In the Darkest Hour

by Anna Carlisle

  “Having trouble with your direct reports, Baxter?” Bruce smirked. “Guess it’s not as easy to push people around out in the sticks.”

  Tuck ignored the comment. “Sorry, Gin, but I’ve got to head back. Want to catch a ride with me, or stick around?”

  “We can give you a lift if you want to stay, Gin,” Katie said. “Long as you don’t mind riding in the back of the van.”

  “Thanks, Katie, but I’ll let you guys work in peace,” Gin said. It was unlikely that Katie and Paula would be finished documenting the scene and collecting evidence for several more hours. “Listen, you’re going to get soil samples, right?”

  “Of course. But you’re not thinking Sarcophagidae, are you? I mean, since he was embalmed—”

  “Right, no. I thought if there were Pilophilidae, we could look at colony density.”

  “Oh, right, to see when he was moved here. Makes sense.”

  “Hang on,” Liam said. “The two of you were both thinking … sarco-what?”

  “Sarcophagidae and Pilophilidae,” Paula chimed in, pausing between shots. “They’re insects. Sarcophagidae feed on blood, which our friend here doesn’t have, since he was embalmed. But a cheese skipper feeds on decaying flesh, so we can see how dense they are in this location to help estimate how long the body has been there.”

  “Er … cheese skipper?”

  “Because they jump. And cheese, like … well, you know. Dead flesh.”

  Katie giggled, and Liam looked disgusted. “Honestly, I’ve never met anyone like the three of you. Didn’t anyone ever buy you guys a Barbie? Or even a football?”

  “I asked for a microscope for my eleventh birthday,” Paula said.

  “I nearly blew up my parents’ microwave up trying to form plasmoids from an old candle,” Katie added. “You should talk to Gin—she’s spearheading this new program to get more girls interested in science in the middle school.”

  “I wish we’d had that when I was a kid,” Paula sighed. “Let me know if you ever want me to come in and talk to the kids, Gin.”

  “I’ll definitely take you up on that,” Gin said. “Maybe I could invite both of you. It could make a great impression to present a team of women, to combat the idea that you’re still a token presence in the field.”

  “Oh, great,” Bruce said. “You mind reminding your girlfriend that she’s on the clock, Witt?”

  Katie blushed and bent down to her work, while Liam glared at Bruce. Gin knew the pair had been trying to keep their romantic relationship discreet; leave it to Bruce to turn it into a crude joke.

  “I’ll call you this weekend to discuss the program,” she told Paula kindly.

  “Now that we’ve got that settled, I’m going to want everything you’ve got on your witness,” Bruce called after Tuck. “I’ll want to interview him again as soon as possible.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be delighted,” Tuck said archly. “Why don’t you ask his dad to come up too? Charming guy. Real fan of law enforcement.”

  Gin said her goodbyes and followed Tuck along the path back toward the cabin.

  “Well, that went well,” he sighed when they were out of earshot.

  “Katie and Paula are good at what they do,” Gin reassured him. “I doubt there’s anything we could learn by sticking around that we won’t be able to confirm later, either from the evidence or in the autopsy.”

  “You seem pretty confident that you’ll be asked to help,” Tuck observed. “I sure hope you do, or we lose any leverage we have for insider access to the case.”

  “Captain Wheeler has gone out of her way to thank me lately,” Gin said. “Do you have any reason to think she wouldn’t bring me in?” Too late, she remembered Tuck’s comment about friction between him and the captain.

  Tuck shrugged, but didn’t answer. They’d reached the cabin, and he veered toward it. “Just give me a minute here,” he said. “It won’t hurt to keep Dr. Krischer waiting a few more minutes.”

  He stepped up on the cabin’s rough wooden porch and peered through the dusty window, using the cuff of his sleeve to rub a small circle of grime away. Gin followed him, being careful not to disturb anything.

  “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in quite some time,” Tuck said. He pointed to the door handle, which was coated with dust and had an intricate spider web stretched across the door jam.

  “Did Jonah say if he knew whose cabin this was?”

  “No. Just called it a ‘creepy’ cabin. I got the impression he avoided coming too close.”

  “You’ll need to establish whether the body was on land that belonged to the owner of the cabin, for notification purposes,” Gin pointed out. “Although they’ll probably see it on the news.”

  “Yeah, maybe not,” Tuck said. “I kept the details off the radio, and hopefully Bruce and Liam won’t leak anything until they know a little more. At this stage there’s nothing to be gained from those parasites showing up here today. We don’t need another protest march in Trumbull.”

  During the case last fall involving Jake’s job site, a body had been discovered that was suspected of being a civil war soldier. The media and the reenactor community had come out in force, convinced that the body’s presence meant that the land should be designated and protected as a site of historical significance. They’d managed to halt construction completely while they staged protests, putting Jake’s livelihood in jeopardy until Gin was able to prove that the body had died much more recently.

  “I agree. Hey, check that out.”

  In the corner of the porch, dangling from a nail pounded into a splintered post, was a filthy, matted beige and brown pelt.

  “Guy get tired of his dog?” Tuck suggested sarcastically.

  “No … probably a coyote. Hunters around here sometimes hang them up as a deterrent.”

  “No kidding?” Tuck said. “Does it work?”

  Gin shrugged. “I’ve never hunted so I can’t say for sure. But most mammals are a lot more cavalier about death than humans, so probably not.”

  Tuck looked over his shoulder, through the trees to where the others were at work on the crime scene.

  “Maybe I ought to try stringing one up outside my office. See if it gets people to leave me in peace.”

  9

  They were halfway back to town when Madeleine called. Gin considered letting the call go to voicemail, but since she was now living in her parents’ house, she supposed she owed her mother the courtesy of answering.

  “Do you mind if I take this?” she asked Tuck, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, honey,” Madeleine’s voice was brisk, as usual. “Finding everything you need at the house?”

  “Yes, of course. And I wanted to say thanks again for, um…” Gin didn’t want to discuss her current situation in front of Tuck, so she settled for saying “… everything.”

  “Absolutely, honey. Listen, I wanted to give you a heads up on a bulletin we received this morning. It’s going to be in the news later today, so I’m not breaking confidentiality.”

  “Of course not,” Gin said drily. Her mother was discretion personified; she took her job as mayor extremely seriously. Madeleine was the third generation of her family to live in Trumbull, and was determined to restore prosperity to the town and reverse its long decline following the collapse of the steel industry.

  “Captain Wheeler’s going to do a press conference announcing the gun amnesty program.”

  Gin was familiar with the program, which encouraged owners of unlicensed or unused guns to turn them in with no questions asked and incur no penalties for unlawful ownership. Modeled after successful programs in larger cities, the Allegheny County police department was hoping to reduce the number of gun injuries and fatalities. Chicago had seen fantastic results at its own gun buy-back events, and Gin hoped the trend would grow; she’d seen too many deaths from accidental shootings, many of them involving childr
en.

  “Anything we can do to remove guns from homes is a good idea,” she said.

  “Yes. Well … unfortunately, this isn’t exactly coming out of the blue. There’s apparently been an investigation going on internally for almost a year. Guns taken off the streets can end up in a variety of places, but some of them have been disappearing. And it’s looking like it might be someone in the department.”

  “Wait, I don’t understand. What do you mean, ‘a variety of places’? And how do they know they’re missing?”

  “I’m just learning this myself, but when a gun is seized by police, it’s checked against a theft database and can be returned to the owner after the case is over. They check with a crime weapon database next and if it was involved in any crimes, then it’s handed over to whoever’s working on that case. But if nothing’s found, and it’s not needed for evidence, then it’s supposed to be destroyed. Only in the last year or so, there’s no record of them having actually made it to the facility where they’re destroyed.”

  “And they only figured this out now?”

  “I don’t think so—no one’s coming out and saying it, but this seems to have been under investigation for a while. They’re not giving us a lot of details yet. Maureen’s remarks are going to be fairly brief, but reading between the lines, I think she wanted to keep a lid on the investigation until she had identified who was responsible. Unfortunately, someone leaked it, and now she has no choice but to try to get in front of it.”

  “Okay,” Gin said cautiously, glancing over at Tuck. What, if anything, did he know about all this—and could it be related somehow to his transfer to Trumbull last year, the details of which had been vague? Surely Tuck hadn’t been involved with the disappearance of the seized weapons. Gin chastised herself for even considering it, but then again … it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. When it came down to it, all she had to go on where Tuck was concerned was his word … and the confusing emotions he stirred within her.

  Which didn’t add up to any sort of defense against the possibility that he’d been guilty of wrongdoing while working for the county.

  “What does this all mean for me?” Gin demanded, more roughly than she’d intended. “I assume there’s a reason you’re giving me this heads-up.”

  “Not just you,” Madeleine said, “our whole family. Maureen’s asking for support from local townships, so I’ll need to make a statement. Your father’s going to turn in that old WWII pistol that belonged to his uncle. I’ll be working with Chief Baxter to set up an intake booth at the station and maybe do a little local outreach. And Gin … now might be a good time for Jake to think about getting rid of his rifle.”

  “Mom,” Gin said, suddenly wishing she’d waited until later to have this conversation. “I can’t ask him to do that.”

  “I understand the two of you are working through some things. But you have to remember that both of you have been in the public eye quite a bit. And you’ve got additional visibility as the mayor’s daughter. I’m sorry to say it, honey, but Jake can’t simply decide not to be in the limelight any more. But don’t immediately assume that this is a bad thing—he could turn it to his advantage, generate a little good publicity.”

  “He doesn’t even use the rifle that much,” Gin said. Jake kept it locked in a safe in the garage, and had used it only twice since Gin moved in—both times when squirrels were digging under the foundation of his shed.

  “All the more reason to turn it in. Look, I’d ask if it was licensed but I figure I already know the answer.”

  Gin sighed, massaging her temple with her fingertips. If only Lawrence Crosby had run the department a little more like an administrator and a little less like the old-school lawman he’d been at heart. “Jake will never give it up, because it was his father’s. Now if you want him to get a license for it—that’s another story. But I’m not the one to ask him, given … our situation.”

  “All right. I understand. Do you have a problem with me contacting him myself?”

  The twinge threatened to turn into a blazing headache. “I guess I can’t object to that,” Gin said. “May I ask why this is such a big deal?”

  “Melanie Carter is sitting outside my office right now, with her cameraman in tow,” Madeleine said crisply. “She’s been keen on finding an angle ever since the Morgenson case.”

  Melanie Carter was a reporter for a Pittsburgh station who’d covered the civil war reenactor protests last fall. It was widely known that she’d hoped her coverage might attract national coverage and possibly award consideration—only to suffer embarrassment when it came to light that the man buried on the land had died only three years earlier, not during the war. “Surely she doesn’t hold you responsible for her story being a bust?” Gin asked.

  “No. That would be Jake. Apparently he had some choice words for her crew.”

  “I was there, Mom. I practically had to hold him back from tossing the camera over the cliff—the cameraman, too.”

  “So you see the problem. If she can discredit him, she will—and she’s not above going through me, or Tuck, to do so.”

  “God, what a nightmare,” Gin sighed. “I should tell you, Mom, I’m with Tuck now.”

  “Oh, really? Why?”

  “I may be … consulting on a new case. I can’t say more now, but I should warn you that it’s likely to be newsworthy, too.”

  “Maybe you should give Melanie the scoop, get her off my back,” Madeleine suggested.

  “Very funny. Okay, well, I’ll see you back at the house, okay? Shall I pick up something for dinner?”

  “There’s no need, honey. I can take something out of the freezer.”

  “No, let me do it,” Gin said, warming to the idea. “I’d like to contribute, as long as I’m staying there.”

  “All right then, I’ll look forward to it. Dad’s having lunch with a friend after his appointment with the coin dealer, so he probably won’t be home until late afternoon.”

  “Okay. See you soon.”

  Gin hung up and blew out a breath of frustration.

  “So,” Tuck said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “I wasn’t eavesdropping, but it sounds like there’s trouble in paradise.”

  “Tuck. It’s really none of your business.”

  “Didn’t say it was. Only, when a woman discusses her love life in the front seat of my car, I can’t exactly unhear it. You need me to beat anyone up?”

  Gin couldn’t help an exasperated laugh. “You don’t need to pretend we don’t both know who we’re talking about.”

  “That was some tangled grammar, especially from you.”

  “Can we talk about the gun thing instead? Mom says you’re going to have a collection to coincide with the county’s effort.”

  Tuck was silent for a moment. “Guess so,” he said shortly.

  “Isn’t that … a good thing?” Gin asked, surprised by the terseness of his response.

  “Yes, in general, getting guns off the street is a good thing. But there’s angles to this thing that … look, can we go back to talking about Jake, please? Or, I don’t know, the Pirates. Or politics. Or hell, lip gloss for all I care.”

  “You’re not making a whole lot of sense right now,” Gin said, uneasy that he was avoiding the subject. “Also, you just passed my turn.”

  “Shit.” Tuck smacked the steering wheel with his hand.

  “But tell you what, I need to pick up a few things for dinner, so I’ll just ride to the station with you and walk home. That way I can stop at the market.”

  “If you’re sure … and hey, I wanted to ask you about that. It’s looking like I’m not going to make it home on time. Is there any chance that Cherie could stay with you after school for a few hours? I hate to ask, but I think I’m about to walk back into a shit storm, and then I’ve got to prepare all the paperwork for County on this new vic.”

  “Of course. I’d love to have her.” Gin decided to put her misgivings about the gun buy-bac
k conversation aside. After building a warm relationship with Tuck’s daughter during the basketball season, Gin had watched Cherie after school from time to time when Tuck had to work late. Occasionally, Brendan’s daughter, Olive, came over too. Gin hadn’t examined too closely how much she enjoyed these afternoons, not wanting to dwell on the unexpected stirring of maternal urges. “She can help me make dinner—Mom and Dad will be thrilled. In fact, come on over whenever you get free, and join us.”

  “That’s awfully generous,” Tuck said, pulling into the municipal parking lot. “I can’t predict when it will be, though.”

  “That’s okay, we’ll keep a plate in the oven.”

  Tuck parked and looked at Gin. “You’re bailing me out again,” he said quietly, a rare note of seriousness in his voice. “It’s becoming a habit.”

  “Yeah, okay, call it payback for saving my life,” Gin said, avoiding his gaze. During the Morgenson investigation, Tuck had come to her aid when she’d been the target of a killer who thought she’d come too close to the truth.

  “Listen, woman, I’d save you any day of the week.”

  Gin was trying to craft a response when someone knocked on Tuck’s window.

  He opened the door and got out, breaking the tension. Gin followed. One of the staff police officers waited, looking abashed.

  “Saw you pull in, Chief. Just wanted to give you a heads-up—that lawyer’s in there making all kinds of threats. He won’t leave the duty officer alone.”

  “It’s okay, Hammond. He can threaten all day long—he’s just trying to stir things up. There’s nothing he can do here.”

  “Dr. Krischer is in Interview Three like you asked.”

  “Okay, got it.”

  But at that moment, the front door of the station was flung open and a tall, balding man in a button-down shirt and loosened tie came striding toward them.