She decided to act as though nothing had changed. Work always served her well when she needed to escape the reality of her personal life. She straightened her spine as she approached the Jeep and didn’t waver when she looked him in the eye. “Welcome back, Sheriff. This is a heck of a thing to come home to.”
Her breath hung in the cold air before dissipating.
“It certainly is. I hear you and Robo have been hard at work.”
Business as usual felt like the way to go. “We’ll see if we can find some evidence as soon as the sun rises enough to help us out.”
McCoy nodded and glanced toward the fire as the cook called out a greeting. “Looks like they’ve got a pot of coffee going. Let’s warm up and see how the night went while we wait for daylight.”
Mattie could smell the coffee’s aroma as she approached. She warmed her hands around a tin cup filled with dark, bitter brew and listened to Frank Sullivan, one of the posse members, brief them on the happenings during the night. After the coroner, local physician Dr. McGinnis, had made it to the site to pronounce the death, the ambulance had arrived, parking down below as close to the scene as it could. Members of the posse had teamed up with the EMTs to carry the body down to the ambulance on a stretcher.
Though they’d stayed on the lookout all night, no one else had heard the cougar. Everything in the forest had gone quiet. “Too quiet,” Frank said, looking at Mattie. “It might still be out there. Hard to say.”
Mattie nodded and sipped her coffee. Robo stayed close, as if they needed to huddle after their experience in this spot last night.
“I think things are clear again this morning,” Frank said. “The birds are chirping.”
He was right. As the sunlight slanted through the evergreens, the birds were warming up to greet the day.
“How do you suggest we go about this?” McCoy asked Mattie.
Before she could answer, Frank interjected. “After the body was removed, we kept everyone out of the area, just like you told us.”
“That’s good.” Mattie gave him a nod of appreciation. “I’ll see if Robo picks up anything first. Then we can decide where to go from there.”
Brody looked up at the sky. “I think it’s light enough to get started.”
Mattie tossed the remainder of her coffee aside, glad for an excuse to get rid of it. Campfire brew had never been one of her favorites. She took Robo back to her SUV to prep him for an evidence search. She put on his blue nylon collar, snapped a leash on the dead ring, and gave him a few slurps of water.
Yellow tape marked off a circle about thirty feet in diameter around the crime scene. Mattie ducked under it, scanning the ground for where she’d found the victim. Bloodstains marked the exact spot.
Robo hovered at her heel, not as eager to get to work as usual. He’d once been injured in a cougar attack, and she wondered if that was the reason for his hesitation. She patted his sides, ruffled his fur, and began the chatter meant to rev up his prey drive. He raised up on his hind feet at her side, bouncing on his back paws a couple of times, his eyes pinned to hers as if to say her encouragement was working.
“Okay, buddy. Let’s go. Seek!”
Holding the leash in her left hand, she used her right to direct him to search a grid by sweeping it with his nose. It didn’t take long to clear the area around where Wilson’s body had lain, and at the uphill side, Robo scooted under the crime scene tape, making Mattie duck under to stay close behind him.
It took only a moment to figure out that Robo had decided to backtrack the victim’s trail, which she agreed was a good idea. Typically she would have unclipped his leash and let him range out in front, but there was no way she was going to allow him to stumble into a cougar’s ambush. She kept him on his short leash, the six-foot spread between them close enough to set her mind at ease.
Brody fell in behind as Robo led them upstream, staying outside the heavy vegetation along the creek bank. She could see occasional spots of blood in the grass as they went. A sharp-eyed tracker could have followed this trail, but she was glad her dog’s nose could lead her quickly up the hillside.
“Blood,” Brody murmured, evidently seeing the same thing she had.
The terrain underfoot grew steeper, and scuff marks on the rocky ground showed them where Nichol had fallen and then picked himself up to continue his struggle downhill to try to save himself. A knot formed in her stomach as she imagined his helplessness as blood from the exit wound in his back saturated his clothing and dripped on the rocks.
The trail moved closer to the creek, where the ground was soft and moist. Robo’s fur bristled on the back of his neck, making the fine hair on the back of hers rise and sending prickles down her back. He sniffed the ground and looked up at her as if to say, Are you getting a whiff of this?
She spotted several huge paw prints in the moist dirt, right beside footprints that Mattie assumed had been left by Wilson Nichol. If she hadn’t been spooked already, this would do it. “Robo, wait.”
Robo paused and Brody drew up beside her. “What did he find?”
“Paw prints.” Mattie pointed to the ground. “The cougar followed Nichol’s blood trail downhill.”
Brody stared at the ground, frowning. “Damn. That’s what it looks like.”
Mattie pulled a short spike with orange flagging tape tied to it from her belt and tagged the prints so they could examine them later. “Is that game warden coming up to help us this morning?”
Brody nodded. “She said she would. She might be down at the crime scene already.”
“We’ll need her to take a look at this area, too.” Mattie hugged Robo close to her leg and told him to search, the command she used for tracking a person.
He put his nose to the ground and continued to climb, winding through thorny bushes, willows, and evergreens that grew beside the creek. After about a hundred yards of rough sledding, he came to a halt and again looked over his shoulder at Mattie. Their eyes met.
“What did you find?” Mattie scanned the area, spotting a large splash of blood on a patch of flattened grass. As Brody drew up beside her, she pointed it out to him. “I think this might be where Nichol was shot.”
Brody knelt and surveyed the area. He gestured toward some very faint footprints. “Let’s flag these. I don’t know if they’re Nichol’s or if they belong to the person that shot him.”
Mattie placed a spike near the prints. Moving carefully to avoid disturbing any evidence, she studied the area, looking for the bullet that had penetrated Nichol’s chest. The thick vegetation along the creek bank would hide anything that small. “I’m going to ask Robo to do an evidence search here, even though it looks impossible.”
“Go ahead. I’ll contact the sheriff and see if the game warden is down there with him.” Brody moved away, leaving Mattie space to search.
She decided that if she kept Robo close, it was safe to unclip his leash. She told him to seek and watched as he sniffed the grass, his head parting the tall green stuff in waves. He clearly knew what he was doing as he entered a thicket of willows too dense for Mattie to follow. She cruised along the edge, keeping him in sight so that she could call him back if he started to leave the area.
About ten feet into the willows, Robo disappeared, and Mattie squatted to find him. His black shape materialized within the shadows, and his tawny markings gave him enough definition for her to realize that he’d sat and was looking back at her over his shoulder.