Bergen smiled with genuine relief. “Yeah, baby. That is best news I’ve heard this week.”
So. They’d been talking about her, speculating what her next course of action should be. Kateri wanted to punch them both on the thighs. She contained the urge and in an excessively pleasant voice said, “It’s the logical course of action. No one understands the situation in Virtue Falls better than Garik, who grew up here, whose wife was almost killed by the last serial killer in town. Garik, who was the former sheriff.”
Mike and Bergen exchanged glances.
They were both married. Maybe they’d recognized something about her tone.
Because Bergen said, “He’s in the position to know all about serial killers. That’s why we need him. Not because we think that you…” He trailed off.
Mike picked it up. “Really, it’s not that you aren’t doing a great job in this case. It’s not your fault Terrance threw his son’s body out and disrupted the chase. Everybody knows that. And this slashing thing is just bad—”
Bergen surreptitiously kicked him.
They were so stupid. She said, “You guys never know when to shut up, do you?”
“No, ma’am,” Mike said.
“That’s what my wife tells me,” Bergen said.
She pointed at them both. “I need reports and photos as soon as I can get them. Bergen, I’ll take your car. You catch a ride with Mike. In the hearse.”
Bergen groaned, then intercepted a withering glance from her. “Absolutely. You take my car. I’ll ride in the hearse. And actually … someone should accompany the body to the morgue and talk to the family when they arrive.”
That lessened Kateri’s ire. “You’re right, my friend, and thank you for thinking of that.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kateri sat at her desk in her office, pulled in the evidence from her guys, compiled the reports and the photos, and by nine A.M. she was calling Garik’s private line. A female answered, her tone businesslike, proving not even his cell phone was his own during FBI business hours. Kateri said, “Garik Jacobsen, please. This is Sheriff Kateri Kwinault from Virtue Falls. I’d like to speak to him about a situation we have here.”
“Let me see if he’s in.” Which translated meant, Let me see if he wants to speak with you.
He came on the line right away and for some reason, his voice sounded amused. “So … what’s this I hear about the Virtue Falls sheriff shacking up with a bouncer?”
Kateri had been concentrating on the gruesome photos of the murder. Caught off guard, she stammered, “A … a bouncer? You mean Stag? He’s more than a…” She realized Garik was pulling her chain, and said, “How did you hear about it?”
“When half the law enforcement in Western Washington is deployed to Virtue Falls to catch John Terrance and their chase comes to such a walloping finish, you know what they do afterward.”
“They gossip. I know. But really? Why would they care who I’m sleeping with?”
“You’re a female sheriff—that’s still pretty rare in the business—you’re famous and you’re hot.”
She looked down at her scarred hands, at the walking stick leaning against the wall. “Hot, huh?”
“Every day.”
Yep. She liked Garik. He was smart, sharp, with a lot of law enforcement experience. When he recommended her for the interim position of sheriff, the city council had gone along. She’d had to win the election on her own, but he’d given her the push she needed. Maybe more important, he was dedicated to his mother, his wife and his daughter. Good guy.
He was still laughing at her. “Plus the cops all know I’m from Virtue Falls, so I got a call right away. Plus…” He let that dangle.
“Your foster mother told you.”
“Margaret Smith knows all.”
“She’s almost one hundred years old. How does she hear this stuff?”
“She’s charming, she has connections and she runs the Virtue Falls Resort. Everyone tells her everything.”
Yep. Kateri liked Margaret Smith, too.
He continued, “Stag Denali, huh? I remember him. Good catch. He’s quite the arm candy.”
“I don’t know that that’s what he signed on for.”
“He’s a tough guy. He’ll bear up under the strain.”
They laughed, then Kateri got down to business. “We had a second slashing in Virtue Falls. This one ended in a death.”
“Slashing? John Terrance?”
“We’d like to think so.”
“But you don’t.”
“There is reasonable doubt.” She filled him in, sent the files on the first slashing and the preliminaries on the second, and promised the autopsy when Mike Sun had finished.
“Looking at the pictures now…” She could hear him clicking through the photos.
“See anything familiar? Does the FBI have reports of similar attacks anywhere close? Or far? Past or present? Have you heard anything?”
“No clusters of slashing attacks that I’m aware of. The only things the victims had in common was that they’re white and female?”
“And that the slashing was to their faces. That coincidence seems unlikely.”
“Agreed. Let me look around at FBI reports, talk to some people, get back to you. In the meantime, you eliminate or confirm Terrance as a suspect.”
“You mean, catch him?”
“You’ve only got a little time before Virtue Falls goes from quiet hysteria to a riot.”
“I am aware. But he’s gone to ground.”
A short, portly man stepped into the doorway and rapped briskly on the sill.
This could not be good. “Garik, I have to go. City Councilman Venegra has arrived for a visit.”
“Viagra Venegra? Isn’t that the guy you arrested last week?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Along with most of the city council and the school board?”
“Yes, I did.”
“For getting involved in a fight between two members of the school board in front of the courthouse that became a riot involving every politician in town?”
Shut up, Garik. “That is correct.”
“Think he might hold a grudge against you?”
She checked out Venegra’s scowl. “Absolutely! I’ll keep you posted as events unfold. Call me as soon as you’ve got something.” She hung up on him and gestured to a seat. “Come in, Councilman. What’s on your mind?”
He gripped the arms of the chair as he lowered himself down and he winced as he settled on the cushion.
On that fateful day last week in front of the courthouse, Venegra’s wife had discovered he was having an affair with Mona Coleman and she had bunched up her fist and landed a good solid hit. That was part of what precipitated the riot …
Kateri refrained from asking how his nads were feeling.
“Who were you talking to, sheriff?” Venegra asked.
As if he had the right to know. As if she reported to him. Which she did not. But she knew damned good and well he’d heard at least some of her part of the conversation and so she told him, “Garik Jacobsen at the FBI. In case you haven’t heard, we have a situation here in the county.”