Tumbledown (29 page)

Standing well beyond his reach, Sarah rubbed her bruised throat and tried to make sense of the exchange. The guards frog-marched Barrett away, leaving her alone with Kendall.

“You sure you’re okay?” Kendall asked.

“Yes.” Sarah was too shaken to hide her impatience. “What the hell is going on?”

“Your transfer has been authorized.” Kendall gestured for Sarah to walk with her. “Barrett was supposed to bring you over to collect your possessions and prepare you for shipping out.”

“But he took a detour.”

“Yeah, you could say that.” She sighed, evidently uncertain how much she could divulge. “Look, this is confidential, but seeing as you’re leaving us anyway and he targeted you, I guess you have a right to know. He has a couple of ongoing charges for brutality and two unproven claims of sexual assault against him. We’ve been keeping a close eye on him since he picked up duties on this wing.”

Sarah wasn’t sure exactly what her face did in response to that disclosure, but it made Kendall stop walking and ask her again if she was okay.

“I’m fine, and I think I owe you a thank-you,” she said. Barrett might have had no connection to Deakin, but he had brought her down that corridor for a reason. She didn’t want to consider what might have happened had Kendall not been alerted.

“Let’s just get you ready to go.” Kendall seemed uncomfortable accepting gratitude, but she smiled and unlocked a connecting door. “This is where he should’ve taken you.”

The area they passed into was well lit, with plenty of inmates hanging around, chatting, or wandering between cells. At the end of the block, Kendall entered a small storeroom and came out holding a bright orange jumpsuit.

“Get changed into this. Then we’ll collect your gear, and you and I get to take a ride to Ruby.”

Sarah followed her to the washroom. “You driving?” she asked.

“No, not sure who is. I’ll be spending the entire trip handcuffed to you.”

“Oh, aren’t you the lucky one?” Despite that prospect, and her close call with Barrett, Sarah was delighted that something was finally happening. She accepted the garish jumpsuit without complaint and took it into the nearest cubicle.

*

Nothing much had changed at the station in the weeks Alex had been on sick leave; the coffee certainly hadn’t improved. She set her mug down on the desk and pulled the case file toward her. Quinn had gone to find sandwiches, leaving her alone in the interview room and providing her with too good an opportunity to pass up. The file was thick but well organized, broken down chronologically and by department: forensics, statements and interviews, autopsy reports, scene photography. Caleb Deakin had a section all to himself, but it was wafer-thin compared to the one marked
Sarah Hayes
.

Alex took Emerson’s list from her back pocket and placed it beside the file. Twelve names. She had been working on them through the afternoon, whittling them down using the tried and trusted methodology of Motive, Means, and Opportunity. Which of them was best placed to assist Caleb Deakin? Which of them had something to gain? She couldn’t ascribe motive to anyone, and only four had had both the means and opportunity. Those names were now highlighted with red pen and arrows and each of them was an experienced police officer.

“Damn it,” she muttered.

Not wanting to antagonize Quinn, she pushed the list back into her pocket before he could return. She went to flick through the file again, but her hand stilled at one of the initial statements. The handwriting was a familiar, lazy scrawl, intermittently illegible despite the number of warnings that had been issued about it. It was the account of the first officer on scene, the first to find Lyssa’s body and to raise suspicions about Sarah’s injuries. His account was methodical, if somewhat unsophisticated, and it had been enough to earn him a promotion from the reserves.

A small, gnawing sense of unease began to grow stronger as Alex compared the scene time given in the report to the time of the 911 call log. A nine-minute response wasn’t unheard of, but with so few officers on patrol, it was highly unusual, especially for a call from a cabin twenty minutes out of town at the end of a tortuous dirt track. Unless…

“Shit.”

She was at the door within seconds. She yanked it open and jogged across the empty office to the dispatch desk, where she crouched low so that no one would see her in passing.

“Esther, I need a really big favor.”

“I’m allergic to cats, honey.”

“What?” Alex shook her head in sudden comprehension. “Oh, no, not more pet-sitting. No, I need to know what Larry Tobin’s patrol route was on the night of Lyssa’s death.”

“Officer Tobin?” Esther frowned, obviously perturbed.

“Yes. He was first on scene. It’s really important, Esther. Please.”

She heard footsteps and turned to see Quinn opening the door of the interview room. Esther watched too, waiting until he had entered the room before she typed a rapid sequence into her computer.

“East River. There’d been a spate of minor thefts on Coppice Hill, so we’d doubled patrols there.” The frown lines creasing Esther’s face deepened as she noticed the discrepancy. “Hmm, that’s odd.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “I thought so too.”

She closed her eyes and focused on working through her half-formed suspicion. East River was the opposite side of town, which should have tripled Tobin’s response time. Reaching the scene in nine minutes would have been impossible for him, unless he had already known about the murder and—assuming that Lyssa’s body would lie undiscovered for hours—had been en route to cover Deakin’s tracks for him when Sarah phoned 911.

Alex pushed back onto her feet, using the desk for leverage. As she did so, Quinn came out of the interview room, but he barely even glanced at her as he strode to his office.

“Is Tobin on duty tonight?” she asked Esther.

“Yes. He was on the afternoon shift, but he volunteered to pull a double, so he’s staying through the twilight.”

“Running solo or partnered?”

Esther checked the roster. “Solo. Quinn’s trying to partner him up, but no one’s interested.”

“I need to speak to Quinn about bringing him in.” She wasn’t looking forward to that conversation at all. Throughout the first three hours of her interview, Quinn had been reluctant to accept the concept of a local accomplice; she didn’t like to think how he would react to the news that one of his officers might be the culprit.

“You really think Officer Tobin is involved?” Esther sounded troubled, as if she had drawn the same conclusion but hoped Alex might talk her out of it.

“Yes, I think so.” It felt good to say it aloud, the disparate pieces finally making a cohesive whole. “Will you let me know if he gets on the radio?”

Esther nodded. “Are you going to tell Chief Quinn?”

“I have to.” Through the frosted glass of his office window, Alex could see him talking on the phone, which at least gave her time to rehearse what she needed to say. “Wish me luck.”

Esther rearranged her headset as a red button began to flash on her display. “Good luck,” she whispered. She hit the button and spoke into the headset with well-practiced authority. “Nine one one. What is your emergency?”

*

As Kendall approached with a set of cuffs, Sarah set down the plastic bag containing her own clothing and offered her wrists. The metal bracelets clicked into place one notch at a time.

“They okay?” Kendall asked, fitting a third cuff around her own wrist to leave herself linked to Sarah by a short length of chain.

“Yep, they’re fine.” Sarah stooped to collect her bag. “Bit last-minute this, isn’t it?” she said, once she’d managed to coordinate walking in step with Kendall.

Kendall shrugged. “I guess someone decided that getting you transferred ought to happen sooner rather than later. Chief Quinn sent an officer across with the finalized paperwork, and the administrator here isn’t going to argue about it, not when it means one less out-of-area prisoner he has to accommodate and feed.”

“Never really thought of it like that.”

“I’m sure you’ve had other things on your mind,” Kendall said, with a hint of contrition in her voice. “Let’s just get you one step closer, huh?”

One step closer to what, she chose not to specify, but she returned Sarah’s smile as she swiped a card down a keypad. They entered a large loading bay with automated shuttered doors at either end to facilitate a strict one-way system. An Avery PD patrol unit was the only vehicle parked. Its driver got out as they approached.

“Hey, Sarah.” The officer nodded at her. “Ready to go?”

“Yep,” she said. She recognized him but was struggling to remember his name.

He went to open the car door and then hesitated, seeming to realize belatedly why Kendall was there. “I’m sure I can get her over to Ruby without any problems,” he said. He pointed to the restraints. “Is an armed guard really necessary?”

“It’s procedure, especially as you’re in a regular patrol car with no prisoner cage,” Kendall said, not bothering to hide her annoyance that he had even raised the issue.

“Right.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Right, okay.” He ushered them into the rear seat and then sat tapping his fingers on the wheel, watching the shutters rise and craning his neck to spot the exit light flicking to green. The instant it did so, he accelerated away, the wheels skidding on the diesel-slick asphalt, the jolt flinging his passengers sideways in their seat.

“Bloody male drivers,” Sarah muttered, sitting up again. She remembered the officer’s name now; she was surprised it had taken her so long, when he had been the first to help her on the night Lyssa died. It was Tobin, Officer Larry Tobin.

*

The coffee tasted burned and bitter, but it was the only liquid Alex had to remedy the dryness of her mouth. Quinn had finally ended his phone call, and although she still had no real idea how to broach the subject, she knew she had to tell him about Tobin. He opened his office door just as she was about to knock on it and seemed startled to find her standing there.

“Damn, Alex. Sorry, I…” His eyes flicked to his watch. “I got caught up in something there and lost track a little. You want me to head out and grab us both a burger, then we can finish up?”

“No.” The harshness of her tone made them both flinch. She tried again. “No, sir, I need to speak to you about something else.”

He regarded her warily. “What?”

“Officer Tobin, sir.”

“Officer Tobin?” He almost did a double take. “What about him?”

There was no easy way to tell him, and she had never been fond of procrastination. “I think he’s the one helping Caleb Deakin,” she said, watching Quinn’s expression. He didn’t protest, so she took it as permission to continue, explaining about the discrepancies in the response times and about her theory that Tobin had been the one to cover Deakin’s tracks. The delay in speaking to Quinn had given her the opportunity to think everything through, and she was certain now that she had identified the right man.

“Tobin is perfectly placed to access inside information.” She started to pace as she spoke. “If Deakin knew from the start that he wasn’t being considered seriously as a suspect, it would have given him the confidence to stay in the area. He’s been able to wait, knowing that whatever happens, Tobin will be able to give him a heads-up in advance.” She stopped pacing as she noticed all the color draining from Quinn’s face.

“Shit,” he muttered. He pushed past her and strode over to Esther’s desk. “Get Tobin on the radio now,” he told her. “Call him up as a routine voice check. Tell him we’re having problems with the transmissions again.”

“Yes, sir.”

Alex stared at Quinn; he wasn’t putting up a fight, wasn’t defending his officer. What the fuck was going on?

“I checked my desk, and I checked the file in case someone had put it in there, but I couldn’t find it,” he said, more to himself than to Alex. He swiped at the sweat on his forehead.

“Couldn’t find what?” Alex had to force herself to ask the question.

He remained silent as Esther put out the first call.

“Couldn’t find what?” Alex fought the urge to grasp him by the shoulders and shake a response out of him.

“Buchanan authorized my request for Sarah’s transfer,” he said. “It came through late this afternoon, so I was going to wait till morning to send someone over for her. I was sure I’d left the paperwork on my desk, but it’s…I had to call Buchanan up just now to ask for another copy of it.”

“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.” Alex looked at Quinn and then at Esther, willing them to tell her that she was wrong, that Tobin had been contacted and was obediently making his way back to the station.

“He’s not answering,” Esther said, her timing inadvertently cruel.

Quinn pushed her aside and repeated the hail, ordering Tobin to respond. Alex shook her head as static whistled back through the speaker.

“Call the jail,” she said, but no one seemed to be listening to her. Quinn hit the mike again, and she tore the handset away from him and slammed it onto the desk. “He’s not there. He’s going for Sarah!” She was shouting now, panic overwhelming her. “Call the fucking jail!”

Feedback from the abandoned mike screeched as Esther keyed in a phone number. She hit a button, cutting off the radio connection, her fingers working automatically even as she started to hyperventilate. “Sir?” She handed her headset to Quinn. “You’re through to the Prescott administrator.”

He spoke into the set with remarkable calm, but his posture gave everything away.

“When?” Alex choked the word out, feeling as if her world were tumbling down around her.

“Within the last half hour,” he said. “He can’t have gotten far. There’s an APB going out countywide.”

“He’s taking her to Deakin.”

“I don’t…”

Realizing that Quinn was floundering, Alex ignored him and spoke to Esther. “You have Agent Castillo’s number?”

Esther nodded, already scrolling through a directory. Alex declined the headset and picked up the phone instead. Castillo answered the call with his usual haste.

“Chief Quinn?” Castillo evidently utilized caller ID.