Page 98 of Backtrack

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Lola said.

“You really think he might not be the only one?”

“That’s a possibility,” Cutter said.

“Then you’re stuck with me for a bit,” Joellen said. “I should probably go give a statement to Ketchikan PD anyway. Right?”

“True enough.” Cutter groaned. “You take care of that while Lola and I have a chat with Bartholomew Preston.”

CHAPTER 44

The Ketchikan PD day shift captain had Preston handcuffed to a heavy wooden table in their interview room when Cutter and Teariki arrived at the station. A patrol officer Cutter hadn’t seen before took Joellen down the hall to get her statement. The deputies secured their handguns and blades in numbered lockboxes on the wall of the squad room. Cutter hung onto his small pocketknife and a fist-size piece of yellow cedar he’d found by the ghost tree the day before at Ward Cove.

Preston looked up with a start when Cutter opened the door. The handcuff chain rattled against the eyebolt where it was attached to a heavy table.

“This is cozy,” Lola muttered.

The interview room wasn’t much bigger than a broom closet, barely large enough for two plastic chairs and a table. That was fine with Cutter. It put Lola on one side of the squat table and the prisoner on the other.

Cutter opened his pocketknife—a three-blade whittler that had once belonged to Grumpy—and took the piece of yellow cedar out of his pocket before plopping himself down on Preston’s side of the table, his thigh almost but not quite touching the prisoner’s arm, towering over him. Secured to the eyebolt, there was nowhere for Preston to go. Sweat ringed the collar of his dark polo.

Lola looked over her file folder. Cutter studied the piece of cedar in his hand before beginning to shave away small slivers ofwood. Neither said a word for a full three minutes. An eternity when you’re handcuffed to a table.

Preston jumped, letting out a barely suppressed squeal when Cutter finally did speak.

“My grandfather taught me to study the grain,” he said without looking up from the cedar. His blade curled paper-thin slivers of the fragrant wood into his lap. “The goal is to cut away what isn’t true. …” Cutter stopped carving and held the piece up at eye level for closer inspection. “Everything has an essence, the old man would say. Our grain, so to speak. Most of us spend our whole lives hiding behind a mask.”

He turned suddenly, bumping Preston with his knee and causing the man to jerk away.

“This little hunk of yellow cedar saw some terrible violence yesterday. I mean, some really awful shit. My partner was there, too, so I could be reading into it, but when I look at this wood now, I see a bird, an owl maybe.”

“You’ve lost your damn mind, man,” Preston said. “How long are you gonna keep me here? This is harassment!”

Cutter took a deep breath and eyed the mope just long enough to make him squirm. Grumpy had called interview techniques like this,playing with his food. He went back to carving, as if ignoring everything else in the room.

Lola read Preston his rights and then, rather than asking him any questions, started in with statements of her own.

“I gotta be honest with you, Bartholomew—”

“I told you, it’s Bart!” the outlaw snapped. “Who the hell goes by Bartholomew nowadays?”

“According to your driver’s license, you do.” Lola cleared her throat. “My apologies, Bart. As I was saying, I gotta be honest with you. Ketchikan PD thinks you were targeting that woman’s purse. They believe you’d been following her with the premeditated idea of stealing it.”

Bart tried to sit back, but the chain caught him. “I wasn’t trying to steal anything.”

“You were getting pretty aggressive with her from my vantage point.”

“That bitch hit me in the nuts,” Bart said, whining as if he were reliving the pain. “Did you happen to catchthatfrom your vantage point?”

“Looked to me like she said something to you. Whatever that was, it must have been pretty rude.”

Lola had yet to ask a question.

“Yeah,” Bart said, flailing for what he surely thought might be a lifeline. “She spouted all kinds of shit. Making weird accusations—threats, even.”

Lola tapped her pen on the folder. “She really pissed you off. Enough to make you grab her.”

“I never saw that lady before today.”