“Sixty, maybe.” Rowley led the way out of the office. “We’ll take my truck. I know where he lives.”
The veterinarian lived a little way out of town heading toward Blackwater. He had his practice in an attached building to his home. The front door had an open sign on it with a shingle giving his name and profession. Raven pushed open the door and a loud buzzer sounded. He waited at the counter, inhaling the typical smell of disinfectant and the meaty odors coming from the bags of dog food for sale. It was a typical veterinarian’s office, with posters of worming products, displays of various flyers, and a board with handwritten notices of animals for sale or adoption. A few minutes later the door opened and a robust man with salt-and-pepper hair peered at them over his glasses. Raven introduced himself and indicated to Rowley. “I believe you know Deputy Rowley?”
“Yes, yes, I do.” Dr. Hale stepped closer to the counter and raised an eyebrow. “What brings you by today, Deputies?”
“First of all, have you visited Lawson’s Ridge ranch lately?” Rowley took out a notebook and pen and rested them on the counter. “If so, have you noticed anything unusual over the last few visits that you’ve been there?”
“I really don’t take much notice.” Dr. Hale gave a little shrug. “I go to do my job and then I leave. I’ve discovered since I’ve been a veterinarian that if I get too friendly with clients, they start asking me favors. I’m not a charity, so like I said, I just get in, do my job, and leave.”
Wondering if interviewing this man was a pointless waste of time, Raven moved on. “Okay, I’d like to cast your mind back to the time when the Lawsons died in the fire and what you recall. Do you have any records for around that time? I’m sure you would have kept them for tax purposes.”
“Yeah, I do keep records. In this business it’s necessary to keep track of animals’ vaccinations and other medical procedures.” Hale turned and opened the door he had come through. “Maybe you should come back here. All my records are in the office. They go way back. If you’re looking for a specific answer, something in there may jog my memory. It’s been over twenty years and you can’t expect me to remember everything that happened.”
Raven followed Dr. Hale into his office. He gave him the specific dates that he was interested in and waited patiently for him to go through the filing cabinets in a line along the wall. “What do you remember about that time? I’m sure the death of the boss and his wife would have been imprinted in your memory. What was the story that you heard?”
“I heard that they were sheltering in a cabin during a storm. They got hit by lightning and the cabin burned to the ground.” Dr. Hale groaned as he bent to lift a thick file from a bottom drawer. “This is everything I have from that year.” He dropped it on the desk.
“Do you recall who went out to look for them the following day?” Rowley held his pencil above his notebook. “I assume you were there at that time as they didn’t find them until the following day.”
“It was Wade who told me. He hunted me down when they got back, along with Josh.” Hale started to flick through the pages of the file and then looked up at them. “See here, I made a note about treating their burns.” He pointed to a page. “Treated superficial burning to the hands of Wade Cutter and Josh Greenwood caused during the removal of Mr. and Mrs. Lawson’s bodies from a cabin fire out on the north paddock near the river.”
Raven nodded. “How did they seem? I assume this is when they told you the story of what had happened?”
“They were upset.” Dr. Hale leaned back against the desk and folded his arms across his chest. “Being young and seeing something like that stays with you for a long time. Wade kept staring into space and I told him he should go to the hospital, but he said who else was there to run the ranch? Livestock needed tending and the men needed feeding. He said he would call the sheriff and tell him what had happened.”
Glad to be getting a clear picture of what happened the day after the Lawsons died, Raven nodded sympathetically. “Do you recall if the sheriff came out to speak to them? Did you see the bodies? You were the only person around with any medical knowledge.”
“No, I didn’t see the bodies.” Dr. Hale scratched his chin. “Come to think about it, the sheriff didn’t come by either. I was there for only the few days because they had an expensive mare that was foaling. As far as I recall, the only person to step foot on the place over the next three days was the lawyer. He said Lawson had left instructions for him if anything happened to the Lawsons. From that time on, everything was in the hands of the lawyer. I figure if you need any more information, you should contact him.”
“What happened to the bodies?” Rowley stared at him. “There are no records of them being buried in the local churchyard.”
“No, they wouldn’t have been buried there.” The doctor moved his gaze over Rowley’s face. “I recall Wade saying that Lawson would want to be buried on his property, so he dug a hole somewhere and buried them. I’m only guessing, but I’d say it would be somewhere near the cabin. I recall seeing machinery heading in that direction the same morning as they found them. I spoke to Josh and he said they were unrecognizable, horrifically burned black skeletons with white smiles. He still works at the ranch, so you should ask him. Maybe he recalls where Wade buried them.” He indicated toward the files. “Is there anything specific you need me to look up in here?”
“Not unless you made day-to-day notes about what was going on around the time.” Rowley glanced at Raven. “Do you have any other questions?”
Raven shook his head. The doctor had been very forthcoming with everything he knew and he had just one more question. “Do you recall the names of any of the women who were working there over that period?”
“Can’t say that I do.” Dr. Hale closed the file and shook his head. “Most of the wranglers there at the time were males and that’s all I really saw. I spent most of my time watching the mare. I’m sorry I can’t help you but that’s all I know.”
Raven took a card out of his pocket and handed it to him. “If you think of anything else or you recall anything unusual happening, especially with any of the women, any arguments or unusual behavior, anything that happened over the whole period of time from twenty years ago to today, please call me, even if it seems to be irrelevant.” He touched his hat. “Thank you for your time.” He turned and led the way out of the office through the waiting room and back to Rowley’s truck. “Well, we seem to be getting the same story from everyone we interview. I tracked down Susan Boswell, a seasonal wrangler who left the ranch the morning after the murders. Apart from telling me about the guys with the burned hands, her story was the same. The same goes with Leo Moreno, he worked as a seasonal cook. He’s working in Blackwater and was very cooperative, but again the same story. I’m guessing that Wade Cutter and Josh Greenwood came back from finding the bodies and told one person and it spread from there.”
“Beth and Styles interviewed Josh Greenwood and he never mentioned burning his hands.” Rowley started the engine. “Do you figure that’s something you’d forget?”
Raven leaned back in his seat as they drove away. “Maybe. It was over twenty years ago. I figure once the initial shock wore off, the main concern on their minds would be wondering what was gonna happen to their jobs—or if they’d get paid.”
Thirty-Nine
Lawson’s Ridge
Thursday
After returning from mapping any inconsistencies in the landscape the previous afternoon, Beth and Styles had spent the rest of the day adding the coordinates of any disturbed ground to a map. When Jenna had returned, Beth could tell by looking at her expression that they hadn’t gotten any information from Hank and Bobby Lister, the fence riders who had been employed since way back in Lawson’s time. They’d not seen any strangers on the ranch. Beth had considered that their emphasis on the word strangers might indicate that whoever murdered the Lawsons and the women worked on the ranch. The two men, who spent their entire lives watching over the property for trespassers and broken fences, would have noticed if someone like Larkin, for instance, had been moving across Lawson’s land. Beth couldn’t get the crimes out of her mind. What type of killer were they dealing with? When she went to bed on Wednesday night, she lay awake for a long time going over all possibilities in her mind.
With only Rhett and Julie in the house on Thursday morning, she’d spent her time alone in the command center using AI to analyze different possibilities. Although in her opinion, nothing could replace the human brain when it came to detective work, the AI she used compared variables. It was a useful tool for looking at a case or cases from outside the box. One of the suggestions she received from the software was to create images of everyone involved around that time. She had access to recent driver’s licenses and could use them to create a younger version of the people working at the ranch now. It’s surprising how useful old images could be. When people looked at old photographs, they recalled things that they would have normally forgotten. She’d considered suggesting that Jenna should show some of the older workers the images of people who worked there at the time of the Lawsons’ death and of the women who’d gone missing around that time as well. Perhaps it would jog a few memories. She’d collected quite a few but hadn’t found a photograph of Wade Cutter. She left her desk to look for Rhett and found him chatting to Julie about her job interview. When they stopped talking and glanced at her, she smiled. “Do you know if there are any images of Wade Cutter around anywhere?”
“Yeah.” Rhett pushed to his feet. “In my father’s office is a picture of him and Cutter standing beside a prize bull. It was taken at the county fair. I’ll grab it for you.” He left the room, returning shortly with a photograph in a frame. “Here you go. Wade is on the left. Branch looks just like him, doesn’t he?”
Beth examined the picture and nodded. “Mind if I take it out of the frame and take a picture of it? I can upload it into my program.”
