Deadline

That infuriated Carl. He walked over to him, bent down, and jammed the barrel of his pistol against the officer’s temple. Looking into his fear-stricken eyes, he smiled. “Impress the devil. Tell him you got killed by Carl Wingert.”

He left the body and the car where they were, but made note of the name on the tag pinned to the officer’s uniform and yanked the squawking police radio from off his belt.

Jeremy was behind the steering wheel with the motor running by the time Carl slid into the passenger seat. “Drive toward the bridge. Easy like.”

He jacked up the volume of the radio and had listened for several minutes before anyone tried to contact the officer he’d killed. Muffling his voice, he said, “Nothing moving over here.” The dispatcher gave the officer new instructions, which Carl acknowledged, then switched off. “We should be miles away before they start looking for him.” When Jeremy didn’t respond, he looked over at him. He was sweaty and grim-faced, focused on his driving.

Then Carl noticed that his hand was flattened against his right side. Blood was leaking between his fingers. “Jesus! He hit you with that shot?”

Jeremy peeled his lips back to form a parody of a grin. “Just a scratch, Daddy.”

* * *

“We, uh, found an SPD officer and his unit behind an abandoned building. He’d been shot twice. Once in the abdomen, once…” Tucker glanced at Amelia, who was sitting beside Dawson on a short sofa in the trauma center waiting room. The deputy amended whatever he had been about to say. “He was dead.”

Dawson felt Amelia flinch. He was too shocked by what had happened to Headly to react.

Deputy Wills cleared his throat, his prominent Adam’s apple sliding up and down his long, wrinkled neck. Dawson thought he looked like a turtle with his small head poking out of his shirt collar, which was too large.

Entertaining such nonsensical thoughts was the only thing keeping him sane. If he started thinking about the reality he found himself in, about Headly inexorably dying while he stood futilely by, he’d go crazy, destroy something, kill somebody.

He was only barely holding on to his reason, and he was able to do that only because Headly hadn’t been pronounced dead at the scene. Perhaps he had died in transit to the hospital, or on the operating table, but no one had had the courage to tell Dawson yet. That was a distinct possibility, because the deputies were regarding him as though mistrustful of his outward stoicism and in fear of an eruption of violent fury at any moment. They were justifiably afraid.

Wills cleared his throat again. “You were right about the direction the shots came from.”

“I didn’t spend nine months in a war zone for nothing.”

“Well, anyway, on account of you, we knew where to start looking for the shooter. They were on the roof.”

Dawson fixed him with a stare. “They?”

“We found two sets of shoe prints in the gravel. And Jeremy Wesson’s fingerprints on the doorknobs.”

“Carl was with him.”

“We don’t know that,” Tucker said.

“I do.” Dawson closed his hand into a tight fist. “Carl would want to take credit for killing Headly.”

After a taut silence, Wills said, “We don’t know who pulled the trigger, but—”

“Jeremy was a sniper, for chrissake.”

Wills nodded. “From that vantage point, with a fancy scope, a skilled shooter…” He didn’t take that thought any further. “The fingerprints—”

“Weren’t an oversight,” Dawson said. “They don’t care who knows it was them.”

“Look,” Tucker said, “you’re making assumptions that—”

Wills nudged Tucker hard enough to shut him up. He, the good cop, realized that every contrary word out of his partner’s mouth was riling Dawson. Like jerking a sleeping tiger’s tail.

After a moment, he continued. “The downed officer had been on patrol over in that industrial park where some vandalism had recently been reported.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “Must’ve intercepted them as they were fleeing. His radio was missing. Which explains how they eluded us. They could follow our communications and keep track of our movements.”

Tucker said, “Plus, we don’t know what they’re driving. The car Bernie—Carl—left in that parking lot is still there.”

Dawson shot him a baleful look. “You’ve finally come around to accepting that Bernie is Carl Wingert?”

Tucker had the grace to look abashed.