Page 39 of Deputies Under Fire
Eden quickly amended that thought when she went closer and saw the blood. Carter hadn’t been dumped here. He’d been killed here.
“I’m pretty sure those are stun-gun marks on his neck,” Garrison went on while all three of them studied the body.
Eden didn’t go closer because she didn’t want to destroy any potential evidence, but she leaned in enough to spot the marks on his neck. Yes, a stun gun.
“Has he confessed to killing Carter?” Rory asked, tipping his head to Ike, who wasn’t being his usual boisterous, obnoxious self. In fact, he seemed to be in shock.
Garrison shook his head. “Nope. Just the opposite. He said someone called him to come here if he wanted to save a person from dying.” His tone let them know that he wasn’t buying it.
But Eden was.
Sort of.
“I don’t see any blood on Ike,” Eden muttered. “Was there anything in his truck? Bloody clothes? Or cleaning supplies?”
“None that I found,” Garrison admitted. “I checked the truck, and there was a handgun in the glove compartment. I took that into custody, and it’s locked up in the back of the cruiser. I got his phone, too, since I figured we’d need to check to see if he did get a call.”
He held up the plastic evidence bag he was holding with the cell inside it, and he passed it to Eden when she motioned for it.
“Ike gave me the password to unlock the phone,” Garrison went on, “and there was a call from an unknown number about thirty minutes ago.”
So Ike could have been telling the truth about that. Or else this was a situation like Brenda’s, with the burner sending the replies being found in her home.
“And did you find a knife on Ike or in the truck?” Eden persisted.
“No,” the deputy answered. “There was a tire iron, but nothing I can see that would have been used to make those stab wounds. There are a lot of them,” he murmured. “This was overkill.”
Yes, it was. It was hard to tell with all the blood now soaking the dead man’s clothes, but Eden could see at least five cut marks in his shirt. Then, there were the two on his neck. Those would have likely been fatal if one of the others hadn’t killed him.
Eden continued to look at the body. “Rigor hasn’t completely set in Carter, so he probably hasn’t been dead more than acouple of hours. Added to that, if he’d been out here for long, someone would have likely spotted him.”
Yes, it was early, but this was ranching country, where some started their day before sunrise.
The killer sure had.
Because if Carter had been at his home in San Antonio, the killer would have had to somehow snatch him, bring him here and murder him. After that, the body would have been posed.
All without someone seeing what was going on.
“There appears to be arterial spray,” Rory commented, motioning toward the spatter on the signpost and the grass around the body. “Blood would have gotten on the killer.”
Garrison lifted his shoulder. “I guess Ike couldn’t have gone home and changed, or he could have been wearing some kind of protective gear. Or another possibility is that he stashed the clothes, and they’re around here somewhere.” But he stopped, and his forehead bunched up.
Obviously, the deputy had seen the problem with those theories. Why would Ike have murdered Carter, then left the scene, changed his clothes and returned? And if he’d had on protective gear to prevent being spattered with blood, where was it? Yes, he could have hidden it nearby, but why not just leave once he’d killed Carter?
However, Eden did think of one possible scenario that would fit what she was seeing here. “It’s possible Ike came back to retrieve some kind of evidence,” she muttered. “Maybe something he dropped. But that would be a huge risk.”
Rory made a sound of agreement. “And if he had left something behind and found it, he could have said someone had put it there to set him up.” He glanced at Garrison. “Any chance of tracing the anonymous call that reported the location of the body?”
“None,” Garrison grumbled. “I checked that on the way over here, and it was a burner.”
Of course, it was, but it would be interesting to hear what Ike had to say about who’d called him to the scene.
“We’ll talk to him,” Rory said as if reading Eden’s thoughts, “but we’ll move into the cruiser for that. Be careful,” he added to Garrison. “If someone is setting up Ike, that someone could still be around. And there could be explosives, so go ahead and get the bomb squad out here to do a sweep before anyone starts checking the scene. Oh, and have the bomb squad check the body, too.”
Garrison’s eyes widened, and he muttered a single word of profanity. “You think there could be explosives underneath the body?”
“It’s possible they could be anywhere out here,” Rory explained.
