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“I just want to know why the filly was left out the other night.”
“She wasn’t, okay? Jesus, who cares?”
Trent leaned back in his chair, studying the tower of fury that was Eric Rolfe. “I care. I take it seriously when someone messes with animals. And the condition of the stables shows me that people are messing around. Someone’s been using the hayloft as a bedroom. Last night probably wasn’t the first time, and the way things go, I’m willing to bet that if one couple was using it, others knew about it, too. Kinda like a free, no-tell motel. One of them could have, by mistake, left the filly out because they were too interested in each other to realize they’d left the back door open and her stall was unlatched.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“No?” Trent leaned forward. “I thought that was part of your job description as a TA, that you help the teachers and the administration ride herd over the younger kids. I mean, you’re an esteemed TA, first line in the campus security force.”
Rolfe snorted. “You don’t know Jack shi—”
“Don’t I?”
Rolfe’s eyes narrowed a fraction; his pupils focused hard on Trent. “You know, my old man’s an attorney. Big firm in San Francisco. He wouldn’t like you harassing me.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Rolfe. Your old man sent you here for a reason—because you had gotten yourself into a pile of trouble. What was it? B and E? Meth?”
“I don’t do street drugs.”
“That’s right. Pills. Vicodin. Percocet. OxyContin. Doesn’t matter what it was; you even stole from your grandmother to get ‘em.”
“I’m clean now.”
“Clean but picking fights with new students. Slugging girls. Not smart, Rolfe. You’re pushing it. Lynch might not have decided what your punishment should be, but I’ll give him some advice. You should either be kicked out of the program or assigned to the stables to shovel manure for the next three months.”
“I was just making fun. That girl went all psycho on me!” Rolfe declared.
“The way I heard it, you were being pretty obnoxious about Nona’s death.”
“Just tryin’ to lighten things up.”
“Sure.” Trent eyed the kid. “The next time you want to mix it up, come up here. Don’t embarrass yourself by picking on some girl half your size.”
“She was the one who looked bad.”
Trent snorted. “I’m just reminding you not to mess up. Don’t mock the dead. Don’t pick fights, and if you know something, spill it. Tell me, tell the cops, whoever. You’ve had a pretty clean slate until today. So chill.”
Fury darkened Rolfe’s eyes as he pressed his fists into the desk and leaned forward. “I don’t know anything, Mr. Trent, so get off my case.” He straightened, his balled fists at his side. “Can I go to dinner now?”
Trent waved him off. “Yeah. Go.”
In seconds he was out of the office and down the hallway. A moment later, Trent heard the exterior doors bang shut behind Rolfe.
“Moody son of a bitch,” Trent said, unsatisfied as he tapped his pencil on his desk. He’d decided to push the kids about the filly being left outside, hoping they’d scramble around and admit that other people knew about the makeshift bed in the hayloft. It was hidden well, behind stacks that would be pulled down, but eventually, within a week or two, it would have been discovered. So Trent wondered who knew about it and figured it could well be whoever left the filly outside.
But Bernsen and Rolfe hadn’t cracked.
He put in a call to Sheriff O’Donnell, was patched to his cell, and did something that was way out of his comfort zone: He kowtowed to the big man. “I know the department’s strung thin,” he said when O’Donnell asked gruffly what he wanted.
“So what?” The man’s baritone voice was as big as he was.
“I worked in the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department in Montana; I know the ropes. You can check with Sheriff Dan Grayson or Detective Larry Sparks, Oregon State Police. I think, sir, with everything that’s happening here, you might want to deputize me.”
“What?”
“I’m already on staff. No one would know.”
“Oh, I see, an undercover deputy. Hell, maybe I should just promote you to detective while I’m at it. Hell of an idea, Trent. You want a pension, too?”
