“You’re safe now,” Rowan told him. “You know your mother . . . was hurt, right?”
The tiniest of nods answered her.
“Whoever did it isn’t in the house anymore,” Evan told him. “I’m a police officer, and we’re here to protect you.”
Wyatt somehow made himself smaller.
Scared of the police?
Or . . .
“Wyatt, did you see who hurt your mother?” Evan asked.
Another infinitesimal nod.
“Who was it?” asked Evan. “No one will hurt you with us here.”
Wyatt’s gaze moved to Thor. The dog had lowered himself to his belly a few feet away and focused alert eyes on the boy in the nightstand, his ears cocked in Wyatt’s direction. Rowan sat beside the dog, stroking his back.
Evan had been about to ask Rowan to take Thor out of the room, but Wyatt’s terror seemed to abate a bit as he looked at the dog.
“Who hurt your mom?” Evan asked again.
“Will you put him in jail?” whispered Wyatt, still staring at Thor.
Evan had to bend forward to catch the almost-silent words. “Yes. I promise.”
Wyatt’s numb gaze turned to Evan. “Daddy did it. He pushed her to the floor and made her scream.” He put his hands over his ears and started to cry.
Evan closed his eyes.
I knew it.
3
Three days later
Standing in a dusty clearing in the middle of nowhere, Evan listened to the rattled young man who had found a dead body in the woods.
“It was his dog, dude,” Jason stated.
Evan nodded encouragingly at Jason as the man ran his hand through his hair for the tenth time, his arms shaking. The twentysomething’s gaze darted in every direction, and he nervously dug into the dirt with one hiking boot.
“I’ve never seen a dead body before,” Jason stated, watching the activity around the blue tent behind Evan. “And I still wouldn’t have seen one if it wasn’t for his dog.”
“Most people haven’t seen a dead body,” Evan told him. “It’s not like on TV.”
“Fuck no, it’s not. I would have camped here for another five days not knowing there was a dead guy less than a hundred yards away if his dog hadn’t come.”
Evan thought that Jason would have noticed during those five days. The daily temperatures had been in the nineties. Unless Jason’s nose didn’t work, he would have smelled something.
The campground where they stood wasn’t monitored by a state or federal agency. It was a deserted spot far off a little-used Forest Service road in the Cascade mountains where campers sometimes pitched their tents. Evan knew there was a makeshift shooting range in a canyon a mile away where people liked to practice.
Jason had called 911 after finding the body in the tent. The victim had two shots in the head and one in the heart. There was no ID with the body and no vehicle near the tent. The killer had picked up their shells before they left. Easy to find in the tent.
But we’ll have the bullets.
Forensics was accustomed to digging bullets out of the ground.
“What did his dog do?” Evan asked. By the time he’d arrived at the scene, animal control had already taken away the black Lab.
Jason frowned. “I know dogs are smart, but I’d never seen one do this. He came to my camp at breakfast and kept circling around, just out of reach. He didn’t look skinny, but I figured he was hungry, so I put out a couple slices of bread and poured water in a bowl. The Lab sniffed both and simply sat, staring at me. I picked up the bread and held it out to him, but he backed away. He wouldn’t leave and he wouldn’t eat. I finally noticed he’d walk away a few steps and look over his shoulder at me like he wanted me to follow. Full-on Lassie behavior, you know?
“I felt like an idiot, but I followed him, and he kept doing the same thing. Moving away and looking back. When he saw the tent, he ran and sat in front of the flap. It was unzipped about two feet. I announced myself and waited. Said something again and waited. The dog kept shifting closer to the tent flap and looking at me. I didn’t want to snoop. For all I knew someone in there had a gun . . . or someone would walk out of the woods and get pissed that I was in his stuff. But I finally looked.” Jason shook his head, looking pale under his numerous freckles. “Don’t ever want to see that again.”
“Did you touch anything?” asked Evan.
“Just the tent zipper. I didn’t touch the body.” Jason swallowed audibly. “Fucking holes in the face, man. And smelled like shit in there. I knew he was dead. That’s when I called 911.”