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  No, Karen hadn’t heard any shots this morning. No, Curt hadn’t been worried or upset about anything in the recent past. He could be argumentative with people who didn’t see things his way, but there hadn’t been anything like that in months.

  The sheriff finally let her go back to staring at the bedroom ceiling, and allowed Cassie to call the neighbor woman to come take charge of Karen.

  Once Carol Whitney arrived, Holcomb walked Cassie out to her car. When she got in and reached to close the door, he gripped the top of it and looked down at her. “Front page is fine. Do not mention the balloon.” The steel in his voice would have worked fine for a sergeant speaking to a raw recruit stumbling into boot camp.

  In defense of her profession, she had an obligation to taunt him. “Freedom of the press? Is the concept familiar?”

  Those gunmetal gray eyes narrowed. “I can’t stop you.” And the knowledge clearly pained him. “I’m asking you.”

  Cassie went for exaggerated surprise. “Oh, is that what you were doing?”

  The hint of crow’s feet beside those eyes crinkled, giving her reason to suspect she had amused him.

  “I’m not much of a diplomat.”

  “You might work at it,” she suggested sweetly. Then, “I have no intention of mentioning the balloon. It was…” She hesitated.

  Holcomb supplied the missing word. “Obscene.”

  “Yeah, that’s close enough.”

  “I have your promise?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

  A laugh escaped him. “That’s me.”

  Cassie tugged at the door again. “Goodbye.”

  He still didn’t let go. “If he calls…”

  “You’ll be the first to know.”

  “Okay.” He frowned down at her for a moment, opened his mouth as if to say something, then shook his head. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She finally slammed the car door, started the engine and backed out. Maybe a quarter of a mile down the ranch road, she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw him finally turn away.

  Having already composed most of her article in her head, she could hardly wait to get to her computer. Home, she decided; people might still be lingering at the newspaper office. She had a lot of work ahead of her tonight even after she had the article ready to go. She’d have to start the layout nearly from scratch, unless she deleted something of comparable length and could do an easier transfer. That would take some thought, however. The article on the road construction project and what effect it was having on downtown businesses had to remain, although she’d shift it below the fold.

  She had to pass through Fort Halleck on the way home, which scarcely slowed her down. Though it was the largest town in the county, and the county seat, calling it a ‘city’ was a stretch. Necessary businesses, eight or ten stoplights, and a neat grid of streets summed it up. The town had grown up surrounding a 19th century fort, the remnants of which had been preserved in a large park within the city limits. To kids, the real attraction was a deep pool at a curve taken by Desperation Creek, which bisected the county in its wandering path. Cassie would have called it a small river; it ran really high with snow-melt in the spring. Right now, ripples of cold water passed between icy banks when she crossed the creek on a concrete bridge built by the WPA during the depression.

  Her childhood – and current – home was a ranch house not all that different from the Steagalls’, except close to town and filled with books. Her father had gradually sold off most of his original acreage, keeping only enough for a horse and two steers raised for beef each year. Fortunately, she’d been able to find a neighbor teenager to take care of the animals for the time being.

  The aging Chevy Blazer parked in front of the garage belonged to his daytime caretaker. Until this week, her replacement would have been arriving at five o’clock. He’d won when he and Cassie had argued about dropping that shift. Nothing new in that; they didn’t agree about much.

  It was true he didn’t need as much help now, nothing she couldn’t handle, but he was determined not to have any help. Cassie knew darned well Dad would have let the daytime caretaker go, too, except for his determination not to have to depend on his not-so-beloved daughter for too much. He had hated having to ask her to come home in the first place. Hated having to let her make decisions he didn’t believe she was qualified to make. If he’d seen any other alternative, he would have seized it. But he’d drawn one line: having her see him naked or wipe his butt, as he put it, was an unimaginable indignity.

  Early on, when he’d made his wishes plain despite his difficult speech, she’d asked, “What’s the difference between me and Susan seeing you naked?”

  He got that bullish look and said, “She’s a married woman.”

  “I’ve seen naked men.”

  “Not your own damn father!”

  And that was, so far, that.

  So now, with no help but her in the house evenings and during the night, she hovered in anxiety every time he went into the bathroom alone, envisioning all the hard or sharp surfaces his head could hit. Died of Stubbornness would be about right etched on his gravestone.

  Yes, returning to the parental fold had been great fun.

  Tonight, she especially wished they hadn’t yet canceled the next shift. Nonetheless, barring Dad having a fall, she intended to disappear into his home office and not emerge until the newspaper was ready to go out for print.

  Cassie found her father in his recliner watching CNN, and the Monday-through-Friday caretaker, Susan Bonner, placidly knitting on the sofa. Cassie smiled at Susan and kissed the top of Dad’s head even as he scowled and tried to jerk away.

  “I need to do some work, or I’d tell you to take off early. But once I get deep into a story, I’m not sure I’d hear Dad.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” Susan assured her. “I put together a casserole you can pop in the oven whenever you’re ready.”

  “Bless you.” Cooking dinner wasn’t part of the job, but Susan insisted. Cassie, who usually subsisted on microwave dinners or salads, had surrendered with barely a polite protest.

  Her father asked, “What story?” The words were slurred, but practice let her understand him. As far as she could tell, his brain remained sharp, his intolerance undiminished.

  “Tell you over dinner,” she said. “Or, better yet, I’ll have you proof the article.”

  He grunted dissatisfaction with this plan, but turned back to CNN’s coverage of the latest terrorist bombing in east Africa.

  She’d already decided not to tell him that Curt had been killed by a headshot, given that Mom had blown out her brains. Cassie refused to let her father see how this had reawakened buried memories. Although if she burst into tears, it would probably never occur to him why she’d do that. He’d seemingly dismissed his wife from his mind the day she died.

  Sitting down in the desk chair, Cassie closed her eyes. Dad hadn’t even seen Mom’s body. Would he have been hit harder if he’d heard the crack of gunfire, seen in technicolor what a bullet did to a woman’s head?

  Yeah, probably not. Her fingers bit into the padded chair arms. The cold front Daddy dearest presented to the world was just him. If any regrets or tenderness existed beneath the hard outer crust, he’d taken care that his daughter never saw them.

  It took her longer than she liked to compose herself, but an hour later, Cassie read over what she’d written and was generally satisfied. She spent another half hour tweaking, then considered whether it was anything the Oregonian might want to print. She regretfully decided not. Not yet, anyway. The balloon, a bizarre element, would have been a grabber, but she’d promised. As it was, the murder didn’t stand out. Now, if Curt Steagall’s death proved to be part of the nasty, running debate over federal land policies and the impact of allowing cattle to graze along streambeds and damage the increasingly fragile ecosystem, her editor would jump on the story.

  Mulling over her next move, she decided to do some asking
around about Curt’s stands on the issues. She’d start by running a query on any references to him in the Courier. None of that should step on Holcomb’s toes, and if it did – too bad. Her specialty was stepping on toes. In fact, Cassie took pride in the number of people who really hated to hear from her.

  Of course, she’d like to think it was her pointed questions and doggedness they hated rather than her, personally. Which got her speculating again about this morning’s caller. What would he have done if he hadn’t reached her, if someone else had answered the phone? Say, Andy Sloane, whose name was also on the website and the byline of half or more of the articles in any given week? Would he have demanded to speak to her instead?

  Could he be someone who harbored real anger at her?

  But she was shaking her head even as the question crossed her mind. That underlying mockery shading into amusement was the closest thing to an emotion she’d picked up. No, she’d lay down money that she was incidental. Anyway, even if he were a local, there was no way he’d remember what happened when she was a kid. He wanted attention and expected her to give it to him in the guise of news, simple as that.

  Even so, she was conscious of that same uneasy mix of excitement and dread. This could turn into a big story, her life blood. The dread came from wondering if the murder had been a one-off, or only the beginning because…? There was the question.

  And…would she remain incidental to the caller? Or had he imagined they’d opened a dialogue, formed a connection? Reluctant, she added yet another question. How pissed would he be when he read this week’s paper and saw that she’d left out the balloon, his signature?

  No point in worrying before the facts. Cassie closed her laptop and went to turn on the oven.

  *****

  Jed didn’t love having his boss look at him with suspicion, whether he’d expected it or not. They’d been edging toward friendship, he thought, their backgrounds similar enough to allow a level of understanding he hadn’t had with many men outside of his close-knit unit. Some veterans he’d met since mustering out liked to brag about their usually limited combat experience, or wanted to compare notes. Grant had seen the basics on Jed’s resume, nodded, and never said another word about it until now.

  But just this morning, Grant had waved him into his office and said, “Sit.” He looked harassed, no surprise given that they were now two days out from the first murder to take place in this county in years, and hadn’t found anything to go on yet. Yeah, this conversation came as no surprise.

  He steeled himself not to show any hint that he was insulted or felt betrayed when Grant asked where he’d been when the murder took place.

  “Home,” he’d said with a shrug. “It was my day off.” He’d had trouble sleeping, as he often did, and finally conked out at 5:30 or so that morning. He’d still been barefoot and on his second cup of coffee when Grant called asking him to come out to the Circle S.

  The sheriff had ended this morning’s chat by saying testily, “You know I don’t think you had anything to do with it, but given your background I had to ask.”

  Jed kept his mouth shut. He dipped his head, more in acknowledgement than understanding, and left.

  Of course Grant had had to look at him for this crime. He’d sure as shit been a killer, and who among the American public didn’t know that men like him came back damaged? A man who did what he had bore deep wounds that might take years to quit festering, if they ever did.

  Jed had come home and hired on with Atlanta P.D. because they had openings, unlike any of the smaller towns or counties in the part of Georgia he came from. He’d done patrol for two years, resisting the pressure to move over to SWAT that came because of his military experience. He’d gotten a promotion to detective sooner than most of his co-workers thought he deserved, leading to some resentment that his disinterest in camaraderie hadn’t helped. Homicide suited him. Dead bodies were commonplace to him. If he’d gone to the gang unit or narcotics, he was afraid he’d eventually have had to kill someone. Nobody he worked with there would have understood how he recoiled from that possibility. Jed had come home that last time with only two goals, besides getting by.

  The first was never to have to kill another man, woman or child again. The second, he hadn’t let himself think seriously about until maybe a year ago. It – she – was why he was here in a town that didn’t have a lot to offer except a miserable climate. He’d told himself he wouldn’t go looking for Linette unless and until he felt confident that he was stable. Able to feel again, maybe even talk a little about why he’d walked away from her.

  Well, he’d gone so far as to track her down, but six months later he hadn’t worked up the courage to knock on her door. He wondered if she read the Hayes County Courier, which had done a feature on him. If so, she hadn’t been moved to pick up the phone and call him. From what people told him, she wasn’t seriously involved with any man, but that didn’t mean she’d be glad to see him, or willing to forgive him.

  Even so, Wednesday morning he’d been thinking this could be the day…when his phone rang and he learned that a sharpshooter had killed a local rancher. What small feelings of hope he’d mustered fizzled out like coals beneath a bucketful of water.

  Something had told him that Grant Holcomb would start to wonder about him. How could he help it?

  *****

  Grant had jack shit.

  No surveillance cameras out on the wild expanse of federal land. Curt’s cell phone data hadn’t turned up a thing except calls to Karen, his friends and the feed and tack store in town. In the last month, the credit card had been used at the grocery store and the pharmacy. Period. Nobody had heard the gunshot, maybe because of chance, maybe distance…or maybe because the shooter had used a suppressor.

  On Friday afternoon, Grant held the obligatory initial press conference, feeling like a fool as he spoke to Cassie, a stringer from the Oregonian accompanied by a photographer, and a cameraman and reporter from KBNZ. Since he didn’t want to share a good part of what he did know, such as it was, he said, “There are details of the investigation I can’t release at this time,” repeatedly. He probably looked wooden and uncomfortable. He tried not to look at Cassie more than he could help, given the irony and possibly amusement he saw on her face.

  One of the few details he had released right away, besides Curt’s name, was that they’d recovered a bullet from deep in a bale of hay – and the search for it had been tedious beyond belief – but it was a caliber common as jackrabbits in these parts. It had suffered some damage drilling through a man’s skull, and had enough blood on it for them to know it was the bullet that had killed Steagall. If a second shot had been taken, they hadn’t turned up the bullet.

  The rest, useless as it was, he kept to himself.

  Using a magnifying glass, the crime scene investigator had gone over the shooter’s blind, and particularly the big sagebrush, hoping to find a tiny shred of cloth or a hair or a bit of blood suggesting the shooter had been scratched by a rigid branch. She found nothing. And why would she? The guy would have been as bundled up against the cold as the cops and investigative support people were.

  Balloon? No fingerprints. The bright yellow, smiley face balloons were popular, Grant had learned, sometimes sold at area grocery stores, but the IGA in town hadn’t carried it since last summer. However, the balloons could be purchased online, usually in multi-packs. If the killer had bought it that way, he’d need access to a helium tank.

  Grant had already tracked down businesses in town that had a tank, and asked questions about who might have access to it. The results hadn’t fit in the jigsaw puzzle he was assembling.

  Newspapers were being delivered today. Probably by now, in fact. Maybe he’d walk down to the office and talk to Cassie. Better than spinning in circles the way he was.

  His phone rang, the number hers, as if he’d conjured her.

  “Holcomb.”

  “He just called,” she said, without preamble.

  “Damn
. We should have put a trace on your phone.”

  “This is a newspaper office. We cannot allow you to tap into our phones. Letting you look at the LUDs is as far as I’m willing to go.”

  He gritted his teeth, but only said, “Are you at your office?”

  “No, I’m walking to the sheriff’s department. Unless you’re not there?”

  “I am.”

  The next five minutes passed with excruciating slowness. He couldn’t think about anything but what the fucker had had to say and the implications of him demanding attention.

  A civilian employee who served where a desk sergeant and dispatcher would in a better staffed department finally ushered Cassie into his office.

  She tugged off her hat, leaving her hair as fluffy as an owl’s feathers. Her cheeks were crimson, either from the exertion or the biting cold. Her bright-eyed, inquisitive face reminded him of a squirrel’s or a ferret’s. He doubted she’d appreciate either comparison.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Please,” she said fervently. “God, I’m looking forward to spring.”

  “You’ve gone soft living in Portland.” On the west side of the Cascade Mountain range, Portland had a wet, temperate climate. Sub-zero temperatures were unknown, snow rare.

  “I guess I have,” she admitted, reaching gratefully for the cup he handed her. “Dad says around here, we have nine months of winter and three months of summer.”

  Grant laughed. “That’s about right. Beats the southwest, where they have nine months of summer instead.”

  She dumped a packet of sugar into her coffee, stirred with the little stick, and took a swallow. Then she looked at him.

  “He wanted to know why I didn’t mention the balloon.”

  “I thought you might hear from him.”

  “Me, too, but…” Her hesitation felt like uneasiness. “I explained that it was usual for the police to withhold a detail, and then he wanted to know if I’d seen the body and balloon. When I said yes, he asked why I was cooperating with the police. If I was a committed journalist, I should believe the public deserves to read the full truth instead of whatever portion you deemed printable.”