Indivisible. Part 7

"Maybe he just hates racc.o.o.ns."

Her jaw fell slack. "You know that's not it."

"Tia, let me do my job. We're searching this area for evidence."

"Found any?"

"Not much. But sooner or later he'll make a mistake."

"What if it's later?"

He understood her concern. But he was not going to put the town in a panic if it was some sick prank. "If I see people alone I'll caution them, as I did you. Not that it mattered."

"People need to know why."

"Some people just listen." She had no idea how complicated an investigation was. What did she think, he could hang a flier and the guy would turn himself in?

"You might try it yourself sometime." She shook her head and started back down the trail.

He jammed his hands in his pockets and left Moser to bury the carnage.

From the bench seat encircling an aspen cl.u.s.ter, Piper watched Tia coming down the trail. She had a mountaineer's physique, toned and slender, sinewy, her tanned legs muscular in cargo shorts and hiking boots. She was not breathing hard, but, by the flush of her face and the set of her jaw, something was wrong.

Piper clutched the paperback to her chest. "What happened?"

"I'll tell you, but let's go inside."

Piper scooped a leaf off the ground and used it as a bookmark, tucked the paperback under her arm, and followed Tia. "Did you see the eagles?"

"I saw something else." Tia leaned the walking stick into the corner of the mud room. "Two racc.o.o.ns. Jonah said they'd been sewn together, but they had torn themselves apart. It was awful."

"What did he mean sewn?"

"Surgically. Legs removed and organs joined together."

Piper recoiled. "That must be what I saw."

"When?" Tia hung her jacket on the hook.

"The day I met the chief. On our path. I thought it was a dead animal. That was the night he warned you not to be out. Remember?"

Tia slumped. "I didn't know it was right on our path."

"Does he know who did it?"

"I don't think he has a clue."

"Maybe we can help. Ask around." She followed Tia to the parlor, flopped onto the settee beside her. "If we get people talking-"

"Jonah doesn't want whoever it is getting attention."

"But someone might know. People brag. They tell me all kinds of stuff."

Tia slid her a look. "So I've seen."

"I can use that. To investigate."

"Jonah won't like it."

"He doesn't have to know until we have something to tell him."

"Piper, this isn't a game." Tia pressed the skin between her brows as though staving off a headache. "Those creatures suffered."

"I know. That's why I want to help."

Tia shook her head. "Trust me; this isn't the way to get his attention."

"What?"

"Don't think I haven't noticed."

Piper blinked. "He's cute, don't get me wrong." Piper drew up her knees and settled into the corner of the settee. "But he's not interested in me."

"Then he's the only man alive who's not." The corners of Tia's mouth pulled up.

"Guys here are just starved for someone new."

"You think in a year or two you'll be old news?"

"A year or two? What would that even be like?"

"What do you mean?" Tia turned.

"I've never been anywhere a whole year."

"Why not?"

She shrugged a shoulder. "We were sort of like ... gypsies."

"Gypsies are not tall, blond Barbie-doll people. You look like you had the all-American family."

"I do?" She had made friends in most of the different schools, but she'd never thought she looked settled.

"How come you moved so much?"

"Let's just say my family couldn't do their thing for long in any one place."

"What thing?"

Out of nowhere, tears brimmed her eyes. She hadn't realized the shame was still so close.

Tia touched her arm. "You don't have to tell me."

"No, it's just ... amazing how many things you can sue for."

"Do you mean fraud?"

"Most companies-especially employers-will settle to avoid the ha.s.sle. And there's enough of them working together, sharing the big settlements, that no name comes up too often. Plus, they don't look like lowlifes. My mom is really beautiful, and when she claims her new boss came on to her, it's believable."

"It might be true."

"What matters is they pay. My aunt specializes in personal injury. My dad and uncle are into auto claims."

Tia leaned back. "Wow."

Piper rubbed the tickle on her nose, a nervous reaction to talking about it. "I'm the oddball, a mutant, genetically incapable of lying. Every time they tried to involve me as a kid, I got so worked up trying to keep the story straight that I puked."

Tia shook her head, bemused.

"I hope you don't think I'm going to rip you off now or something."

"Why on earth would I think that?" Tia untied her hiking boots and slipped them off. "I know what it's like to be the odd one out. In your case it's a good thing."

"I'll bet in your case it is too."

Tia didn't answer. "So you went your own way and ended up here."

Piper nodded. "More or less."

"Well, I hope you've found a place to stay."

Piper smiled. "I'd like that. A lot."

Jonah had promised Merv he would check out Tom Caldwell's shed and went there next. He had tried several times before, but Tom hadn't been home. This time there was smoke rising from the chimney. He glanced past the house to the shed.

A trickle of sweat ran down his lower back. He imagined the sting of a spider on the nape of his neck. His hands got clammy, and a cloying rage rose up his throat as he stared at a pine shed way too similar to the one in his memories. His nails dug into his palms. His legs came to a leaden stop.

The door of the house opened, and Caldwell stepped out. "Help you, Chief?"

There was a sneer in the way he said it. They'd gone to school together, Caldwell three years ahead of him. Sometimes it wouldn't hurt to have his dad's reputation, but he didn't want to beat people to earn it. "Heard a report you've b.o.o.by-trapped your shed. I need to make sure it's not a public hazard."

"Now who would you hear that from, the old suck-up next-door?"

Jonah shrugged. "Just open it up and I'll be on my way."

"The h.e.l.l I will. Not without a warrant."

"What are you talking about, warrant? I'm just saying show me it's safe."

It wasn't safe. His scalp burned as the hand came down, clawing the hair by the roots, dragging him up. "I'll teach you to hide, you miserable whelp." "I'll teach you to hide, you miserable whelp." He couldn't hear out of one ear for a week. But that wasn't what made the shed a terror. He couldn't hear out of one ear for a week. But that wasn't what made the shed a terror.

Jonah shook off the memory and stalked toward Caldwell's shed.

"Stop right there. This is my land, my shed, and I said no."

Jonah turned, sick with relief to have it out of his sight. "If I come back with a warrant and find so much as excessive pesticide, I'll run you in."

Without warning, Merv streaked across his yard with an ax. "This half's across the line." He started hacking at the shed wall that faced his house.

Jonah hollered for him to stop. He didn't know where the properties joined, but this wouldn't settle the dispute. Caldwell charged, and Jonah charged after him. They reached the wall as Merv ripped out a splintered board. Caldwell shoved Merv to the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth. Just inside the hole, a shelf held bags of yellowish-white crystals.

Caldwell kicked at Merv while trying to keep his back against the breach, but Jonah had seen enough. "Face the wall, Tom." He reached for his cuffs.

Caldwell swung, a maneuver embedded in Jonah's reflexes. He twisted, then grabbed the man's arm and bent it up his back. Catching Caldwell's elbow in the ribs, Jonah took him down, pressing his face into the dirt, a knee between the shoulder blades as he locked the cuffs around his wrists. As much as he resisted using physical force, the scuffle did relieve the pent-up tension of seeing his mom and the dead racc.o.o.ns. And Tia.

After shoving Caldwell into the Bronco, he radioed for the sheriff to send a deputy to secure the site until he returned with a search warrant. As soon as the county car arrived, he told Merv to follow them in, called Sue to procure the warrant, and headed for the station.

Rolling his head side to side in the backseat of the Bronco, Caldwell scrunched up his face. "What died in here?"

A smile tugged the corners of Jonah's mouth.

At the station he pressed Caldwell down onto the metal bench in the booking area and cuffed him to the ring on one end. Caldwell glowered. When Officer Sue Donnelly joined them, Jonah said, "Read him his rights. Might take a few times before he gets it. Have him sign the form when he understands."

Caldwell's nostrils flared, his lip curling up with disgust. "You are making such a mistake."

"Call me when he's through photo and prints." Jonah could have processed the man himself, but handing it over to Sue reminded him that the smirk on Caldwell's face did not need punching.

Twenty minutes into questioning, during which Caldwell mostly smirked at the wall, his attorney arrived. Interesting because Caldwell hadn't made the phone call-unless he'd somehow speed-dialed his cell from the Bronco with his hands cuffed. Gordon Byne was a small man with a big head-literally. It sat on his shoulders like a bowling ball, with close-set eyeholes and an extra large mouth hole.

Crying illegal search and seizure, he claimed Merv's vandalism put whatever they thought they'd seen in plain sight and made the arrest unconst.i.tutional-forgetting, of course, the little matter of a.s.sault on an officer.

In the video-conferencing room, Jonah sat at the desk with the computer and looked up at the screen mounted on the wall. Caldwell sat in a chair next to him. When the magistrate had sworn him in, Jonah gave him Caldwell's name and address and laid out the arrest. He listed two misdemeanor convictions, no outstanding warrants.

Then he told Caldwell to raise his right hand, not easy in handcuffs, and Caldwell swore to truthfully tell his side. The a.s.sault alone should be enough to hold him over unless the judge believed the spin Caldwell's lawyer had put on it. Hara.s.sment and brutality. Uh-huh.

The magistrate held Caldwell without bail until morning in the county jail. Judge Walthrup would probably allow bail the next day since the drugs were found through Merv's alleged trespa.s.s and vandalism. In the meantime they had enough to obtain a search warrant for the entire property, and they did.

Merv had fallen asleep waiting for Caldwell to be processed. Because he'd endangered himself by acting rashly, Jonah cited him for destruction of personal property.

"It was on my side of the line."

"Get proof of that and we'll talk."

"He used it for illegal purposes. You saw it."

"I saw. But you had no business interfering."

"Got you what you wanted, didn't I? Got you a look inside."