Dust Up with the Detective

by Danica Winters

  He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “He died instantly from a gunshot wound. Other than that, there’s not much I can say.”

  He envisioned Robert’s body slumped over. The gunshot to his head. The blood trickling down his neck, staining his shirt. He tried to blink the images away but failed.

  His mother looked across the table at his father. “I told you that you should have gone out there sooner, Glen,” she spat. “If you would have just listened.”

  “Veronica, this is hardly the first time Robert hadn’t called us back. If I ran out there every time you wanted to, we’d practically live with him.”

  “If we had, maybe he wouldn’t be dead.” His mother started to cry. She pulled away from Jeremy’s hug and ran out of the restaurant.

  The beep, beep, beep of some video game in the back room echoed through his thoughts. He had hoped things wouldn’t have gone this way, but his parents would never change—they would forever live in a state of turmoil.

  His father was staring at his hands. “Do you think he did it to himself?” he finally asked.

  Jeremy shrugged. If he had to guess, the whole scene felt off. When most people committed suicide they left something to explain why, and normally there was some sort of indicator. Sure, Robert had been acting strange, but if he had been planning on suicide, he would have been getting rid of personal effects and saying his goodbyes—but none of that had happened.

  Then again, maybe it was impromptu. Things with Tiffany were going to hell, so maybe he thought he could make her pay by taking his own life. But that didn’t account for the mine entrance’s collapse. Either there had been some kind of accident that had led to the collapse or someone else had been involved.

  If he listened to his gut, someone had murdered his brother. He thought of Blake. She must have been thinking the same as he was.

  “I don’t know, Dad.”

  “Robert and I have had our fair share of problems, but just like you, he’s my son... I need to know what happened.”

  “Don’t worry, Dad. Come hell or high water, I’ll get to the bottom of this. And if someone had a hand in his death, I’ll make them pay.”

  Chapter Six

  The next afternoon, Blake found herself standing in front of Detective Engelman’s desk. While he talked on the phone, she stared at a stray bit of fuzz that was stuck to the graying stubble on his chin. The minutes ticked by. From the sour look that appeared on his face when he looked at her, this meeting couldn’t be good.

  Finally he hung up and turned to her.

  “Thanks for waiting,” he said, tenting his fingers in front of him on the desk. “I looked over the report you filed after last night’s call.”

  She sat forward in her chair, readying herself for anything. “I took copious notes and documented everything. Was there a problem?”

  He glanced over at his blank computer screen like he was expecting to see the report pulled up. “Why didn’t you call me? You are a deputy, aren’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Look right there,” he said, pointing to the brass nameplate that adorned his door. “What does that say?”

  “Clark Engelman, detective,” she recited.

  “Exactly. If there is the possibility that a case may be a felony, it is your job to call me. I’m the detective in this county, not you...and not some guy from Missoula.” He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “It is your job to bring me in on cases like these.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but this case hasn’t been ruled a felony.”

  His face contorted with rage, but then it quickly disappeared, replaced by an air of dismissal. “Look, I understand how it is. You get to a scene. You find a body. Your adrenaline starts pumping. But that doesn’t mean you get to skirt our policies and procedures. It is your job to notify me.”

  Something was happening here, something she couldn’t put her finger on. Did he know something about this case that she didn’t?

  “You and I both know that the moment this case became a death investigation, you should have called me.”

  He was right, but in the cases of suicides, it wasn’t a requirement that a detective be called in. With everything that had been happening, and with Jeremy involved, the thought of notifying Detective Engelman had slipped her mind. Apparently now there would be hell to pay.

  There was a knock on the door behind her. “Clark?” Investigative Captain Prather asked, opening the door without waiting to be invited in. He looked to Blake and gave her an acknowledging tip of the head, as if he had expected to find her sitting in the hot seat.

  “What is it, Captain Prather?”

  “I’m glad I caught you both.” He took a seat on the edge of the detective’s desk and looked down on him. “I heard you had a bone to pick with West here over last night’s vic.”

  Engelman looked slightly shell-shocked, and his hands balled into tight fists. “I—” he started to protest, but the captain cut him off with the wave of his hand.

  He turned to her. “I just got done looking over your investigation findings. No drag marks, eh?”

  She shook her head. What game had she just become a pawn in? Things between the investigative captain and Detective Engelman were always tense. Most thought Engelman had only gotten the position thanks to the fact his brother was the mayor, but usually the two men in front of her did their best at hiding their indifference toward each other.

  “Look,” Detective Engelman started, “I will not be pushed out. I’m the damned detective here, not some little pissant deputy. If you were smart, she would be behind some desk, not working this investigation.”

  Blake stood up and slammed her fist down on the desk as she leaned into Engelman’s face. “How dare you? I didn’t ask to investigate this case. If anything, I did you a favor—”

  “Don’t say something you’ll regret, West,” the captain said, stopping her before she flew deeper into a rage. He gave her a sharp glance.

  She slid her fists from the wood of the desk, letting them drop down to her sides. “Captain, I request that I be made lead investigator on the Lawrence case,” she said robotically as she forced her anger from her voice.

  The captain glanced at Engelman and nodded. “You have a bucketful of cases, isn’t that right, Detective?”

  “You have no reason... This is my... You can’t just throw your weight around—my brother and his wife will hear about this,” the detective stammered in argument.

  “I look forward to chatting with your brother,” the captain said. “Feel free to send him my way when you get the chance.” Captain Prather stood up. “In the meantime, I want you to catch up on one of your many unsolved cases.”

  Blake muffled her laughter as Engelman glared at her.

  “West, you come with me.” The captain walked out into the hallway and she followed, closing the door behind them.

  “West, you better do your best with this one,” Prather said. “I’m sure it’s clear how far I’ve stuck my neck out. Don’t let the hatchet fall, or it will catch us both—got it?”

  “Sir, how did you know that Engelman would be after me?” She motioned toward the detective’s door.

  “Let’s just say I have an inkling that things aren’t on the up-and-up with him. Let’s leave it at that. Now, you get out there and do your job.”

  “I filed the search warrant to get into Robert’s cabin this morning.”

  “Good. We need to get a handle on this case before the mayor has a chance to retaliate after he finds out that one of his boys won’t be in the driver’s seat.”

  * * *

  BLAKE SAT IN her patrol car and stared at the search warrant that she’d been issued by the judge. She wasn’t a detective. She hadn’t meant to step on Detective Engelman’s toes, and s
he damned sure didn’t mean to start a war in the department. Yet here she was—stuck in the middle of a political battle and unsure of whom exactly she could trust.

  Her mind went to Jeremy. He didn’t have any real ties to her department. He couldn’t be swayed by the politics that were going on just under the surface. Plus, he had a vested interest in the case. But that might cause more trouble than it was worth.

  But somehow being around him calmed her. He was like a breath of fresh air after being stuck in the stuffy politics of a little town. If nothing else, he could be a consultant—Captain Prather had told her to do her best, and she could only do that with Jeremy’s help. He could be a sounding board. With his help, she could handle this.

  She thumbed the ridges on the steering wheel as she thought of the sexy detective and the way he always had a little bit of a five o’clock shadow.

  If she asked him to be involved, he couldn’t question her methods. This was her case. This was her chance to prove herself—and to show Engelman that she was just as good, if not better, than him at her job. If Jeremy was the man she thought he was, he would understand how important this case was to her.

  Before she realized it, she was parked in front of Jeremy’s parents’ house. The historic brick home spoke to generations of miners past, of lives spent searching for something more. It stood in direct contrast to the stunted tree that formed a sort of fence between their property and her mother’s.

  She had leaned against that tree the first time she had been kissed. In the logic of a teenager, she had hoped that Jeremy would see, get jealous and finally make his move. But that had never happened. Instead, one kiss had led to another, and another, until suddenly she had fallen for Chuck Garnet, the boy from the wrong side of the tracks, and had been left pregnant and at her mother’s mercy.

  If only Jeremy had played by the rules she had set for him in her head.

  She closed her eyes, and she was back in the Foreman Mine, panicking. Pressed against the wall. Jeremy’s warm breath on her cheek. His lips caressing hers.

  Life could have been just like that moment—with Jeremy there to help her through her times of panic. To make her see sense when everything else seemed to be falling in on her. They could have been each other’s everything.

  Could they still?

  No. That kiss had been a fluke. A man’s attempt to stop a woman from losing her cool. He was helping her in the only way he knew how. No doubt it meant nothing to him. He was far too guarded, too linear, to want to get involved in her life. He had his own in Missoula.

  There was a tap on her window, and she opened her eyes. Jeremy stood on the other side of the glass, looking at her. “What’s up?” he asked with a slight tip of the head. “Did you find out something?”

  She shook her head as she rolled down the window. “Hey, get in. I need to run to your brother’s place. Thought maybe you wanted to go with me,” she said.

  He got in the car.

  She wasted no time. “How do you feel about working as a consultant on your brother’s case?”

  “I didn’t think that was a question.” Jeremy looked at her with a spark in his eye.

  She wasn’t sure if it was excitement or something else, so she quickly glanced away. If it was something else, it would only complicate things. As much as she wanted to kiss him again, it couldn’t happen.

  She clicked on the radio and let the country music fill the tense air between them as they bumped down the road.

  She darted a glance his way. Some of the color had returned to his face, and he looked better, less in shock than last night.

  “You doing okay?”

  He nodded and looked out the window and away from her. “How long you been a deputy?” he asked, changing the subject.

  Although he looked okay, he must have been wrestling with what had happened, and she wasn’t about to make him bring it back up.

  “Just a few years. When were you promoted to detective?” Blake tried to ignore his cute half smile.

  “I’m surprised that between my mother and your mother, you don’t know all about me. Every time I call I get a full report on you.”

  He was right. Their mothers talked often and, until the last year or so, she had been given the details of his life...all the way down to how his daughter was doing in school. Yet, after a while, it hadn’t seemed right to be a passive bystander to his life, and she had asked her mother to stop telling her things.

  “You don’t think our mothers would be crazy enough to try and set us up, do you?” he continued with a laugh.

  The laugh chased away the little puff of excitement she was feeling. He wasn’t interested. And if he wasn’t, then neither was she—at least as far as he could know.

  “My mother knows well enough that I’d never date another cop. And I’m not one for long-distance relationships. Tried that before.”

  “Crashed and burned, huh?” he asked, a line of tension running through his voice, almost like he wanted to ask more.

  “I’ve never been good at relationships. Long distance or otherwise.”

  Not even next door.

  “I get what you mean.” He looked away like he was drawing on a memory. “You ever think of getting married?”

  Was he really grilling her on her thoughts on relationships because he cared, or was this just his awkward way of filling the time as they drove?

  She pushed down the accelerator a little harder, forcing the patrol unit well past its comfort zone on the little dirt road that led out to the Foreman.

  “I...uh...” she stammered, unsure how to answer his question.

  “I get it. You are probably enjoying your single life.”

  “Do you?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Some days. Some days I miss being married.”

  The little wiggle of jealousy in her grew. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know about how much he missed his ex-wife. He’d had so much. Even though he was divorced, he’d been given a real chance at a relationship. He hadn’t been stuck in a nowhere town, without a spouse, and living with his mother.

  She was thankful to see the cabin approaching as they turned up Robert’s driveway.

  “Thinking about marriage, how long were Robert and Tiffany together?” she asked, avoiding the conversation that Jeremy seemed adamant to have.

  “They’ve been on and off now for the last few years. I can’t tell you exactly how long they were together, though—they eloped in Vegas. Never told my mother. She was devastated when she found out.”

  “Where’s Tiffany from?”

  “I don’t know...someplace in Southern California, I think. As far as I know, she’s never been too stable. Moved around a lot.”

  She nibbled the inside of her cheek. If this woman was like Jeremy said, there was the possibility that they may never track her down. “The soul of a gypsy, huh?”

  “I call it unstable.”

  So he was the kind who liked stability. Well, that she had in spades. She hadn’t ever moved. Hadn’t ever gone out and experienced the world. She was living the same life she’d always lived; she had just gotten older. Somehow her kind of stability didn’t seem like what he was looking for.

  “You try to find Tiffany yet?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’ve been trying her all morning. It’s been going straight to voice mail. I couldn’t find any numbers for her family.”

  Jeremy gave a light snort, as if he wasn’t surprised. “They aren’t much better than she is. From what I hear, they are the type that likes to live out of their car.”

  They’d need to find Robert’s wife to notify him of his death, but there wasn’t much more that she could do.

  She pulled the car to a stop in front of the house and got out. Robert’s cabin was cold as they posted the warrant and walked
in. The place carried the scent of stale cooking, man and dryer sheets.

  “You hear anything from the medical examiner?” Jeremy asked as she walked over toward the kitchen and stopped at the sink.

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t you think you should have called them? Maybe we could get a better idea of what we need to be looking for.”

  “Look, Jeremy.” She said his name as if it carried a pit. “I thought I made it clear to you when we were in the mine that I know what I’m doing. I don’t need you, or anyone else, telling me how to do my job.”

  He stepped back as if her words were lashes. “Whoa. That’s not what I meant,” he said, putting his hands up like he was motioning for her to stop.

  She wasn’t a horse. She wouldn’t be commanded.

  “Then what did you mean? I’m tired of this. Just because I’ve only been a deputy for a couple of years, it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to function on a crime scene. It doesn’t mean I don’t know how to handle this investigation. When the medical examiner is done, he will call. He doesn’t need me telling him how to do his job.”

  Jeremy stepped forward and moved like he was going to take her hand, but then he stopped and just stared at her as if he was afraid she would bite.

  “Look, I know how it is—how it always feels like you have to prove yourself, but you don’t have to prove yourself to me.”

  She relaxed slightly. Hopefully he meant what he said. She couldn’t fight him, too. She had enough battles on her hands.

  “Sorry,” she said with a sigh. “It’s been a long day.”

  “What happened?”

  She told him about her meeting in Detective Engelman’s office. As she spoke, his face tightened.

  “I’m so sick of this crap,” he said, pressing his hand hard against the countertop as though he were squishing a bug. “I just dealt with something like this in Missoula.”

  She’d heard about it and had followed the story of a series of arsons that had led to the death of the battalion chief in Missoula’s fire department and whispers of unanswered corruption. In the end, Jeremy had been called to the stand and forced to testify about the incident.