Dust Up with the Detective (12 page)

Chapter Sixteen

All night the monitors at the nurse’s station had beeped and rung, footsteps had echoed up and down the halls and occasionally there had been the sounds of crying from other patients’ rooms. Blake had barely slept; the only reprieve came when the pain meds she’d been given forced her to succumb to a fitful slumber. As morning rose, and the sounds of the day filled the ward, she was already dressed and waiting to go, her arm immobilized in a sling.

The nurses had been kind as they wheeled her to the front entrance, where her mother and daughter waited. Her mother’s old Cadillac sat low, its shocks worn out from years of driving up and down the hilly landscape of Butte.

“Mom!” Megan ran up to her and gave her a gentle hug.

She tried to keep her emotions in check as she looked up at her daughter’s smiling face, the freckles that adorned her cheeks and the excitement in her eyes. In a second, she could have lost everything—her daughter, her family, her life.

And for what?

Todd O’Brien had nearly succeeded in taking his own life. He had failed, but it didn’t make it fair or just. There was no justice. No rectifying the situation. One person had died and she nearly could have...and she still didn’t understand exactly why.

Who, or what, was driving this madness? Was it the mayor? Was it Todd? Or was it someone else, someone who loved to manipulate and pull the strings of those around them who were stupid enough to do their bidding?

Was it all some game driven by greed and land grubbing as she and Jeremy had assumed, or was it something more?

Her mother stood beside the car door as the nurses loaded her inside like she was an invalid. Her body would heal. It would be fine. Her soul was a different story. It suddenly felt like everything she did in her work was useless. She was just stomping out fires; she wasn’t changing anything for the better. She wasn’t making a difference like she had assumed she would when she had joined the force. She was just another cog in the wheel of an imperfect society.

For so long she’d been trying to fight the inequity she felt at being a woman in a male-dominated profession in small-town Butte. Looking back, she couldn’t say that her fight had all been worth it. Everything felt so...asinine. All that really mattered was family and those that she loved.

Loved.

Her thoughts moved to Jeremy.

More than fulfilling her duties as a deputy, she was doing this for him. He needed his questions answered. She owed him the peace of mind that came with a murder solved.

If he cared so much, though, why wasn’t he here?

“Where’s Jeremy?” she asked her mother as they drove out of the parking lot and down the road that led to their house.

Her mother glanced over at her. There was a look of trepidation on her face, as if she didn’t want to tell her what she knew.

“What? Where is he?” Blake repeated.

“I don’t know. He took this hard, you know,” her mother said. “He was talking about going to Missoula, getting back to work.”

“Why?”

Was he coming back? Had he given up on her? Why now, when she needed him the most, had he left her? Anger flooded her senses.

Her mother had said he’d taken the shooting hard, but if he could just leave her, that proved how little he cared.

She needed to solve this case so she never had to see his green eyes or his mischievous grin again. The doubts that she had been carrying with her about her ability to uncover the truth burned away.

The car pulled to a stop at a light. To her left was a historic building she’d passed thousands of times. This time she stared at it. Its red bricks were starting to crumble at the corners, and the white paint that marked its entrance was bubbled and peeling with age. Most days she thought the building charming, a throwback to eras and worlds past...worlds built on the needs of society and people’s unbreakable spirit. She thought of the person who’d built it. It must have been incredibly hard in those days. Butte had been nothing more than a rough-and-tumble mining town, yet the person behind the creation of the building had likely risked everything to see his dreams come true.

What had it once been? On the side of the building was a faded and weathered painting that read, “Sweet Candies.”
It shocked her. Someone had come to this town, where miners’ lives were dominated by the dark, dirty world of inner earth, and he had decided what these men and their families needed more than anything was a brightly colored treat. It was beautiful in a poetic way.

No doubt the shop owner had likely faced adversity and ridicule for his dreams. Just like her. Yet he had found the strength to follow his dreams. Could she do the same?

The car lurched forward as the light changed. She had to get through this. She had to stop worrying about Jeremy and what others thought of her. She needed to focus on the investigation and nothing else; it was the only thing she could really control.

She thought back to Robert’s house and the mine. Although she had spent hours in both places, she must have missed something. But what?

“Mom,” she said, breaking the silence that filled the car. “I need you to take me to the evidence unit.”

“Blake,” she said with an exacerbated sigh. “You can’t go back to work. You just got out of the hospital. You need to go home, get some rest, and maybe you can come back in a few days.”

The first forty-eight hours of an investigation were the most critical, and they had already passed that marker. If she didn’t figure out everything she needed to know soon, it would become harder and harder to solve the crime.

“I need to find out who is behind all of this. It won’t hurt me to look through paperwork, Mom.”

“You already got Todd. What more do you need to do? You have your suspect.”

Megan shifted in the backseat.

She couldn’t stop now...not when she was so close, not when she could find out—without a doubt—exactly what had led up to Robert’s death and what role Todd had played.

“I’ll only be a couple of hours. I’ll call you to come get me when I’m done.”

Her mother just looked at her.

“Hey, if nothing else, you’ll know that I’m not going anywhere, right?” She tried to make light of the situation, but her mother didn’t seem to appreciate the humor. It struck her how, even though she was a grown woman, her mother still wanted to protect her. Though they had their issues and disagreements, Gemma West truly loved her. That love was just like what Blake felt for her daughter—it was unwavering. “Everything will be fine, Mom. I promise.”

A few minutes later, her mother parked in front of the station. “I expect you to call me if you need anything.”

Blake smiled. It was just like she was fifteen again and her mother was dropping her off at the school dance. But instead of resenting her as she had as a teenager, she loved her mother more for her concern. “I’ll call you when I need you to pick me up.”

She gave Megan a kiss on the forehead, and, as she leaned over, the stitches in her chest panged to life, reminding her of the damage her body had sustained. She pushed the pain away. “Be good. And take care of Grandma, okay?”

Megan nodded. When she looked up at Blake there was reservation in her eyes. She had seen that look before—when she had walked Megan into her first day of kindergarten, and when she had first left her baby to go back to work. Her daughter didn’t want her to go. That look broke her heart.

She stepped back toward the passenger’s door, but her mother put her hand up, stopping her. “You go do your job,” she said, looking back at Megan like she, too, had seen the look her daughter had given her. “I have Megan. We’re going to have fun today. Aren’t we, honey?”

“But, Grandma—” Megan started.

“Oh, come, now. I have an idea for a new quilt. Wouldn’t you like to help me pick out some fabric?”

Megan’s face took on that awkward look, the one that melded the excitement of youth with the reservations of a teenager.

“Thanks, Mom.”

Gemma smiled, and in her eyes there was a shimmer of pride as if she knew exactly how much this case mattered to Blake.

Blake turned and made her way into the sheriff’s department without looking back. Her mother was in control; she was the rock in their lives.

The mayor was walking away from her down the hall, and she hurried so he wouldn’t see her. She wasn’t sure she could face him right now. She rushed through the department and toward the evidence unit. She pressed the code into the keypad, and the door opened. She walked in—and found the unexpected. Sitting at the row of desks inside the area was Jeremy.

She stopped and stared at him, unsure of what to say.

He looked up, and his eyes widened with surprise. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the hospital?”

“They released me on good behavior,” she said with a dry, cutting edge to her voice. “My mother told me you were going to Missoula. Why are you here? And how did you get in?”

There was a breath of warm air against the back of her neck. “I let him in,” a man said.

She turned and standing there was Captain Prather.

“We needed someone to work on this case in your absence. Because of his experience as a detective and his gracious offer to act as a consultant, I brought him in. We need to solve this.”

“You’re absolutely right, sir.” She turned around and moved toward the seat at the desk near Jeremy. “It’s great that we have Todd O’Brien in custody.”

“Blake,” Captain Prather said, shaking his head, “before you sit down, we need to talk.”

A cold chill tumbled down her spine. What was happening? Why was the captain looking at her with pity and disdain? Did it have something to do with the altercation with O’Brien? Sure, she had screwed up by getting in a shoot-out, but it was hardly her fault. She hadn’t wanted things to end up that way.

She moved toward the captain. She glanced toward Jeremy, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. He knew something, something he couldn’t tell her.

Was the ax about to fall?

“Sir...” she started, but she stopped herself. She couldn’t bring herself to beg. She couldn’t allow Jeremy to see her lose her cool.

Everything would be fine.

Captain Prather led her to his office and closed the door and the blinds. Whatever was about to happen was something he wanted no one else to know about.

He turned to her as he sat down in his chair. “Deputy West, take a seat.”

She did as instructed. A cold sweat started to bead on her skin. He had used her formal title. This wasn’t going to go well.

“I brought you in here today to talk about the altercation that occurred on Todd O’Brien’s property last night.”

That was no surprise.

“I’m highly disappointed in the events that transpired between you and Todd O’Brien.”

“Captain, I—”

He shut her down with a raised finger. “I was depending on you to get a handle on this case. You knew what was at stake, yet you let it slip through your fingers—and, worse, you ended up getting hurt. This is going to come back on all of us, West.”

“I know, sir, but we got Todd. We got our suspect.”

“Your suspect? You think he was the one responsible for Robert Lawrence’s murder? The murder that, according to you and the medical examiner, took place at approximately noon on Tuesday?”

She didn’t like the way he spoke. Was she being set up to take a fall?

“Yes, sir.” She looked down at her hands as she waited for his blow.

“If you would have checked into Todd O’Brien a little deeper, you would have realized that he was nowhere near Robert’s claim on Tuesday morning. We have record of his credit card being used at the Missoula Costco at 11:15 a.m. and then the Cenex at 11:45.”

“Sir, someone else could have used his credit card.” She was grasping at straws, and she knew it.

He nodded, but his body remained rigid, unwavering. “Jeremy’s looking into the video footage from Costco to make sure that isn’t the case. It is doubtful, however, that Todd is the person responsible for Robert’s death.”

The information came as a shock. What made it worse was the fact that Jeremy hadn’t bothered to tell her.

“I...I did everything to the best of my abilities. Todd wasn’t answering my questions. We were executing a search warrant. We would have found out the truth—”

“Mistakes in this game come at a high price, West.”

“I know, sir. O’Brien made the choice to shoot. I just wanted to ask him some questions and search his property for evidence that linked him to the crime. I never wanted anyone to get hurt.”

“I’m more than aware, from Jeremy Lawrence’s testimony, that you may not be at fault for the events that occurred. That being said, however, there still must be a professional inquiry and investigation. Therefore, I must put you on paid administrative leave until things get figured out.”

Her heart dropped. He was pulling her off the case.

She had lost what little reputation she had in the captain’s eyes. She’d lost her chance to prove herself, and now it was likely she would lose her job. Everything she had fought so hard for... It was all gone.

Chapter Seventeen

Blake sat on the wooden bench outside the front of the station, waiting for her mother to come pick her up. She had been right. It was just like a high school dance—high hopes torn apart by the whips of reality that left her alone and once again calling her mother for help. This cycle was never going to end. No matter how badly she wanted to change.

Then again, maybe she was lucky to have a family like hers...a family that was always there. It may have been only her mother and her daughter, but they all had one another’s backs. There was no question about loyalties or favorites. No turbulent marriage to worry about, like in Jeremy’s family. Maybe that was why he couldn’t trust, why he couldn’t compromise. His family had to be the reason he was the way he was—for good and bad.

No matter how hard she tried to understand his actions, she couldn’t come to terms with the fact that he had kept her in the dark. She had been in the hospital, but he could have come to see her and told her what he’d learned. It was her investigation. At least, it had been.

From the very beginning, he had strove to lead. The night in the mine, he had tried to tell her how to run the investigation. Was this just an extension of his need to control?

“That seat taken?” a man asked from behind her.

She turned to see Jeremy standing there. He held his hands in front of him like a repentant child. If she hadn’t been so angry, so hurt, he would have looked kind of cute the way his gaze fell to the ground and an apologetic smile lingered on his lips.

Lips she had kissed. Lips she had hoped to kiss again, but now she could barely look at.

She moved toward the middle of the small bench, taking both seats. It was juvenile, but she couldn’t stand the thought of him being so close. She wasn’t ready to have him near her, apologizing, trying to justify why he had done what he had done.

“Whatever you have to say, you can save it.” She turned back and tried to focus on the torn blue awning that adorned the restaurant across the street.

He walked around and stood beside the bench. “I know how this looks. But trust me—I didn’t intend to get you in trouble.”

“Then what exactly did you intend?”

She could smell the sandalwood and cloves of his cologne, but still she didn’t look at him.

“I just wanted to dig up a little more information while I had the chance. I found something that I think will change everything.”

“You mean the fact that Todd couldn’t have been Robert’s killer? Captain Prather already told me.”

“I know, but I got something better.”

Her head jerked up. “What?”

“I went back up to Todd’s place after I knew you were okay. We found his tax records and a safe with land deeds. It looks like the guy at the bar was right. Todd was buying out the properties around him. He’s the registered owner of almost all the land around the Foreman Mine. Plus, I got the license plate of the car we saw under the tarp—the one you thought looked familiar. Turns out it’s registered to Tiffany Lawrence.”

“What? Why would Todd have Tiffany’s car? Did you get a look inside?” she asked, moving over so he could sit down next to her.

He smiled as he took the spot next to her on the bench. “It looked pretty clean, but I had it towed to the evidence yard.” He motioned toward the fenced compound that sat behind the sheriff’s department.

“Did you have the techs go through it?”

“They’re working on it now. You wanna—” He stopped and looked down at her sling, and his face tightened with concern. “You need to go home, West.”

Her anger flared as he said her name like she was just another deputy. “I don’t need to do anything except finish my work on this case.”

“I get it. You’re trying to prove to the world that you can handle anything, but you don’t have to be Superwoman, West.”

“Stop calling me West like I’m some kind of stranger. We came this close,” she said, pinching her fingers together, “to taking things too far. I’ve seen your skivvies.”

He laughed, but the sound only made her more infuriated.

“What’s so funny?”

“You said
skivvies
. Only my mother calls my underwear my skivvies.”

“So now you’re comparing me to your mother?” Her blood pressure rose. “I’m nothing like your mother. No matter how badly you want to live out some Freudian thing.”

He stopped smiling. “That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean to make you mad. I just thought it was cute, that’s all.”

Leave it to a man to find her anger attractive, provocative even.

“If you think I’m so cute, why do you keep screwing with me? First, you want to run everything, and now you get me put on administrative leave and make me look like an idiot in front of my captain.”

“It’s no secret that I care about you, Blake.” He said her name carefully.

“If you care about me, you have one screwed-up way of showing it.” She gripped the cast-iron armrest of the antique-style bench.

“I’m trying to protect you.”

She balked. “What? How are you protecting me by letting me get taken away from the job I love?”

“Do you really love your job?”

How dare he ask her a question like that? She loved her job. She went to it nearly every day and helped save the innocent. It wasn’t the glorious, romantic job the television shows made it out to be, but it kept her and her family fed.

“Do you love
your
job?” She turned the question on him. “You say you’re trying to help your family, but what is the truth, Jeremy? I heard about the case with the battalion chief. Was it weighing on your conscience? Was it why you needed to gain control of this investigation? Why you were happy to see me put on administrative leave?”

“I had nothing to do with your administrative leave. You know that. It’s just your department’s policy. I didn’t write it. I don’t enforce it. If I wanted to take over this case, then why in the hell would I be telling you about Tiffany’s car?”

He made a point, but she wasn’t mollified. “Why didn’t you tell me about Robert’s credit card statements and how they cleared him?”

“I didn’t tell you because I only just found out. I haven’t even had time to look into the video surveillance yet. Just because someone used his credit card doesn’t mean that he was the one doing it.”

“The captain seemed to think it was him.”

“Your captain doesn’t work the beat. I think it’s just one hell of a convenient alibi that this guy who, according to his bank records, only shops at three places—the closest little family-run grocery store, the hardware store and the gun shop—all of a sudden branches out and goes to Costco in another town on the day of the murder. It’s out of character for the guy.”

“Do you think he went there just so he could be on tape?”

“It’s one hell of a solid alibi if it works out that way.” Jeremy nodded. “But that’s not why I think he did it. I think he believes your department is lazy and stupid.”

She gave a light snort. It was like Todd to think he was smarter than her and the rest of the sheriff’s department. He’d never tried to hide his disdain for law enforcement. And with that level of egocentric behavior came the belief that he could get away with anything.

“I bet he thought we’d never look into the video surveillance. That we’d just take the statements at face value and go no deeper,” Jeremy said. “Maybe that’s why he was so jumpy when we executed the warrant. Maybe he thought he’d been caught.”

She sat there in silence digesting everything that Jeremy was saying. Was he right? Was that the reason that Todd had pulled the gun? That he had been desperate enough to try to take his own life? For the first time, it started to make sense.

“If he wasn’t the one to go to Costco, then who do you think it was?”

Jeremy glanced over toward the evidence lot. “I don’t know for sure, but I think we need to start looking for Tiffany.”

The door opened behind them, and the desk sergeant came rushing out. “West?” He hurried toward her.

“What is it?” she asked, jumping to her feet.

“There’s been a report.” He looked nervous, wringing his hands, and there was a line of sweat in the furrow on his brow.

“About?” she pressed, trying to help the struggling man find his words.

“There’s been a fire...a fire at your house.”

* * *

J
EREMY
’
S
TIRES
SQUEALED
as Blake took the corner entirely too fast. Safety and speed limits were for people whose families weren’t in danger. She screeched to a stop behind the fire trucks that blocked the road. She slammed the door as she got out and started sprinting up the hill to her house.

“Blake, wait!” Jeremy called as he got out after her.

From the moment the desk sergeant had told her about the fire, she’d seemed to completely forget he was with her. She’d grabbed his car keys off the bench, gotten behind the wheel and screeched out, giving him no choice but to scoot into the passenger’s seat or be left behind. Nothing else had mattered. Nothing but Megan and her mother. They needed her.

Jeremy ran, catching up to her. “You can’t just charge in there. There will need to be an investigation.”

“I don’t care about any investigation. I need to know Megan’s okay,” she said between breaths as she ran.

As Blake crested the hill, she saw her. Megan’s blond hair, her cheeks covered in a light smattering of ash and her eyes red from tears. Gemma was beside her, holding her, but she let go as Blake approached.

“It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” her mother said, as if she could see the terror that Blake was feeling.

Blake threw her arms around Megan and, pushing back her hair, inspected her face. There was no burns, no marks other than the smudges of ash. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Megan said, wiping a tear from her cheek.

“What happened?” Jeremy asked. “Are you okay, Mrs. W?”

The older woman nodded. “Oh, it wasn’t anything serious. Just a little fire in the yard. Everything’s fine.” She motioned toward the front yard where the fire crews were dousing the stunted pine with water. The pitch-filled, stubborn tree was still smoldering, spitting and hissing as they tried to force it into submission.

Blake laughed, the sound high, maniacal. The movement made her side hurt and the stitches burn in her flesh, but the pain did nothing to subdue her hysteria.

“What’s so funny?” her mother asked, sounding confused.

She tried to stop laughing so she could answer her, but fate’s cruel joke was more than she could bear.

Jeremy moved closer to her, took her in his arms and, careful of her wound, hugged her. His kindness made tears well in her eyes. She tried to blink them away. It was just stress that was making her lose it like this. Just stress. She needed to pull herself together, to be strong for Megan.

She stopped laughing, swallowing the sound like it was a bitter pill. She moved to step out of Jeremy’s arms, to show the world that she could keep her emotions in check, but she stopped. His warmth felt so good. His scent had changed slightly and now carried a rich scent of fear and panic. He must have felt as she did. Yet here he was, the person trying to hold her together. Why did he have to be so strong all the time?

She wanted to resent him for his strength, to hate him for the confusing mess of emotions that he made her feel, but she couldn’t...not now, not when it felt so right to be in his arms. He may not love her, but he cared for her. It was foreign, to be really cared for by a man. Not even her own father had really loved her, or at least it hadn’t seemed that way when he’d run away from their family when she was young.

Jeremy looked at her. Their eyes met. There was a light in his that she had seen once before—the night in Robert’s cabin. She had to be wrong. He didn’t want to be with her. He was only a friend—a friend she was giving entirely too much of her heart to.

She stepped out of his arms and readjusted her sling more out of nervousness than need.

“Ma’am?” one of the firefighters asked as he came up to her. “Are you the home owner?”

She looked to her mother. “We are.”

He nodded. “We think we have the fire under control. However, we located a couple of things that we think you should take a look at.”

“Will you guys be okay here?” she asked her mother and Megan. Her mother drew Megan back into her arms, the girl coming up almost to her shoulders.

It was shocking to see how much older her daughter seemed than only just a few days ago. It was like she had gone through a transformation in front of Blake’s eyes. Or perhaps, it wasn’t her daughter who had transformed but rather Blake herself. Maybe for the first time she was really seeing the world around her for the way that it was—ever changing and evolving.

She stepped over to her daughter and kissed her forehead.

“Mom, are you okay?” Megan asked, looking up at her.

“I’m fine. I’m sorry for laughing.”

“Why
were
you laughing?” her mother asked. “Stress?”

“Yes, but it...” She looked to Jeremy. “I always thought that tree was just like me.”

Her mother frowned with confusion as she glanced over in the direction of the tree. “I don’t get it.”

Blake smiled as she patted her mother’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Just know that I love you, Mom.”

She turned and walked away, Jeremy following behind.

Her feet sloshed in the wet grass and mud of the front yard. The fire had moved down the tree and set the grass at its base ablaze, but the crew had done a good job in controlling its progression. The tree was blackened, but its bark was still twisting with serpentine orange embers that slithered into the light and then disappeared.

“What did you mean about the tree?” Jeremy asked as they stopped in front of it.

“For years, this damn thing has been struggling to survive here in this poisoned city. It tried to grow but was always held back by the chemicals that had leeched into its roots. See the way it twists there?” she asked, pointing toward a burl in the trunk. “When my father left, he was so drunk he backed the car into it. My mother wanted to cut it down, but I wouldn’t let her. I loved and hated that tree, but I wanted it to survive.”