The scalpel was at Kerr’s side. He looked at it, shrugged, and handed it to Jace.
“Whose blood was it?” Rory asked.
“I promise I don’t know. I swear to Christ that’s the truth. But I can tell you it was planted.”
“Planted?” Jace shook her head. “You can’t plant that much blood, Kerr; that’s ridiculous.”
“Sure you can; easy peasy.”
From deep in the hallway, they began to hear the bang of feet against the concrete tunnel floor. Moving quick but not running because of the dark. Jace looked behind her and saw the dim glow of flashlights bobbing as the ERTs ran to save her and Rory.
“How?” Rory asked.
“Every living thing’s got blood, Deputy Bogan. Gut a deer or something, drain the blood, fill some containers. Easy peasy.”
“And bring it into the jail?”
Kerr shrugged.
“Where’d you see it?”
“I got no idea—”
The footsteps were getting louder, the flashlights brighter, though Jace still heard no voices. They weren’t far away.
“That’s crap. Don’t jerk us around. Where was the blood?”
Rory grabbed his chin, jerked his head to face hers. “Damn it, tell us. They’re coming.”
“I don’t know.” Kerr’s voice was a plaintive wail. Tears stood in his eyes. “What about my boy?”
“Tell us.”
“I don’t know—”
“Answer me now because—”
“I cain’t—”
“—you won’t get a chance when the ERTs get here.”
“Stop yelling at—”
“Kerr, damn it.”
“The blood.”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell us.”
“I don’t—”
The feet were louder, the light brighter.
“What about Bobby?”
Jace jerked him toward her. “I’m not playing around.”
“I cain’t. He’ll—”
“Bogan! Salome!” Dillon’s voice. Angry. Scared. Amped up.
“Now, Kerr.”
“The blood—”
“Tell us what—”
“—kill—”
“Who did it?”
“Everybody on the ground.” Dillon’s voice boomed in the confined space.
“—me.”
“On the ground. Now.”
The ERTs exploded around the bend and into the tunnel.
CHAPTER 32
In the split second it took for the place to swarm with ERTs, Jace yanked Kerr to the ground. She fell as fast as she could. A ballistic shield jammed painfully against her back, wrenching her head sideways and pressing it into the floor.
A shield hammered down on Kerr but he said nothing. His eyes closed and Jace saw, reflected in the dim flashlight, tears wetting the floor.
“Sarge, wait—”
Laimo slammed hard into Rory, cutting her off. Rory fell backward and her head bounced off the concrete as Laimo landed fully on the shield on top of her. She stared at Rory through the clear plastic, a grin all over her doughy face.
“Gotcha now, bitch.”
“Laimo, shut the hell up.” Dillon’s voice was huge in the enclosed space.
Boots pounded the concrete, every ERT silent, as they spread out in concentric rings, expanding their hold on the tunnel. Two ERTs went forward beyond Bobby’s body as another ERT pressed a shield against the corpse. Jace assumed two more were behind them, acting as rear guard.
They brought everyone. There’re more than six ERTs here. They cleared out the entire booking room.
She’d never seen that many people involved in an ERT callout and Jace froze, suddenly slung back into the pod on her first night on the job, reaching back until Thomas’s dead eye stared at her.
Stop it. Let go of it already.
Near her, she saw Rory move her fingers and give Laimo a pleasant middle one. Laimo pressed her shield down harder on Rory and Rory bit back a laugh.
Ahead of them, Inmate Bobby was also pinned, his body twisted beneath the shield until the slash of his throat was a second mouth, opening and asking for mercy. His eyes were open like Thomas’s had been.
I don’t want to see him. Or Thomas. Damn it, I don’t want to see the dead.
Jace closed her eyes, shutting out Thomas and Bobby and Wrubel and maybe the after-image of Mama. Had her eyes been open or closed when she died? Had she seen her own death? Had she seen the man who ran her down, so drunk he didn’t stop for miles and then told Lubbock County deputies he thought he’d hit a deer?
Jace’s gut rumbled and a moment later, she threw up. Hot ropes of vomitus spewed across the concrete even as it clung to her lips and cheek.
“Sarge,” Jimmson said. “She’s getting sick over here.”
“Hang on,” Dillon said.
“But she’s throwing up.”
Laimo looked over, smirk on her face, though she kept her mouth shut.
“And I said wait.”
Embarrassment, as hot as the vomit, flooded her. Last time she’d been pinned she’d pissed herself. At this moment, she hated this job and its violence. She hated seeing the dead in her dreams and the flyers left in her locker. She hated that Rory loved the job so much and hated that Gramma had been right.
But mostly she hated that Sheriff Bukowski had refused her resignation.
Everything held silent and steady forever. Her vomit cooled against her skin and time became elastic. They were not moving until Dillon was satisfied that the entire area was secured. Minutes or hours or even days, nothing would happen until Dillon said so.
“Gimme some damned light.”
Every flashlight snapped on, each holding on a different spot, until the tunnel was dim with diffused light.
“Holy balls.” Dillon said it with a ton of air, stringing the words out until they rang forever in the tunnel. “Is that Bobby?”
No one answered.
“Bogan, is that Bobby?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you guys hurt?”
“No, sir.”
“Salome?”
She coughed. “No, sir.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah . . . uh . . . yes, sir.”
“Who’s that?” Dillon went to Kerr and raised the shield. “What the hell is he doing down here?”
“I was looking for Bobby. He’s my friend.”
Dillon stood. “Is there anyone else here?”
“No, sir.” Kleopping’s voice was steady. “I count three and a body.”
No one moved.
“Sarge?” Rory tried to twist her head around but the shield held her. “No one here but us. You can let us up.”
He said nothing.
“Sarge? Really? Let us go.” Rory’s voice had slipped up a bit, not scared or panicked, but wary.
“Not yet, Bogan.”
“Why?”
An eternal three minutes later, Sheriff Bukowski, Major Jakob, and Detective Von Holton came around the bend in the tunnel. Bukowski had a cigar in his mouth, unlit, while Jakob’s face was set hard as stone as she approached Bobby’s body.
“That my murderer?” Von Holton asked.
“He didn’t do it.” Kerr’s voice was pinched.
“Shut up.” Von Holton looked at Dillon. “Guess the jail commission will be dropping in. Or maybe Salome’s friend the Texas Ranger, Captain Ezrin. Maybe we can get him to sniff around, root out the bad cops again. Ezrin. Christ, Dillon, how you’ve kept your job I don’t know.”
“Detective, watch your mouth or I’ll cut your damned tongue out.”
Von Holton sneered at the sheriff. “Yeah? Guess this puts the nail in the coffin for your next campaign. Somebody new’ll be signing my checks.”
Bukowski nodded to Dillon and a moment later, Jace and Rory were free. Kleopping kept a knee in Kerr’s back, holding the inmate still. Laimo walked away from Rory but Jimmson held his hand out to help
Jace up. She sat, willing herself not to cry.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jimmson said in her ear. “Happens to all of us.”
His words, meant to be soothing, slammed into Jace’s ears and head like railroad spikes. She didn’t want to be soothed. She wanted to lash out, to give her humiliation something tangible to feed on.
Don’t let it become you.
She breathed in and out, long, deep breaths, for a few minutes, letting her anger cool. Eventually, she looked up at Jimmson, still standing next to her. When offered his hand, she took it and stood.
“Get him to holding,” Dillon said. “The rest of you secure from Zebra 4, get back to your posts.” Dillon tried his radio a couple of times but got no response. “Someone let Bibb know what’s going on.”
Kleopping cuffed Kerr while the man was still on the floor. He lifted him up and, with the rest of the ERTs, headed back toward the jail.
“Bogan, tell me what’s what,” Dillon said as Jakob examined Bobby’s body.
“We were searching, heard someone crying. I thought it was Bobby. When we saw the blood back there, we assumed he was trying to kill himself. When we got here, we found Kerr, and Bobby dead.”
“Did he do it?” the sheriff asked.
“Of course he did,” Von Holton said. “Nobody else was down here. Where’s my murder weapon?”
“Over here.” Jimmson pointed at the scalpel Jace had dropped.
“Don’t touch it. My guys’ll bag it.”
“It’ll have my prints, too. He gave it to me.”
“After cutting you?”
“That was an accident.”
“Bogan? Salome? Did he do it?”
Jace, her mouth foul-tasting, spat and said, “I don’t know, Sheriff. He said he didn’t.” She kept her eyes on the man who threatened to have her brought to work handcuffed if she actually tried to quit. “The detective is right; there wasn’t anyone else down here as far as we know.”
The sheriff nodded. “Anything else?”
“No, sir,” Rory said immediately.
Jace opened her mouth, unsure.
“Salome? Got something to say?” Bukowski chewed his cigar.
Von Holton and Jakob looked at her. So did Dillon and Rory.
“Don’t light that thing,” she said, hating the strained and weak sound of her voice.
Bukowski stared at her for an unnervingly long time. “Yes, ma’am.”
CHAPTER 33
Big Carol, the overnight nurse, had put a small butterfly bandage on the superficial wounds on Jace’s cheek and neck. Dillon talked to them again, as did Von Holton, and they wrote their reports on the incident. By the time they wrapped up, they’d stayed more than an hour over the end of their shift.
In the parking lot, Jace called the sheriff’s direct line. “Yeah?”
“You said Dr. Cruz interviewed Inmate Bobby but then Kerr came along.”
“Yeah.”
“Kerr told me this morning he wasn’t supposed to be here. It got me to thinking.”
Silence.
“Kerr was a first offense failure to pay child support. Why’s he in jail?”
“Society’s punishing him so he learns his lesson and supports his whelp.”
“Not on a first offense. That’s probation and a hand-slap. How’d he end up in jail instead?”
“Crappy lawyer? Deputy, you’ve already given me a long night. Please don’t add to my day. All I wanna do is decide whether or not to run again and smoke my cigar. Have a nice day.”
A Zachary City dump truck, already full of dead Christmas trees, rumbled by on the street. While she’d been on the phone with Bukowski, Jakob had come to them. “You guys know what you’re doing?”
“What’s that, ma’am?” Rory leaned against her car.
“You heard me. You didn’t tell us everything and—”
“Ma’am, we did but—”
“Don’t lie to me, Bogan. You either, Salome.” She held their eyes hard with her own. Steam rose from her coffee. “I don’t care that you didn’t tell me everything. Von Holton has screwed you around and I’m happy enough to let you guys run with the entire thing. But it’s getting big now so watch your damned step. Two murders and I promise you Von Holton is right: the jail commission will be here soon. Bobby’s killing changes everything. They might shut us down, they might take over day-to-day operations, they might do nothing.”
“Why are we still investigating this?” Jace asked. “Two murders. We’re just jailers.”
“Yeah?” Jakob glared at her. “I thought I had two cops on my hands. Cops who wanted to break the big cases and move up the ranks. Maybe I was wrong.”
Jace shook her head. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Jakob stared at Jace, never moving her eyes, as the steam from her coffee rose and curled around her head. It reminded Jace of smoke from a chimney rising and catching the slightest breezes until it curled and disappeared.
“No, I didn’t. My reasons are straightforward. I want you to hammer my ex-husband. That may be petty and vengeful but it’s how I feel. He needs to be put in his place.” She smiled innocently. “If two women can do it, so much the better, especially if one of them is Jace Salome.”
“Please.” Jace turned away from Jakob, embarrassed and disgusted.
“Salome, do not underestimate his hatred of you.”
“What’d I do to him?”
“Not to him . . . to Will Badgett.”
“He knew Badgett?” Jace’s gut tightened.
“Knew him, trained with him, drank with him.” Her upper lip sneered. “Whored with him.”
Jace took a deep breath. “You’re no better than Von Holton.”
“Because I’m using you?”
“Yeah.” That knowledge set Jace’s nerves on edge.
“The difference is he’s using you to make sure you look bad. I’m using you to make him look bad and—”
“But—”
“And because I want you to look good. Both of you. I saw your face in the tunnel and I know you tried to resign but Bukowski wouldn’t let you. Well, I won’t, either. Either of you. You’re both staying right here. Stop coming to work and I’ll drag your asses back in cuffs.”
She finished her coffee and crushed the Styrofoam cup in her hand. “Now, I have some information for you. First, Deputy Ezell checked the other end of that tunnel during your search. It’s in the courthouse basement and it was open.”
“What?”
“The gate had been opened and the plywood covering over the entrance moved. It was all put back but there were footprints in the dust and a new lock on the gate.”
“Which means they cut the original lock off.”
Jakob nodded. “Ezell found no other evidence of entry to the courthouse so that means someone with after-hours access. I had my guys do a rush typing on the blood in Bobby’s cell. I’d hoped it would come back a type match for Wrubel.”
“It didn’t,” Rory said.
Jakob looked surprised.
“An animal, probably,” Jace said. “Deer?”
“Well, aren’t you two ladies in the know. The blood of swine. I’ll tell you something else. I only looked for a minute, and aside from the defensive wound you found, Bogan—well done; that was a good catch—Bobby’s neck was slashed right to left.”
There had been so much blood Jace hadn’t taken a long look. Even if she had, she wasn’t sure she would have known what she was looking at.
“Meaning?”
“A left-hander, Jace,” Rory said.
“I need more coffee. Ladies, have a nice day.” She looked at them. “I’m here if you need anything, but I can’t keep Von Holton out of it forever. Get it done. Quick. And don’t be wrong or we’re all going down.”
CHAPTER 34
In her head, as they drove away from the jail, Jace kept hearing the same riff. A Duke Ellington thing, from “Black and Tan Fantasy,” over and over in a way that didn’t exist in the a
ctual piece. Insistent and unrelenting. But it wasn’t bringing her back to Inmate Bobby’s cell or the blood or either of the killings. Rather, it kept bringing her, round and round again, to the courthouse.
“Night-time access? What does that mean?”
Rory changed lanes, as always without looking or seeming to care. They were headed to Alley B’s. “Well, it’s a public building and during the day, the public entrance is open. Have to go through security. Employees have to go through the employee door; have to punch their access code in. During the day, all the daytime workers have access they don’t at night because there’s no reason for them to be there.”
“What if they have a reason to be there?”
“Their supervisor calls us and we give them access for that night or that time period or whatever. But then there’s a night crew, too. Cleaning and court clerks doing all the data entry from day court. They have night-time access only unless they go through the public entrance.”
Jace nodded as they turned a corner, headed north now on Big Spring Street. Rory’s tires squealed a bit and Rory grinned.
“Mario Andretti,” Jace said.
“Andretti? Who the hell is that? I’m Tony Stewart.”
Jace tried to fit a smile over her face but it felt odd.
“So I’m guessing there are people who have total access. The sheriff. Maybe the command staff.”
“Yeah. Medical, all the jail shift sergeants, the courthouse security deputies.” Rory changed lanes again, gave her purple Monte Carlo a bit of gas, and looked in the rearview mirror.
Jace pulled out her phone and called the jail. In a matter of seconds she was talking with Billy Kemp, the deputy she’d met a few days earlier. “Hey, it’s Salome.”
“Hey. Wondered if I might hear from you.”
“Why’s that?”
He laughed. “ ’Cause I knew you’d want to know who was in the courthouse last night.”
“Well, anyone unusual, anyway. Anyone who shouldn’t have been there.”
“I got the screen up right now.”
“Knowing I’d call.”
“Knowing you’d call.” He hummed while he checked the list, a pleasant tenor voice. “I don’t see anything. No one unusual. Deputy court clerks, janitors, the regular people.”
East of the Sun Page 22
