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“A body?” He knelt next to the patch of uneven ground. “A skeleton!”
Chapter Three
Daniel shifted from one foot to the other. He shaded his eyes from the sun beginning to drop toward the western horizon. He wanted to interrupt, but Bexar County Sheriff’s Detective Nash Cooper could only do so much at one time. The location of Ray’s ranch in the county made Benny’s disappearance the sheriff’s business. Irritation, like an annoying mosquito, buzzed in Daniel’s ears. All these police officers here for the wedding reception and not one of them had jurisdiction. Cooper insisted on quizzing Ray about a skeleton that had probably been on the property for years. With Benny missing. Maybe hurt or dead. The living should be the priority. If Benny were still living. “Detective—”
Cooper held up a hand. “Be with you in a minute, Mr. Martinez.” His eyes were kind, but his tone firm. He turned back to Ray. “So how long have you owned this property?”
“About five years, I guess.” Ray’s gaze strayed to the medical examiner’s investigator Tito Sanchez, who bent over the skeletal remains.
“And you’ve never worked the land?”
“I just have the vegetable garden and the xeriscape up by the house. I’m not much of a farmer—”
“What are you trying to get at, Detective?” Ray’s neighbor Maddy Stover broke in. She stood next to Alex, her hands on her hips. “What exactly are you insinuating? I’ve lived next door to Raymond for five years. If he says he’s never worked this piece of his property, then he hasn’t.”
“M, will you hush, please? Coop’s just doing his job.” Ray’s face flushed red.
Detective Cooper’s patient facade didn’t change. “I understand your concern, Mrs. Stover, and I apologize for any inconvenience.” He glanced at the notebook in his hand. “Who’d you buy the property from, Ray?”
“It was an estate sale. The owner died, and his son in California sold it to me. A family leased the property when I purchased it. They had first option, but declined and moved out a couple of weeks before I took possession.”
“You have paperwork on all that?”
“Sure—up at the house.”
“I’d like to see it later, if you don’t mind.” Cooper turned back to the makeshift grave.
“Detective.” Daniel gritted his teeth. “Please.”
Cooper faced Daniel. “Look, Mr. Martinez, we’ve got every available body, including your family, out there looking for your foster son. By dark they’ll have been through every nook and cranny of this property. For right now, I need to focus on these remains.”
Daniel stuck a hand on the rough bark of a juniper. He needed it to fight the light-headed feeling that he might keel over. “Right.”
Cooper knelt next to Sanchez, who brushed dirt from bones with a light touch. “An animal dug it up?”
“I imagine you’re right about that.” Sanchez held up a set of pink barrettes for a few seconds before dropping them into a bag. “Rain, wind, time, gradually uncovered it until some animal got a hold of her.”
Ray looked like he might be sick. “It’s a little girl who’s been here the whole time I’ve lived on the ranch?”
“The length of the sternum, the shape of the pelvis, and the size of the skull support the fact that this was a female child,” Sanchez said. “As far as the timeline, you’re going to have to be patient.”
Most of the small skeleton lie exposed. Daniel leaned on the tree and crossed his arms, fighting the desire to hit something. A natural sense of decency made him want to cover the remains as he would a body. Tattered, faded cloth draped the bones. Blue denim with overall buckles, and a faded shirt that might have been red once. A little girl out here all alone. No marker. No visitors. As if she had no one who missed her or cared she was gone. “You can’t give us any idea how long she’s been out here?”
“Eventually, yes.” Sanchez continued to brush dirt from bones with a short, precise stroke.
Cooper leaned in closer. “Any signs of how she died?”
“The back of her skull was crushed with a blunt object. We’ll know more when we get her back to the lab.” Sanchez dropped the brush into a container next to his feet and rose.
“She was hit with something?”
“Or she fell and hit the back of her head. Like I said, we’ll know more after we get her back to my place.”
“Daniel!”
He looked back. His brother Samuel strode toward him, Daniel’s pulse jerked, and a wave of apprehension drowned him. He straightened, ready to move. “Anything?”
“No, sorry, nothing yet.”
