Although she’d been prevented from going into the office during her suspension, she’d heard from Kirkbride’s administrative assistant Judy Banister that Tibbs had practically installed an assistant county attorney named Deanna Palmer into the sheriff’s department to serve as his eyes and ears until Kirkbride came back. In fact, she’d been given Cassie’s vacant desk on a temporary basis.
“I’m not telling you what to do, Sheriff,” Tibbs said. “God knows you’ve got a mind of your own and a stubborn streak as wide as the Missouri. But you know as well as I do that if my office brings charges against your chief investigator, one that you hired and apparently stand behind”—he briefly glanced at Cassie for the first time—“you’ll be as tainted as she is. I don’t think either one of us wants that. What do you say?”
Kirkbride took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. Then he said, “I say you can stick it up your ass, Tibbs, you third-rate political hack.”
Tibbs raised his eyebrows and pursed his mouth. “I was kind of afraid you’d take it that way.”
“She didn’t cause the death of my officers any more than you or I did,” Kirkbride said. “The person who killed and injured them was Ronald Pergram, that psycho son of a bitch.”
“Granted,” Tibbs said, “but who lured that psycho son of a bitch into the heart of our community? Who literally entrapped him in a sloppy plot and forced his hand?”
“It wasn’t like that and you know it,” Kirkbride said.
Tibbs tapped the pages with the tips of his fingers. “That isn’t what this report says.”
Cassie started to speak but Kirkbride held his palm out to her. To Tibbs he said, “I’ll go you one better. I’ll go to your press conference and when you’re done spouting off I’ll tell them how I feel about that report and how wrong it is. I’ll tell them you’ve got your fingerprints all over it. Then I’ll probably resign on the spot and say it’s because you’re such a horse’s ass. How’s that? Does that work for you?”
“Please,” Tibbs said, stalling for time. Cassie could see his mind working.
“No,” she said with force.
Both men looked over.
To Tibbs she said, “You have my badge and gun. Keep them because I quit. You’ll get your scapegoat. If you want to press charges you can track me down somewhere. I’m sure the voters will want a congressman who spent his time prosecuting a single mom war widow who resides in another state.”
She stood up and leaned toward him across the table. “I’m not saying this because I’m a victim. I don’t play that game. I’m just telling you what it’ll look like and I know that’s what you care about—how you look.”
To Kirkbride: “You will not resign. Grimstad needs you to finish out your term. You will not go down because of me. You gave me a chance and I’ll always appreciate it. But you will not resign because of me.”
Kirkbride looked stunned.
She said to Tibbs, “What pisses me off the most about this is all of your energy has been devoted to saving your butt so you can come out looking good. You started with the explosion and worked backwards for the purpose of finding fault instead of thinking it through.”
“I voiced my concerns about your operation at the time,” Tibbs said to Cassie.
“But you didn’t stop it, did you?” she asked. “And you were ready to take the credit if we took the Lizard King into custody.”
“I don’t remember it that way.”
“I do.”
Tibbs cocked his head to the side, obviously confused.
“I lost my fiancé and three other good men who were my friends. I’ve looked around for you at the funerals and I didn’t see you anywhere. And I hate it that you’ve made this about me and how you can one-up the sheriff and about how you come out. I hate that.
“But what I hate even more is that there are too many things that don’t make sense about what happened that aren’t even on your radar screen. Pergram was a psycho son of a bitch but I spent years thinking about him. He didn’t stay on the road for all those years because he was lucky. He’s convinced he’s the smartest man in the room, that he can outthink everyone in law enforcement. He’s a reptile who only cares about himself. He might go down in a hail of gunfire, but he’s not a man who would commit suicide by cop.”
“What are you saying?” Tibbs asked.
“Figure it out,” Cassie spat. “And while you’re at it, consider how good you’ll look if we find he’s still out there.”
Tibbs turned to Kirkbride. “This is nuts. She’s nuts. Pergram is dead.” Then: “We were there.”
Cassie said, “Someone died behind the wheel. But what’s the FBI analyis say?”
“The explosion was caused by military grade C-4,” Tibbs said. “That didn’t happen by accident. He waited until he was backed into the dock and law enforcement was all around him before he hit the button. He wanted to take as many of you out as he could.”
“What’s their DNA test results?” she asked.
“There isn’t a positive analysis,” Tibbs said. “Even though the body was badly burned the FBI was able to obtain samples. The problem is—and you know this—there’s no DNA from Pergram on file. So there’s nothing to match it up with. But it was his truck, his ID, everything.”
“Everything,” Cassie repeated, mocking Tibbs. “Except I’m the only person still alive who knows him and knows the way he thinks. He wouldn’t end it that way.”
Tibbs had a pained grin. He shook his head as if asking himself, How long do I have to listen to this?
“What about the lot lizard?” Cassie asked. “Did you find her body in the kill room in his trailer?”
“There was no body,” Tibbs said. He sounded bored. “But no doubt he dumped it between Wisconsin and here. Not having a body right now means nothing. As you of all people should know, he’s been disposing of bodies for years and none of them have been found.”
Tibbs was correct, Cassie knew. It was the single most infuriating aspect of the years’-long pursuit of the Lizard King: no bodies found.
Tibbs asked, “If it wasn’t Ronald Pergram then who was it, Chief Investigator?”
“Not Ronald Pergram,” she said, gathering up her coat to leave the room. “And call me Cassie.”
CHAPTER
NINE
CASSIE DIDN’T STOP WIPING ANGRY tears out of her eyes until she got past Dickinson and was nine miles from the border of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. But she was still fuming.
She’d listened to the Bismarck news on the AM radio and had heard snippets of Tibbs’ statement before the press. She’d turned it off after he assured the reporter, “Don’t worry, we’ll get Grimstad and Bakken County law enforcement cleaned up once and for all.”
There was no mention of Sheriff Kirkbride at the event.
*
SINCE SHE WAS now a civilian and couldn’t show her badge to a trooper and expect leniency, she had to remind herself to reduce her speed on I-94. Dickinson was considered the start of cowboy country in North Dakota, where farms gave way to ranches, and grazing cattle and horses began to override wheat fields.
The sky was lighter than it had been in Bismarck, but it was still close and oppressive.
Every few miles, she thumped the steering wheel or dashboard with the heel of her hand and yelled, “Shit!”
*
LESLIE BEHAUNEK IN NORTH CAROLINA answered on the second ring.
“Cassie,” she said as a greeting.