Chương 3
Lena did not move her pen.
“Where?”
“Station Six.”
“What was his condition?”
“Cut above his ear. Swelling along his ribs. He was dizzy.”
“Did you transport him?”
“No.”
“Did you document the contact?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He told me not to.”
“That is not enough.”
“I know.”
“Was Captain Rourke there?”
Caleb’s eyes lifted to the porch again.
“Yes.”
Lena wrote the word carefully.
“Who injured Sutter?”
“I didn’t see it happen.”
“Who did he say injured him?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Who else was at the station?”
Caleb pressed both palms against the sides of his trousers, trying to still them.
“Deputy Chief Vale.”
On the porch, Rourke turned his head toward the street. There was no chance he could hear the conversation, but he watched Caleb’s mouth.
Lena asked, “What time?”
“A little after eleven.”
“Sutter was reported missing the next morning.”
“I know.”
“What happened after you treated him?”
“Captain Rourke drove him away.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Sutter have his handgun?”
Caleb shut his eyes.
Lena waited.
“He put it on the treatment table,” Caleb said. “Rourke took it.”
The firehouse locker search ended at 4:37 that afternoon.
Lena received the call while sitting in her car across from Rourke’s house. Caleb occupied the passenger seat with his door open, one foot on the pavement, breathing as if the closed vehicle were too small.
Rourke remained on the porch with an officer.
The evidence team had found an empty foam-lined pistol case inside a locked metal box in Rourke’s station locker. The case bore Daniel Sutter’s initials in faded silver marker. Beneath it lay a disposable phone, turned off, and a folded envelope containing three photocopied warehouse inspection forms.
Two forms listed unresolved sprinkler and electrical violations at the Harrow Street property. The third declared those same violations corrected.
The signatures on all three belonged to Sutter.
The handwriting did not.
Lena rested her forehead briefly against the steering wheel.
Caleb watched her. “What?”
“They found a case for the gun.”
“In his locker?”
“Yes.”
Caleb leaned back and stared through the windshield.
“That’s where he put it,” he said.
“You saw him?”
“Not in the locker. He wrapped it in a towel after Sutter handed it over.”
“Why did Sutter surrender his gun?”
“He was upset.”
“Upset enough to hurt himself?”
Caleb rubbed his palms against his thighs. “I asked. He said no.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I believed he wanted me to stop asking.”
Lena wrote that down.
She had spent twelve years learning that people often remembered the sentence that allowed them to do less. A denial. A reassurance. A supervisor saying everything had been handled. It was not always cowardice. Sometimes it was exhaustion wearing cowardice’s clothes.
“Did Sutter threaten anyone?”
“No.”
“Did he mention the warehouse?”
Caleb nodded toward her notebook. “He said Harrow Street was going to get somebody killed.”
“Those words?”
“Almost. He said, ‘That place will take a life, and Vale will call it bad luck.’”
Lena looked at him.
“Why wasn’t that in the missing-person report?”
“Because no one asked me.”
“You were interviewed.”
“I was asked whether I knew where he went.”
“You lied.”
“I said I didn’t.”
“You knew Rourke drove him away.”
“I didn’t know where.”
“That answer was designed to be technically true.”
Caleb’s face hardened for the first time. “That’s what people do when they’re scared.”
“People also tell the truth when someone disappears.”
“And then what? Vale says I misunderstood. Rourke says he was protecting Sutter. I lose my job for treating a department employee off the books. Nothing happens to them.”
“A man died at Harrow Street.”
“I know his name.”
“Then say it.”
Caleb looked toward the quiet houses.
“Luis Ortega.”
“Again.”
“Luis Ortega died.”
Lena closed the notebook.
She had no pleasure in the way his voice broke. She had pushed him because she needed the words to become real for him, but she knew the difference between necessity and kindness. Too often she pretended they were the same.
A sedan pulled up behind the ambulance. A woman in green hospital scrubs climbed out. Caleb’s sister, according to the emergency contact he had reluctantly provided.
Before he left, Lena said, “Do not contact Captain Rourke, Deputy Chief Vale, or anyone at Station Six about this interview.”
Caleb almost smiled. “You think they don’t already know?”
“I think every new lie makes your position worse.”
“My position was bad before you got here.”
He closed the car door more firmly than needed and walked toward his sister.
Lena watched the woman take one look at his face and stop asking whatever question had been on her lips. She guided him into the sedan with a hand at his elbow. Caleb resisted the touch, then allowed it.
On the porch, Rourke had sat down on the top step.
Lena crossed the street.
“The locker team found Sutter’s gun case,” she said.
Rourke looked at the evidence officer beside him. “Can we speak privately?”
“No.”
“Then you’re not getting anything.”
“You are already giving me quite a lot.”
His eyes followed Caleb’s departing car.
“He talked.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough to confirm you possessed Sutter’s gun before his disappearance.”
Rourke rubbed his face. His skin looked gray beneath the porch shade.
“I kept him alive.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You drove him away from Station Six.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Bus terminal.”
“Which one?”
“Northside.”
“When?”
“About midnight.”
“Destination?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Did you buy the ticket?”
“No.”
“Did you see him board?”
“Yes.”
“Which bus?”
“Cedar Rapids.”
Lena stared at him.
“What?”
“That route doesn’t leave Northside.”
“It did that night.”
“No. The northbound route leaves Central Terminal. Northside only handles county service after ten.”
Rourke’s mouth tightened.
“You checked schedules before coming here?”
“I checked them when Sutter’s truck was found six blocks from Northside.”
He leaned forward, forearms on his knees.
“Then he changed buses.”
May you like
“You just said you watched him board.”
“I watched him walk through the gate.”
