“He’ll get a shake,” Hart replied. “This isn’t Kirby Harwood’s county anymore.”
“No, sir.”
And you have Mason Burke to thank for it, she thought.
Hart pursed his lips, looked around the detachment.
“Right,” he said finally. “I guess we’ll bring this guy in.”
FIFTEEN
In the end, it wasn’t Jess who brought Mason in for questioning, and Mason figured both he and Jess ought to be thankful for that.
He’d been expecting it, ever since Jess had dropped the line about the anonymous tip. Aaron Hart seemed like too good a sheriff to let that sit open for too long, and Mason knew Jess well enough to know she wouldn’t stand in Hart’s way. That she couldn’t, not without risking her job. Sooner or later, the law was going to want to talk to Mason about Bad Boyd. All Mason figured he could do was keep his head down and be ready.
Hart showed up at Joe Clifford’s jobsite, Jess’s house-in-progress, early on a Tuesday afternoon and the weather just turning to rain again. Mason and Rengo hauling lumber from Joe Clifford’s truck, Joe working inside the house somewhere, the sound of a nail gun punctuating the stillness.
Lucy’d found shelter from the rain in the remains of Jess’s toolshed, where Rengo had laid out a blanket and a water dish under the flimsy roof. The dog stayed there most of the day when power tools were in use, and particularly when the weather was bad.
The sheriff brought one of his own deputies, a Neah Bay guy named Derry, tall and uncomfortable in pants just a little too short, his hand resting on his holster and his eyes darting between Mason and Rengo, like all he’d been briefed about was that Mason had killed people, and he might do it again.
Hart, by contrast, was far more relaxed. The sheriff kept his hands in his pockets and his tone conversational, studied the frame of Jess’s house as though he had nothing better to do than stand out in the drizzle and talk construction with the locals.
“Coming along, isn’t she?” Hart said. At the sound of his voice, Rengo found somewhere better to be, disappeared inside the house, and after a moment or two the nail gun stopped punching, and Mason could hear Rengo’s voice, fast and indistinct.
“Yes, sir,” Mason replied. “Starting to almost look like a decent place to live.”
“You planning on moving in too?” Hart asked. “When it’s done, I mean. You all talked about that yet?”
Mason shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “I have my own place for now, figure we’ll keep it that way in the short term.”
“That’s right,” Hart said. “You’re staying down there in the harbor.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hart didn’t say anything for a time, just looked the house over some more. Then, finally, he took his hands from his pockets and hitched up his trousers.
“Well, son,” he said, and there was almost a hint of regret in his voice, “I suspect you know why I’m here.”
* * *
Hart took him to Neah Bay, the headquarters. Mason wondered if that was for Jess’s sake. Wondered how much she knew about what was happening here.
He wondered if she believed he could have killed Bad Boyd, or if she was simply doing her diligence.
The sheriff brought him into an interview room—stained cinder-block walls, a couple of chairs, and a table. Mirrored glass along one wall, scratched all to hell with scrawled names and crude drawings and just plain old war wounds. The room smelled of cleaning products and, underneath, something base and unpleasant.
“You should know that you don’t technically have to be here,” Hart told Mason, after he’d shooed Derry from the room and offered Mason a chair. “We’re not arresting you for anything, not yet, and maybe not ever. If you didn’t do anything wrong, I can’t see as how you’d need to call a lawyer.”
Mason might have laughed; the sheriff’s tone was as casual as if he was still jawing about Jess’s new house, lulling his suspect into a state of false security. Whether he’d done anything wrong or not, Mason had come to understand that this was the kind of situation where you really could use a lawyer, especially when you found yourself faced off against someone as experienced as the Makah County sheriff.
But Mason didn’t know any lawyers. He was still hoping he wouldn’t ever have to meet another one.
“This is about Boyd,” he told the sheriff. “You got people saw me fight him in front of Tim Turpin’s restaurant and now you’re thinking I’m the guy put a bullet in his head. You’re hoping I’ll make your job easy and tell you you’re right.”
Hart leaned back, the hint of a smile on his face. “And?” he said. “Will you? Tell me I’m right?”
“I’m not a liar, Sheriff. I didn’t kill that man.”
Hart’s smile didn’t waver. “But you fought him. You must not have liked him very much.”
“I didn’t like the way he was talking to my dog,” Mason told him. “Not given his history.”
“Your dog? I thought he was my deputy’s companion animal.”
Mason looked at the sheriff. “You bring me in here to question me on custody of Lucy?” he asked. “Because I assure you, me and Jess, we’ve already hashed that one out.”
Hart laughed a little bit, short. Then he leaned forward. “Brock Boyd was murdered the same day as you fought him. I understand that you don’t have anyone who can corroborate your whereabouts.”
“No, sir, I don’t. Jess was at work, and I don’t exactly have too many friends.”
“You don’t like people?” Hart asked.
“I like people fine,” Mason said. “They just tend to be suspicious when you’re—well, when you have a history like mine.”
“Killing people.”
Mason knew the sheriff was trying to provoke him. Knowing it didn’t make it gnaw at him any less. “I served my time for what I did,” he said.
“For what happened in Michigan, sure. What about what you’ve done since you’ve been out here?”
Mason stared at him. “You’re talking about on the island?”
“You killed a man, didn’t you?”
“Self-defense. And you all hired Jess for the same incident, so it can’t have been that bad, can it?”
“You’re saying I should fire Jess Winslow?”
Mason went stiff. Said, before he could stop himself, “No, goddamn you. You know damn well that’s not what I meant.”
The sheriff sat back again, and Mason knew he’d let the man beat him. He closed his eyes. Let his breath steady. “I didn’t kill Brock Boyd,” he said.
The sheriff nodded. “So why don’t you tell me what you were doing that night. While you were not killing Brock Boyd.”
So Mason told him. How he’d been at home—alone—on Joe Clifford’s boat. How he’d had Lucy with him, but he doubted the dog would be willing to vouch for him.
“Fair enough,” Hart said. “And what’d you two get up to?”
Lucy slept, Mason told him, recalling how she’d curled up on the settee as usual, snoring most of the time, waking up and groaning and resettling herself whenever the boat shifted on its tie-up lines.
“I made some dinner, read for a little while,” Mason told Hart. “Turned in pretty early, as best I recall.”
“You do any drinking that night?”
“Not that I remember,” Mason said.
The sheriff looked at him.
“I mean, sometimes I’ll have a beer with my dinner. It might have been one of those nights.”
“Are you a mean drunk, Burke? You get rough when you drink?”
“Not anymore, Sheriff.”
“You think Bad Boyd deserved to die?”
Mason studied the sheriff. Hart had asked the question in the same casual, conversational tone as the last three or four before it, but Mason knew this one meant something more.
He let out his breath, long and slow. “‘He who follows righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness, and honor,’” he said.
Hart frowned. “That the Bible, Burke? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, Sheriff,” Mason said, “that I’m not going to lie to you and tell you I liked the man, or that I cared what he stood for. I won’t try to tell you I’m sorry he’s gone.”
Hart said nothing. Just watched him. Mason wondered who else was watching, behind that scratched-up glass. Wondered if it mattered, what he was saying.
“But as to whether he deserved to die, or didn’t,” he continued, “I don’t reckon that’s any of my business. And it sure as hell isn’t my place to play judge and executioner, regardless of how I feel.”
He pushed himself to his feet; Hart didn’t move.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, Sheriff,” he said, “I think I’ve told you all I can.”
SIXTEEN
Jess watched from behind the glass as Burke walked past Hart and let himself out of the interview room. She fought the urge to chase him down, catch him in the hall of the Neah Bay detachment, take him in her arms and say—well, what, exactly?
Apologize for how Hart had questioned him?
Tell Burke she didn’t believe that he could have killed Boyd, no matter what the sheriff thought? Tell him she loved him and they’d fight this thing together, stand side by side until they found the real killer?
Or—maybe—she’d tell Burke to just clear out and run. Tell him to get the hell out of Makah County while he was still a free man, forget trying to fight. Tell him it wasn’t worth the risk that they would lose, not given his history and the way folks in the county still tended to see him.
But Burke wouldn’t run, Jess knew. Not if it meant he would have to leave her behind.
She didn’t chase Burke down. She didn’t even leave the viewing room, and after a short while, Hart stood from the interview table and walked out of the room. A moment later he came into the room where she waited.
“Well,” he said. “What do you think?”
She thought that no matter what she believed, the sheriff would need more than just her instincts if he was going to knock Burke off his list of suspects. If she hoped to make him trust her as his deputy, and not just the killer’s girlfriend.
Jess looked the sheriff square in the eye and tried to sound confident. “I think we still don’t have the murder weapon,” she said.
Burke was about a mile out of Neah Bay, walking east on the highway, when she caught up to him in her county cruiser. Rain was pouring now; Burke was soaked, but he walked steadily on the shoulder as if he didn’t notice, didn’t care.
She put on her flashers and pulled over just ahead of him. Watched him in the rearview as he approached the car. When he’d come up beside her, she lowered her window. “It’s twenty miles to Deception, Burke,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of walking.”
He looked up and down the empty highway. “Don’t really like my chances of flagging a ride,” he told her. “And it’s not like that sheriff of yours offered me a lift.”
She looked up at him, his jaw set and stubborn, rain streaming out of his hair and in rivulets down his face. He held her eyes for a moment and then looked away, up and across the top of her cruiser, his expression inscrutable.
“Get in,” she said.
He kind of smirked. “You want me in the front seat or the back?”
“Fuck you.” She felt anger flare up and glared at him. “Just get in the car, Burke. You want a ride home or not?”
He took the front seat after all, slid in beside her and rubbed his hands together in front of the heater vent as she signaled off the shoulder and pulled back onto the highway. They drove in silence for a while, and then he glanced at her.
“You were watching,” he said. “All of that, me and Hart.”
She nodded. She didn’t say anything.
“I guess he’s good at his job,” Burke continued. “He knew he’d get me riled up, get me to spill something.”
He seemed to be waiting for her to reply, and when she didn’t, he looked over at her again, and he sighed.
“I didn’t kill Boyd, Jess,” he said. “I can’t believe it even needs repeating, but I’ll say it again. I didn’t kill him.”
“I know.” Her mouth was dry; her voice came out rough, and she coughed it away. “But the whole county’s about ready to pin it on you anyway.”
Burke frowned. “You mean to tell me you have no other suspects, Jess? A guy like that, in a county like this, and I’m the only one you all can think to pin this on?”
She drove and watched the wipers arc fast across the windshield.
“He was a criminal, same as me,” Burke said. “And he was rich, and he was an asshole, and he didn’t seem to care if people knew it. But the sheriff and them all think I’m the only one who could have killed him? Over Lucy?”
“You love that dog,” she said.
“So do you.” His voice was sharp, but she could hear the pain behind it.
She closed her eyes, and drove, and took the next bend with her eyes closed and only the sound of the tires on the pavement to guide her.
“We think there was a woman,” she said. She opened her eyes, and Burke was watching her. “Or I do, anyway.”
She told him about the broken wineglass. The lipstick stain and the partial fingerprint. About how nobody in Deception Cove would admit to seeing Boyd with any woman.
“It’s just strange,” she said. “Whoever she was, she just disappeared. And it could be she has nothing to do with the murder at all, but…” She shrugged. “Damn it, we’d still like to talk to her.”
She realized she’d probably crossed a line, telling Burke this. But Burke seemed to recognize it was a risk, what she’d done, and he seemed to be grateful for it.
He sat back in his seat. Watched the forest whiz by out his window.
“Thank you,” he said. “For telling me.”
They sat the rest of the way in silence, and it was a silence that made Jess afraid for what must come next. She wanted to take Burke’s hand and feel him close beside her, and she wanted to lie together in bed and laugh at how Lucy chased squirrels in her dreams; she wanted to feel again how Burke’s body fit against hers.
She didn’t want to lose him, and she wanted to tell him this, but instead, as they came into Deception, she slowed down the cruiser and cleared her throat and asked, “Where do you want me to drop you?”
“Lucy’s at the jobsite,” he told her. “I figure you’d better take her.”
She nodded and drove past the gas station and the motel and the turnoff down Main Street, found her way to her own turn and Timberline Road, a going-nowhere dead end with hardly any neighbors, the property she’d owned with Ty near the end of it. Joe Clifford’s truck wasn’t parked out front, thank God, but as Jess slowed her cruiser she saw Burke’s friend, Rengo, come out from underneath the toolshed with Lucy in tow.
The kid slowed his pace when he saw the cruiser, but Lucy sped up, made a run at the driver’s-side door and leaped up for the window before Jess had even stopped the car, the dog’s claws undoubtedly scratching that Makah County paint, but neither the dog nor the deputy was particularly inclined to care.
Jess rolled down her window and let Lucy leap up at her, tongue lolling this way and that as, beside her, Burke reached for his door handle.
“Come on over here, girl,” he called, and Lucy dropped down from the car and dashed around to his side, leaped up at him and fell short and leaped up again, leaving muddy tracks on his jacket and his jeans.
Burke shepherded Lucy to the open passenger door, where the dog looked in at Jess and then back at Burke and paused, like she could tell, somehow, something was amiss.
“Up you go,” Burke was saying. “Get on in there.”
He tapped on Lucy’s butt and the dog leaped inside, muddy paws on the passenger seat and the center console, her tail wagging as she stretched across the car to assault Jess with her tongue.
Burke closed the passenger door, walked around to the ot
her side of the cruiser, and stood at her window, his hands in his pockets.
“Probably best if I leave you be for a while,” he said. “At least while the sheriff still thinks I’m the killer and you’re still wearing that badge.”
She glanced down at the badge where it was pinned to her chest. Knew Burke was right, but hated it anyway.
Is this what it comes down to? she wondered. Is this how it’s going to be, choosing Burke or the job? The county?
“We’ll catch whoever did this,” she said instead, and tried to sound sure. “It’ll be over soon, Burke. Just keep your head down until it’s done.”
Burke nodded, opened his mouth like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. And there was plenty more she wanted to tell him too, but she kept her mouth shut and didn’t say any of it, just rolled up her window and put the cruiser in gear, steered away from the shell of her new house, and the man with whom she’d hoped to make it a home.
SEVENTEEN
The man called Logger Fetridge had come by his nickname honestly—or dishonestly, depending on how you wanted to look at it. He traded in timber, mostly, though he’d been known to cook a little bit of glass now and then while Kirby Harwood was alive, and even more so now that Harwood was dead.
The deputy’s death had opened up something of a power vacuum in the local drug trade, a free-for-all where once Kirby Harwood had kept some kind of order, using his badge and the threat implied therein as a means of extorting men like Floyd Fetridge, or Ty Winslow, guys who might once have been hauling salmon from the water beyond Deception’s harbor, guys who needed some way to put food on the table for their families, and meth just happened to be it.
Fetridge had cooked, sure, while Harwood was still alive. He’d paid his taxes to the deputy too, however grudgingly. But meth hadn’t been his main source of income, not until Jess Winslow’d put Harwood in the water. No, for most of his adult life, Floyd Fetridge had made his money in the trees.
The hills and low mountains south of Deception Cove were covered in second-growth timber, on public land and Indian land and straight-up private property, and Logger Fetridge had poached trees from just about every acre. Wasn’t much overhead to the business—a chainsaw and a truck and a couple of good men were about all you needed—but the game did require a pair of solid brass balls for when push came to shove in the extralegal timber trade, and in standing up to Kirby Harwood when the situation called for it. And Fetridge knew he’d need them again if he wanted to survive this latest venture, a business proposition he’d supposed would be simple and lucrative, but which was turning out to require a little more concentration than he’d originally planned.
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