He brought the Impala to a shuddering stop. Breathing a bit faster, he watched as the taillights of the truck flashed bright. It slowed, then stopped in the road. Too far away and too dark to get the make of it, let alone the plates. Still he grabbed his phone and took a quick picture.
Then the white reverse lights flashed on as the driver started backing up.
Mike leaned over to the glove box, pulled out his service weapon. He went through a quick procedure, checked the mag and chamber, slapped the mag back home, loaded a round with a snap of the action.
The truck did a quick backward U-turn in the road, tires grinding the soft shoulder; the headlights blasted in at Mike, and he put his hand up. The truck rolled forward, came up alongside him, driver’s side to driver’s side.
Smoked-out windows. Couldn’t see inside. Mike kept his gun in his lap, finger against the trigger guard.
The dark window rolled down, and a man with a hard brush-cut, brown skin, and somber eyes peered out.
Cody Blackburn, looking just like the picture Stephanie had sent along.
Mike let out a breath, eased his finger away from the trigger.
“Wasn’t sure who it was,” Blackburn said, “till I came up close enough to see your plates.”
“They called you from the casino,” Mike said.
“Yeah.”
“We should talk.”
* * *
They stood in the dark, Mike slapping at the mosquitos. Cody Blackburn had done another U-turn and pulled his behemoth truck behind Mike’s Impala, both of them off the road. There wasn’t anybody else coming by, anyway.
Blackburn leaned against the bed of his truck, his hands folded over the ridge, chewing on his lip as he contemplated the dark farmland. The night air smelled like manure.
“So, I got booted,” Blackburn said. “Well, they let me resign.”
Mike was patient to let the man tell his story. The humidity was bad, though, his clothes sticking to his skin, the bugs hungry.
“I was checkin’ up on her,” Blackburn said. “Had a microphone in there, in her place. Couple cameras I rigged up. I’d be on duty, but I’d be sittin’ there outside of the trailer at night. Or I’d be over to the casino, dodging calls, just focused on Marnie. One night this guy comes out of her trailer.”
“Pritchard?”
Blackburn mournfully shook his head. “Some other guy. Aldrich. Lives on the res. I chased him down, we had words.” He spat something off to the side then turned around so his back was against the truck, folded his arms. “You know, Perkins called me, talked about your case, that this guy, Pritchard, claimed he was with Marnie the night of.”
Mike waited.
“You can appreciate how this was a delicate situation. Because she can’t really say whether he was there or not.”
“But you can,” Mike ventured.
Blackburn made a small nod. “Yeah. I can. He was there.”
“When did you resign?”
“Just did this morning. This is how it all came out.”
Mike pieced it together: Cody Blackburn was spying on his wayward wife using police resources, doing it while on duty, just like the night Pritchard said he was in Marnie’s trailer. Blackburn could verify that Pritchard, in fact, was. But in order to do so, he’d had to admit to this extralegal activity. And then it had tumbled out he’d been doing it all along. Who knew how many man-hours Blackburn had racked up surveilling his wife instead of policing the community, chasing off her lovers and “having words.”
“I’m gonna need a statement from you,” Mike said.
“I gave my statement to Chief Perkins. He’s got all the paperwork, was gonna call you tomorrow.” Blackburn looked like a guy who’d reached the end of a very long and troubling road. “I want you to know that this is my fault,” he said. “Not the fault of the tribal police, not Marnie’s fault neither. Perkins talked to Marnie; she told him she was working that night until midnight. Then he hounded me until I confessed I’d seen Pritchard.”
“Understood.”
There was nothing more to say. Mike walked back to the Impala and opened the door. Before he sank into the driver’s seat, he said to Blackburn, “You gotta watch it, rolling up on someone like that. I could have shot you.”
Blackburn opened the door to his truck. “Don’t know if I woulda cared if you did.”
Eighteen
“I wasn’t sure I’d get this appointment,” Carrie Lafler said. She strode into Bobbi’s office with confidence, wearing a khaki pantsuit, all three buttons fastened, and sat in the single chair by the window. “You still have some cops around, huh?”
“Yeah.” Bobbi nodded and took a seat at her desk, facing Carrie. “The investigation is ongoing.” She thought of seeing Mike and Detective Overton the previous afternoon, Wednesday, headed down to the records room. Everyone was wondering what they’d been looking at.
Carrie leaned forward and dropped her voice. “Have they found anything?”
“They don’t say much.”
Carrie sat back and nodded like this made perfect sense. She’d made an obvious effort to dress nice for the day; the pantsuit had probably run her 100 bucks at Kohl’s and fit her well. Not long ago, her hip bones would’ve been showing above the waistband of her ripped jeans.
“So, you know why I’m here,” Carrie said. “First Anita calls the cops on me, now she’s got a new plan: trying to convince everyone that my little Hailey is an emotional wreck, and it’s my fault for coming back.”
Anita hadn’t said anything like it to Bobbi, but she omitted that. “Did she give you an example?”
“Well, yeah. So, Hailey’s got this little kiddie house she shares with Mason, right? They play in it.”
Bobbi nodded – she’d seen the tiny playhouse out behind Anita’s garden. It was cute, made of real wood and cedar shakes on the roof. Windowsills with flower boxes.
“I mean,” Carrie said, “mostly she uses it and plays with her dolls but Mason uses it too. So apparently she was playing just fine and adding in her little decorations and then, according to Anita, I show up, and it’s this big fiasco now. First the flowers wilt—”
“How did you hear this? You spoke to Anita?”
Carrie wore a look of guilt. “No. Roy told me.”
“You’re speaking to Roy? Did you call him? When?”
Carrie bit her thumbnail. “Last night.”
“Carrie… showing up at Anita’s house, talking to Roy about her – this isn’t going to help you.”
“They’re our kids,” Carrie said, dropping her hand. “Mine and Roy’s. Our kids.”
“Right. But you left. And Roy had a lot of trouble. Anita has been taking care of them, giving them a home – that just can’t be undone in a day or two.”
“I’ve been back for over two weeks.”
“And you’re jumping through the hoops, you’re doing a lot of the right things – but it’s a process. Okay? Tell me more about Hailey – tell me what Anita said.”
Carrie sighed, studied her hands a bit. Her peroxide-blonde hair was fixed in a French braid, the dark roots visible. “She said Hailey’s just been freaking out over everything; this isn’t right, that’s not right, the door is sticking and won’t open properly, the flowers, moss on the roof… and you can’t help her, you can hardly help her, Anita says, it’s like Hailey’s got to do it all herself, just like she was when she was little. It’s like she’s regressed to age two or something…”