She did what she knew to do: she moved the crowd back, she crouched down and got the man’s name-Jeff Simmons. She didn’t know him, but his wife, the woman who was holding the cloth to his head, looked familiar. In short order, she discovered that Mrs. Simmons was a teacher at the local school, which explained her familiarity.
Mrs. Simmons was holding it together and began giving Bo a coherent statement, but then she lifted the soaked cloth, and her husband’s head wound immediately started pouring blood again. She made an inarticulate sound of distress and burst into tears.
“Let me take over,” Morgan said, crouching down beside the wife and angling his body between Tricks and the wounded man. “I have some medic training.” He slapped the bloody cloth back over the wound and in about thirty seconds had commandeered someone’s tank top to cover that, which he held in place with someone else’s tie. Who had worn a tie to a parade?
Bo shoved the errant thought aside and concentrated on the task of getting a statement. Mr. Simmons was remarkably calm. “I don’t think I’m shot,” he said. “I mean, we all heard the shot, but there was a kind of sharp ping, then something hit my head.”
Still holding the makeshift bandage firmly in place, Morgan looked around. “Were you standing beside that light pole?”
“Yeah,” Mr. Simmons affirmed.
“I think the bullet hit the pole and a big splinter of wood tagged you in the head. Maybe not. The bullet could have ricocheted and grazed you. Either way, this isn’t a penetrating wound.”
“Oh, thank the Lord,” sobbed Mrs. Simmons. She wiped her eyes and face, which was a waste of time because she was still crying. Someone passed her a handful of tissues.
Then the real medics arrived; they’d parked on a side street and run the rest of the way. Bo and Morgan stepped back. Tricks pawed Bo’s leg and whined; the atmosphere was far different from the parade, and she didn’t like it. Either that, or she needed to pee. Looking down at her, Bo broke into a wobbly smile; it was a definite “I need to pee” signal because if a dog could be said to be squirming, Tricks was.
“You need some time alone with her,” Morgan said, having followed the unspoken communication. “Take her to the side of that building. I need to see about something. Where will you be?”
“Right here,” she said, stepping up onto the sidewalk. “I figure I should stay far away from Kyle.”
“I’ll be right back. Fifteen minutes, tops.” He hooked his hand around the back of her neck and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, regardless of who might be watching. At this point she didn’t care, and she didn’t think he ever had. All she wanted to do was what had to be done so she could go home.
Morgan threaded his way through the crowd; Hamrickville wasn’t a big town, but most of the population seemed to be standing in the street. That slowed him down some, but not by much. He had something to take care of, and he wanted to do it now. The look on his face had some of the more perceptive citizens moving out of his path. He could feel the ice settling in his veins, the hyperawareness of all his senses, the way he always reacted when things went to shit and it was fight or die.
Jesse and Patrick were still at the float, though Kyle Gooding was now sitting on the ground with blood dripping from his nose and chin. Morgan eyed him dispassionately, wishing he’d put more force into slamming the asshole’s head against the pavement. If he had, this would be finished already, so that had been a slight miscalculation on his part.
Patrick had pulled up his patrol car, easing through the crowd with his blues flashing and occasionally tapping the horn. Morgan waited while they hauled Kyle to his feet and opened the back door of the cruiser, easing him into it even though Morgan suspected they both would have liked to drop-kick him into the seat. Kyle sat sullenly, staring down at his feet.
Morgan approached Jesse. “I need a private word with the asshole. Okay for me to get in the car?”
Jesse turned, eyed him, studied his face. “You can’t kill him.”
“Don’t intend to.” Not yet anyway.
“You can’t even touch him. I’m not giving him any avenue to get off the hook this time.”
“Don’t intend to touch him either.”
“Okay, then.” A faint wintry smile touched Jesse’s face. “I would say record everything on your phone, but I probably don’t need to know. Tap on the window when you want out.” He nodded; Morgan opened the back passenger door on the other side and slid onto the seat beside Gooding. He closed the door with a controlled thud.
Kyle lifted his bloody face and snarled at him, “Who the fuck are you?”
I’m your worst nightmare. The line from the movie popped into Morgan’s head, but he resisted the temptation. Looking out the window instead of at Kyle, he said offhandedly, “I’m the man who plans to kill you.”
“What? Who-?” The words were kind of blubbered thanks to the swelling of Kyle’s mouth, which gave Morgan a great deal of pleasure.
Now Morgan looked at him and smiled. He knew it wasn’t a pretty smile because Kyle visibly recoiled. “You tried to kill the chief. I happen to be in love with her.” He was distantly astonished at the words coming out of his mouth but went with it anyway. He’d think about it later.
“Wasn’t trying to kill her,” Kyle mush-mouthed sullenly. “The dog. I was gonna shoot the fucking dog. This was all her fault; if she hadn’t jumped me, I never would have hit her, and my family wouldn’t have made me sign those fucking divorce papers to keep from being arrested. I lost my house, she should lose her dog. Nobody cares about a dog, you can’t even sue for ‘emotional harm,’ or anything like that. I looked it up.”
“Well, see, that’s the law-but I don’t give a fuck about the law. I happen to be real fond of the dog myself. She’s smarter than you are. Better looking, too.”
“Fuck the damn dog. You’re threatening me. That’s against the law.” Blood and spittle dripped down Kyle’s chin. “I’ll have you arrested.”
“Good. I can arrange to be in the same cell with you.” Casually, Morgan looked back out the window. “Here’s how it’s going to be. You’re not going to say a word about aiming for the dog, you’re going to say you were trying to kill the chief-”
“Bullshit!”
“-and you’re going to plead guilty,” Morgan continued as if Kyle hadn’t interrupted. “You’re going to go to prison. And that’s the only way you’re going to stay alive. You don’t make bail, you sit your sorry ass in a jail cell until you’re sentenced, and you serve your time. When you get out, you move far away from here and never come back to this area again.”
“Do you know who I am? My father-”
“Fuck your father. The problem is, you don’t know who I am. I’m a man who knows how to kill you seven ways from Sunday, and I’m just itching to try all those ways out on you, you motherfucker. You set foot outside the jail, you’re dead. Remember that. You want to know how I plan to kill you? I think skinning you alive would give me a lot of pleasure. I can make it last a long time, and you’d be alive and screaming right up until the end. Yeah, I like the idea of that.” He thought of Bo’s white face and wild eyes, the inhuman sounds coming from her throat as she lunged toward Tricks, and the truth of what he was saying was plain in his savage expression.
Kyle jerked back so hard he banged the back of his head against the window. His eyes were wide with fear, whites showing all around the irises. “You’re crazy as hell!”
Morgan considered that, then shrugged. “Possible,” he said casually. “But I’m also a man of my word. The only place you’re safe from me is in jail-and you’d better pray nothing bad ever happens to the chief or her dog because if it does, I’m going to assume you paid for it to happen, and I’m coming after you, jail or not. There’s no place you can go that I can’t get to you, no way you can hide even if you change your name. And I know how to get away with it, even if you tell a hundred people to look at me if anything happens to you.”