Pushed Too Far: A Thriller (8 page)

Before trading her room for her office, she opened the bedside table and pulled out her weapon. When she’d gotten home, she floated the idea of Grace hopping a bus to somewhere far enough away to be safe. Of course, her niece had refused, citing school and horse chores and the fact that she didn’t want to sit in some distant hotel room alone.

All were good points, but that didn’t mean Val couldn’t overcome them. She just had to figure out the details. A call to Oneida had started the ball rolling on that. And since she couldn’t figure out the rest until waking hours for normal people, she might as well get some work done. Her mind wanted to go there anyway.

She settled behind her desk, turned on her computer, and set her gun next to the keyboard. Leaning back in her chair, she closed her eyes.

She didn’t want to follow where her thoughts were leading, but she had little choice. The most obvious reason a married woman kept a pregnancy secret from her husband was that the baby wasn’t his. And the most obvious reason she would choose to disappear, and stay disappeared, even when the state was in an uproar over her murder, was because she was afraid.

Was Kelly afraid of Hess?

Or was Lund her boogeyman?

In an investigation into a woman’s death, the first suspect was always the man she was sleeping with. The odds backed up that assumption, and that was the approach Val had taken from the beginning of this case. She’d scoured every part of David Lund’s life, interviewed him several times, put his day-to-day under a magnifying glass. The media had done the same, painting him as Scott Peterson in a cheesehead hat.

Yet all the time, in her gut, Lund hadn’t felt right. And after she’d arrested Hess and the media had swung its focus to him, Lund had been left to pick up the shards of his life.

And she’d felt horrible

When Chief Schneider had suggested she take another look at Lund, for the Jane Doe murder and for Kelly Lund, she hadn’t wanted to go there. She still didn’t, but was it because she knew he was innocent, or she was afraid of what she’d find?

While the computer booted up, she wheeled her chair over to the box of files Grace had carried up for her. Since Lund had been a suspect at the beginning, she had done a good bit of digging into his background. She flipped open his file and laid it on her lap.

The pages staring back at her were interesting in both a bad way and a good. Lund had a juvie record, now sealed. She’d asked him about it originally, but he’d given a vague answer about accidently starting a fire. Then when evidence stacked up against Hess, she’d moved on.

She sure would like to know if there was more to it now.

The good thing was even more compelling. Lund worked as fire inspector as part of his firefighter duties. The position was largely about inspecting buildings to make sure they passed local ordinances, but he’d also had additional training.

She swiveled back to the computer. Hand still in dodgy shape, she manipulated the mouse with her left and tried to ignore the headache and stiffness settling into her head and neck.

Earlier that night, the Omaha PD had sent further information from their failed case against Hess, along with more detailed photos from the scene and the autopsy, ones she hadn’t seen before.

She pulled them up on the monitor.

If she thought the first photos she’d examined were gruesome, she was wildly mistaken. Now she could see the precise cuts Hess had made, the layers of skin he’d seared away with the curling iron, the brutal way he’d violated her before dousing her in gasoline and setting her entire body on fire.

Where the Jane Doe’s remains were blackened bone, difficult to identify with as human, this woman was clearly a living being. And it was impossible to look at what he’d done to her and not feel overwhelmed with hopelessness for the whole, stinking species.

She called up the autopsy report, each defilement the poor girl had suffered recorded in black and white.

Hess had told her to look hard at the evidence, that she would then see things didn’t tie together. But as hard as she’d stared since these files had arrived, she hadn’t come to any kind of magical revelation.

Harlan had suggested he send Jane Doe to a forensic anthropologist at the University. A fabulous idea. Surely an expert could see something she couldn’t. But that could take weeks or even months, and if there was one thing she didn’t have, it was time. She needed to talk to an expert ASAP.

As luck would have it, she had an expert in mind. She just had to convince him to speak to her.

Lund knocked the dusting of morning snow off his boots and stepped into the police department’s box-like entrance. Not much bigger than a sally port between doors, the space held a window on one side with a slip through space under the thick glass, like a ticket window. On the other side, he could see part of the tiny dispatch center, essentially a countertop jammed with keyboards and computer monitors.

The Lake Loyal PD was tucked into a corner of the village hall. Even though the department employed fewer than a dozen officers total, the space was so small, it would be overcrowded at half that. Nothing about the place was intimidating, but after teetering on the edge of being locked up for murder every time he’d stepped in the doors, his chest felt a little tight.

“Be right with you, sir.”

For a woman who shared a name with one of the Native American tribes in Wisconsin, Oneida didn’t look at all Native American. Blond streaked with gray, big boned and more than a little heavy, she was quite the opposite, and was known through town for wearing green and gold to work on Packer game days, and red when the Badgers suited up.

Lund had known Oneida for years, had even gone to school with one of her sisters, but the woman still bunched up her brow every time she saw him, as if she didn’t have a clue who he was.

A small thing compared to the indignities he’d suffered in this place.

But this time it was supposed to be different. When Chief Ryker had called, she’d said she needed his opinion as fire inspector. He wasn’t sure he believed it, but just the chance of being able to do something beat sitting around staring at a wall.

Oneida bustled to the door and pulled it open. “You’re here to see the chief?”

So she remembered him this time. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. “She asked me to come in.”

“She’s busy right now. Can you wait?”

“I’ll come back another time.”

“It won’t be long. This interruption … it was unexpected.”

If he wasn’t mistaken, she seemed flustered. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sure she’ll be able to see you soon.” She scurried around the corner, remarkably fast for a large woman. The lock buzzed, and she pulled the door open. “Follow me. Please.”

Her insistence made him nothing but uneasy, nevertheless he stepped inside.

The station was tiny, like the department, like the town. The chief’s office was just inside and to the left.

“Follow me.” She took off past a collection of four cubicles, their ancient cloth walls having lived through better days. Her shapeless skirt swished with each sway of those serious hips.

Lund moved more slowly, trying to get a glimpse through the glass panel running adjacent to the chief’s door. She was inside, as Oneida had said, talking to a man in a suit.

“Are you coming?”

He moved on, following Oneida into a room the size of a closet.

“Have a seat. Cups. Coffee. Help yourself.” She whirled and hurried out of the room.

He followed orders, taking his coffee with a dash of powered creamer to soften its on-the-warmer-too-long bite and settling into a plastic chair.

A police break room turned out to look much like any other break room, except for the extra small size. A refrigerator. A microwave that needed cleaning. A soda machine jammed in the corner.

The Wisconsin State Journal stared up at him from the bistro-sized table, Dixon Hess’s face above the fold. He dug out the sports page, laid it on top, and started skimming an article about the Packers’ playoff chances.

“Sorry about the delay.”

Dressed in her uniform and with her blond hair pulled back, Val Ryker looked businesslike, as usual. And yet she gave him a little smile that held, not the suspicion he remembered so well, but something resembling warmth.

What the hell?

Maybe that was what bothered him about her. He could never quite figure out where she was coming from. “You said you wanted my help.”

“Yes, I do.”

He tossed the paper on the table and stood. “What do you need?”

“Would you like to take your coffee? It’s better if we talk in my office.”

He followed her and settled into the chair just vacated by her earlier visitor. Although he’d been in the station several times, he’d never been invited into the chief’s office, and he had to admit, the space was something of a disappointment. Sure she had plaques and diplomas displayed on the walls, even a framed headline announcing Hess’s conviction. Her desk was fairly large and nice compared to the glorified countertop in the dispatch center, but all in all, the décor seemed a bit too bland to give him a sense of the woman at all.

Instead of circling behind the desk, she settled in the chair beside him and angled her body toward him. “Thanks for coming in. I really appreciate it.” Another smile.

He wanted to volley with a grin of his own, but he held back. “Sure.”

“I have some questions about fire.”

“I’m pretty good when it comes to fire.”

“I have some pictures to show you. But before we start, I want to clear the air between us.”

“Okay.”

“If I’m honest with you, will you be honest with me?”

“Depends.”

“So it’s going to be like that?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “You have your idea of how you want this to go. I’m waiting to see what it is.”

“You served time in a juvenile facility as a child.”

“About a month.”

“What put you there?”

He leaned back in the chair and let out a bitter laugh. “If I’m a suspect again, why not just come out and say so. I thought you wanted to clear the air.”

“That’s not why I’m asking.”

“Oh, really?”

“I need you to consult on a case, and I’d like to fill in that blank before we begin.”

“If you don’t mind, I don’t believe you.”

“Your choice. So what put you in juvie?”

He paused for a moment, trying to decide if he’d answer or not. Finally curiosity over what she was getting at won out. “I started a fire. I told you that.”

“Did anyone die?”

“No, but an insurance company lost a lot of money. In our society, that’s probably worse.”

A little smile touched the corners of her mouth, a smile he’d like to believe was real.

“And you served a month for this?” she asked.

“You know I did. And I didn’t torture puppies or wet the bed, if those are your follow ups.”

“You’re a little defensive.”

“If you were in my place, wouldn’t you be?”

She tilted her head to the side. “I suppose I would.”

“Is that it?”

“For now.”

He watched her for a few seconds. He should probably just get up and leave. She obviously still had her doubts about him, and he’d had enough suspicion to last a lifetime. But there was something different about her this time, as if she was leaving him an opening she hadn’t before. And stupidly enough, he couldn’t walk away until he knew what that was about.

“Okay, while we’re being honest, answer a question for me,” he said.

“If I can.”

“Who was the suit in here when I arrived?”

“A county detective. He’s looking into the original case I built against Dixon Hess.”

“You’re being investigated?”

“Yes.”

“Are you worried?”

“About the investigation? No.”

“About solving the case?”

“It keeps me up at night.”

“And you think I can help.”

“I hope so. I need it.”