“Patricia?”
I shrugged without meeting his eye. I’d never gotten her name.
“And why exactly did Patricia want to meet you here?”
“Because she knew about Dave. She said she told you, but you didn’t take her seriously.”
“It was a lead I was following up on. I don’t usually give the general public details of my investigations.”
“Well, I guess she trusted me a little bit more.”
“Just last night you were convinced Patricia was the killer. Now she’s your best buddy?” Luke shook his head.
He was right. Did one piece of rope that Dave claimed he’d never seen before mean he was the killer? Maybe she planted the rope in his truck to frame him.
“I’m not saying she’s my buddy. She might still be the killer. She could have planted that evidence.”
Luke threw his hands in the air. “You’re impossible.” He started walking back toward the others.
“No, stop. Listen to me.” I grabbed his arm and he turned back to look at me. “If Patricia knew Dave would be there, she could have easily put that rope in the back of his truck to frame him.”
“We found Dave by the trap. He had probably just put it there.”
“But he wasn’t carrying the trap when he went into the reservoir.”
“It was dark, Rylie. You could have missed it.”
I hadn’t missed it. There was no trap.
“Look, we can arrest him on trespassing charges and take him down to the station for questioning. Then if he has an alibi, he’ll be in the clear.”
“And you’ll take Patricia in for questioning too, right?”
“I have absolutely no evidence that she’s involved. I’ll try to set up another interview, but she already talked to us.”
“She could be dangerous.”
“She had every chance of offing you tonight and didn’t, though it would serve you right if she had.”
I wiped away the tears that had escaped my eyes when he wasn’t looking. I didn’t much like him thinking it would serve me right to be dead. We walked back to Dave’s truck in silence.
I was more convinced with every step that Dave wasn’t the killer. There was no way he would have been able to throw that cage with Ronnie’s limp dead body into the reservoir by himself. He was bigger than Ronnie, but not by a lot.
“We found a pair of gloves with pieces of the rope embedded in the grips,” Jerry said when he saw us.
“I didn’ do it. There’s no way I would have set those traps.” Dave sat on the curb, hands still cuffed behind his back.
“Rylie may have found the murder weapon earlier today.” Luke held the plastic bag open for his partner to have a look.
“You touched it?” Jerry asked. “Please don’t tell me you touched it. How stupid are you?”
“Careful, Jer,” Luke warned. Why, I didn’t know, since he had just said basically the same thing.
“I—I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t—”
“I’ll fill him in in the car,” Luke interrupted, shooting a meaningful glance in Dave’s direction. “Dave, you’re under arrest for trespassing. You have the right to remain silent . . .”
He droned on reading Dave his rights as we all disbursed. Antonio, Shayla, and I walked back to where we’d parked our vehicles. “Where’d Kyle go?” I asked.
“He had to get home to the wife,” Antonio said. “Fishing and family. Not much that’s more important to that guy.” He rolled his eyes at the last bit, and I wanted to punch him. Obviously, Kyle’s talk hadn’t gotten through to him after all.
8
“I don’t buy it,” Ben said the next day when I showed up for my practical test. “No offense, I know you’re the one who caught the supposed killer, but I just don’t think Dave could have done it. He might have been jealous of Ronnie’s state record, but he’d have never killed him.”
“I agree.” I nodded.
“You do?”
“I do. There’s something weird about the whole thing. It’s almost as if someone planted the evidence against Dave. Someone who knew he’d be there.”
I didn’t want to give Ben my entire theory, but I’d tossed and turned all night over it. Now I was certain. It had to have been Patricia. She had mysteriously disappeared when the cops showed up and had probably planted the rope and gloves in the back of Dave’s truck. If only I’d had my wits about me to ask her more questions.
“But who could have done that? The only people there were rangers and cops.”
The only people he knew of.
I shrugged. “It could have been anyone. Dave’s truck was parked completely out of view, a couple blocks away.”
“I hear they haven’t even interviewed all of the suspects yet.”
He was right. I didn’t want to cast any doubt on Luke’s investigation, but they still hadn’t found Clark—Ronnie’s estranged fishing buddy—not that I thought he was the killer. And as far as I knew, they hadn’t even questioned Jackson. Shouldn’t they at least dot their i’s and cross their t’s?
“Either way, there’s not much we can do about it. Today you’re going to demonstrate all that you’ve learned in the past couple of days.”
The practical test. My stomach dropped. This was my first chance to show, at least Ben, that I was the best choice for the full-time position.
“Where do we start?” I said with as much gumption as possible.
We started with a regular patrol. I drove while describing all of the rules and regulations I could remember and pointing out various landmarks. We pretended to use our radios, and Ben talked me through common scenarios.
After lunch, we took the boat out. It seemed as though all the progress I had made the day before had completely left me. I could barely pull up to a buoy without plowing it over no matter how many times I tried. It didn’t help that there was a steady breeze. I was thoroughly flustered by the end, and Ben had to back the boat into the slip for me after a dozen failed attempts.
“We can’t all be good at everything,” Ben
