ON MY WAY OUT to the parking lot, I saw a light on in the corner office on the third floor and turned back. I took the stairwell up and found Chief Dooger working late.
Miles Dooger was fifty. A stocky build and a red face. He had a bushy white mustache that curved into a wide, upside-down U.
“There’s my number one guy,” he said as I appeared in the doorway.
Miles had had a knee surgery go bad in his forties, and he walked with a slight limp. He moved slowly around his oak desk and gave me a hug.
“I saw your light on,” I said. “You busy?”
“Just more of this damn grant paperwork.”
Two years ago Miles had stopped being one of us and became management. And it was a godsend. The chief before him had been a good cop but a lousy manager of men and machinery.
For me, it also didn’t hurt to have a boss I’d come up in the ranks with. A friend at the top.
Miles was constantly trying to bring a variety of police-related business to Mason Falls. His latest push was for a state crime lab, to be located off I-32.
“You heading home?” he asked.
I nodded. “Just finished up with the M.E.”
“Ah,” Miles said. “The lovely Sarah.”
I ignored where Miles was trying to take me. Instead I ran down the details of where we stood on Kendrick Webster’s case. The discoveries about him being burned alive. The indications of torture.
Miles listened from the edge of his desk. As my mentor, he’d always been a “think first” detective. I could describe something horrific, and he’d react slowly. Thoughtfully.
“Well? What do you imagine Mom and Dad want?” he said, a contemplative look on his face.
“Dad wants justice,” I said. “Mom, revenge.”
Miles stood up.
“Well, there’s what the family wants. And what the community needs. You don’t plan on telling the parents their boy was burned alive, do ya?”
“Not yet.” I shook my head. There was the rope too. The lynching. We were building up an arsenal of details we hadn’t been forthcoming about.
Miles packed his things into a leather saddlebag. “I’ll walk out with you,” he said, and we headed toward the elevator.
When we got inside, he turned to me. “I guess what I’m saying is—imagine the best outcome, and maybe, God willing, we’ll get there.”
Miles was an inscrutable politician. “Meaning what?” I said.
“You find the son of a bitch who did this.” He shrugged. “Maybe you corner him. He makes a move and goes for his gun. And you take him down. Both parents get what they want.”
The elevator door opened, and we headed out to the parking lot.
Could it be as simple as Miles had described?
I suddenly remembered what Abe had told me about Reverend Webster going to see the boss. The goal was to pull me off the case, but the chief hadn’t brought it up.
“Miles,” I said. “I heard the father came to you—”
Miles waved me off before I could finish the sentence. “Don’t worry about him.”
We got to Miles’s Audi.
“Jules,” the boss said, referring to his wife. “She says she’s texted you three or four times to come for dinner, but you never respond.”
“It’s too hard to be around the kids,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Miles threw his bag inside the sedan. “You staying focused?” he asked.
Which I took to mean “You staying dry?”
“Of course,” I lied.
“Good.” He patted me on the shoulder and opened his car door. “Work is a good distraction. But so is sleep. Don’t forget to sleep, P.T.”