Watcher in the Woods: A Rockton Novel

by Kelley Armstrong

  I take a few steps. “Is there a chance the gun predates you? We’re allowed to pick our own sidearms. Could someone from a previous force have brought one in? What happens when one of Rockton’s officers leaves? What do you do with their sidearm?”

  “Get it the hell out of Rockton. We don’t want more than we absolutely need. Sidearms for you, me and Will. Rifles for militia and hunting.”

  “How careful were they about that before you? Could one have been left behind? Stuck under a floorboard?”

  Dalton shakes his head. “Ty and Gene were just as careful as I am. The sheriff before Ty fucked up once. He let a deputy leave, saying his sidearm was under the bed. No big deal. Except a half dozen people heard him say that, and by the time the sheriff went to get it, the gun was gone.”

  “It was used to shoot someone, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, the moron who took it.”

  “He killed himself with it?”

  “Not intentionally.” Dalton’s grip relaxes on mind, finding his rhythm as his mind moves away from the misidentified bullet. “The guy who took it was militia. They’d never let him carry a rifle. Didn’t trust him with it. For good reason, it seems. He swiped the deputy’s old sidearm, and two weeks later, he’s dead in the forest. He was out doing target practice, gun jammed and he blew his face off trying to clear it.”

  “Ouch.”

  “It gets worse. The only reason the guy was on the militia was because the council insisted. He was the son of some rich asshole paying a shitload of money to keep him here. Rich asshole wanted his money back after his kid shot himself. The council repaid it to shut him up. When a random resident dies in an accident, the council doesn’t give a fuck. But if it costs them money? That changes their perspective. Since then, sidearms are tightly regulated, and our asses are on the line if we screw up. When you came in, they found out in advance what kind of gun you wanted. It arrived in Dawson City, and I picked it up when I brought you in. Same went for Will. Before he arrived, I was the entire police force for a few months. When my previous deputy went home, I had to take his sidearm with us to Dawson and drop it off at the usual spot. We can’t even keep them on site. So right now, we have four handguns in Rockton. Yours, Will’s, mine and Garcia’s.”

  “Five.”

  He looks over. Before I can say anything, he curses. “Petra.”

  “Yep. That was a handgun. And I have no idea what calibre it is, because we haven’t gotten that far. The bodies are still lying in the forest, waiting until we have a moment to breathe and bury them. After we dig out the bullet.”

  “Fuck.”

  “The to-do list gets longer. Question is where do we start?”

  “Interviews,” he says. “We’ve got the advantage of daylight. Talk to Roy and Sebastian. Then get our asses out to fetch that bullet.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  We tackle Roy first. Dalton comes along for moral support. And, I suspect, protection, though he knows better than to actually say that. I’ve already kicked Roy’s ass. Dalton’s still fuming over Roy attacking me, and so I suspect he tags along in hopes Roy will try something, and he’ll get a chance for some retributory ass-kicking. Of course, the fact that the sheriff is with me means Roy won’t so much as posture. He’s a stereotypical bully. He’s tough when he’s got hangers on backing him up. He’s tough when his only adversary is a woman literally half his size. Strip him off his posse and put him up against a younger, fitter male opponent, and he shuts up fast. Well, no, “shutting up” is too much to ask for when it comes to guys like Roy. With Dalton around, though, he’ll only run his mouth off, as if he totally could kick our sheriff’s ass . . . he just doesn’t feel like it today.

  “The moron left the fucking door open?” Roy says after we explain. “Figures. That’s your entire militia right there, Sheriff. Bunch of pussies. The toughest ones you’ve got actually have pussies.” He shakes his head. “You want a decent force? Try hiring real men.”

  “The men I have are just fine,” Dalton says. “I’d rather have them backing me up than the assholes who think they’re tough guys. Loudmouths who can barely throw a punch, swagger in here and try to sign up for militia duty. All they want is a gun in their hands, and they probably aren’t even sure which end to hold.”

  Roy’s face reddens. From day one, he’d been negotiating for a militia spot. Not offering to join. Not asking if he could. Trying to sell his services—I might be persuaded to join, Sheriff, but you gotta make me a sweet offer. Dalton told him he wasn’t interested. He’s been telling him the same thing weekly, when Roy comes into the station, seeing if Dalton’s changed his mind.

  “My militia is my business,” Dalton says. “You know what Detective Butler’s business is? Solving this murder.”

  “What the hell does that have to do with me? I’ve been locked in this damned cell the whole . . .” He trails off. “Oh hell, no. You’re telling me that moron left the door open while someone shot this FBI guy?”

  “U.S. Marshal.”

  “Whatever.” He turns to me. “You’re framing me, Detective. I took a few shots at you, and now your feelings are hurt, and you want me gone. Typical chick.”

  “Happened before, has it?” I say.

  His face darkens, which tells me I’m guessing right—that he’s smacked around a woman or two in his life, and then rolled his eyes when she had the audacity to complain.

  “I’m not out to get you, Roy,” I say. “I kicked your ass. I kinda like having you walk around with that story trailing after you.”

  His face goes even darker. “You caught me off guard.”

  I don’t even answer that. There’s no point. However he may be spinning this in his head, I know—as does every witness—what really happened.

  “Paul—” I begin.

  “—is a loser. A wuss. A cowardly, sniveling cubicle monkey.”

  “Brian,” Dalton says.

  Roy spits out a stream of homophobic slurs.

  “Huh,” Dalton says. “Interesting. Isabel?”

  A couple racist slurs, plus “stuck up bitch,” though he uses a word other than “bitch.”

  “Huh,” Dalton says. “You don’t even need to feed him quarters.”

  Roy’s broad face scrunches up. “What? If you’re telling me those two claim they saw me do anything—”

  “Nope. I was just listing random names. Seeing if it works. It does.”

  “If what works?”

  “You’ll spit back insults like a goddamn vending machine. Life really sucks for you, doesn’t it, Roy?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Just an observation.” Dalton leans forward. “We’re going to play a game. Call it reverse vending machine. Instead of me feeding you quarters, you’re going to donate them to the town picnic.”

  “What the hell are you—?”

  “Every time you insult someone in my hearing or Casey’s or Will’s, you will donate one credit to the town fund. We’ll include profanity, too, just for fun.”

  “Does that last one apply to you?” I ask Dalton.

  “Fuck, no. I’d go broke.”

  “I’m glad you two find this so damn amusing,” Roy says.

  “One credit,” Dalton says. “And, yeah, knocking assholes down a peg is always fun. Penalty still stands, though. You know why? Cause it’s our fucking town. We own your ass while you’re here. You signed away whatever rights and privileges you had down south. Willingly signed them over. I can make up whatever stupid fucking laws I want. No one will stop me. So, you’re down one credit. Considering you’re incarcerated and only earning the base amount, I’d suggest you consider each fucking word that leaves your mouth. Understood?”

  Roy glowers at him.

  “Casey?” Dalton says.

  “Marshal Garcia is dead—” I begin.

  “And it wasn’t me. I’m Canadian. No U.S. cop gives a rat’s ass about what I did.”

  “Robbing people of their retirement saving
s?”

  He crosses his arms. “That’s what I was accused of. I never said I did it. I was a legitimate investment professional specializing in high risk, high reward ventures. Some of my clients ignored the ‘high risk’ part. When they lost money, they went crying to the securities commission. I was under investigation, and I knew where that would lead. Prison. People hear stories like mine, and they never give us the benefit of the doubt. It’s the rich asshole robbing little old ladies. The one percenters strike again. It’s a bad time to be a rich white guy.” He looks at Dalton. “Bad time to be a white guy altogether. You wouldn’t know anything about that, but if this town was down south, I guarantee you wouldn’t be sheriff. It’d be her.” He points at me. “Or the black guy. Oh, sorry, African-American. African-Canadian? Who the fuck knows.”

  “Two credits,” Dalton says. “And the answer is Will.”

  “What?”

  “You were wondering what to call him. Will works. Or Deputy Anders. I don’t think he answers to ‘Hey, black guy.’”

  “Roy,” I say. “Not being American—or guilty of a federal offense in the U.S.—only gets you off the hook if our dead man was actually a marshal. Paul said you were speculating on that. Maybe suspecting he wasn’t . . . and if he’s not, he could be here for you. One of your clients could be looking for revenge and sent a bounty hunter to bring you back.”

  “Yeah? Logical flaw there, Detective. In order to hire a bounty hunter, my former clients would need money. That’s the problem. They don’t.”

  “Because you cleaned them out.”

  “Right.” He pauses. “Wait. No. I didn’t—” He cuts himself short. “Don’t put words in my mouth. They made the investments. If they got greedy and risked all their savings, that’s not my fault. I’m an investment manager, not a financial advisor.”

  “That doesn’t mean someone didn’t find the money to send a bounty hunter.”

  “Well, if they did, I’d expect you guys to protect me. That’s what I paid for. Safety. I’m paying a damned fortune to be here. And yeah, I swore. Another credit. Fuck it, make that two more. If you’re trying to frame me, you’re going to need to do a better job than saying Paul left the door open. Try finding someone who saw me out of my cage. You won’t. You know why? I never left. I don’t check the door when your militia morons leave. What’s the point? Where would I go? Run into the forest to be eaten by bears? I’m not an idiot.”

  And that is where we must—with deep, deep regret—leave this conversation. Dalton walks to the door, throws it open and says, “Go.”

  Roy looks at me.

  “No,” Dalton says. “I don’t speak to my detective like that. I mean you, Roy. You’re done here. Go home.”

  Roy’s eyes narrow. “Yeah, I’m not falling for that. The minute I walk out, you’re going to say I escaped and throw a punch at me.”

  I shake my head. “Here’s a tip for life in Rockton, Roy. Don’t presume others are like you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Dalton rolls his eyes at me. Then he steps outside and says, “You! Come here.”

  It’s two random residents, just passing by. They carefully approach.

  “I want witnesses,” Dalton says. “I’m letting Roy leave. I will not penalize him in any way for leaving.”

  “So I can go?” Roy says.

  “From the holding cell, yeah. I’m passing sentence. You attacked my detective, and I needed a cooling off period or my judgement might have been overly harsh. Now I’m ready. Roy, in front of these witnesses, you are sentenced to six months of sanitation duty.”

  “What? Six months emptying toilets?”

  “That’s the penalty for assaulting an officer. It always has been. Feel free to ask around.” Dalton steps out the door. Then he stops. “Hold on. I might be jumping the gun here. There is one defense to the charges. You mentioned that Detective Butler attacked you first. If she did, then you have the right to defend yourself.” He turns to Roy. “Was that right?”

  Roy drops his gaze and mutters under his breath.

  “What’s that?” Dalton says. “This is your chance to escape six months of shit duty, Roy. Tell me that Casey attacked you first, and I’ll check with the witnesses, and if it’s true, you’re a free man. If you’re lying, though, that doubles the sentence. So, who threw the first punch?”

  Roy’s answer is inaudible.

  Dalton motions for him to speak up as the witnesses snicker.

  “Me,” Roy says.

  “Then I think you owe our detective an apology.”

  “I was mistaken,” Roy says.

  Dalton opens his mouth. I silence him with a look. I know he’s making a point, but a forced apology is worse than none at all.

  As we walk away, Dalton says, “Can you believe that asshole?”

  “Are you asking whether I believe his defense against shooting Garcia? Actually, yes. As much as I’d like the excuse to ship his ass out of Rockton, he makes a lousy suspect. I can’t see anyone coming to Rockton after him, and I can’t see him realizing the door is open and formulating a murder plan on the fly.”

  I look over at Dalton. “If by ‘can you believe him,’ you meant colloquially—can I believe he’s such an asshole, again, actually yes. When I first came to Rockton, I remember thinking of Jen as a real-life troll. You get people like her online all the time. No matter what you say, they’re going to argue with you and mock you in a way they wouldn’t do to your face. The internet is anonymous. You can be whoever you want to be. You can also be whoever you really are. That’s what Roy is. He probably used to hide his true colors in public and let it spew online or among friends. Here, he doesn’t feel the need to filter. If you asked him, he’d say he’s just being real, speaking his mind, saying what others think but are afraid to say.”

  “Is he right?”

  “I would love to say no, and hardly anyone thinks the way he does. The truth . . . The truth is more complicated than that. Scarier, too, for someone like me. We deal with chauvinism and racism in real life, but we tell ourselves that’s a minority opinion and then we go online and . . .” I shrug. “I still don’t think it’s a majority opinion. I have enough faith in people to believe that. It’s just becoming a louder and louder minority, which lets people like Roy feel like they’re voicing a common opinion.”

  We walk a few steps in silence, then Dalton says, “Should I be worried? He had his posse for that fucking lynch mob.”

  “I think that’s mostly about violence. An excuse to vent another unsavory impulse. I’d like to believe even Roy wouldn’t have gone through with it. But mob mentality is a dangerous thing. We know who was in his posse. We’ll keep an eye on them, and we’ll let them know we’re keeping an eye.”

  “Already doing it.”

  * * *

  We want to interview Sebastian next. We can’t. He’s off on chopping duty.

  “Chopping duty?” I say when we find out. “I thought he hadn’t caused any trouble.”

  There are two jobs Dalton uses for punishment. One is sanitation—emptying the portable toilets. When we don’t have anyone serving that as a sentence, we offer triple wages to whoever will do it in the interim, and even then, we only get those desperate for credits. The next step down is chopping duty. It’s not nearly as unsavory as emptying toilets, but it’s back-breaking work. At this time of year, between the mosquitos and the black flies, few people do it even for double wages.

  “He offered,” Dalton says.

  “He needs credits already?”

  “No, he didn’t realize you get extra for logging. He just volunteered. We don’t have a regular job for him yet, so he said he’d like to try everything. Will joked about chopping duty, and Sebastian said sure. He’s been on it for two weeks. I’m sure the extra credits don’t hurt, but we’ve told him he can quit. He said he’s fine with it for a while longer. The only job he won’t do is hunting.”

  My brows shoot up.

  He shrug
s. “Some people get here and can’t wait to try hunting. Some say hell no. That was Sebastian.”

  “He’d rather do chopping duty?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Interesting.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  We’re on body retrieval. It’s me and Anders for this. Dalton got called off on a problem, and it’s probably best if he sticks around town, considering we’ll both be gone tomorrow. That was Anders’s reasoning. I tried to talk him out of it—after his army experience he doesn’t need to see more death—but he insists.

  We take the big ATV, the wide one that will let us transport Valerie and Brady, one at a time. We leave Storm behind. Dead bodies make her anxious. Hell, they don’t make anyone happy, but Storm doesn’t need to come along, so she stays with Dalton.

  Eventually, we need to leave the main trail, and the ATV won’t go on the narrow path. That means walking. It will also mean carrying the bodies back in a stretcher.

  As we walk, I tell Anders about the bullet mixup.

  “Ouch,” he says. “How’s Eric handling that?”

  “Not well.”

  “He won’t. But . . . I hate to say this, but it’s not entirely a bad thing. Eric’s still learning that he’s not the pro anymore, at least not when it comes to investigating. Better that he screws up on small things, easily fixed, and learns his lesson. Does that sound patronizing?”

  “No, you’re right. My first partner would let me make mistakes, just to show that the hotshot young college grad hadn’t known as much as she thought she did. At first, I thought he was undermining me. Then I realized he never let me mess up when it made a difference, and he never told our superiors about my mistakes. It taught me that experience trumps education.”

  “Yep, and that’s a lesson Eric’s still learning. It’s not his fault. He’s had to step up, which may be partly my fault. He does know what he’s doing, most of the time, so I didn’t question. I’m a good army boy, as he likes to remind me.”

  “He doesn’t mean it as an insult.”

  “No, but he does mean it as a kick in the ass. A reminder that I’m a little too quick to follow orders, too quick to trust that my superior officers know what they’re doing.” He peers ahead. “How much farther?”