The Third Victim Part 35

"Don't ' "I'm not your therapist, Rainie. I'm simply a man who's been there."

His hands fell from her back. He stepped away and she felt the night intrude bitterly. Her arms grew cold. She s.h.i.+vered as she watched him walk over to his car, but she didn't call him back. She had her own vehicle to drive home. One of her rules. One of her many, many rules designed to keep herself safe.

Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy drove away.

And, after another moment, Rainie went home alone. Thursday, May 17, 1:08 a.m.

Shep was waiting for Rainie on her back porch when she got to her house. Judging by the pile of empty beer bottles at his feet, he'd been there a while, and the wait had done nothing to improve his mood.

"Where the h.e.l.l have you been?" he demanded when she finally walked through the sliding gla.s.s door.

Rainie eyed him for a minute. It was late, well past midnight, and she didn't have the patience for this conversation. On the other hand, she supposed she should've seen it coming.

She loosened the cuffs of her worn chambray s.h.i.+rt.

"Go home, Shep."

"Aren't you meeting with the ME first thing in the morning? Christ, Rainie, this is a murder investigation. What are you doing running around till the small hours of the morning?"

"I believe I'm acting as primary on the case. Now get the h.e.l.l off my back deck."

Shep pretended not to hear her. He set down his beer and stood authoritatively, as if he was still acting sheriff. The fact that he swayed on his feet didn't help. Rainie shook her head.

"We gotta talk about this case."

"You're drunk, you're not thinking straight, and if anyone sees you here, George Walker will have even more ammunition to take to the five o'clock news. Suspect's father cavorting with police."

"Danny didn't do it!"

"We got his prints on the casings, Shep."

"Not all of them."

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"Oh, Sanders didn't tell you, did he?" Shep got a smug glow in his eyes. He pounded his chest.

"I got my own contact at the state crime lab. When I talked to him this afternoon, he told me they'd found prints on the sh.e.l.l casings from the .38 and the .22 except for one .38 casing. A single casing with no smudges, no dirt, no prints. In other words, wiped clean. And get this, there's something odd about the sh.e.l.l casing. My contact couldn't tell me what, but he'd sent it out for further a.n.a.lysis. So there you go. Something's odd about the evidence, Rainie. Something else went down in those halls, and this proves it."

"Oh, Jesus Christ, Shep. Not all sh.e.l.l casings will yield prints and you know it. Now, for the last time, go home."

"One casing wiped clean, Rainie! I'm telling you, someone else was at that scene. This proves it. Maybe Danny helped. Okay, okay? I can see that much. He got the guns, maybe he thought that he was helping a friend. But someone else pulled the trigger. You gotta help me with this, Rainie. You gotta believe me."

"I don't have to do any such thing."

"What does that mean?"

Rainie looked her boss in the eye. She said crisply, "First you appoint me primary, Shep. Not even at the school yet, and you already know something's up. Then there's that whole confrontation with Danny.

You get me to discharge my sidearm. You manage to get your prints all over the guns. Thirty seconds later most of the physical evidence is destroyed. And you made sure everyone knew it. Officer Conner screwed up the case. Danny will walk away scot-free. What the h.e.l.l went down in that hallway, Shep? You want me to help you, you tell me what was really going on that afternoon."

"Rainie, I swear to you ' "Bulls.h.i.+t! Cut the c.r.a.p." Her temper went.

She was suddenly bone-weary and deeply resentful of Shep. He'd made her part of this tragedy. And now he was on her back deck, begging for her help, after playing her like a fool. How dare he do that to her?

Especially when she'd considered him a friend.

"You knew what was going on, Shep. You suspected Danny. Why?"

"Don't you yell at me, Lorraine Conner. I may not be on active duty, but I'm still sheriff of this town!"

"What the f.u.c.k happened, Shep? What did you do?" This is no way to treat me! Didn't I help you out all those years ago? All those questions I could've asked. All those questions that have still never been answered about what went down that day. I never followed up. I let sleeping dogs lie. Now it's your turn to do the same."

"Get off my property!"

"He's my son! G.o.ddammit, Rainie, he's my son .. .." Shep's shoulders suddenly convulsed. He stood on her porch, surrounded by half a dozen empty beer bottles, and wept into his hands for his child.

Jesus Christ. Rainie went into her house. She fetched two fresh bottles of beer from the fridge. Back outside, she wordlessly handed one to Shep. The other she cradled in her hands, waiting for that feeling of power, of control. It didn't happen tonight. Jesus Christ.

After a moment Shep pulled himself together. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his s.h.i.+rt. He twisted off the cap of the bottle and downed half the contents in a single swallow. Then he downed the other half.

"How'd you get here, Shep?"

"Drove."

"You're not driving home."

"I know."

They stood in silence. Rainie looked up at the night sky. It was clear following this afternoon's rain. The stars were like pinp.r.i.c.ks of silver against black velvet. She loved this kind of night. Perfect for sitting on her deck, listening to the owls and imagining the waves cras.h.i.+ng against the rocky sh.o.r.e. The inside of her house might hold all the bad memories of her childhood, but the outside held the few precious things that had been good. The land and the trees and the sky. The knowledge that no matter what happened, she was only a small part of it in the end and the stars would be here long after she was gone and the last tears had dried.

Maybe other people were overwhelmed to think of their tiny size in relation to the cosmos. She was comforted by it.

"I gave Danny the combination for the gun safe," Shep said quietly.

"He asked for it two weeks ago, and I gave it to him."

"You went to all the trouble to get a state-of-the-art gun safe and then you gave your child the combination?"

"Sandy's gonna kill me."

"Shep, you're in such a world of hurt."

"I didn't know! Danny said he wanted practice breaking down handguns since he'd already mastered his rifle. h.e.l.l, I was happy he was interested. You gotta understand, Rainie, guns are about all Danny and I have left. I tried football he's just no good. I tried basketball, baseball, soccer. The boy has no athletic ability. He just wants to read or surf the Web or some such garbage.. .. You don't know what it's like to be a father, Rainie, and realize one day that you got the son you always wanted and, somehow, he turned out to be his mother."

"Did you know the pistols were missing?"

Shep was silent, which was answer enough.

"Jesus, how can you be so smart and yet so dumb?"