I’m good,” Deputy Tom Daggett said, a little too quickly and breathlessly for the declaration to be entirely reassuring. He glanced over at Roan, blushing right up to the band of his Stetson. “It’s just…I’ve never seen anybody shot dead before. Not like this. It’s…different, you know?” There was an audible swallow.
Roan did know. To be truthful, he hadn’t seen anybody shot dead before either, except for crime-scene photos in forensics classes he’d taken in college and a few refresher courses after getting elected sheriff. And his deputy had it right—all the car wrecks, hunting accidents and bar fights in the world didn’t do much to prepare a man for violent cold-blooded murder.
“In that case,” he said to Deputy Daggett, “hunker on down here. Tell me what you see.”
Frowning earnestly, the younger man squatted on his heels beside the body. “Okay, uh…you got two—” he coughed self-consciously. “I mean, the victim appears to have been shot twice—once in the head, and then here, in the chest. Right in the heart, looks like. From the, uh, condition of the, uh…the size of the exit wound in the back of the head…maybe a .38?”
“More likely a .45,” the sheriff said, nodding his approval. “Okay, so what do you think happened here, Tom?”
The deputy tilted the brim of his Stetson back and looked around, squinting in the bright morning sunshine. “I don’t know, seems pretty straightforward. Looks like the shooter was waiting for him when he came home. Ol’ Jase gets out of his truck, starts for the house, and bam.” He shook his head, his enthusiasm returning with his confidence, now he was over the worst of it. “The guy must have been right there in front of him—shot him in the chest first, then made good and sure with the head shot. Doubt Jase even saw it comin’.”
Roan shook his head. “Oh, he saw it, all right. Just didn’t believe it. And the head shot was first.” He stood up and waited for the deputy to do the same. “Look here—see this?” He pointed to some spatters on the door of the brand-new white Chevy truck parked just beyond the body. “That’s brain matter. So he was standing up when the bullet went through his skull. Then it went through the driver’s-side window, right here, see? Slug’s probably still in there, inside the cab. We’re gonna want to find that.” He glanced over at Deputy Daggett, who was looking a little green around the gills again, but controlling it manfully. “I’m thinking the shooter stood in front of him, face-to-face, like this—” he demonstrated, arm outstretched “—and shot him. From about three feet away.”
The deputy looked doubtful. “He’d have to be a helluva shot, wouldn’t he, to drill him dead center in the forehead like that with a high-caliber handgun?”
“Yeah, or a lucky one.” With a cool head and a steady hand.
Roan turned back to the body on the ground, his jaw tightening as he gazed down at what was left of Jason Edward Holbrook. Considering everything, he wondered why he wasn’t taking this more personally. He ought to feel something for the death of the man who was very likely his half-brother.
But, except for a profound sense of outrage and insult that such a thing could have happened in his jurisdiction, on his watch, he didn’t feel a thing. Not a damn thing.
“Then,” he went on grimly, “the shooter stood over him and fired a second shot into his heart at point-blank range—see this here? That’s powder residue. Also, considering the back of the victim’s skull was blown off, the shooter had to know he was already stone-dead, but he put that second shot in him anyway.”
The deputy gave a low whistle. “Takes a whole lotta mad to do something like that.”
Again Roan shook his head. “Not mad,” he corrected. “Hate. This wasn’t any crime of passion, not in the usual sense of that word. Whoever did this hated Jason’s guts, pure and simple.”
“Well,” Tom said, obviously pretty well recovered now from his former queasiness and sounding downright cheerful, “that’s not gonna narrow it down much.” Then, belatedly recalling the unwritten rule against speaking ill of the dead, he threw Roan an abashed look and, blushing again, muttered an apology.
An unfortunate characteristic for a deputy sheriff, that blush, Roan thought. For the kid’s sake, he hoped he’d grow out of it eventually—maybe by the time he started shaving regularly.
Tom Daggett was right, though, about there being no dearth of people who might have entertained the notion of taking a shot at Jason Holbrook, one time or another. But for some reason, nothing he could put a finger on, just a gut feeling, Roan didn’t think this was going to be some jealous husband or boyfriend. Something about the killing…facing him like that…and then that second shot at point-blank range…this was payback, was what it was. Vengeance.
And more than that: Whoever had meted it out to Jason Holbrook had wanted him to know beyond any shadow of a doubt who was killing him and what he was dying for.
Holding off the shiver that wanted to run down his spine, Sheriff Harley took his sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and slipped them on, then let his gaze sweep the area, taking in the long graveled driveway that slanted down through the pine trees from the paved road to the huge two-story log house Jason’s dad had had built against the mountainside in the style of a Swiss chalet. He turned back to Daggett. “No sign of a weapon?”
Tom shook his head. “Didn’t see one in the immediate vicinity. Thought I oughta wait for you before I started looking.”
“Good call. Stay away from the truck, too. And the body, it goes without saying—at least until the coroner gets here. Where’s the school-bus driver that called it in?”
“She had a load of kids to deliver. I told her somebody’d be over there at the school later on to get her statement. Uh…Sheriff?” Roan nodded for him to proceed, and Daggett did, looking uncomfortable. “You planning on calling in the state guys on this?”
“Already did,” Roan said. “They’re on their way.”
Then for a while he and the deputy just stood there, neither of them saying anything, both of them trying not to look at the body of Jason Holbrook cooling in a puddle of his blood, staring up at the blue Montana sky. It was a bright, beautiful spring morning, but Roan felt like a big black cloud was parked right over his head, the heaviness of it pressing down on him and the first rumblings of thunder already growling in the distance.
“Sheriff?” Tom looked over at him, uneasy again, thumbs in his hip pockets, kind of scuffing at the dirt with the toe of his boot. “You gonna break the news to the senator?”
Reflexively, Roan folded his arms on his chest. He’d been giving that some thought himself. “That’s not something you want to hear over the phone,” he said, shaking off guilt, wondering if he was being a little too eager to pass the buck. Talking to Senator Holbrook wasn’t something he enjoyed doing even at the best of times. Which these sure as hell weren’t. “I’ll call the Washington PD, get them to send somebody to tell him in person.”
Tom let out a breath like a tire going flat as he took off his hat and ran a hand back over his short blond hair. “Well, hell. No matter how he finds out, when he does, I expect the you-know-what’s goin’ to hit the fan.”
Roan favored his deputy with a lopsided grin. “I expect you’re right about that. Be nice if we had a suspect in hand by the time it does, don’t you think? You got any bright ideas where to start looking for one?”
Trying
