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Deputy Jake Cashen only needed one whiff to know Judge Sampson Rand was never coming home. The missing judge’s cell phone sat on a table next to a leather recliner. There was a dark stain on the floor beside it. “Might be blood,” Detective Zender said. Jake knew Zender didn’t yet understand the biggest clue in front of him. “The judge used to have a dog. It was never housebroken so he got rid of it.” With the pristine condition of the rest of the house, Deputy Cashen doubted the judge would have left a pet stain untreated. On one wall, the judge had a built-in glass case filled with antique swords and military memorabilia. As far as Jake knew, the judge never served. Jake knew enough about what he saw to guess on its value. “He’s got about twenty grand worth of antiques in there,” he said. Zender grunted his approval at Cashen’s estimate. “He was a collector,” Zender said. “Fancied himself a hunter. Sweet guy but the judge couldn’t hit the side of a barn at ten feet.” “You smell that?” Cashen asked. He stood behind the recliner. “Cherry pipe tobacco,” Zender said. “Doc was on him to quit. He likes that aromatic crap.” Cashen nodded, but that wasn’t what he meant. He smelled bleach. A murder had happened here. Someone had tried to clean it up. The judge had a mahogany sideboard against the wall. There were stapled papers on top of it. Cashen picked them up. Court briefs. Cashen cocked his head to the side. There were some tiny dark specks in the corner of one of the pages. He put them back on the table. “Looks like dull reading,” Cashen smiled. He’d seen enough. “You learn anything?” Zender asked. “A few things, Ed,” he said. But Jake was already on his way out the front door headed for Sheriff Landry. She was pacing in front of her vehicle. Cashen was reasonably sure he was out of Ed Zender’s earshot. “Well?” Landry asked. “This is a train wreck,” he said, trying to keep his temper in check. “Give it to me.” “You want the short version or the long version?” “Just tell me what you think, Cashen,” she said. “Is Judge Rand dead?” “I don’t know,” he said. “With what’s going on in there, we might never know. There’s no crime scene log. I walk in there and the prosecutor is standing in the kitchen. Shooting the breeze. If the judge was murdered, good luck ever getting a conviction. It would take even a bad defense lawyer two seconds to figure out how to tear Zender’s investigation apart.” “What’s the worst of it?” she asked. “We drove right up. There should be a patrol car at the end of that road. An officer should be logging anyone who comes and goes.” “Zender thinks it was a burglary,” she said. “He’s wrong,” Cashen said. “There’s no forced entry. There’s at least thirty grand worth of stuff worth stealing out in the open in there.” “What would you do differently?” she asked. “Everything.” “I was hoping you’d say that,” she said. “No,” Cashen said. “No way. This thing’s too far gone.” “He’s missing,” Landry said. “Sampson Rand is a crime victim. Maybe dead. I need you to find out what happened. And you want to. You didn’t take much convincing to come out here. You could have said no?” “Really? I distinctly remember you telling me I couldn’t.” “Look at yourself,” she said. “Your blood’s racing. You want this case. Badly. You’re ready to rip Ed Zender a new one. I read your file, Jake. I know how good you were with the Bureau. You really want me to believe you want to spend the next fifteen years kicking down trailer doors?” “I don’t care what you believe,” he said. “I’ll let you run this thing top down. You won’t get micromanaged by command. Including me. Promise. How often did your bosses at the Bureau give you that? That’s why you left, isn’t it?” He paused. That’s the one answer he wasn’t willing to give her or anyone else yet. Adrenaline coursed through him. “Why?” he asked. “What’s the catch, Landry?” “No catch,” she said. “I need this case solved quickly by someone who knows what he’s doing. That’s the catch.” “What about Zender?” he asked. “You let me worry about Ed. I’ll get you what you need. You just have to tell me what that is.” He walked away from her and started pacing. He felt like running. He felt like smashing in a wall. Something. Anything to keep feeling the rush. He heard laughter coming from inside the house. She said all the right things. Landry was playing him. That was the catch. She needed him to deal with her bigger problem. Ed Zender. How many other cases had he bungled out of the gate like this? He came back to Landry and stared her down. Her face betrayed nothing. Her eyes though. He knew he’d hit on it. She was playing some chess game. “All this,” he said. “This is a carrot you’re dangling. What’s the stick?” “No stick,” she said. “But this case…this victim, matters. He’s one of us, Jake. Judge Rand. If something happened to him, I need to know if it’s part of something bigger.” Jake wondered too. His brain hummed with scenarios. Questions. Motives. He wanted to find Judge Rand. Landry was holding something in the palm of her hand. She extended it as if she wanted to shake Jake’s. He acted on reflex and took her hand. She pressed something cold and metallic into it. He looked down. It was a detective’s badge. She might as well have yelled checkmate.

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