End of the Line_Maple Syrup Mysteries

by Emily James

  Reporting what she’d seen to the police would mean her real name showing up in the system as a witness. It could mean testifying at trial. Given what she’d told me about her husband and his law enforcement connections, that was as good as mailing him a letter with her return address on it. She might be able to hide until the trial date, but then he’d be waiting for her.

  It was a lot to ask, and yet the stakes for me, for Mark, even for Chief McTavish if he were still alive, were so high.

  Maybe there was a way we could both have what we needed.

  “Mark and I need the police to allow us to see a file from an old case. We’re sure it’ll help solve this one. If we could show any sort of connection, it might be enough to convince them. You could tell the police what you know, but do it as an anonymous tip.”

  Isabel tugged at the zipper on her bag. “My statement isn’t going to make the police believe you. It was a member of the police who took your missing man.”

  A tremor ran up my legs, and I braced a hand against Velma’s back for support.

  Suspecting something and hearing it confirmed were two very different situations. When you only suspected, you could still hold out hope you were wrong.

  Now I knew. The man behind the corruption cover-up in Fair Haven was also the one who’d kidnapped Chief McTavish, killed Troy, and framed Mark for murder.

  And my only hope of proving it lay in convincing a woman who saw the police as an enemy to trust them with her life.

  23

  I pressed my palms together in a prayer pose. “That’s exactly the information I need. Detective Dillion didn’t believe us when we told him the investigation Chief McTavish was working on and the recent murder were connected. This might convince him to let us see the file on Chief Zacharius’ death. If we find hard evidence in that file, we won’t even need your testimony anymore. We’ll have enough without it.”

  At least, that was my theory, but I couldn’t let on to Isabel that I was less than completely certain.

  She wrapped her hand around the strap of her duffle again like she wasn’t sure whether to set it down or walk out the door.

  In a way, she and I faced the same challenge. The person we were up against was law enforcement.

  Maybe she didn’t see that.

  I lowered my hands in a sign of surrender, to show her that I had nothing if she walked out. “You weren’t able to bring your husband to justice for what he did to you, but you have a chance now to protect other people from a bad cop. Please. Help me.”

  Isabel’s lips lost all their color, and her duffle bag slid off her shoulder. It hit the floor with a thud.

  Then she drew her shoulders back into a line that would have made a military drill instructor proud. “You’re right. I can’t let other people be hurt without anyone to turn to the way I was. I’ll tell the detective what I saw.”

  I called Elise and had her and Mark pick Isabel and me up. Fair Haven, unfortunately, didn’t have any places that rented cars. Until Tony either fixed mine—which seemed doubtful based on the damage I’d seen once the emergency crews got Mark and me out—or I bought a new one, I was without transportation. Driving there in Isabel’s food truck didn’t seem advisable in case I was wrong and her husband was the one who ran us off the road. Her truck would point her out to him immediately if he were searching for it.

  I filled Mark and Elise in on our way to the police station.

  Case Hammond sat behind the front desk, which was actually a relief. I’d been hoping to see either him or Henry. It was going to take a long time before things weren’t awkward between Sheila and me.

  Elise and Mark took a seat on the bench along the wall, and I marched up to the front desk with Isabel in tow.

  “We need to speak to Detective Dillion, please.”

  Something flickered across Case Hammond’s face.

  Oh crap. My voice. He thought he recognized my voice. If he put it together that I’d tricked him once before, he might leave us sitting here waiting for Detective Dillion for hours.

  Isabel’s courage wasn’t likely to last that long.

  I cleared my throat and tried to make my voice deeper. “It’s about Chief McTavish’s disappearance. It can’t wait.”

  Isabel moved just enough that her sleeve brushed mine. She must have caught what I was doing with my voice. She wouldn’t know why, but I had to be careful not to freak her out, either.

  Case glanced at the phone on the desk, then looked over my shoulder.

  Footsteps came up behind me.

  “Is this for real?” Case asked.

  I almost answered him until I realized he was talking to the person behind me. I shifted position. Elise stood off to my right.

  “It’s for real,” she said. “And important enough to call him in if he’s not here.”

  I wanted to hug Elise. She’d spotted something I hadn’t. Case had been trying to decide if it was worth the risk to his job to disturb Detective Dillion. With how officers were dropping like bugs in a room full of Raid, I couldn’t really blame him for thinking he’d be next if he seemed to be giving us any special treatment.

  But he’d worked with Elise. He trusted her in a way that he never would have trusted me. For not the first time, I was grateful for the friendships I’d made since coming here.

  He picked up the receiver and dialed a number. “Take a seat,” he said to me.

  Isabel sat beside me, but she folded and unfolded her hands. Finally, she trapped them between her knees. She looked more nervous than I’d felt in the past in a courtroom.

  Fifteen minutes passed. The front doors swung open, and Detective Dillion entered, dressed in a dark cable-knit sweater and jeans, a scarf and overcoat draped over his arm. He looked almost normal and approachable dressed like that.

  He jabbed a finger at me, then at the door to Chief McTavish’s office.

  If a person could have storm clouds over their heads the way cartoon characters did, he had them. This was off to a great start.

  I put a hand under Isabel’s elbow in case she decided to bolt and brought her along with me.

  Detective Dillion slammed the door to the office behind us. The walls next to it rattled. “This is my first day off since I ended up in this godforsaken place.”

  I peeked in Isabel’s direction. I’d expected her to have a rabbit-face-to-face-with-a-hunter expression. Instead she showed as much emotion as a blank wall. It was almost like she’d disconnected from her body and the situation.

  I nudged her gently toward one of the chairs, and she obediently sat. I took the other one.

  When I’d dealt with former Chief Wilson and Chief McTavish, I’d settled in and crossed my legs to let them know I wasn’t leaving until I got results. I’d been almost cocky.

  All the instincts I’d developed for dealing with police officers and prosecuting attorneys while working alongside my parents told me I needed to take the opposite tactic with Detective Dillion.

  I demurely crossed my ankles and folded my hands in my lap. “I know that you’re here in part to figure out what happened to Chief McTavish. I knew you’d want any information, even if it came from me. Or if I was the one to find a witness.”

  Detective Dillion dropped his coat and scarf on the desk. He leaned one elbow on the back of his chair. “I also know a lot about you. Bringing me information to help in the search for Owen McTavish won’t earn your fiancé any special favors.”

  For a second I thought I felt Isabel’s gaze on me, but when I looked in her direction, she was staring at the legs of the desk.

  I couldn’t let Detective Dillion cast doubt on my motives. “I expect you to investigate Troy Summoner’s murder thoroughly and without bias. But I’m also hoping when you hear her statement, you’ll reconsider allowing Mark to look at the case file for Chief Zacharius’ death. We’re willing to do it here in your office with you watching us the whole time.”

  Detective Dillion cursed. “What is it with you and that file? Fi
ne.” He yanked out his chair and dropped into it. He pulled out a pen and pad of paper. “Name?”

  Isabel’s body stayed glacier-still, but she tilted her chin up. “Anonymous.”

  Detective Dillion didn’t audibly sigh at her, but it was in his every expression as he brought the pen away from the page. “If you’re not willing to give your name, how can I be sure you’re not making this up? Did she pay you off?”

  “The reason I won’t give my name is also the reason I saw what happened to the missing police chief.”

  His pen touched down again. “I’m listening.”

  “My husband beat me regularly for years. The only way I could escape him was to disappear entirely. I can’t even put my name on an apartment lease for fear he’ll find me. So I sleep in my truck. That’s why I was in the parking lot the night someone in a police cruiser tasered another man and dragged him away.”

  Detective Dillion’s pen slipped across the page. He set it down. “You’re sure the kidnapper was the one in the cruiser?”

  Isabel nodded.

  “Could you describe either man?”

  “Their heights. A little about their clothes, maybe.” She shook her head. “It was dark.”

  “Can you describe the other vehicle?”

  Isabel might not recognize the question for what it was, but I did. He was testing her. If she described a car that wasn’t McTavish’s, or if she described a generic vehicle that could have fit hundreds of cars in Fair Haven alone, Detective Dillion would discount her whole story.

  Isabel gave her description in an eerily calm voice.

  The car she described matched what I remembered about Chief McTavish’s personal vehicle. I didn’t remember his license plate number, but she gave the first three places. Detective Dillion would no doubt check the first chance he got.

  He picked his pen back up and tapped it—point, end, point, end—back and forth.

  Then he got up and left the room.

  “Does that mean he believes me or not?” Isabel asked.

  I wasn’t sure. It could go either way, depending on how much Detective Dillion allowed his suspicion of me to influence him.

  Isabel and I fell into silence. The time between each tick of the clock above the door seemed to lengthen.

  I had to fill the void with something before I took the clock off the wall and yanked its batteries out. “Will you reconsider staying? So many of the officers here are my friends, and they’re good people. They’d protect you from Jerrod if he came for you.”

  “I wish I could. It’s been a long time since I’ve had friends.”

  She said the word tentatively like she wasn’t sure we were friends. Given the fact that I’d broken into her truck a couple of days ago and she’d held me at knife point, I couldn’t blame her for questioning it. But the talks we’d had let me know we could be friends if we were given the chance.

  “That’s why I want you to stay and let us help you.”

  She scraped a nail into the arm of the chair. “If it turns out Jerrod didn’t run you off the road, I’ll stay for your wedding like I promised, but then I have to go.”

  I opened my mouth to protest again, but she shook her head.

  “I know you want to help and that you think the police here could keep me safe, but they couldn’t follow me around like a protective detail. Jerrod would wait until I’m alone. The only way for me to stay safe is to keep moving. Besides, I’ve already drawn too much attention to myself here. The town’s too small, and I’d be too easy to find.”

  I had to respect her choice. I couldn’t force her.

  And she had a point. If you wanted to go unnoticed, Fair Haven wasn’t the place to do it. “I hope you’ll find a spot where you feel safe staying. You’ll be safer if you have friends to watch out for you rather than trying to do it yourself.” I couldn’t keep a grin from my face. “You’ll sleep better, too.”

  Isabel flashed one of her rare firecracker smiles.

  The door swung open, and I jumped in my seat. I’d been so focused on Isabel that I hadn’t heard anyone approaching.

  Detective Dillion led the way, an oversized manila folder under his arm. Mark limped in behind him.

  “Does this mean I can leave?” Isabel asked.

  The detective nodded.

  “Elise will drive you home,” I said.

  She didn’t wait for anyone to change their minds.

  I couldn’t imagine how much bravery it’d taken for her to come here. Police stations represented business or friendship for me. They represented something entirely different for her. Since Troy was killed, I’d gotten a taste of what it was like. No one should have to be most afraid of the people who should be keeping them safe.

  Dillion dropped the file on his desk. “Pull up close. I’m not wasting resources photocopying the thing again.”

  Mark took the chair Isabel had left and scooted it forward. He opened the folder.

  “I looked over the file after you two were here last time.” Dillion lowered himself into his chair as if he were tired of it all. “It looks like a straightforward accident. He was out at his cabin during deer-hunting season. When the paramedics arrived, there were cleaning supplies out on the table. It looked like he was planning to clean his gun.”

  Mark flipped to the next page, reading so intently I almost thought he was going to bring the papers up to touch his nose.

  I wouldn’t spot anything out of the ordinary in the autopsy report, so there wasn’t a point in me trying to read over his shoulder.

  I brought my chair closer anyway. “A police chief should know how to handle a gun safely, don’t you think?”

  “He should have,” Dillion said. “The truth of it is that we can get sloppy because we handle weapons so often. I once investigated a case where an otherwise good officer died because he didn’t maintain his weapon and it jammed when he needed it to fire. Things happen.”

  Mark turned another page. He ran his finger along the typing as if trying to help himself focus.

  He removed his hand and slowly lowered the other pages back down.

  My mouth went dry and my tongue felt too big to comfortably fit inside. He hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary.

  Dillion was looking at him now too. “So?”

  Mark closed the file. “I would have declared it an accident if I’d been the medical examiner. He had gunshot residue on his skin. That, combined with the angle of the wound, says it was close range, and he was shot from below. You wouldn’t expect either of those things if someone else were holding the gun. It did look like his head was tilted back when the shot hit his neck, but that’d be consistent with him falling asleep accidentally with the gun still in his hands.”

  The chair felt a little wobbly underneath me even though I knew it was solid. We couldn’t have been mistaken. Why else would someone have taken the file from Mark’s house? Why else would someone have tried to kill us after Grady Scherwin gave us a second copy? Why else would someone have taken Chief McTavish if it wasn’t to stop his corruption investigation?

  Lightning could strike the same place twice. But we weren’t a lightning rod, and my parents had taught me to be extra skeptical of anything that seemed like too much of a coincidence.

  “May I see the file?” I asked.

  Mark slid it over to me.

  I avoided the pictures and the autopsy report. Mark would have caught anything suspicious there, and I didn’t need to throw up in front of Detective Dillion.

  I read through the officers’ reports, but they didn’t tell me anything that Dillion and Mark hadn’t already. Quincey had been one of the responding officers, along with not-yet-chief Wilson. That combination was likely why Chief McTavish hadn’t yet crossed Quincey off his list. The responding officers would have reached the location even before the paramedics, giving them time to stage the scene. For all Chief McTavish knew, they’d been the ones to kill Chief Zacharius and then call it in.

  That theory depende
d on one important element, though.

  “Who called it in?”

  “Zacharias,” Dillion said. “We don’t have a recording of it because he called the station here rather than 911, but the dispatcher identified his voice. His statement should be in there somewhere if you want to read it for yourself.”

  Strange that he wouldn’t have called 911, knowing that he was likely bleeding out, but instinct must have kicked in. Or he could have thought his people would send help for him faster.

  “The dispatcher was sure it was Zacharias?” Mark asked. “Not someone impersonating his voice?”

  The tightness in Mark’s tone made me look up from flipping through the pages in search of the dispatcher’s statement.

  The muscles around Dillion’s lips tightened. “Like I said, you can read it for yourself if you don’t trust me. He said the person who called in was definitely Zacharius. He recognized the voices of the officers he worked with even when they tried to trick him, so he was confident someone couldn’t have deceived him.”

  A cold band tightened around my throat. I’d heard almost that exact explanation before from Henry when I asked him if someone could have been impersonating Troy.

  “I need to see the file again,” Mark said.

  I handed it over to him. He turned immediately back to the autopsy report.

  The tightness in my throat made it hard to swallow. I’d assumed that the person behind the corruption cover up in Fair Haven had to be a police officer, but police officers weren’t the only ones with access to everything they would have needed to bribe, bully, and benefit from hiding criminal activity.

  A dispatcher was the first one to learn about anything that was reported directly to the police. They could delay sending officers in order to give someone they were working with time to get away. They could approach people with an offer of protection in exchange for a cut. They’d know repeat offenders and who the police suspected, giving them an open pool of people to approach.

  And anyone who did stumble upon the cover up would be less likely to suspect them. I hadn’t. I’d assumed that only the Fair Haven police officers could be involved. I’d overlooked entirely that Henry had also been here before Carl Wilson became chief.