Down a Dark Road (Kate Burkholder #9)

I lower myself into the chair, motion with my eyes toward the living room. “He needs an ambulance now. He’s hurt bad.”

When he looks at me I see sweat on his forehead despite the chill. He looks nervous, his eyes repeatedly going to the back and front doors. I guess him to be just under thirty. Light brown hair and eyes. For the first time I notice his Geauga County Sheriff’s Department uniform jacket, and an odd sense of uneasiness slips through me. This is Trumbull County; Geauga County has no jurisdiction here. What the hell is going on?

“What’s Geauga County doing here?” I ask in my cop’s voice.

He ignores me and he doesn’t holster his weapon. He makes no move to render aid to Sidney Tucker.

“Please,” I say. “That man in there’s a cop. He’s been shot.”

He pulls a cell phone from his uniform pants. That’s when it occurs to me he has yet to use his radio. At this point he should have already called for backup, for an ambulance; he should have let his dispatcher know he’d encountered an unknown individual inside the home of a gunshot victim.

He thumbs a button on the phone and puts it to his ear. “I got her,” he says, and drops the cell back into his pocket.

I got her.

A tingle goes through my body. I tamp down a rise of foreboding. Something is off about the way this is playing out. He hasn’t even checked on Sidney Tucker yet. It’s almost as if he’d already known what he would find …

“I’m a cop,” I say again. “My ID is in my wallet. Back right pocket.”

“I know who you are.”

I’m still trying to get my brain around that when movement at the back door draws my attention. Uneasiness transforms into cold hard shock when I see Nick Rowlett and Wade Travers come through. Both men wear civilian clothes. Ski caps. Black leather gloves. Disposable shoe covers … What the hell?

The realization that I’ve walked into a trap hits me like a brass-knuckle punch. I look at Rowlett. “Get these cuffs off me. Right now.”

He turns his attention to the young deputy. “Tuck?”

The other man nods. “Alive. Barely. Better hurry.”

“I owe you, man.”

The deputy shakes his head. “I’m out of here.” Giving me a final look, he goes through the back door without looking back.

I turn my attention to Rowlett. “What the hell is going on?”

He doesn’t respond.

My heart begins to pound, a metronome flying out of control. A precursor to panic stabs claws into me, taking hold, but I shove it back in its deep, dark hole. I try to get a sense of how secure the cuffs are, find them snugged down tight.

Vaguely, I’m aware of Travers going into the living room.

Rowlett holds his ground, dividing his attention between the two of us.

“If you don’t get Tucker help, he’s going to die,” I say.

Rowlett doesn’t respond.

“Nick,” I say. “What is this? You’re a cop. What are you doing?”

“The official term for it is covering our tracks,” he tells me.

“I don’t know what that means.”

One side of his mouth curves. “Yes, you do.”

“Who did that to Sidney Tucker?”

He looks amused. “Why, you did, Kate Burkholder.”

I blink, bewildered. The one thing I am certain of is that the situation is about to get much, much worse. Rowlett is staring at me intently, a starving dog eyeing a piece of meat. I try to control my breathing, but I don’t manage. They’re coming too fast, betraying my mounting fear. “I don’t understand.”

“Sure you do.” Pulling out the chair next to me, he straddles it, sets his elbows on the back, his chin on his hands, and gives me his full attention. “You were obsessed with Joseph King. Everyone knows that. Look at the way you were at the standoff that night. So you went to Old Tuck, armed, out of your jurisdiction, out of control, and you started making a bunch of wild accusations. Tuck, being the good detective he is, documented everything. Put it all in a file for safekeeping.”

I stare at him, my heart pounding. “No one will believe that.”

“We’ll make sure they do. I mean, we’re cops after all. It’s what we do. And for fuck sake, we’ll have Tuck’s body to explain, right?”

“He’s already been shot. Ballistics will disprove whatever the hell you’re trying to do.”

“What? You’ve never heard of a throw-down weapon? The one you brought with you with the serial number filed off? The one that can’t be traced and has your prints all over it?” It’s a term used by cops for an unregistered gun they can drop at a scene to justify a bad shooting.

“You, by the way, are about to have gunshot residue all over your hands and jacket,” he tells me. “From the throw-down and that trusty little thirty-eight you carry. Four slugs will be retrieved from Sidney Tucker’s body in the course of autopsy and sent to the lab. One from the throw-down and three from your thirty-eight. We might even put one in the wall to make sure nothing hinky happens with the striations or whatnot.”

“That’s insane.”

He only smiles.

“People know I’m here,” I tell him. “They know I came here to see Tucker.”

“That’s why they’re here, right?” He tilts his head, looking at me as if he’s trying to figure out some intricate math equation. “What was it with you and that fucking Joseph King anyway? He was a loser, but you just wouldn’t stop. None of this would have happened if you’d just kept your big mouth shut. If you’d gone back to Podunk and shut the hell up. If you’d done that one simple thing, Old Tuck would still be fishing the lake and everyone would be happy. But no, you had to keep pushing, pushing, pushing.”

Keep him talking, a little voice whispers. Stall him. Buy some time. Someone will come.

But no one is going to come. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I had no cause to be concerned. I was so eager to get the information from Sidney Tucker, I was careless.

“Is this about the Naomi King case?” I ask.

Nothing.

“If Joseph King didn’t murder her, who did?”

He glances into the living room, then turns his attention back to me. “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“Travers,” I murmur.

Though he’d been on my radar, I still experience a surreal wave of disbelief that this is happening, that a fellow cop is sitting a foot away from me, divulging it. “Why?”

“Oldest reason in the world. Travers and the Amish bitch were fucking like rabbits every chance they got.”

“That’s hardly a motive for murder,” I say.