Rudy moved aside so that I could get a good view of my stepfather.
In handcuffs.
Colin was being questioned by the local sheriff. Blood covered his hands, was smeared on the front of his shirt and all over his shoes. He wore a very worried expression on his face, but the worry seemed to be wrestling with anger. I could see it seething from his very being.
“Colin killed Brian Bloomquist?”
“No,” Rudy said. “Of course he didn’t kill Brian Bloomquist.”
“Well, then why is he in handcuffs?”
“Because they think he killed him.”
“I am so confused, I’m amazed my head hasn’t exploded all over the place. Like those watermelons when that comedian Gallagher gets ahold of them.”
“You look like shit,” he said. “Sorry, but it’s the truth.”
I just smiled at him. No sympathy. No worry. Just you look like shit. Well, he didn’t look too hot himself. It made me worry about what he’d seen. “Okay, slow down and tell me everything,” I said.
He took a deep, cleansing breath, looked to the sky as if for guidance, and began talking. “Colin and I came back in from the lake about five-thirty. That’s a little later than Brian likes, but at the last minute I got a really good bite,” he said.
“Just tell me how my stepfather ended up in handcuffs!”
“I’m trying, Torie. Be patient. I went to the men’s room, which is around back. So if you have to take a whiz, you don’t have to come all the way in the building. Colin came on in to settle up with Brian and buy some new fishing line. When I got out of the men’s room, I came into the store, and there was Colin standing over the body with the knife in his hand and blood everywhere,” he said. “I mean, two seconds later the authorities came in behind me and—”
“Which means somebody either heard something or saw something … or Brian managed to dial 911,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured, too. But anyway, the authorities came in and—”
“There has to be an explanation for this,” I said and rubbed my forehead. I forgot all about my black eye until my fingers rubbed over the side of my head. Even my temple hurt. I winced.
This wasn’t looking like a much better scenario for my mother’s happiness, either. How happy could she be if her beloved husband was rotting behind bars for all of eternity? I had to get some answers. What was I going to tell her? I had to call her on the phone and tell her … but what exactly? I grabbed a deputy as he went by. “Excuse me. That’s my stepfather. Can I speak to somebody about what’s going on?”
The deputy was blond and blue-eyed, so Aryan that Hitler would have snatched him in a second. “Sure, just a minute, ma’am.”
I hate it when people younger than me call me ma’am. It makes me feel so old. I tapped my foot and crossed my arms, chomping at the bit. All the while, there were people snapping pictures and measuring things. Blood splatters or something. The body was gone, but on the floor I could see the tape where it had outlined him. And the blood. Wasn’t the first time I’d seen copious amounts of human blood, but it still unnerved me. I didn’t puke this time, but every time a flash went off, it made my gut contract. The blood looked electric in the flash of the camera.
I tried to look away, but bumped into somebody. There were more people crammed in that store than needed to be, and I was getting a serious case of weirded-out claustrophobia.
The sheriff walked over to me and introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Sheriff Aberg,” he said. “I understand you’re the stepdaughter of Mr. Brooke.”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s a sheriff, too.”
“So I understand.”
“Can you tell me what’s going on? My mother is going to be worried sick. I need to tell her something … solid. No hot air.”
Sheriff Aberg was about my age, with wide-set green eyes and red hair. He kept his notebook out, but stuck his thumb behind the buckle of his belt. “All right,” he said. “Your stepfather says he came in and found the body lying in a puddle of blood and a knife sticking out of his neck.”
I shook my head in disbelief. I already knew what he was going to tell me. “So he took the knife out of Mr. Bloomquist’s neck,” I said. “Didn’t he?”
Sheriff Aberg nodded. “Said he thought he might be able to save Brian. Evidently Mr. Bloomquist was still gurgling when your stepfather got in here.”
“Aw, Jeeee-sus,” I said and hugged myself close. I didn’t need to know that. I swallowed hard. “So, why is he in handcuffs?”
“Please, Mrs.…?”
“O’Shea. Torie. Well, my real name is Victory O’Shea.”
“Mrs. O’Shea, he’s from out of town. He’s been seen in here every day for a few days in a row. I can’t be so sure that he hasn’t been scoping the place out and this wasn’t an intended robbery.”
“A robbery?” I asked. “Does he have any money on him? Don’t you usually get the money first and then kill the clerk?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sheriff Aberg said. “I have never robbed anybody.”
Okay, take a deep breath. “Why would he rob a man without any gloves on, no ski mask? And wouldn’t you think he’d use a gun? I mean, there has to be a … neater way of robbing somebody. People are going to notice somebody fleeing from a crime scene with blood all over him,” I said. “He’s a sheriff, for crying out loud. He would have thought of these things!”
“Just calm down, Mrs. O’Shea,” he said. “This is just a preliminary investigation.”
“Then why is he in handcuffs?”
He looked around the room and shifted his weight to the other foot. “He got a little…”
“Oh, no.”
“Yeah, he got a little physical when he realized he was standing over a dead man with the murder weapon and three deputies had guns pointed at him. It’s a miracle he didn’t get shot,” he said. “Actually, one of my deputies did shoot off a couple of rounds at him but he ducked and rolled and managed to miss any bullets.”
“Oh … I … I am just speechless,” I said.
Stupid, stupid idiot.
“So, I’m taking him in,” he said. “At least until we’ve processed everything here.”
“How long will that take?” I asked, the hysteria rising in my voice.
“Just calm down,” he said.
“I am calm,” I said through clenched teeth.
“You can come down to the station with us,” he said.
“Can I talk to him?”
“Not yet,” he said.
“Well … well, do you have any other suspects?”
“Mrs. O’Shea—”
“Okay, I know. Time. It will take time,” I said. I looked up at Rudy, who was looking pretty helpless at the moment.
“Oh, and your husband will have to come with us, too.”
“What? Why?”
“He had just come in the building when our deputies got here. Damn near got himself shot, too. He’s a witness,” Sheriff Aberg said.
The sheriff left me standing there next to Rudy, who was looking pretty pale at the moment. “You … you almost got shot?”
“I hit the deck, crawled under a shelf, and covered my head,” he said. He shrugged like it was nothing, but I could see him shaking and the skin around his mouth was white as a ghost.
“Oh, why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. I hugged him as close to me as I could. He hugged me back so hard it took my breath away. “Are you okay?”
“I can’t seem to stop shaking,” he said. “But otherwise I’m fine.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” I said. He shook so hard it was as if he were having convulsions.
“You didn’t give me a chance,” he said.
“I am so sorry,” I said.
“I’m just glad it’s over. It took about seven seconds for those three bullets to fly around the room, but it felt like seven hours,” he said.
The crowd started moving, and two deputies walked toward us with Colin in handcuffs. A
s he came toward us, he looked straight at me. He didn’t look at Rudy. He didn’t look at anything except my eyes. And then with the most determined expression I’ve ever seen, he said, “Get me out of this. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
As they led him out of the door, he looked back over his shoulder at me and yelled, “I didn’t do this, Torie! Tell Jalena I love her.”
“Oh, my God,” I said.
“What?” Rudy asked.
“I have to call my mother.”
“Mr. O’Shea,” Sheriff Aberg said. “You have to come with me. Mrs. O’Shea, you can follow in your vehicle.”
Fifteen
It was hours before I could see Colin. I still hadn’t called my mother. I just couldn’t bring myself to call her until I had more information. She would ask questions that I didn’t have answers to, so why call her? Okay, all right, a part of me just couldn’t do it.
When they finally took me back to the interrogation room, my knees were knocking, my hands sweating. I don’t know why. Maybe it was just because it suddenly sank in that this was no joke. My stepfather was in handcuffs and could be charged with murder if they didn’t find the truth. On top of all the personal reasons why this was a bad thing, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, New Kassel is going to have to elect a new sheriff. It was an odd thing to intrude on my thoughts, but it was there nonetheless.
They sat me down across from him in a room far too cold and far too sterile, and for the first time in all the years that I’ve known Colin, two things happened. He actually looked glad to see me and I actually felt sorry for him.
“You stupid idiot,” I said to him.
“I know, I know,” he said.
“You had three guns pointed at you! Why did you try to run?”
He was quiet a moment. “I don’t know. I panicked. For the first time in my life I know how the other guy feels. I looked up, saw those guns pointed at me, and I knew what they thought. I knew they thought I killed him,” he said. “It’s that old flight-or-fight thing.”
“No, no, no. Flight, fight, or do nothing,” I said. “Do nothing is the answer you’re looking for here. That’s what you should have done. I can’t believe you tried to run.”
“Gun pointed at me. Me run,” he said. “It’s instinct.”
“Remember that next time you have a gun on a suspect,” I said.
“If there is a next time,” he said. He tried to stretch, but the handcuffs kept him from entirely doing so. Colin and I go back a long way. Basically, he’s always interfering with the things that I do, and I’m always interfering with his investigations. He’s arrested me a few times. Then he went and married my mother. But the bottom line is he’s a good guy at heart and my mother adores him. And New Kassel could do a lot worse than Colin Brooke as sheriff. I didn’t even want to imagine who would take his place.
“Okay, so what next? Have you called a lawyer? Are they booking you?” I asked.
A puzzled expression crossed his face. “What happened to your eye?”
“Oh, I got punched by a local. There are some pretty intense people around here. But enough about that. You better be telling me exactly what happened and what I have to do to get you out of here,” I said.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good,” he said, and then laughed. I laughed along with him for a moment before my irritation with him brought me to my senses.
“Colin,” I said. “What do I do?”
“I don’t think they’re going to actually file charges. Yet,” he said. “I think there’s enough doubt in their minds—probably because I’m in law enforcement—that they’re going to wait for some preliminary forensics before they go booking me and what have you. I think they have thirty-six hours or such before they have to book me.”
“Okay.”
“So that gives you enough time to find out who did this,” he said.
I just blinked at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You want me to … You want me to what?”
“To find out who did this, so you can get me out of here,” he said.
“Colin, I am not a cop.”
“Well, that has certainly never stopped you before,” he said.
“No, no, no, wait. Th-this is way out of my league,” I said. “This has nothing to do with estates and wills and old, long-forgotten dead things.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Colin, I am not equipped to solve regular homicides or … a robbery.”
“This was no robbery,” he said. “This was either vengeance or a wipeout.”
“A wipeout?”
“Yeah, somebody wanted him out of the picture and wiped him out. The question is, what picture would that be?” he said.
“Colin—”
“Help me, Torie,” he said. “You’re my only hope.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. And it wasn’t just a snicker. It was a full-fledged rear your head back and belly laugh. I’m sure part of it was due to nerves and adrenaline.
“What?” he said. “I’m on my hands and knees here and you’re laughing.”
“No, it’s just, you know. You reminded me of Princess Leia. ‘Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi.’”
“Can you be serious?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “No, I can’t be serious. This is preposterous. You need to be serious. You need to get a good lawyer and hire a private eye.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at me with bleary eyes. “When I got into the store, he was … he was trying to crawl toward the phone. The knife was sticking out of his neck. He tried to talk, but I think his voice box—his wound—it was too severe. He mouthed something to me,” he said.
“What was it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Think. Try.”
“I am,” he said. His eyes clouded with the memory of what he had witnessed. An atrocious memory that he would file with all the other atrocious things that he had witnessed as a sheriff. “I’m pretty sure he said ‘B-12’.”
“B-12? Like the vitamin?”
“Yes,” he said. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I’m almost positive that is what he said.”
“That’s it? Was there anybody else in the room?”
“No,” he said.
“What about … You said he was crawling toward the phone? So he hadn’t made it to the phone yet?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
“So, who called 911?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“How much time passed between the time you found him, you pulled the knife out, and the authorities came in?” I asked.
“Oh, like, seconds. I saw his legs behind the counter, I ran around the counter, immediately realized that the only way he could be saved was to take the knife out and put pressure on the wound. I pulled the knife out, was getting ready to take my shirt off to hold against the wound, because I couldn’t find anything else, when Rudy came in. I was going to have Rudy call 911 when he came in, because I knew he was right behind me. It would only take him a minute to use the toilet. Anyway, I looked up at Rudy, then the deputies burst through. I panicked.”
“Lord,” I said. “That’s not a lot of time to play with. So somebody either had to have come into the store and seen him there before you came in, or else the killer dialed the police from his cell phone or something. How else did the sheriff know that somebody had been stabbed at the marina?”
“Okay…?” he said.
“Which means, if somebody came in and saw him before you came in, then that person can verify that you weren’t in there stabbing Mr. Bloomquist in the throat,” I said. “Maybe we don’t have to solve who did the murder. Maybe we just need to find a witness who can prove that you didn’t.”
He sighed. “Well, that’s encouraging,” he said.
I reached across the table and squeezed Colin’s hand. “I’ll do
everything I can to get you out of here,” I said. “All right?”
He nodded. “You look like shit,” he said.
“That’s all right,” I said. “You just asked for my help. The world is mine for the taking.”
“That’s not funny,” he said.
“Yes, it is.”
“I could be going up the river for life,” he said.
A vision of my mother’s face, shattered by her husband going up the river for life.
“Okay, you’re right. That was uncalled for,” I said. “Try not to worry.”
“Right,” he said.
I stood up to leave. “I’ll bring you a cheeseburger or something,” I said.
“Better make it three. I might be here awhile,” he said.
The esteemed Sheriff Simon Aberg made me wait two hours before I could talk with him again. But I suppose that was all right, since Rudy had to be “officially” questioned and I would have had to wait for that as well. I called my Aunt Sissy and told her what had happened. She’d already heard about Brian, but had no idea that we were involved in any way. I think she was beginning to reevaluate her invitation to us.
It was eight P.M. and my stomach was grumbling, my head felt like it had suddenly split in two and started growing in different directions, and I was just downright ticked off. Finally, the sheriff came out and motioned for me to enter his office of white ceramic tile. As I entered his office, all I could think was, So this is what an igloo looks like from the inside.
“What happened to your eye?” he said, and motioned to a lawn chair. It must have been the expression on my face that caused him to explain. “Some guy bled all over the other one and I had to get rid of it. I’m waiting for my replacement chair. Have a seat.”
I sat down.
He gave me a raised eyebrow. “The eye?”
“Oh, Roberta Flagg punched me,” I said.
“She did?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I said something less than glowing about one of her ancestors.”
“Oh,” he said. “Bad move.”
I just nodded.
“Want to press charges?”
“No,” I said. “No, that’s not necessary.”
“What are you guys doing up here from Missouri, anyway?”
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