Archie gulped hard and kissed her lightly on the right cheek. Then the left. Then he brushed his lips against hers, drew a long, deep breath and pulled away.
'Nothing,' he said.
Her heart was thrumming fast and light as a bird's and she felt awful heaviness in her legs.
She lowered her hand and put the tip of her forefinger into the of one dimple, set her thumb under the good hard line of his chin, and pulled his mouth against hers. His body went rigid and his weight began to shift away so she wrapped the gun hand around his back, held on tight and kissed him like she'd once kissed Hess, without thought or method or even a nod to consequence. She ended it with her breath was gone.
'No,' he whispered. 'I don't feel anything.'
'I feel everything, Archie.'
'Thank you.'
She dropped the gun, tried to get one hand on the shoulder of his uniform and one around his belt but he was too fast and much too strong for a takedown. Wildcraft wrenched himself away and scrambled back up to his perch on the cliff. He looked down at her. Then he turned and spread his wings and hopped into the abyss. He rose in the draft. Hovering, he looked at her again, then gained elevation with two strokes of his powerful arms. He floated out and away and she saw the hopeful concentration on his face as he lifted gracefully in the breeze and drifted out over the great space. Then he fell. By the time she made it to the edge and looked over he was beating hard but falling fast. He hit a rock outcropping a couple of hundred feet down, bounced off it with a terrible sound then careened wing-over-boot another hundred feet, colliding with a huge boulder that spun him the other way into the deep black canyon and out of sight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Merci carried a heavy, overfilled silence through the rest of her shift. It felt like her blood had turned to lead, her bones to iron.
She volunteered to call on George and Natalie Wildcraft Kuerners. It was her first line-of-duty death notification and her training had instructed her to be informative, helpful and soft-spoken.
She told them unflinchingly what had happened, enduring first questions then their silences. She omitted the part when Archie felt nothing and she felt everything. When they were finished she and Zamorra left without lingering. As a messenger she was killed twice; as a detective formerly suspicious of the deputy's actions she was killed twice again.
Sheriff Abelera asked her to make 'the Wildcraft statement.' This in lieu of the noon press conference originally meant to deal the Russians and the probable innocence of Archie.
She stood there in the courthouse conference room, feeling heavy and thick as an Easter Island statue, telling the lights and the reporters that the best efforts of her partner and herself were not enough to bring Deputy Wildcraft down from the precipice of Santiago Peak. She told them that rescuers had recovered his body about half way down the mountain. She said nothing of wings, only that the deputy had been shattered by the death of his wife. At the word 'shattered' she saw in her mind's eye the pinwheeling descent, then Achie's broken body careening into the maw of shadow and stone.
How did you find him?' asked Gary Brice. 'I mean, before he jumped.'
'He informed us of his whereabouts.'
'Why wasn't a negotiator brought in, or a rescue team assembled?' asked Michelle Howland.
'We had no indication of his purpose. There was no time.'
'How long did you talk to him?' asked KTLA.
'Less than a minute.'
'What, exactly, were his last words?' asked Brice.
'Thank you.'
'For what? What had you done?'
'Nothing. I think that, by then, he was… completely disoriented.'
'Were you close enough to physically restrain him?'
'My attempt failed.'
'There was contact, then, a scuffle?'
'Yes.'
'How would you describe his expression when he jumped?'
'It can't be described.'
'How was he dressed?'
'In his summer-weight uniform.'
'Was he armed?'
'His sidearm was holstered.'
Abelera had instructed her to leave the Russians out of all this for now while the lab corroborated Wildcraft's confession with evidence.
'This press conference is over,' she said. 'But you can stay and ask all the questions you want.'
She turned off the mike and walked out the back door with Zamorra.
For a long while she sat in her office cubicle, staring at the phone, her picture of Tim, the calendar. She had a small stack of mail but no heart to open it or even look through it. Zamorra left the homicide pen without a goodbye.
Around three, a couple of uniformed deputies stopped by to tell her they were sorry about Wildcraft, but wanted to thank her for taking Archie's side. They knew all along he hadn't killed Gwen, but it was good of her to believe in him even when the evidence was against him. She asked them to sit a minute, but they excused themselves with a nervy curtness that she respected.
By four o'clock she'd received two calls-both from deputies she knew were hostile to her-telling her they were pleasantly surprised/proud to see the way she stuck by her department as far as Wildcraft was concerned, and pleased/honored that she'd accepted the nomination for the Deputy Association. She would have their votes. Merci felt Mike's unsubtle hand in this but the calls helped slow the thick ice she felt closing in around her heart.
Dobbs came by to ask if there was anything he could do. 'You half cracked this case, Deputy,' Merci said. 'Thank you.'
'Last time I'll turn a crime scene into a parking lot.'
'Dobbs, you're going to be just fine.'
'Thank you, Sergeant. I'm headed here, you know. Homicide. That's my goal. That's what I want.'
'Careful what you wish for.'
'I will be.'
Gilliam called.
Her father called.
Ryan Dawes called to tell her she had good instincts about this case and had been right to follow them. He sounded like a movie critic praising a trashy blockbuster, so she hung up on him.
Al Madden called and said he was sorry about Archie, but gratified that the deputy had been innocent all along. He wondered if his investigation had helped drive Wildcraft to suicide and she didn't think so. Madden apologized for having to get involved and remarked that her fieldwork was, in his opinion, flawless.
Neighbor William Jones called to find out if the press conference account of Archie's suicide was accurate, if there was anything else she could tell him. She told him that Archie believed he was joining Gwen. Jones said if he was Archie he'd go and join her, too. Merci excused herself and rang off.
George Wildcraft called to ask about his son. He wanted how he'd looked, what his state of mind had been before he did it.
She told him what she'd told Jones. She told him she tried her best to take him down, get him off that mountain alive. Her throat went hard and her eyes hurt and she could barely get the words out.
He thanked her and said he was impressed by her and always believed she had had justice and his son's best interest at heart. He apologized for Natalie 'throwing herself around.' His voice was soft and Merci figured he was
