“It’s no problem, I’ll manage fine,” Cruz said as his hand disappeared in the deputy’s maw. “Thanks again. What time are you figuring on heading back over the hospital tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. Hard to say. Depends what else is going on around here.”
“Sure, you’ve got a lot going on. I’ll probably just head over there on my own. Maybe we’ll meet up.”
Berglund was making ready to go inside, but he paused, the shadows on his face spreading as his frown deepened. “Understand, Cruz, our first priority here is to find out what Jillian can tell us about the fire and her mother’s death. Even assuming the doc lets us—lets me—in tomorrow, and that she’s ready to talk, this investigation of yours has to take a back seat right now. That’s why I’m saying you might be better off to leave your information with me, let me get back to you on it.”
“Like I said, it could come down to that,” Cruz conceded. “How about we wait and see what happens tomorrow?”
“She’s going to have a hard enough time dealing with what went down here. I’m going to have to ask you not to distract her with any other outside matters right now. I mean that.”
Cruz nodded. “I understand you’re under a lot of pressure to come up with some answers here, Deputy.”
“That’s right, I am. And who knows how long that’s going to take? The last thing I need is some federal hotshot breathing down my neck while—” Berglund’s frame had shifted until he was looming over Cruz, but he caught himself suddenly and pulled back, exhaling heavily. “Never mind. Sorry. It’s been a rough couple of days. And look, I know you’ve got a job to do, too, but I just can’t be concerned about that right now, you understand?”
“Sure, I understand. No offense taken.”
“I appreciate it. I just hate to think about you hanging around here, wasting your time. I’m sure you’ve got other things to be doing, too.”
“I’ve got a pretty full caseload,” Cruz admitted. “On the other hand, this is what’s on my plate right now, and as long as I’m here, I guess I’ll just push it around a little. But I appreciate your concern for my busy schedule.”
“Suit yourself,” Berglund said. “Let’s just get one thing straight, though—I don’t want you bothering Jillian Meade right now. Clear?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned on his heel and headed up the walk and into the building.
Left alone in the parking lot, Cruz climbed into his rented Buick and started the engine, cranking the heater dial up to full blast. His shoulders, arms and legs, every muscle in his body, felt as if they were locking up in protest against the cold. He hunkered down in the front seat, massaging his arms and watching the building as he waited for the heater to kick in.
To the right of the glass front door was the window of the chief’s office where he and Berglund had first talked. The lights were off, but the office door was open and through it, Cruz could see the brightly lit squad room beyond. Berglund was in there now, talking to one of his men, the white-haired uniform Cruz had spotted typing reports when he’d arrived. Suddenly, the guy rose and reached for the parka slung over the back of his desk chair.
The deputy chief looked somber as he turned and headed toward the office. He was the very picture of a straight shooter, Cruz thought, a decent if inexperienced small-town cop burdened with the unexpected double load of a murder and the responsibility of command. But if Berglund was as clean as he seemed, why was this knot of suspicion hardening in his gut? Was it Berglund, or was the problem his own, a reaction caused by too many years of looking for and finding corruption behind a uniform? He watched as Berglund flicked on the office lights and closed the door behind him, throwing his coat aside as he reached for the phone.
Movement in the reception area, meantime, drew Cruz’s attention toward the front door. The white-haired cop appeared. Slapping on a police cap, he waved back to someone at the front desk—still the mystery-loving Verna? Cruz wondered, or would she have gone home by now? Outside on the front step, the cop paused at the sight of Cruz’s Buick sitting in the parking lot with its engine running.
It was time to move. Cruz put the car in gear, feeling eyes on him as he pulled out of the lot. At the edge of the roadway, just before turning, he glanced in his the rearview mirror. The uniform was climbing into the other black and white next to Berglund’s. Cruz kept his pace leisurely as he headed down the deserted highway, looking for the Chevron station and attached motel that Berglund had recommended. Watching, too, for the car that he suspected would be on his tail momentarily. Sure enough, a pair of headlights swung out onto the highway a moment later, heading in the same direction he was moving, away from town. In a place this small, there’d be no hiding if Berglund decided he bore watching. All he could do was make the surveillance as dull as possible.
The Whispering Pines Motel, as advertised, stood about a mile outside of town. Cruz pulled into the lot, grateful to be off the highway, where visibility was dropping fast. The weather had taken a turn for the worse in the last while, and icy sleet was whipping across the pavement, accumulating in little drifts wherever it encountered an obstacle like a curb or the base of a tree. The night was dark, the space beyond the service center transformed into a black void, but the lot itself was illuminated by floodlights mounted on tall poles affixed to the roof at either end of the long, low building. Gusting snow performed under the spotlights, spinning an energetic dance in midair. Pretty to look at, Cruz thought, but nasty weather to be stranded in.
All the rooms of the motel fronted onto the parking lot, lined up behind a homey-looking café. The Chevron service station attached to it had a couple of open service bays and was connected to the café by an adjoining office that seemed to do double duty for the garage and the motel behind it. A red neon Vacancy light was lit next to the front door. A couple of big rigs were lined up in a side lot and the café looked moderately busy, but the parking spaces in front of the motel rooms were all unoccupied.
A bell over the door tinkled as Cruz walked into the office. The place smelled of machine oil, French fries and coffee, the latter scents drifting in from the café through an open inner connecting door between restaurant and office. Cruz saw a solidly built, middle-aged waitress balancing three plates on one arm, her free hand gripping the handles of three white ironstone mugs as she headed for a trio of men sitting at a corner table. Cruz’s stomach grumbled. He hadn’t eaten a thing except Verna’s cookie since the rubbery eggs and rock-hard roll served on his flight from D.C. that morning.
“Evening,” a voice behind him called.
He turned to see an older man with a thick head of slick-backed hair and wearing a grease-stained blue jumpsuit leaning on the office counter, gnawing thoughtfully on a yellow wood pencil. An old-timer in a red plaid jacket and green John Deere cap stood across the counter from him. The two had been shooting the breeze when Cruz walked in, but they paused now to study the newcomer, taking his measure. The blue jumpsuit—the owner, Cruz guessed—pulled the pencil out of his mouth and nodded a welcome, but the grizzled old guy turned away, ignoring Cruz as he resumed their conversation.
“You gotta wonder what she needed it for, is all I’m saying.”
“Be with you in a minute,” the man behind the counter called over the old guy’s head to Cruz, before turning back to his customer. The red-trimmed oval at the breast of his jump-suit read “Norbert.” “Uh-huh,” he told the old-timer, although whether he agreed or was just filling dead air was hard to say. He reached for a pile of invoices and started flipping through them, then withdrew one and ran an oil-encrusted index
