Jess said. “So—”
“I called the state police, Jess,” Hart said. “They’re en route from Port Angeles. This county’s on full-on lockdown, starting now.”
TWENTY-THREE
Chris Jordan hesitated, but not long, before he knocked on the door. The woman opened up quickly, like she’d been waiting for him. Looked out with wide eyes and dark circles beneath, scanned behind and beside him like she was afraid who else might see.
Jordan studied her face in the doorway for a time. When was it that she’d gotten so old? The lines on her face were etched deep like canyons, a topographical map of anxiety and addiction.
She’d been pretty, in high school, and he’d lusted after her and loved her and never quite found the courage to ask her on a date or even say more than a couple of words to her at a time. She’d chosen another, married him quick, and it wasn’t until her old man went and got himself drowned in a fishing-boat accident, out in the strait, that Jordan had seen her again.
She’d been living off the settlement checks, she’d told him, waiting to figure out her next move. By that point, he was running glass for his uncle and Dax Pruitt, and little by little, she’d become his best customer.
Occasionally she’d become something more, though there wasn’t any romance to it, nothing like those schoolboy fantasies he’d harbored back when, before she’d even known he existed.
Jordan had asked her, once, what she thought her next move would be, and she’d kind of looked off and muttered something about maybe being an artist or maybe going back to school, and then she’d taken the glass from him and handed over the money, and the conversation had more or less fizzled out from there.
She hadn’t gone back to school, and she didn’t make art. She’d stuck around in Makah as the settlement checks dwindled. And here she was, still, just another sad story.
“I did what you said,” she told Jordan. “Everything you told me, I told them just how you said to. About the gun and what I heard and—and everything.”
Jordan hoped his uncle would be impressed, what he was doing here. Tying up loose ends, keeping the story straight. Mitigating the risk, to Fetridge and Pruitt and the boss lady, whoever she was, up above them.
“You want to invite me in?” he asked the woman.
She hesitated. “You said,” she began. “You said if I did it, you’d…you said there’d be something in it for me.”
Jordan dug into his coat pocket, pulled out a baggie, Fetridge’s best glass and a fair couple grams of it.
The woman’s eyes widened and she stepped back, let Jordan walk across the threshold and into the room beyond. He nudged the door closed behind him, locked it. When he turned back, she was standing there, eyeing the baggie.
“You said,” she said, and she was nothing like the girl he’d wanted in high school, tall and striking and confident and proud. She held out her hand and stared at him, beseeching, and he couldn’t even see the resemblance anymore, couldn’t see how he’d ever pined over her in the first place.
He hoped his uncle would appreciate what he was doing. His initiative, for the family. Maybe Fetridge would promote him, move him up from just straight selling glass all the time. Maybe Fetridge might finally respect him.
In the pocket of his jeans, Jordan carried a knife. He slipped it out and watched how the woman shrank back as she saw it.
“You said,” she said weakly. Resignation in her voice. “But I did everything like you said.”
TWENTY-FOUR
“Charlene Todd,” Rengo told Mason. “That’s the woman who ratted you out.”
It was the next afternoon. Still pissing rain. Mason had been inside all day, warm, and he still couldn’t chase that cold, that permeating damp. Still couldn’t scrub the taste of diesel from his mouth.
He’d taken most of last night to find his way up here, to Rengo’s ramshackle collection of broken-down trailers and detritus in the woods. The compound sat at the ass end of an old logging spur, had belonged to Ty Winslow once upon a time, back when he used to cook meth with Rengo.
Ty had died, and Rengo had moved in, and though Mason had seen to it that the kid stopped trying to cook, he’d yet to convince him to move out of the rainforest and down into town.
For once, he was grateful that Rengo was stubborn.
The compound was a long climb through the forest from town, plenty tough on a four-wheel-drive vehicle and about fifty times tougher on foot, in the dark, in the rain. Mason had been up here only a handful of times, but he’d found the place fine, after three or four hours. Showed up at Rengo’s door and knocked and prayed the kid wouldn’t shoot his head off, and Rengo had opened up sleepy-eyed in a pair of stained-yellow tighty-whities, scratching his head and staring out at Mason like he’d sooner have expected a ghost.
But he’d let Mason into his trailer anyway, welcomed him to the taped-up couch in the corner and a moth-eaten old blanket, told Mason to get some shut-eye and they’d discuss it in the morning. The kid carried himself different when he thought he was in charge; something changed in his voice and the way he used it, like he was trying to live up to this new responsibility, prove to the world he deserved it.
Mason hoped the kid did.
Next morning, Mason had explained the whole thing, the gun in the water and the witness and everything. Rengo wasn’t surprised.
“Sure, it only makes sense,” he told Mason. “You probably got a few more enemies than you realize. Whoever kilt Bad Boyd for real probably sees you as—”
He stopped. Cocked his head.
“Just so’s we’re clear, you didn’t kill him, right?”
Mason looked at him. Said nothing.
“I mean,” Rengo said. “It wouldn’t be much matter if you did, but you can tell me the truth, right? I mean, you got at least one friend in this town.”
Mason sighed. “I didn’t kill Boyd,” he said. “But someone surely wants the law to think I did. They sent a witness to see Hart, planted the gun.”
Rengo had sparked up a joint, sat back and inhaled, deep. Held the smoke in his lungs for a long beat and then exhaled.
“It’s a solid frame job,” he said. “What are you thinking to do?”
Mason had thought about this the whole climb up the hill, slogging through mud and wiping rain from his eyes, tripping over deadfall whenever he veered from the road.
“I guess I ought to find that witness,” he said. “See if I can’t talk to her, whoever she is.”
So Rengo went into town the next morning, worked a full day with Joe Clifford, building more of Jess’s new house. That was Mason’s idea; the kid wanted to stay home, gather his weapons, and hunker down, make a plan, but Mason figured the sheriff would have a pretty good search going by this point, and someone was sure to tell him how Chris Rengo was about the ex-con’s only friend.
In the meanwhile, Mason rested and looked for something to eat among Rengo’s assortment of candy bars, pork rinds, and sugary breakfast cereals. He understood now why the kid stayed so scrawny no matter how hard he worked on the jobsite.
Mason walked the perimeter of Rengo’s compound in the rain, wondering at who might find the place and where they would come from, and when he started to shiver again, he went back inside and sat on the couch and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and tried to think things through.
He hadn’t made much progress by the time Rengo returned, about an hour before dusk and the rain still coming. Rengo had the name—and he had news too, and it wasn’t good.
“State patrol’s all over the damn town,” he told Mason, handing him a takeout carton from Rosemary’s diner. “Got boats and men searching the harbor too. Guess they think you might have drowned?”
State patrol. Mason opened the carton and took out a long-gone-cold hamburger, chewed it and wondered if he should have just taken Jess’s advice, got to running and hoping he made it out of Makah, off the Olympic Peninsula, maybe up to Canada. Hell, maybe even try for Mexico, hope h
e got lucky.
But it wasn’t a future Mason wanted for himself. He didn’t want to run. He’d made a commitment to Jess, to Lucy. To himself. He wanted to stay here and see this thing through.
And, damn it, he wanted to prove the town wrong. Clear his name and make something of himself, show the people of Deception he was more than just a killer. He’d had fifteen years to prepare for this second chance; he’d be damned if he was going to cave so quickly.
Charlene Todd. That was the name of the witness.
“Rents a room above the Cobalt,” Rengo told Mason. “In case you needed any indication of where her life’s at.”
The Cobalt sat downtown, right square on Main Street. Down the block from the sheriff’s detachment, where Jess would be working, maybe even helping the sheriff plot a way to bring him in.
Mason wished Charlene Todd lived in a nice house somewhere, out in the boonies, but he supposed he must have known that it wouldn’t be easy.
Outside Rengo’s trailer, the forest was dark now. The rain was still falling, and Mason still felt cold.
He pushed himself off the couch. There was no point in waiting.
“Charlene Todd,” he told Rengo. “Guess I’ll go find her.”
TWENTY-FIVE
The state police officers whom Sheriff Hart had called were all tall and broad-shouldered young men, brawny and self-serious and competent and, it seemed to Jess, completely incapable of smiling. She supposed she’d been like them, once upon a time, when she’d arrived at Parris Island for boot camp scared out of her mind and determined to focus only on doing what it took to succeed as a young Marine. She had succeeded, so it must have worked, though she hadn’t made many friends or laughed much over those grueling thirteen weeks.
Later, in the field, she’d learned to laugh. Learned that laser focus only took you so far if you weren’t mentally prepared to stand in a hailstorm of shit, all the horrors of war, and deflect it and retain some humanity. The Marines who couldn’t joke, never smiled—they were the ones who cracked first.
Jess watched the state police taking over her detachment and she didn’t see any jokers among them. Wondered if they ever cracked, and how bad things had to get before they did.
The lead guy was a cop named Shipps, probably a shade over six feet, a firm handshake and an unwavering stare. He’d shown up about an hour after Jess arrived at the detachment last night, said he’d picked up from Port Angeles and driven out as soon as he’d heard.
“A killer on the loose,” he told Jess and Hart. “It’s not a time to sit around with our thumbs up our asses.”
He didn’t excuse himself for the language, not to Jess or anyone else, and Jess was grateful for that at least. But Shipps scared her; he carried himself like he knew what he was doing, like he fully expected to catch up to Mason Burke before dawn. Like he might even relish the opportunity to put Burke in the ground.
But Shipps hadn’t caught Burke by dawn, or even through the next day, though more of his colleagues had arrived in Deception and the surrounding county, prowling down back roads and peering into windows. It was only a matter of time, Jess knew. She hoped Burke had had the good sense to run, or that he’d at the very least go quietly when Shipps and his men came for him.
But she had to be hopeful in secret. Right now she stood in the detachment with Sheriff Hart and Paul Monk and Tyner Gillies, the entire Deception Cove deputy complement, a couple more from Neah Bay, and Shipps and a few of his men besides. Everyone but the state guys looked sleep-deprived and anxious; they’d overwhelmed the coffee maker four hours ago and were sending out for Rosemary’s house blend at a rate of one trip across the street every hour or so. The purpose of this tête-à-tête was to try to, as Shipps put it, think like this guy Burke does.
“We’re trying to get inside his head,” Shipps told the assembled. “But any information at all is going to help us. Is he a runner? Is he hiding? Who are his friends? Where’s he likely to turn?”
Every eye on the Makah County side of the room turned to look at Jess. Shipps didn’t miss it; he turned his gaze on her too.
Jess met it, head-on. Figured that was the only way she’d keep her seat at the table. “Burke’s not from around here,” she said. “He doesn’t have many friends. The way this town sees him, he’s not likely to have many hiding places.”
Shipps studied her a long beat. “You’re Winslow,” he said. “The Marine. You and Burke have history together.”
“Yes, sir,” Jess said.
Shipps turned to Hart. “You think it’s wise, Sheriff, to keep her on this case? Everything she and Mason Burke have been through?”
“Everyone in this room has connections to this county’s criminal element, Sergeant,” Hart replied. “What matters is whether they can put the badge first in a situation like this. I trust that Deputy Winslow can.”
Shipps turned and looked at Jess again. A long time. She felt the rest of the room watching her too.
“Friends,” Shipps said finally. “Lovers. Acquaintances. Where’s he working? Who’re his contacts in the community, aside from—” He lifted a hand in Jess’s direction.
Once more, the room waited on Jess. She cleared her throat.
Run, Burke. Run.
“I’m his primary contact in the community, Sergeant,” she said. “Aside from me, there’s his employer, Joe Clifford, and one known associate, a man named Christopher Rengo.”
“We’ve checked in with Clifford,” Hart said. “He’s a family man, respected in Deception. Agreed to let us know if Burke shows up at his door.”
“And this other person,” Shipps said. “Ringo?”
“Rengo,” Hart said. “Young kid, bit of a troublemaker. Or he was, until Burke came along. Right now he’s of no fixed address; we’re having trouble pinning him down.”
Shipps snapped his fingers. “Find this guy. Maybe he knows something. We’re watching the highways, buses, Amtrak in Seattle, and every road in and out of Makah County, got Burke’s face on the news and in the newspapers. It’s a matter of time before Burke trips a wire somewhere, but maybe we can force it in the meantime. Sounds like this guy Ringo might be our best bet.”
“It’s Rengo,” Jess said, but Shipps was no longer listening.
The way Shipps had looked at her, Jess knew it was coming eventually. She sat alone at her desk and tried not to notice how the rest of the room watched her, how voices hushed whenever she walked within earshot. How Shipps beckoned the sheriff over and the two men conversed in quiet, every so often glancing in her direction.
She was as good as done. Jess knew it.
She pretended not to see as Hart broke off from Shipps. Crossed the room toward her and sidled up to her chair.
“Hey, boss,” she said, looking up. “Thanks for sticking up for me.”
Hart couldn’t meet her eyes. “You haven’t heard from him, have you?” he asked softly. “Not that I don’t believe you’d tell me if you did, but these guys—” He gestured toward the state contingent. “I can understand if you’d feel a bit shy bringing it up to them.”
Jess shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “I really think he might have run, Sheriff. Or…”
“Or?” Hart said.
“Look,” Jess said, not knowing where she was going, and scared like shit she would crash. “He swore he was innocent, last time we talked and every time before that too.”
“We found the gun, Jess.”
“Given to you by some miraculous witness who says she heard everything.” Heads were starting to turn now; people were listening. “One word from this woman and—bam—the smoking gun is right where we need it. You don’t think that’s odd?”
Hart took her by the shoulders, not rough but plenty firm. Pulled her away from Shipps and the rest, took her around the corner to where the holding cell was.
“You need to watch how you’re talking around those guys out here,” he said, and his tone wasn’t angry, exactly, but it was urgent. “They hear you
spouting this shit, Jess, they’ll come for your badge.”
“What if it’s not shit I’m spouting?” Jess asked him. “I don’t make Burke for Boyd’s killer, Sheriff; I’ll be honest. And I respect how you might not put much stock in my opinion, but you’ve still got to admit that it’s pretty damn convenient the way this is all wrapping up. You don’t think we ought to at least consider—”
“Deputy.” Hart held up his hand. Then he sighed. “Jess. You haven’t worked a case this big before; I understand that. You’ve got a lot to learn, and sometimes I forget, but—”
“Sheriff—”
“But you’re going to find,” Hart continued, talking over her interruption, “that cases like these, they’re not generally head-scratchers. Most of the murders you’ll see, they’ll wrap up just about the way you expect them to. People get angry, they do something stupid. They, by and large, lack the capacity to cover it up.”
Jess made to speak again, but Hart wasn’t having it. He held his hand up again, palm out toward her.
“I’ve got to take you off this case,” he said. “Shipps is forcing my hand here, and I can’t say that I blame him. He doesn’t know you, Jess, but he knows about you and Burke. And the optics…”
He trailed off. Watching her, and it wasn’t like Shipps; there was no judgment, no suspicion. She could tell Hart cared about her, knew this must be tough on him.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed about,” he said. “There’s plenty more police work to be done in this county while the state patrol’s looking for Burke. Hell, it’s not like the rest of the criminals in this county just all up and went on vacation.”
Jess studied his face. Wondered if she’d just torpedoed her career, speaking up on Burke’s side. It didn’t matter now. She couldn’t blame Hart, and there was no point in fighting it.
She looked Hart in the eyes. “Fine, Sheriff,” she told him. “I guess I’ll get out of your hair.” And she excused herself then, slipped past him, and walked out into the main room of the detachment, past Shipps and his troopers and Tyner Gillies and Paul Monk and the rest, and she felt their eyes on her and knew what they must be thinking, and she tried not to care, about the men and about what they’d surely do to Burke when they found him.
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