“Great. Keep me posted on this number. This is my cell.”
She hung up, feeling invigorated. She was working with actual people, on an actual case. With people from headquarters.
Her father laughed at the television.
Shit.
She dialed Stacy’s number and it went straight to voicemail after a ring, like she’d been screening the call.
Of course, Piper couldn’t really afford the help anyway.
“Hey, Dad. How about you go on a ride with me?”
“Where?” He howled with laughter at the episode of “Leave it to Beaver.”
“I have to go to work.” She stood between him and the television. “Come on.”
He looked up at her, utter confusion on his face again.
She blinked. “It’s me. Your daughter, Piper. I’m a cop, and I have to go to work. Now get up, you’re coming with me.”
“No I’m not,” he said, leaning back in his chair. He looked past her to the TV. “I’m not going anywhere. There’s a marathon of “Gunsmoke” on after this with all the best Burt Reynolds episodes. I’m staying right here.”
Piper closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Then she walked out the front door and onto the wraparound porch. She leaned her body over the railing, getting the right angle to see a sliver of the neighbors’ house down the road. Both vehicles were parked out front.
She went back inside, quickly changed into her uniform, put on her duty belt, and went back into the family room.
Her father had a beer sitting next to him now, but other than that, he hadn’t moved a muscle. Burt Reynolds had his shirt off.
“You going to be okay if I leave you for an hour or two?”
Her father ignored her, or didn’t hear. She stepped in between him and the TV again. “I’m going to work for a bit. I’ll be back, okay? I’m going to get Ethel and Jerry to check in on you.”
Her father raised his beer. “Okay, Honey Bear.”
He used to call her mother that.
“Okay.”
Before guilt froze her completely, she walked outside, down the porch steps and got in the Jeep Cherokee. She drove down the pine-forested drive and hung a right onto the county road toward Ethel and Jerry Clark’s house.
With the engine running, Piper ran to the front door. After two sets of knocks Ethel moved aside a lace curtain and pressed her face to the glass.
“Hi,” Piper said, waving.
Ethel smiled and opened the door. “Hi, Piper. What are you doing here?”
“Is that Piper?” Jerry called from inside. The man loved Piper, and never missed an opportunity to talk to her. Piper hoped that boded well for her now.
“Yes, it’s Piper. Come to the door if you want to talk to her, you lazy bum.”
“Hi, Piper.” Jerry peeked around his wife, his arms out for a hug.
Piper allowed herself to be pulled into his arms, and then Ethel’s.
“Uh, listen. I have to go to work for a couple hours. My dad is pretty adamant about not coming, and to be honest, it would help if he was not there. I’m wondering if you two could check on him while I’m gone?”
Jerry put both hands on his hips. “Heck yeah. You got it. Anything for you.”
“And your father,” Ethel said. “We’d be happy to. I’m going into town in an hour. I’ll stop by on the way in. And then I can swing by again on the way back. And if you’re still not back by then, Jerry will go over and check on him after that. How about you just let us know when you’re back and we’ll stop going over.”
Piper nodded and smiled with a wash of gratitude as she watched these two selfless individuals heed the call of duty. “Great. Thank you.”
“No problem-o,” Jerry said with a wave of his hand.
She waved back as she climbed into the Jeep.
Chapter 9
"He burned him with a cigarette?” Wolf asked.
Kevin Koling had just finished recounting his version of events from Friday. Just like the two miners before him, he touched on the same points—the text message from Spritz, Chris being upset about Rick Hammes and his girlfriend, Mary Ellen’s visit, their argument spilling outside, Mary Dimitri leaving, and then Oakley and McBeth getting into an argument of their own. Only he’d added one detail the other two men hadn’t.
“Yeah, got him in a headlock, put his cigarette out on his chest. Well, the chest of his jacket actually. Not, like, his actual skin or anything.”
“Still a bit much though,” Rachette said.
Koling shrugged. “That was Chris for you.”
“And then what?” Wolf asked. “After the cigarette burning episode?”
“Well that was it,” Koling said. “I pulled him off, Jimmy pulled Eagle back. That’s when Chris went out to start his shift.”
Rachette wrote in his notebook. “You’re calling James, the mechanic, Jimmy?”
“Yeah. Sorry. James. Jimmy. We call him Jimmy.”
“And then what did you do?” Wolf asked.
“I went to bed.”
“Did you hear anything out of the ordinary later that night?” Wolf asked.
“Nah.” Koling wrung his baseball mitt-sized hands in his lap and shook his head. “We usually get after it on Friday nights, and I'm one to enjoy my drinks. I slept pretty hard."
“Have you heard about how Chris was killed?” Wolf asked.
“I just talked to James on the way out. He says you guys think he was shot in the head, and that somebody else did it. Wasn’t suicide.”
“That’s right,” Wolf said.
“And he mentioned you guys think it might have been he was shot with his suppressed G21.”
Wolf and Rachette eyed each other.
“Is it true?” Koling asked.
Wolf decided to leave the question unanswered. "You exchanged a lot of text messages with Chris, didn’t you.”
“He was my best friend.” The big man’s eyes welled up, but the tears didn’t flow.
“We gather he was very upset with McBeth, is that correct?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, he was more upset about the mine.”
“But he was holding McBeth responsible, right?” Wolf asked.
“I don’t
