The little sheriff’s detachment in Deception Cove felt deserted when Mason walked in the next morning, empty save for the rookie Paul Monk, who sat at the reception desk by the front door and whose eyes went as wide as sand dollars when he saw Mason come in.
“You’d better handcuff me, Monk,” Mason told the rookie after a couple of seconds of awkward silence. “I think the sheriff would be choked if you didn’t.”
Still gaping, Monk stood and rounded the desk. Removed the handcuffs from his duty belt and locked them on Mason’s wrists, his body skewed back as far away from Mason as he was able, as though he imagined the ex-con was playing a trick on him, that this was just a precursor to some strange and unforeseen ambush.
“Good,” Mason told him when his wrists were secure. “You’re doing fine. Now go ahead and give Sheriff Hart a call.”
Monk looked back at the phone on his desk, then at Mason. Didn’t seem inclined to move.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mason told him. “Go ahead and call.”
So Monk made the call. Leaned over his desk and pulled the phone across and punched in the numbers for the Neah Bay detachment.
“Uh, Sheriff?” he said, the receiver to his ear. “It’s Monk here in Deception. I, uh, have Burke—Mason Burke—at the detachment.”
Monk listened.
“Uh, yes, sir. In custody. Well, he just walked in.”
He listened some more.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Okay. We’ll see you shortly.”
Monk ended the call. He looked around the detachment like it was the first time he was seeing the place.
Mason watched him.
“Think you ought to put me in a cell?” he asked.
Monk stiffened and reached for the key ring on his belt. Turned to Mason, a stricken look on his face.
“Relax, Monk,” Mason reassured him, leading the way toward the back of the detachment. “You’re doing fine.”
A short while later, Mason heard the front door open and Hart walk in. Heard the sheriff ask Monk, “Where is he?” and Monk tell him, “Back in the holding cell,” and Mason sat on his little bench and waited, and after a moment the sheriff appeared. He took in the sight of Mason behind bars, and then he glanced toward Monk at the front desk.
“The kid did fine, Sheriff,” Mason told him. “He’ll make a solid cop someday.”
Hart squinted in Monk’s direction. “Still pretty green,” he said.
“Hell,” Mason said. “We were all green once.”
Slowly, Hart turned back to look at Mason. Frowned and worked his jaw. “You’re turning yourself in,” he said.
Mason nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“You’re ready to confess to the murder of Brock Boyd,” Hart said. “And Charlene Todd.”
“No, sir,” Mason replied.
The lines on Hart’s forehead grew deeper. “You’re not ready to confess.”
“I’m still not ready to lie to you, Sheriff,” Mason told him. “I know you consider me a suspect in both murders, and I’m here as a show of good faith.”
This was the part of the plan where he’d nearly lost Jess, back in Hank Moss’s living room. She’d been worried, at first, and then she’d been mad. “This whole county’s hungry for you,” she’d warned him. “You walk into that detachment, you won’t ever come out again, not a free man.”
“Sure I will,” he’d told her, and tried to sound confident. “I didn’t kill anybody, and you’re going to prove it.”
She hadn’t talked to him much the rest of the night. Mason could tell there was at least a part of Jess that still wondered if he had killed Brock Boyd. He suspected that, partially, was why she didn’t want him to turn himself in.
Hart stroked his chin and stared in at Mason through the bars. “You’re here as a show of good faith,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Mason replied. “Faith in your powers of investigation and, if need be, in the county’s court system. And in whatever higher power’s carried me this far. I didn’t kill Brock Boyd or Charlene Todd, but I’m willing to wait here while you all work out who did.”
Hart didn’t answer for a beat. Just watched him, incredulous. Then he scratched his head, and paced a bit. “Where’s Jess?” he asked finally.
Mason looked Hart in the eye. “Jess is out of town, Sheriff,” he said. “Working vacation.”
* * *
Jana Marsh had done well for herself.
It hadn’t taken much sleuthing for Jess to find the house. Jana was on Facebook, and her husband, Ronnie, was too. They were living in Victoria, British Columbia, in a tidy suburb east of downtown, a couple of blocks to the beach. The peaks of the Olympic range visible over the strait.
Rengo had driven Jess into Port Angeles early that morning, in time for the first ferry crossing of the day. Burke seemed confident that Sheriff Hart would call off the search for the kid once he’d seen Burke was locked up and heard Burke’s version of events, but Jess still watched the passenger-side mirror more than she watched the road, an hour’s drive east with the sun coming up ahead of them, what looked to be a beautiful day in its infancy.
Jess hoped it was a good omen.
The ferry terminal sat square in downtown Port Angeles, and the waiting ferry was smaller than Jess remembered, gray with black and red trim, already loading cars through a massive doorway in its stern. Jess double-checked she had her passport as Rengo pulled over in the drop-off lane, and then she swapped a look with Rengo that seemed to convey enough for the both of them. Neither spoke as she pushed the door open and stepped from the car, turning back only to tell Lucy goodbye and scratch behind her ears, promise she’d try to be home by nightfall.
Then she was walking away and into the little terminal and buying her ticket, wondering what the hell she was doing and hoping Burke and Rengo were right about Jana Marsh. Knowing that whatever she was able to accomplish in the Great White North could make the difference between Burke dying in prison or ever breathing free air again in his life.
No pressure.
Jess spent the ferry ride—an hour and a half—gazing out the window, the ocean an impossible blue and not even the barest trace of a cloud in the sky.
It was still midmorning by the time Jess cleared Canadian customs, walked out of the terminal into downtown Victoria, and hailed a taxi for the neighboring community of Oak Bay. She’d never been to Victoria before, but she’d seen Jana’s Facebook posts, and she knew to expect wealth. The streets were wide and tree-lined, with generous-sized lots and large houses, almost mansions but without the pretense that word would suggest. The community was quiet; kids played in yards and parks; cars drove slowly. It seemed to Jess like a lovely place to be, if you could somehow find the money to afford the cost of entry.
Jess had learned that Ronnie Marsh worked in some kind of technical industry. Computers—the specifics didn’t make much sense to Jess, and she supposed they didn’t matter. What mattered was that he would be at an office today and not at his home. The kids—two boys, beaming and blond, from what she’d seen on Facebook—would be at school.
The home in question was tucked into an odd-shaped lot at the end of a cul-de-sac, isolated from the neighbors by tall trees and a hedgerow and a wrought-iron gate. Jess unlatched the gate, pushed it open. Found herself in a front garden: a fishpond, a hidden waterfall burbling, a curved path of raw stone leading up to the front door.
The house was another one of those Pacific Northwest fantasies that seemed to have missed Makah County, Brock Boyd’s estate notwithstanding. It was low and boxy, expanses of glass and steel and wood, not so much a part of the landscape as it was built on top of it. Maybe there was a symmetry between this house and Boyd’s. Or maybe Jess and Burke and the rest of Makah County had simply been caught up in some rich people’s deadly game.
She climbed to the front door and rang the doorbell and waited. After a minute or two, she heard the lock disengage, and the door swung open. And Jana Marsh stood behind it, smiling out at Jess vaguely, as though she recognized Jess but just couldn’t quite place her.
“Jana Marsh,” Jess said. “I’m Jess Winslow. Makah County sheriff’s deputy. Can I come in?”