“No.”
“What about Fiona?” Aanestead asked. “She see Gale around the place? She confirm any of this?”
Walt couldn’t afford to lie. Aanestead had a competent staff. The man was ambitious, was said to have his eye on the state attorney general’s race. He would vet this thoroughly.
“Ms. Kenshaw showed up at the emergency room early the next day. A blow to the back of the head. She’s a little fuzzy about the details. Says she fell over a footstool.”
Aanestead looked at him askance. “Have you questioned her? Formally questioned her?”
“I wouldn’t if I could. She’s not of sound mind. Anything she says, anything we get from her would be tossed out because of the existing medical condition. When the effects of that blow wear off . . . But who knows when that might happen?”
“She’s saying she doesn’t remember? That’s certainly convenient.”
“Her prints are not the ones we found on the bat. She didn’t take off unannounced and return to hide in the basement.”
“The Tulivich girl’s had a tough time of it, for Christ’s sake, Walt. She’s scared of her own shadow. We go after her, we’d better be damned sure we know what we’re doing, and I don’t see it in here.”
Walt kept a straight face. “There’s the forensic evidence,” he reminded. “The pollen. He was on the Engleton property.”
“We all know juries love this shit. But judges take more convincing. And I don’t see anywhere in here a lab comparison of the flowers up at the Engletons’ to what was found on Gale. Do I?”
“That kind of lab work can take weeks.” In fact, Walt had been refused the collection of evidence by the Engletons.
“Not my problem.” Aanestead handed the folder back to Walt and eyed the thirteenth tee. “You play, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“We ought to knock it around together sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
Aanestead glanced at the thirteenth for a second time. His partner looked ready to explode as yet another party reached the twelfth green.
“What about Fancelli?” Walt asked. “I followed a pickup truck thinking it important to the Gale killing, only to have a deputy figure it differently. But I can use it. We can use this to our advantage.”
“You’d be going out on a limb. I would doubt that federal law’s been tested for some time.”
“There was that class-action suit against Northwest Generation in Wyoming.”
“That was birds frying on high-tension lines, not some bow hunter plucking roadkill. It’s federal law, not state.”
“But it’s on the books.”
“Yes, it is. But untested.”
“You see where I’m going with it.”
“I do. It’s creative, and I think important. A scumbag like that, you take him down however you can.”
“That’s the point.” Translation: the voters would approve.
“I’ll not only back you on this Fancelli thing,” Aanestead said, “I’ll hold a press conference and lay it out there and hope that helps us get a foot across the finish line.”
Surprise.
“I’ll want you by my side,” he said.
“Not a problem,” Walt said.
“You want my guys to leak it?”
If the press were notified, it might mean Fiona was sent to photograph the arrest. Walt shuddered at the thought.
“Probably better off not.”
“You sure? Hell of a card to play, a front-page piece showing a guy in cuffs. Talk about prejudicing the jury pool.” He punched Walt lightly in the shoulder. Things were getting too friendly for Walt.
“I’ll notify your office when we have him in custody. How’s that?”
“How soon are we talking about?” He didn’t want to be caught on the back nine by reporters. Wouldn’t look right.
“I can hold off for about an hour,” Walt said.
“You’re a good man, Walt,” Aanestead said, grinning widely. He leaned in close. “Twenty bucks a hole, and with Tim it’s like taking candy from a baby. But you didn’t hear it from me.”
“My guys’ll call your office once we’ve got him,” Walt repeated.
“I’ll want you by my side.”
“Understood.”
“You’re going to need a hell of a lot more before you’ll have me signing off on Tulivich. She’s a dead end, Walt. Nothing but trouble.”
“Okay.” He tried to sound disappointed, while inside he was celebrating the man’s predictability. It wouldn’t be the first time the evidence came up short despite having a suspect in the sights.
“I wouldn’t go there unless you have the dead guy sitting up and pointing a finger at her.” He smiled. Perfect teeth standing out against the wicked tan. Walt was looking at the next attorney general, and both men knew it.
“It may go unsolved,” Walt warned, again keeping the celebration out of his voice.
“Hell of a game,” Aanestead said, holding his club, but looking Walt in the eye somewhat suspiciously. He’d picked up on Walt’s relief.
“Hell of a game,” Walt echoed.
46
W
alt focused intently on the small log cabin in front of him.
One of twelve homes in a subdivision dating from the 1980s, it was log with forest green trim and asphalt shingles. Two mountain bikes sagged next to the front door, along with a pair of work boots and a dog bowl. The F-150 was parked in the driveway. Lisa’s house was one to the left, a charming home with wooden flowers painted primary colors in a line across the lawn. Strung between two of the flowers was a small sailcloth banner reading Alturas Day Care. When she wasn’t taking care of his kids, she was running the day care.
Walt didn’t see Lisa’s house. He barely saw the Fancelli place. Instead, as Brandon sat quietly in the seat beside him, his arm in a sling, Walt saw only the horror of what Lisa had witnessed; he heard the slapping of the bed frame against the wall as she had heard it; he felt sick, as she had felt.
“It’s not like he’s going to give us a hard time, you think?” Brandon ventured.
“We need him.”
“How’s that?”
“Our witness, Maggie Sharp, puts his truck there that night.”
“So this is or is not a take-down?”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“What the hell, Sheriff?”
“We need to work it.”
“And I’m here because . . . ?”
“You love this stuff.”
“True.”
“And I have a warrant, a search warrant to execute. But for now we have to execute it without his knowing what’s going on. Keep him thinking it’s about bird feathers.”
“So plain sight for now.”
“Exactly.”
“Which is where I come in.”
“Now you’ve got it,” Walt said.
“And you sweet-talk him.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“And if it doesn’t get that far? If he bolts on us?”
“We can’t afford that,” Walt said. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why it’s you and me instead of anyone else. We can’t scare him. We can’t let him know the real reason we’re here, or the card we can play. It’s not an arrest. We’re lucky to have found him. You’re the only one I trust to understand how to play that. The other guys, knowing the crime, might allow that knowledge to get the best of them.”
“I understand.”
“So be cool in there.”
“Despite the fact this guy’s a bastard of the first order and I’d like nothing more than to make his arrest as uncomfortable as possible. Maybe dislocate a shoulder or two.”
Walt’s guys occasionally played the resisting arrest card, the same as in any other cop shop, took their frustrations with the system out on the suspect, made sure the arrest was as painful as possible, since the system tended to coddle suspects: jails with television and fresh food; an hour a day outside; gym equipment. A few of the suspects deserved the black hole and everyone knew it. Arresting deputies felt it their responsibility to punish the person right to the edge of what was tolerated, and sometimes a touch beyond.
“Not this time, Tommy.”
“Understood.”
“You’re the one guy I trust.”
“Got it.”
Brandon took the back side of the home, going around the far side, looking for windows without screens on his way to cover the back door. He stood at the corner with a view of a potential escape window, but within a few steps of the back door. He clicked his radio once.
Walt, waiting at the front door, heard the radio click and knocked and rang the bell within a second of each other. The Wood River Valley was not a place residents checked outside before opening their doors. A beautiful girl opened the door. She wore a loose shirt which obscured her figure.
“Your father here? Dominique Fancelli?”
Maybe it was Walt’s use of his formal name. She stood staring, clearly unable to speak. She nodded. “Stepfather,” she finally managed.
“Would you tell him the sheriff’s here, please? Sheriff Walt Fleming.”
“’Kay.” She filled her lungs.
“D . . . a . . . d!!!”
She then hesitated, swallowed, and added, “Sheriff ’s here to see you!”
Walt thought her face grew more ashen as the
clomp
of footfalls approached. More sullen. He understood the risks involved by his coming here. If there was any suggestion, any indication she had spoken to the police about her situation, it could mean a beating or even death. Walt’s mission was to get as much as he could from the man, and then to separate the two and make sure things remained that way. As Fancelli arrived at the other side of the screen door, Walt reached up and pushed the button on his radio mike twice. Brandon now knew Walt had made contact. Even so, his deputy would not leave his post until and unless a second signal was sent.
“Dominique Fancelli?”
“Yeah?”
Walt did not need to introduce himself. “I have a few questions concerning your Ford F-one-fifty.”
Dionne’s face relaxed considerably. The furrow left Dominique’s brow. “Is that right?”
“You mind if I come in?”
Fancelli pushed open the screen door, but he stepped outside instead of allowing Walt in. Walt thought the move shrewd and an important indicator of who he was dealing with.
“Shut the door,” Fancelli told his daughter.
The girl did so, but her expression, behind her stepfather’s back, was one of intense curiosity and no small degree of fear.
Walt elected to play his Brandon card. He clicked his handset three times, and Brandon rounded the far corner of the house and approached them. Brandon slowed at each window, looking inside. Even wearing the sling, Brandon’s size and demeanor were intimidating. He was a person you paid attention to, kept one eye on, in any given situation. The big dog, poised in the corner, his eyes taking in everyone in the room. He approached the front of the F-150 slowly and, when he had Walt’s attention, nodded slightly. That motion affirmed he’d seen evidence of the bird strike and filled Walt with additional confidence.
Fancelli was appropriately distracted. “What’s up, Sheriff?”
“Deputy Tommy Brandon,” Walt said, introducing the two.
Tommy nodded at the man, but kept six feet away.
If a stare could burn
, Walt thought.
“What’s going on?” Fancelli greeted Brandon.
Brandon said nothing in return.
“Mr. Fancelli—”
“Don.”
“We’re occasionally put in the position of seeking a statement from a civilian, a citizen, on a voluntary basis. We’re not asking that you get involved, but to be forthright, it’s not out of the question that at some future date you might be deposed or even asked to give testimony at a trial. If you were opposed to that, we would do everything in our power to protect you and prevent that from happening.”
The effect was as he’d hoped. First, he’d distracted the suspect into believing their arrival at his front door had nothing to do with his own actions; second, they’d instilled in him a sense of their dependence on him, lending him a false self-confidence.
“What’s this about?”
“We believe your Ford F-one-fifty may have swerved off the highway on the night of the twelfth, or early morning of the thirteenth.”
Fancelli managed a convincing deadpan, though his eyes darted nervously between Walt and Brandon. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said.
Walt concealed his calming exhale, having worried he might have to fight the man on this part of the story. “We had a witness,” he said, just to place one nail firmly in place.
“Is that so?”
“ID’d your truck,” Brandon said in his deep baritone.
“A fox was into some roadkill. Swerved to miss it and lost control.”
“It happens,” Walt said, secretly impressed the man could seem so nonchalant. He was learning more about Fancelli than Fancelli would have wanted him to know. This was the testing phase: the chance to probe the suspect in an effort to decode him. Find the right code and you could unlock all the walls erected in front of the truth.
“So you were driving,” Walt said, continuing. “You were behind the wheel?”
“It’s my truck.”
“You came to a stop and you left the vehicle,” Walt said, watching as that piece of information caught Fancelli off guard. “Now, most guys I know would move to the front of the vehicle to see if there was any damage done.”
“I didn’t hit anything,” Fancelli volunteered. “I said there was a fox in the road and that I swerved to avoid him.”
“Yes, you did,” Walt said. “My point was that most guys would get out of the vehicle to check for damage. I mean, why get out at all? Why not just drive back to the highway?”
“I still don’t get what this is about.”
“Did you leave the vehicle running?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Your headlights. It has to do with your headlights.”
“My headlights are fine. Both headlights are working.”
“That model, F-one-fifty, even if the engine’s turned off, the headlights remain illuminated for sixty seconds. It’s a safety feature to let you reach your door.”