Ridley Pearson - In Harm's Way

Each day that passed decreased the odds. The farther they got from the discovery of the body, the less likely the case would be solved.

Today passed much the same way: Walt feeling handcuffed by a cautious attorney and limited by circumstantial evidence. He called Fiona twice and left messages, fearing that she was avoiding his calls over embarrassment about the reappearance of the “stolen” Engleton truck, and let her know that he couldn’t care less and was just happy to know Kira had apparently returned. Fiona’s refusal to return his calls annoyed and frustrated him, but the next step was hers to make. Hers to take.

With the girls asleep and the dishes washed, he sat down at the computer to catch up on e-mail.

The kitchen phone rang and Walt snatched it up.

“I found the guy’s vehicle, Sheriff.”

“Gilly?”

“I found the SUV. Avis sticker on the bumper. Plates still on it. It’s Gale’s rental.”

“Where?”

“Well off trail or I’d have found it sooner. Was those night vision binoculars did it. Sun warmed the metal all day and the thing gave off a signature after dark. I’m standing here looking at it. You want me to open it up?”

“Don’t touch a thing. Give me directions. It’ll take me an hour or so. You sit tight.”

“Got it.”

He called Lisa and asked her to cover. Called the office and told them what he needed, including Fiona, and instructed them how to keep it off the radio, and how to release the vehicles one at a time, wanting to avoid a press stampede. Took a deep breath as he changed back into a freshly pressed uniform shirt.

He looked in on the girls just before Lisa arrived wearing a bathrobe with jeans. She looked tired and headed straight for the couch.

Walt offered his bed, saying, “Fresh sheets.”

“How long are you going to be?”

“Take the bed,” he said.

She nodded and trundled off, scratching her backside through the bathrobe and causing him to wonder if they didn’t know each other too well.

Gilly Menquez looked small and pale behind the glare of headlights, squinting into the searchlight from Walt’s Cherokee.

“This is good, right, Sheriff?”

“Very good.”

“About last week-”

“Forget about it, Gilly. It’s behind us.”

“I got me a wife and four kids. Another coming.”

“All the more reason not to drink on the job.”

“You coulda had me fired.”

“Just don’t make it ‘should have.’ ”

Gilly eyed him curiously.

“Never mind, Gilly. Just don’t let it happen again.”

“It won’t.”

Walt kept the smile off his face out of respect. Gilly looked all worked up, his face twisted like he might cry. Walt placed a hand on his shoulder, happy to have someone his own height, but wondering if Gilly’s devotion was to the Blessed Mother or the bottle.

“This is exactly as you found it?” The man nodded, but submissively, and Walt was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Wanting to keep him busy, Walt asked Menquez to search the immediate area on the passenger side of the SUV. Walt took the woods to the left, awaiting Fiona’s camera and at least one deputy before entering the vehicle. He’d shined his flashlight through the glass to find the SUV was empty, keys in the ignition. The keys might come back with latent prints; he was eager to get on with it.

Flashlight in hand, Walt moved methodically through the forest undergrowth. He heard Beatrice clawing at the Cherokee’s side window and wished he could let her out. Gale’s rental had been abandoned in a swale between two treed ridges running east-west. Given the overhead canopy of evergreens, it seemed a miracle Gilly had ever spotted the heat signature, and Walt took it as a sign that the investigation had turned. Cases either turned for you or against you, and he’d grown superstitious over time.

He saw it as a wink of white, a color that didn’t belong in the forest palette, approached it somewhat breathlessly, nearly called out to Gilly at his find.

He pulled back some fern, revealing the smooth, turned handle and grip of a baseball bat. Bent and reached down farther, pulling back the twist of green revealing the bat’s wide end.

His heart was pounding now, really pounding, like he’d run a fair distance or hit the bench press. At first the discovery elated, filled him with a childish glee, cementing his theories and confirming his investigative excellence. He thought how impressed Boldt would be to discover that his own suspicions of Vince Wynn had not only been well founded but on the mark.

Just below the crown of the bat was a rust-colored smudge and what looked to be some human hair. He was looking at the murder weapon, and though he had yet to equate the truck’s abandonment with the discarded bat, the timing and the logistics, the connection to Gale seemed inevitable. With any luck the case might be closed by noon, and the cameras and reporters could go home.

He donned surgical gloves, checking behind him. He’d lost sight of Gilly, off in the woods. And now, from well below, the first winks of arriving headlights. And behind those another set. His team would be here in a matter of minutes and, hopefully, Fiona among them-someone to celebrate the find with.

He dropped to one knee and was reaching for the center of the bat-keeping his contact off both the handle and the blood evidence-when the flashlight cast small shadows over the burned engraving-a script font-and three letters: ton

He knew bats-Louisville Sluggers in particular-knew the placement of the logo and the location on the bat of certain brands or endorsements. This fit neither. Without giving it any thought his mind jumped ahead, trying to process which slugger this particular bat was named for, and why it might have been burned onto the bat so far down the head. He spun the bat slightly and the rest of the name appeared: Engleton.

A WOOD RIVER LITTLE LEAGUE ALL-STAR DONOR: MICHAEL ENGLETON

Walt froze, the sound of the approaching vehicles growing louder. Off-balance and dizzy, he realized he wasn’t breathing. The bat was supposed to have come from Vince Wynn’s autograph collection. It was supposed to prove beyond a doubt that Wynn had taken the law into his own hands, just as he’d threatened to do.

The next image in his head was that of Kira Tulivich raising a bat and coming from the Engleton house toward Walt as he peered into Fiona’s window. Kira Tulivich, so traumatized and victimized that she couldn’t get through her keynote address without having a flashback that kept her from continuing.

The vehicles approached. Walt, hand on the bat, hesitated.

“The bat could have been stolen,” he said aloud, quickly shutting his gob and thinking of the mountain man, or the meth cooker, or whoever had vandalized the Berkholders’ place.

The bat firmly in hand now, he held it down, in lockstep with the movement of his right leg, as he marched hurriedly toward the idling Jeep. Beatrice went frantic with his approach. The headlights of the oncoming cars grew nearer.

Gilly Menquez appeared out of nowhere, at the rear of the SUV. “Sheriff?”

Walt stopped, keeping the bat screened from Menquez. “Gilly?”

“You got anything?” Walt didn’t answer. “For me to do?” he added.

“Wave those cars down and keep them from contaminating the scene. Stop them back there as far as you can and tell them to kill their lights. Hurry it up.”

Gilly took off running. A moment later, as the car lights went dark, Walt slipped open his Jeep’s back hatch, switched off the interior light, wrapped the bat in a blue tarp, the same blue tarp they’d used to move Gale’s body, and tucked the bundle behind his emergency backpack at the hinge of the backseat.