“Slim,” Darrell admitted. “If Jay was in his bedroom, he should have seen something.”
“So either he did, and he’s lying to protect someone, or he killed Gordon himself. Either way, you need to find out.”
I listened to the back-and-forth between the two men, and then I jumped in. “Bad relationship or not, Jay doesn’t strike me as a teenager who’d kill his father, Sheriff. I talked to his friend Will, who said the same thing.”
Jerry looked at me for the first time, and his mouth curled with rage. Just like that, I knew he had it in for me. “Do killers wear name tags, Rebecca? Or maybe they have special tattoos? You can read violence in someone’s eyes just by looking at them? That’s quite a talent. You must have acquired it in your grand total of two years on the job.”
I tried to hold my tongue. I was used to being condescended to, and propositioned, and ignored, but I’d had enough. I didn’t really care if I had to quit or if Jerry fired me. I opened my mouth to shoot back, but Darrell smoothly interrupted before I could make a job-ending mistake.
“Look, Jerry, you can be as sarcastic as you want to be, but that’s not getting us any closer to an answer. For what it’s worth, Rebecca’s right. I talked to Jay, too. The kid isn’t a killer.”
“Really?” Jerry asked, putting poison into the word.
“Really.”
The sheriff eased back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. He half smiled, half sneered, and when he did that, he looked exactly like Ajax. “Tell me about Gordon Brink’s office.”
Darrell looked puzzled. “What do you mean? What do you want to know?”
“Who had access to it?”
“Gordon,” Darrell replied. “Nobody else.”
“Nobody?”
“According to Erica, he kept it locked up tight.”
Jerry looked at me again, and the acid in his expression told me that he knew something we didn’t. “Is that right, Rebecca? Does Darrell have it right?”
“Yes. Erica told me she never went inside. She was even reluctant to have me go in there when Gordon was missing. That was where he kept all the privileged materials in the lawsuit.”
“What about Jay?” Jerry asked.
“He told us the same thing.”
“Yes, he did. I read the summary of your interview with him. I wasn’t allowed inside. Nobody was. It doesn’t get much clearer than that, does it?”
“What are you getting at, Sheriff?” Darrell asked.
Jerry reached into a drawer and pulled out a manila envelope, which he slapped on the desk. He jabbed at it with his finger. “Ajax gave me the results of the fingerprint analysis today. He dusted Gordon’s whole office, and guess what?”
Darrell and I stared at the envelope. We could guess what was in it.
“Jay Brink’s prints are all over the office,” Jerry went on. “He was there. He lied.”
I frowned. “Maybe Jay was in there when they first moved in. Before Gordon set up his office.”
“In the bedroom?” Jerry asked.
I stared at him. “What?”
“The bedroom. The bed. Right where Gordon was murdered. Jay’s prints are there, too.”
Darrell stood up, and I knew he was angry. Angry at Jay lying to us. Angry at being embarrassed in front of his boss. “We’ll talk to him.”
“Do that. But enough of the pussyfooting around, Darrell. Put the fear of God in this kid. Let him know we mean business. Like I said, either he butchered his father or he knows who did. Get him to admit it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Darrell headed for the office door, but as I stood up to follow him, Jerry held up his hand. “Deputy Todd, stay here a minute. I need to talk to you.”
From the doorway, Darrell gave me a look to see if I wanted him to stay. I signaled no, even though I figured my head was on the chopping block. Darrell went outside and closed the door behind him, and I sat down in the chair again. The sheriff’s anger had dissolved into a cold, calm formality, and in my experience, that was worse than when he blew up at you.
“Deputy Todd,” he said.
“Actually, it’s Deputy Colder from now on, sir. Ricky and I are splitting up.”
“Rebecca, I don’t care if you want to call yourself Deputy Dawg.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ajax has filed a complaint against you.”
My mouth fell open. “What?”
“He says you assaulted him at the 126 on Sunday night. You slapped him and gave him a deep gash on his cheek.”
“I... well, I did, but he—”
“He says you needed to use the bathroom facilities after drinking too much beer, and he offered to let you use the men’s room because the line for the women’s bathroom was too long. After you came out of the stall, you began making sexual advances toward him. When he declined, you persisted. At that time, your husband entered the bathroom, and you covered your inappropriate behavior by striking a fellow deputy.”
I shot to my feet. “That is not what happened. Ajax came on to me. You of all people know what he’s like. You know how he’s treated me from the day I set foot in this office.”
“If you can’t handle the working conditions of this department, you never should have gone after the job,” Jerry replied. “Let’s face facts. You’re not cut out for it. You never were.”
“Because I’m a woman? Or because I won’t sleep with your nephew?”
The sheriff took a sealed number ten envelope from his desk and pushed it toward me. I could see my name where his secretary had typed it in capital letters. DEPUTY REBECCA TODD.
“This is a copy of the complaint,” Jerry told me. “It includes Ajax’s statement. There will be a formal inquiry. If the complaint is sustained, you’ll be subject to punishment up to and including dismissal.”
I shook my head. “You’re going to fire me because Ajax stuck his hand up my dress?”
“You should know that I discussed the facts of this matter with your husband, too.”
“My husband?”
“Ricky confirmed Ajax’s version of the events.”
“He wasn’t even there to see it! He’s just saying that because I kicked him out. Sheriff, this isn’t fair.”
Jerry wasn’t even listening to me anymore. He shuffled his papers, put on his reading glasses, and glanced at me as if he couldn’t understand why I was still in the room. “That’ll be all, Rebecca.”
Chapter Thirteen
“He’s not going to fire you,” Darrell told me as I drove us back to the crime scene at Gordon Brink’s house.
I hadn’t told him what happened with the sheriff, but he already knew. Everyone in the department knew, because Ajax was already spreading his version of the story. The version where I came on to him, rather than vice versa.
“Jerry’s been waiting for an opportunity to fire me for two years,” I said. “And this is it.”
Darrell shook his head. “Whatever happened with Ajax wasn’t your fault.”
I glanced across the front seat. I knew he was trying to be nice — he was always nice to me — but this was a day where I didn’t want to feel good about myself. I’d made too many mistakes, and I was paying the price.
“What makes you so sure, Darrell? Do you think I’m some kind of angel? How do you know it didn’t happen exactly like he said?”
“If you hit Ajax, he gave you a good reason to hit him. I know what he’s like. More to the point, I know you, Rebecca.”