Dust Up with the Detective (7 page)

Chapter Nine

At the gun range men and women were standing in the trapshooting fields, and the sharp echoes of shotgun blasts and the scent of spent gunpowder filled the air. In a strange way, the smell of the powder made Blake comfortable. She’d spent so many days on the range with her standard-issue Glock 22 .40 caliber pistol. Every officer in combined city and county sheriff’s office, known as the Butte–Silver Bow County Sheriff’s Department, had been issued the same gun, but over time hers had become special. It had become a part of her. She reached down and touched its familiar grip.

She and Jeremy made their way to the clubhouse. A man in his early twenties sat behind the counter reading a
Guns & Ammo
magazine. He looked up as they approached.

“How can I help you, Officer?” he asked, setting the magazine down on the counter and giving them his full attention.

She smiled. “I was just wondering about yesterday’s competition. Was the mayor here?”

“Yeah,” the clubhouse manager said with a sharp nod. “Mayor Engelman gave a great speech on the need for enforcing our Second Amendment rights.”

“How long was the competition?”

“The prelims started last week. Yesterday was the finals.” He rambled on about the winners and their shooting averages, while Blake pretended to listen.

“Was the mayor here the entire time?” Jeremy asked when the man took a break between statistics.

The manager nodded. “He was here on and off throughout the week, and yesterday he was here most of the day. Made a big thing out of it. You should have seen it—he even took a turn on the shooting stage. Missed just about all the clays, but you know how it is, not being his gun and all.”

“He’s not a good shot?” Jeremy asked, giving her a questioning look.

The manager passed them a grin. “Hey, I ain’t saying he’s bad. He just ain’t a shotgun man.”

If the mayor wasn’t a good shot with a shotgun, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t necessarily a good shot with a handgun—particularly the one that had been used in Robert’s murder. Heck, anyone could have been a good shot at such close range. Then again, would the mayor really have wanted to get his hands dirty? Would the glad-handing, speech-making, baby-kissing mayor really be capable of pulling a trigger to get something he wanted?

Jeremy laughed. “Hey, we can’t all be good at everything. Am I right?” he asked, chumming up with the club’s manager.

“Hey, I heard he’s real good with a sidearm.”

“Is that right?” Blake asked, perking up.

“That’s the talk around the clubhouse. I had a guy in here yesterday. Said he was shooting with the mayor just last week. He said the guy could shoot a solid grouping at twenty-one feet.”

“Who was the guy the mayor went shooting with?” Jeremy asked as he leaned against the counter in what she assumed was his attempt to look nonchalant and nonconfrontational—anything to put the manager at ease and make him talk a little more. It was enthralling to watch Detective Lawrence in action, the way he looked at the man like he was a friend rather than a source feeding them much-needed information.

“I think the guy’s name was Todd. Maybe Todd O’Banyon or something.”

“O’Banyon?” Blake asked. “Do you mean O’Brien? Todd O’Brien?”
Robert’s neighbor.

“That sounds about right. The mayor and Todd were in the bar,” he said, motioning over to the door on the other side of the clubhouse, which must have led to the tavern. “Todd had a few beers after the mayor left, and then he finally stopped talking about what good friends they were. He was thinking himself some kind of big man. I think maybe the mayor even bought a gun off of him.”

“Do you know what kind of gun?” Blake asked.

The man shrugged. “Some kind of Glock. I don’t remember. Like I said, the guy had a few beers under his belt. From what I heard, it’s possible that he was just making it all up.”

“What do you mean?” Jeremy’s body tensed, but the manager didn’t seem to notice.

“I don’t know. The guy was just talking all kinds of nonsense—about how he was going to be a millionaire if he played his cards right. You know. Crazy talk.”

Had they gotten it all wrong? Was O’Brien the man they were looking for? Or was he involved in the mayor’s plot? Why would the mayor be buying a gun from someone—especially Robert’s neighbor?

“Did he mention how he was going to be making these millions?” Jeremy asked, a cold edge to his voice.

The man shifted in his chair. “I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “It was Greek to me. Something about buying investment properties or something.”

She thought back to Todd O’Brien’s property. It was covered with rusted-out car frames and filled with garbage. How could a man who couldn’t afford the upkeep for his property afford to invest? Todd O’Brien had never had a job, as far as she knew.

“Is there something I should know about?” the clubhouse manager asked.

Jeremy shook his head. “Nah, it’s no big thing. We’re just looking into a few different things. If necessary, though, would you mind if we came back and asked you a few more questions?”

The manager smiled. “Not at all. I appreciate all that you guys do. You have the hardest job of anybody, protecting the streets. The least I can do is answer a few questions.”

Sometimes she loved living in Montana, where law enforcement officers—for the most part—were treated with respect. It wasn’t the same everywhere else. She read about it in the national headlines all the time, officers being shot or their homes vandalized simply because of the job they were drawn to do. And those in her profession were constantly struggling with the stigma of being crooked.

She thought of the mayor. Maybe he was part of the problem. There were always a few in public service who were corrupt. It was the political way. Unfortunately, across the country it was her brethren who had to pay.

* * *

J
EREMY
FLIPPED
THROUGH
the saved pictures on Blake’s camera as he waited. He scrolled past the images of Robert’s body and stopped at the picture of the gun that sat next to his brother’s hand. It was the standard police-issued Glock.

Every fiber of his being told him that this gun was the same one the manager had told them about. Instant hatred flooded his veins. The mayor was likely behind his brother’s death. Now he and Blake would just have to prove it.

He looked over at Blake, who was having the clubhouse manager sign a statement. The man had taken the questioning remarkably well. In Missoula, things were a little tenser with the public—especially after the strings of arsons and his involvement in the investigation. He and his department were still trying to win back the public’s trust.

It was hard to know who to trust anymore, and the public felt the same way. In a world full of lies and corruption, few stood above it; few wanted to live with honor.

He looked back at the photos on the camera and started scrolling through them. He came to the ones they’d taken earlier, at Robert’s house. Some of the documents in the photos were ones that Blake had gone through, and he hadn’t seen them. Now he took his time, scanning through them. He clicked again. On the screen was a picture Blake had taken of a photograph in Robert’s files; it was of a car parked in Todd’s driveway. The date marked on the photograph put it at having been taken a week ago.

Why would Robert have taken a picture of a random car and then slipped it into his files? He must have wanted to keep it as a record of something, but what?

The picture was dated one week prior to his brother’s death.

He zoomed in on the license plate. It was the blue vanity plates that celebrated Glacier National Park. He made note of the number.

After picking up his phone, he called Dispatch. A woman answered, and he gave her his information. “I need to run a plate,” he said, reciting the number.

There was a long pause as the dispatcher clicked away in the background. After a moment she came back. “The license plate is for a 2015 silver Land Rover registered to John Engelman. Is there anything else you’d like to know, sir?”

His breath wheezed from his lungs. “No, thanks,” he said, forcing the words from his body.

His brother had left him a sign. He had left Jeremy the evidence he needed to bring the sucker to his knees.

Chapter Ten

The ride back to their houses was tense. How could she have missed the picture of the mayor’s car? Jeremy’s face was tight as he stared out the window. Whether he was angry or just preoccupied with the details of the case, Blake couldn’t be sure.

Hopefully he didn’t think she was incompetent. She was working this case as fast as she could, and sometimes things fell through the cracks, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care. If anything, she cared about this case more than she should. Most of the time, even when she knew the victims, she could gain emotional distance—but not this time, not when the vic was Jeremy’s brother.

Maybe she was too close. It had certainly been a mistake to find herself on the floor with Jeremy. It had been so exciting, so euphoric to be wanted by him, to be in his arms and desired, but she shouldn’t have let down her guard. It had added a degree of tension to everything they did, every expression he made—like now.

As soon as she parked he got out of the car and slammed the door.

“Wait,” she called as she went after him. “What’s your problem?”

He looked surprised as he turned back.

Had her insecurities made her jump to conclusions? Was he not really upset with her? She instantly regretted her tone.

“What?” he asked.

“What’s going on with you, Jeremy?” she asked, trying in another way to see if she was crazy or not.

He frowned. “Nothing.”

That was a cop-out. Everything about him, from the way his eyes had darkened to the way that even now his body turned from her like he was desperate to run away, said otherwise. “Don’t lie to me, Jeremy.”

He turned to face her. “There’s nothing wrong,” he said, his voice hard and his words abrupt.

Blake walked toward him so they were toe-to-toe. “You don’t get to be angry with me. You missed that picture, too. If nothing else, it’s just good that we found it. Now we have evidence—”

“That’s not it,” he said, looking toward her house.

She followed his gaze. The lights were off inside, but that didn’t mean that her mother wasn’t watching. She turned her back to the windows. “Then what is it, Jeremy? Are you mad about what happened at your brother’s? If that’s the case, it won’t happen again. It was a mistake in the first place.”

He took her by the arms and looked into her eyes. “Stop. I’m not upset with you.”

“Then why are you so pissed? Why have you barely spoken to me since the range?”

He looked toward his parents’ house. “I’m not pissed. I’m just... I’m just... I don’t know. Look. Here’s the deal. In a few minutes, I’m going to have to walk in there,” he said as he motioned toward his parents’ house. “And I’ll have to tell them that we don’t have a suspect in Robert’s case. They are going to want to know everything the medical examiner said and what we’ve done. It’s going to be brutal.”

“You don’t have to tell them anything,” she said, softening under his touch.

“You know that isn’t realistic. If you think your mother’s bad, imagine what she’d be like if something happened to you.”

She shuddered at the thought. Her mother would be distraught. As much as they got under each other’s skin, they were everything to each other.

“My mother is more upset than I’ve ever seen her.” He rubbed his thumb over the fabric of her uniform. “The worst part of it all is that I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been good at that sort of thing. I don’t know the right words.”

“Just listen to your heart and be honest.” As the words fell from her lips, she couldn’t help but feel like a hypocrite. Here she was telling him to be honest, to follow his heart, but that was the last thing she was going to do. She couldn’t tell him how she felt...how she had always wanted him. It was too big of a risk, putting her trust in someone else.

“I—” He stopped.

“What were you going to say?” That little part of her heart that held all her desires sprang to life with the hope he would say what she wanted to hear—he wanted her and they could be together.

He let go of her arms and stepped back from her. The way he moved made it seem as though he wasn’t putting just physical distance between them but emotional distance, as well.

“I appreciate what you’re doing, Blake,” he said, his hard-edged voice in direct opposition to the softness of his words. “I mean with the investigation and all. You’re doing everything you can.”

She waited for the “but.”

“But,” he continued as the single word made her heart sputter and her fingers go numb, “what we did at Robert’s...you were right. What happened was a mistake. I have only been divorced for a little over a year. I know that seems like a long time, and I would be okay, but I have my daughter to think about.”

She nodded, not sure if she could handle standing there and listening to what she knew was coming.

“I’m sure you feel the same way,” he said.

He couldn’t have understood the way she was feeling right now—the way she wanted to run away, to crawl under her sheets and hide. Still, another part of her wanted to stand up and tell him he was wrong—that they could have it all, that they could be together. That they could figure it out if they both loved each other enough.

Love.
The word dropped like a stone in a bucket. It rippled through her, the weight of its meaning cascading all the way down to her toes. That was the problem. Neither of them could have love.

There was no room left in their hearts.

* * *

B
LAKE
SAT
ON
the edge of Megan’s bed and stroked her daughter’s damp blond hair. She smelled like lavender shampoo and innocence.

“Get some sleep, pumpkin.” She leaned down and gave her a kiss on the forehead and then she turned and slipped the book back onto the shelf, next to her daughter’s well-loved redheaded doll, one of the mementos she’d kept from her childhood.

“Mom, wait,” Megan called just as she moved to stand up.

“What, honey?”

“Mom,” Megan said, her voice smooth but laced with sleepiness. “Are you going to ever get married?”

The question came out of left field and forced Blake to slump back onto Megan’s bed. “What do you mean? Where did that come from?”

“Well, Grandma was on the phone today and she was talking about Jeremy. She said that she hoped you’d get married to a man like him.” Megan took her hand; her skin was warm and soft. “Do you love him?”

Why did her mother have to put ideas like this into Megan’s head? There was no right answer. No matter what she said, Megan would riddle her with more questions—questions that a thirteen-year-old didn’t need to ask. She just needed to enjoy being young and not worrying about her mother’s romantic relationships—or lack thereof.

She thought of Jeremy and where they had left things with each other. Maybe he had been right in pushing her away with the excuse that they needed to think of their children first. If things were like this, confused and up in the air, the last thing she wanted to do was involve Megan. Above anything else, her daughter needed to be protected.

“Pumpkin, I love
you
.” She pushed a hair off Megan’s slightly sweaty neck.

“I know, Mom, but it would be kind of cool, you know...”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Megan said, skirting around what she wanted to say. “I guess it would be just kind of cool if I had a dad. I mean a dad I actually saw and stuff. Think about it. I could even have a sister if you married Jeremy. It would be so fun.”

She didn’t want to burst Megan’s illusion by telling her that in real life, relationships weren’t that simple. They were just another method through which you could get hurt.

“We don’t need a man in our lives just to make us happy, pumpkin. Women are so strong. We can do anything,” she said, flexing her arms as she tried to make light of the multiple layers of her daughter’s innocent but pain-inducing words.

“Oh, I know you’re strong, Mom.” Megan waved her off. “But he makes you smile. I like it when you smile. You look beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you.” She wanted to take her daughter by the arms and tell her that she wanted a man, too, but instead she simply kissed her good-night and slipped out the door. She pressed her back to the wall and took a deep breath.

She wanted a whole family for Megan, but she couldn’t tell her the truth—Jeremy didn’t want to get involved.

This time, the truth was just too painful.