It was Deputy Reed, looking furtive. “I really shouldn’t be in here,” he said.
“What’s going on?”
Reed pulled out a hard-backed chair from the other side of the table, the legs scraping across the linoleum like fingernails on a blackboard. He sat down heavily.
“Klamath Moore is in the other witness room,” Reed said. “We found him where he was staying here in town. At Shelly Cedron’s place. You know Shelly? She runs the animal shelter and I guess she’s a sympathizer to his cause. Who would have guessed that? Man, you think you know people but you don’t know what’s in their hearts, I guess.”
Joe nodded, urging him on.
“There was a light-colored SUV outside her home that sort of matches your description. Shelly herself is out of town at a conference, so she wasn’t even there. But do you know how many vehicles match that description? I mean, this ain’t LA. It would be unusual if you’d seen a sedan, or a coupe. Everybody’s got an SUV. Hell, I’ve got two, and a pickup. Anyway, we woke him up—”
“He was sleeping?”
Reed nodded. “Says he was, anyway. And claims he was there all night doing IM conversations with his followers and talking with his wife. She vouches for him.”
“Do you believe her?”
Reed shrugged. “Without anything more than your ‘It looked kind of like Klamath Moore’ story, we have nothing else to go on. One thing, though, his hair was wet. I asked him about that and he said he took a shower before he went to bed.”
“That would clean off any gunpowder residue on his skin,” Joe said. “Did you find the clothes he was wearing?”
“He pointed at a pile of dirty laundry in the corner of the bedroom,” Reed said. “I bagged it up. But Shelly Cedron has a wood-stove, just like everybody else. It’s one of those really good airtight ones that burns hot inside.”
“Will your crime-scene guys search the SUV?”
Reed shrugged. “You mean search for hair and fiber from Gordon? Sure. But we both know Gordon has been in the car before. That wouldn’t give us anything.”
“What about Bill Gordon?” Joe asked. “Have the crime-scene people looked at him?”
“Doc Speer says—preliminarily, at least—it looks like a suicide. The gun was fired so close to his head it’s a contact wound consistent with suicide. No short-range or mid-range powder burns or anything indicating it wasn’t self-inflicted. The weapon was a .45ACP Sig Sauer P220. Nice gun. And the suicide theory looks completely clean except for one thing: there were two bullet wounds in his head.”
“What?”
Reed pointed at his own head to show Joe. “One in his temple; that was the wound you could see. But there was another one a couple of inches up from that covered by hair.”
“Who shoots himself
“Someone who wants to be dead,” Reed said. “Hey—that was the first thing I thought too. But Doc Speer says it isn’t inconceivable that a suicide victim shoots himself deliberately and that his death reflex makes him pull the trigger again before he’s even dead. There’s only a four-point-five-pound trigger pull on that gun. I could see it happening. The second shot would be fired as the first one kicked the gun up, so you’ve got that second hole higher up in his skull.”
Joe shook his head. “But it makes no sense. Why agree to meet me at that park and take every precaution in the world and then kill yourself?”
“I don’t know. Guilt? Maybe there was something else going on in his life. Maybe he saw you drive up with a bleeding cop in your car and thought the jig was up.”
“I didn’t hear a shot, much less two shots,” Joe said. “It was quiet in Winchester. I would have heard a shot. He was sitting on that bench like that when I got there. He got shot before I ever showed up.”
“Or shot himself. We bagged his hands. They’re checking for residue on his hands to confirm he fired the gun himself.”
Joe shook his head, not believing it. “Or Klamath Moore shot Gordon in the head at close range, then put the gun in Gordon’s hand and shot again so there would be plenty of residue on the dead man’s skin. Klamath left the weapon in Gordon’s hand so it would look like a suicide. Then Klamath went home and burned his clothes and took a shower and waited for you guys to find him. Reed, you’ve got to question his wife again, see if you can catch her in an inconsistency.”
“We can try.”
“Maybe if you sweated her,” Joe said.
Reed shook his head. “No chance without more to go on.”
Joe looked up at the light fixture again, trying to think of a way to snare Klamath Moore, trying to come up with a way to show the man was involved. Nothing.
“There’s another theory,” Reed said.
“What?”
“That maybe our governor’s got such a hard-on for Klamath Moore and wants him out of the state so bad that you’re seeing him everywhere, even in the dark on a two-lane with no highway lights.”
Joe was surprised by the theory and hadn’t seen it coming. It was then he felt the presence of someone outside in the hall, watching him through the one-way mirror, assessing his reaction. He looked hard at Reed, who
