LITMIR.BIZ

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with cell phones. It was the norm rather than the exception.

      Barb was pretending not to be avidly listening to his every syllable. Will had to push aside the distraction of her laser-like interest in him with almost physical force. God, things were getting bad.

      He got up from his desk. “Where’re you going?” Barb asked, swiveling around as he circled toward the door.

      “Gonna see Nunce,” he said.

      “I’m coming with you.” She bustled to catch up to him and fell in step beside him in the outer hall.

      Will’s temper was slow to rile, but Barb had been getting on his nerves for quite a while. He held back a sharp remark with an effort.

      Sheriff Herbert Nunce was gray-haired, gray-eyed, tanned and weathered like old leather. He was slim and straight and distracted. He’d gotten the job by being the last man standing: his predecessors had all been promoted or left the sheriff’s office. He’d been sheriff for seven years and he’d gradually spent more and more time on the creeks and rivers that ran through the Coast Range, chasing steelhead and salmon and anything with fins. His interest in law enforcement—never strong, Will guessed—had been displaced so thoroughly that it was hard to get him juiced about any investigation, be it robbery/homicide, or narcotics, or anything in between. Will had written a report on Letton’s hit-and-run but he would bet Nunce hadn’t read it yet. This appeared to be borne out when Nunce greeted him with, “Smithson still sitting outside that hospital room?”

      Will nodded. He could’ve reminded the sheriff that Letton’s life could still be in danger, but it wasn’t like the sheriff didn’t know. Nunce just reached for the one part of the investigation he was familiar with.

      Burl had been nowhere in sight when Will and Barb entered the room, but now he snaked in around the doorway, an eavesdropper hoping not to be noticed. Will turned to gaze at him dead on, which caused Jernstadt to fidget.

      “Burl, we’re having a talk here,” Nunce said, almost kindly. Nunce had wanted Burl out as much as the next man, but like everyone else, still tiptoed around the man’s feelings. The humorous part was that Nunce didn’t want the uninvited talk with Will and Barb much, either, and would probably have come up with an excuse to put it off except it was preferable to interacting with Burl.

      “About that pedophile hit-and-run. I know. Did she tell you that I know that family? The LaPortes?” Burl jerked his head toward Barb but his gaze was on Will. “A bunch of loonies. The old man was a pussy. Let his wife run roughshod over him, and she was in a wrangle with the Dunleavys something fierce. I’m from Woodbine, right next to Quarry.” He hooked a thumb at his own chest. “I know Kevin Dunleavy. A straight shooter, if I ever saw one. There’s a longstanding fight over property rights between the families. The quarry’s right between their properties and that crazy psycho Jean was always screaming at Kevin and his brother Rome and the rest of the family. But Jean’s a piece of fuckin’ work, pardon my French, and she made some threat that Kevin should keep his family close if he wants ’em to survive, y’know what I mean? Thinks she’s a psychic, or something, and just goes around predicting shit and acts like it’s not her making it up. Like it’s real or something.”

      “Jean LaPorte is deceased,” Will broke in when Burl took a breath. “You’re saying she was a psychic.”

      “Pretend psychic. Pretend. She didn’t know her ass from a fuckin’ hole in the ground, pardon my French again, but that didn’t stop her. And now her daughter’s a killer. Doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

      “We don’t know anything yet,” Will cut in.

      “You’re making a ton of assumptions,” Barb said at the same time.

      Nunce waved them all off. “Burl, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

      “I’m giving you background.” Burl glared at Will as if it were all his fault. “Haven’t you talked to her?”

      “It’s a police investigation.” And none of your business.

      Burl stared at Will as if he were speaking in tongues. “Sounds like she didn’t tell you nothing. That why you let her go home?”

      Barb said in a long-suffering tone, “Burl, you know we can’t discuss the case with you. If we had enough to arrest anyone for the hit-and-run, we would have done it.”

      “I could get her to talk,” Burl said to Will. “I know the Dunleavys.”

      “The Dunleavys aren’t part of this particular crime.” Will felt his jaw tighten despite his efforts to not let Jernstadt get to him. He turned to Nunce. “I’ve got interviews on tap.”

      “With who?” Burl demanded.

      Will brushed past him, Barb at his heels, and Nunce said to Burl, “Why don’t you give me the names of all the Dunleavys.”

      Torn, Burl hesitated, really wanting to follow Will and Barb. But Nunce looked expectant.

      “There aren’t that many of ’em.”

      “Write their names here.” Nunce pushed a piece of paper in Burl’s direction, distracting him, and Will and Barb completed their escape.

      “Jesus,” Barb breathed.

      “Think Nunce’ll ever tell him to get the hell out?” Will passed by his office, glancing back as Barb slowed by the door, looking longingly his way. He didn’t invite her along and there was no need for her to join him.

      “He’d have to grow bigger balls,” she said.

      He’d have to grow any balls, Will decided but, as ever, kept his thoughts to himself. Nunce might sometimes be ineffectual, but he was a decent enough human being. Not something that could be said about Burlington Jernstadt. If Will really wanted to get rid of the prick he could go over Nunce’s head, but that came with its own can of worms.

      He walked past Dot in reception and stepped out into weak sunshine. Looked like Jimbo was right. The rain was ending.

      The white Chevrolet pickup was a couple of decades old and rattled like it was filled with ball bearings. Gemma had to manhandle it into gear, but the yank and pull was both familiar and comforting. The truck had been her father’s, and it had been sitting outside the large garage with the corrugated metal roof behind the house, as ugly a building as the house was architecturally beautiful. Gemma had found its keys hanging on a hook by the back door—along with keys for the filing cabinet and several locks that she still hadn’t identified. Not exactly the tightest security around the old homestead.

      She’d holed up inside for nearly a week, familiarizing herself, letting her bruises heal, letting herself heal. In that time she’d read nearly every scrap of paper she could find that had to do with the family’s finances, the past year’s calendar of events, the information on both her parents’ deaths. She’d gone through the filing cabinet and rifled through boxes in the attic until her eyes burned and her head ached, and she’d slept a great deal. The urgency she’d felt at the hospital—the need to apparently right some wrong—had eased to a simmer now that she was home. Maybe it was knowing that Edward Letton was still in the hospital, still in a coma. If he’d awakened and been released, she believed she would have heard it on the news, and at any rate, she just sensed that he was still there and for now, at least, she was going to trust her feelings.

      She had not found her purse, nor did she have any recollection about her mother’s car, which according to Tanninger, who’d phoned to ostensibly keep her informed, was a silver Camry. That had caused shivers of fear to run up and down her spine. Was that what she’d been driving? If, and when, it turned up would it prove that she’d run down Edward Letton?

      But what she had found among the papers was her medical insurance information, and she’d called hospital administration right away, happy that maybe she wasn’t going to be made destitute by her stay there. At least that was taken care of.

      She’d spent most

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