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Jo nodded, stowing her phone away. “She’s got something on the cold case. She’ll fill me in at home tonight. You in?”
Sam glanced in the rearview mirror at Lucy, who wagged her tail in response. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said, his face softening into a determined smile.
CHAPTERFIVE
Lucy stopped short in the police station lobby, where Reese was crouched on the floor with a roll of blue painter’s tape in her hand. Jo almost ran into the dog, and Sam almost ran into Jo.
“What are you doing?” Jo asked.
Reese turned to look at them, and Lucy trotted over to sniff her face. Reese crinkled her nose and laughed as she petted Lucy’s soft fur. “I’m taping the molding so we get clean lines with the paint.”
“Of course, I knew that.” Jo was no stranger to painting. She just hadn’t expected to see Reese on the floor. Apparently Lucy had felt the same, but satisfied that nothing was wrong, she trotted into the station. Major was not concerned. In fact, he was taking advantage of Reese’s absence at the green steel reception desk and was lounging on top of it.
Sam and Jo followed Lucy into the bullpen. Wyatt was engrossed in paperwork at his desk. He looked up, the tattoo ink on his arm visible from under the edge of his rolled-up shirt sleeve.
“How’d it go with Travis?” he asked.
“Says he didn’t kill her, of course, but he did mention that April had a few enemies,” Sam said.
Wyatt grimaced. “I suppose that’s no surprise. Tends to happen when you disrupt businesses.”
Jo nodded. “Did you come up with anything?”
A glint appeared in Wyatt’s eyes. “Well, it seems the gun was registered to the victim.”
Jo’s brows shot up. “That is interesting.”
“It’s wiped clean, though. And she wasn’t shot.” Wyatt held up the preliminary report from the medical examiner.
“Didn’t think so.” Sam started toward his office. “Maybe we better go in my office and start organizing the investigation.”
“I printed out some of the pictures I took as well as some of Jo’s from when you were there this morning.” Wyatt handed Sam a stack of paper, and the trio moved into Sam’s office with Lucy following closely behind.
Sam made his way behind the vintage wooden table that served as his desk. The old scarred wood of the tabletop was littered with round postal stamps, evidence of its prior life in the post office.
Jo tugged a chair from the corner, its mismatched leg causing it to rock slightly as she settled down.
Wyatt chose to stand, his attention focused on the large corkboard behind the desk as Sam began arranging photographs from the crime scene.
Lucy plopped herself into the warm pool of sunlight that streamed through the tall windows that overlooked the town square.
Sam placed the pictures one by one. April, lying motionless on the ground. The innocent owl, white feathers marred with blood. The gun. The log. The bandana. Various angles of the entire scene.
“I suppose it’s too much to ask that Travis was wearing a bandana when you visited him.” Wyatt pointed to the picture of the bandana.
“He wasn’t,” Sam said.
“Maybe that’s because he lost it in the woods,” Jo chimed in.
“Good point.” Sam continued tacking up the last few pictures.
“But we don’t know that bandana had anything to do with the murder because we found it a ways away from the scene.” Sam turned to Lucy, who was asleep in the sun. “Actually, Lucy found it.”
Wyatt nodded. “Must have some meaning then if she brought your attention to it.”
Sam tacked up the last picture of a bullet in a branch. It looked a little off-kilter to Jo.
“That photo,” she began, head tilted to the side as she pointed at the picture of a bullet nestled in a branch. The angle seemed slightly askew. “You took it from below, looking up, right?”
