No One Else to Kill (Jim West Series) (30 page)

“Stop right there,” the speaker roared again, too loud at
this short of a distance.
 
I stopped
about fifteen paces from the car.

A deputy approached me from the other side of the sedan.

“Turn around,” she ordered.

“I’m Jim West.
 
I’m
the good guy,” I said, but I still turned around.

She did a quick frisk looking for any obvious weapons,
then grabbed my arms and cuffed me.

“Get in the car,” she ordered. “We’ll get this
straightened out soon enough.”

I climbed into the back seat, and a moment later we were
speeding back to the cabin with all the lights on.

“Are my friends safe?” I asked.

Neither of them answered me.
 
We pulled in front of the cabin at the same
time another sheriff’s vehicle arrived. This one brought Detective Bruno.
 
The female deputy from the car that held me
captive walked up to him.
 
I saw a big
grin appear on his face early in the conversation. He looked over in my
direction.
 
His grin seemed to get even
larger.
 
They both approached the car.

“Who’s this nefarious criminal you captured?” Bruno asked
while opening my door.

“Not funny,” I said.

“You can release him, Polly. That is unless you want to
keep him - he is single.”

He caught Polly off guard with his comment. She must not
have known that Deputy Bruno considered us buddies. Plus, she may not have
thought his comment was especially appropriate. However, she did help me out of
the car and removed the handcuffs.

“Just following procedure, you know,” she said quietly.

I wondered if she didn’t want Bruno to hear her.

“So Mr. Victor
Schutte
is our
killer. You know, he was my top pick of the litter,” Bruno remarked.

“I’ll walk him inside, Detective.”

“Good, good,” Bruno mumbled.

I had the feeling then that Bruno may have had a few
drinks before arriving at the scene.

“I think I’ll walk around and see if he’s still out there
somewhere,” Bruno said.

My deputy escort stopped in her tracks and made eye
contact with her partner, who now stood outside the sheriff’s vehicle he had
been driving. She motioned with her head, and her partner nodded.

“Let me go with you, Detective,” her partner suggested to
Bruno.

The two of them walked away, and we continued inside.
 
The house bubbled with activity. One deputy
talked on the phone, a woman with pretty straight grey hair, maybe a few years
older than me, poured coffee in cups set on a tray, two emergency service
technicians were trying to check out Geri, and Geri had a death grip on Sean’s
right arm.
 
Sean saw me and smiled. His
eyes and smile screamed “Redemption!”

I gave him a thumbs-up, and he returned the gesture.

“Please, let go of him and relax, so we can make sure
you’re okay,” one of them said to Geri.

“I don’t want to let go of him.
 
He saved my life out there.”
 
She turned to face Sean and then rested her
head on his shoulder.
 
If they were cats,
one or both of them would have been purring.

I could see that Geri’s wrists and legs above her ankles
were red.
 
I guessed the wounds came from
duct tape or something similar used to bind her legs and arms.

Another deputy sat at a table and wrote notes on a sheet
of paper.
 
A man walked out of an
adjoining room and went directly into the kitchen.
 
He looked at me as he passed, but his eyes
lingered a little longer on Polly. I didn’t see any recognition by either, so I
figured he was the man of the house.

“You okay?”
 
Sean
asked me.

“Yeah, just a little cold.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No, but hopefully nowhere near here,” I said.

“Let’s hold off on the conversation until we’ve had a
chance to talk,” Deputy Polly said.

“Okay.”

She led me to the far side of the small table where the
deputy was writing.

“Now what can you tell me about what happened tonight?”
she asked once we were both seated.

“The whole story?”

“Yes.”

I started at the point where I saw Vic and Geri arguing by
their car and explained that I knew he wanted to leave tonight, but that she
wanted to wait until tomorrow.
 
When he
became violent, I walked up to them simply to calm things down.
 
When I mentioned the revolver appearing in
Vic’s hand, the deputy doing the writing put his pen down and started
listening.
 
From then until I stopped
talking about thirty minutes later, they both just listened and asked few
questions.

More deputies arrived and left, and I had two cups of very
good coffee before the interview ended.
 
At that point, I led the two deputies interviewing me to the canoe,
pointed out where the canoe had been before I had taken it, and pointed out the
two cabins Sean and I visited.
 
I made
sure they understood that Vic had spent some time in the one cabin.
 
I admitted to breaking a window at the other
cabin in order to gain access, but they didn’t seem interested.
 
We saw no sign of Vic.

We returned to the cabin. Geri’s grip on Sean hadn’t
loosened a bit, but if it bothered him, I couldn’t tell.
 
The two medical service personnel had
departed, and I realized that I hadn’t seen the ambulance out front.
 
More deputies were in the house, but I didn’t
see Bruno.
 
A deep voice boomed behind
me.
 
I turned and saw the Sheriff.
 
He held a large mug of coffee in his hands.

“Everybody but
Smitty
and Polly outside and start looking.
 
I imagine he’s miles from here by now, but let’s get going.
 
You know your search areas.
 
Let’s go.”

The place emptied.
 
He looked at me and smiled.

“I hear you had an exciting night,” he said.

“That’s right, Sheriff, but I’m glad it’s over.”

“Why don’t you have a seat over there with your friends?
Polly,
Smitty
, you two with me in the kitchen.”

I hadn’t talked to
Smitty
, but I
believed he was the deputy who had been interviewing Sean and Geri. I sat down
on the couch next to Sean.
 
The couch was
barely large enough for three adults.
 
Fortunately Sean and Geri weren’t taking up much space, so I could
stretch out.

“I’m glad you’re safe, Jim.
 
I really thought you went over that
cliff.
 
Wasn’t it great that Sean came
along and saved us both?”

I didn’t quite remember Sean’s role being any more
significant than mine.
 
After all, I put
myself out as a target to draw Vic away from her, not Sean. Yet, I knew in the
end it didn’t matter who she wanted to credit for her rescue.

“Absolutely,” I said.

I looked at Sean.
 
His eyes were focused on Geri, not me.
 
I’m not sure he even heard what she said.
 
Geri rested her head on Sean’s shoulder again
and shut her eyes.
 
Sean rested his head
on top of hers and shut his eyes. I had taken a seat on the couch so I could
talk to Sean.
 
Now I felt like I was
intruding in their space.

I moved to the only chair in the living room, an old
rocker with a flowery cushion. I think both Sean and Geri had fallen asleep,
and I almost had before Polly and
Smitty
came out of
the kitchen.

“Okay you all, let’s get you back to the lodge,” Polly
said.

I liked Deputy Polly.
 
She was all business.
 
I couldn’t
help but wonder what she was like in her civilian life. With her uniform,
jacket and hat on, I couldn’t tell much about her, but she came across as very
competent.

“How about my car?”
Sean asked.

“We have that area staked out.
 
We’d prefer to leave it undisturbed, at least
until the morning,”
Smitty
said.

The three of us piled into the back seat of the same
Sheriff’s sedan that I had been in earlier.
 
This time Polly drove us. I tried some small talk on the way back, but
Sean and Geri didn’t have much interest in conversation, at least not with me.
I put my head back and tried to get some sleep, but I had too much on my mind.

I tried to put myself in Vic’s place.
 
Where would he, could he go?
 
He would most likely be captured within
twenty four hours.
 
However, until he
was, I figured Geri might be in danger. There had been deputies in and around
the lodge for the past couple of days.
 
I
imagined keeping one there for another day to watch Geri shouldn’t be much of a
problem for them.

A funny thought popped into my mind.
 
It had only been a few hours ago she had
insinuated that if she became afraid she might come to me, or was that Randi
who had said that?
  
Tonight, Geri had a
new hero. Good for both of them, I thought.

The trip back took longer than the drive out because the
road from the cabins went in the wrong direction for a few miles before it
intersected with the main road. I looked at my watch.
 
It surprised me that it was only a little
after midnight. It looked like I could still get in a good six hours or so of
sleep.
 
Tomorrow would be another long
day, but I was definitely going home tomorrow.

Despite all the excitement, no one had briefed the lodge.
The bar was empty, the dining room door shut and the lone clerk at the
reception counter looked half asleep.
 
Our arrival, along with the two deputies,
livened
him up.

“Evening.
 
Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Now it is,” Geri spoke first.

We walked by the receptionist and headed for our rooms.
Polly escorted Geri but only detached her from Sean after the two had agreed to
spend the night together in his room.
 
Geri said she didn’t want to spend another night in her old room, the
one that she had shared with Vic. Polly had suggested the lodge could give her
a new room, but Geri insisted she would feel safer with Sean.

The remaining deputy didn’t know which one of us he should
escort to our rooms.
 
I suggested Sean as
that was where Geri would be shortly anyway.
 
It worked, and I returned to my room alone.
 
I did inspect it, even though I couldn’t
imagine Vic heading back here.
 
I was
alone and safe.
 
I showered and went to
bed.
 
Despite all the excitement, I fell
asleep soon after my head hit the pillow.

he ringing of the lodge phone awoke
me at seven thirty.

“Yeah,” I managed to croak into the phone.

“Good morning, Jim.
 
This is Randall. Get your butt down here, and I’ll buy you some
breakfast.”

“Someone’s in a good mood,” I said to kill time while I
tried to remember if I had met a Randall recently.

“Why wouldn’t I be?
 
We’ve got the case solved.
 
Both of them.”

Oh yeah, I remembered a Randall, a Detective Randall
Bruno.

“Did you find Vic?” I asked.

“Not yet, but it’s only a matter of time. He’s probably
out freezing his butt off in the mountains right about now, but come on
down.
 
I do need to talk to you.”

“Give me five minutes,” I said and hung up.

Detective Bruno sat at a table in the dining room by
himself with two cups of steaming coffee placed in front of him.
 
The rest of the dining room was still empty.

He stood when I approached with a big grin on his face.

“I understand you had a scary night last night,” he said.

“You were there for part of it.”

“Only a few minutes.
 
I shouldn’t have come out at all, but I had
to.
 
My neighbors celebrated their
twentieth wedding anniversary last night, and I’d had too much to drink. But
when I heard the news, I had to come out.”