“And I like to see the scene when it’s not crawling with techs and deputies and EMTs tromping all over the place.” He didn’t know why he was explaining it, as it was, as she’d said, his case. He slowed for a curve just as an oncoming pickup drifted across the middle of the road.
“Watch out!” she yelled.
Rivers jerked on the wheel, his SUV swerving, a tire skimming the edge of a snow-covered ditch.
The truck, fishtailing, missed them by inches.
The Jeep slid and caught as, beside Rivers, Mendoza braced herself. “Holy—”
“Idiot,” he muttered under his breath.
Mendoza was twisted in her seat, aiming her phone through the back window as she attempted to snap pictures through the glass. “You should go after that guy! He could’ve killed us!”
“I should.”
“I’m serious, Rivers! That prick is dangerous! I’m calling it in.”
Rivers checked his rearview, but the truck was already out of sight, having disappeared around the curve and into the curtain of snow.
Mendoza had her phone pressed to her ear and was already describing the pickup to a dispatcher. “I don’t know . . . Chevy, older model.”
“Ford,” he corrected. She shot him a look.
“Rivers says it was a Ford. White, I think.”
“Silver.”
Another dark glance was sent his way. “Silver. With . . . Washington plates, I think. I couldn’t really see. And no, I didn’t get the plate numbers.”
This time he didn’t interject as she told the dispatcher the location; but it was an effort in futility, just a chance for Mendoza to let off steam. She clicked off.
“He probably just hit ice and slid into our lane.”
She frowned. “Doesn’t matter. No excuses! Either you know how to drive in the damned snow, or you stay the hell home.” Craning her neck again, she peered through the back window as if she expected the pickup to reappear. It didn’t. “Anyway,” she said, letting out her breath as she settled into her seat again. “Road deputies will be on the lookout. I hope they nail that moron.”
“They could get lucky.”
She let out a huff of air. “You don’t even care.”
“Got my mind on other things.”
“Bigger problems than getting killed and meeting St. Peter today?” There was still an edge to her voice.
“Right.”
“We’re here anyway,” she said just as he spied the rustic inn set back from the county road. “And we’re not alone.” They’d caught up with a line of traffic, many cars peeling into the parking lot of the Cahill Inn. Like most of the commercial buildings in Riggs Crossing, the two-storied hotel was complete with a Western façade of weathered cedar siding, a covered porch running the length of the building, and, to add authenticity, hitching posts and watering troughs flanking the two wide steps leading to the front doors.
“Straight off a Hollywood set,” Mendoza observed, as Rivers spied the turnoff to the Cahill house. “Y’know, for an old Western show like Gunsmoke. Or The Rifleman.” Then, as if she anticipated a question, “My grandpa’s a big fan. There’s a Western channel on cable, and whenever he’s not watching sports, he’s tuned into reruns of old black-and-white shoot-’em-ups. Maverick. That’s his fave. It still holds up.”
He wasn’t paying too much attention to the conversation as he peeled off the main road, just before the hotel, leaving other vehicles to vie for limited parking space in the lot that separated the hotel from the lane to James Cahill’s home. A border of fir and pine divided the private lane from the commercial property. Through a line of trees, Rivers noted that the back side of the Cahill Inn was visible. There, additional parking separated the inn from a café near an arched entrance to Cahill Christmas Trees. The area was bustling with people in ski coats, puffy jackets, gloves, and hats. Couples pulling kids on sleds. Workers in red jackets strapping trees onto the roofs of vehicles.
The Cherokee jarred as it hit a root hidden by the snow just before the gate posted with a sign that read PRIVATE PROPERTY.
“I’ll get it,” Mendoza said, already slipping on gloves.
Before Rivers could argue, she was out of the Jeep and unlatching the gate to shove it open, the lower rail scraping a mound of snow behind it. He drove through, and she partially shut the gate again before hopping back into the passenger seat, bringing with her a rush of frigid air.
“Geez, it’s cold,” she said, shivering.
“Winter.”
“I hate it.”
“Then you moved to the wrong place.”
“Probably.” She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t pry. The truth was he didn’t know much about her, just that she’d transferred from a department in New Mexico, somewhere around Albuquerque, and her record there had been clean, even stellar, and the one time he’d asked about the move, she’d said, “It was time.” He hadn’t pushed as his own reasons for ending up at Riggs Crossing had been personal.
Well, mostly.
He drove a quarter of a mile farther through copse after copse of fir, pine, and larch before the lane took a wide bend to open into a clearing. A blocky white farmhouse capped by a gabled green roof and skirted by a broad porch sat atop a small rise. Scattered around the back end, he saw, through a veil of snow, several outbuildings. A pump house, barn, and shed were barely visible, and whatever lay beyond, pastures or other buildings, was anyone’s guess today.
“Looks the same as it did the other night,” Mendoza observed as the engine idled. She was eyeing the house and grounds, now empty, seeming almost desolate.
“Except there aren’t a dozen deputies, paramedics, firefighters, and crime-scene techs climbing over the property. The news crew is gone, and the neighboring lookie-loos have disappeared.”
“Along with all of the evidence.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“What was here was collected.”
He wasn’t arguing that fact, but he needed to see the place for himself without the distractions of other cops. What the hell had really gone on here? Why had James Cahill landed in the hospital, his girlfriend gone missing?
Rivers would never
