“I’m okay,” he said. He raised a hand to ward her off. “I’m okay.”
He spit, straightened, turned away from her, bent and waited, ready to vomit again. She could hear his rapid breathing. He’s going to pass out.
He put his hands on his hips, sucking in air, getting his control back. She watched him for a moment, then walked around the Honda and shone the light through the windows. There was a folded Florida map on the front passenger floor. In back was a child safety seat and a brown leather overnight bag.
“He has a kid,” Billy said. “You see that seat? He has a kid.”
Maybe not.
She looked down the road. Coming over a small crest, she could see emergency lights-two cruisers and an EMT van.
She looked at him.
“Anything you want to tell me before the sheriff gets here?” she said.
He looked at the approaching cruisers, then back at her, shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry, Sara. I never had a choice.”
“You did what you had to do. It’ll be all right.”
Sirens all around them, the cruisers pulling up abreast of her own, the EMT truck pulling ahead. She moved closer to Billy, stood beside him.
The sirens rose, fell, and died. Car doors opened and closed around them. They stood together in the nexus of rolling lights.
She looked up, saw the far-off silhouette of a bird against the starfield. An instant later, it was gone. She wondered if it was ever there at all.
“Well,” Sheriff Hammond said. “What’s your take on this mess?”
They were in his office, the door shut. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on the rest of the station. Through the window behind his desk, she could see the small stretch of lawn lined with whitewashed stone, a bare flagpole lit by flood-lamps.
Four A.M. and he was in jeans and flannel shirt, unshaven. His hair was longish, his nose laced with broken blood vessels. He was from Mississippi, had come east thirty years ago but never lost that soft accent.
Sara had a bottle of water from the break-room vending machine but hadn’t touched it yet. She wished she had an aspirin. It was her first midnight shift in months, and she’d been tired all night. Now she could feel the familiar beginnings of a migraine, the pulsing of a vein in her temple.
“From what I saw,” she said, “it looks like it played out the way he told it. I responded as soon as I got the call. There wasn’t a whole lot of time between the stop and when I got there.”
He took an unsharpened pencil off the desk and leaned back in his chair. His desktop was cluttered, a bundle of papers held down by a dummy hand grenade he’d brought home from Vietnam, wire IN and OUT baskets, a framed photo of his daughter as a teenager.
On a credenza behind him was a computer, shut down for the night. Beside it, in a plastic liner, was his sheriff’s campaign hat, which he wore only on formal occasions. When he’d taken over the Sheriff’s Office, he’d discontinued the use of their Smokey the Bear hats, opted for black baseball caps instead, and then made those optional as well, a change Sara had always been grateful for.
He scratched his jaw, tapped the pencil on the edge of the desk. She could sense his awkwardness.
“The lawyer from the Fraternal Order of Police is on his way,” he said. “Boone from the state attorney’s office in La Belle is still at the scene, but he’ll roll back here soon. He’ll be talking with you as well. That might be a little uncomfortable.”
“Why’s that?”
“He’ll have to know about you two.”
Doesn’t everybody already?
She cracked the cap on the bottle, drank, replaced it.
“I understand that, Sheriff. But just for the record, that was over two years ago.”
“I know. I’m just saying. Small county like this, small town, small department. If we don’t tell him, someone else will. It’s better it come from us.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“You’re a woman in an otherwise all-male department, Sara. That puts you in a unique position. It’s not fair, and I know it, but sometimes you have to be realistic about what other people might be thinking.”
“I understand.”
“This your first overnight in what, eight months?”
“Nine.”
“Your first shift with him that entire time?”
She nodded, sipped more water, set the bottle on the floor. He pulled a yellow legal pad across the desk toward him.
“They ID the driver yet?” she said. She was feeling 4:00 A.M. fatigue, a slight dislocation from everything around her. The adrenaline was fading, and she wanted sleep.
He tilted the pad to read it.
“Derek Willis,” he said. “Twenty-two. Had a current driver’s license on him. A resident of Newark, New Jersey, and only one arrest, a misdemeanor joyriding charge. Ran him through NCIS. No hits.”
“That the name on the registration?”
“No. Car’s registered to a Wendell Abernathy, also of Newark. No hits on him either.”
“FDLE involved?”
“Not yet.”
“Good,” she said.
“That could change, based on what Boone finds. If he feels he needs to bring them in, he will.”
“Whatever the situation, this Willis wasn’t a tourist, out there in the middle of the night, weapons in the trunk.”
“I expect not.”
“And what was he doing on that road in the first place? There’s nothing out there for miles. If you’re just passing through, heading south, interstate’s easier, safer.”
“Hopefully, all questions which will be answered.”
She drank more water, put the bottle down, rubbed her left temple.
“Who’s watching the little guy?” he said.
“JoBeth. She’s at my house.”
“JoBeth Ryan?”
“She’s driving now, so it’s easier for her.”
“JoBeth’s a good kid. And her father’s a good man. She babysit for you a lot?”
“She’s good with Danny. He likes her.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He has good days, bad days. The chemo’s been rough.”
“You ever hear from his father?”
She shook her head, looked away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s none of my business.”
“It’s okay. There’s just not much to say. We’re getting on with our lives, you know? We have to.”
“Don’t we all.”
“They find anything else in the car?”
“Not so far. Howie’s got it at the garage. We’ll take it apart tomorrow, see what we find. I’m sorry, Sara, I was out of line there.”
“It’s all right. What’s the ME say?”
“Not much yet.” He tapped the pencil on his knee, relieved the subject had changed. “Three rounds, all from Flynn’s Glock. Two in the chest”-he touched himself there-“one on the left side. One exit wound through the back. Looks like they were definitely facing each other when the first shots were fired, which is good news. He spun as he went down, which is how he caught the third round. His weapon hadn’t been fired. Loaded, though. We’re trying to track down next of kin. I’ve got a call in to someone I know at the state police up there as well.”
Outside the window, it was almost dawn.
“You should sign out, get some sleep,” he said.
She picked up the bottle, stood, felt the stiffness in her knees. She looked out into the station, saw Angie, the bighaired bottle-blond dispatcher, watching her. Sara met her eyes until she looked away.
“You’re on Monday to Friday, right?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Good. So you’ve got the weekend in front of you. Come Monday, you go back on regular day shift?”
She nodded.
“Then take another twenty-four if you need to. We can cover. Just call Laurel, let her know.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“You can decide that Sunday night. Boone’s going to be calling you tomorrow, and you’ll need to come in for the interview.”