Chapter Twenty-Eight
I’m in the town hall with Muriel. I’ve asked Kendra to join us.
She’s not there as an official witness—she’s making coffee and then puttering about, as if putting in some work time.
But whenever I conduct a potentially adversarial interview, I want a witness.
Kendra is the right one for this job. She’s not officially law enforcement, and she’s so universally well liked that her presence should put Muriel at ease.
I lean into that impression. This is not an interrogation. Not a hostile interview. Just me chatting with a resident about an annoying little issue that doesn’t seem to be resolving itself.
“I hate to call you in on this again,” I say as I serve her coffee. “I thought it was wrapped up, and it’s certainly the least of our concerns right now, but I need to address it.”
She frowns. “Is it my schedule? I’m working my full hours. Even a bit extra.”
“No, it’s the curfew. We have an eyewitness who saw you coming out of the forest around dawn yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” The frown deepens. “Are you sure it wasn’t a few days ago? We already discussed that.”
“Yes, but this was yesterday. After the curfew was in place.”
“How did someone see me if everyone’s supposed to be inside?” She leans my way, lowering her voice as if not wanting Kendra to overhear. “Is it Arturo? I don’t know what’s going on, but he really seems to have a problem with me lately.”
“It’s not Arturo. Someone had their shutters open at dawn and was looking out, waiting for the sunrise.”
She goes quiet and sips her coffee.
“Muriel,” I say. “I need you to answer this very carefully. Before I called you in today, Eric and I went to your old spot. There are fresh footprints that match your boots.”
“I have standard-issue boots.”
I take a deep breath, letting her see my growing frustration. “Muriel. They are your size, and the impression matches the others, the depth indicating someone with the same boots in the same size, with the same weight and gait.”
I’m stretching the truth, but I can see that I’ve sold it, as she nibbles her lower lip.
“Muriel,” I say. “We are dealing with a serious threat, and the last thing I want to spend my time doing is arguing about whether or not a resident was in the forest. But I can’t drop this because we have a curfew, and you broke it. If you can admit to that, we can move forward.”
“Yes.” She exhales the word. “Okay, yes. I went out there. I’m sorry. I know it was wrong, but this lockdown…” She swallows hard. “It’s too much for me.”
I could point out that she’d been in lockdown for one day before she broke it. But I need this confession, so I nod as if in understanding.
“I made a mistake,” she says, “and it won’t happen again.”
“Good. That’s what I needed to hear. Now, I’m afraid we’ll need to discuss a penalty, but if you stick to your promise not to repeat it, we can go easy there.”
She nods vigorously. “I won’t repeat it, and I accept the penalty.”
“Thank you. That makes this much easier. Now I just need one more thing.”
“Sure.”
“The name of the person you were with out there.”
Her head snaps up. “What?”
“You were out there with a man. We found his boot prints.”
“What? No. I was alone. If there are other prints, someone else must have been in the same spot. But not with me. I swear it.”
I gentle my tone, still trying for sympathy. “I don’t think you want to do that, Muriel.”
Her chin rises. “Why not? It’s the truth. I was alone.”
I exhale, slowly and audibly. Then I take out my notebook and flip to the right page. “You were spotted exiting the forest at six thirty. You were seen coming from the northeast, in the direction of your clearing.”
“I admitted that.”
I lift a finger and keep reading. “At six fifteen, two witnesses heard a male and female voice coming from that direction. They went to get a closer look, but the pair parted before they could get close.”
Her jaw works, eyes flashing. “This is Arturo, isn’t it? Both your so-called witnesses. No one was supposed to be in the forest, but he obviously was, following me and making up stories—”
“I’m the one who heard you in the forest.”
She goes still. “What?”
“Eric and I were on patrol with Storm. We heard a male and female voice in conversation. We went for a closer look. You may have heard that Storm was injured in a bear encounter. That’s when it happened. That’s why we didn’t get a look at either party.”
“Then you can’t prove it was me. Just because I have a spot where I like to go before dawn doesn’t mean I’m the one you heard.”
“I didn’t consider you until the witness reported seeing you exit the forest about fifteen minutes after we heard voices. You just admitted you were there at that time.”
“I was,” she says quickly. “I heard them, too. A man and a woman. Then I heard the bear. That’s why I went back to town.”
Across the room, Kendra rolls her eyes.
“Yet you didn’t report hearing people in the woods,” I say.
“I thought it was you and Eric. I heard about the bear attack, and I was certain that’s who I heard.”
“So it’s all a wild coincidence. We were all out there at once. You just happened to get back to town right after the voices stopped talking. There just happen to be a man’s boot prints in your clearing.”
“Coincidences happen.”
“Okay.” I nod slowly. “Okay. Well, I wish I had time to pursue this further with you, Muriel, but I’m afraid I don’t.”
“There’s nothing to pursue. Like you said, you have important things to do.”
“True, true.” I heave a sigh and get to my feet. “Okay, well, I’m afraid I won’t be able to continue this conversation today. Maybe tomorrow morning.”
“No rush,” she says, very obviously trying hard to look sincere.
“Kendra?” I say. “Could you please take Muriel to the solitary apartment? If you can stand guard awhile, I’d appreciate that. I know you have work to do as well, so I’ll find someone to take over as soon as possible.”
Kendra nods and walks to Muriel. “We’ll swing by your apartment first, so you can pack an overnight bag.”
“I … I don’t understand.”
I answer. “As I said, I won’t be able to follow up on this until morning. Until then, you’ll need to be held in the solitary apartment.”
“The what?”
“It’s an apartment with a guardroom. It’s about the size of your usual quarters, and very comfortable. No windows, and obviously, you can’t leave but…” I shrug.
“Am I charged with something? You can’t just confine me for no reason.”
“I have reason. You’ve broken curfew. That’s cause for confinement if you check the papers you signed.
” I take out my tablet and start thumbing through to find the contract.
“Now, usually, we wouldn’t enforce that for a first offense.
But you not only broke curfew—you were in the forest, which is a second offense.
Still, even with all that, I’d rather not waste Kendra’s time guarding you, and I wouldn’t, if you’d just tell me who you were meeting. ”
“No one. I was meeting no one.”
I hold her gaze long enough to see the lie clearly in her flush as she struggles to make eye contact.
“You’re lying,” I say.
She flinches, as if expecting something softer.
“We’re dealing with a security issue,” I say, “and you’re breaking curfew to meet a man in the forest. Can you see where that would be a problem?”
She looks away.
“So this is how it’s going to be?” I step into her line of sight. “I’m dealing with a security concern, a curfew, an injured dog … and now I have to deal with you, too. You’re making us give up a militia member who should be on patrol but now needs to guard you.”
“You don’t need to do that. You’re choosing to do that.”
I lock gazes with her until she ducks out of it. Then I turn to Kendra. “Take her. I’m going to call a militia meeting. We have a man in the forest who may or may not be a resident. If he’s seen, exercise extreme caution bringing him in.”
“What?” Muriel says.
I’m already at the door. “Tell everyone to be armed and to consider him a threat.”
“Wait!” Muriel says, but I shut the door before she can continue.
This one needs time to stew, and I don’t have time to wait her out.
And … right after declaring I didn’t have time for Muriel’s bullshit, I find myself with little else to do.
émilie has our information on the miner, but she needs to get her investigator involved.
Finding a guy who matches the parameters I’ve provided isn’t something she can do with a simple internet search.
She also has the investigator looking for a connection between Blake and Mark, though that requires first identifying Mark.
When I realize I’ll just be spinning my wheels, my impulse is to go back to Muriel. Dalton stops me, rightly. I just told her she’s spending some time in solitary. If I break that thirty minutes later, she knows I’m not serious.
I do have things I can do, obviously. Shore up patrols, with Yolanda and Anders gone.
Spend time with my baby. Or sleep. Sleep is always good, when I’ve had so little.
As anyone who knows me might guess, I pick the first two instead.
I patrol with Gunnar for an hour while Dalton is with Rory, and then we switch off.
Once I’ve fed Rory, we have a “take your daughter to work day” outing.
I pop my head into the Roc. It’s quiet within. The café closed early, to allow a short opening of the pub part before curfew. There’s an hour between the two, and I’ve slid in during that. Devon and Brian have packed and left, and Isabel and Phil are setting up for cocktail hour.
“No one under nineteen allowed,” Isabel calls from the back room, on hearing Rory babbling.
I ignore her and take a seat at the bar. She comes out and steals my child, putting Rory on one hip as she arranges the bar.
“Everything okay?” she asks me.
I sigh. “A case that suddenly has too many clues and not enough connections. But I wanted to check in on another case—the one I abandoned. Your break-in.”
She snorts. “Bored, are you? Or, I should say, frustrated and stalled and making work for yourself.”
“Maybe. But I still should check in. Any clues? Anything turn up missing?”
“Not a damn thing. I’m sticking with my original theory. They broke in hoping to grab booze and left when they realized we keep it all in the locked stockroom. Now, Phil thinks they wanted something else.”
“What?”
She shrugs. “Pencils? Envelopes?” She looks back at the stockroom. “Phil?”
He comes out with a box of liquor and sets it on the back counter.
“Casey’s asking about the break-in,” she says. “Tell her your theory.”
He sighs. “It’s not a theory. Simply an observation.”
She makes a hurry-up gesture.
He starts unloading liquor bottles for the bar stock.
“There were footprints leading to my desk at the back. I checked with Brian, and he said they’d definitely swept the shavings before they left, so the prints were new.
They weren’t distinguishable. If they were, I would have called you.
Simply marks showing that someone went over there. ”
“To your desk?”
He nods.
I walk deeper into the bar. Phil’s “desk” is in the back corner, where he works at a table, sometimes when the coffee shop is open and sometimes when the bar is.
What he calls his desk isn’t that table but the small dresser of supplies beside it.
That explains Isabel’s quip about the thief looking for stationery.
“What’s in there?” I say.
Phil keeps unloading the box. “Nothing of value. A calculator. Steno pads. Pens.”
“Any files?”
He looks up, clearly affronted. “Certainly not.”
“I don’t mean anything confidential. Regular stuff, like inventory logs or supply lists.”
“None of that. I consider everything to be confidential. The desk contains supplies I need to work. Any paper in there is blank. The files are kept locked in a secure location that only I have access to.”
“I don’t even know where it is,” Isabel says.
“For safety, no one does, although I have left the location with émilie, in case I should be incapacitated. And, before you ask, no one has been near those files.”
“He’s right about the intruder leaving prints leading there,” Isabel says as she bounces Rory. “But I think they were hoping the cabinet contained Phil’s secret booze stash.”
Again, that affronted look. “I do not have a secret booze stash. Why would I even need one, if I have the key to the stockroom?”
She squeezes his arm. “Teasing you. No, I think they were just hoping we were stashing booze in there in general. Or credits. Something of value. Nothing’s missing from there either.” She hands me back the baby and continues setting up the bar. “Now tell me about your real case.”
I sigh. “It’s just complicated, and it seems to be connected to the mine.”
“What a shock.”
“I know, I know. émilie is investigating a few things, and until then, I’m stuck. Can I run another thing by you? One that probably isn’t even connected.”
“The doctor is in. Let me fix you a mocktail, and you can tell Dr. Iz all your troubles.”