Jess stood in that room for a long time, not moving. Lucy lay on the bed and watched her, and it was like time seemed to stall for both of them. Outside, the rain fell on the roof of the motel. Burke was out there somewhere, and she didn’t know where or what he planned to do, but she was afraid for him and wished he hadn’t gone.
She couldn’t make herself think straight. Before he’d come in, she’d believed he was innocent, and she still didn’t see how he could have murdered Brock Boyd. There was a part of her now, though, that wondered if she could be wrong. If she was blind. She’d fallen in love with men before, after all, and believed they were good. And some had been anything but, in the end.
They found a gun in the water underneath my boat.
I’ve never lied to you.
Jess didn’t know what to think, not now that Burke was gone again. But she was afraid for him anyway, and she hoped he was running.
Then came another knock at the door.
Jess thought it was Burke, at first, and her heart leaped and she reached for the handle and thought to swing it open and take him inside and tell him to just hide out for a spell while she thought of a way to solve this, but somehow she thought better of it, caught herself, and when she checked the peephole, it wasn’t Burke but Sheriff Hart, and Jess was damn glad she hadn’t opened the door.
The room was a mess. The blanket lay in a heap at the foot of the bed, Lucy half on it and half off, and it was damp from Burke and probably smelled like him too. Burke’s wet clothes were on the floor, and there were footprints where he’d walked in his soaking shoes. Anyone could see that he’d been here.
Hart knocked again. “Jess?”
It snapped her to life. Quickly, she gathered Burke’s clothes and took them into the bathroom, dumped them into the tub. She brought a towel out with her, mopped up the puddle by the door and tried to wipe away the footprints. Then, as quiet as she could, she shooed Lucy from the bed and relaid the blanket, smoothing it over the mattress and hoping the damp spots didn’t show. It was the best she could do; any longer and Hart would get suspicious, if he wasn’t already.
There was nothing she could do about the lingering smell; Jess could only hope the sheriff had a cold.
She herded Lucy toward the door, praying the dog would be a distraction. Kept her uniform shirt unbuttoned for more or less the same reason, and she turned the knob and pulled the door open and reached down to catch Lucy with her free hand.
“Sheriff,” she said, making her voice breathless. “Running a bit late—sorry. Come on in.”
She pulled Lucy back so that Hart could enter, the dog looking askance at her, like What exactly do you want from me? as Hart took a step inside, surveyed the room.
“The place is a mess,” Jess said. “I’m sorry. Really looking forward to when my house is finally finished.”
Hart nodded but said nothing, his face revealing nothing either. She wondered if the sheriff already knew Burke had been here. If he did, he wasn’t letting on.
“You, ah, heard from Burke tonight?” he asked her. She saw fatigue in his eyes, concern, but nothing more. No guile, though she knew better than to assume that meant it wasn’t there.
“No, sir,” she replied, buttoning her shirt. “We haven’t talked since yesterday, and I don’t expect to see him again any time soon either, not with this whole Boyd thing still up in the air.”
She was lying to the sheriff. She supposed that made her complicit, and she knew Hart would take her badge if he ever found out.
Your career, or the man you love.
Hart asked her, “Was that your decision?”
“Mutual, Sheriff,” Jess said. “We both figured it wouldn’t look all that good on me or the detachment, not while Burke’s still a person of interest.”
Run, Burke. Run.
Hart nodded. Took a couple of steps over toward the bed, held his hand out and let Lucy sniff at it. She’d taken up her spot on the blanket again, and if Hart looked past her and up toward the pillows, he might see the damp spot. Jess waited, hardly daring to breathe.
Then Hart turned away from the dog, squared his shoulders.
“We had a witness come in, said she heard men fighting down in the boat basin the night of the murder,” he said. “Said she heard a gunshot too. Then maybe a sound like somebody was throwing a gun in the water.”
Jess waited. Thinking if she did speak, interrupt him, she might give the game away.
“We brought a diver down,” Hart continued. “Me and Tyner. The diver found a .38 just off the stern of Burke’s boat.”
Jess tried to make herself look surprised. “Did you—is he—”
“Made a run for it,” Hart said. “Or rather, he swam. Jumped into the water off the end of the wharf and we haven’t seen him since. Might be he drowned out there or might be he slipped away. It was only me and Gillies out there, after all.”
He looked at her, made a face.
“Best as we can figure, there must have been an altercation,” he said. “Maybe Boyd came back for another round, found Burke on the docks.”
Jess remembered how Burke told her Boyd had found him on the Nootka a few days before the fight. Boyd knew where Burke was staying, that much was certain.
“You never saw Burke with a .38, did you?” Hart asked.
Jess shook her head. “No, sir.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Well,” he said. “Not too hard to find a weapon in this part of the world.” He paused, looked around the room again. “Boyd’s body was too far gone to tell if there’d been any violence before the gunshot. But Burke must have put the bullet in his head, fired up that old boat and driven out into the strait, dumped the body. Just his bad luck Boyd washed up how he did.”
Jess tried to picture Burke piloting that old Nootka, couldn’t see it happening. The ex-con was from Michigan, wasn’t much of a mariner. But then she still couldn’t fathom him killing Brock Boyd in the first place.
“What do we do about this, Sheriff?” she asked. “I can keep my eye out for him on patrol, but we’re kind of lacking bodies for a manhunt, aren’t we?”
Hart rubbed his face. “Not for long, we aren’t,” he said. “A murder racket like Burke’s, a killer on the loose? We can’t afford to waste any time.”
Jess said. “So—”
“I called the state police, Jess,” Hart said. “They’re en route from Port Angeles. This county’s on full-on lockdown, starting now.”