Last night had been a needed respite, not only for her, but for Braddock, too. And it felt good, both times, which made her snort a smile while her thoughts drifted back on it. Braddock was equal parts tender, energetic, caring and exuberant. And she’d responded in kind, with a fevered passion and desire to be there for him.
Yet, as good as it felt to just lay there in a comfortable bed in a house along a tranquil northern Minnesota lake, she knew she needed to let the night go.
She carefully lifted Braddock’s left arm just enough to allow her to squirm loose and rolled her naked body to the edge of the bed, where she sat up. She stifled a small laugh as she saw her little white thong underwear hanging on the doorknob to the walk-in closet, recalling Braddock just tossing them away after he’d laid her down on the bed and slipped them off.
Tori slowly stepped off the bed and tiptoed over to the closet door and grabbed her underwear and then looked left. Lying on the floor between the bed and wall was her white lace bra. But her plan to slink away was already foiled.
Braddock was awake, his eyes focused on her as she brought up her underwear and bra to cover her chest. With everything gathered in her arms she turned to start for the bathroom, in the search for a bit of privacy when Braddock laughed.
She looked back. “What’s so funny?”
He had a wry smile on his face, sitting up in bed now. “You look like you might have done this once or twice before.”
“What?”
“The quick getaway.”
Tori stopped, her bra and underwear barely covering her naked chest as she clutched them to it. “I’ve never been good at this part.”
“What part is that?”
“The aftermath.”
Will laughed out loud and grinned broadly. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Well, maybe that’s because you call it the aftermath, Tori. It makes it sound like something tragic and from firsthand experience, I can assure you last night was not tragic.”
“It’s just that I’ve never been very good at this, Will,” she replied, looking at the floor. “I don’t have a real solid track record of success with men, other than…you know, the part we did last night. Remember? Pain in the ass, uncompromising…all of that ringing a bell there, big guy?”
“I see,” Will replied quietly as he threw off the blankets. At some point in the night he’d managed to slide his boxers back on. He stood up and slowly approached Tori and reached for her left hand, interlocking his fingers with hers. “Well first, you can keep calling me big guy if you want.”
Tori shyly giggled.
“Now I can’t speak for other men, but I thought last night was pretty great. I thought you were pretty great.”
“Yeah?” Tori asked nervously, looking up at him.
“Oh yeah,” Will replied, leaning down, kissing her softly on the lips and then wrapping her in his arms.
She dropped her things to the floor and accepted the embrace, burying her head in his chest. The two of them held onto each other for a quiet minute.
“Now at the risk of freaking you out, I have a really important and maybe sensitive question to ask.”
“Which is?” Tori asked warily, looking up.
“Would you like some breakfast? I’m really good at making breakfast.”
Tori smiled. “Yeah, okay.”
“Good. Get dressed, shower if you want. Extra towels are under the sink and I’ll start cooking.”
Tori took a quick shower and when she came down to the kitchen scrambled eggs, toast, sliced fruit, orange juice and coffee awaited, along with Braddock, who was hanging up a call.
“What’s up?”
“BCA will be at Brule’s with the ground penetrating radar within the hour,” Braddock answered as he poured a cup of coffee for Tori.
They ate in relative silence before Tori finally said, “You’re right, though.”
“About what?”
“We really don’t know what to say.”
“About how we handle this going forward?”
Tori nodded. “It is, after all, the elephant in the room.”
Will shrugged before taking a sip of coffee and looking away for a moment. “How do you want to handle it? Other than, I’m sure, keeping it quiet.”
“I don’t know,” she replied, shaking her head, a bit flustered. Talking about her own emotions and feelings, especially when it came to men, was not a strong suit. “I haven’t slept with someone I’ve been working a case with before.”
“Neither have I,” Will replied, shaking his head and then smiled. “This is a bit of quandary, isn’t it?”
“Don’t joke. Not about this.”
“I’m not,” Will answered, shaking his head. “I’m searching for the right words. And failing.”
“What do we do?” she asked, suddenly panicked.
“Does there have to be an answer?”
“Don’t we have to figure out how we’re going to deal with this? We’re working together,” Tori stated. Their relationship was complicated and intense enough as it was, she thought, and now they had added sex to the equation.
“You think we need ground rules?”
“I don’t know,” Tori blurted out, looking down to her plate. “Last night was great. I mean…really great.”
“It was.”
“But now I’m…confused with how to handle the…”
“Aftermath.”
“Yeah.” But now she smiled.
“Me too.” Braddock thought for a moment. “Why don’t we just see how it goes and not put any big expectations in play? This case could be done today. It could be done next week. Three months from now. Maybe never. Or three hours from now you could be leaving Manchester because a child has gone missing somewhere and you’re needed there.”
“So play it by ear, then?”
“It’s all we can do for now,” he replied calmly. “Are you okay with that?”
Maybe it was Braddock’s confident, laidback manner in not pressuring her, not expecting anything, that made her relax. He was proposing to live in the here and now. She was good with that. “Yeah, I think so,” she replied, smiling as she finished the last of her toast and juice and then looked at her watch. If they were going to be spending the day at Brule’s property, she needed to get back to the hotel to change into something far more appropriate than her little pink tank top and tan shorts.
She got up from her stool at the center island, walked over and leaned into Braddock and kissed him, then slid her right arm around his neck and kissed him again, this time holding the kiss for an extra moment. “Thanks for making breakfast.”
“My pleasure.”
Ninety minutes later, Tori was all business dressed in a dark olive pantsuit. She walked under the crime scene tape and up the driveway to find Braddock leaning against Lund’s Tahoe, chatting with Cal. BCA agents were onsite with two ground penetrating radar units. A property grid had been laid out and the teams split the property in half.
“It’ll probably take two days to scan the properties,” Cal reported. “Even with all the wooded areas, there is plenty of open space to work. And if we don’t find anything here, we’ll go up to that cabin of his. And as I’m sure you’ve heard, we have dogs here as well. If there is something here, we’ll find it.”
“Do we really think he’d bury the bodies on his own property?” Tori asked, not hiding her disbelief. Braddock had to play politics, she didn’t.
“Well, Victoria,” Cal admonished, “You asked the other day, where are the bodies? He has two pieces of property, so we need to search them. I too have doubts that the bodies are here, but we’ll know soon enough.” He folded his arms. “Now young lady, if you have other ideas of where to look, I’m all ears. Or you and Will here could spend some more time investigating Brule and figuring out where else he might have buried the bodies,” Cal added acerbically before strolling away.
“Great. Now I’m pissing him off,” Tori remarked.
“Look on the bright side. You’re no longer pissing me off,” Braddock replied lightly.
“Do I get more leeway with you now that we’ve slept together?” Tori asked impishly.
“Don’t push it,” Braddock cracked in reply as he turned and looked back down the driveway to the road and the media trucks arriving. “That’s not going to help.”
“No,” Tori replied as a cameraman was already out of the van, putting his camera on his shoulder, walking up to the edge of the crime scene tape. “We kept this quiet enough for a few days but now the circus has arrived.”
“You and I have reservations, big ones,” Will murmured quietly. “Cal knows we do but still, instead of antagonizing him and the county attorney we need to keep our powder dry for now and let this play out.”
“That’s fine. But they’re not going to find anything. Yet, they’re still going to be thinking it’s Gunther. What do we do then?”
“Let’s play it by ear.”
“I can only handle so much playing by ear,” Tori teased.
“Okay, let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Any other clichés you want to throw out?”
“No, but I can’t help but sit here and think that we might be trying sabotage this thing. I don’t like that,” Will remarked under his breath.
“I don’t think we’re trying to sabotage anything,” Tori replied. “And if my sister’s body is here, if Lash’s body is here, then despite our reservations we were wrong, and I’ll be the first one to admit it and be glad to do so. Do you think we are wrong?”
Will shook his head lightly. “No, but you’re right. Even if they don’t find a body, they’re going to proceed as if Gunther was the killer unless we can show it wasn’t Gunther.”
“Any idea on how to do that?”
“Not yet,” Will answered, but then saw Steak walking past and had a thought, waving him over. He explained to Steak that he wanted him to dig through everything on Gunther, everything. “Financials, travel, phone, land ownership, talk to his ex-wife, his lawyer, anyone you can think of. Have Eggleston help you.”
“To nail it down that it was Gunther?” Steak asked, then sensing there was an ulterior motive followed with, “Or am I supposed to find something else?”
“We can’t be wrong about him, we can’t miss anything,” Will lied to his detective, feeling guilty as he did so. “We need everything we can put together on Gunther. If you find something of interest, let me know. But Tori and I have been working this and I want a fresh set of eyes on it.”
“How does that help us?” Tori asked as Steak strolled away, pulling out his cell phone and no doubt calling his partner.
“I have to be true to myself. We play it straight. You and I are assuming we aren’t going to find a body here or up at the cabin.”
“Yes.”
“Then as I think this through, if we don’t find the bodies, I can’t turn around and then argue it’s not Gunther if I haven’t done everything in my power to prove it is. So, I put my two best investigators on the case to dig up everything they can on him.”
“No games.”
“No games,” Braddock answered, “other than maybe sending my two best detectives on a little bit of a wild goose chase here.”
“And there is one other thing we have in our back pocket.”
“The negative DNA on the cigarette butts,” Braddock replied, reading her mind. “I think we continue to keep that under our hat for the time being.”
“Agreed, but while that might help, there is one other thing we really need to do,” Tori replied.
“What’s that?”
“Well, if it’s not Gunther, then who is it? Because that will be the question Cal and the county attorney will have. And you’re right, we can have all the suspicions, but if we don’t have someone else to plausibly point to, to create doubt about Gunther, we’re toast.”
“You’re right about that,” he agreed. The two of them stood quietly, watching the proceedings. “By the way, you look and smell very nice,” he remarked quietly.
Tori smiled inwardly. “Thanks for noticing.”
“I’m a detective. It’s my job to notice.”
The day dragged on as the BCA techs worked their way through two-thirds of Brule’s property by the time the sun started setting in the west. There were no signs of a body. With the media gathering out on the road Cal, Backstrom and a senior agent for the Minnesota BCA addressed the media. Cal went to great pains to say that no conclusion had been made but the story cake was already being baked. Gunther Brule was a person of interest. The fact that he was dead of an apparent suicide was raw meat for the newsies, who were running with him as the potential killer of Genevieve Lash and that he could be tied to the twenty-year-old Jessie Hunter disappearance.
Cal and Backstrom came back up the driveway to find Tori and Braddock waiting for them, displeased.
“We had to say something,” Backstrom stated.
“We can agree to disagree on that,” Braddock replied brusquely.
“You don’t run for office,” the county attorney retorted.
“And what if you’re wrong? How does that play at the ballot box?”
“You do realize, don’t you, that the only real proof you have of anything on Gunther is that he might have taken a shot at me or tried to blow up Will,” Tori explained. “I mean, you’re only tie to Genevieve Lash is he pinched her on the ass. Is that the foundation upon which you want to build your house?”
“You do realize, don’t you, Victoria, that he committed suicide,” Cal noted, not pleased with her tone. “Shot himself after you two confronted him. And by the way, since when have we not closed cases on good circumstantial evidence?”
“Why won’t you two just take the win?” Backstrom asked dismissively.
“Nobody wants to solve this more than Tori or me,” Braddock snapped back. ”Nobody!”
“Easy, Will,” Cal cautioned.
Braddock took a breath. “All I’m saying is be careful about getting ahead of yourself, Mr. Backstrom.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh, but you’re getting ready, sir. I can tell how anxious you are to declare victory here, so you can get Kyle Mannion and Skip Sauer and the rest of the business community off your back.”
“Don’t you want them off yours? I seem to recall Sauer coming after you pretty hard in Cal’s office.”
“So what?” Braddock answered, once again feisty. “I’m not going to rush my case and miss something just to satisfy him or anyone else. Especially this case. On this case we can’t be wrong. We just can’t. With all the town has been through with this, we have to be as sure as we can be. That case has been going twenty years, what’s a few more days to lock it down?”
“Well, tell you what, Detective,” Backstrom replied, not pleased with being so tenaciously advised by someone he deemed his clear subordinate. “We’ll make it easy for you, it won’t be your call. It’ll be Cal’s and it’ll be mine and once it’s made—and it will be made—you better get in line and smile for the cameras, son.”
“And if I don’t?”
Backstrom took a breath and gave Braddock a good long look. “Will, I like you. I always have. Don’t put me in a position where I have to reevaluate that view of things,” Backstrom warned before looking over to Lund. “I’ll call you later,” he said, shaking the sheriff’s hand before striding away.
“Well, that was fun,” Cal remarked lightly once Backstrom was out of earshot. Then he turned and stepped up to Braddock. “I think you’ve been hanging around Victoria a little too much lately.”’
“Hey!” Tori protested.
“Will, be careful and don’t you get too far ahead of yourself,” Cal counseled. “I’m not running again in a few years, but Backstrom is and he’ll win. He’s more political than legal, but he’s smart, popular and connected. He has Jeff Warner and Kyle Mannion’s support and money backing him. As I’ve counseled, you want
and need to be friends with them.”
“Like you?” Tori asked.
Cal pivoted, paused and gave her a severe look. “Victoria, I’ve been smart enough to certainly not make any of those gentlemen my enemy.” He looked back to Braddock. “When I’m gone there will be a new sheriff and you’re going to want to have friends to have your back. Backstrom can be one and he’ll bring others along with him, but not if you talk to him like that. I’d suggest you chew on that a little tonight.” With that Cal strode away.
“He’s probably right, you know,” Tori stated once Cal was out of earshot.
“Yeah, he is,” Braddock answered, shaking his head. “I’ll need to go see Backstrom and clear the air.”
“I absolutely loved it,” Tori stated.
Braddock chuckled. “I imagine you did.”
“So…” Tori turned to him. “Detective Braddock, now that we’re off the clock, do you have any plans?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“What I have in mind is your place. Right now.”
CHAPTER 25
“I SEE, SO SOMEONE ELSE WAS SHOOTING FROM THE GRASSY KNOLL.”
By the end of the next day events had transpired just as Tori and Braddock anticipated. And feared.
The search at Brule’s Manchester property ended by midafternoon. In fact, one team finished the search of its half of the property by ten a.m. and was dispatched to the Lake Benedict property. The second team left the Manchester property and joined them in the early afternoon. By seven p.m. both parcels were fully searched. No bodies were found.
Cal and Backstrom gathered Wilson, Tori and Braddock in Brule’s cabin garage for some privacy. “I don’t care that we didn’t find any bodies, it’s time to call it,” Backstrom declared.
“I think that is a really bad idea,” Tori posited and then dropped something she and Braddock had been holding back. “There isn’t a DNA match on the cigarette butts found next to the shell casings.”
“How long have you been sitting on that?” Cal asked, annoyed.
“Two days,” Tori replied. “I wanted to see how the search played out and it played out how I thought it would. No bodies.”
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