“I won’t be carrying a weapon, so I should be safe enough.”
The baby cop was still up ahead, so they had to split up in case anyone in the car was still alive.
“Watch your back,” he said.
Julian opened the door but hesitated. “I have the feeling we’ll be all right as long as everyone remains calm and professional.”
And if fear makes someone twitchy? Didn’t need, or want, an answer to that question.
Julian got out and Grimshaw continued up to the house. When he saw the young officer standing with his back to the house’s front door, he put the car in PARK, touched the medal under his shirt, and whispered his prayer to Mikhos. Then he stepped out of the car, using the door as a shield while he looked around.
Man on the ground within sight of the house, not moving. The baby cop didn’t look injured—at least he wasn’t bleeding anywhere—but could be in shock.
Grimshaw stepped away from the car, closed the door, and approached the survivor. “Officer?”
“O-Osgood, sir. David Osgood.”
“You hurt?”
“No, sir. I was . . . I was just . . .”
Grimshaw held up a hand. “We’ll get to that. Anyone else around?”
An abrupt, hysterical laugh, quickly cut off.
“Caw.”
“Caw.” “Caw.” “Caw.”
One question answered but not in the way he wanted.
“Stay there.” Not that he expected the kid to move while he approached the man on the ground.
He didn’t know when he stopped moving. He just gradually realized his feet had frozen in place once his brain understood what he was seeing.
The CIU officer lay facedown. Grimshaw clearly saw the back of the man’s sports jacket and the back of his head. He also saw the shoes that were pointing up.
Spinal injury. Gods above and below.
After that moment of shock, he approached the man to check for a pulse—and hoped he wouldn’t find one.
Satisfied that he wasn’t leaving an injured man, he returned to Osgood and led the young officer to his vehicle. Once inside the car with the doors locked—as if a locked door would provide any kind of safety—he called Captain Hargreaves to let him know backup wasn’t required but another CIU team would be needed to investigate the reason for the attack—or at least to take possession of the damaged vehicle.
He finished the call to Hargreaves and turned in his seat to look at Osgood. “Can you tell me what happened?” They would need to take a formal statement, and maybe he shouldn’t be the one asking questions now, but Swinn wasn’t here and he didn’t want anyone trying to convince Osgood to change his story.
“Detective Swinn and Detective Reynolds took Ms. DeVine to Sproing to answer some questions,” Osgood said. “But not before Ms. DeVine made it real clear that we weren’t allowed to snoop around inside her house or car or the cabins. And some of them heard her say it.”
Snoop. An interesting word for a cop to use. What it said to him was the baby cop had felt uneasy about Swinn’s orders.
“There was a girl with Ms. DeVine, a girl with black hair,” Osgood continued. “I think she was one of them.”
“She’s one of the Crowgard.” He studied Osgood. “They’re called terra indigene or earth natives or Others. Talking about us and them is part of what caused the trouble and got a lot of people killed in the past year.”
“Yes, sir.” Osgood said nothing for a minute. “Once Detective Swinn left, Detective Calhoun told me to stay out front while he and Detective Chesnik took a look around back. I was checking out the wooden chair near the front door. Nice chair. I was thinking my grandma would like one like that when there was a . . . well, a scream from around back. Baker told me to stay put and ran around to the back of the house. The three of them returned in a minute. Calhoun and Baker had Chesnik between them. There was a necktie tied around Chesnik’s leg, and his pants leg was soaked with blood. They yelled something about him being attacked and needing to get him to a hospital. So they put Chesnik in the back seat and Calhoun started driving down the gravel road.”
“What was Chesnik doing when he was attacked?”
“I didn’t see anything. I was out front.”
Good guess that the next CIU team to come calling would find someone had tampered with a lock but didn’t manage to get in.
“I heard the car crash into something,” Osgood said. “I thought maybe Calhoun had been driving too fast on the gravel and hit a tree or something, and I started down the road to see if I could help. But Baker must have heard something in the trees over there because he headed away from the house and drew his service weapon, and I wasn’t sure if I should stay and help him or go and help Calhoun. And then . . . then . . .”
“What did you see?” Grimshaw asked when Osgood stopped talking. “Officer! What did you see?”
“I didn’t see anything!” A note of hysteria. “One moment Baker was running away from the house and had his weapon drawn and the next . . .” Osgood swallowed convulsively. “Something grabbed him and twisted him like it was squeezing water out of a wet rag.”
Osgood scrabbled at the door. Grimshaw released the locks in time for the young man to bolt out of the car and stagger a few steps before he bent over and puked.
Grimshaw’s mobile phone rang. Keeping an eye on Osgood, he answered. “Grimshaw.”
“The driver is still alive but has severe head and neck injuries,” Julian said. “I don’t think he’ll make it, but the EMTs are here. So is the Sproing volunteer fire department. They said someone called them and the EMTs and told them to get over to The Jumble. My guess is it was one of the Sanguinati who were at the bank. The volunteers and EMTs are working to get the driver out of the car so the ambulance can take him to Bristol Hospital.”
The driver. That would be Calhoun. “Long drive for a seriously injured man.”
“Nothing closer. One of Sproing’s doctors is also here. He’ll do what he can to help the EMTs stabilize the patient, but he says the man needs more help than he and his office can provide.”
“And the other detective?” When Julian didn’t answer, Grimshaw’s voice sharpened. “Julian?”
“Something shredded his legs.”
“Elders?”
“Not for me to say.”
Yeah. Especially out in the open where you didn’t know who, or what, was listening.
“What about you?” Julian asked. “You find the baby cop?”
“He’s puking his guts out at the moment, but doesn’t appear to be physically injured. The other man, Detective Baker . . .”
“What about him?”
“He’s dead. Spinal injury.”
He heard Julian suck in a breath.
“I’ll walk up and meet you.”
He wanted to tell Julian to stay put, but he realized if Julian Farrow felt all right about coming farther into The Jumble’s land, they weren’t at risk—until someone did something stupid.
CHAPTER 11
Vicki