Again, Mattie made a mental note to track down these two “old guys.” They had become more and more important as persons of interest, perhaps even suspects.
The tension she felt between father and son made Mattie wonder if their home had been an uncomfortable place for Luke. She’d sensed a degree of tension between Hannah and her father, but it was more palpable here in the Grayson home. Perhaps some of the teenagers were growing dissatisfied with this way of living. Maybe Luke hadn’t been the only one. She wondered how she could gain that information. “Did Luke discuss his decision to go back home with you, Abel?”
“He didn’t really discuss it,” Abel said, looking down at the floor, “but I knew he was considering it.”
“And did he tell you when he made his decision to leave?” Mattie asked.
Abel looked at his father. “Not in so many words.”
“You shared a room with him,” Mattie said, “and he didn’t tell you he was going to leave while he was packing his things?”
Abel continued to stare at his father. “He did not. I wasn’t here.”
“Where were you?”
“Luke left suddenly. I was out in the barn when he packed his things.”
This was news to her. Somehow she’d gotten the impression that everyone had known Luke wanted to leave and that they’d supported him as he made his decision. She’d had visions of them fondly wishing him luck in his future. This sounded more like a sudden rift and then Luke was out. “Was there a farewell party? Did he say good-bye to everyone?”
Ephraim answered the question. “Luke’s departure was not a happy occasion. There was no party, and only a few people said good-bye. Solomon took him to the bus stop.”
Mattie thought Luke’s sudden departure odd if they were indeed one big family as several of them claimed. She sent a pointed look Stella’s way. “Any more questions, Detective?”
“Do any of you know a man named Tracy Lee Brown?” Stella asked.
“Never heard that name,” Ephraim said, while the others shook their heads. “Why do you ask?”
“Mr. Brown was killed yesterday near the place we found Luke’s body. Were all the members of your community here yesterday afternoon, Mr. Grayson?”
Ephraim’s gaze turned inward as if he was thinking. “All of us were present and working at our various tasks all day yesterday. We rarely leave our property except to go into town or over to Hightower for supplies.”
“All right, that’s all the questions I have for now.” Stella gave them her card along with the usual instructions to call if they remembered or discovered anything more. Then she said to Ephraim, “We’d like to speak with everyone who lives here, if we could. Could that be arranged?”
“I’ll see to it,” he said, and he rose from his chair to leave. “Abel, would you come with me to help?”
Mattie thanked Abel before he left and pressed her business card into his hand, asking him to call anytime. Maybe he didn’t know more about Luke, but if he had other concerns about his way of life that should involve law enforcement, she wanted to know.
Mattie was about to leave when Stella moved across the room to look at a framed photo on the wall. Mattie turned to see a family photo exactly like the one in the Vaughn home except that the subjects in the image were members of the Grayson family. Naomi and Rachel were standing beside Ephraim with seven children clustered at their feet. “You have a lovely family here, Mrs. Grayson,” Stella said to Rachel.
Rachel flushed, and she and Naomi exchanged glances. “Thank you.”
“Seven children … that’s quite a handful,” Stella said with a soft smile.
“Not for the two of us,” Rachel said, lifting her chin as she straightened.
She’s bracing herself for us to ask about polygamy, Mattie thought.
“Abel looks like you, Naomi,” Stella said. “He seems to be a fine young man. Growing up and getting independent, I would say. How old is he?”
“Nineteen,” Naomi said, her face lowered in a demure way. “Yes, he’s deciding which way he will go when it’s time for him to have his own home.”
“Which way he’ll go?”
Naomi seemed to shrink away as if she’d said more than she’d intended, and Rachel placed an arm around her shoulders.
“When our children leave our homes,” Rachel said, “they can decide if they’ll follow our religious pathway or not. It’s their choice and sometimes a difficult conclusion for us parents.” Rachel started walking them toward the door, sending the message that the interview was over.
When Mattie followed Stella out of the trailer home, the group had assembled in the yard, standing in clusters that appeared to be family units: five men with two to three women aligned at their side and anywhere from seven to ten children gathered near.
While Stella spoke, Mattie scanned their faces, looking for expressions of hostility, fear, or furtiveness, something that might indicate hidden secrets. But for the most part, the men looked stern while the women wore their sorrow openly. Most of the children were younger than teenagers, and the men all looked younger than Ephraim.
She spotted Isaac in the crowd, standing beside three women who looked to be in their twenties, two holding infants and all three with a cluster of toddlers and youngsters clinging to their skirts. The women appeared to be of legal age for consent and the children well fed and clean. Unless they discovered something different that was of concern, there was no apparent need for Child Protective Services. Their current focus was Luke’s homicide investigation, but this would be a community that warranted future observation.
Stella wrapped up her spiel by requesting help with their investigation and passing out what remaining business cards she had in her pocket. As the gathering broke up, Hannah caught Mattie’s eye. She was alone, evidently having left Sassy in the house, and she parted from her family to drift toward Mattie while she and Stella made their way to her unit.
Mattie slowed her pace and let Hannah catch up. “Do you want to see Robo?” she asked the girl, hoping to set up a diversion for them to be alone together for a few minutes.
“May I?” Hannah joined her as she headed for the back of the unit, where Robo was waiting with an eager doggy grin on his face.
Mattie opened the hatch. Grasping his collar, she turned to Hannah. “You can pet him, but you know not to put your face close to his, right? Dogs can take that as a threat.”
“Right,” Hannah said, offering her hand for Robo to sniff and getting a lick instead.
“Are you all right, Hannah?” Mattie murmured, still holding Robo inside the unit, where they had some shelter from the others. “I know Luke meant a lot to you.”
Tears filled Hannah’s eyes and spilled over her reddened lids. “We were going to get married. When I was old enough.”
“I’m sorry. He was quite a bit older than you, wasn’t he?”
“He said he would wait for my eighteenth birthday.”
“Did he say good-bye to you before he left?” Mattie asked, pursuing the strange aspect of Luke’s abrupt departure.
Hannah swiped tears from her cheek with the back of her hand. “The night before he left, he told me he was going and gave me a necklace to remember him by. I can’t let my parents know I have it. He said he’d see if I could live at his parents’ house until we could marry and he’d come back soon to get me. But Mother would never let me do that … never.”
Mattie needed desperately to know the answer to one question. “Are you in danger, Hannah?”
Surprise lit Hannah’s face before settling back into lines of sorrow. “No, but my heart is broken.”
Mattie was about to ask about the day Luke had left when the sound of footsteps on the gravel road made her look. Solomon approached the vehicle but stood back a few feet behind his daughter. “He’s a beauty, isn’t he, Hannah?”
Hannah glanced at him as she stroked Robo. “Yes, Father. He’s every bit as fine as Sassy.”
“We should let the
se officers get on with their duties,” Solomon said, placing his hand on the girl’s shoulder.
Still holding on to Robo, Mattie didn’t miss the fact that her dog stiffened and his ears pricked as he fixed his eyes on the man. She gripped Robo’s collar and rubbed his fur to soothe him, aware that if Solomon made a wrong move toward his daughter, Robo wouldn’t hesitate to spring. At one moment, Robo could be calm and loving, but if the need arose, he could in the next become as protective as a mama bear with her cubs. Mattie had to admit that she loved that about her dog.
But Solomon appeared to be aware of Robo’s protectiveness too, and he dropped his hand from Hannah’s shoulder and stepped back. “He’s a fine shepherd, Deputy Cobb. I imagine he makes a good patrol dog.”
“That he does, Mr. Vaughn.”
“Thank you for coming out to talk to us, Deputy. Hannah, we should let them leave.”
Hannah nodded and, taking her father’s hand, turned to walk away toward the trailers. Mattie splashed water from Robo’s supply into his bowl, closed up the back hatch, and joined Stella inside the Explorer.
“I figured she wanted to talk to you alone,” Stella said. “What did she say?”
Mattie summarized their brief conversation as she started the engine and headed out to the highway.
“Do you have any suspicions of abuse toward her or any of these kids?” Stella asked.
“Not really. Hannah and her father may be of different minds when it comes to their way of life, but she doesn’t seem afraid of him.”
“I wonder if Abel is getting ready to leave the Brothers.”
“That thought crossed my mind. I also wonder if the freedom of choice to stay or not applies to girls as well as boys.” Interviewing the various members of the Brothers of Salvation had taken some time, but they’d gained some valuable information. “Ignoring the fact that polygamy is illegal in Colorado doesn’t sit right with me, Stella. I wonder how jealousy plays out in a community like this. Could it have something to do with Luke’s death? Could Abel have been jealous of Luke’s relationship with Hannah? Or even one of the older men?”
Stella nodded. “I know, it’s something to keep in mind. And we might have to investigate that angle sometime soon, but for now we have other leads to follow that appear promising.”
“In addition to Quinn Randolph and Parker Tate, we need to identify and speak with these two older men who roughed Luke up outside the bar.”
“I think Randolph might know who they are. He seems to be the one outsider who got to know Luke.”
“I’m going to drop you off at the station and then go over to the Watering Hole to see if I can talk to Ned Dempsey. Sometimes he helps wait tables on Sundays during lunch. If he’s not there, I’ll talk to whoever’s working.”
“All right.” Stella’s cell phone pinged, and she took it out of her pocket to focus on the screen. She swiped and tapped before bouncing in her seat and turning toward Mattie. “Hot damn! CBI lab got a positive for xylazine on both Luke and Tracy Lee.”
Her excitement energized Mattie. “That’s great news. This points us toward Parker Tate and Quinn Randolph.”
Stella checked her watch. “Brody has them lined up at the station for us to interview in about forty-five minutes. Let’s hope they show up.”
“If they don’t, we’ll track them down.”
NINETEEN
Mattie stepped inside the dim interior of the Watering Hole and scanned the room, looking for bartender Ned Dempsey. The bar’s dark log walls absorbed what little light its small windows managed to let in. She didn’t come inside often, but she’d met Rainbow here for an occasional dinner of bar food. Neither of them drank much alcohol, but Rainbow had a penchant for the grill’s cheeseburgers whenever she fell off her vegetarian wagon.
And Ned had a penchant for Rainbow, although the dispatcher swore she didn’t return his affection. Her lack of interest didn’t seem to stop him from flirting with her, and Mattie suspected that on some level Rainbow must enjoy it, since Mattie had watched her shut down other potential suitors numerous times while she allowed Ned to carry on.
She spotted Ned behind the old-fashioned wooden bar, filling mugs with beer from the tap. He was a handsome guy with dark-brown hair, dark-amber eyes, a scruffy beard, and a million-dollar smile that he gave out generously. He sent her one when their eyes connected, and he greeted her as she approached.
“Hey, Mattie. This is a nice surprise.” He made a performance of ducking to the side and pretending to look behind her. “Where’s your partner in crime?”
She teased him back. “You talking about Robo?”
“Ha! You know I’m talking about the lovely Rainbow Sanderson.”
“I’m here alone today, Ned. Just wanted to see you.”
“It figures … you must miss me. You haven’t been in for a while.” He grabbed a full mug of beer in each hand. “Just a minute. Let me serve these, and I’ll be right back to take your order. Sit anywhere you want.”
Mattie hitched up onto a barstool and watched Ned deliver the beers to two cowboys at a table near one of the windows. Many of the other tables were filled, and the scent of fried bacon and potatoes drifted from the kitchen. The place opened at ten and served a breakfast hash that drew a crowd any day of the week.
Ned went behind the bar, grabbed a white cloth, and polished off some wet spots near the tap. “What can I get for you?”
Mattie ordered a Pepsi.
“Are you sure you can handle the hard stuff while you’re on duty?” Ned’s brown eyes twinkled. “You want something to eat?”
“No, I can’t stay long.”
“Then have some of these.” He plopped a tub of peanuts in front of her, giving her a look filled with curiosity. “Is this a social call or business? I’m guessing business, since Cole Walker seems to be taking up all your social time these days.”
Mattie smiled. “It’s always a pleasure to visit with you, Ned.”
“Charmer.” Ned pulled the handle on the soda fountain, filling the glass with liquid and bubbles that carried the sharp, sweet scent of cola. He fixed his gaze on Mattie, one dark eyebrow raised. “What do you want to know, my friend?”
Mattie took a sip, the fizz tickling her nose. “Do you know a young man named Luke Ferguson? Came in here occasionally for dinner, maybe drinks.”
Ned leaned against the bar. “Don’t recognize the name. What does he look like?”
Mattie gave a brief description of Luke, including the beard, the hat, and the rest of his clothing.
Before she finished, Ned was nodding his head. “I know who you’re talking about. Came in here a few times with Quinn Randolph. Haven’t seen him for a while.”
“So you know Quinn?”
Ned’s lips thinned into a downward-tilted crescent. “Yep.”
She had questions she’d like to ask about Randolph, but she decided to stick to Luke for the moment. “Did you hear anything about an encounter Luke Ferguson had with two older men, oh, say, about a month ago?”
Ned picked up his cloth and absently polished the bar top. “What kind of encounter?”
“Met him outside and roughed him up a bit.”
He frowned. “Hell no, Mattie. I didn’t hear anything about that. Is that why the kid quit coming in here?”
Although she didn’t need to withhold the fact that Luke had been killed, she didn’t want to share that tidbit yet, not until she’d discovered some possible leads. “I guess they didn’t hurt him too badly. I’m just trying to find out who the two guys are if I can.”
Ned’s gaze roamed the room while he rubbed the already shiny patina on the bar, and his eyes stopped suddenly as he stared toward the back by the kitchen. Mattie took a look and spied two old men seated at a table against the wall, both digging into plates of hash.
Ned’s gaze returned to Mattie, and their eyes met. “Do you know those two?” he said.
“No.”
“The Perry brothers, Keith and Kevin. T
wo cantankerous guys that stick pretty much to themselves. But they like the chow here, so they come in often.” Ned shrugged. “I hate to point any fingers, because I really don’t know anything solid, but I’ve heard those two grumbling about weirdos moving in on them. Evidently Luke’s people moved onto the property across the highway from theirs.”
This sounded promising. “Anyone else come to mind?”
“There are lots of old guys that come in here to drink, but none that I’ve overheard bad-mouthing Luke’s group.”
“And yet you know about this group of folks outside of town?”
Ned nodded slowly as his eyes drifted around the room again. “I hear a lot of talk in this place, and those folks attract attention with their old-fashioned dress. Most folks are just curious, you know. There hasn’t been much mean-mouthing directed their way.”
“So … you mentioned Quinn Randolph. What’s his interest in befriending Luke, can you tell?”
Ned shook his head and quirked one side of his mouth. “Hard to say, but I think Luke seemed more interested in befriending Quinn than the other way around. Quinn’s a big drinker. Luke tied one on one night and Quinn called one of Luke’s buddies to come take him home, a tall guy who looked older than Luke.”
“Did you get a name?”
“No.”
Isaac was the leader of the Brothers of Salvation. Perhaps Luke had asked for him to be called. “Wears an eye patch?”
Ned frowned. “No.”
Mattie thought of Ephraim next. “Dark hair with a lot of gray in his beard?”
“Nope … tall, thin, dark hair and beard.”
“Okay.” Mattie realized it was probably Solomon Vaughn. “Did Quinn get annoyed or angry with Luke when this happened?”
“Nah, he thought it was funny. Quinn likes to party, and he was egging the kid on.” Ned scanned the café patrons again and then picked up a pitcher of water in one hand and a coffeepot in the other. “Looks like I need to refill some drinks. I’ll be right back.”
Mattie swiveled on her barstool and watched the two Perry brothers for a few seconds. Both were graybeards, and even though they looked to be in their sixties, they appeared strong and heavily muscled, one taller than the other. They maintained a singular focus on their food, shoveling in bites as fast as they could chew and not talking to each other. She decided to catch them after they finished.
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