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“Why don’t we go inside and sit down?”
“Are you kidding?” she asked with a sharp laugh. Her dad was gone, her mom and grandparents long dead. A cousin lived somewhere in Wyoming, but if Lori was his emergency contact his life was even sadder than hers. She raised her hands in confusion. “Did you find out about that bank I knocked over? Because that wasyearsago. Childhood high jinks.”
Ben pressed his lips together and stared, so Lori just shrugged and walked toward the house. Maybe one of her mechanics had been caught stealing cars or something. When she let him through the front door, Ben gestured toward the couch.
“Oh, come on,” Lori scoffed.
“I think you should sit down.”
“Ben, this is ridiculous. Just spill it.”
He finally gave in. “All right. I’ve been looking into your dad’s case…”
Lori’s heart flipped over and made an awkward landing. “What case?”
He glanced determinedly toward the ratty couch again, then seemed to shrug into practical mode and plowed straight ahead. “The police station wasn’t run with particular efficiency ten years ago when your dad was assaulted. Though the incident report was closed out, no one sent it to records. I’ve been slowly going through all the old files, trying to get everything where it should be. I ran across your dad’s file last week.”
Wishing she were at least standing next to the couch so she could lean against it, Lori forced her mouth to work. “And?”
“And I’m not entirely sure about what happened that night.”
“It was a bar fight,” she said firmly. “Just a bar fight like the other dozen he’d started in his life. And bad luck he hit his head on that rock.”
Ben put his fists on his hips and looked down at the scuffed linoleum for a moment before he met her gaze again. “Lori, there’s a possibility it may have been deliberate. I’m going to reopen the case. Quietly.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. Why would you do that?”
“I’m suspicious. That parking lot wasn’t exactly littered with big chunks of granite. And if someone picked up a rock and hit your dad in the head, that’s assault with a deadly weapon. And now that he’s gone, maybe manslaughter or…”
Murder.He didn’t say it, but Lori heard it anyway. Shaking her head in slow denial, she moved into the kitchen and put her hands carefully on the counter. The cupcakes she’d made yesterday glowed bright pink in the afternoon light, mocking the slow, bad turn her day had taken.
Ben continued, and the hesitation cleared from his voice as he took on his chief of police mien. “If he had died at the time of the injury, there would’ve been an examination, an autopsy. Careful evidence collection. But the focus was on saving your dad’s life. Still, the scene photos don’t show any other rocks around. The only object that could’ve caused the skull fracture is that one piece of granite and we already know it had his blood on it. It seems a bit too pat to me to think he just happened to have fallen square onto that rock.
“There were no defensive wounds on his hands, no evidence of a fistfight. And he wasn’t found near his truck or even near the door of the bar. The back of the parking lot is an odd place to have a fistfight. Usually people just stumble out the front door and go at it.”
“I suppose,” she muttered, but she shook her head all the same.
“His autopsy reports are a bit of a mess with the healed fractures and surgical scar tissue, but I’m going to send the report off to Denver to get a second opinion. Just to see if there’s any confirmation of my thoughts.”
Lori tried to clear the sudden tears from her throat. “What is it you think happened?”
“I’m not sure.” Ben sighed. “But there’s a good possibility that someone attacked your dad from behind. Maybe when he was turning away from an argument, or maybe he didn’t even know someone was there. But that’s not much to go on. No one at the bar admitted to seeing anything after your dad left. He didn’t argue with anyone while he was there, at least not according to the notes. I’m going to have to conduct new interviews, but I’d like to keep it quiet as long as possible.”
“I…Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing,” Ben answered quickly. “You don’t need to do anything right now. Like I said, I want to keep this quiet. I’ll just be making some inquiries, trying to fit the pieces together. But I didn’t want you in the dark about my suspicions.”
“He’s dead now,” Lori murmured. “It doesn’t matter.”
But of course it did.
* * *
LORI COULDN’T SLEEPthat night. She tossed and turned for hours. By four-thirty she felt as if she might implode, as if all the thoughts swirling through her head would finally pull her in on herself and—poof!—she’d be gone. Her father, her life, the things she’d wanted for herself…
She couldn’t take it anymore, so she got up, showered and headed for the garage to change out the fuel pump on Mr. Larsen’s Chevy.
The air outside was perfect and crisp, but Lori only cracked open the garage door a few inches. She didn’t want to take any chances with curious bears. Especially if they were looking for breakfast.
