slightest idea what I was talking about. Sonora, come on, let’s wait in Delaney’s office. At least it’s warm in there.’
‘Let’s hit Chauncey’s trailer, take a look in Joelle’s room.’ She switched the flashlight on, aiming the pool of yellow light at Sam’s feet. ‘We can go through the paddock with the horses, or walk all the way around past the barn.’
‘I can climb the fence if you can.’
They headed across the field, feet noisy as they threaded through tall weeds.
‘What do you think of McCarty?’ Sam asked. ‘Keep the light still, Sonora, or give it here.’
‘He’s cute.’
‘I mean the blood on his shirt.’
‘He could be lying; he could be telling the truth.’
‘Can’t get nothing past you. Stop, Sonora.’
‘What?’
‘Fence.’
‘I knew that. Take the light while I go over. I wonder where the horses are.’
‘Close enough to touch.’
They were. Standing quietly, dark shapes over the fence, in bunches of two or three. Sonora heard a soft snort.
She started up the fence, careful of her pants. Her legs were short, so she had to go all the way up to the next-highest slat before she could swing her feet over. She teetered sideways.
‘Need help?’ Sam steadied her arm. The flash arced sideways, catching two of the horses, standing near by. They shied, feet pounding.
‘Great, Sam, now you’ve spooked the horses.’
‘It would have spooked them worse when you fell over the fence and landed on their necks. At least this way nobody gets hurt.’
Sonora climbed down the other side of the fence. ‘Hard as hell to catch a horse at night, wouldn’t you think? Especially if you wanted just one in particular?’
Sam handed her the flashlight. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘Just that if someone wanted a fifteen-year-old girl, it would be easier to take her without the horse. Maybe they wanted the horse.’
Sam’s feet hit the ground and he grabbed the flashlight. ‘So they come in the afternoon, when the place is usually dead.’
‘On a Tuesday, when nobody is supposed to be riding.’
‘And Joelle Chauncey just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘Horse in jeopardy becomes kid in jeopardy.’
‘It’s a theory.’
Even in the dark, Sonora could tell that Dixon Chauncey had made the most of what he had. The cinder block steps leading to the worn aluminum doorway had been whitewashed and recently swept. Six feet of weed and scrub around the trailer were starting to encroach, but a Weed Eater, propped next to the front step, indicated good intentions. Four bicycles and a scooter were stacked in a neat row to one side. Three of the bikes were rusty and old, one was brand new – silver and blue with pink plastic streamers hanging from the white rubber grips.
Somebody had a birthday, Sonora thought.
The bottom section of screen in the storm door was bowed out, as if a small child or dog habitually pressed against the ancient mesh. A hole in the center had recently been patched, the new square of metal dark and stiff.
Sam knocked so quietly Sonora did not think they would be heard.
Renquist must have been watching for them. He opened the door immediately – thin wood with little arrow-shaped windows that filtered small amounts of light. Sonora found them depressing.
Renquist had that up-all-night look. Shirt slightly loose in the waistband, top collar unbuttoned, clothes wrinkled with the wear of a very long day. His face looked more heavily lined than it had earlier, and his eyes were dark-circled.
‘There’s coffee,’ he said, as they walked in the door.
The inside of the trailer had the hushed air of people sleeping. Sonora and Sam walked quietly. The floor creaked under their feet. The trailer had that mobile-home feel of fragility and impermanence. It would be cozy enough, except during tornadoes.
The carpet was new, the color of mushrooms, and far superior to what Sonora had in her house. The living-room furniture was masculine and new – a brown leather sofa, matching recliner, and a rocking chair that had a tasseled green cushion in the seat. The television was state-of-the-art home theater, with a sound system that included separate speakers, a long slim presence by the screen. A bookshelf, oak pressboard, had a three-year collection of Reader’s Digest. The top shelf was devoted entirely to Bryer horses.
The coffee smell was strong – the pot had likely been sitting on the burner for hours. There was a background presence of popcorn.
Chauncey came at them from the kitchen, limping a little, like his left hip was stiff and he’d gotten up too fast. He looked like he’d been crying – Renquist had had his hands full. The kitchen was tiny and very neat, and there were cards on the maple-wood table – Chauncey and Renquist were playing double solitaire.
Chauncey was pulling out kitchen chairs as if they were visiting royalty.
‘Mr Chauncey, we haven’t found your daughter yet, but—’
The sound of a helicopter made them all look up. Sam gave Sonora a look and she nodded.
She pointed to the ceiling. ‘That’s ours. The pilot has NVGs—’
‘Night vision goggles?’ Chauncey asked.
Sam nodded. ‘I know this guy. He’s good.’
Chauncey’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are these starlight goggles? The AN-PVS 7s? Like they used in Desert Storm?’
Sonora caught Sam’s quick look. Not a good idea to underestimate this guy. She didn’t know if the pilot was using the starlight goggles or the heat-tracking thermals, but since the latter implied a search for a cadaver, she decided it would be good to move on. No sense discussing heat sources and decomposing bodies.
‘We’ve also got a bloodhound on her trail.’
Chauncey met her gaze full on. This man clearly put more stock in dogs than helicopters. She had not realized how bright a blue his eyes were. There was an odd quality about them she could not quite describe – but it was a look she associated with religious paintings and stained-glass windows. She had never seen such a thing in person.
She looked away, unable to hold his gaze.
Chapter Ten
Chauncey stood in the hallway and waved a hand. ‘Right here.’
Sam stepped ahead of him and opened the first door. ‘Oops. Think I’ve got the wrong one.’
‘That’s Mary Claire and Kippie. Joelle’s room is here, right next door.’
Sonora stood on tiptoe and looked over Sam’s shoulder. Two little girls sat on the bottom bunk of a white metal bunkbed. Sonora recognized the little one as the girl who had been standing on the front porch of the trailer in red sweatshirt and shorts. She had the warm, pink, well-scrubbed look of a child fresh from the tub. Her hair was golden and damp, and her tiny nose was running. She wiped it on the sleeve of the worn yellow plaid flannel men’s shirt she wore as a nightgown. She was sitting cross-legged, back slumped, hugging a stuffed Winnie the Pooh.
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