"How'd it go?" Trent asked.

"You said it, a weird cat. He was fine, actually. I wanted to ask you about turkey hunting."

"Season ends tomorrow, so you'll have to wait till next year if you're wanting to go with me."

"I'm fine with a Butterball from Kroger," Jose said. "I wanted to know what kind of gun you use, what kind of shells."

Somewhere nearby in the black woods, a rabbit screamed like a dying banshee. Jose jumped.

"What the hell is that?" Trent asked.

"I think a rabbit," Jose said. "Coyote must have got it."

"Where are you?"

"Murder site," Jose said, "accident site, whatever."

"In the woods?"

"The senator's got some spread."

"Gage isn't with you."

"No, just me. I circled back."

The line went quiet. Jose knew how his old boss liked to size up pictures in his mind.

"I use six shot for turkeys," Trent finally said. "HEVI-Shot. Lots of people shoot fours."

"What are those? Pellets the size of a pea?" Jose asked, never one himself for anything more than a handgun.

"More like a BB, a little smaller even."

"How tight is that pattern at about twenty feet?"

"Fit in the palm of your hand."

"Would that punch a hole in a man's skull?"

"Make a nice divot."

"A hole?"

"Maybe. You'd have to talk to Vern Thomson about ballistics."

"It wouldn't punch through the skull and out the other side, though, would it?" Jose asked.

"Doubt that."

"Would a shell casing say what kind of load you had?" Jose asked.

"The number's right on the side," Trent said, "printed on the plastic."

"I appreciate it. One more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Would you ever hunt a turkey using a slug instead of shot?"

"Not unless you were happy with a Butterball," Trent said. "You gotta hit them in the head or the neck. Their feathers are so layered, they're like Kevlar. Slug's for a deer. You gonna tell me what's going on?"

"Long story," Jose said. "I'll buy you a beer. Gotta go. Thanks."

Jose hung up and began a different search.

He positioned himself in front of the tree where the senator had supposedly shot from and aimed the flashlight in the direction of the stump where Elijandro had sat. Beyond it, a big silver beech rose up on one side with what looked like a younger oak-about eight inches in diameter-on the other. Beyond them yawned the pitch black of the open field, where the turkey had supposedly been.

As he stepped over the stump, Jose shone his light down into the scuffed-up leaves and crouched. Softly he pushed aside the leaves, one at a time, filling the night air with a damp loamy smell, until he found some purple rubbery matter that he suspected was gore. He poked at it with his fingertip, verifying it to be more than clotted blood. Gage hadn't exaggerated.

Shining the beam, he stalked over to the beech tree and ran his hands over its smooth gray skin. He found nothing. He bent to the small oak with its rougher bark, went over it once, and then again more carefully. His fingers passed over a rough brown patch in a jagged crease. He took out his knife and poked the tip into the fibrous web, digging in half an inch before the point struck something metal. With his heart pounding he stepped back, shone his light, and took a photo of the tree's trunk with his phone, closing in to take a second one up close. He dug around what he now realized was a hole until the warped copper of the shotgun slug was exposed.

He took another picture, then dug the rest of it out, taking care to dig the knife into the tree and not the slug itself in order to preserve its integrity. When he had it free, he examined it under the beam of light, turning it over, but seeing nothing he could pinpoint. He fished a plastic Baggie from the backpack, dropped the slug in, and returned the bag to his pack.

Jose looked around, breathing hard. His heart pounded out a quick beat inside his chest. He knew that if the slug had passed through Elijandro's head, even though the human eye couldn't know it, a forensics lab could.

CHAPTER 27

JOSe'S BLOOD COOLED AS THE HIGHWAY SNAKED INTO THE HIGH-rises of downtown Dallas. He thought about Casey and checked his phone, saw the calls he'd missed, and dialed her up.

"Are you okay?" Jose asked. "I saw you called."

"I'm okay now."

"What happened?" he asked.

She told him about the creep who had served her the lawsuit papers.

"We had a guy downtown once," Jose said, "he went to serve this husband with divorce papers. He pops out from between two cars in this parking garage and before he can say anything, the husband buries a screwdriver in the guy's chest, said he had a window in his office that he could never get open. Guy went free, too. Partly because the window story checked out, but partly because I think the jury felt like that service guy got what he deserved, sneaking around like that."

"I gave him a pretty good gash with my nails," she said. "Where are you?"

"On my way back just now," he said. "Listen, Gage showed me where it happened. I waited until it got dark and went back in there by myself. I think I've got something, a shotgun slug. I took it out of a tree. If it's what killed Elijandro, there'll be bone and blood on it."

"How does that help?" Casey asked. "No one ever said Chase didn't shoot him."

"If he shot him with this, it's going to be hard to say it was an accident," Jose said.

He explained to her about turkey hunting.

"A slug you use for deer," he said. "That's it."

"Deer or a man."

"Or a man," Jose said. "Plus, Gage is lying. His face is a billboard. Even a Podunk cop would have saved the shell casing, and he would have questioned the senator and a lot of other people around him when he saw the little gap between two trees that he was supposedly shooting at the turkey through. And this report? It looks like a third-grader wrote it. This thing is like an anthill. Looks like a mound of dirt until you kick it over."

"They didn't do an autopsy, either," Casey said. "Some local funeral director signed the death certificate and they buried him quick."

"No autopsy?" Jose said. "How's all this gonna look when they get Gage on the stand? This thing is way too sloppy. He's either gonna have to spill what happened or get pegged as an accomplice. Big stiff white boy like that don't want to see the inside of no Texas jail."

"You think we can get this to a trial?"

"If it weren't a US senator, I'd say no doubt about it," Jose said. "With Chase? We need to tread light."

Neither of them said anything for a moment and Jose rolled down the exit ramp and turned onto the city street that would take him home.

"You okay?" Jose asked, stopping at a light.

"Sure," Casey said. "Fine."

"You want me to come over?"

When she didn't respond, he cracked his neck from side to side and shifted in his seat, his hands tight on the wheel.

Then she said, "No rashes, right?"

The light turned green. He grinned, whipping his truck around, and said, "Guaranteed."

In the morning, Jose woke to find Casey standing at the edge of the bed, fully dressed, tugging on his big toe.

"Look," she said, "I don't want to ruin a good thing."

Jose rubbed his eyes and sat up, his bare back against the headboard, gathering the sheets around his waist.

"That bad?" he said, peeking under the sheet.

She blushed and shook her head. She'd stacked her hair up in a tight bun and even the nape of her neck flushed.

"No," she said, drawing out the word and sitting on the edge of the bed. "But we've got this thing, this case, and there's a lot to it. If we're right, and something really happened, it's going to get worse before it gets better. A lot worse. I just don't want to get bogged down."