Authors: Diane Capri
“No arrest records?” Roscoe’s desk phone rang. “Hard to believe the FBI missed something like that.” She glanced down to see where the call came from and then ignored it.
“We’ll need copies,” Gaspar said. “Can we get them now, while we’re here?”
Roscoe feigned chagrin. “Afraid not. We had a fire. The station and everything in it was destroyed, unfortunately.”
Gaspar ran his hand through his hair. He looked as peeved as Kim had felt a few moments before. “What was he arrested for?”
“Something he didn’t do.”
Not likely, Kim thought. If Reacher was arrested for anything, he’d done ten times worse and not been caught. Reacher was the kind of guy who solved all problems as permanently as possible.
Roscoe’s phone kept on ringing. A low, insistent buzz. Two, three, four, five times.
Gaspar pressed on. “What didn’t he do?”
The phone kept buzzing. Someone really wanted Chief Roscoe to pick up that receiver.
“Murder,” Roscoe said.
Kim wasn’t surprised. An army-trained expert killer prowling under all available radar for fifteen solid years, invisible even to the mighty FBI. What else had Reacher been doing besides murder? That was the relevant question. Gaspar looked equally skeptical. He’d read the same file Kim had. No way would he believe Reacher innocent of murder, either.
Maybe disappointed in their reaction, Roscoe offered something that did astonish. “And then he saved my life, too.”
Roscoe smiled at their surprise. Finally she picked up her phone. She said, “Yes, Brent?” And then her smile died. She said, “What?” All business now. Short concise questions, longer periods of listening. Controlled. No tears. “He’s sure? When?” Concentration, closed eyes, deep furrows in her brow. “OK, call crime scene, paramedics and medical examiner, too. Phones only. Keep listeners out as long as we can.”
Roscoe stood up, rested the receiver against her shoulder with her chin to free her hands, patted her waist in two places, one where her gun would be holstered and the other where her badge would likely rest. She said, “Good plan. Both in the air?” She looked around for a cell phone, found it, picked it up, and dropped it into her jacket pocket. She put the phone down and picked up her car keys. She glanced across the desk and said, “My sergeant, the one who didn’t come in today? He’s been killed.” Her voice was soft, but the rest of her behavior was purely professional. “So can we pick this up later?” she asked, on her way to the door.
Gaspar moved fast. “We could ride along, like a couple of extra hands. If you like. Purely informal.”
Roscoe hesitated, pinched the bridge of her nose between her eyes again, breathed deep. Then she said, “Yes, that would be great.”
Before Kim had a chance to say anything at all, Gaspar headed out, Blazer keys in hand. “I’ll drive. You can brief us as we go. Have Brent bring your car out.”
Roscoe followed close behind, issuing instructions to Brent along the way.
Kim remained seated in the abandoned man-cave. She checked her watch again to confirm the timing. She collected Reacher’s photo from Roscoe’s desk and looked around to be sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.
No reason to rush. Plenty of reasons not to. For the first time in eight hours she felt she finally understood where this assignment was going.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Roscoe and Gaspar were already belted into the front seats of the Blazer. The engine was running, the air conditioning was blasting, and the left rear door was open. Kim stepped up into the back seat half a second before Gaspar took off. She didn’t fall out, so maybe she was getting used to his style. He drove as fast as he could without a bubble light to clear traffic, straight back the way they had come less than an hour ago. They’d reach the interstate in about fourteen minutes.
“The deceased is Sergeant Harry Black,” Gaspar said, glancing into the rearview mirror to meet her eyes, catching her up on what he’d heard while waiting. “Shot and killed at home. With his own gun. By his wife, Sylvia.”
“Did you know him well?” Kim asked Roscoe.
“Since we were kids,” Roscoe said. “Harry Black grew up here. He’s worked in our department about five years, I guess. Second marriage. Sylvia worked as a secretary in our shop a while. That’s how they met. Married three years or so.”
“So what happened today?” Gaspar asked.
“You were there when I took the call. I have limited data. Sylvia called 911 at 11:28 a.m. I haven’t heard the tape yet. At some point, we’ll get a copy and a transcript. I’m told she said, quote, ‘I shot him. He’s dead. I just couldn’t take him anymore.’ The operator asked her all the appropriate questions, and Sylvia just repeated those three sentences over and over again. She hasn’t uttered another word.”
“Anybody at the scene?” Gaspar asked.
“At the time of the shooting? I don’t know. But now, yes. The 911 service here is routed through Atlanta. The operator called Georgia Highway Patrol first. Maybe not sure who had jurisdiction out at Harry’s. Could have been the County Sherriff. Both of us are at least twenty miles away. GHP had a car fairly close. They called us.”
Roscoe’s voice had a slight edge to it, Kim thought.
Gaspar asked, “Something wrong with calling the GHP?”
“Not by itself, no.”
“What, then?” Kim asked.
Roscoe turned around in her seat. She met Kim’s gaze with a steady stare. She said, “GHP is a professional organization. They’ve got good officers and good training. Just like the FBI, I’m sure.”
“But?”
“But their jurisdiction is mostly crime on the highway system. You should know that's different from murder of a small town cop. And they ride one man per car, so they have to call in for backup. And they use radio to communicate. And people listen in and show up. Which causes problems. Things can get out of hand in terms of crowd control.”
Kim nodded. She'd handled more than her share of homicides, gang violence, domestic assaults. Law enforcement was a dangerous job everywhere, especially for women. The last thing Roscoe needed was chaos at the crime scene.
Gaspar asked, “How soon would you have heard if the 911 dispatcher had called you first?”
“Within a couple of minutes, probably.”
“Literally?”
“More or less,” Roscoe said. “Two minutes would have done it.”
“Eleven twenty-eight plus two is eleven-thirty exactly,” Gaspar said, and he met his partner's reflected gaze again. Kim nodded back.
Gaspar saw it too.
#
The Black Road intersection was about two miles shy of the interstate. Roscoe told Gaspar to turn left, southwest, onto the dirt road. About fifty feet in the road became a mess of washboard grading, dust, and previous washouts. Gaspar slowed the Blazer to forty, which still bounced them around more than Kim found comfortable. She asked, “What did the GHP officer find when he arrived at the crime scene?”
Roscoe said, “Sylvia came out onto the porch with her hands on her head before the GHP guy got out of his car. She didn’t say anything to him.”
“Textbook,” Gaspar said. “For a perp, I mean.”
“She worked with us a while and her husband was a cop. She knew what to do.” Roscoe peered ahead down the narrow alley between the Georgia pines. Kim could see nothing worth the stare.
Gaspar asked, “And then?”
“The GHP guy put her in handcuffs, confirmed Harry was dead, called for backup, medical examiner, crime scene, and paramedics.”
“And then he called Officer Brent,” Gaspar said.
“All using the radio,” Kim said.
“Right.”
“Anybody question Mrs. Black since GHP arrived?” Kim asked.
“She’s not talking. We’ll arrest her, take her back to our station. And go from there. Once we see what’s going on.”
Gaspar concentrated on navigating the deserted country road around its multiple hazards. All three of them were bounced around in their seats. Gaspar said, “I remember Margrave as a pretty well maintained place for a rural community. Lots of newer buildings and fresh paint when I was here last.”
“Things change,” Roscoe said, a little coldly.
“Just asking. Nothing personal.”
Roscoe didn’t smile. She just stared on down the dusty road. Looking for what, Kim didn’t know. There was nothing to see. Piney woods either side of the road hid everything beyond its ditches.
Kim asked, “What did Sylvia mean by not being able to take him anymore? Is she claiming abuse and self-defense?”
Roscoe said, “Hard to say before I talk to her. Crazy talk, possibly.”
Gaspar glanced back again and met Kim’s gaze with a look that confirmed Kim’s impression. Harry was abusive. Kim had no use for a wife-beater. None. Even less use for friends and co-workers who covered up. She wondered whether Harry was a drunken abuser or just a power tripper control freak. And whether battered spouse defense was a legal excuse for murder in Georgia.
Roscoe said, “About five more miles, I think. Harry’s family owned this land for generations. He built the house himself about twenty-five years ago. He liked being away from people. He said the quiet was restful.”
Gaspar looked back at Kim again. She wondered if he was thinking the same thing:
Rest in Hell, Harry. You sick bastard.
CHAPTER NINE
They drove on. The car bounced and lurched, hitting potholes with regularity. Kim said, “Chief, we need to know about Reacher. Whatever you can tell us. Whatever you know. We need to find him. It’s important.”
It seemed to take Roscoe a couple of seconds to switch her mind back to Reacher. She asked, “What do you want him for?”
“He’s a potentially valuable asset. The FBI is telling you it needs him. Whose side are you on?”
Roscoe turned and stared a long time directly into Kim’s face. Still wary. Maybe searching for some hint that Kim could be trusted. The Blazer hit a big pothole. Roscoe smacked her head on the roof. She raised her hand to rub the sore spot, and glanced out the back window and realized where they were.
“Back up,” she said to Gaspar, and she pointed to a mailbox so obscured by weeds and kudzu only a previous visitor could find it. “The house is about a mile down that driveway you just passed.”
Deep dents marred every surface of the mailbox. Once painted white, now veined with rusty cracks, it dangled from its thick re-rod pole, held by a single remaining U-bolt and the grasping kudzu. The door to the mailbox was missing completely. “It wasn’t like that the last time I was here,” Roscoe said.
“When was that?” Kim asked.
“Couple of years ago, I guess. Maybe longer. Before they were married, I think.”
“Looks like extreme mailbox baseball,” Gaspar said. “Kids in a car with a bat. Vandalism, in other words. A federal crime, actually. If memory serves, $250,000 fine and three years in prison for each offense. And each blow counts as a separate offense.”
Kim asked Roscoe, “Was Black targeted in some way? Kids would have to be pretty determined to come all the way out here just to beat the snot out of a mailbox for the fun of it.”