“Today the Rodeo world mourns at the loss of its top trainer, Alexander Kelly. Kelly was found dead in Whittaker Park this morning by a jogger who called the local police. The park was shut down for further investigation,” A photo of Kelly was displayed as the Wyoming news reporter continued with the few details he had on the murder.

I clicked off the TV, slamming the remote onto my desk, dragging my hands up and down my face. This case had landed on my desk this morning and was already consuming me, but then again that’s how it goes with every case that lands on my desk. Tapping my pen on my desk, I recapped the details of the murder that I knew; Alexander Kelly was found murdered in Whittaker Park, he was shot and his body was dumped, the gun used was found in a dumpster on the other side of the park, he’d been dead for about 8 hours when we found him, he had few enemies that anyone knew of.
“Sanders, my office,” I was pulled from my thoughts when the Chief had knocked on my office door to call me over to his.
I shut the door behind me as I entered his office, “What’s up Chief?”
“How’s the Kelly murder coming?” He asked, sitting behind his desk.
“How do you think it’s going?” I gazed at him, annoyed.
After a long, tense moment of silence, Chief finally spoke, “I know how you feel kid, I’ve seen plenty of cases like this back in my detective days. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that cases like these come once in a great while, and when one does, it takes a helluva detective to close it. I know you got the guts, the determination, and I damn sure know you got the skills, but right now, I want you to go home get a good nights rest, and come back tomorrow ready to kick ass and take names on this case. You got it?”
“Yeah, Chief, I got it.”
Leaving his office, I grabbed what I need from mine, and headed home for the night. Glancing at the dashboard clock I noticed that it wasn’t even 4pm yet. Before I let myself get mad at Chief for sending me home so early, I took a deep cleansing breath, and turned up the radio. Waiting patiently for the light to turn green, I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel to the sound of Garth Brooks singing “it’s the ropes and the reins and the joy and the pain. And they call the thing rodeo.” The light turned green, and the rest of the way home I was pretty much on auto pilot.
******

The next day dragged on, not a single call lead us to any sort of evidence or suspect. Most of the calls were people complaining the Kelly’s murderer was still on the loose, to which I responded with, “We’re doing the best we can.” The entire week seemed to go in slow motion, I hadn’t even gotten anything from ballistics, nor the partial fingerprint that the murderer hadn’t wiped clean; that was until Saturday. When I walked into the precinct, it was like a tornado had gone through. There were papers everywhere, while all the deputies and detectives hustled about shuffling them even more. Several people were talking on phones, as I squeezed through to my office.

I’d just sat down at my desk when the Chief walked in. He had a glimmer in his eye that I’d seen before when a major case caught a break. He shut the door behind him and sat in the chair facing my desk.

“We caught a break,” he said. “An anonymous caller said that they saw blood stains in Andy Scott’s car while he was loading groceries. They even snapped a few pictures and sent them in. Gunderson’s talking with Judge Bradshaw to get a warrant.”

“Wow, all week nothing, and all of a sudden, we got something? I don’t know Chief, seems strange to me,” I trained my skeptical gaze on Chief.

“That’s how I felt when I first got word, like it was too good to be true. But I’m gonna tell you something Sanderson, sometimes you catch the luckiest break on the biggest case, you gotta just roll with the punches,” He said as he stood and walked out of my office.

I sat for a moment and chewed what Chief had just told me over. Maybe he was right, maybe I just needed to take this break and make the most of it. Gunderson had returned and set the warrant on my desk with a smirk.

“You ready to haul this guy in?” He asked. Gunderson had his fault, but he made up for them with his wit, and being a great partner. He was best when it came to chasing suspects after 4 years of track in high school, and then a few more in college. I stood and tossed him the keys to the cruiser we used when we went to arrest a suspect.

“You’re driving.”
When we got to the undercover cruiser, he popped the trunk so we could get our gear on; ballistics vest, full belt, and a light weight Laramie Police Department jacket.

The drive to Scott’s place was short, when we got there Gunderson stayed near the car while I went to the front door. When I knocked on the door, a woman answered.

“We’re looking for Andy Scott,” I told the woman, showing her my badge, “we have a warrant for his arrest.” Before she could answer, I heard a door slam near the back of the house. “He ran out the back,” I yelled to Gunderson, who took of for the back, gun drawn as I raced down the porch stairs to follow. Scott had run for the garage in the back and was almost to the drivers door of his car when Gunderson caught him. Eyes wide, and sweat on his brow, Scott raised his hands above his head as he stared at Gunderson gun. I walked around Gunderson and Scott, pulling his arms down and slapping on the cuffs as I told him his rights.

The ride back to the precinct was quiet, Scott didn’t say a word, not even to say he wasn’t guilty. Before we’d left Scott’s house the evidence team had came with a tow truck to impound Scott’s car as evidence, and search the rest of the property for any other evidence. Once back to the precinct we put Scott in an interrogation room and went to talk to Chief.

“He’s being tight lipped, hasn’t even asked for his lawyer,” I told Chief, leaning against the door frame.

Chief gazed at us, “you got a game plan Sanders?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then Gunderson, you stay here, Sanders go alone and see what you can get from Scott.”

I nodded at Chief backing out of his office, then headed for the interrogation room. When I got inside Scott looked up at me.

“So you don’t want a lawyer?” I asked him sitting in the chair across from him. Laying the audio recorder that I’d already pressed the record button on, on the table.

“What’s the point, I don’t doubt that you’ve already swept my car for Kelly’s DNA. By the time all the results get back, you’ll have me dead to rights, won’t you?”

“Maybe, but we still haven’t ID’d the partial fingerprint on the gun, for all we know you were just payed to dump the body and the gun. We know you feuded with Kelly, but we don’t think that you were a legitimate enemy. So as of right now, we don’t see a motive you’d have to kill him.”

“So why am I here then?,” confusion laced Scott’s voice.

“Well, a good samaritan called in saying the saw they inside of your car covered with blood while you were loading groceries. They even sent in pictures.”

“But for all you knew that could’ve been animal blood.”

“True. But you’re not a hunter, so that could only mean that it was human blood.”

It was silent for a few beats.

“If I tell the truth, can I get some kind of deal?”

“Depends on if I think you’re lying or not,” I gazed at him skeptically.

Scott told me about how he’d just been the hired man to dump Kelly’s body. He said that he’d never had anything against Kelly and was shocked when he was told that Kelly was dead.

“I was told that if I came to the police I’d be next,” He looked at me, genuine fear showing all over his face.

“By who? Who threatened you? Who killed Alexander Kelly?” I half shouted with a hint of irritation.

“You ever heard of a fellow named Mason Radfield?”

“Yea, ain’t he a rodeo trainer from down South? Georgia ain’t it?”

“That’d be the one. Well, he moved out here, opened a training facility in Nevada. For awhile he hasn’t gotten much business, and had been sending Kelly all these letters of complaints that were complete bogus. He tried everything to get Kelly’s business to fail so that people would come to him for training.”

“That’s who murdered Alexander Kelly? This Radfield guy?” I asked.

“I can’t say,” Scott said with a smirk on his face.

“Listen here you piece of sh-” I was cut off when there was a sharp rap on the mirrored window.

Scott held his smirk as I left the room to go see what was up. I rounded the corner to the viewing room and was stopped by Chief and our fingerprint expert from the lab, Benny Dunkin.

“What the hell? I was in the mid-” I was yet again cut off.

“We found out who the partial from the gun belongs to,” Dunkin said with a satisfied smile.

Before I could ask who, Chief held up the case folder. Opening the folder I saw a picture, flipping past that I skimmed through the list of aliases and the charges on this person. Turning on my heal and ignoring Chief and Dunkin I returned to the interrogation room. I sat across from Scott, placed the file on the table, turned it towards him, opened it, and watched the color drain from his face as he read it.

“The partial came back,” I told him, though I’m sure he’d figured that much out. “It seems that your boy Mason Radfield isn’t really Mason Radfield.”

I stood as Gunderson entered the room, cuffs in hand and hauled Scott to his feet, cuffing him. Scott looked from me to the file and back again. Gunderson started pushing him towards the door, Scott dragging his feet as if his legs had effectively turned to jello. Right before he left the room I looked at him and smugly told him, “Oh, and you can forget the deal you wanted to cut for your cooperation. Andy Scott, you’re under arrest as an accessory to murder”

His face was ashen as he was finally pushed from the room by Gunderson, the poor man looked like he’d seen a thousand ghosts. I picked up the file and walked to my office, collecting my cuffs, gun and cruiser keys. When I looked up Gunderson was leaning against the door frame with the biggest smirk on his face.

“You ready for a road trip?” I asked, tossing him the keys to our cruiser.