Plucking out the bullets, I drop them into the Baggie, put it in my coat pocket. Closing the chamber, I carry the rifle into the hall.
Tomasetti and Coulter are standing in the living room. I can tell by Coulter’s expression that Tomasetti isn’t being very nice. Both men stare at the rifle in my hands as I approach. I focus my attention on Coulter. “Did you forget about this?” I ask.
He blinks at me. “Where did you get that?”
“I didn’t pull it out of my back pocket.”
“It ain’t mine.”
“Maybe you could explain how it got in your closet.”
His eyes flick from me to Tomasetti to the rifle. “I’ve never seen it before in my life.”
His wife gasps. “Ricky … where’d that come from?”
Tomasetti shakes his head. “And to think I was just starting to like him.”
“I’m serious.” Coulter’s voice is indignant now. “I don’t have any guns in this house. I got kids. I’m a convicted felon; I can’t have any kind of weapon.”
“How did it get in your closet?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He takes a step back, his eyes bouncing like Ping-Pong balls between me and Tomasetti. “It ain’t mine. I swear. I don’t own a twenty-two, and I never have.”
In ten years of law-enforcement experience, I’ve heard every conceivable lie told in every conceivable form and spewed with the vehemence of brimstone and fire. I’m an expert at spotting lies and the liars who tell them. But as I watch Coulter, all I can think is that this guy is a step above the rest, because he’s almost believable.
Tomasetti steps closer to him. “So if it isn’t yours, how did it get there?”
“I don’t know.” He chokes out the words like a cough. “I’m telling you: That gun ain’t mine.”
I glance sideways at Tomasetti, and I can tell he’s thinking the same thing I am: This guy is good. That’s unusual, because Tomasetti is one of those cops who believe 90 percent of the population are pathological liars.
“We’re going to have to take you to the station,” I say.
“Ricky? What’s going on?” His wife rushes toward us. She’s still holding the baby, looking at the rifle as if I’m about to shoot her husband with it. “Where did you get that gun?”
The toddler runs to his mother, grabs her leg, and buries his face in the denim. “Mommy.”
“It’s not mine. I swear!” Coulter chokes out a sound of pure anguish. “Aw, come on … my kids…”
Maintaining eye contact, I tug handcuffs from my belt and approach him. “Turn around.”
“What are you doing?” his wife screeches.
“We’re just going to talk to him,” I tell her, hoping she stays calm.
“Aw man.” Coulter’s face screws up. To my dismay, he hangs his head and begins to cry. “Don’t do this. Not in front of my kids.”
I glance toward the door. “Let’s step outside.”
With the insouciance of a man taking a Sunday stroll, Tomasetti steps between the wife and Coulter. “We just have a few questions for him, ma’am. Step aside.”
“About what?” she cries.
I turn my back on them. Taking Coulter by the bicep, I guide him through the front door. It’s colder and the wind has kicked up. A misty rain falls from a murky sky.
Coulter wipes his face with his sleeve, then turns and offers his wrists. “That’s not my rifle.”
I snap on the cuffs. “We’ll get it straightened out at the station.”
An hour later, Tomasetti and I are sitting in my office, drinking one of Mona’s coffee-chocolate-hazelnut concoctions. I’m wishing I had something a lot stronger. I booked Coulter into jail on a parole violation and contacted his parole officer. She sounded young and inexperienced—and surprised by the news. In the year he’s been out of prison, Ricky Coulter has been a model parolee. He holds down a full-time job and has never missed a single appointment. After hanging up, I recap the conversation for Tomasetti, and he tells me she just hasn’t been part of the system long enough.
“A few more years and nothing will surprise her,” he says.
“That’s really jaded, Tomasetti.”
“Reality is jaded.” He shrugs, unapologetic. “One day Citizen Joe’s a born-again Christian; the next he slits his neighbor’s throat over a parking space.”
“Nice.” I’m not going to admit there’s a part of me that agrees with him.
I sip coffee as I type the serial number of the rifle into an NCIC query to see if it comes back as stolen.
“So what are you thinking?” Tomasetti asks after a moment.
“I’m thinking I don’t like this.”
“You mean Coulter as a suspect?”
“I mean any of it.”
I finish typing and look at him over my monitor. He’s wearing a charcoal shirt with a black tie beneath a nicely cut jacket. His trench coat is draped across the back of his chair. I can smell the piney-woods scent of his aftershave from where I sit. He’s a nice-looking man, but not in the traditional sense. He’s got a severe mouth, and his eyes are too intense. But the overall picture of him appeals to me in a way that no other man ever has. I don’t know why, but that scares the hell out of me.
“The kids…” I shake my head. “I felt like the bad guy, taking him in the way we did.”
“You weren’t.”
“I know, but it felt that way.” I hit ENTER, sending the query, and lean back in my chair. “He seemed pretty adamant about the rifle.”
“You tell a lie enough times and you start to believe it yourself.”
For an instant, I wonder if he’s talking about more than just Coulter. I’ve told my share of lies. He knows about most of them, but not all. “Anyone ever tell you you’re cynical?”
“All the time.” Leaning back in the chair, he extends his legs out in front of him and stretches. “What else is bugging you?”
I think about it a moment. “When I saw the rifle in the closet, I got this strange feeling that I’d seen it before.”
“You mean recently?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.” I reach for the memory, but it’s not there, like a hand grasping at smoke. “I was hoping to tie up the Slabaugh case with Coulter, but I don’t think he’s our guy.”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t like him for this or the hate crimes.”
“Where’s all that hard-nosed cynicism, Tomasetti?”
“At the risk of ruining whatever image of me you’ve drawn in your head, I don’t think a cop should let cynicism override good old-fashioned instinct.”
“Now there’s a novel concept.”
“Chief?”
I glance toward the door to see Glock standing there, looking excited. “Please tell me you have good news,” I say.
“A guy out on Township Road 2 remembered seeing a dark-colored pickup truck hauling ass last night near where you found Lambright. Says he noticed because the driver blew a stop sign, just about hit him.”
“Anyone get a plate number?”
He shakes his head. “Witness says he was moving too fast.”
“What about a description of the driver?”
“Don’t know. T. J.’s talking to the guy now.”
“Any word on Lambright’s condition?” Tomasetti asks.
“Broken ribs. Broken nose. Hypothermia. Emergency doc says someone worked him over good.”
“Just for being Amish,” I mutter. “Sons of bitches.”
“Maybe the truck will pan out,” Glock says.
I’m not as optimistic. “Run all blue and black pickup trucks, Ford and Chevy, registered in Holmes and Coshocton counties,” I say to Glock. “Run the drivers through LEADS, see if we get anything interesting.”