Pushed Too Far

by Ann Voss Peterson

  “We’re officers of the law. We have to follow the law.”

  “And if we aren’t able to come up with a new case against him, he goes free. Just like he did in Omaha.”

  She shook her head, remembering the horror of the Omaha case, the poor girl he tortured, the case that should have been a slam dunk. “If the Omaha police had played everything by the book, he would have been convicted.”

  “You don’t know that.” Olson twisted his stocking cap in his hands, and Val had to wonder if it was a stand in for her throat. “There was a lot of evidence against him. It should have been enough, even with the illegal search of his car.”

  She couldn’t disagree. Even now she could hear echoes of the Omaha PD Lieutenant’s anguish when she’d called about the case.

  “He was the worst I’ve ever known,” said the thirty-five year veteran. “The cruelest man I’ve ever seen.”

  “We’ll stop him.” Her voice sounded weaker than she’d wanted, and she straightened her spine to compensate.

  Lips in a hard line, Olson looked past her and focused on the shoreline. “You better be right.”

  She followed his gaze.

  A white van drove through the parking lot and past the playground equipment, the logo of a local television station emblazoned on its side.

  Great.

  Once the media sank their teeth into this, there was no going back. Hess’s attorney would file a habeas corpus motion and the clock would start ticking.

  Forty eight hours.

  It was all the time she had, and it wasn’t enough.

  Not nearly enough.

  Chapter

  Three

  Dale Kasdorf wasn’t surprised when he saw police and fire trucks and ambulances stream into the park. If anything, he wondered why it took them so long.

  He trudged down the ridge in the adjacent forest preserve. Dressed in snow camo, he couldn’t be seen today any more than he had been last night, and that was good with him. Nothing came of talking to cops. Nothing but harassment.

  He’d learned his lesson the first time.

  Approaching his traps, he spotted the news truck. For a while he just stood and watched them unload the camera, set up the reporter, get ready to intercept the pretty blond police chief when she reached shore. Apparently they’d tell the story on the news tonight—or at least they’d try—but he wouldn’t watch.

  He knew the story better than they did.

  He continued, checking each of his four traps. Two rabbits. One for freezing one for eating. A good day. Maybe he’d use the fur to make a hat. Get real Native American and use all the parts of the kill.

  He liked that idea.

  After bagging his game, he reset the traps in different spots, far from the smells of blood and struggle that would surely scare off the next round of game. In summer, it was hard to utilize the forest preserve without some kid or dog stumbling on the steel jaws and ripping their damn fool legs apart. But after deer season ended, people left the woods to the rabbits and squirrels, foxes and coyotes.

  And to him.

  The way he liked it.

  Ready to head back to his place and cook up some stew, he took one last glance at the lake below. His eyes skimmed over the young female cop collecting trash along water’s edge and found the bright orange raft, the body strapped to it barely visible in the long grass reaching through ice.

  He’d seen a woman die early this morning. That had to be marked.

  But he wasn’t going to tell this time. Not a goddamn word. Because the only thing worse than being a victim in this world was being a witness.

  And he would never make that mistake again.

  Lund had lived through a lot of bad days, but this one might be the worst.

  He’d barely moved since he’d pulled Kelly to stable ice. Hadn’t been able to face taking off the thermal suit, as if the clinging rubber was the only thing keeping him from shattering into a million pieces.

  She’d died two years ago, and his failure to save her still stung like an open wound. Still he’d pulled himself together. He’d gotten through the investigation, the trial, and the months of nothingness after.

  Now he had to face it again.

  He watched the police chief pick her way over the ice. She was a beautiful woman, high cheekbones and serious, gray eyes. If he’d met her under other circumstances, he was sure his attraction would be his focus. Instead, every time he saw her, he felt raw and wary.

  She would want to talk to him, not just about the failed rescue today but where he’d been this morning, what he’d done last night, and it would all start over.

  The news crew met her as soon as she’d stepped onto shore, camera heading her off, microphone pushed into her face. He could read her lips from here.

  No comment.

  No comment.

  “You done with the suit?” Dempsey tromped up next to him and held out a hand.

  Lund pushed himself up from the playground equipment and forced himself to peel off the protective layer. “I can take care of it.”

  “You did the paddling.”

  “You drove.”

  Dempsey shot him a sideways look. “Just give me the suit.”

  Lund handed it over. He knew Dempsey and Johnson were just trying to share the load. They didn’t get that helping pack up wasn’t a burden. On the contrary, being able to do something might help get his mind off Kelly, off the police chief and her inevitable questions.

  Of course, he hadn’t told his fellow firefighters exactly who he’d pulled from the water. Pete Olson had insisted he keep that information quiet, and now he was glad he’d listened. Dempsey and Johnson were coddling him enough just thinking he’d failed to save a woman he didn’t know.

  Too bad it wouldn’t stay a secret for long. As soon as they found out, they would start treating him like he was as fragile as the ice on that lake.

  Covering an area of rural land and small towns, the fire district didn’t have a live-in firehouse. It had only two full-time firefighters, the chief, who handled the administrative end, and the fire inspector/community outreach director, who happened to be Lund. The rest were paid volunteers who trained regularly and responded to the radios they kept in their homes.

  But the lack of other full-time firefighters wouldn’t prevent the chief from insisting he take some time off, leaving him with nothing to do but sit around and think.

  He looked back toward Police Chief Ryker. One last no comment, and she broke away from the camera and started his way.

  He yanked on his boots, stood and tried his best to relax. He’d been through this drill before, knew what was coming, but that didn’t mean he had a clue how to handle it. Or that he ever would.

  “Mr. Lund. I’m glad I caught you.” She skirted the ambulance and Unit One, wind streaming her blond hair across her face despite her efforts to push it away. She wore a dark wool coat over police blues, as usual, something that always struck him as odd compared to most chiefs of police who tended to prefer suits. He suspected she counted on the uniform to remind citizens of her authority, to give her an edge.

  Not that she needed it.

  Stopping in front of him, she shoved one hand in her pocket and studied him as if reading his mind. “This must be a shock. I’m so sorry.”

  The first time Kelly had been murdered he’d spent so much time studying Val Ryker’s expressions, he no longer needed subtitles. “But you need to ask me a few questions.”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Seems last time the only answer you’d accept was a confession.”

  Her lips tightened. “Do you have something to confess?”

  “I didn’t kill her, and I don’t know where she’s been all this time. Will that suffice?”

  “That’s a start.”

  “You want to know where I was the past few hours and who can vouch for me.”

  She didn’t answer, just waited for him to go on.

  “I’ve been at the fire st
ation all day, plenty of witnesses.”

  “And last night?”

  “At the fire station late. Then I stopped at the Doghouse for a beer.”

  “After that?”

  “Home alone, in bed. No witnesses. Not unless you count the Playboy channel.”

  Her expression didn’t change.

  He’d thrown in the Playboy channel to unnerve her, but it hadn’t been a lie. Cable was as close as he’d gotten to a date in the two and a half years since Kelly declared she needed a break from their marriage. Except for work, it was the closest he’d gotten to a life.

  “You didn’t see or hear from Kelly?”

  “No.” He thought about last night. Coming home late, tired, maybe a little buzzed. The door swinging open before he’d inserted the key. “But someone might have been in my house.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Did you report the break in?”

  “I don’t know if it was a break in. I’m pretty sure I locked the door, but I might have forgotten.”

  “Was anything missing?”

  “Not that I could tell.”

  “I’ll send someone over.”

  He shouldn’t have mentioned it. Now he’d given the chief an excuse to poke around in his house. “Since nothing is missing, I don’t think that’s necessary, do you?”

  Another arch of the brows. “It will only take a few minutes.”

  He’d been right. It was happening again. Kelly was dead, and he was the number one suspect. Everything he’d thought he’d put behind him was replaying like a recurring nightmare.

  “It doesn’t have to be so hard, you know.”

  He frowned. Now she really was reading his mind. “What are you suggesting? That I turn myself in?”

  “Should you?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Then help me.”

  Out of all the things he expected Val Ryker to say, that wasn’t one. “Help you with what?”

  “The other body, the woman we believed was Kelly; we have to figure out who she really was.”

  He narrowed his eyes. She seemed serious. “I don’t think I can do a better job of identifying her than DNA can.”

  “The type of DNA that was used for identification has some limitations.”

  At the time of the trial, the prosecutor, Monica Forbes, had explained to him the ins and outs of mitochondrial DNA. He’d only half listened, never dreaming the body could be anyone but Kelly. “I gave her a funeral. I buried her in my wife’s grave. That’s all I can tell you.”

  She took a controlled breath. “I think you can tell me more than that.”

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  “Then cooperate. The body we found wasn’t Kelly, but mito DNA and the bones themselves indicate it does belong to a female in her family.”

  “You looked at her family the first time around. I sat through the trial. Everyone it could have been was already dead.”

  “We obviously missed someone.” She searched his eyes, as if the answer might be there.

  Suddenly he was aware of every twitch of his face muscles, every shift of his gaze, every movement of his body. He had nothing to hide, yet at the same time, he couldn’t help wondering what she was seeing. “If you’re counting on me to solve this for you, you’re shit out of luck.”

  She nodded, although whether that meant she accepted his answer or had plans to approach him in another way remained to be seen.

  “We need to exhume the body we thought was Kelly’s. It would be quickest if I could get your permission.”

  Digging up those bones shouldn’t bother him. After all, he didn’t even know who they belonged to. But a dull ache seized his chest, and he couldn’t help feeling exhuming those bones was the last detail that made the whole mess real.

  Kelly had died all over again.

  And once again, he hadn’t been able to save her.

  “I know this is tough.”

  He shook his head. He didn’t expect her concern, and he didn’t want it. “Where do I sign?”

  “I’ll take you to the police station.”

  He shook his head. There wasn’t a chance he was getting into a cop car with her. “I have my own ride.” He gestured to Unit One.

  “Suit yourself. But I need your signature as soon as possible. I’ll make sure a release form is ready for you at the dispatcher’s window.”

  “Fine.”

  She stared directly into his eyes, and for a moment, he felt more uncomfortable than he ever had under her interrogations. “Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”

  His help.

  Go figure. In the years he’d been married to Kelly, he’d never found a way to help her. And now? He wasn’t sure if he was truly helping her or just harming himself.

  He felt himself nod regardless. “I’ll give you whatever you need.”

  Chapter

  Four

  By the time Val had gotten the release form signed by David Lund, obtained a court order, notified the cemetery and gotten the go ahead from church leaders and health department alike, the sun had disappeared behind the bluffs to the west. Pushing the exhumation to first thing the next morning, she went over the evidence Becca had collected from the shore of Lake Loyal. She’d assigned the task to her rookie officer in the interest of being thorough, not because she’d held out much hope the killer dropped a calling card. Now going over the list, she had even less hope.

  A faded soda can, a tissue, a shot gun shell, and a collection of Old Milwaukee beer bottles that had probably scattered the lakeshore since Val was a girl. Was it too much to ask for cigarette butts carrying the DNA of Kelly’s murderer?

  She put in a call to the state crime lab, requesting they expedite analysis of the items, then had a long teleconference with Monica Forbes in the DA’s office about the original homicide, now officially a Jane Doe, and Kelly’s most recent death.

  It was late by the time she loaded two boxes of files from the original case in the trunk of her unmarked Crown Vic. Her watch read close to midnight by the time she made it home.

  The windows were dark, not even the Christmas lights twinkling, when she pulled into the garage next to the bright green Ford Focus. When Grace had turned sixteen last summer, she’d adopted the tiny vehicle as her car, since the PD provided one for Val, and she was pretty self-sufficient, driving herself where she needed to go. But Val wasn’t ready to give up eating dinner together and tucking her niece in.

  Tonight she’d missed both.

  She climbed out, and after closing the door behind her as quietly as possible, circled to the trunk. It took three tries before she could get her numb fingers to hold onto the handle of the first Jane Doe file box. Using her thigh to help support the weight, she managed to wrestle it through the door and reach the kitchen table. The second box would have to wait.

  She’d started a pot of coffee and spread the first folder open on the table when she heard the shuffle of slippers descend the stairs.

  Tucking her hand under the table, she turned a smile on Grace. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “I was awake.”

  “This late? Physics get the better of you?”

  “Finished before the six o’clock news.”

  She supposed her television viewing choice explained the teenager ‘s inability to sleep. Even though she’d told her niece the situation over the phone, seeing the news report, complete with the kind of sensationalism that sold advertising spots, had obviously upset her. “I wish you hadn’t watched.”

  Grace padded to the table. In shapeless blue plaid flannel and her long blond hair in a braid, she looked every bit as young as she’d been when she came to live with Val three years ago, at the age of thirteen. But the girl had always understood things way beyond her years, and as much baby fat as still rounded her features, her gray eyes felt much older.

  She slid into a chair. “Can I help?”

  Val flipped the file folder closed. “Not a good idea.”

  “You ca
n’t protect me forever, Aunt Val.”

  “Not forever maybe, but I can tonight.”

  “Was he innocent after all?”

  Val shook her head. “We made a mistake about the victim’s identity. That doesn’t mean he’s innocent.”

  “But you can’t keep him in prison if he was convicted for killing someone he didn’t kill.”

  Sometimes she wished Grace wasn’t such a star student. “We’ll find out who she was.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t know yet, but I’ll figure it out. Did you feed the horses?”

  She tilted her chin down, shooting Val a classic under the brow stare. “I always feed the horses.”

  “Yes, you do.” Grace was more responsible than any teen should be, and although that fact made Val proud, it also worried her at times. “Feeding time is going to feel extra early tomorrow, if you don’t get back to bed.”

  “I want to help you.”

  “You can’t help with this, sweetie.”

  “Can’t I look through transcripts or interviews? I don’t have to look at the gross stuff.”

  Val looked at the files on the table, dozens more in the boxes. She hated the thought of Grace being tangled up in any of this ugliness, but maybe she could find some relatively innocuous evidence for her to review. Her only other option was to haul this stuff into her office and shut the door, but since she couldn’t grip the box well enough to carry it up the stairs, that clearly wasn’t going to happen.

  She shifted through the folders, finally plucked one containing interviews that shouldn’t be too upsetting, and slid it to Grace. “I’ll let you help, but only if you sleep in tomorrow and let me feed.”

  “You don’t have—”

  “I want to. And I have to get up early anyway. You help me, I help you. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  She took her hand off the folder. “If there’s anything in there you have questions about, let me know. Anything.”

  She shot Val a grin. “Whatever you say, Chief.”

  They worked for two hours, reading interviews, looking for leads that hadn’t been followed, combing forensic reports. Finally Grace couldn’t hide her yawns, gave in to Val’s badgering and went to bed.