“Think back for a minute and see if you can ever remember him hanging out with a group of kids she might’ve been with.”
Angela paused, apparently following instruction. “Grace and I were usually together after school. I don’t ever remember him coming over to our crowd.”
Her answer didn’t fit with the picture Mattie had created, and she felt disappointed. Although it didn’t eliminate the possibility that Brody had met Grace, it would have been nice to confirm Tommy and John Brennaman’s observations.
“Thanks for talking, Angie,” she said. “I’ll say good-bye for now.”
She disconnected and put her cell phone in its slot on the dashboard. Maybe this last call confused the picture somewhat, but Brody was far from being in the clear. Where had he been on Friday morning? And what had he removed from the sheds before they were destroyed?
Mattie returned to the station to finish up paperwork and check out. She felt tired but planned to go home for some food and then set up a stakeout on Brody’s house. Stella was still out conducting interviews, and Sheriff McCoy was in his office with the door closed. Robo followed Mattie back to her desk in the staff office, circled a couple times on his dog bed, and then lay down to wait for her.
She was finishing up when Brody came in, apparently looking for her.
“There you are, Cobb.”
He walked over to her desk, sat casually with one hip on the edge, and crossed his arms. “Did you get any information out of the O’Malleys when you and Detective LoSasso talked to them?”
Mattie leaned back in her chair and studied him. What was his angle? “Some. Not much.”
He gave her a look. They seemed to be sizing each other up. “Well, what did you get?”
Mattie hesitated. Should she keep things safe and not mention anything she’d learned about his recent activities? Or should she stir things up a little and give him something to worry about, something that might even force him to make a move tonight while she was watching?
“We didn’t get to talk to the O’Malleys together,” she said. “I talked to Tommy yesterday, but he wasn’t home today, so we talked with Patrick alone.”
“And?”
“We were able to get an alibi for Patrick O’Malley for Friday morning, and I confirmed it with John Brennaman. Patrick was working at the school that morning.”
Brody nodded, looking thoughtful.
“Patrick denies knowing anything about either murder,” she said. “He also denies even hearing about our local drug traffic problem, which I find hard to believe.”
“That’s true. Everyone’s been talking about the new dog.”
“The strangest thing happened, though. Patrick seemed to try to point me toward you.”
Brody shifted, twisted slightly to face her directly, and raised one brow.
“He said you spent a lot of time with the kids around school, might have taken things out of one of the storage sheds out back.”
He lowered his brow with a perplexed expression and shook his head slightly. “Old car parts from the industrial arts shop? Hub caps?”
Mattie acted amused. “So that’s what you took from back there.”
“I remembered how we used to store things out there when I was in school.”
Mattie hung on to her smile, trying to keep it light. “What use do you have for that junk?”
“It’s not junk, Cobb. I work on old cars. They’re spare parts.”
It sounded believable, but she didn’t know enough about Brody’s hobbies to verify it. “So I hear from John Brennaman that you increased patrol around the school last spring.”
“You were at the academy. We thought I’d better get started sorting out some of the kids.”
“Sorting them out?”
“Yeah, you know, sorting out the bad seeds.”
Mattie nodded acknowledgment. “What did you find out?”
“Your Tommy O’Malley is one of ’em. I think it’s time we cracked down on him. He and his crowd can be a real nuisance at the park, but he’s also quick to avoid getting caught.”
“I’ve talked to him there a few times. He may be trying to clean up his act.”
Brody snorted. “I doubt that. He’s the kind of kid that needs more than just talking to. We’ll have to charge him with something sooner or later.”
Mattie hadn’t seen Brody this forthcoming in ages, especially not since they’d become competitors for Robo. She decided to try to get more out of him.
“You know, Tommy mentioned that Mike Chadron used to hang out at the park with his dogs. Did you ever see him there when you were driving by?”
“Yeah, Mike took his dogs there to train. I used to watch him. Helped him set up a track for one of the dogs he was training for American Kennel Club tracking certification.”
This news surprised her, but again she tried to keep the emotion out of her words, tried to keep a conversational tone. “I didn’t know that. I realized you must have known Mike, but I didn’t know you’d helped him with his dog training.”
“What do you think? That you’re the only one around here interested in dogs?”
Mattie raised her hands slightly, fingers spread. “No, Brody, I didn’t think that. That kind of training sounds interesting. So where did you and Mike work with the dogs? And what did you do?”
“At the park, up around the rocks and bushes on T-hill. I set up a scent trail, hid behind some brush, and then Mike had the dog track me and find me. He taught me some things about showing them, too. How to set them up to stand, trot them around the ring.”
Mattie was beginning to get a different picture about Brody. “Oh, yeah? I didn’t know that Mike taught his dogs tracking skills. I mean, I guess I knew that Bernese mountain dogs have been used in search and rescue, but I didn’t think about it with Mike. I wonder if Belle had that training.”
“I don’t know what dog he was training last summer, but it was a male. He seemed to know his stuff. Told me about scent memory, how a dog like that can catalog the scents of different people in his brain and remember it forever. Like a human has memory for faces. And that a dog doesn’t pay attention to what he sees as much as to what he smells.”
All that Brody was saying matched what Mattie knew on the subject, and she didn’t doubt that he must’ve learned it from Mike. Suddenly, she started to see the bits and pieces she’d picked up in a different light, and she wanted to get more from him. It may not have always been pleasant, but she’d worked with this guy for seven years and had always known him to be a competent cop. That counted for something.
Brody stood and stretched. “It’s time to check out and go home. I’ve put in some long hours lately.”
She saw her chance. “You have. You even worked Friday when you were supposed to be off.”
He yawned. “Yeah. Sheriff called me. Said he had a hunch about this one and didn’t want Johnson to cover it on his own. So I came in.”
“Where were you when he called?”
He gave her a smug look. “Getting kind of personal, huh, Cobb?”
Mattie smiled and shook her head. “Just wondering if you were close or if you were out of town and had to travel a ways.”
“Just having breakfast at home with my new lady. We had plans for a hike, but I went to work instead.”
“I’m glad you weren’t out of cell phone range. Sheriff McCoy’s hunch was a good one, I’d say. We needed you.” Mattie paused, thinking while Brody turned away. “Hey, Brody?”
He stopped at the door and looked back at her. “Yeah?”
“Did you ever talk to Grace Hartman when you were at the school?”