by Donna Doyle
31
Unanswered Questions
“So nothing happens?” Skip demanded. “This guy, the one who got into the fight at the bar, he’s dead. Don’t you find that a little unusual?”
“I find it all unusual, Skip,” Troy said.
“Sean didn’t kill himself. You know that.”
“I know that.”
Skip Krymanski had shown up at Troy’s house in a belligerent mood exacerbated by Yingling beer. He’d heard the news about the dead veteran who’d engaged the chief of police of the Settler Springs Police Department in a shootout. It had made the evening news.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough. Sean deserves more than that.”
Troy had decided to come home for his break. He wasn’t hungry and he didn’t feel like facing people who would be curious and would ask him for answers that he didn’t have. He’d have to go back to his shift after his break was over, but he’d hoped to spend the hour in solitude, with only Arlo’s undemanding presence for company. But then Skip had pounded on the door, beer can and car keys in hand.
It wasn’t a good mix and Troy knew that he’d have to warn Skip against driving home when he was under the influence. He wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Yes, he does,” Troy agreed.
“What are you going to do about it? What’s going on around here, Troy? Sean is dead, the verdict is suicide when you and I both know he didn’t kill himself. This stranger from out of town is dead, shot by Chief Stark in self-defense. Things aren’t adding up.”
No, they aren’t, Troy thought, but he didn’t voice his thoughts. Skip was too volatile to be entrusted with Troy’s suspicions, and he and his Krymanski relatives had a backlog of resentment against the police for being the town scapegoats whenever crimes took place.
“They’re saying this guy was probably responsible for the break-ins that were going on,” Skip said.
Troy hadn’t heard that. “How did they come to that decision?” he asked.
Skip shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re saying he was a vagrant and he broke in to get some easy cash. The car didn’t have a license plate. Did you know that?”
“I heard that.” And Troy was still puzzled by that. It had had a license plate when Doug saw it entering the cemetery a week earlier. Why had it been removed? It was already missing when Kyle had gotten the report of the abandoned car in the cemetery woods. Had Kavlick removed it himself when he realized that the air had been let out of his tires, so that he couldn’t be traced by his vehicle? If so, why had he done that? And why hadn’t he contacted Chief Stark, if they were indeed working together, to let him know that he was stranded at the cemetery, so that Stark could get the car towed and air put in the tires? Or had Kavlick, by what had happened, become too much of a risk for Stark and therefore become expendable?
“I want answers,” Skip said.
“I want them too.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“First,” Troy said, standing up. “I’m going to drive you home. Don’t argue with me, Skip. I don’t want to arrest you for driving while intoxicated, and I don’t want to do a breathalyzer on you.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to do everything I can.”
Troy steered Skip toward the police car, into the front seat, and closed the door.
“What if everything you can do isn’t enough?”
Skip was grieving. Troy knew that. He was grieving the only way he knew how, by letting anger ward off tears. For Troy, it was easier to put emotions aside and deal dispassionately with the facts so that he didn’t have to face his own emotions. Sean was dead. Murdered. By Eddie Kavlick, Troy suspected. But he’d have to prove it.
The investigation into the shooting would just be a formality. Troy knew that. Chief Stark would be off duty while it was taking place, that was standard procedure, but with Trooper Meigle offering his testimony that the police chief had acted in self-defense, the investigation wouldn’t take long. No one was likely to ask why Meigle had been there. But it was one of the things Troy needed to find out.
He brought Skip home and got back into his car.
Are you okay? A text from Kelly had arrived. She was working at the library; it was her late night. She must have heard the news from one of the patrons. The library was a clearinghouse for information, he’d come to realize.
Was he okay? No. He would have been willing to bet that Kavlick was one of Stark’s men, and that Sean had been killed because Chief Stark wanted to warn Troy. But warn him of what? Not to investigate the drug issue in town? Not to interfere? Not to stick up for Leo, or watch out for Mia, or get in the way of the attempts to make Travis Shaw look like he was innocent of the murder of Lyola Knesbit?
I’m okay, he texted back.
Right. Come over to my place for supper tomorrow.
I thought you didn’t cook.
I don’t cook well. But I can muster up something that won’t take long to make and won’t take you long to eat, as long as you’re not too particular.
I’m not too particular.
He was smiling as he put his phone away. It wasn’t a date; it was just supper. He only had an hour break, and Kelly would just have gotten home from work. It didn’t move the needle on their relationship, and it didn’t define what their relationship was.
But he needed to see her. In the midst of the questions about the shooting, the grief for Sean’s meaningless death, the dark turn of circumstances that was making murder seem entirely too commonplace for a small town with no big-city problems, Kelly was the North Star for him. She always pointed in the right direction. Her convictions and her heart might not be the defenses that a police officer and former soldier would rely on when he’d spent years depending upon his guns, but Kelly was a fortress of integrity.
Funny. That wasn’t a word he’d have used to describe any of his former girlfriends.
But Kelly wasn’t his girlfriend.
What was she, then?
It was just another question for which he didn’t have an answer. But it was a quest that he wanted to pursue. There wasn’t a lot of integrity in the world, he realized; a police officer met people at their lowest much of the time. He had to find the answers to the other questions first: how entrenched were the Starks in the drug trade; why had Sean been killed; what was going on with Travis Shaw and what lengths would Chief Stark go to in order to save him from a murder rap?
Kelly would be at his side throughout the search. She wanted the answers just as much as he did, because Kelly couldn’t stand by and watch when wrong was being done.
And they would have allies in this search. There was Doug Iolus, for one. Maybe Trooper Callahan. The Krymanskis, on some level. Maybe Jimmy Patton. Leo Page and Mia Shaw. Carmela Dixon. People who fought against wrongdoing in their own way.
People who believed, as Kelly had said, right is right and wrong is wrong.
They’d be fighting against a crooked cop who had a strong influence and a powerful reputation in a town that didn’t always look below the surface. It was easier to blame the Krymanskis for crimes. It was impossible to think that a police chief might be corrupt. Proving that wouldn’t be easy. But ignoring it would be impossible.
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More From Donna Doyle!
Love Kelly Armello? Pick up her other cozy adventures in
BOOK 1: Murder Wears a Mask
BOOK 2: Murder Casts a Shadow
BOOK 3: Murder Plans the Menu
If you enjoye
d this Cozy Mystery you will be sure to love Donna’s other box set collections. Super cozy characters and marvellous mysteries all waiting for you…
Read Baker’s Dozen Cozy Mystery Boxset
Read the Molly Grey Cozy Mystery Collection
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