Authors: Meg Benjamin
Taken all in all, she had no idea where they stood or what was ahead for them. A smart woman might cut her losses and pull back, or at the very least take things more slowly to make sure she wasn’t going to get crushed again.
But then again, when it came to Nando, had she ever been smart?
The county lab techs were very thorough, which meant they were also very slow. Nando sat at his desk shuffling through some paperwork until his eyes gave out and he dropped his head onto his arms. He should be doing the paperwork—hell, he should always be doing paperwork. But he didn’t feel like it, and napping was better than calling the hospital again to check on Helen.
Toleffson stood watching the techs, asking the occasional question and, judging from his expression, not getting the kind of answers he wanted. When the techs finally headed out the door, carrying their bags of equipment with them, Toleffson walked back into the bullpen.
“Anything?” Nando asked.
Toleffson shook his head. “Some fingerprints on the window, but they’re probably mine. In fact, mine are all over the place. They picked up some other prints, but my guess is they’ll turn out to be the cleaning service or you guys. This asshole has worn gloves every other place he’s hit. Too much to hope that he’d go barehanded here.” He glanced back at Helen’s desk, his jaw firming. “Come on. Let’s take that damn office apart and see if we can figure out what he was looking for.”
Nando pushed himself to his feet. “That assumes the guy was looking for something in particular. Maybe he was just going through the first room he saw after he climbed in the window.”
“Then why didn’t he stop when he figured out nothing was in there? If it was all random, why didn’t he just keep going through the station until he found something that was open or something that was worth taking? Why did he stay in here?”
Nando frowned as he circled the desk behind Toleffson. “That would mean he deliberately broke into this office, looking for something specific. That was either incredibly stupid or reasonably well planned.”
The chief narrowed his eyes. “Okay. Why?”
“Because I figure he thought the station was empty. No burglar in his right mind would have broken into a cop shop if there were any cops around. He must have figured nobody was here.”
“But Helen was sitting up front.” Toleffson scowled. “Why didn’t he see her?”
“Helen doesn’t park in the parking lot, and she comes in the back way most times. Plus when she’s here at night, she turns off most of the lights except for her desk light. She’s always complaining about wasted electricity.”
“So you’re thinking this perp was watching the station? That he saw Delaney and Kirk take off?”
Nando shrugged. “It’s possible. Or maybe he just checked the parking lot and saw that both cruisers were out. Put that together with most of the lights being turned off, and he could have figured it was all clear.”
“It’s possible,” Toleffson said slowly. “Doesn’t help much, though. Chances are if he was watching, he did it from a car or someplace nobody would see. If he was standing out front, somebody on the street could have seen him. And we still don’t know why he broke in here at all.” He looked around his office, eyes narrowed. “Start with the filing cabinets. That’s the first thing he’d see. Nothing interesting in ’em so far as I know, but maybe he thought different. Stack the stuff there.” He pointed to a folding table he’d set up at the side of the room.
Nando narrowed his eyes, studying the cabinet. “What’s in here? Case files?”
The chief shook his head. “Budgeting stuff mainly. Plus some older files from Olema and Brody. I should have cleaned the damn thing out a long time ago.” He pulled one of the side desk drawers open, lifting out some legal pads, paperclips and a stapler.
Nando scanned the folder tabs on the first file drawer, mostly travel vouchers and receipts. “Not much here. Nothing I’d want to steal anyway.”
“Damn straight,” the chief growled. “I don’t keep anything important here. I lock any case files in the evidence room, whatever I don’t keep on my computer, and I take my laptop home at night. The only thing left is the dock.” He nodded toward the computer dock at the side.
“Doesn’t look like he was interested in it.” Nando pulled out the next file drawer and found more of the same of the same, along with some antiquated computer disks and a stray thumb drive. “Could he be looking for something like this?” He held up the drive. “Maybe trying to find some computer files?”
The chief shrugged. “If he was, he doesn’t know much about police procedure around here. My files are backed up at the county. I don’t keep external copies. I don’t think anybody does anymore.”
“Could be something old, from back before the county started backing files up.”
Toleffson sighed. “Possibly. Seems like a stretch, but pull out those disks. Maybe they’re labeled.”
Nando stacked the disks on the table, then pulled out the final drawer and found office supplies: pads, pens, paperclips, scissors and a paper punch. “That’s it?”
Toleffson nodded. “Like I said, I don’t keep anything valuable in my office. The only thing that makes sense was that he was just looking around for anything he could find. Maybe he thought there’d be a computer here. Maybe he was looking for money. Maybe Ham was right for once and he thought he’d find drugs or guns in here.”
“But he took the time to case the joint,” Nando said slowly. “And he broke the window lock so he could get into this office. If it was just an impulse, wouldn’t he have opened the first unlocked window he found?”
The chief sighed. “Okay, let’s go through the desk and see if there’s something worth taking. Not that I keep anything in there either.”
A couple of hours later, the desk drawers and file drawers were stacked on the floor as Toleffson turned them around to check the sides and bottoms. Nando ran his fingers along the inside of the file cabinet, feeling slightly like an idiot, then did the same thing to the underside of the desktop. He crawled beneath the shell of the desk and ran his fingers over the inside surfaces, trying to see if anything had been taped there. All he found was dust and a couple of splinters. He backed out in time to see Toleffson toss the last drawer to the floor in frustration.
“Goddamn it,” he snapped. “If there’s anything in this freakin’ office, it sure as hell isn’t obvious. Or even hidden in places where you’d expect it to be.”
Nando leaned back against the wall, staring at the contents of the desk drawers and the file cabinet that were piled on the table. There was nothing in the pile that he didn’t keep in his own desk, as well as every other desk he’d ever seen. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why anybody would go to the risk of breaking into a police station just to grab stuff he could have found at any office supply store. He shook his head, sighing. “Why did he hit her?”
Toleffson squinted at him. “She found him in the office. He was trying to get away.”
“He could have just gone back through the window and run down the street the way he did when I found him at Margaret Hastings’ place. Why hit Helen? Why take it from burglary to assault?”
The chief paused, thinking. “Maybe he lost it. He didn’t expect there to be anybody else here besides him. Maybe she startled him.”
“But he used a bookend from the bookcase. If he was startled, wouldn’t he grab the first thing that came to hand on the desk?”
Toleffson’s expression darkened. “Her baton was next to her. It was the only weapon she had with her since she hadn’t gotten her service revolver yet. Maybe he thought she was threatening him.”
“Knowing Helen, she probably was.” Nando grimaced. Only Helen would consider holding off a perp with a baton. But under normal circumstances, she probably could have done it. “She must have been distracted. I mean, normally I’d take odds on Helen in just about any fight. She’s one tough broad.”
Toleffson stared at him for a long moment, then blew out a breath. “She knew him.”
As soon as he heard it, Nando knew he was right. “Which is why he had to hit her.”
“And why he got the drop on her in the first place. She must have heard someone in the office and grabbed her baton. But she was surprised to see him—that particular guy. Which gave him a chance to grab the bookend and hit her.”
Toleffson’s jaw was set, one large hand resting on the side of the desk. Nando had a feeling the perp would be very sorry he’d hit Helen Kretschmer once Toleffson got hold of him.
“But that doesn’t help us much,” he said slowly. “I mean, like you said, Helen knows everybody in town.”
The chief shrugged. “It means the guy isn’t a stranger, that he’s somebody from around here. But I agree—that just limits it to a few hundred citizens of Konigsburg.”
Nando checked his watch. “I better go relieve Delaney at the hospital so he can go home before he’s on patrol. I don’t guess the perp’s going to try anything else tonight, but who knows? He hasn’t exactly followed the rules up to now either.”
Toleffson nodded grimly. “Go on. I’ll stay here a while longer. Maybe something will turn up.”
“Maybe,” Nando agreed. But he didn’t figure they should count on it.
Brody sat in the broken-down recliner that was part of the furnishings in his room and tried to think. His anger made it difficult to think clearly, and clear thinking was essential at the moment. He stared down at the shot glass full of tequila in his left hand. Getting drunk right now would be very dangerous, but alcohol helped to deaden the burning fury in his gut.
What the hell had Kretschmer been doing there anyway? Nobody was supposed to have been around. He’d kept careful watch throughout the evening, keeping track of the cruisers, when they came and went. He figured they’d stepped up the patrols after the near miss the previous week. Probably using some kind of call forwarding system to route the incoming calls. The damn place was supposed to have been empty. He’d seen the last cop take off at eleven. And still he’d waited another ten minutes before breaking the flimsy window lock and climbing in.
Yet Kretschmer was there. Where she absolutely shouldn’t have been.
It was her own fault. He knew that. But it still rankled. He’d been so close, and then she’d come bursting through the door, pretending to be a cop. Well, she’d found out the price of pretending. With any luck she wouldn’t wake up until he was gone. Hell, with any luck, she wouldn’t wake up at all.
He weighed his options again. He could cut his losses and get out now. All he would have given up would be time spent in a job he despised. He’d still have his freedom. It was a risk to stay around. Kretschmer could still wake up, and if she did, she might remember what she’d seen. They wouldn’t find him immediately, even then. But they’d know who to look for.
But if he left now, he wouldn’t have much to show for the weeks he’d spent in Konigsburg. His future would still be as dim as it had first seemed when he’d decided to come back.
He hadn’t found what he was looking for, but he hadn’t seen anything to show him that anybody else had found it either. And as long as it was there, he’d have a chance for better times. Much better times.
He’d fought for that chance. He deserved that chance. He was going to get that chance.
He tossed back the contents of his shot glass and went to bed.
Chapter Twenty
Helen’s hospital room was so small Nando felt like he was in danger of kicking over her water pitcher every time he moved his feet. It was his second tour of duty as her bodyguard and he still wasn’t used to the room.
He’d expected Helen to look shrunken and vulnerable, like his grandmother had when she’d gone to the hospital the last time. But Helen mainly reminded him of one of those effigies on the top of warriors’ tombs. Give her a broadsword and she’d be set to take out an enemy battalion single-handed as soon as she woke up.
He tried to settle himself into the singularly uncomfortable visitor’s chair. No wonder Delaney had looked so miserable when he’d relieved him first thing this morning. The kid had been sitting in the chair for a large part of his night shift, after Toleffson had sent him over. He’d probably lost all feeling in his butt by the time Nando got there.
Nando had smuggled in a cup of Deirdre’s coffee and a blueberry muffin that he’d grabbed in the middle of the breakfast rush. It was still early, and he needed that shot of caffeine. He wasn’t going to take the chance that Helen might wake up and find him drowsing.
Not that there was much possibility he could sleep in that chair. Maybe that was the point—use the chair torture device to keep visitors from staying too long and exhausting the patient. He slumped down far enough to rest on his shoulders, then opened his paperback, setting his coffee cup on the bedside table. Maybe Kathy Reichs could keep him entertained until Toleffson showed up at noon to relieve him.
An hour later he’d finished the coffee and was still fighting off yawns. The dull hum of the monitors that were attached to Helen seemed to have a drugging effect, in spite of the fact that his ass was bristling with pins and needles. He wondered if he could switch on the television set, or if that was off-limits for unconscious patients. On the other hand, it wasn’t like Helen needed more sleep. Maybe the noise would help to wake her up.