Tough Customer

PROLOGUE

HE WAS OUT OF THE TRUCK WHILE DUST AROUND THE TIRES was still rising.

The ambulance's emergency lights sent pulsing shafts of color into the surrounding forest. The doors of the ambulance had been left open by the EMTs, who, he assumed, were already inside.

His boots crunched in the gravel as he covered the distance to the porch in three long strides. He entered the house through the open front door, stepping into a wide foyer. His eyes swept the main room on his left. Nobody in it. Nothing apparently disturbed. Two empty wineglasses were on the coffee table in front of a slipcovered sofa. Traces of lipstick were on one of the glasses but not on the other.

The sofa faced a stone fireplace, where a leafy fern had been placed in the grate for the summer. Rocking chair with woven cane seat. Patchwork quilt folded over the arm of an upholstered easy chair. Magazines and books in shelves and stacked on various tables. Reading lamps.

It was as homey, cozy, and placid a setting as could possibly be.

He registered it all within seconds. Beyond the living room was a dining area rimmed by a bay window, but he left off exploration when noises from above drew his gaze up to the gallery that ran the width of the house. Taking the stairs two at a time, he rounded the landing, making sure not to touch the newel post, and proceeded up to the second floor.

He walked along the gallery, which led him into a short hallway and to an open bedroom door. Again he assessed the room in a glance. Matching lamps on either side of an unmade queen-size bed cast disks of light onto the pale, peach-colored wall. A ceiling fan with blades made of palm leaves circulated overhead. There were three wide windows. Through the louvers of the shutters he could see the continued play of the colored emergency lights on upper tree branches.

The EMTs were kneeling on either side of a prone figure, a man, judging by the bare feet and hairy legs, which was all of him that could be seen from this vantage point. Under the man, blood had soaked into the rug.

One of the EMTs glanced over his shoulder and bobbed his head in greeting. "Hey, Ski. We've been expecting you."

He walked into the room. "What have you got?"

"Messy GSW to the lower left torso."

"Is he gonna make it?"

"Don't know yet."

Until she spoke, Ski hadn't realized that the second EMT was a woman.

"A good sign, though," she added. "The lady said he was conscious right up till we got here."

"Lady?" Ski asked.

The first EMT nodded into an open doorway, which they were presently blocking. "She called in the 911."

"Name?"

"Hers? Uh..." He was distracted by situating the IV bag. The name escaped him.

The female EMT supplied it. "King."

"Caroline King? The realtor?" Ski asked with surprise. "This is her house?"

The woman EMT shrugged. "That's the name in our database."

"So who's the guy that got shot?"

"Lady said his name is Ben Lofland."

"Are they the only two in the house?"

"Appear to be. The front door was standing open when we got here. We followed her shouts upstairs. Found him lying here as you see him. She was kneeling beside him, clutching his hand, crying. We haven't seen anybody else. She's shaken up pretty bad."

"Did she shoot him?"

"That's your job," the woman EMT replied.

Satisfied that the shooting victim was stabilized enough to transport, the two competently placed him on the stretcher they'd carried up with them, affording Ski a better look at him. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He had even features and the trim build of a runner or tennis player. No facial hair, visible tattoos, or distinguishing scars.

He was wearing nothing except a pair of gray knit underwear. It had been cut away on the left side, where there was now a large bandage. The woman EMT threw a blanket over him. The guy was out cold, but he groaned as they strapped him down.

Hearing the clomping of footsteps, Ski turned just as another deputy barged into the room, then drew up short. "I got here as soon as I could," he huffed. His wide-eyed gaze moved past Ski to the dark, wet bloodstain on the rug, then to the victim on the stretcher.

He was younger than Ski by more than a decade, nearly a foot shorter, soft around the middle. His apple-cheeked face was flushed, and he was out of breath, either from excitement or from running up the stairs. He was a rookie. This was his first shooting. To him, it must represent the Big Time.

Ski said, "Give them a hand, will you, Andy? Getting that stretcher around the landing might be tricky. Don't touch anything in the process unless you put on gloves."

"Right."

"Hal's on his way to help secure the house."

"He's got some miles to cover."

"And until he gets here," Ski said sternly, "it's up to you not to let anybody else inside, and that includes our own men. I'm counting on you. Got it?"

"Got it." The younger deputy hiked up his slipping gun belt and accompanied the EMTs out.

Ski crossed the room and went to the open door that had been blocked by the fallen victim.

He looked into a bathroom, where a woman was sitting on the rim of the tub, rocking back and forth, her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands. He had a bird's-eye view of the center part in her hair. Ski thought it might be auburn, but it was hard to tell because it was wet. It formed a heavy curtain on both sides of her face.

A summer-weight cotton robe had been carelessly tied at her waist. The wide sleeves had fallen back to reveal slender arms sprinkled with pale freckles. The skirt of the robe had separated above her knees, leaving her legs bare. Her toes were curled into the deep pile of the bath mat.

She wasn't Caroline King.

Inside the bathtub, the porcelain was wet. Three of the pewter rings holding the shower curtain had been detached from the rod, leaving the wet curtain hanging unevenly. A bottle of shampoo in the corner of the tub was uncapped.

She must have been interrupted while taking a shower, which explained the damp patches where her robe was stuck to her skin.

Lying on the floor a few inches from her feet, incongruous with the vulnerability of her pink, bare toes, was a .38 revolver, a standard Saturday night special. The base of the commode would have kept it from being seen by the EMTs. Ski wondered if that had been deliberate.

He removed a pair of latex gloves from the hip pocket of his jeans and worked his right hand into one of them, then cautiously walked forward and bent down to pick up the revolver by the trigger guard. He thumbed the latch, and the cylinder swung out. There was an unspent bullet in each of the six chambers. He sniffed the barrel. It hadn't been fired recently.

As though only then realizing that he was there, the woman lowered her hands from her face and looked up at him. Her light brown eyes remained disconnected and vague. The whites of them were streaked with red from crying. Her skin was very pale, her lips practically colorless.

She swallowed noisily. "Is he all right?"

"Not really."

Whimpering, she looked past Ski to the bloodstain just beyond the threshold. "Oh, God." She pressed trembling fingers against her lips. "I can't believe this happened."

"What did happen?"

"He's got to be all right. I should be with him. I must go."

She tried to stand, but Ski placed his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down. "Not now."

For the first time since he'd come into the room, she focused on him. "Are you ... Who are you?"

He unsnapped the leather wallet on his belt and opened it to show her his ID. "Deputy Ski Nyland, Merritt County S.O."

"I see." But Ski didn't believe she actually did. She'd barely glanced at his ID. Her watery gaze was imploring. "Please tell me he's going to be okay."

"What's your name?"

She seemed to have to think about it. Then she hooked her wet hair behind her ears and answered in a husky voice. "Berry Malone."

Ski noted that her last name wasn't the same as that of the man who'd been shot. Neither of them was named King.

He said, "The wounded man, Ben Lofland ... is that right?"

She gave an abrupt nod.

"He's on his way to the ER."

"He's not dead?"

"Wasn't when they left with him."

"He bled a lot."

"He did, yeah."

"He can't die."

"Unfortunately, he can."

She made a choking sound and whispered, "I must call his wife."

"His wife?"

She stared at Ski for several seconds, then covered her face with her hands and began to cry in loud, wracking sobs.

Ski planted his feet wider on the bathroom floor tiles. "What happened here tonight, Ms. Malone?"

She moaned into her hands and shook her head.

"Is this your pistol? Did you shoot Lofland with it?" He didn't believe she had, at least not using the pistol now in his possession. But he wanted to see what kind of reaction he'd get by asking.

She dropped her hands from her face and gaped at him. "What?"

"Did you--"

"No!" She surged to her feet, reeled slightly, then steadied herself by placing a hand on the edge of the pedestal sink. "I didn't get out the pistol until after I'd called 911."

"After you'd called 911?"

Her head bobbed an affirmation. She gulped a breath. "I was afraid ... afraid he would come back."

"Who?"

Before she could answer, sounds of a commotion downstairs reached them. A door slammed. Voices were raised. Ski heard Andy telling someone that they couldn't come in. Just as insistently, a female voice, ordered him out of her way. Apparently Berry Malone recognized the woman's voice, because suddenly she gave a sharp cry and slipped past Ski through the bathroom door.

"Hey!" He was careful to hurdle the bloodstain on the rug as he chased after her. Midway across the bedroom, he made a grab for her arm but came up with only a handful of cotton fabric. She whirled around and yanked it from his grip, but not before he got an eyeful.

Then in a flash of bare skin and printed textile, she vanished through the bedroom door.

Ski went after her, crossed the gallery in a run, and bolted down the stairs, hot on her heels.