After a long moment, Jim finished his thought, shook off the feeling of helplessness and got back to work. He walked out a few paces then looked back and compared the scene to the photo in his hand, which was taken from where he stood.
No, something wasn’t right, he thought as he flipped through the pages of the report.
“Hello, Sheriff,” came a voice from behind him. Jim turned to see Deputy Rissley standing there. He’d been thinking too hard to notice her drive up.
“Hello, Joe. I’m glad you’re here. Right now I could use some help.”
“Sure thing, Sheriff. What do you want me to do?”
“First of all, stand over here and hold this.” Jim handed her the report and positioned her where Buck must’ve been standing when he was shot. “Read to me the last paragraph of the first page.” Jim stepped back between the two double doors of the barn and looked towards her.
Rissley pulled a penlight from her pocket and trained it on the report. “The victim’s shoulders were parallel to those of the assailant and to the front of the barn when he was shot at point blank range.”
“Hold it,” Jim stopped her. “Buck wasn’t shot from point blank range. Milhouse didn’t know that until he read the autopsy report in my office this afternoon, and I can see that Buck’s shoulder must’ve been parallel to those of the shooter, because of the direct path the bullets took through the body. But how does he come up with the idea that they were square with the front of the barn?” Jim examined the photos intently looking for the answer.
“What do you mean,” Rissley asked, curiously.
“Hold on here a second.” Jim walked over and adjusted her shoulder so that it was slightly closer to the barn. “Now straighten out your feet…good.” Jim then repositioned the picture of Buck on the ground behind her to reflect the slight change. He then pulled a pencil from his pocket and stuck it into the ground marking her feet.
“Now come here,” he said stepping off ten feet into the barn from where Rissley was standing and turned around. “Do you have a pencil?” Harper asked as his deputy approached. Rissley pulled one from her shirt pocket and handed it over. Jim stuck it into the ground marking his feet as Rissley stepped closer to him.
“Now look at these photos. Buck was obviously facing the shooter when he was killed, but look how he landed. He’s slightly angled to the right. Buck didn’t fall that way by accident. A bullet from a large caliber pistol would’ve pushed him in the same direction it was traveling.”
Rissley looked over Jim’s shoulder at the picture. “Yeah, you’re right, but not that much. I’d say Buck was turned about twenty-five degrees. What’s the big deal?”
“Well, it’s no big deal if he was shot at point blank range because you’re only talking a couple of inches. But if you’re trying to find out where the shooter stood, from a range of ten feet or farther, you’re talking at least a foot or more to the left.” Jim took a step to his left. “Yeah, right about like this. That completely changes where the bullets had to have landed.”
She adjusted her line of sight. “Not exactly, Sheriff. They still land in the lake. Looks like at least twenty yards from the right shoreline.”
“Only one of them did — look at this.” Jim turned and walked towards the feed bin for more photos with Rissley following him. As Jim fingered through the stack, Joe set the two bags on the bin next to him.
“What are those?”
“I figured you hadn’t taken the time to eat, so I stopped by the deli and got us some sandwiches.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “Thanks Joe. You’re right, I haven’t had anything all day. I’m starving!” Truth was his stomach burned from a mixture of stress and too much coffee. He could use a good meal.
Joe grabbed a bag and opened it up. “Well, you can have either beef and cheddar or turkey and Swiss.”
“Beef,” he said with a mouth-watering smile.
She handed it over and watched as he peeled back the wrapper and wolfed down half of it in three bites. She rolled her eyes as she opened a carton of skim milk for him. “Here, wash it down with this,” she said as she handed it over. He took it and started gulping it down.
Men, she thought. Watching Jim eat reminded her of sitting around the dinner table with her brothers. It was always one big pig fest. She had just barely opened her own milk when she noticed Jim had finished his sandwich and was now eyeing her turkey and Swiss.
It was only for a second. Just a fleeting moment of selfishness quickly considered then just as quickly squashed. She was nice enough to bring him dinner, he couldn’t ask for hers, too. Then he noticed that she had caught him looking, and a guilty blush went over his face.
“Oh, go ahead,” she finally said. It’s a good thing I brought some fruit along for later, she thought watching Jim first hesitate, then reach for the other sandwich.
“Thanks,” was all he was able to get out before stuffing it into his mouth.
At least he was slowing down and chewing a little, she thought. For a second, he reminded her of a shark in a feeding frenzy. She half expected his eyes to roll back in their sockets as he took a bite. Maybe she could at least get a word in edgewise while his mouth was full.
“Sheriff, I found something earlier that I thought might interest you.”
Jim looked up from his sandwich between bites. “What’s that?”
“I found footprints. It appears that two people watched this place from a spot on the hill above the corral. They then came down the hill and probably through the corral and into the barn.”
Jim stopped chewing and looked at her seriously. “I didn’t see anything like that in the report.”
“I know, that’s what I was trying to tell you at the station. I didn’t hear one word about them all day from anyone.”
“Well that explains a lot,” he said as he finished his sandwich and milk and put the trash in the bag. “Now, if we can put a few more puzzle pieces together we just might figure out what happened here.” Jim fumbled with some pictures. “Now where was I?”
“The angle of the body,” Joe reminded him.
“Oh, yeah, here it is. Look at this picture.” Jim handed it over. “These are the exit wounds made by each bullet. The one on the left traveled straight through and is probably in the drink, but the other one hit the back bone, ricocheting to the right.”
“Yeah, I see what you’re saying,” Rissley replied as she examined it closely.
“There’s a close up in here somewhere,” Jim said as he fumbled through the pile then pulled it out. “Ah, here it is.” He handed it to his deputy and they both examined it.
“It’s hard to tell from all the damage, but it looks like the bullet was deflected about twenty degrees.” Rissley confirmed.
“Add that to the twenty-five degree turn of the body, and you’re looking for the bullet in a completely different area.” Rissley followed Jim out of the barn to where the photo was laying in the dirt.
“Lets see now. Twenty-five degree turn for Buck,” Jim rotated his body as he spoke, then lifted his arm in the direction of the line of fire. “Now another twenty degrees for the deflection.” Jim slowly rotated his body. They both stared down Jim’s outstretched arm.
“The porch!” Rissley exclaimed.
““Has anyone searched it yet?” Harper asked.
“No, we concentrated on the dock and shoreline like you wanted.”
“Then lets get after it,” Jim said, encouragingly. They both turned and walked towards the porch.
Jim was more determined then ever. The food and the fact that puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place revitalized him. He was feeling more in control and started to get his confidence back.
Joe walked beside Harper, matching his stride and pace. Tom’s words back at the station had worried her, but no longer. She had watched Jim closely and listened to how he spoke. He was uninhibited and thinking clearly.
&n
bsp; Her sheriff was on the case and in charge, for which she felt both happy and relieved. Sure, Jim seemed to view the photos with a sort of impersonal distance and she hadn’t yet heard him refer to Buck as dead, but that was all right. It was an avoidance reaction. It was perfectly normal when the human mind is affected by a trauma such as this.
He would eventually have to get through it and get on to grieving and healing, but not right now. Avoidance would be fine until this case was solved, at which point, she hoped to have the opportunity to help him through it. But for now, she planned on helping and supporting her sheriff anyway necessary to solve this case. She considered telling him she knew he was the driver, but then thought better of it. If Jim wanted his little secret, he could have it. It didn’t matter anyway.
When they reached the porch the dim lights cast large shadows. “Why don’t you start down here, I’ll work on the porch,” Jim said.
Joe pulled her flashlight out and trained it on the front beam and railing next to the steps, then slowly started working her way towards the corner feeling with her hands as she went. Headlights approached from the road, and Townsend pulled up to the front of the house and got out.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Jim said to him. “Why don’t you help Rissley with the front of the porch?”
“What are we looking for?” he asked.
“A bullet,” Joe replied.
“But I thought…” Townsend started to say.
“I’ll explain later, just look,” Jim ordered. As he said this the beams from two flashlights came out of the darkness and Thomson and Conley walked into the porch light. “You two can pick a spot on the porch and start looking for anything that looks like a bullet hit it.”
Before either one could ask, Townsend and Rissley spoke up in unison. “He’ll explain later, just look.” The two men took up positions and did as they were told.
Jim reached the water clock. As he looked and felt around it he could here the water flowing through it and the gears turning inside. He examined it closely. The round sides were smooth and undamaged, and the front was clear of any marks. He then moved to the porch rail to examine it.
They all worked in silence as they slowly checked every nook and cranny. As each finished their search, they all reported the same result.
“Nothing,” Jim said, discouragingly. “Let’s check it again. I’ll go get the rest of the photos. Maybe there’s something we’ve missed.” As the deputies did what they were told, Jim headed towards the barn.
A few minutes later he returned with a jumbled up mess of papers and photos under his arm. Jim laid them out on the porch bench and began looking at them one by one.
Rissley saw the questioning look on his face as he examined them. “What’s wrong, Sheriff?”
“I was just thinking about the angle of the body again. I’m surprised Milhouse missed that. He’s usually quite thorough.”
“I’m not surprised,” Conley spoke up. “He followed that DEA agent around, like a puppy dog, this morning taking notes. I’d be surprised if he had time to do anything else.”
“No kidding! Milhouse was so far up that Feds butt, I couldn’t tell where Bradley ended and Milhouse started,” Townsend added.
That brought a hearty laugh from the two deputies. They quickly quieted down when they saw Jim wasn’t laughing. Jim and Rissley exchanged concerned looks.
“It looks like I’m going to have to have a talk with Milhouse. I thought that was one of the first things I taught you guys about a crime scene. Never let someone else tell you what you’re looking at. Examine the evidence at the scene and allow it to tell you what happened,” Harper said.
“I’m surprised that DEA agent missed it. I thought they were suppose to be experts at this sort of stuff,” Thomson commented.
“Maybe Agent Bradley isn’t as smart as you think. Anyone who comes up with a story like this can’t be playing with a full deck,” Jim replied as he continued to look at the photos, then stopped at one of them. It was a picture of the front of the barn. There was a small dark shape lying on the ground next to one of the support beams of the first stall. He couldn’t quite tell what it was.
“What do you make of this?” he asked as he stood and handed the picture to Rissley.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see anything there when I was in the barn,” came the reply.
“Why don’t the rest of you come here and look at it,” Jim suggested. Each deputy stopped their search and walked over to him.
“It’s too far away to tell what it is,” Thomson said, looking over Harper’s shoulder.
“Wait a minute,” Conley spoke up. “That’s the feed pail. It was laying there when I started searching the barn for drugs this morning.”
“Why isn’t it there now?” Harper asked.
“I saw Agent Bradley pick it up and put it in the feed bin,” Conley reported.
“Why didn’t you stop him? He’s not supposed to disturb anything at the crime scene,” Jim scolded.
“I’m sorry, Sheriff. I figured he knew what he was doing,” Conley replied.
“Come on. Show me where it was,” Jim ordered.
The two men walked off the porch and into the darkness towards the barn with Rissley right behind them. Jim followed Conley towards the doors.
“Watch out for the markers on the ground,” Jim instructed, following Conley around them and to the feed bin. Conley lifted the lid and pulled out the metal pale. He carried it to where he had seen it laying and placed it on the ground.
“There, it was like that.”
Jim stood back and looked at it. “What’s this?” he pointed to the scattering of grain on the ground.
Rissley bent over to look. “It looks like oats.”
Jim knelt down and examined it.
“Yeah, there were oats scattered around, but they must’ve been trampled down with all the foot traffic in and out of here.” Conley confirmed.
Jim stood back up and looked at the ground. “It looks like there’s a small path of oats originating from back here, in the center of the isle. The path angles forward, and to the left, towards this support. Then the oats just flew all over the place as if…wait a minute.” Jim hesitated, then picked up the pail and pointed to a sharp crease in its side. “Look, it’s been dented.”
“Yeah, almost as if it hit the support and bounced forward to where it was found,” Rissley agreed.
“Exactly. It must’ve been sitting on the ground here. Then someone, who’s facing the front doors and moving right to left, kicked the pail causing it to spill all over.”
“Maybe, but that person would’ve had to kick it pretty hard to put that big of a dent into it.” Rissley noted.
“Stand back. Let’s give it a try.” Jim moved to the center of the aisle and positioned the pail.
Conley and Rissley moved behind the feed bin as Jim stepped behind the pail and lined it up with the support. Jim stepped forward quickly and kicked it. He couldn’t help, but fall forward a few steps after doing so and regained his balance near the support. The pail did what he thought it would.
Clang!
It bounced off the support, rolled down the aisle way and came to rest close to where it showed in the picture.
“All right, so that solves the oats in the pail mystery, but how does that fit into this case?” Conley asked.
Jim shrugged. “It probably doesn’t, but at least we’ve eliminated one more question from the photos. Let’s get back to looking for that bullet.”
“All right,” replied Conley. They all took a step towards the door when Jim froze.
Joe saw the look on his face. It was the same one from the shooting range. She instantly looked around to see what she’d missed and it hit her a second later.
“Hold everything.” Jim looked at the pencils in the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Conley asked, curiously.
Jim stepped back to whe
re he was and Joe moved in behind him in order to see what he did and confirm her suspicion. “I’m in almost the exact line of fire as the shooter. This has to be where the killer fired from.”
Joe’s eyes widened with amazement. “Wow! That’s good shooting.”
Conley hurried over to look for himself, but was skeptical. “I don’t know, Sheriff. I saw the bullet wounds in Henderson’s chest. This is over forty feet away. That would’ve had to been quite a shot—not once, but twice. And the shooter was off balance from kicking the pail.”
Jim didn’t answer. His mind took him back to earlier that evening when Bradley fired his weapon on the target range. It could’ve been him after all, he thought to himself.
Rissley saw the strange look on Jim’s face, and could almost see the gears turning in his head, but hadn’t yet put it together. “What is it, Sheriff?” she asked intently.
“Come on.” Jim hurried out of the barn and to the house with his deputies close behind. Jim reached the bench on the porch and rummaged through the photos.
“Where’s the report?” he said loudly. He finally found it and quickly flipped through it looking for the time that Bradley arrived on the scene. There it was. Agent Bradley found Buck at 07:00. Jim’s heart sank. Buck had been shot at 06:00. I guess it wasn’t him after all, he thought.
Joe didn’t like not knowing what was going on and was starting to get impatient. “Sheriff! What are you looking for?” she pleaded.
All the deputies looked at him for an answer. Jim was about to tell then his suspicions but decided to keep it to himself for the time being. After all, he had no proof and it sounded far-fetched.
“Oh, I don’t know. I guess it’s nothing. Let’s get back to looking for that bullet.” Jim took the report and sat down next to the photos as the deputies, one by one, slowly went back to work.
Rissley was the last. She knew he wasn’t telling her the truth, but decided not to press him on it right now. She reluctantly turned and went back to work.
Jim rubbed his eyes as he paged through the report slowly. He was exhausted. How long had it been since I’ve slept? he thought as he looked at his watch. It was 1:00 AM, later than he had thought. He then looked at his deputies. He hadn’t realized until then how beat they looked. “Hold on everyone.”
The deputies stopped and looked at him. “There’s not much more we can do in the dark. I want you all to stay here tonight. Buck has plenty of room and there’s food in the pantry. I would let you go home, but I’m afraid the traffic might be rough tomorrow and I want to get an early start. Joe, set up a look out on the porch and at the road’s entrance, and set up a schedule for relief.
“Those sightseers will probably be coming around early. I want you all fresh and lively. As for me, I’ve got a motel clerk to talk to. If you need me, I’ll be at the station later.”
Tired acknowledgement was returned from the group. “Good, now hop to it,” Jim said, then collected his photos and walked off the porch to his Blazer.
Joe followed him to his vehicle. “I’ll go with you, Sheriff. I want to see how you handle Mr. Brunner.”
“No!” Jim insisted. He was tired and in no mood to have his methods witnessed or critiqued. “If you want to help me, Joe, I need you here. I need to be sure the search for that bullet progresses smoothly. First thing in the morning, I want as many people as possible here to search the porch and that stand of trees to the left of it.”
“All right,” she replied. She was disappointed, but knew he was right. “At least let me borrow both Milhouse’s and the autopsy reports. I haven’t read them yet and can’t help but feel like I’m missing something.” Then she changed her mind. “Better yet, why don’t you fax them to me.”
“Fax?” he said, dumbfounded.
“Yeah, I’ve got it all set up at the station,” she replied. “Put the reports through the scanner and they’ll pop up on the computer screen at my desk. Then, with the mouse, drag them to the icon labeled Joe’s e-mail. I’ll pull them up on my lap-top later.”
Jim chuckled. “Okay. I suppose not even I could screw that up.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Sheriff.” Then she remembered something. “Hold on, don’t go anywhere.” She hurried to her Blazer where she retrieved another brown paper bag.
“What’s this?” Harper asked.
“It’s a few apples and oranges. I thought you might like to keep them in your Blazer in case you get hungry again.”
Jim looked at her thoughtfully and smiled. “You’re a lifesaver. Thanks again.” He took the bag and got into his Blazer.
Joe watched the Blazer turn around and head up the road. She then turned her attention back to the porch. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly as her eyes moved from the porch to the large dark shadow of trees next to it.
That stand of trees is going to take every man we’ve got tomorrow, she thought. We’d better give the porch another going over before we turn in, but this time with more light. Joe got in her Blazer, pulled it around facing the porch, then turned on her headlights and floodlights. She then rounded up the other deputies and began methodically combing the front of the house.
After a few minutes, Conley commented as he worked his way along. “You know, I just don't get it.” He was confused. “Agent Bradley overlooked the angle of the body, the feed pail, and never once had us look for a bullet. How does a professional investigator miss all that?” He reached the water clock and could hear the water flowing inside it. He examined its smooth, clean surface then moved on.
“That's not all,” Joe added. “He missed the footprints coming down the hill behind the barn.”
Ding!
The water clock chimed as another number rotated into place.
Conley ignored it and looked at Rissley strangely. “No, he didn't. I found them first thing this morning.”
Joe stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “Then why weren't they in the report?”
Conley shrugged. Because they’re Agent Bradley's tracks.”
“They are?” she questioned.
“Yeah, he said that when he and that reporter showed up this morning, they came down the hill through the trees in order to get the drop on the drug smugglers, but all they found was a cleaned out barn and Buck lying in the mud. Because they were Bradley’s, we didn't give them a second thought,” Conley reported.
Joe shrugged then went back to work. After a moment, she stopped as a crazy thought went through her head. She was reminded of what she’d recalled earlier. The human mind tends to ignore the obvious, if the obvious is one they wouldn’t generally consider to be an option. She thought of Agent Bradley, then after a moment shrugged it off. No, she decided. That idea was just too crazy. They all continued to work in silence.
* * * *
Chapter 18
Poker Face