The big-rig was shot, and the Nova was belly up. But I still had one set of keys in my pocket, and I couldn’t see how it would matter now if I borrowed one more vehicle. I walked down to Luke Jordan’s pickup truck. It was still parked where his body should have been.

The inside of Luke’s truck smelled like stale beer and armpit. I started it up, and the V-8 rumbled under the hood. The radio wheezed some old country song at me. I let it play. The music seemed to go with the truck.

I’d thought my part of this was all done. I’d been more than satisfied to hold down the fort at the stationhouse and let Amanda run for the cavalry. But I didn’t like the idea of the remaining Jordan brothers cruising the streets looking for somebody to fill full of lead, and I had the idea they might stop by the stationhouse sooner or later. Even more than my concern about the Jordan brothers was one last question that kept nagging at me.

I put the truck into gear and headed for Chief Krueger’s house.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Luke Jordan’s Chevy pickup rattled north up the six, past residential streets, the space between houses getting farther and farther apart until I was back into the black of the Okie night.

North of town was not as deserted as the Six south to the Texaco station and the Interstate. Pinpoints of light glittered from ranches and farmhouses here and there. Double-wides on fifty-acre spreads. The soil was better in this direction, some scattered crops, good grass for cattle. My folks’ place was about ten miles north of town. Sometimes when I drove by, a pang of loss hit me in the chest, but I didn’t drive by that often.

Krueger’s place was a few miles out. A nice two-story stone house, garage, empty barn. He didn’t want animals. The chief was a solitary man, never married, no kids. I’d been to his house exactly one time, when he had the department and families out for a Fourth of July barbecue. Ribs and potato salad and Coors Light. Chief Krueger was friendly and welcoming off duty. On duty he was all business and hard as a railroad spike.

My first week on duty, the chief took me around on night patrol, showed me the ropes. We passed a couple of rowdies spilling out of Skeeter’s near closing time, some college guys on a road tip, Arkansas caps and sweatshirts. Maybe they thought it would be a cool experience for their blog to tie one on in some Podunk whistle-stop. Anyway, the chief give them a warning, friendly but stern, like maybe they should have a few cups of coffee before they got behind the wheel.

The drunkest one got lippy, said he didn’t need no fat Okie flatfoot telling him when he’d had enough and started making fat lawman jokes like the chief had come out of Smokey and the Bandit or something.

Imagine a volcano about to erupt, the ground vibrating under your feet right before the big explosion.

You wouldn’t think a man that big could move so fast. The chief had his nightstick out and slapped across the one punk’s knee in one smooth motion. His friend’s mouth fell open, not believing, and Krueger poked him a hard one in the gut. The guy bent over, sucking for air. We piled them in back of the squad car, and they spent the night in jail. The next morning, the chief escorted them to the edge of town, and he told them not to come back.

Chief Krueger solved a lot of problems without troubling a judge or the court system. It worked. Coyote Crossing was a peaceful town.

Tonight things had gone wrong.

And if the chief wasn’t around to be on top of it, then something bad must have happened. I aimed to find out what I could. I owed him that much.

I turned down the dirt drive, passed the chief’s mailbox. About two hundred yards to the house. It was dark, no cars in front, but maybe in the garage. The porch light was dark. I climbed out of Luke’s pickup, approached the house slowly. After the night I’d had, it was all too easy to imagine dark figures lurking in the shadows. I didn’t want any surprises, squinted all around before climbing the porch steps and knocking on the front door. When nobody answered, I knocked slightly louder. I thought about taking off, but I hadn’t come all this way just to knock on the front door.

I tried the knob, but it was locked. I cupped my hands against a front window and looked inside. Not a single light on in the house. I walked around the other side, past a screened side porch to the back. There was a wide patio, table and chairs with a sun umbrella, expensive propane grill set up. This is where we’d had the barbecue. The memory of the ribs made my stomach growl. Potato salad.

The back door was locked too.

I stood there thirty seconds wondering if I was doing the right thing then put my elbow through a pane of glass in the back door, the crash tinkle of shards was way too loud. I reached inside, careful not to cut myself, unlocked the door and let myself into the kitchen. I flipped on the light.

The kitchen looked like something out of the 1950s, old cabinets, ancient gas stove, copper pots and pans hanging over a well-scarred island cutting board. There was a faint smell of disinfectant. No microwave, nothing gleamed new. A coffee percolator sat on the counter near the stove. I only recognized it because my grandmother had one. Somebody needed to get the chief a Mr. Coffee for his birthday. I put my hand on the percolator and the stove. Both cold.

I went through the kitchen and dining room into the living room, flipping on lights as I went. “Chief? You here?” I’d come too far to have the chief blast me with his twelve gauge because he thought I was a burglar. I was ready to throw myself on the floor at any second.

Krueger’s house looked like some kind of hunting lodge. Big stone fireplace, deer heads mounted on the wall, dark leather couches, cedar paneling. A dark painting on one wall of mountains and evergreens. It was a bachelor place all right. I walked to the fireplace, looked at the pictures on the mantle but didn’t recognize anyone. I stood there a bit scanning the photographs and realized my shins were warm.

I knelt, looked at the fresh ashes in the fireplace. Singed papers in the corner. Somebody had burned something in here recently.

Huh.

I went back into the kitchen, opened the chief’s fridge. Nearly empty, but there was a can of Pepsi and I grabbed it, popped it open and drank. The chicken legs I confiscated from Roy’s kitchen seemed like something I’d eaten a year ago, but the chief didn’t have much, so I closed the fridge and stood there sipping soda.

The chief was something of a neat freak, and if the kitchen hadn’t been so damn perfectly clean, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the dark spots on his tile floor. I knelt, looked closer without touching. A dark red blotch the size of a silver dollar. Three more dime sized drops leading away into pin-point size drips. The trail led to a door. I pictured the front of the house, the location of the kitchen. The garage. I opened the door to cool darkness.

I felt inside for a light switch but couldn’t find it. I fished the Bic lighter out of my pocket and flicked it, followed the feeble glow into the garage. No cars. Dark shapes along the far wall like a workbench and toolboxes. A musty mix of smells, fertilizer and grease.

I walked into something like a spider web and flinched, stepped back and held up the Bic. It was a pull string. I yanked it, and the light came on.

I saw the body first thing, and before my eyes could focus I thought it was Krueger. Somebody had sneaked into the chief’s house and killed him. But I saw better a split-second later.

Luke Jordan sat half in and half out of a body bag, slumped in an old brown Lay-Z-Boy patched several places with duct tape. An arm hung down to the floor, the droplet trail caused by blood leaking down one finger. I stepped closer, examined him. The same plastic expression hung on his face. His clothes looked mussed, the pockets of his jeans had been turned out.