“He’s screwing with your head.”
“Yes, I figured that out already. But there’s still the puzzle of why someone would use the legend on Daniel and me and at the same time bring Malcolm Wainwright and his trial into the equation. Unless the legend is simply an extraneous element, tossed in to muddle things up so badly that no one will have any idea which direction to take to solve the mystery.”
“Kudos for the twisted logic, Jasmine, but you also have to factor in the part of last night’s threat where the murderer said it was all about you.”
“Actually, that’s the part I’m trying to factor out.”
“Because if you do, you can fit Wainwright neatly back into the picture?”
Was it childish of her to want to tear out her hair? With Rogan’s sharp eyes on her, she settled for adjusting her cap and containing a sigh.
“You said he sounded tense near the end of the first threat,” she recalled. “It was the same thing yesterday, except the anger came out sooner. By the time he got to the threat itself, he was separating his words in a way that made me think of a very angry bull, pawing the ground before he charges the matador.”
“Really pissed off.”
“The word hate springs to mind.”
They’d reached the central staircase. He halted her there and turned her to face him. “Anything else?”
She went back. “He seemed to think he’d confused me, which he had, but it was the way he said it that was strange—almost as if he felt sorry for me. Then I asked him a question, and the anger just exploded.” She bent her knees so she could look up into Rogan’s face. “Is any of this making sense to you? Because it really isn’t to me.”
“That’s what he wants. You said it earlier. He’s creating confusion and using the raven’s tale to do it. He’s given you one feather, now he’s got you expecting a second. Waiting for it. The more he sucks you into the legend, the further he moves you away from the trial and the safe house and Malcolm Wainwright.”
“Okay, that’s it.” Raising both hands, she started downward. “My head’s flying in so many directions, I’m getting dizzy. And you’re not helping, Lieutenant, with all your back-and-forthing between Wainwright and the legend.”
He grinned. “All I’m suggesting is that you not lock yourself into a single train of thought.”
“Not a problem. At the moment I have so many trains to nowhere in my head I’m surprised I can see even the simplest thought through to its conclusion.”
She headed for the entrance where Boris sat, tail thumping and starting to whine.
“Go, run, have fun,” she told him and opened the door.
From the threshold, she spied the house she’d noticed last night. It stood on a wooded rise of land half a mile from their current location. “What is that place?” she asked Rogan when he joined her.
“It’s the old house. Riese talked about it at dinner. It’s been abandoned for the better part of seventy-five years.”
“I must have missed that. Thanks to your restaurant-to-cop cover story that we both know isn’t covering anything at this point, I was slaving over a hot stove with Aunt Ratched.”
“I thought her name was Rachel.”
Jasmine moved her lips into a smile. “You didn’t work with her. Riese is wrong about that house, though. I saw a light in one of the windows last night, so it can’t be completely abandoned.”
“Yeah? Huh.” He surveyed the structure. “If you’re up for a hike, the Blume crypt and burial grounds are both up there.”
“I’m always open to exploring an allegedly abandoned house.”
They walked for several silent moments through a crystalline fog that gave the entire area a feeling of enchantment.
“At times, this town has the potential to be a fairy tale,” Jasmine observed. “Then a raven flies by, I see black feathers and the fairy part vanishes. … The light was on the third floor.” She widened expressive eyes. “I noticed it when I saw you leaving.”
“I went for a walk, Jasmine. Nothing more sinister than that.”
Press or leave it alone? She went with the second thing for the moment. “Exactly how much of a ruin are we talking here? In danger of collapsing, or just old and derelict?”
He gave the bill of her cap a tug. “No idea, but any way you look at it, abandoned houses make excellent hiding places for potential criminals. Speaking of, I checked out the text message Boxman said he received.”
She drew on a pair of leather gloves as the damp air began to penetrate. “And?”
“It came from Crocker’s phone.”
“You’re going to tell me the killer stole Crocker’s phone after he slashed his throat, aren’t you? But why send Boxman to Raven’s Cove?”
“Best guess? So he can either slash Boxman’s throat or frame him for slashing someone else’s.”
She slid uneasy fingers over her collarbone. “That’s not very reassuring, is it?”
His gaze ran the perimeter of the dilapidated structure. “I’m not going to let him kill you, Jasmine.”
“What about Boxman, or do you trust him to take care of himself?”
“I don’t trust anything about him.” Catching her shoulders from behind, he angled her toward the ruin. “Which window was lit?”
“That one. Directly below the second attic dormer.” She twisted her head just enough to see his profile. His truly spectacular profile, she thought, and accepted the hard double thud of her heart. “You can’t really believe Boxman’s the killer. I know he’s rough around the edges, but he’s a good cop, and he put his life on the line for me at the safe house.”
“People change.”
Another double beat had her opting for wisdom over misplaced desire, and easing out of range.
Although his lips curved, he let her go. “Make that, some people change. Circumstances definitely do and have in Boxman’s case.”
“As in needs must when the devil takes your spouse’s side in a bitter divorce battle?” She shook her head. “That kind of thinking takes us full circle to Malcolm Wainwright and the theory that someone—Boxman in this case—has been hired to avenge his death.”
“We all have our demons, love. Why not our devils, too?”
Exasperation spiked. “Isn’t there some kind of brotherhood among cops? I mean, if thieves can do the all-for-one thing, shouldn’t it be the same for the police?”
He sized up the sagging roofline. “Sorry to tell you, but that honor-among-thieves cliché is bull. Ratting on a fellow prisoner’s the only real taboo. Otherwise, it’s every thief, dealer and murderer for him- or herself.”
“So that’s a no to cop solidarity then.”
“Put it this way.” He boosted her over a craggy fissure. “In the small ways, we stick. But the trust factor drops substantially as the violence of the crime increases.”
“I suppose that makes… Whoa!” she exclaimed softly as they emerged from a band of woodland overgrowth. “That is the quintessential haunted house. Riese didn’t happen to mention a ghost, did she?”
“A legend and a ghost in one family might be considered overkill.”
“Sorry to tell you, Lieutenant, but one usually goes hand in hand with the other.” On the porch, she rattled the knob, then planted her palms to wedge the door open.
It took her eyes several moments to adjust. When they did, a wide foyer with a sweeping arch of ceiling spread out before them.
Yellowed silk wall coverings hung in water-stained strips, and the floor was a broad expanse of broken tiles. Portions of the staircase appeared to have been hacked apart with an ax, cobwebs clung to every visible surface and only mold-covered pieces of furniture remained.
Jasmine made a wide circle. “This place is stunning, or would have been once. Why on earth did the Blumes let it fall into such a derelict state? Surely someone would have wanted to live—” A protracted creak from one of the back rooms halted her. “Uh, Maine mice don’t weigh enough to make a sound like that, d
o they?”
“Have to be a helluva big mouse to do it.” Rogan drew his gun from the waistband of his jeans, used his other hand to nudge her behind him. “Get the backup out of my boot.”
She went down, patted and came up with his Police Special. “I knew there was a light.”
“Never doubted you, love.”
Decades of dust and debris muted their approach. Jasmine calmed her racing heart. Maybe it was the house shifting. Or a kid hunting for bewitched ravens.
Or neither, her startled mind acknowledged as one of the doors burst open and a large, unwieldy body charged through, firing a gun.
“Get down,” Rogan shouted, but she’d already done that.
The man shot at random. Bullets peppered the air. Bits of tile spit up, obscuring Jasmine’s vision. She got off one shot to Rogan’s four, scrambled out of the dust storm created by the man’s feet and managed another.
A second later, she heard a grunt followed by a muffled crash. All shooting stopped. Uncertain, Jasmine retracted her arms.
For a long moment, nothing and no one stirred. When the dust cleared, she saw that Rogan had the man facedown on the floor, one knee planted in his back, a foot on his gun arm and his own weapon jammed into a beefy neck.
Shock rounded her eyes as she identified Rogan’s prisoner. “Wesley? What are you…?” Too baffled to finish, she moved her gun from side to side.
He swiveled his head. “I didn’t do it.” But his denial had a decided quaver. “I came here like I do sometimes, to be alone. He—he was already there.”
“Who was there?” When Wesley clammed up, Rogan shoved his gun in deeper. “Who, Deputy?”
Jasmine glanced into the room where he’d been hiding. While Wesley blubbered out another denial, she moved to the open door, set a hand on the jamb and peered inside. She saw nothing except puddled shadows, so deep in some places they read like black holes.
Should have brought a flashlight, she realized, stepping in.
Shredded curtains hung at windows shuttered from the outside. A chandelier, over seven feet across, lay cockeyed and impossibly twisted on the floor. She walked toward it, her gaze shifting as other objects clarified.
In the foyer, Wesley yelped. Jasmine couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him. Costello had mentioned that in certain circumstances Rogan could be—how had he put it?—highly persuasive. Something told her the older cop had understated the fact.
The sheer size of the chandelier prevented her from seeing past it to the other side. She started around it, then spied a hand and froze.
Her throat constricted. One more forced step, and an arm appeared. An arm, a shoulder and finally a man’s head.
She saw dark hair streaked with gray. And blood. So much blood that the pool it formed appeared to have depth.
“Rogan?” She knew he couldn’t hear her, but her vocal cords refused to cooperate, and her lungs had filled with some kind of hot liquid.
With a scream building, she set her fingers on the man’s neck. No pulse, and his skin was cold.
Panic beat like wings in her chest. She jerked her fingers away, rubbed the tips. “Rogan!”
The man’s face was only visible in profile. But she recognized the outline of it, the dips and hollows, the death-mask silhouette.
Plaster and glass crunched. Standing, she backed into Rogan as he ran up behind her.
His hands closed on her arms. “What?” Then he saw the body, swore and moved past.
“It’s Ian Cutless,” she said as he went to one knee beside the corpse. She knew her voice sounded flat and lifeless. “His throat’s been slashed.”
Chapter Nine
If he’d been any less a cop, Rogan would have used methods long deemed unacceptable to pry the information he wanted from Wesley Hamilton-Blume’s tightly clamped mouth.
For the moment, he practiced patience and let his counterpart take the floor.
Boxman had the deputy bracketed in the late chief’s chair at the Raven’s Cove police station. The doors were locked, the phones on hold, the blinds drawn. The county sheriff was en route to view the body that they’d been forced to leave at the old house. Riese had rounded up four trustworthy fishermen to stand watch and instructed them not to talk to anyone until the sheriff arrived.
In the meantime, Wesley was going to share whatever story he had to tell. After that, Rogan thought, he and Boxman would decide if they believed enough of it to simply lock him in a cell.
“Doesn’t look like your usual killer type, does he?” On his haunches, Boxman studied the deputy from different angles. “Weak chins, droopy eyes, small mouth, soft hands, funny smell on his clothes.” The cop’s teeth appeared. “What do you think, Lieutenant? New aftershave?” The smile sharpened. “Or could it be some kind of Maine weed he figures we wouldn’t know about because it’s organic and different than the shinola we’re used to sniffing out in the city?”
From the doorway between the station’s cramped rear office and the larger public area, Jasmine gave Rogan’s ankle a reproachful kick. “You’re not being very professional, letting Boxman torment him like that.”
“I’ll restrain him if he threatens to let Hezekiah peck out the suspect’s eyeballs.”
“You’re all heart.”
“Ian Cutless is dead.” Rogan took in Wesley’s defensive posture. “He was a good man and a good cop. I don’t know what the deputy is.”
“Judging from his expression, I’d start with terrified.”
“Or acting that way.”
“Riese swears he’s as dumb as a box of rocks. Her words, not mine,” she said when he fixed a look at her. Setting a hand on his arm, she softened her tone. “I know the chief was a friend. …”
“Colleague,” Rogan corrected. He returned his gaze to the deputy. “Working with friends complicates things.”
She said nothing to that, but the question hung between them even so.
Not the time to answer it, he cautioned himself, and while it surprised him that answering an unspoken personal question would even occur to him, he was smart enough not to investigate the source of the desire. Where Jasmine was concerned, he needed to keep his head firmly in the here and now.
“You realize we’ll be going through that house like dogs hunting for a big old bone.” Boxman gave an evil grin. “Except we’ll be searching for something green, together with the knife you use to cut it down.”
“I didn’t do it” was all Wesley would say.
“Do you know who did?” Rogan asked from the sidelines.
Wesley’s head whipped around. “No. I went in, and he was on the floor.”
“Huh. Did you check to see if he was alive?”
The deputy faltered. “I saw the blood, sort of saw it. Enough to know he was dead. I heard you at the door and thought maybe you were the murderer coming back to do me.”
Rogan took in the quivering chins. “Did you hear anything before that? Footsteps? Creaking floorboards?”
“No.”
“Okay, let me get this straight. You discovered a corpse, your chief, on the dining room floor of an abandoned house. You heard nothing inside, yet you made no effort to determine his status. The door opened and two people entered, talking. You panicked because you figured one of them was the killer returning to take you out. Instead of holding your position and attempting to identify the new arrivals, you chose to pull your gun, drop your shoulder and come out firing. That was your way of dealing with the situation.”
Wesley’s face went scarlet. “I didn’t think. You—you could have been killers.”
“We could have been kids.”
Boxman gave a disgusted snort. “Must make folks hereabouts feel real safe knowing you’re on the job.”
The deputy’s head rose. His eyes didn’t. “You should probably watch what you say to me, because I’m the chief now.”
Boxman’s grin turned feral. “You think?” He bent down to get in Wesley’s face. “I mean, really, is that what
you think?”
The deputy’s spurt of bravado died. He deflated in his seat. “My father’s the mayor.”
“Mine owns a hardware store.” Boxman shrugged. “What’s your point?”
“He should be here.”
“Funny, that’s what he thought. Me and Rogan convinced him otherwise.”
Rogan boosted himself onto the front desk. “You’re wasting our time, Deputy. I’ll cut through some of the bull and tell you we know you’re growing pot up at the old house. It’s probably not a grow-op as such, just enough for you and your buddies to get high on. I’m guessing you put together a hot room. Small, underground, with lights and heaters powered by a line you tapped into from the main house. Line enters the room where Cutless was killed. You went to check on it, found your boss dead and lost it. Jasmine and I showed up, you went from ‘lost it’ to full-blown ‘freak out.’ You waited until your emotions couldn’t cope with what your mind was thinking, and you snapped. You pulled your gun and came out blasting.”
“At a cop,” Boxman inserted, then widened his eyes at Jasmine’s exasperated stare. “Just saying.”
“What were you picturing, Wesley?” A wry smile crooked Rogan’s mouth. “Your black-bird ancestor with a knife? Or maybe you were thinking you’d misjudged a former prisoner, a man whose escape you helped facilitate.”
“I didn’t help… I didn’t…”
But he refused to look either cop in the eye.
Out of the corner of his, Rogan saw Jasmine’s brows go up. “He let Daniel out of jail?”
“Nothing so blatant.” When the deputy’s small mouth compressed, Rogan hid another smile. “I’m guessing he slipped the prisoner a file on his dinner tray. Daniel’s not a B and E specialist, so he scratched the lock when he tried to pick it—scratches Cutless mentioned the next morning. Deputy went to sleep, Daniel went out the back door.”
“How did you…?” she began, then followed his gaze to Wesley’s new and undeniably expensive footwear. “You are seriously joking. Small-town deputy, small-time salary, Ferragamo leather boots.” She shifted to Wesley’s wrist and the shiny new Rolex he also wore. “Seriously.”
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