Tess knew Steve had been tasked with assisting Yarrow. Over the summer there had been a spike in poaching on BLM property. Somebody very good with a hunting or sniper rifle had been killing and butchering wildlife. Yarrow had his hands full. He’d even gotten fish and game to offer a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the poacher.

While Tess didn’t respond to any of the poaching because it was out of her jurisdiction, there had been two disturbing calls in the Hollow at small family farms, where in one incident two lambs were shot and in another, two lambs and a calf were killed. All the animals, domestic as well as wild, were killed by a high-powered rifle according to Yarrow, so his theory was that the poacher was killing the farm animals as well.

Yarrow’s poacher was prolific, with kills all over the county, but most of them on BLM land bordering the Hollow and Butte Falls. Coincidentally, the man Yarrow suspected of being the poacher was Rogue’s Hollow resident Ken Blakely, the one and only man who’d tried to break into Faith’s Place to get to his wife. Right before the fire Yarrow had informed Tess that he planned to serve a warrant on the suspect’s home. He’d asked that she stand by.

“Is this about the warrant? I’m so sorry, but with the fire—”

Yarrow held a hand up. “I understand why you missed our appointment. I know you’ve had your hands full the last few days. Sergeant Logan was there, and I had a couple of state cops with me.” He grimaced. “We came up empty. Nada. Zip. Zero. I’m still certain Blakely is our guy, but he outplayed me this round.”

“I second that,” Steve said. “I wouldn’t put it past him to have hidden the evidence somewhere else. He’s sneaky and mean, especially since his release from prison, so he’s not a novice.”

“He’s my only suspect. I have no choice but to keep after him,” Yarrow said.

“He’s savvy—that’s for sure—knows how to play the system,” Tess said. She and Blakely had crossed paths several times, usually because someone was complaining about him or something rude that he’d done. He lived in Rogue’s Hollow’s only apartment complex, a couple of streets behind the station. He was the neighbor nobody wanted to have. “Does not play well with others” applied to him in spades. His hatred of cops was not even thinly veiled. Poacher or no, since he was an ex-felon, he could not legally own a firearm and certainly not a high-powered rifle. She felt it was best to keep an eye on him, but not to crowd.

“He’ll be here filing harassment complaints if you’re not careful.”