17

Del and Curtis spent two hours, until it was dark, below the Stairsteps and found nothing. Dixon was furious.

“Waste of money! No one would survive going over the Stairsteps. And if someone had fallen in and died, the body would have been seen by now. You’re not even certain someone did fall in. You wasted their time and our money.” He continued on, repeating his lecture about public service overtime budgeting and spending.

Tess barely listened and let him rant. In her way of thinking, money or no, it was more prudent to be safe, not sorry. Never assume.

After he left, she and Bender went to work on the homicide. She’d given him a brief in-service on running a homicide investigation, careful with her tone and manner now that she knew at least part of what bothered him, and then left him to make sure all the evidence was sent to the state crime lab in Salem. Since she’d trusted him with that task, would he thaw?

Sheriff’s personnel notified Glen Elders’s father in person about the death, but Tess had spoken with him by phone, as well as several other family members. She pulled a rolling whiteboard into her office to begin a murder board and started a timeline, but by 2 a.m. she was too spent to do much more and she called it a night.

Before leaving the office, she checked her phone for text messages she’d had to ignore earlier. She and her friend Jeannie tried to text one another at least once a day and there was a Hello, how you doing? text from her. There were also a couple from Jack O’Reilly. He sent her regular updates about the search for the three individuals who’d run away the night of the shooting. He finally had at least one name, and he and Ben were confident this lead would go somewhere.

Tess sighed after she read that, not wanting to get her hopes up. In any event, she was due to return to Long Beach in the near future. Word was that a wrongful death civil lawsuit from Cullen Hoover’s family was coming anytime now. And Tess’s lawyer had advised her to be prepared to come back and give a deposition.

It wasn’t the deposition that worried Tess. Most nights, it was the part of her that was afraid if she did go back to Long Beach, even for a painful deposition, she’d never return to Rogue’s Hollow. She’d find some hole to crawl into and hide.

But right now, exhausted, mind spinning with the homicide investigation, when considering a trip to Long Beach, Tess couldn’t help but think to herself, I have to solve this murder first.

Yawning, Tess couldn’t wait to get to bed and close her eyes—when she returned to her room at the Rogue’s Hollow Inn. She hadn’t yet found a home to rent or purchase, though she hadn’t even really looked. Adeline and Klaus Getz, the couple who owned and ran the inn, had graciously offered her their best room at a reduced rate until she did find a place. They were the only other couple besides the Macphersons who’d worked to make Tess feel at home. Addie had mentioned that the old chief had been rather lazy by the end of his career.

Klaus had muttered, “The man made donuts and police more of a truism.”

Addie had shot her husband a glare and said, “The force will probably run a whole lot smoother now.”

Their welcome and kindness toward Tess did take the sting out of Dixon’s pushiness and the cold shoulder she got from some of the cops who now worked for her, notably Gabe. Since the burst of anger when for some reason he’d thought she assumed him to be a backwoods hick, he’d been all cop, and for that Tess was grateful.

She was dead on her feet when she unlocked the door to her room and switched on the light. And at the moment she was talked out and glad for the quiet, solitary room.

All that was on her mind was a shower and bed. But an out-of-place item caught her eye right away.

There on her nightstand sat a card with her name on it propped in front of a cupcake—her favorite, she bet, carrot cake. She dropped her bag on the floor and stepped to the bed. Picking up the cupcake, she smelled it and smiled. Addie baked the best carrot cake Tess had ever tasted, and she had told her so. She opened the card.

Happy two-month anniversary! So glad to have you here!

Tess had to sit down and read all the names on the card. Some of them she couldn’t put a face to, had only heard the name before. A quilting club met in the inn restaurant every Monday morning and they’d all signed it. A couple of people in the city council signed it, and a couple of cops, notably Martin Getz and Becky Jonkey. So had Oliver and Anna Macpherson. She was touched and a lump rose in her throat. At least a few people trusted her; they believed in her. The last thing Tess wanted to do was let them down. But as always when she got back to her room at night and sat by herself, the specter of the shooting would rise up and bite her in the throat. It still scorched that she’d been run out of town.

You can’t do this job. What if it happens again?

You were only a commander. What makes you think you can be chief?

Something will happen; you’ll blow it eventually.

You’re only running away.

Tess sniffled and wiped her nose. She rose from the bed and began to shed her clothes to take a shower. I did nothing wrong, she insisted to herself while she let the water warm up, trying to ignore how that fact hadn’t helped her case. She stepped under the stream of warm water, letting it run over her tired and aching shoulder. She even noticed a few bruises from tackling Bubba.

“You won’t last two weeks in that hick town,” Paul had said. She could still hear his taunting voice in her head. “You’ll be begging for a spot parking cars somewhere back here before long. I know you.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” she muttered out loud, though the argument was months ago and Paul was miles away.

Now, even as she fought the desire to run back home and never return to this Rogue River town, she thought, I’d tell him. I’d show him. I’ve been here two months and at least some people like me, support me. I’m not going to beg for anything.