Page 13

As Jenna considered the crime scene, the early morning sun cast a warm glow that contradicted the horror it illuminated. Colonel Spelling pointed out marks showing where the body had been dragged across the lawn on its way here, either already dead or barely alive.

Dr. Melissa Stark, in the white of her hazmat suit, was already crouched near Clyde Simmons’ pale form, her gloved hands moving with deft precision.

“Sheriff, I’ve got information for you,” Melissa said without preamble as Jenna drew near. Jenna lowered herself to her knees beside Melissa, careful to avoid compromising the integrity of the scene. Jake stood behind her, jotting notes on his pad.

“What have you found out?” she asked Melissa.

The coroner paused in her work. “Not much about this victim, at least not yet. But about Clyde Holbrook, the blood tox confirmed what I suspected. He suffered a massive heart attack, brought on by extremely high levels of cortisol and adrenaline.”

Melissa shook her head and frowned deeply.

“In layman’s terms,” the coroner added, “Clyde died from sheer pain and terror.” The simplicity of the statement did nothing to mask its horror.

Jake asked, “And Roger?”

Melissa Stark paused, her gaze shifting to Roger Bates’s body, lying in repose upon a bed of wilted flowers atop the grave of his late wife. “I can’t confirm without further tests, but I’d bet my medical license that Roger here died the same way.”

Jenna rose to her feet. “Thank you, Melissa,” she murmured. “Keep me updated on any new developments.”

Melissa gave a curt nod, her attention already returning to the grim work before her.

Jenna’s eyes traced the contours of the scene, the deliberate placement of Roger’s body. “The killer’s evolving,” she said to Jake. The tableau wasn’t just morbid; it was intentional, even symbolic.

“These killings seem deeply personal,” Jake commented. “This wasn’t the random act of a deranged mind; this was calculated, a killer with a vendetta.”

Jenna turned away from Roger’s body. Her resolve hardened, much like the flinty Ozark stones beneath their feet. “Didn’t Roger live alone here after his wife died?” she asked Spelling. “Who found the body? And when?”

“Yes, he lived here alone,” Spelling’s answer came crisply. “It was Deke Bader who found him—Roger’s longtime friend and farmhand. He arrived just before dawn, as he apparently does every morning.”

Deke Bader—Jenna knew him as a fixture in the community, recognized for his reliability and strong work ethic. He had even been at last night’s town meeting.

“I need to speak with him now,” she decided out loud.

With a nod, Spelling pivoted on his heel and ushered them towards the Bates farmhouse, where Jenna noticed that the porch swing had been roped off with yellow tape.

“We think Bates was snatched right from the swing,” Spelling said, noticing Jenna’s shift of attention.

“But how?” Jenna asked.

“Deke can tell you about that,” Spelling said, turning away. “He’s in the kitchen. I need to go check with my team. Give me a yell if you need me.”

Jenna and Jake continued on into the old farmhouse. They found Deke seated at the kitchen table, a portrait of anguish in the neat, orderly surroundings. Deke was a man in his sixties with a face lined with the tracks of grief and time. His hands, rough and weathered from years of labor, were wrapped around a mug that seemed too delicate for such a grip. His eyes, reddened from tears, flickered up to meet Jenna’s, then quickly skittered away, returning to the dark liquid of his coffee.

“Deke, may I sit?” Jenna began, tempering her voice to a gentle timbre.

Deke didn’t respond as if he hadn’t heard. Jenna felt a pang of sympathy for the shock that had consumed him. Without waiting for an answer, she pulled out a chair and sat opposite the grieving man.

“Can you walk me through what happened this morning?” she asked, speaking the words gently.

The old farmhand’s response was laced with the gravel of raw emotion, each word seeming to carve itself from his throat. “I drive out here every morning before dawn. Been doing it for years.” He cleared his throat, looking past Jenna as if trying to see into a normal day, one untouched by tragedy. “Roger always has breakfast ready for both of us before we start work.”

Jenna watched as Deke gathered himself, his hands clenched around the coffee mug. “But this morning... I found him out there, on Marie’s grave.” He looked up, his eyes searching Jenna’s. “God, Sheriff, who would do something like this?”

“When was the last time you saw him alive?” Jenna probed, her eyes never leaving Deke’s face.

“At the town meeting last night. He and I talked a little about what happened to Clyde, said we’d talk some more about it this morning.”

He shook his head, a gesture born more of confusion than negation. “This was just like any other morning, till it wasn’t,” he murmured, lost in the maze of his recollections.

Jake leaned forward. His voice, though soft, carried the precision of a detective honed by years of navigating the darker alleys of human nature. “Deke, do you have any idea how the killer might have gotten to Roger?”

After a considerable pause, Deke spoke with a weary resignation. “Well, it’s no mystery, really. Roger liked to sit out on the porch swing late every night. Pretty much everybody in the area knew that. Sometimes neighbors came by to visit. But someone … else … must have come up while he was out there.”

The image of Roger Bates, alone on a porch swing under the vast Missouri sky, was easy enough to conjure. Jenna pictured him there, a solitary figure, unwittingly making himself a target. She felt a cold shiver despite the warmth of the morning light that was now spilling into the kitchen.

“Deke, can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm Roger? Any enemies, recent arguments?” Jenna asked, her tone deliberately neutral as she prodded for information.

“Roger was well-liked, Sheriff. You know that as well as I do. I can’t imagine...” Deke’s voice trailed off, and he lapsed into a pensive silence. Jenna waited patiently, giving him space to gather his thoughts.

His brow furrowed deeply, and Jenna noted the flicker of recollection behind Deke’s eyes. He had remembered something, perhaps something crucial. She leaned in just a fraction in encouragement for Deke to reveal what lay on the edge of his consciousness.

“Deke, take your time,” Jenna said, her tone grounding him back to the present. “Anything you remember could help us.”

Deke squinted thoughtfully at his coffee.

“Well, there was some friction with Ethan Holbrook lately,” Deke said. “You know, that newcomer rancher whose property borders this one. Holbrook tried to buy Roger out recently. Offered a pretty penny for the land too.” He paused, the lines around his mouth deepening. “But Roger wasn’t selling, no matter the price.”

Jenna nodded with understanding. She knew that the refusal to sell wasn’t just about money—it was about heritage. The land had been Bates family possession for generations, and to Roger, it was far more than a business investment—it was his family’s legacy, their history, bound in soil and sweat.

“Holbrook didn’t take that well?” she prodded further.

“Word is,” Deke continued, “Holbrook was mighty sore about the rejection. Said something about Roger being blind to progress... that he’d regret turning down the offer.”

This new information settled uneasily in Jenna’s mind. Conflicts over land were as old as the county itself, but to murder for it? That spoke of a ruthlessness that chilled her to the core. It was a lead, though—one that could not be ignored. Ethan Holbrook, with his grand designs and thinly veiled contempt for those who opposed him, had just become a person of significant interest.

“Do you happen to know of any recent conflict between Holbrook and Clyde Simmons?” Jake asked.

Deke nodded slowly. “Now that you mention it, yeah. Clyde found cases of bovine tuberculosis on several ranches in the county, including Holbrook’s.”

Jenna remembered Rex Hartley mentioning that three of his own cattle had to be put down on that account. The implications were troubling; the disease was a serious matter for livestock and livelihoods alike. It was the kind of problem that could bring underlying tensions to a boiling point.

“Go on,” Jenna urged softly.

“Had to put down two of Holbrook’s cattle,” Deke said, his frustration evident even as he tried to maintain an even tone. “Holbrook isn’t the only one who had this problem. Most ranchers took it in stride - it happens, you know? But Holbrook... he took real offense. Insisted his cattle couldn’t possibly be infected.”

Jenna’s brows knit together as she processed the information. To be accused of poor animal husbandry was one thing, but to have your livestock forcibly culled was quite another. It was a direct blow to a rancher’s pride and financial standing, especially to someone like Holbrook, who was eager to establish a new way of doing things.

“Thank you, Deke,” Jenna said with a gentle firmness, acknowledging the pain that came with reliving these details.

When Jenna and Jake stepped back out onto the front porch, the sun had climbed higher into the sky. She could feel the warmth on her skin, a glaring divergence from the icy gloom that had seeped into her marrow.

The wide swing swayed gently behind the yellow tape that Spelling had put around that end of the porch. Jenna ducked under the tape and moved close. She saw scuff marks on the porch boards where feet had shuffled and dragged. And there it was—a small but unmistakable bloodstain on the armrest.

“Deke’s theory checks out,” she confirmed, her tone low enough that only Jake would hear. Roger Bates had been attacked here, on his own porch, a place that should have been safe—a sanctuary turned into a hunting ground.

She could almost picture the scene—the rancher, unsuspecting, enjoying the quiet of the night when violence shattered the stillness.

“Which means the killer probably knew Roger personally,” Jake’s voice brought her back to the present. “Maybe someone who Roger wouldn’t have suspected when they stopped by for a late-night chat.”

Jenna knew Jake was right. This wasn’t the work of a stranger; the intimacy of the act spoke louder than any evidence could.

The new information was fuel, igniting the analytical fire within her. Ethan Holbrook—the successful rancher, the out-of-towner who had ruffled more than a few feathers since arriving in Genesius County. He was a man with motive, and Deke’s words about Clyde Holbrook added weight to his presence in their investigation.

Jenna considered what they knew of so far: the brand, a cruel signature left behind; the personal nature of how Roger was displayed, a mockery of the grief he had endured; and then there was her dream—a whisper resounding in the sky, “The land remembers.” It was a phrase that clung to her subconscious, refusing to be dismissed as mere coincidence.

“Everything’s connected,” she murmured to herself, her resolve hardening. The killer was braiding together themes of pain, loss, and vengeance darkened by the shadows of old grudges.

Jenna stepped back from the porch swing, her gaze sweeping over the serene landscape that surrounded the farmhouse. The early morning sun painted the horizon in a soft hue of gold and pink, an idyllic backdrop that belied the violence of the night before. A sparrow flitted across the yard, landing on a fence post.

She could sense the remnants of life here, echoes of family gatherings and easy Sunday mornings, now overshadowed by the sinister events that had unfolded. Places like this held imprints of joy and trauma alike, and this farmhouse was no exception. It was as if the land itself was whispering secrets, but she couldn’t quite make out the words.

“Let’s go,” she said, her voice tinged with the weight of responsibility.

“Where to?” Jake asked, following her lead as they approached their vehicle parked along the tree-lined driveway.

“We need to talk to Roger’s neighbor, Ethan Holbrook,” Jenna replied without hesitation as she slid into the driver’s seat. “Everything points to him—his altercations with Roger and Clyde, his resentment toward local practices,” Jenna explained, her thoughts crystallizing into conviction.

“Okay,” Jake agreed, a silent acknowledgment of the gravity of their next move.

Jenna called out the window as they drove past the colonel.

“Spelling, I know you’ll keep things locked down here.”

“Will do,” Spelling said with a nod of understanding.

With a heavy heart but a clear purpose, Jenna maneuvered the cruiser onto the road that wound its way through the county she knew like the back of her hand.

It was time to confront a newcomer who had brought with him a storm of contention—and perhaps, a deadly vendetta.