Hayes looked past Zach and said sharply, “Ma’am, you need to back away. This is police business. Return to your house.”
She lifted her head to sizzle him with green-gold eyes. “Antonio is harmless. You killed him.”
“Ma’am, you need to listen—”
Zach gave him a hard push. “Back off and shut up. Do you hear me?”
That earned him some invectives.
Ignoring him, Zach turned his attention to the victim when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hayes lean over to pick up his baton. Swearing, Zach slapped a hand onto the deputy’s chest. “Do I have to cuff you?” he asked, voice hard. “You will keep back. Don’t move. Don’t touch. Do you hear me?”
“What the hell? We’re on the same side. The asshole grabbed for my weapon! I did what I had to.”
“This is now a crime scene. Don’t touch anything. Wait.”
Zach called for backup and an ambulance. When he saw Hayes take a step toward his vehicle anyway, he snapped, “Do not move!”
Then, finally, he crouched beside the fallen man and gently touched his throat.
Oh, damn. The lady with the green-gold eyes was right. Antonio was dead. Zach couldn’t even figure out how to administer first aid, the guy’s head was such a sickening sight.
The woman and he looked at each other across the body. Momentarily stunned, Zach stared for a few beats too long. Her right hand was bloody, he saw when he could finally wrench his gaze from her face. She’d touched the victim when she’d first fallen to her knees beside him.
Zach lifted his own hand to see that, yeah, his own fingertips were bloody, too.
At the sound of an approaching siren, he said gently, “There’s nothing you can do. The medics will be here any minute.”
She looked down then back up. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“I have no idea.” An ambulance rocketed to a stop in the driveway only a few feet away. Zach stood, circled to her side of the body and held out his hand. “Let’s back off and let them do their job.”
An unmarked police SUV blocked Zach’s car in. Having cut off the siren, the undersheriff himself, a whipcord-thin guy with buzz-cut gray hair, stepped out and started across the lawn. Paul Stokes. He’d been in on the interview when Zach was hired.
“Hayes? What the hell is this?”
The woman still hadn’t moved.
“Please,” Zach said quietly. “I need to talk to people. They’ll want to hear what you saw, too.”
After a moment her head bobbed. She let him pull her to her feet and backed away as medics crouched to conduct an assessment. It wasn’t long before one glanced up and gave his head the faintest of shakes. Zach nodded and walked toward the undersheriff and Andrew Hayes.
Seemingly unaware that his hands were battered and bloody, Hayes was doing all the talking. Zach, eyes narrowed, listened but kept his mouth shut. He’d have his turn. And unless the woman wimped out, there was a second witness.
Unable to help himself, he turned his head. She stood right where he’d left her, shoulders hunched, hugging herself, her stricken gaze fixed on the dead man.
But suddenly, as if she felt a pull, her head turned, too, and her eyes met Zach’s. Once again they stared, neither blinking, nothing hidden.
“Deputy Carter,” Stokes said sharply.
Zach shook himself, bent his head in acknowledgment to the woman—of what?—and faced his commanding officer.
* * *
TESS GRANATH LEANED against the fender of one of the police cars. She had declined the offer to sit in the backseat—behind the wire grille.
“Ms. Granath...or is it ‘missus’?” the officer asked.
Not officer, she reminded herself, or even deputy. He had identified himself as a detective. She groped to remember his name. Delancy or Delaney or something like that. He was in his forties, at a guess, and had too many muscles, which meant off the job he lived at the gym.
“Ms. is fine.”
“Are you married?”
Tess raised her eyebrows. “How is this relevant to what I saw?”
“Just trying to get some background, ma’am.” He paused. “Spouses, what we do for a living, influences our perceptions.”