AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mine?”
“That’s what I asked. You’ve been a cop for a while, you’ve lived here a year, you probably have an opinion.”
“No one has asked me before.”
“I am.”
“Well,” she said, taking a sip of her beer. A small sip, and Kara didn’t think that she really liked it. “After listening to Agent Costa and Agent Harris today, I came away with the impression there didn’t seem to be a reason for the second bomb, you know? So I started thinking, well, if someone at IP was involved, why would they kill all those people? Murder sure doesn’t help their cause. But I don’t understand why people do what they do sometimes. I arrested a perp once, a burglar. Typical, right? Go in, steal shit when the owners were out, leave. But he had this odd MO. Every house he robbed he urinated on the wall. Who does that? Nice thing, though, was that we could trace his DNA to a total of nineteen burglaries.”
“Some people are just fucked in the head.”
“When I heard that your team was looking into Neil’s cold-case obsession, I thought that sounded a lot more interesting, I don’t know, motive? But most criminals don’t have interesting motives. It’s boring, like greed or my wife cheated.”
“Can I tell you something? It’s part of the investigation, but we’re keeping it under wraps for a while.”
“I’m all ears.”
“We’re definitely leaning to Neil being the target.” She carefully watched Marcy’s reaction. “We think the second bombing was a distraction to refocus our investigation onto IP.”
The cop nodded, sipped. “That makes sense. More sense, to be honest, than IP or anyone in that group.”
“That’s the conclusion we came to, but we still have to cover all our bases. Prove or disprove every theory.”
“How can I help?”
“Well, one thing I need to do is find out who lives here only in the summer.”
“Why?”
“The shrink has a logical reason, but I don’t really want to talk about it here—you never know who’s listening. Meet for a run again tomorrow? Then if you can help or give me a direction to get the information, we can go from there.”
“Of course. Anything to help. It shouldn’t be too difficult—at least, I can pull resident IDs from the county, that would give us a start. And we have a list of rentals, Airbnbs, things like that.Wedon’t—I mean, I should say, I know how to get it through the tourism bureau.”
“That would be awesome.”
Rena came back with their food and another stout for Kara. “You want something else?” she asked Marcy, nodding toward her barely touched beer.
“Naw, I’m just tired, not feeling much like drinking.”
“Let me know if you need anything else.” Rena walked away.
They ate, chatting about small-town living and the differences patrolling in Friday Harbor versus big cities. Marcy didn’t share much about herself, and Kara didn’t push. She wanted to know more, but didn’t want Marcy to become suspicious.
When she was done eating, Kara leaned over to Marcy and said, “I trust your judgment about people in town; you’re new, you don’t have loyalties like everyone else. Think about it, okay? About someone you know who isn’t year-round, someone your cop instincts might have you doing a double take. You know what I mean, right?”
“I do. I’ll think about it tonight.”
“Great. Now, I’m getting one more drink, if you don’t mind.”
“Go ahead, but I’m going to call it a night.” She pulled out her wallet.
“Nope, my treat,” Kara said. “The FBI gives us an expense account, can you believe that? I can practically eat and drink for free.”
“Thanks,” Marcy said with a grin. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Jamie’s shift ended before Rena’s, so she asked Rena to take her last table. She had been uncomfortable when she spotted Marcy in the bar. She shouldn’t be—she knew that whatever Cal and Marcy once had meant nothing anymore, over years ago—but she couldn’t help but feel like the cop was watching her.
She went to the back to tell Pete she was leaving, but Pete wasn’t in his office.
