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“Take care of things while I’m gone,” McCrae told him as he headed into the garage and his black Explorer. Fido, apparently over being left behind, emitted an enthusiastic bark, a kind of “Yes, sir!” that brought a brief smile to McCrae’s lips. The West Knoll Police Department had a couple of navy-blue Trailblazers with stylistic gold stripes stenciled with the name of the department on the sides that the officers traded around. McCrae preferred his own vehicle, but like the dressing-for-success rule, people liked to see police officers show up in police vehicles. He didn’t blame them. With all the scam artists and grifters and cheaters and overall crooks trying to separate you from your money or your life, it was hard to know whom to trust, but he was glad, nevertheless, that he was in the Explorer this morning.
McCrae stopped by Smith & Jones, the local grocery store owned by Delta Smith-Stahd’s parents. They had a counter in the back with a half-dozen stools and an array of doughnuts, coffee cakes, and general baked goods for their morning customers, along with some decent serve-yourself coffee from an electric urn. McCrae ordered a cruller to go from the girl behind the counter and poured himself another cup of coffee in a disposable cup, then headed for the door. He didn’t see either of Delta’s parents, which was just as well. Though a part of him wanted to ask about Delta, he was undoubtedly going to see her very soon. They’d barely scratched the surface on the events of last night in the ensuing chaos. Today would be the day.
The West Knoll Police Department was a one-story, U-shaped building that looked out at a whole lot of nothing. Empty fields that had once been part of a large farm, the land sold and parceled into lots, the lots used for building homes . . . well, two or three of the houses had sold before the whole project had gone bust and the land turned fallow and choked with weeds. Some enterprising student of agriculture had taken advantage of the fact that the land was just sitting there and had planted row upon row of onions. McCrae had watched him tend to his crop, assuming, like everyone else, that he’d leased the land for farming. Not so. After several years of bumper harvests, the land finally sold, and that year’s onions were plowed under. Turned out the would-be farmer had never had any legal right to use the property, but that didn’t stop him from suing over his lost crop. McCrae wasn’t quite sure where that lawsuit currently stood, but since then, the land had turned back to weeds; maybe it was still going through the court system. You had to give the guy credit for the balls it took to run a scam right behind the police station and get away with it for years.
McCrae polished off the cruller and drank most of the coffee long before he entered the station and stopped by Quin’s open office door. Bailey’s father’s gray hair was clipped short in a circle around his head, and his bald pate gleamed beneath the overhead lights. Ninety percent of the time, he wore a hat. Now, he swiveled in his chair and said, “We shoulda brought her in last night.”
“How’s Tanner doing?” McCrae asked, ignoring that. If there’d been a change, he would’ve been notified on his cell, but he wanted Quin’s take.
“Alive. Not awake. Corolla’s outside his room.”
Jed Corolla was close to thirty, acted like he was fifteen, looked like a cop from the seventies with a huge mustache and a kind of swagger that made McCrae smile inside. Guard duty was one of his few specialties.
Quin was the unofficial head of West Knoll PD since they’d lost their chief to the county sheriff’s department. McCrae was the unofficial second in command. They’d both been recommended for permanent titles by the mayor’s office and were slated for a swearing-in ceremony neither particularly wanted. West Knoll was large enough to require an additional two officers and some administrative personnel, but small enough to be completely in the hands of the mayor, a stocky woman with a big smile and a heavy hand when necessary. She didn’t like Quin much, McCrae even less. She’d worked hand in glove with the last chief, and now seemed to feel he’d been promoted away from her, lessening her power. Since the last chief’s departure, Mayor Kathy had been taking this “demotion” out on Quin and McCrae. Luckily, Quin was impervious. Bailey’s death had made him immune to any sensitivity to criticism he might have once felt. He had another daughter, Lill, whom he saw occasionally, but their relationship had never been the same as his with her sister. Since Bailey’s death, he’d just moved doggedly and relentlessly forward, catching “bad hombres” and bringing them to justice.
McCrae wasn’t much troubled by Mayor Kathy, either. He was diligent at his job and didn’t let her know about any delving into outside investigations he might be doing.
A bigger problem was the relationship he’d had with one of the women in West Knoll PD’s administration, the one that had lasted less than a year. Corinne had grown tired of the “no ring on my finger” nature of that relationship, and after their breakup, she’d moved on to a new guy within a month. To date, she treated McCrae with cool indifference, though he’d felt the weight of her stare more than once as soon as his back was turned. She was a little intense, and he was relieved she was with someone else. He’d made a mistake dating her. He knew better than to see someone within the department, and he’d done it anyway.
Briefly he thought back to Ellie O’Brien. They’d had that one night together at the barbeque, which might have been the kind of memory that gave you a smile afterward, but it had been forever tainted for McCrae since Carmen’s death. Seeing Ellie at the reunion had ruined that memory some more. She’d become more of what she’d been in high school: serious, intense, and wearing a chip on her shoulder. He’d felt he needed to say something to her, and it had gone okay, with him teasing about her being the Channel Seven weather girl. She’d been trying to make the leap to full-fledged reporter, chasing stories around Portland and all of Oregon, for that matter, though she still didn’t get much camera time. Whenever he’d caught her on screen, she looked good, though it seemed she was always forcing a smile. That intensity that drove her still showed. At the reunion, he’d thought about talking to her some more, but had ended up leaving shortly after Delta and Amanda had; he’d been uncomfortable with the guys that night, most of whom were diving deep into regression while they were there, especially Tanner.
McCrae sank heavily into his desk chair, feeling the weight of his sleep-deprived night. He’d stayed at the Stahd Clinic into the morning hours with the tech team and made sure, along with another officer, that Tanner’s business was secure before he left. Tanner Stahd. He shook his head. What had happened last night? Who’d stabbed him so viciously? What, if anything, had Tanner done to incite such violence?
McCrae grimaced. He’d never been particularly close friends with Tanner or either of his toadies, Penske and Sumpter. At the reunion, Tanner had gravitated to Amanda, who, in the midst of divorcing her husband, had gravitated right back. He had left Delta to hang with her friends, the remaining Five Firsts, Ellie, and others, while her eyes traveled time and again toward her husband and Amanda. It had been noticed by everyone and had pissed off McCrae. He’d felt for her. It was hard to pretend to be having a good time when your significant other was drunk and all over your nemesis. There were still those rumors floating around the reunion from those last weeks of high school, when Amanda was supposedly pregnant and it was Tanner’s child. Whatever the truth of it, Delta, as Tanner’s girlfriend, had put on a brave face and dealt with them in her own way.
Amanda and Tanner . . . may
be they’d hooked up after the reunion, even though she’d left early . . . maybe not.
But Bailey was with Penske that night.
And then Bailey was killed, by Penske, and Penske turned the gun on himself?
There was a hell of a lot more to that story.
And now Tanner’s been stabbed to within an inch of his life.
McCrae picked up the cell phone he’d laid on his desk and checked the time. 9:30. He got to his feet and headed back to Quin’s office, but found it empty. Walking down the hall, he turned right into the break room, where Quin was looking dispiritedly through the windows of the revolving vending machine and its less-than-appealing choices.
“I’m going to stop by the hospital, then I’m going to see Delta,” McCrae told him.
Quin looked up at him. “Bring her in. Let’s both talk to her. Find out if she knows where his cell phone is.”
That was a peculiar piece of the crime scene: no cell phone. Either the attacker had taken it, or it was somewhere other than the clinic or Tanner’s car, which had been in the lot. Tanner could have left it at home, or somewhere else, but McCrae was betting the would-be killer had taken it with him, or her, and made sure it couldn’t be traced.
McCrae asked, “What about the chances of another assigned special investigator, given that we both know Tanner?” And Delta.
“You wanna do that again? I don’t wanna do that again.”
“No, I don’t wanna do that again,” McCrae agreed wholeheartedly.
“Well, I’m in charge, at least for the moment, so we’ll do it our way.”
The corners of McCrae’s mouth lifted. He hadn’t seen Quin so strongly determined since his daughter’s death had knocked the life from him. “Okay.”
“ ’Course, Stahd Senior’s been making phone calls. He thinks a lot of things should be done that we’re not doing and isn’t afraid to say so. He wants to control the information.”
McCrae nodded. Which was probably why Quin had taken such a proactive stance. All to the good.
