“Lionel, put the damn gun down. The sheriff already knows.”
“I know,” Devoe said. “I monitored their frequency. The sheriff had backup ready. But she isn’t here. They’re arresting your father.” Devoe spoke to Tracy. “I said, ‘Turn around.’”
Tracy turned. Devoe stepped behind her. Cautiously, he reached out and removed her Glock, then quickly retreated. Tracy had just lost her best chance. She needed to reassess. Find a different option.
“Lionel, this is crazy,” Eric said.
Devoe glanced briefly at Reynolds, looking more confident now that Tracy was unarmed. “Is it? Is it really, Eric?”
“Put the gun down, Lionel. I’ve already told her everything. She knows everything. So does the sheriff.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, Eric. You shouldn’t have said anything. We had a deal. Everyone remains silent.” Devoe stepped back and set the Glock on the poker table. “Can you shut the damn dogs up?”
“It’s what dogs do,” Eric said. “It’s instinct.”
“You shouldn’t have broken the deal, not without talking to me and to Hastey.”
“She knew, Lionel. She already knew.”
“Maybe, but she had no way of proving any of it. You should have kept quiet. You should have kept your mouth shut. Goddamn it, shut those dogs up.”
“It’s been forty years, Lionel. What good has keeping quiet done any of us?”
“It doesn’t matter. You should have checked with us. You should have checked with Hastey. That was the deal. But I guess we both knew it was going to come down to a situation like this, didn’t we?”
“A situation like what?”
“Either you or Hastey deciding to do something stupid like this. And me having to stop you.”
“She’s a homicide detective, Lionel. Are you going to kill a homicide detective? How long do you think it would be before they hunted you down?”
Devoe smiled. “I’m not going to kill anyone, Eric.”
“He has your gun,” Tracy said to Eric, continuing to watch Devoe, waiting for any opportunity, assessing the distance between her and the poker table and how quickly she could get to the gun. Not quick enough. “He shoots me with your gun, and shoots you with mine. Makes it look like we had it out.”
Devoe smiled. “See, Eric, that’s why she’s a detective. But that isn’t quite accurate. I don’t see you both getting a shot off. I see Eric surprising you. The way I see it, the detective here brought you back to your house after exposing you and your father. She was giving you the chance to take care of things before she brought you in. But you had other plans. You had your gun out. You always had your gun out at night. I can testify to that. So will Hastey. You lured her back here, and you surprised her. You weren’t going to prison, not a guy like you. So you shot her. Then you shot yourself.” Devoe shrugged. “Since we are technically within the Stoneridge city limits, I’ll have jurisdiction over the investigation. And when I close the case, you can be damn sure I’ll destroy that file.”
“You don’t need to do this, Lionel,” Reynolds said. “I’ve already taken the blame. I’ve told her Hastey didn’t have anything to do with it and neither did you.”
“That’s very generous of you, Eric, and I wish we could turn the clock back forty years and make it true, but that wasn’t the case then, and it isn’t the case now. I fixed the car for your dad. If she has Buzz Almond’s file, she knows that. She also knows I removed the report with the photographs Buzz took of your car. I’m not going to prison for you or for your father, and I’m not letting Hastey go to prison for you either.” Devoe looked to Tracy. “I told you, Detective, you should have left this one alone. What was done was done. Nobody meant for it to happen. It was an accident. You should have just let it be.”
“Tell that to Earl Kanasket,” Tracy said.
“It isn’t going to bring his daughter back, is it? So what was this all for? What’s it going to get him?”
“Closure, Lionel,” Eric said. “It’s going bring closure for him and for all of us. It’s the right thing to do. We should have done it forty years ago. We should have done it then.”
“Yeah, well.” Devoe took aim at Tracy. “I guess we all find closure in our own ways.”
The dogs’ barking became more violent.
“Don’t,” Eric said.
“Shut up, Eric. For once in your life, just shut up.”
“Lionel!” Reynolds charged.
Devoe diverted his attention and his aim for a split second. That was all Tracy needed. She dove to her right, hitting the edge of the poker table and upending it. Poker chips went scattering and clattering on the hardwood. The .45 roared, the sound reverberating up to the vaulted ceiling and echoing off it like a cannon blast. Tracy half expected the table to explode, but it didn’t. She grabbed her Glock from amid the colorful chips and rose up from behind the table.
Devoe remained in the center of the room, already swinging the barrel of the .45 in her direction, his eyes searching.
Too slow.
She squeezed off two rounds, center-mass shots that drove Devoe backward, like a drunk falling off balance. When he landed, his head hit the ground with a dull crack.
For a moment, time froze. The smell of gunpowder permeated the air, and Tracy’s ears rang from the percussion of the shots. The dogs were still barking, but now their barking sounded hollow. Across the room Eric Reynolds sat slumped against the side of the couch, a bloody hand pressed just below his right shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers.
Tracy stood and moved first to Devoe. She kicked away the .45, then bent to a knee and put two fingers to his neck. No pulse. Devoe had not been wearing his vest. She moved to Eric Reynolds. His two dogs, anxious and unnerved, pranced and whined.
“It’s okay,” Eric said, voice weak, free hand reaching out, trying to soothe his dogs. He was pale, pupils dilated, quickly slipping into shock, if not already there.
“Stay with me,” Tracy said, already on her cell phone. “Stay with me, Eric.”
An hour later, Tracy stood on the covered front porch of Eric Reynolds’s house, protected from the falling snow, watching as the ambulance carrying him drove off, lights swirling. A half-dozen Klickitat County sheriff’s deputies milled about the front yard, awaiting the Crime Scene Response Team Jenny had requested from the Washington State Patrol’s Vancouver office. As the ambulance departed, Jenny approached.
“How is he?” Tracy asked.
“He’s stable,” Jenny said. “They’re transporting him to the county hospital in Goldendale. They’ll assess him there and see if he needs to be airlifted to Harborview. They don’t think so.”
Reynolds had been fortunate to take the bullet in his right shoulder, and lucky that Devoe hadn’t shot him in the head when he’d lowered himself to charge.
“You picked up Ron Reynolds?”
Jenny nodded. “He’s not saying anything. Asked for an attorney. Didn’t even ask about his son. Only seemed concerned with himself.”
Jenny looked about at the beautiful grounds, flocked in snow. “This really is a tragedy, isn’t it?”