The Ridge(57)

“Go back home and get some sleep,” she said. “I’ll need you early, and need you strong. Okay?”

He frowned, watching Shipley. “I’d just as soon stay out here, Audrey. I feel like that’s where the need is.”

“Dustin? I know what I’m doing with the cats. I’ve got a police officer on the grounds all night, protecting me. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“All right.”

“We’ll stick it out,” she told Dustin. “We’ll be fine.”

Strong words. It was good to be bold, but it was dangerous, too. She was well aware of the truth: the only thing that had kept the preserve going was Wesley Harrington. Without him, she was in over her head and sinking fast.

“Sure,” Dustin said. “And you get some sleep, too. You need it.”

But around them the cats were all awake as the sun began to set, stalking the perimeters of their enclosures, eyes glittering, tails swishing, and Audrey had the feeling that sleep wasn’t permitted at Blade Ridge.


Kimble stopped by the department to pick up the reports that waited for him from the morning’s death scene and then went home, poured a glass of red wine, and sat on his couch. He drank wine only when he was at home. When he socialized, which was rare, he stuck to beer—a country cop drinking wine always seemed to draw attention, and Kimble preferred to float in the background—but he loved the taste of a full-bodied red, loved the hard-to-pronounce names on the labels, loved the sound of a cork leaving the bottle. These were all things that made him think romantic notions, and it had been a long time since Kimble had been with a woman. Sometimes—many times—he’d catch himself wondering if Jacqueline drank red wine. He was almost certain she did.

He sipped a glass of blended Chilean red, purchased at an organic food store near the college that stocked wines from all over the world and was a place in which Kimble was unlikely to bump into a colleague or acquaintance. He opened the report from Wesley Harrington’s death scene and tried to steer his mind away from a brown-haired woman in an orange jumpsuit.

She probably likes champagne, too. That seems right. The sparkle.

He blinked, fought to focus. He would write the formal incident report himself, but it would be heavily dependent on supplemental reports from Shipley and Wolverton, who’d both arrived on scene ahead of Kimble. Tonight he had only Wolverton’s account available, because Shipley was still on duty. Still out at the ridge. Pete had taken the time to provide a clipped account of the scene, and Kimble read it with no expectation of new information. But he grew curious as he reviewed Pete’s brief account of his interview with Dustin Hall, the Whitman student who’d discovered the body. Mr. Hall first noted that there was blood in the cage, Wolverton had written. He then moved closer, observed that the cat was not moving and that a rifle was visible. At that point Mr. Hall entered the cage, discovered the victim’s body behind that of the cat, determined Harrington to be deceased, and called for help.

It went on for a few paragraphs after that, but all Kimble needed was contained in that initial account of the witness statement.

In order, Hall recounted seeing blood, a rifle, Harrington.

Kimble had been in the cage. Had approached just as Hall must have that morning, and he had seen blood first, yes, but he had not been able to see the rifle until he saw Harrington. Hall’s recollection of the man’s corpse was correct—it had been blocked from sight by the cat’s body. But the rifle had been in the dead man’s hand.

At least when Kimble saw it.

Perhaps there’d been two rifles on the scene, which meant maybe this wasn’t going to be such a pain in the ass after all; maybe the dead man had brought two guns out with him, and the killing shot had been fired with the first, not the second. Simple.

But why would he have used two rifles? Why not just reload? How had he even managed to approach the cage carrying two rifles, a syringe on a pole, and a flashlight? It was a ludicrous scenario, would have required “Send in the Clowns” playing in the background and Harrington riding a unicycle to make it believable.

So maybe the kid had been confused. Rattled. Said the wrong thing, that was all, meant to say he spotted the rifle in Harrington’s hand but misspoke due to the pressure of the moment. He’d certainly been shaken up.

Wolverton’s supplemental report contained contact information for Dustin Hall, including phone numbers for both a dorm room and a cell. Kimble called the dorm first, got nothing, and then the cell. The kid answered, and sounded nervous from the moment Kimble identified himself.

“We don’t have a problem,” Kimble said, although that was perhaps untrue. “I’m just trying to finalize the report and need to clear up a discrepancy. You have a minute, I’d appreciate your help on that.”