LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Three

      Colt leaned against the cab of his truck and blew out a weary breath. Burt had taken the body. Rather than deliver the outsider to a local funeral home, he was headed to the state medical examiner’s office to turn over the body for an autopsy. The department’s two-man crime scene unit had gone over the Sauder home with a fine-tooth comb.

      The biggest thing missing at the moment was Sarah Sauder’s husband. He was supposed to be headed home from a funeral he’d attended up in Hendersonville, but he still hadn’t made it back. Seemed to Colt that the man would have moved heaven and earth to get to his wife and children after hearing about the shooting. Sarah and the kids had apparently given up hope of his arrival, since they’d left and gone to her father’s house. The lights in the Sauder home were out now and the doors were locked up tight. Colt had suggested Sarah and her kids stay with family until they released the scene. There would need to be another look tomorrow for potential evidence. Not that Colt really expected to find any.

      The evening had been a tough one for Sarah. To have strangers walking through her home and touching her belongings was not something to which folks in the Mennonite community were accustomed. They were private people. Kept to themselves and stayed out of trouble. This was not the norm by any means.

      US Marshal Branch Holloway paced the road just far enough from Colt’s truck to ensure he didn’t overhear his cell phone conversation. Branch had an outstanding reputation with the Marshals Service as far as Colt knew, but something had landed him in Franklin County assigned to the federal courthouse last year. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good. Winchester wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity, and there damned sure wasn’t much of anything that rose to the federal level in Franklin County.

      Tonight, apparently, was an exception.

      Branch had said the victim was some button man for the Chicago mob. Beyond that he’d been pretty tight-lipped. Didn’t sit well with Colt. This was his county and by God he needed to know the full details of what had transpired in the Sauder home tonight. He had no intention of relinquishing control over this investigation until he had no other choice. The safety of the residents in this county was his responsibility, not Branch Holloway’s.

      Branch tucked his phone away and headed toward Colt. Colt pushed away from the truck and set his hands on his hips. “So what did your former boss have to say?”

      “I was right. The victim is Tony Marcello.” Branch glanced toward the darkened house. “This was no random break-in, Colt. Marcello is the kind of guy who does the dirty work. Collects on loans. Acts as an enforcer or bodyguard. Bottom line, he does whatever he’s ordered to do. I can’t see a guy like that making this kind of mistake.”

      Oh hell. “So you’re saying the Sauders are involved in some sort of mob business.” Colt couldn’t see it. Not in a million years.

      “Sure looks that way.” Branch matched Colt’s stance, hands on hips, boots wide apart, as if they were about to see who was the fastest draw. “I’ve only been back a year so I’m not up to speed on everyone in the area. How well do you know Wesley Sauder?”

      “How well do you know any of the Mennonite folks?” Colt tossed back at him. Branch grew up in Winchester. He knew the deal. “They keep to themselves. Yet they’re good neighbors, good citizens. Never any trouble—at least if there is any, they take care of it amid their own ranks.” He shook his head. “I can’t see what you’re suggesting by any stretch of the imagination.”

      “But,” Branch said, shrugging, “Wesley was an outsider until what? Ten years ago?”

      That much was true. “He moved here about ten years ago, yeah.” Colt considered the answers the man’s wife had given to the interview questions. “Sarah said he came from Markham, Illinois.”

      “Markham’s not so far from Chicago.”

      Colt heaved another sigh. “We’ll know more when we’ve run Sauder’s prints.”

      Colt had instructed one of his forensic techs to lift prints from the wooden arms of the rocking chair next to the fireplace. Sarah had glanced at the empty chair when she spoke of her husband. Colt figured the rocker was the chair her husband used.

      “There’s no Wesley Sauder from Illinois or Tennessee in the database,” Branch said. “So if the husband is who he says he is, you won’t find anything there.”

      “Then again, if we get a hit from a database then we’ll know he isn’t who he says he is.” Damn. Branch’s contact was able to access the needed information in an instant. Colt didn’t have those kinds of resources. As much as he wanted to be grateful for the potential assist in this case, he was mostly ticked off. “Otherwise, the only thing we’ll know for sure is that Sauder doesn’t have a criminal record and he hasn’t needed a background check that required his prints.”

      “Guess so.” Branch was already marking his territory. He wanted this case.

      “We could debate what this shooting boils down to all night and we still won’t be any closer to the truth than we are right now.” Colt wasn’t relinquishing a damned thing until he understood exactly what they were dealing with. “We need to do this right, Branch. By the book. No getting ahead of ourselves.”

      Colt didn’t know all the details of why Branch had left Chicago and ended up back in his hometown on a babysitting assignment, but there would be plenty to the story and little if any of it résumé-worthy.

      “We’ll play it your way for now.” Branch glanced once more at the Sauder home. “I’ll touch base with you tomorrow.”

      Colt gave him a nod of agreement and watched him get into his truck and drive away. He sure as hell wished Melvin Yoder wasn’t on his deathbed. Tomorrow Colt would check in with the family to see if a short visit with the patriarch of the Mennonite community in Franklin County might be possible. Yoder would know his son-in-law better than anyone. Sauder would never have been able to marry Yoder’s daughter if he hadn’t approved of the man.

      Colt’s father and Yoder had been good friends. At least as close as an outsider could be with a member of the closed community. Hopefully that friendship would help now. If the older man’s health would tolerate a visit, Colt needed some insight into Wesley Sauder. What the hell kind of man would be a no-show when his family needed him?

      There was only one plausible answer: a man who had something to hide.

      Colt loaded into his truck, took one last look at the farmhouse. Whatever Sarah Sauder and her husband were hiding, he would find it.

      * * *

      COLT HADN’T MUCH more than pulled into the driveway at his house when another problem cropped up. His son, Key, pulled in right behind him, and it was well beyond his curfew on a school night.

      Colt sat stone-still behind the wheel of his truck. He’d already shut off the engine, and the headlights had faded to darkness. His son had no idea he was out here. Probably thought his overbearing, out-of-touch-with-reality daddy was in bed asleep by now. As Colt watched, the eighteen-year-old climbed out of his truck and closed the door quietly. He glanced around the yard and started toward the house.

      Staggered toward the house.

      Colt swore under his breath. He watched his only child beat a crooked path to his bedroom window, which he subsequently opened and struggled clumsily through, ultimately falling into the house. If Colt was lucky, right on his head. Maybe it would knock some sense into him. The boy was hell-bent on trouble. He’d had everything he ever wanted handed to him on a silver

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