He shook his head and focused on his task. At least it was something he could control. After patting her arm dry, he applied antibiotic ointment and some sterile gauze and wrapped her arm with several layers of paper towels. “Hold this while I get some ice. Did you take anything for pain yet?”
“No.”
“I’ve got some Tylenol in my desk drawer. I’ll get that, too.”
After she took the pain reliever, he placed an ice pack over the bruised area and wrapped an elastic bandage over the whole thing to hold it. He hoped she felt better. “There. Now we’ll look at Robo. Since he’s been watching like he doesn’t trust me one bit, I wonder if you’d be able to take that bandage off him so I can take a look.”
“Sure.”
Cole noticed that she could use her hand and move her arm, so he doubted it had a complete fracture. But it might have a greenstick fracture or a deep bone bruise, neither of which should be overlooked. She needed to take care of it. He hoped she’d take it seriously and not let her tough-girl attitude get in the way.
Once Robo’s bandage came off, he could see a one-inch laceration with glistening white fascia underneath. The wound still seeped, but for the most part, Mattie’s compression bandage had staunched the blood flow. He checked pupil dilation and was satisfied to see that Robo’s pupils were equally responsive.
“Now, hold his head as still as you can while I check his visual tracking,” he told Mattie. Using a dog treat, he watched Robo track it back and forth with no obvious problems. “Can I give this to him now?”
“Sure.”
Robo took the treat from him with no suspicion or sulking. He was evidently more comfortable with Cole working on him than on Mattie. Protective of his owner—not unusual, but something to be aware of with a large, aggressive dog like this one.
“I can suture that laceration with some stainless steel surgical staples, and it will only take a few minutes. But first I need to block it with a local and clean it up. We need to muzzle him before I do all that.”
“Sure,” she said. “But let me put it on him, okay?”
“My thought exactly.”
Mattie slipped on the red nylon muzzle with no hesitation or problem, and Cole could tell that she’d done it before. Robo didn’t struggle, but his eyebrows puckered with worry. Cole watched Mattie soothe him with soft murmurs and stroking.
He drew a local numbing agent into a syringe and showed Mattie how to hold Robo still. “The first one feels like a hornet sting, but it works instantly, and he won’t really feel the rest. I don’t want to use any general anesthesia on him after that head injury, and we shouldn’t need it anyway.”
Robo flinched, but Mattie continued to reassure him. After Cole finished blocking the scalp area, she said, “We have to go back to work if you think it’s safe for Robo.”
Cole was surprised. “He’s fit enough, but are you?”
“I won’t have to do much. They’re getting a search warrant for Brennaman’s house. We want to search it tonight.”
He began gently cleaning the scalp wound. “I’m blown away! I have all kinds of questions, but I hesitate to ask them. Maybe you could just tell me what you can.”
“I started to suspect Brennaman when I remembered how Robo bristled when he first met him. Then I remembered how Belle carried on when he was here in your yard. We all thought she was greeting Mr. Hartman, but when I remembered it, I realized that wasn’t exactly a friendly bark. I put that together with what we learned about scent memory in K-9 Academy. Robo would have picked up his scent at the crime scene. He knew who put Grace in that grave.”
Cole shuddered but continued to work on Robo. “Good God. Belle was the only thing that kept him from my kids.”
“A dog’s the best deterrent to an intruder.” She paused, apparently sorting through what she could say next. “Before we could do anything else, I got a call on a domestic disturbance and a child kidnapping that led me to the Powderhorn mine. When I got there, John Brennaman’s vehicle was parked out front. I knew I had two kids in that mine with a suspected killer, so I had to go in.”
That shocked him. “No, you didn’t. You could have waited for them to come out.”
“I was certain that he’d killed Grace. I couldn’t stand by and wait for him to kill those kids and come out alone.”
“He could have killed you and Robo.”
Mattie shrugged. “It’s our job. To protect and serve.”
Cole wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He’d come to respect and care about this woman during the stress-filled past few days, but he’d never stopped to think about how dangerous her job was. He remained silent while he assessed Robo’s laceration, decided the margins were clean, and picked up the stapler. He clipped a neat row of staples along the wound and finished up quickly with a sterile gauze patch that he wrapped into place with an elastic bandage. Though the dog’s brow remained puckered, he tolerated the procedure without flinching. He knew that Robo hadn’t felt a thing.
He noticed that Mattie’s face was filled with tension. “He’s going to be fine. Scalp wounds heal fast since there’s such a good blood supply. Let me know if he starts scratching at it or rubs the bandage off. We should take it off in a couple days anyway to check it. You could do that or you can bring him back in for me to take a look, whichever you’re most comfortable with.”
“I’m okay with taking the bandage off, but I’d rather you look at the wound to make sure it’s healing right.”
“Sounds like a plan. I want Robo to have a less stressful experience with me anyway. I really don’t want him to take a disliking to me like he did Brennaman.” He smiled at Mattie as he spoke.
She gave him a tired smile in return that made Cole glad to be able to lighten her seriousness. “I believe that was related to character judgment,” she said, “and Brennaman brought that on himself.”
Cole shook his head. “I still can hardly believe it. Wait ’til this gets out. Timber Creek won’t stop talking about this for years.”
Mattie’s cell phone rang, and she answered it. After a brief exchange, she said, “We’re ready to roll. I’ll be right there.” She looked at Cole. “So it’s safe to take Robo back to work?”
Robo’s tail thumped, causing Cole to glance his way. It was almost comical, the big black dog wearing a red muzzle and white bandage, wagging his tail eagerly when his handler mentioned work. No doubt about what made this dog happy.
“Yes, he can go back to work,” he said, slipping off the muzzle. “How do you feel?”
“A lot better. This ice really helped.”
“Leave it on. Keep the pack. You might need it again in your line of work.” He helped her lift Robo off the table and opened the door for them to go while Mattie slipped off the muzzle.
“Thanks. I’ll call tomorrow and make an appointment for you to see him the next day.”
“Sounds good.”
The shock from learning that Brennaman was a murderer had subsided, and Cole realized how he hadn’t expressed his gratitude that Grace’s killer would be brought to justice. He reached for Mattie’s left hand and took it with both of his. She looked up at him, surprise evident.
“I haven’t told you how much I appreciate you finding Grace’s killer,” he said. “I’m not sure that words can adequately say how that makes me feel. It’s a real jumble right now. Nothing will bring Grace back to us, but at least her killer won’t get away unpunished.”
With that determination in her eyes that he’d become familiar with, she nodded. “And if we can get evidence from his house that will pin it on him in court, he’ll pay big time—a child killer in prison doesn’t usually fare too well.”