Page 45 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
They were so stupid. She said, “You guys never know when to shut up, do you?”
“No, ma’am,” Mike said.
“That’s what my wife tells me,” Bergen said.
She pointed at them both. “I need reports and photos as soon as I can get them. Bergen, I’ll take your car. You catch a ride with Mike. In the hearse.”
Bergen groaned, then intercepted a withering glance from her. “Absolutely. You take my car. I’ll ride in the hearse. And actually… someone should accompany the body to the morgue and talk to the family when they arrive.”
That lessened Kateri’s ire. “You’re right, my friend, and thank you for thinking of that.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kateri sat at her desk in her office, pulled in the evidence from her guys, compiled the reports and the photos, and by nineA.M.she was calling Garik’s private line. A female answered, her tone businesslike, proving not even his cell phone was his own during FBI business hours. Kateri said, “Garik Jacobsen, please. This is Sheriff Kateri Kwinault from Virtue Falls. I’d like to speak to him about a situation we have here.”
“Let me see if he’s in.” Which translated meant,Let me see if he wants to speak with you.
He came on the line right away and for some reason, his voice sounded amused. “So… what’s this I hear about the Virtue Falls sheriff shacking up with a bouncer?”
Kateri had been concentrating on the gruesome photos of the murder. Caught off guard, she stammered, “A… a bouncer? You mean Stag? He’s more than a…” She realized Garik was pulling her chain, and said, “How did you hear about it?”
“When half the law enforcement in Western Washington is deployed to Virtue Falls to catch John Terrance and their chase comes to such a walloping finish, you know what they do afterward.”
“They gossip. I know. But really? Why would they care who I’m sleeping with?”
“You’re a female sheriff—that’s still pretty rare in the business—you’re famous and you’re hot.”
She looked down at her scarred hands, at the walking stick leaning against the wall. “Hot, huh?”
“Every day.”
Yep. She liked Garik. He was smart, sharp, with a lot of law enforcement experience. When he recommended her for the interim position of sheriff, the city council had gone along. She’d had to win the election on her own, but he’d given her the push she needed. Maybe more important, he was dedicated to his mother, his wife and his daughter. Good guy.
He was still laughing at her. “Plus the cops all know I’m from Virtue Falls, so I got a call right away. Plus…” He let that dangle.
“Your foster mother told you.”
“Margaret Smith knows all.”
“She’s almost one hundred years old. How does she hear this stuff?”
“She’s charming, she has connections and she runs the Virtue Falls Resort. Everyone tells her everything.”
Yep. Kateri liked Margaret Smith, too.
He continued, “Stag Denali, huh? I remember him. Good catch. He’s quite the arm candy.”
“I don’t know that that’s what he signed on for.”
“He’s a tough guy. He’ll bear up under the strain.”
They laughed, then Kateri got down to business. “We had a second slashing in Virtue Falls. This one ended in a death.”
“Slashing? John Terrance?”
“We’d like to think so.”
“But you don’t.”
