The Deepest of Secrets, page 5
The figure stumbles back. I kick, and they hit the ground with a masculine “oomph.” Then someone slams into my left shoulder.
The intruder in the bedroom.
I swing, but the one on the floor grabs my leg and yanks it from under me. I manage to hit the second figure with the flashlight and then I kick.
I’m reaching for my gun when a blade stabs me in the leg. A flash of pain. A fist behind my knee.
I stumble. Hands shove at me as I fight them off, and a memory ignites. Me in an alley, falling under a rain of blows and kicks. I lash out, but these blows aren’t an attack—they’re a defense, my attackers shoving me aside as they make their escape.
A hand grabs my shoulder and elbows hard enough that I spin, losing my balance, that pain in my leg buckling my knee. By the time I get turned around, they’re already clambering down the stairs.
I pull my gun and take off after them. I’m at the bottom of the stairs when the figure by the coffee table rises. I catch the movement and spin.
“Hands up! Now!”
The figure continues rising unsteadily. A face turns toward mine, brown hair hanging over it. A slender hand brushes the hair back, and I’m about to repeat my order when I see Marissa’s face.
“Casey?” she says, her voice slurred. “Where’s Will?”
Shit.
I tell Marissa I’ll be right back. I’m already in flight, already racing toward the back of the house.
Marissa calls after me. I ignore her. I fly out the rear door and …
And there’s no one in sight.
FIVE
I still go after them. Try to, at least. I run around the front of the house and look for signs of movement in the dark streets. Seeing none, I jog into the forest behind the chalet. There I listen for the crash of escape.
Nothing.
In this darkness, they could be hiding ten feet away. I need to get Storm and track them, but Marissa is in the doorway, groggily calling after me.
I get her to lean on me, and I take her to April as quickly as I can. I ask my sister not to release Marissa until I’ve returned. April doesn’t let me get away that easily. She insists on checking my leg. The pain hasn’t let me forget that I’ve been stabbed, but it’s not slowing me down any more than my old leg injuries.
“There is blood dripping down your leg, Casey,” she says when I grumble.
She says more than that, but I tune it out until I get the magic words.
“You seem fine,” she says. “But come back as soon as you’re done so I can reassess and clean—”
I’m already running for home. I’m halfway there when I spot Dalton and Storm. I change direction and sprint their way.
“I lost track of time,” Dalton calls as I draw near. “You were counting on that, weren’t you? Letting you work into the wee hours of the morning. Should have at least insisted you take the dog—”
He stops, as if I’m finally close enough for him to see the blood. “Casey?”
“It’s a scratch,” I say. “April’s looked at it. I foiled a break-in at Will’s. I lost the intruders. I need Storm.”
If he answers, I don’t hear it. I’m already jogging back to Anders’s place with Storm at my side. Dalton calls that he’ll warn Anders and then conduct his own tracking while I handle Storm.
Two years ago, Dalton bought Storm for me with the excuse that Rockton needed a tracking dog. Newfoundlands are hardly world-renowned trackers—they just happen to be my favorite breed.
Only later did I realize that even saying Rockton needed a tracking dog far oversold the matter. We already have Dalton. Between the two, they cover all the bases. Storm follows scents while Dalton tracks the visual signs I’d miss. A scuffed print here. A broken twig there. That spot where, if you look closely, you can see that the undergrowth parted as someone ran through.
The biggest advantage to using Storm is that no one can accuse her of framing them. Also, people trust a tracking dog over a human tracker. Everyone’s seen movies where the dog tracks a month-old scent through a snowstorm and finds the missing hiker. When it comes to dog noses, people truly do believe in magic.
Working independently, Dalton and Storm arrive at the same destination: Conrad’s door. The two intruders ran through the woods. They stopped about twenty feet away and hid in the bushes when I came out. Once I was busy helping Marissa, they continued on and circled the town, exiting near Phil’s chalet and then weaving through the shadows to Conrad’s place.
With the trail clear and fresh, Storm gets there first. I hear Dalton not far behind, and I wait for him to arrive. When he sees where the trail leads, he snorts.
“Didn’t need trackers for that,” he mutters.
“No, but it’s good to have supporting data. I’ll suggest I talk to him, and you join me afterward. Give Storm all the credit.”
He pats the dog’s head. “Agreed.”
I set Storm back on the trail and follow it to Conrad’s door. Being a dentist gives him an edge when it comes to residences. That’s the true recognition of his status here and our appreciation for the work he does. He may spend most of his time stocking shelves, but his dental skills earn him half a duplex, while his fellow shelf stockers live in apartments. He also gets extra credits, and I can see he’s put them to use. He has a custom-made porch chair with quilted cushions and a side table. There’s even an empty wine glass left on the table, alongside a brand-new hardcover novel. Maybe he just forgot them outside, but it feels staged to me—the Rockton equivalent of parking your Mercedes on the front lawn.
I climb the steps and knock on his door. I need to knock three times before he opens the door, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
“Detective?” he says through another very fake yawn. “What are you doing here at…?” He lifts his arm and blinks at it, as if expecting his watch to appear.
Anger flares as I remember Marissa unconscious on Anders’s floor. I want to tell him to cut the shit and get his ass down to the station. I want to shoulder past, check his bedroom and prove he wasn’t asleep. That won’t help. It took three knocks before he answered because he was racing around setting the scene. If I barge into his room, I’ll find his bed unmade, every sign indicating he just left it, and that will not help my case at all.
“It’s one in the morning,” I say. “There was a break-in at Deputy Anders’s place.”
His face screws up, overdoing the confusion by fifty percent. “What does that have to do with me?”
“Storm followed the intruder’s scent from his back door to your front one.”
He crosses his arms and leans against the frame. “Convenient. Deputy Anders is revealed to be a killer, I voice my concerns, and suddenly I’m being accused of breaking into his place. On the word of your dog.”
So much for no one being able to accuse Storm of framing them.
I look at Conrad. He’s in his late forties, tall and thin, with glasses and receding brown hair. A slight paunch. Otherwise trim and tidy, with the air of a middle-aged professional, a guy you’d trust to work on your teeth and not overcharge you too much for the service.
That’s the image he projects. Yet if you cross him, he gets this glitter in his eye, the malicious ugliness of a man who’s tired of being dismissed as a nice guy, a man who wants you to know he’s more dangerous than he looks. Is he? That remains to be seen, but in my experience, that gleam usually means he thinks he’s a lot more dangerous than he actually is.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the one who cut my leg. Even with two big men against one small woman, they’d hightailed it out as soon as my fists and feet started flying.
Speaking of blows, I recall the one I landed to his jaw. That will leave a bruise. I don’t see a mark on Conrad’s face, which means if he was one of the guys in the house, he is the one who stabbed me.
At the thought, my leg throbs, and I shift my weight until it stops. I don’t need the reminder that this guy gleefully stabbed me. It’ll bias my interview.
“My dog is a trained tracker,” I say. “I invite you to come out and watch her follow the trail back to Deputy Anders’s place.”
“Because you trained her to do that. You’ll give her commands to pretend she’s sniffing the ground straight from my place to his.”
“That’d be a helluva trick.” Dalton’s voice cuts through the night as he ambles toward the house. “Can we do that, Detective Butler? Maybe train Storm to plant evidence, too? Save you from actually needing to investigate.”
Conrad shrinks back before realizing he’s doing it. He straightens fast, his jaw setting. Guys like Conrad are smart enough to realize they’re intimidated by Dalton. They also need to prove they’re not, which means getting their back up every time Dalton is near.
“Storm wouldn’t walk straight to Deputy Anders’s place,” I say, “because you didn’t. You and your companion cut a winding trail, which she will demonstrate.”
“My companion?” He steps back. “Come in and find that person, please. I’d love to know who my partner in crime is.”
“If you do not wish to watch Storm follow the trail, then we will have independent corroboration.”
“By who? One of your buddies?”
“We will provide a list for you to choose from—”
“I walked around the perimeter of the town earlier today. Unless you’ve changed the rules, that isn’t a crime. I entered over there.” He points. “Which may be near Deputy Anders’s place. Not like I know where he lives. I entered there and walked over there.” He points in the other direction. “Then I returned home.”
“Huh,” Dalton says. “First you blame the dog for framing you. Now, if she did find a trail, it’s because you went for a walk.”
“I forgot that. It’s one in the morning, Sheriff. I can’t be expected to think straight. You’re free to get your ‘independent corroboration’ but if it does suggest a trail, I’ve provided the reason.”
“All right then,” I say. “Eric? Would you mind getting a witness while I have a look around Conrad’s place?”
“You got a warrant?” Conrad says, moving to block the doorway as Dalton leaves.
“We do,” I say. “It’s the paper you signed when you came to Rockton, which acknowledges that we have the right to enter or search your quarters at any time.”
“I don’t remember that clause.” He waves toward the station. “Go get it.”
“Sure,” I say. “I’ll run and get that and give you time to hide whatever you wish to hide. You may escort me to the station—”
“Forget it. I’m not letting you in because I just cleaned and you’re dripping blood. You’ll make a mess of my floors, and I sure as hell don’t want you sitting on my sofa.”
I tamp down a flare of outrage and look at my leg. “The bleeding’s stopped. I won’t sit down, and it’ll be fine. When I find who did this, though, they definitely owe me a new pair of jeans. These are ruined. That’s the worst of it. Barely a scratch underneath. Guy gave me a little scratch and then ran like a scared rabbit.”
He flushes, and that erases any doubt about who stabbed me.
“On second thought,” I say, “let’s wait for Eric to find that witness. I have a feeling if I locate any evidence, you’ll claim I planted it. So why don’t we both stay right here until they’re done checking the trail, and then they can corroborate my search as well.”
“Fine. Let me get properly dressed first.”
“Nah, you’re decent. Stay where I can see you until we have our witness.”
* * *
Our witness is just a regular resident Dalton found slipping back from his lover’s place. Poor guy nearly had a heart attack thinking he was being rousted for … Well, I don’t want to know what he’d been doing that he thought might get him in trouble. Point is that we have ourselves an independent witness. He verifies Storm’s work and then comes inside to watch mine.
I find a black balaclava in the closet. Conrad claims it’s his standard-issue winter wear and he hasn’t worn it in months. I bag it.
I also find dark clothing shoved into the laundry basket. The shirt has splotches of what looks like blood on the sleeve. Ah, yes, Conrad recalls cutting himself shaving this morning. I bag that, too, and tell him I’ll be testing it.
“Knock yourself out,” he says. “It’s my blood.”
He thinks I’m bluffing, that I wouldn’t send it for DNA testing to solve a mere break-in. He’s right. Except I don’t need DNA testing. I’ll make sure it’s blood first. Then I can test for blood type. If it matches my own and doesn’t match his, then it’s evidence against him, even without the DNA.
I check his shoes and find damp clots of mud. He says he forgot he’d also been out for a another walk just before bed. Guy seems to take a lot of walks, considering I’ve never seen him do more than travel from point A to B.
I check drawers in his bedroom, bath, and kitchen, looking for what cut my leg. I don’t see the knife. Whatever he used, he isn’t stupid enough to shove it back into the drawer with blood on the blade. Most likely it was a pocketknife. Everyone is issued one. I ask for his. He tells me he lost it.
Yes, he’s blocking me. Inwardly smirking about it, too. I see that from the gleam in his eyes. This is the truth of policing, though, whether it’s down south or in Rockton. I can find all the circumstantial evidence in the world. I can have my dog locate a trail from his house to the crime scene. Without an eyewitness or irrefutable evidence, I’m screwed.
Even those things are mostly useful for convincing a suspect that he’s screwed and should cut a deal. That won’t happen with Conrad. I could have five people who saw him flee Anders’s house, bloody knife in hand, and he’d claim it was a mistake and force me to decide exactly how far I want to push this.
“Marissa didn’t do anything wrong,” I say. “She was hit over the head and left unconscious for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I don’t know what I hope to accomplish with this. He won’t be seized with guilt and confess. I guess I’m just hoping he has enough humanity to feel bad about what he did to Marissa. That he’ll realize breaking into Anders’s place had unexpected consequences for an innocent person.
“Yep,” he says. “She’s a good woman. She doesn’t deserve any of this. Doesn’t deserve to find out her boyfriend is a killer. Doesn’t deserve to have people whispering about her, wondering whether she knew. Doesn’t deserve to get knocked out for being at his place. But this is what’s going to happen, Detective Butler, if you leave that murderer in town. People will get hurt.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s an observation. Whatever happened to Marissa, she didn’t deserve it, and it wouldn’t have happened if your boyfriend agreed to ship Will Anders out. He didn’t. Now everyone needs to deal with the consequences. Marissa got hurt. You got hurt. I got woken up at one A.M. to be accused of assault. People are angry, and it’s only going to get worse. I just hope our sheriff realizes that before it’s too late.”
SIX
I want to throw Conrad’s ass in the cell. Forget stabbing me or even knocking out Marissa. I want to lock him up for what he said before I left. He might claim it wasn’t a threat, but on behalf of my friends and my town, I feel threatened.
I interview Marissa. She’s groggy and in shock. Earlier, I’d told her she’d been attacked, but I don’t think she’d been in shape to fully process it.
“I went over to talk to Will,” she says. “I … I have things I wanted to say. I thought he was on his usual midnight shift, so I was waiting. The back door opened. I figured it was him. I turned and saw a dark figure. I still thought it was Will. And then…” She blinks. “I don’t remember the rest.”
She got to Anders’s place at 11:45 P.M. She’d used her key to enter the back door and believes she left it unlocked. She’d turned on a lamp in the living room and settled in with paperwork.
Having a law degree, Marissa had been offered a choice of jobs in Rockton, including a managerial position. To our surprise, she’d picked a server position at the Red Lion. She’d put herself through school working at a cocktail bar and had joked that during her most stressful trials, she sometimes fantasized about trading her suits and sensible shoes for miniskirts and high heels. She’d happily thrown herself into the work, quickly becoming the Lion’s most popular server, while picking up extra credits working at the library.
Those choices got my attention. Made me decide I liked this woman, and I liked her even more when she started dating Anders. That’s what stings the worst. I can’t write her off as a flighty twit who chased a hot guy and dumped him at the first sign of trouble. I only hope that going to Anders’s house means she’s reconsidered their breakup.
As for the paperwork, she’s recently been headhunted by Phil for a special project. He’s analyzing and documenting Rockton’s infrastructure for future town leaders. Of course, we both know there will be no future leaders. He’s really doing it for us. Learning everything he can about how Rockton operates so we can launch our own version if we can’t reverse the council’s decision. To Marissa and the council, his project is simply filling in gaps in the scant documentation. Because he’s Phil—the guy who memorizes policy documents in his spare time—no one suspects him of having an ulterior motive.
Marissa had been working on that paperwork when the break-in occurred. Seeing a light on, the intruders had known someone was at home. Did they expect Anders? Did they intend to attack him? I don’t know. While I’m interviewing Marissa, Anders and Dalton check the chalet, and they find signs of a search, but nothing is missing.
What would the intruders have been searching for? They hardly need proof of Anders’s crime, since he confessed. That makes me think they really did plan an assault. Break in, surprise Anders, and show him he was in danger if he stayed in Rockton. I wish it had been Anders in that room. If so, the perpetrators would be taking Marissa’s place in the clinic, as April tended to their wounds and I informed them they’d be spending the night together in the cell.
