Chapter Two #3
“The constant screamin’ and the hollerin’, you mean?” Coach Bell tutted her tongue. “All hours of the night. Allison yelling at Mandy. Mandy yelling at Allison. You know how it is. She’s a sweet girl, just not to her mama.”
“What about Bill?”
“Lord knows he gets his licks in, too.”
Their eyes met for a second. They both knew that there was a stronger meaning behind her words. Coach Bell spoke first.
“I haven’t seen Bill around for a few weeks. Which has been a blessed relief.”
“Did Allison say anything to you about why?”
“Not a peep, but she’s always been the quiet type. Likes to handle her own problems.”
Emmy knew.
“Honey, I know your mama’s funeral was today.
I won’t say we got along. Lord knows Myrna was prickly.
But what I mean to say is that I know you’ll figure out what happened over there.
She raised you to be an incredibly intelligent and considerate young woman.
” Her eyes shifted past Emmy’s shoulder.
“Clearly, she learned from her mistakes.”
Emmy followed her pointed gaze. Jude was making her way up the driveway.
Emmy turned back to Coach Bell. “Have you seen anybody in the neighborhood recently who doesn’t belong?”
“I would’ve called you immediately.”
Emmy knew that was true. “Thank you, ma’am. Do you mind if I borrow your hose?”
“Just roll it back up when you’re finished.”
Coach Bell glared at Jude before slamming the window closed. There was no telling what that was about. Jude had burned a lot of bridges when she’d left town. Some of them were still smoldering forty-plus years later.
Emmy tossed her clean uniform shirt over the porch railing. Went to the hose reel. Turned on the spigot.
Jude asked, “Did she see anything?”
“She’s really old. Her eyesight is bad.”
“Old?” Jude scoffed. “She was two years ahead of me in high school.”
Emmy splashed cold water into her face, used her fingers to try to comb out the grime in her hair. “I can handle Brett. I don’t need my big sister threatening to beat him up behind the school cafeteria.”
“Understood. Are you okay?”
Emmy directed the stream of water at her bloodstained feet. “You used the shotgun instead of the Glock to clear the house.”
Emmy handed Jude the hose. Grabbed her shirt off the railing.
“Shotguns have a wide pellet spread. Firing one inside a confined area risks killing the people you’re trying to save.
” Jude was back in lecturer mode like she was teaching a lesson at Quantico.
“Handguns are more precise and maneuverable, but only if you can stop your hands shaking long enough to aim.”
Emmy’s hands were perfectly fine as she buttoned her shirt. “You told me I should’ve had Cole backing me up. What about you? You slipped up the stairs without telling me to back you up.”
Jude shrugged. “You’re right.”
Emmy didn’t have time to sneeze into another windstorm. “Wind the hose back on the reel when you’re finished.”
She waved her thanks to Coach Bell before walking down the driveway.
Emmy flexed her fingers to keep them from curling into fists again.
Her muscles ached from holding on to so much tension.
Her head was pounding. The soles of her feet felt bruised.
Water was wicking into the back of her shirt from her wet hair.
The heat was probably going to sour it, but she didn’t have time to go home and take a shower.
Two of her deputies were already straggling out of the woods.
Julian Vanderbilt and Levi McGuire looked sweaty and miserable.
Emmy straightened her shoulders, pretended like she was fine in her own body, that her mother wasn’t lying in a freshly dug grave, and that her sister wasn’t irritating the shit out of her.
“Hey.” Sherry was leaning against the back of her government ride. She nodded to a pair of beat-up HOKAs on the wide bumper. “Had these in my gym bag.”
“Thank you.” The shoes fit more like slippers, but they were better than going barefoot. “Brett brought you up to speed?”
“Allison.”
Emmy saw her own guilt and grief mirrored in Sherry’s expression. There wasn’t a lot of female law enforcement in the area. They were a tight club. At least they tried to be.
“What about Mandy?”
Emmy smoothed together her lips. “They shocked her half a dozen times to get her back.”
Sherry needed a moment to let the information settle. “I’m real sorry about your mother.”
Emmy felt the shard of glass threaten to lodge in her throat again.
Thankfully, Sherry gave a quick nod, and the condolences were out of the way. She looked back at the house. “I don’t envy you having to navigate this sticky situation. Where are we on the clock?”
Emmy looked at her watch. Time never made sense in these situations. “I’d guess thirty minutes from the first gunshot. I’m trying to keep a lid on it until we find Bill.”
Sherry shook her head at the mention of the man’s name. Coach Bell had had the same reaction. Everybody knew about Bill’s temper, but nobody ever talked about it. “Don’t count on that lid holding anything down. You know cops can’t keep a secret. At least not with each other.”
“The crime scene …” Emmy struggled to find the right words.
The bloody handprints on the windowsill were bothering her.
The black nitrile glove on the flat roof.
Some cops called it a hunch, or an instinct, or, if it was a female officer, intuition.
Her father had called it DFR, which was as good a description as any. “Doesn’t feel right.”
“In what way?”
Before Emmy could respond, a black Dodge Durango Pursuit slid to a stop a few yards away from the house. This was the sticky situation Emmy had to navigate. The driver was Reggie Wilder, the Clayville chief of police. He was Allison’s former boss.
He was also Allison’s former lover.
“Brett, you’re with me.”
Emmy motioned for Cole to cover the front door as she jogged toward the Durango.
She could hear the equipment on Brett’s belt hitting his legs as he matched her pace: Glock, pepper spray, handcuffs, telescoping metal baton—all the things Emmy wished she had at her disposal, because Reggie Wilder was used to giving orders, not taking them.
He whipped off his wraparound sunglasses. His eyes were wet with tears. He was only a few inches taller than Emmy, but obscenely muscled from going to the gym before and after work every day, and filled with a kind of simmering anger that could quickly come to a rolling boil.
She said, “Reggie.”
“Is it true?” His voice strained on the last word. “Where the hell is Bill? Why aren’t you out tracking him?”
“Let’s go somewhere to talk.”
“I ain’t going anywhere until I see what that bastard did to her.”
He started walking toward the house—an active crime scene where his ex-lover had been murdered and any DNA and fingerprints could be easily contaminated.
Bill Garrison wasn’t the only suspect in this case.
“Reggie.”
There was a limp to his gait where he’d torn his ACL last year, but his stride was still twice that of Emmy’s. She had to jog to catch up with him.
“Reggie, stop.”
He didn’t stop. “I need to see her.”
“Reggie.” Emmy tried to block his path. “You can’t—”
He sledgehammered his shoulder into hers.
She felt a twinge in her back from the sudden twist. Cole tensed like a runner on his mark, but Emmy shook her head, telling him to stay put.
She could feel every eye in the street trained on her.
Jude looked worried. So did Sherry. They all knew this could get bad.
“Reggie, listen to me.” Emmy put herself directly in front of him, walking backward as he kept moving relentlessly forward. “You know the house is a crime scene. I can’t let you—”
This time, she saw it coming. Reggie raised both of his hands and gave Emmy a hard shove. She had a millisecond to brace herself by shifting her weight to her right foot. What she didn’t account for was the loose-fitting shoes. Emmy tripped and landed flat on her ass.
Several things happened very quickly.
Cole took off toward her. So did Jude. So did Sherry.
Emmy jumped back to her feet. Grabbed the baton off Brett’s belt, swung it through the air and slammed it into the side of Reggie’s knee.
He didn’t have the breath to scream. He crumpled to the ground, clutching his leg, groaning. The pain was so intense that vomit coughed out of his mouth.
Cole stopped in the street. Jude and Sherry did, too.
Emmy took a quick breath. Her shoulder ached. Her tailbone felt bruised where it had cracked against the pavement. Sweat dripped into her eyes.
“Jesus, Emmy.” Brett sounded appalled. “You know he’s got a bad knee.”
She handed Brett the baton. “He can leave in his own car, or he can ride in the back of yours. Make the choice.”
Emmy hadn’t realized Reggie had knocked her out of her shoes until she felt the heat of the asphalt singeing the soles of her feet.
She approached her deputies. Julian Vanderbilt, Gregg Davenport and Levi McGuire had all been hired in the last five years.
All but Gregg had made it clear they preferred working under her father.
She asked Gregg, “Status report?”
Emmy watched his mouth move, but she couldn’t process what he was saying.
Instead, she worked to put herself back in her body.
Context told her everything she needed to know: three of her deputies had been sent into the woods to search for a killer.
They were now standing in the street. Ergo, they hadn’t found the killer.
She saw Cole approaching. He had collected Sherry’s shoes in one hand. His phone was in the other. He waited until Gregg had finished speaking.
Cole said, “Chief, I wrote out that press release like you asked.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but she took his phone when he handed it to her. He’d typed out a single line on the screen so that only Emmy would know—
Bill Garrison is at the North Falls baseball park.