by Unknown
“Finn Carstens, Beau Chandler. Finn is consulting with the department on a special project.” She felt a little mean spirited not telling the man more. DNR district law enforcement supervisors would have gotten the memo she sent out today. But it was up to each agency to determine how far down the ladder to share it. “How’s your dad doing?”
The man’s angular shoulders bobbed up then down. “Same. Once winter sets in his rheumatoid arthritis gets worse. It’s hard for him to get around much. I’m trying to get him an appointment at the Mayo Clinic. Maybe they’ll have more ideas.”
Keira nodded sympathetically although from the stories she’d heard over the years, Mike Chandler didn’t deserve anyone’s empathy. He’d been emotionally and verbally abusive to his wife and son. Once Beau had gotten a job in Marquette, his mother had joined him there. The man was disabled now. She hadn’t seen him since she’d returned.
“Sounds like he’s lucky to have you.”
Beau jerked a thumb toward the house. “You want to go in and say hi? He doesn’t get many visitors. He was napping when I came out, but…”
“No, that’s okay. I was hoping you’d be here. I just left one of your fans.” She told him about her visit with Kasim. Chandler rolled his eyes. “Yeah, he’s a case, that one. The guy shouldn’t even have a license. He’s a chronic violator. Caught him using an illegal artificial light with his rifle while hunting. He paid a fine and lost his privileges for the rest of the year. Should have done jail time. Wish he had. Our office has gotten several complaints about him.”
“The more serious violators do sometimes end up as guests of the county,” she said for Finn’s benefit.
Beau nodded. “It’s the habitual ones usually. I’d bet my left arm that Kasim is a chronic violator, he just hasn’t been caught often enough at it.” He gave a shoulder jerk again. “There’s a lot of land for the DNR officers to cover. We’re not going to catch everyone.”
This evening, Keira vowed, she’d take a closer look at the DNR database for license revocations and violations. “You know many of the hunters in the area. Are you familiar with any sharp shooters? Better than average shots?”
“Know more who claim to be.” A wide grin split his face. “But sure, there’s Al Siegel on Grand Island. I can say for a fact that he’s everything he claims. I’ve been hunting with him. Doug O’Shea in Christmas. Helluva good tracker, and a great shot to boot.” She pulled out a notebook to write down the names as he rattled off a half a dozen more. When he’d wound down, she asked, “What about Bruce Yembley? You know him?”
He made a face. “Ran across him a time or two in the Hiawatha Forest. Rough customer, that one. I have my doubts about whether he obeys the rules and regulations, but can’t say I ever caught him at anything.”
“Your office takes a lot of calls, people reporting on others for poaching, trapping and hunting violations. Do you have any names of individuals who seem to have problems with one particular person?”
He bobbed his head. “We get some complainers, sure, pissed that they’re following the rules and the guy down the road isn’t. The thing is, without proof, there’s not much we can do to follow up, other than talk to the people. I can’t say I recall the same names popping up, though, at least not in Alger. That sort of thing is more common in Marquette and Baraga. A lot more land to cover there.”
Though he didn’t say a word, Keira could feel Finn getting restless. “I appreciate your time, Beau. I’ll let you get back to your work.” She looked toward the house. “You have a wood burner inside?”
“We discovered that it helps dad’s arthritis some. It’s a drier heat. ’Course so is Arizona.” His voice was amused. “But he’ll never leave this place.”
“Thanks for your help.”
He raised a hand. “Good seeing you, Keira.”
It wasn’t until they got back in the car that she realized what had caused Finn’s disquiet.
“Fallon found some brass. I checked an incoming text.”
“I didn’t notice.” He must have been discreet.
“There’s more. Whoever the shooter is, he’s not the same man who broke into your cabin.”
She took her foot off the accelerator to look at him, mind racing. “You sent him the measurements you took at Yembley’s house, didn’t you?”
Finn nodded. “I did. Even though I haven’t examined the casts from last night yet, Fallon compared the dimensions to prints at your place that had been marked as belonging to the shooter. They match the ones I took of Yembley’s. But they’re about a size too small to belong to the intruder. I accessed the email I had that information in to make sure.”
She pressed her foot on the accelerator again, but it was instinct that had her turning toward Munising. “That doesn’t prove he’s the shooter.”
Finn gave one slow nod. “But now we know Yembley isn’t the man who left that cooler on your porch, or the ear in your refrigerator. He could have fired those shots last night, but he isn’t likely to be the killer we’re tracking.”
_______
By mid-afternoon, Keira took pity on Finn and stopped by the sandwich shop before returning to the office. Hank still wasn’t back, but she gave Phil the names of the marksmen they’d gotten from Chandler to add to the list of shooters they’d been compiling. After making short work of his lunch Finn left for the lab. Keira talked to Mary and Brody and the two brought her up to date on the four missing persons they’d been following up on. Since law enforcement responses today were as slow as they’d expected, she sent everyone home, not without some argument.
Before she did anything else, she looked up Roger Wilson’s number from the county employee list and called him to pass on Burt Kasim’s information.
She’d been counting on the man to be away from his phone. Had hoped to leave a message. Her heart sank when she heard his voice on the other end. “Roger. This is Keira Saxon.”
“Keira! My God, are you all right? Of course, you are, you’re calling, but…were you hurt? The news is all over town. Everyone was talking about it at Claire’s today.” His torrent of words came in a flood, one tumbling after the other until they were hardly recognizable. “This is horrible. Absolutely horrible. You could have been killed!”
“I’m fine, thank you for your concern.” After speaking to people all day outside of Munising, she was unused to having to answer questions about last night. For the first time, she took a look at the stack of phone messages on her desk. That reprieve was likely over.
“I hate to ask you for another favor, Roger…”
“Anything. Absolutely anything. You should know by now that there’s very little I wouldn’t do for you, Keira.”
Taking a deep breath she barreled on. “I was questioning someone today and the only way I could enlist his cooperation was to promise you’d call him about a complaint he had. I’m sorry to use you that way. I have his number here if you want it.” The silence on the other end had her searching for a graceful way to finish the conversation. “I’m afraid he’s burned up the phone lines and you’ll probably have plenty of messages from him when you get back to work on Monday.”
“No, no, that’s fine. Anything for you. My God, you could have been…”
“I really appreciate it.” Hastily she gave him Kasim’s complaint and his number. “Again, I’m sorry about this, but the situation started out volatile and this was a way to defuse it.”
“Of course, of course.” Wilson’s voice held a forced heartiness. “That’s the nature of our jobs, isn’t it? Responding to the public.”
“It is. You’ll have to excuse me, I have another call. Thank you again.”
“I’m always here to help, Keira.”
With a desperate sort of relief, she hung up the phone, her breath releasing in one steady stream. Talking to the man was made worse knowing what she did about his history with her mother. Things had always been oddly strained between them but now…she moved her shoulders as if to dislodge the un
comfortable feeling. It was just weird.
Weirdness was a step up from being shot at, she thought with dark humor. She supposed she should be grateful for that.
She flipped through the stack of notes, sorting them into piles according to what she intended to respond to and what could be handed off to someone else Monday. Minutes later a foreign sound reached her ears. Keira was familiar with the normal office noises. Given the age of the building that housed it, there were plenty. But the faint swish swish heading toward her door wasn’t a usual one. She was halfway out of her chair when a knock sounded, and it opened to frame Pammy.
At least—Keira blinked—she thought it was Pammy. Gone were the dyed black hair and dark clothing. Her gaze traveled lower. Absent were the clunky platform shoes with stacked heels. The woman was wearing ballet flats, rainbow colored tights, a sparkly tulle skirt and bedazzled turquoise leotard. Her hair was a color of platinum remarkably similar to that of Stella Cummings, worn with much better effect.
“Saw all the cars and thought, what the hell. If everyone else can come in on a Saturday and lend a hand, I can, too.” The hands the woman offered, Keira saw now were encased in stretchy baby blue gloves. She’d done something to her eyes, too. False eyelashes perhaps, encrusted with crystals. “Put me to work. Please.”
“Ah…” She swallowed the suggestion of tasking the woman with changing her wardrobe and blindly scooped up a stack of messages. Held them out. “Any notes from the paper can be placed in the circular file. The rest of these are tips that were called in about last night’s shooting. You can follow up with the ones who left numbers and get more information.”
“Excellent.” The woman glided—literally glided—over to Keira’s desk to take the notes. “Do you like my new outfit?”
“I...can’t say.”
“It’s a work in progress.”
Keira nodded. “Aren’t we all?”
Pammy continued to the door, tossing the messages Keira had indicated into the trashcan on her way by. Before she left the office, she looked over her shoulder. “Keira.” She stopped for a moment, before swallowing hard. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“Yeah.” She watched the woman sashay out the door. “Me, too.”
Her cell phone rang then, distracting her. It was Finn, but she was reminded of Tiffany again, mentally chastising herself for not following up with her friend the way she’d meant to earlier today. “Hi.”
“Keira.” His low tones had a frisson of awareness pulsing through her veins. The sensation was as unwelcome as it was unfamiliar. “I sent Fallon out to Yembley’s house a couple hours ago.”
“Had he returned?” Certainly she’d gotten no word of sightings of the man or his vehicle.
“It didn’t look like it. I had him cast the boot prints around Yembley’s mailbox on the road. No reasonable expectation of privacy there, right?”
She shook her head, belatedly realizing he couldn’t see the action. “No.”
“Perfect footwear match to those taken yesterday evening at your place.” The words reverberated through her. “You can issue a warrant for Bruce Yembley’s arrest. He’s the one who tried to kill you last night.”
Chapter 10
Finn stepped into the conference room, feeling more than a bit bemused. “There’s a woman out there at Cal’s desk…”
Keira didn’t look up from whatever she was engrossed in. “Pammy. She’s following up on some tips.”
“That’s…ah. She looks…different.”
“You’ll get used to it. I always do.” Finally, she pulled her gaze away from what he could now see were spreadsheets covering every inch of the conference room table. “I issued the warrant. Had to get Judge Isaacson off a snowmobile trail to get it done. It just went out over the law enforcement alert system. That and the BOLO should be enough to scoop Yembley up from whatever rock he’s hiding under. I also have deputies doing frequent passes by his house. We’ll find him.”
“Let’s hope so.” Although it would be much more satisfying for Finn to happen upon the man himself, in a secluded spot minus witnesses. He indulged himself by fantasizing about it for a brief moment. Last night’s concern for Keira had coalesced once he’d discovered the identity of the shooter. The white-hot ball of rage that had lodged in his chest now had a focus. They had a name for the man who’d tried to murder her.
But they still hadn’t found the killer they’d been tracking all week. That fact had him shoving aside thoughts of retribution and refocusing his concentration.
“Along with the brass, Fallon also recovered one of the slugs fired. It was buried in the snowbank in front of your porch.”
She nodded. “The third one went wild. Over my head.”
The words summoned an image, one he’d had trouble dislodging since yesterday evening. Finn would give a great deal to have not seen the video of the shooting. “I spent the afternoon photographing the markings, magnifying the images and sharing them along with the documented measurements with a colleague at Raiker’s main lab. I’ll FedEx the physical evidence for validation purposes, of course, but for now…”
“You mean you can’t do it?”
The question stopped him. “I’m not a ballistics expert.”
“Okay. I didn’t know. I spent a lot of time talking to various experts while in CPD, but never gave much thought to forensic scientists’ specializing.” Her smile looked a bit strained around the edges. “It’s your fault for being so supremely competent in a multitude of fields.”
“I strive for better than competent,” he responded drily, “so I’m going to focus on the adverb and ignore the adjective. Because the slug Hank discovered didn’t suffer much impact damage, it also yielded enough markings to run through some ballistics databases, along with the brass. We found a match.”
Keira’s eyes went wide and she aimed a not so playful punch at his bicep. “Way to bury the lead, Carstens! You traced the rifle to another crime?”
He caught her hand as she was withdrawing it. Held it tightly in his. “The rifle used was your father’s personal weapon.”
She stared at him, but her gaze was faraway. “That case. Ten, eleven years ago. I don’t quite remember all of the details…”
“Closer to ten. There was a rash of break-ins in the county. Only weapons were being taken. Your father had his hunting rifle stolen.”
“Kent Little.” Her fingers curled in his. “Nineteen years old. Dad’s department tracked him down and there was a standoff. The kid had been selling most of the guns, but he was shooting at them with Danny’s rifle. He was outmatched.”
Finn had read the reports hours earlier. Some of the guns had been recovered. The boy hadn’t lived to see prison. When Keira tugged at her hand, he let her go. She bounced out of her chair, to pace halfway to the door before swinging around again.
“It doesn’t make sense.” She was captivating to watch. He could all but see the inner gears turning in her head. “We know Yembley didn’t kill dad because he hadn’t been released from prison yet. He wasn’t the one to break into my house. Not only was there not enough time, the footwear impression doesn’t match. But he shot at me last night…and his motivation is still unclear. The offender had dad’s cooler so it would follow that he took his rifle, as well. Which connects Yembley to the killer…”
“Because that’s likely who he got the rifle from,” Finn finished. “Yeah, I think so, too. Any other explanation relies on far too much coincidence. He’s a felon…he couldn’t get a firearm by legal means.”
“So maybe he borrowed one.” There was a look of stunned realization on her face. Coupled with a renewed sense of purpose. “We trace Yembley, and he can lead us to the murderer.”
She turned on her heel, throwing over her shoulder, “All of a sudden I’m in a hurry to execute that search warrant the judge signed for Yembley’s address.”
_______
Hours later, Finn was willing to admit that whatever association Bruce Yembley mi
ght have to the killer wasn’t going to be found inside the place he was renting. Keira had summoned all of her deputies to help with the search and given the size of the home it hadn’t taken much time to cover every square inch of it.
The man had left in a hurry. That fact had been apparent by the mess they’d encountered when they’d entered the place. Drawers were standing open, and a box of black garbage bags was on the chipped laminate counter.
“Whatever he took with him, it wasn’t his trash.” Mary sat on the edge of a rickety wooden chair with gloved hands going through the contents of the wastebasket. There were empty food containers sitting all over the house, even in the bathroom. Finn imagined that in the summer months, habits like that led to a bug infestation.
They’d lifted the old carpet from the rooms, looking for hiding spots beneath floorboards. But cracked linoleum with a floral pattern covered the area and hadn’t been disturbed. Vents were taken apart, and the low false ceiling removed, but neither revealed more than dust and cobwebs. The furniture, what there was of it, had been systematically dismantled. Even the toilet and appliances had been thoroughly searched. Finn was willing to bet the operation was going to be a bust. All it was going to prove was that the man had lived one step above an animal. Big surprise.
“There are still clothes in the closets and dresser.” Keira came up to stand next to him. “He might have swept some of his belongings into one of those garbage bags and took them with him. But he left enough behind to make me think he’s planning to come back.”
“Maybe he belatedly thought of the need for an alibi and went off to try to manufacture one.”
“Or perhaps he went to return the rifle.” They exchanged a look. Just the thought burned. They’d missed the man by no more than a couple hours, from the looks of the tire treads out front this morning. Finn consoled himself with the thought that had they found Yembley at home, they couldn’t have held him. Not then.
“Let’s finish up.” He heard the note of weariness in Keira’s tone. Looked at the clock on the stove and noted that it was nearly ten o’clock. She took her cell out of her pocket and checked it.