Deadly Assumptions Read online

  Hepler strolled to the window. “It’s already letting up. Solomon and I will see what we can find.”

  “I’ll get my coat,” Rose said.

  Hepler took another bite of cake, waving her off while he chewed. “No. Let us do our job. If we need you for anything, we’ll come get you.”

  I donned my outerwear and—before Hepler could send me—volunteered to go to our vehicle for flashlights and the evidence kit.

  “Don’t forget to let Dispatch know our status.”

  Right. When we were on a call, Dispatch needed to know we were all right, and I’d gotten my ass chewed for not checking in on schedule.

  The snow had stopped falling, leaving the road covered with patches of slush and ice. Hepler met me at the sidewalk. I handed over his flashlight and swept mine back and forth as we worked our way to the shed.

  “What are we looking for?” Hepler asked.

  A test. Reflexively, I straightened. “Anything that looks like it doesn’t belong. Something our hypothetical prowler might have dropped. Disturbances in the ground, although there’s still too much snow to see footprints.”

  “The lack of footprints tells us?”

  “Our guy hasn’t come through here since it started snowing.” I slowed as we approached the shed. “You think he’s in there?”

  “I think we hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” Hepler stood beside the door of the small, windowless structure, and knocked. “Mapleton Police. Open the door, please.”

  No response, which didn’t mean anything other than it was probably not kids. They’d have been scared enough to come out.

  When Hepler motioned me to go in first, I wasn’t sure if he figured it was safe or he was watching my technique.

  I unholstered my weapon and nodded that I was ready. Hepler reached for the handle. My heart hammered in my chest. Despite the cold, a trickle of sweat worked its way down my spine.

  I would be a target. Doorways were upright coffins. Although we’d trained on breaching buildings, not knowing what traps the instructors had set up, my nerves during those exercises were nothing compared with walking into a simple garden shed in quiet Mapleton.

  I swallowed. Nothing worse than a squeaky-voiced cop. “Mapleton Police.” I repeated Hepler’s warning at full volume.

  Nothing.

  I dropped to a knee, holding the flashlight in my off hand, the wrist of my gun hand resting across it. Hepler opened the door an inch.

  I paused, shone my light inside.

  Hepler opened the door another inch.

  We continued, inch by inch, until I had a relatively clear view of the interior. Looked like a garden shed. Wooden benches. Shelves. Stacks of plastic bags of potting soil, fertilizer. Clay pots. Ceramic pots. Plastic pots. Seedling starter pots. A pegboard above the potting bench held the expected tools. No gaps. A mess? Rose had said she’d left everything as it was. Whatever she’d noticed as being moved would have been obvious only to her. Sam, too, perhaps, although he hadn’t struck me as the gardening sort.

  One thing was obvious. There was no place for anyone to hide.

  “Clear.” I slipped my gun into its holster and strode to the workbench, tugging the chain on the light fixture mounted above.

  Hepler joined me and clucked. “A regular disaster area.”

  Using my flashlight to cast oblique light on the floor, I searched for anything the fastidious Rose might have missed. Nothing.

  I moved toward a plastic trash can labeled Compost in yellow paint. “This is where she found the evidence of a prowler.”

  I swapped my winter gloves for latex and opened the lid. Inside, I found exactly what Rose had described.

  “What do we do now?” I asked. “Collect the beer cans and garbage? Print them?” I almost asked if we should turn them in for DNA analysis, but stopped before making a total fool of myself. What was the point? I couldn’t imagine prosecuting someone for adding non-compostables to a clearly labeled container.

  “Tell Rose and Sam thanks for their concern, that it looks like whoever was in the shed is gone, that we’ll keep our eyes open for vagrants and direct them to shelters. Suggest they get a padlock for the shed. Then we’ll go to the station and clock out.”

  “Do we leave the garbage?”

  Hepler snorted. “You’re not suggesting we bag and tag, are you? Send it to the lab?”

  Heat crawled up the back of my neck. “No. I thought it would be nice to save the Kretzers the work.”

  He leaned against the workbench, his arms folded across his chest. “You find a trash bag, be my guest.”

  I discovered a box of black plastic bags, and I dumped eight empty beer cans, a plastic bag with a half-eaten convenience store sandwich—roast beef, I thought, although the green color concealed its true identity—a greasy pizza box containing the edges of the crust, and an empty can of chili, going moldy, inside. The apple cores I left. They’d decompose along with the grass and plant clippings.

  I tossed the bag into a garbage can on the side of the house and turned to Hepler. “What about the footprints by her roses? You think they belong to whoever used the shed for a picnic?”

  “Did you see any footprints on the floor of the shed?” he asked.

  Except for a black rubber mat in front of the workbench, there was no floor, only scuffed up dirt, and I hadn’t seen any distinctive prints. If I’d missed a clue, Hepler would’ve let me know. Despite his casual attitude to the search, he never missed anything.

  I shook my head. I cast my gaze in the direction of the rose bed, where bare plants stood, still shrouded in white. The yard lay under at least an inch of snow, all pristine. “I don’t think we’ll see anything by the rose bushes, either.”

  Hepler delivered his news to the Kretzers, and Rose offered more cake, which he declined.

  “Again, I am sorry,” Rose said.

  “You have a good heart, Rose,” Hepler said. “Don’t apologize for that.”

  Once at the station, we headed for the workroom. “You file the report.” Hepler hung his parka over the back of his chair. “I want to have a word with Dix.”

  File a report without Hepler overseeing it? I ran through everything I’d done. If I’d screwed up, Hepler would have pointed it out. Like the time I’d been working on the communal laptop and hadn’t logged out when I’d left to use the john. I’d gotten my ass chewed for that mistake, too, and I hadn’t made it since.

  Chastising myself for thinking everything revolved around me—the chief and Hepler had worked together for years, and it was obvious they were friends—I went to the file cabinet and grabbed an incident report form, found an empty desk, and pulled out my notebook.

  As I worked my way through the form, wishing for a computer to speed up the task, I wondered. Had I made the right decision accepting a job with the Mapleton Police Department?

  So far, most of my experiences had been dealing with speeders, writing parking tickets, serving subpoenas, and familiarizing myself with the geography. And getting to know the people, which according to Hepler, was the most important aspect of the job. I’d done a few stints as the elementary school crossing guard, which he said was one of the chief’s favorite jobs.

  When I asked why, Hepler had said, “He likes getting away from his desk, having a presence in the community. Plus, if you keep your eyes and ears open, you can pick up a lot. Most importantly, it shows kids the cops are the good guys.”

  At the academy, being a big-city detective had been at the top of my wish list, but my wife was sick of city life. She accepted my being a cop, but wanted to increase the odds I’d come home every night after work. She’d done her homework and found Mapleton ranked in the ten safest small cities in the western United States.

  “Try it for a few years,” she’d said. “If it’s not working out, we can discuss a change.”

  Since Mary Ellen had been the one working to pay the bills while I finished my last two years of college, and then while I was at the academy, I couldn’t refuse. Hell, I could never refuse her anything. Which reminded me. I’d better call and let her know I was running late.

  I’d reached for the phone when Hepler and Chief Dixon strolled into the workroom. I tensed. Had they been talking about me after all? I stood.

  Chapter 4

  CHIEF DIXON PAUSED at my desk. “As you were, Solomon.”

  I sat.

  “I hear you met the Kretzers,” the chief said. “And were introduced to Rose’s apple cake.”

  “Yes, Sir. It was excellent, Sir.” I wondered if we should’ve brought a piece back for him.

  “You were also introduced to Colorado weather.”

  “Yes, Sir. Not so excellent.”

  Chief Dixon laughed. “You’ll experience a lot worse, Officer. I’ve asked Arch to schedule you some winter conditions driving practice.” Another laugh. “Which guarantees we’ll have good weather until November.”

  “I wouldn’t mind, Sir.”

  “That your report?” Chief Dixon pointed to the papers on my desk.

  “Yes, Sir.” Hepler had said I was going solo this time. I thought he’d meant for me to write it on my own, and he’d check it before I turned it in. I was confident enough in what I’d written to hand it over to Hepler, but the chief? Not the same.

  I caught Hepler’s gaze, arched my brows. He shrugged and ambled toward his desk.

  The chief scanned my report, nodded, and handed it back. Then, he joined Hepler, and the two of them left the room.

  I read the report through two times. With the exception of accepting coffee and cake from Rose, I’d covered everything we’d done.

  Man up. You graduated in the top five percent of your class. Your instructors all said you’d make a good cop. Do the job.

&
nbsp; With a modicum of confidence in my performance, I called Mary Ellen at the newspaper office, where she’d landed a clerical position. I told her I’d be late, and made sure that wouldn’t interfere with what she’d planned for dinner, since she’d given me a list of things to pick up from the store on my way home.

  “Not a problem,” she said. “I’m running late myself. Talk to you at home.”

  I got home to our little rented house right before Mary Ellen, and she chattered as we put away the groceries.

  “I’ve been assigned some basic editing duties,” she said. “It could lead to a promotion—or at least more interesting assignments than answering the phones, taking classified ads, and suggestions for stories—most of which are interesting only to the person calling.”

  She filled a large pot with water, added salt, and turned on the burner. Pasta for dinner was my guess.

  “You thinking of bucking for a reporter position?”

  “No, but I enjoy checking the stories the reporters turn in, and helping with research.” She handed me a head of lettuce. Salad. I could handle that.

  Her mood shifted over dinner, and I knew she was going to ask a favor. “What do you need?” I asked, cutting out a lot of beating around the bush.

  “I know you’re not allowed to discuss your work,” she said. “At least not the good stuff. But someone has to answer questions for the public. Denver has a Public Information Officer. Could you let me know who’s in charge at your office, put in a good word for me?”

  Often, a civilian volunteer would be manning the phones. I’d had a few turns as part of my training, and the rule was to be polite, keep meticulous records of every call, and be aware of what the public was allowed to know and when to defer calls to experienced officers.

  “We don’t have a PIO in the department, so you’ll get whoever answers the phone, which will change from shift to shift.” I twirled a forkful of spaghetti. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I suppose that’s a good thing,” she said. “Not enough crime to need a dedicated staff person to deal with it.”

  After dinner—I did the dishes, since she’d cooked, and my salad-making didn’t count—we settled on the couch. Mary Ellen worked on the glass of wine she’d started over dinner, and I had a second beer. While we waited for Jeopardy, the television was tuned to the news, but it was background noise. Too much like the job for both of us.

  “Why did you call the Denver PIO?” I asked.

  “Roger, one of the reporters, asked me to follow up on a story he’s doing about living the good life in Mapleton. He wanted Denver crime statistics for the last three months. Things we don’t get much of here.”

  Again, driving home the point of why we were living in Mapleton.

  “What kind of crimes?” Not leaving garbage in garden sheds.

  “The kinds of crimes we don’t see here. The PIO mentioned convenience store holdups—not a problem here because we don’t have any convenience stores. A jewelry store robbery—we don’t have a jewelry store here, either. Home break-ins while people were on vacation, one dognapping, and a few carjackings.”

  “Am I correct in guessing your reporter wants similar statistics from the Mapleton Police Department?”

  “That’s what he’s doing.” She frowned. “Frankly, I think he’s biasing his article by picking and choosing the crimes for comparison, but he’s the reporter and I’m the flunky. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to be proactive. To have a contact at the Mapleton Police Department, so if there ever is any Mapleton crime worth reporting, I could do the legwork, or fact checking, or whatever they needed.”

  She reached for the remote and turned up the volume as Jeopardy came on.

  As usual, Mary Ellen trounced me with her answers to Alex Trebek’s questions. Of course, the few I got right I forgot to phrase as questions. Someday, a category would be Proper Police Procedure in Mapleton, and I’d nail it.

  The next morning, I took a seat in the briefing room for roll call. Todd Gaubatz, the duty officer, summed up yesterday’s high points, then introduced Chief Dixon, who strode to the lectern.

  The chief had addressed a briefing once since I’d started here, and I glanced around the room to see how the rest of the officers were reacting. People sat straighter, eyes snapped forward, but nobody pulled out a notebook.

  Chief Dixon gazed around the room. He carried no notes, just cleared his throat and began speaking.

  “As is the custom, I’m given a preview of any of the Mapleton Weekly articles pertinent to our work prior to publication. One reporter’s article touting the benefits of living in our city with its low crime rate piqued my interest. I went over all incident reports for the past week, and I noticed a small increase in reports of minor trespassing, property destruction, and vandalism. I want to stress minor. None of these incidents taken individually seemed noteworthy, nor manpower worthy, but we’ve had eight calls, all specifying outbuildings.”

  I thought of Mary Ellen and our discussion last night. I doubted eight calls of incidents like the Kretzers’—because I was sure that was one of them—constituted a crime wave, and she wouldn’t be asking to pull up stakes and move somewhere even farther off the beaten path any time soon.

  The chief continued. “I want everyone to maintain vigilance. It could be high school kids, or practical jokers seeing what they can get away with. Or, it could escalate, and that’s something I won’t tolerate.”

  He peered at the group. “I want a brief conference with those officers taking the calls. Let’s see if we can find any commonality, anything to get to the bottom of this. In my office at ten hundred hours. Now, everyone, get out there and do good work.”

  I met up with Hepler at the squad car. “Looks like you’re going to get your wish,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re going to play detective. Be part of a task force.”

  “Get real. I’m going to a note-comparing session. Hardly detective work, and calling it a task force is ridiculous.”

  Had I called my training officer ridiculous?

  He slapped my shoulder. “Yeah, but in Mapleton, this is likely as close as you’ll get.”

  “So, you don’t think the chief is making a mountain out of a molehill?”

  Hepler shrugged and got into the car. “He likes that his city—and believe me, he considers Mapleton his—is ranked as a safe place to live. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep it that way. There hasn’t been a homicide in this town in—I can’t remember. At least fifty years. I’d have to look it up.”

  “Mary Ellen already did. It was in 1942. A man killed his wife for cheating on him, then killed himself. A crime of passion, which Mary Ellen didn’t count toward making Mapleton an unsafe place to live.”

  “Glad we passed her test.” Hepler reported us on duty and paused at the exit from the lot. “All right, Rookie. Let’s play detective. If you were riding solo, where would you go first?”

  Chapter 5

  WHERE TO START? I RAN through the options. “Chief Dixon said these were all minor incidents involving outbuildings. That would eliminate downtown.”

  “That tells me where not to go. Think out loud, Rookie. Let me see how that brain with aspirations of being a detective works.”

  I gave it some thought. “The chief said we were going to share notes at ten hundred hours, which means it’s not urgent, or he’d have assigned us specific areas to investigate. We don’t know where the other incidents took place. Until we have something concrete, I’d say we continue our normal patrol route, but pay special attention to anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Start in town or out?” he asked.

  Hepler hadn’t mentioned whether he agreed with me or not, but it looked like he was having me call the shots. Part of me was excited, the other part was praying I didn’t make an ass out of myself.

  “Start out, work our way in. The outskirts of town, if I wanted to wreak a little mischief, that’s where I’d start. Houses are farther apart, less chance of being discovered.”

  Hepler turned right. We’d driven three blocks, when a new thought surfaced. I told Hepler to stop. “Chief Dixon said he discovered these incidents when he read a preview of the Weekly article. What if we stop at the newspaper and see if we can talk to the reporter? Get his impressions, details that might not be in his article.”