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phone with her hand and whispered to the men around the table, “He answered.” Then she pulled her fingers back and spoke. “Victor, listen. It’s Mercy. Dolly didn’t come in this mornin’. Is she there?”
    Victor’s voice rattled through the phone line. “She spent the night at her friend Valarie’s and said they were going to the ball game in Limon today. She said something about shoppin’ for school supplies. She didn’t tell you?”
    Mercy’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, I guess I just forgot.” She looked at Marty and shook her head.
    “I could come in if you need help,” Victor offered.
    “No, we’re not that busy. See you tomorrow.”
    Mercy rested the phone on the table and bit down on her lip. “Dolly told Victor she was spendin’ the night with Valarie Maestas. She told him they were going to drive to Limon to see the freshman game and do some shoppin’. Victor said she told me she wasn’t comin’ in, and I said it was okay.” Mercy shook her head and lifted the phone to dial another number.
    “Who are you callin’ now?” Marty asked.
    “I know Valarie’s mother.” The lines at the corners of Mercy’s eyes pulled tighter. “And I remember how easy it was to lie to my parents.” When she looked at Marty, he nodded his head.
    *   *   *
    Birdie dropped her rear end on the tailgate of her truck and lifted a bottle of Walmart water to her lips. She unzipped her jacket and undid the top two buttons on her uniform shirt. The day was warming, and by noon it might be close to seventy. Any other time she would have taken off her shirt and stripped out of the long underwear she’d put on that morning. But not with two officers from state crime scene investigations and Sheriff Kendall just ten yards away. Why give them a show?
    Yeah, like they’d even look.
    They had finished making plaster casts of the footprints Birdie had found. They photographed everything they could, from every angle they could, and were working on the impressions of the tire treads near the missing bale.
    Sheriff Kendall walked to her truck with a cell phone pressed to his ear. He slipped the phone into a shirt pocket and rested his foot on the bumper of her truck. “I don’t know what all this means right now, but I’m glad you found it. Good eyes, Officer Hawkins.”
    Birdie pointed to the cooler in the back of her truck. “Water?”
    Kendall popped the cooler’s lid and scooped a bottle from the ice. He twisted off the lid and took a drink. He looked out across the field and didn’t say anything.
    You’re very welcome, shit for brains. Birdie was hot and ornery. This was her busiest time of the year. She should be checking hunters’ licenses, making sure no one was hunting on ground they didn’t have permission to be on, and keeping count of animals harvested.
    No.
    Jimmy Riley had had the back of his head blown off. The blood and gore replayed in her mind. Somebody had to pay, and that was all that mattered now.
    She took the last swallow of water from the bottle. “Anythin’ on Ray-Ray yet?”
    Kendall shook his head. “He wasn’t at his brother’s. Bobby said he hadn’t seen him. But Ray-Ray keeps to himself.”
    “Sheriff, I’ve had a run-in or two with Ray-Ray, and there’s one thing I’d bet on.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Ray-Ray likes to hunt.”
    Kendall nodded. “And today’s openin’ day.”
    “I might just know where to look.” Maybe it was best to call a ceasefire in her battle with Kendall and find out if Ray had something to do with Jimmy’s death. A ceasefire wouldn’t mean she hated the man any less.
    *   *   *
    Mercy came back to the table and took the chair closest to Chase. She let her arm brush his. “Valarie’s mother said three girls slept at her house last night. And Valarie told her they were goin’ to drive to Limon to see a ball game and get a pizza.”
    Paco asked what the others were thinking. “Was Dolly one of them?”
    “She thinks so.” Mercy