CHAPTER ONE
Morning came to the woods with a hard white sun and no kindness in it.
Connor Chase guided the Sheriff's SUV along a rutted track north of Elmsview, the tires dropping into grooves left by logging trucks and hunters who never believed in slowing down. Branches leaned close on both sides. The wheels gripped the uneven dirt track as the vehicle climbed toward the ridge.
This was supposed to have been his day off.
A day without court dates and the trappings of daily rural disputes.
No deputy needing help with a domestic call that had already gone sour.
He had planned to finish that Stephen King novel, mow the stretch of yard behind his house he’d ignored for too long, then maybe eat lunch without a radio clipped to his belt and enjoy a beer on his porch.
Then death had come to Harlan County, and with one quick swipe of his scythe, shown Connor that life was never simple. Or planned. Worse, this was someone he knew.
A bend in the track forced him down to fifteen miles an hour. He glanced at the passenger seat.
A cherry pie sat there in a foil tin, covered in plastic wrap, a yellow sticky note fixed to the top.
FOR YOUR MOM.
AND ONE SLICE FOR YOU, SHERIFF.
Cheryl’s handwriting, neat and rounded followed by a cute little smiley face and an “x” for a kiss. She had handed it to him through the car window before he set off from the station.
Another pie. Another little gesture placed right where his mother could see it and ask the question she had been circling for months.
Connor could hear her already.
Cheryl’s lovely, Connor. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll snatch her up before someone else does. The type of woman who’ll help you find the answers.
Well, that depended on who was asking the questions.
His mother said that kind of thing as if decent women were produce at market, and he was standing there too long with an empty basket.
Cheryl was a great gal. Smart, steady, funny in a dry way that could take the sting out of a bad shift. Knowing that didn’t make it simple. Work had to remain work. In a county this small, a sheriff dating his dispatcher would become breakfast talk before the first kiss had cooled.
Besides, since Selena, his ex-wife, had come back to town to help with a case and then left again, Connor had found himself less interested in new romance than in old damage. Poring over the memories. Wondering what went wrong, and whether he could have ever made it right again.
He knew those thoughts didn’t help anyone. But by God, he couldn’t help but have them.
His phone rang, disturbing his thoughts.
Connor looked at the ID and then clicked the hands-free button. "Hey."
“Connor, my man,” Victor said, sounding as gregarious as always. “There’s a vicious rumor you’re off work today. Fancy a round of golf?”
“That would have been nice, Vic,” he said with a sigh. “But something’s come up with work.”
Victor laughed. “Has Selma Brown’s cat gotten into Roy’s chicken coop again?”
“If only it were that simple, Vic,” Connor said.
“Oh… Jeez, Connor. I can tell it’s somethin’ bad. I don’t think I care to know what.”
Connor squinted as the sun streaked through the windshield. “It’ll be all around town in an hour, no matter how much I try to keep a lid on it. You know what it’s like around here.”
"Ain't that the truth?"
The lodge appeared ahead through the trees, low and tired-looking against the slope. Weathered siding. A porch with bowed boards. A roof patched in two places with mismatched shingles. The sight of it filled him with dread. The thought of what was inside was worse.
“Vic, I gotta go.”
“No worries, buddy. I’ll catch up with you soon.”
“And…” there was silence for a moment. “Whatever this is… Don’t let it get you down. Things always look worse than they really are.”
“Sure thing. Speak to you soon, Vic.”
Connor ended the call as he neared the lodge.
A county cruiser sat near the porch. Behind it, a dark pickup truck was parked at an angle, tailgate toward the trees. The cruiser was Arnold’s. The sight of the truck washed over him with sadness. That one was Warren Holt’s. A friend. An old card buddy.
Connor pulled in beside Arnold’s cruiser and killed the engine.
Deputy Arnold Shaw stood near the steps with his thumbs hooked in his belt, trying to look older than twenty-eight. The attempt never quite worked. Blond hair stuck out from beneath his hat, and faint acne marked his jaw under a patchy attempt at stubble.
Arnold turned as Connor got out.
“Good morning, Sheriff.”
“Not so far.” Connor shut the SUV door and nodded toward the lodge. “Is it true?”
Arnold looked back at the building before answering. “Yeah, Chief... Sorry. Matt Price is inside doing his assessment. Body’s Warren Holt.”
Connor stopped walking for half a beat.
“You guys used to play cards, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Still do.”
Warren Holt had been loud at card tables, mean to cheap beer, generous after two drinks, and impossible to shut up once he started talking about land taxes.
Connor had known him for twenty years. They weren’t exactly best friends, but in Harlan County, proximity had a way of becoming its own kind of closeness.
Warren was just always there. And now he was gone.
“Who found him?” Connor asked.
“Tom Reeder. Came to the lodge to use it for the day. I took a statement. He said he knew something was wrong when he saw Warren’s truck sitting right there so early.”
Arnold nodded toward the pickup.
Connor moved closer and saw the deer in the bed, legs stiff, hide already drawing flies at the edges. Two ropes held it down. One had been tightened clumsily near the rear leg.
“Cheryl said it’s a possible suicide?”
“Looks like it,” Arnold said. “We found a handgun on the floor near the chair.”
“Near the chair?”
“Few feet away.”
Connor looked at him.
Arnold shifted. “That’s what Matt said. I haven’t touched anything.”
“Good.”
“I took the outside, secured the front, then waited for you.”
Connor nodded, but his gaze stayed on the lodge. “None of this sounds like Warren.”
“To shoot himself?”
“To drive all the way up here, drag a deer with him, sit down, and shoot himself before taking care of it.”
Arnold rubbed one thumb across his belt buckle. “People do strange things when they’re low. Remember Mrs. Ealing jumping in the river when her husband left?”
“At least we were able to save her.”
Connor held his breath without realizing.
The porch boards complained under Connor’s weight as he moved into the lodge.
Inside, the lodge smelled of old timber and fireplace ash. Morning light came through dirty windows, cutting across scuffed floors and old furniture. A camera clicked from the dining room.
“In here,” Matt Price called.
The dining room held a long table, six chairs, and Warren Holt, folded forward at the far end, face down.
Connor took one look and felt grief strike in an unexpected place, steady and sure. He knew he had to not show it. But that was hard.
Dammit, Warren, he thought. Why?
Warren’s cheek rested against the table, one eye visible beneath the slack weight of death. Blood had spread under him and across a sheet of paper pinned beneath one hand. More had run down the table edge and dried in a dark line toward the floor. A chair lay tipped behind him.
Matt Price stood to one side with a camera in hand.
Slim and wiry, Matt looked less like the county’s crime scene technician than a man who had wandered in from a band nobody in town had paid to hear.
Tattoos ran over both forearms and climbed from his collar toward the left side of his neck.
Two silver rings marked one ear, and a small stud sat in his nose.
Connor’s older deputies still didn’t know what to make of him, but Matt did clean work.
At the sight of Connor, Matt lowered the camera. “Sheriff.”
Connor kept his voice controlled. “Dr. Blethan not covering this?”
Matt gave a small shrug. “Says his knee’s playing up and he has a fever.”
“Is that so?”
“I think he’s sick of working in the field and likes making me do the crawling around. I’m not complaining. It’s a living. To be fair, he has seemed a bit under the weather lately. Having him down here coughing on everything wouldn’t exactly be good forensic work.”
Arnold glanced down at the blood and looked away again. He never had the stomach for this sort of work.
Connor stepped closer, stopping short of the chair and the body. “What do we have?”
“We know who it is, Chief… But I’ll stick to the book.
Warren Holt, male, fifty-one,” Matt said.
“Single gunshot wound near the left temple. Exit’s at the back right of the cranium.
Weapon on the floor by the rear wall. Revolver.
Haven’t handled it yet except to photograph its position.
We’ll check it for prints and DNA, ballistics to match the bullet we pulled out of the wall. ”
Connor looked toward the wall. The gun lay near the baseboard, half in shadow.
“Any sign of forced entry?”
Arnold cleared his throat. “Tom said the door was unlocked.”
Matt nodded in agreement. "No damage I can see. The kitchen window's latched from the inside. Back door's shut, but the latch barely holds."
Arnold stepped closer, then caught himself and stayed behind Connor. “You wonder what he was thinking.”
Connor looked at something underneath Warren’s bloodied face. “What’s that? A letter?”
“I haven’t removed it yet,” Matt said. “But as far as I can tell, it’s unmarked. Blank. There is an envelope with his name typed on it.”
Connor studied Warren’s body again.
The head position. The arm. The paper. The typed envelope. The chair. The gun too far away. Most of all, Connor knew Warren. None of this made sense.
“This isn’t a suicide.”
Arnold’s eyebrows lifted. “How can you tell?”
Connor pointed toward the sheet beneath Warren’s hand. “Paper in front of him is blank. People usually shoot themselves after they write the note, Arnold.”
Matt’s face held the slightest hint of a smirk. “Usually.”
Arnold leaned in to see. “Could’ve changed his mind about writing it.”