In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(99)

“Tell that to Earl Kanasket,” Tracy said.

“It isn’t going to bring his daughter back, is it? So what was this all for? What’s it going to get him?”

“Closure, Lionel,” Eric said. “It’s going bring closure for him and for all of us. It’s the right thing to do. We should have done it forty years ago. We should have done it then.”

“Yeah, well.” Devoe took aim at Tracy. “I guess we all find closure in our own ways.”

The dogs’ barking became more violent.

“Don’t,” Eric said.

“Shut up, Eric. For once in your life, just shut up.”

“Lionel!” Reynolds charged.

Devoe diverted his attention and his aim for a split second. That was all Tracy needed. She dove to her right, hitting the edge of the poker table and upending it. Poker chips went scattering and clattering on the hardwood. The .45 roared, the sound reverberating up to the vaulted ceiling and echoing off it like a cannon blast. Tracy half expected the table to explode, but it didn’t. She grabbed her Glock from amid the colorful chips and rose up from behind the table.

Devoe remained in the center of the room, already swinging the barrel of the .45 in her direction, his eyes searching.

Too slow.

She squeezed off two rounds, center-mass shots that drove Devoe backward, like a drunk falling off balance. When he landed, his head hit the ground with a dull crack.

For a moment, time froze. The smell of gunpowder permeated the air, and Tracy’s ears rang from the percussion of the shots. The dogs were still barking, but now their barking sounded hollow. Across the room Eric Reynolds sat slumped against the side of the couch, a bloody hand pressed just below his right shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers.

Tracy stood and moved first to Devoe. She kicked away the .45, then bent to a knee and put two fingers to his neck. No pulse. Devoe had not been wearing his vest. She moved to Eric Reynolds. His two dogs, anxious and unnerved, pranced and whined.

“It’s okay,” Eric said, voice weak, free hand reaching out, trying to soothe his dogs. He was pale, pupils dilated, quickly slipping into shock, if not already there.

“Stay with me,” Tracy said, already on her cell phone. “Stay with me, Eric.”




An hour later, Tracy stood on the covered front porch of Eric Reynolds’s house, protected from the falling snow, watching as the ambulance carrying him drove off, lights swirling. A half-dozen Klickitat County sheriff’s deputies milled about the front yard, awaiting the Crime Scene Response Team Jenny had requested from the Washington State Patrol’s Vancouver office. As the ambulance departed, Jenny approached.

“How is he?” Tracy asked.

“He’s stable,” Jenny said. “They’re transporting him to the county hospital in Goldendale. They’ll assess him there and see if he needs to be airlifted to Harborview. They don’t think so.”

Reynolds had been fortunate to take the bullet in his right shoulder, and lucky that Devoe hadn’t shot him in the head when he’d lowered himself to charge.

“You picked up Ron Reynolds?”

Jenny nodded. “He’s not saying anything. Asked for an attorney. Didn’t even ask about his son. Only seemed concerned with himself.”

Jenny looked about at the beautiful grounds, flocked in snow. “This really is a tragedy, isn’t it?”

“On so many levels,” Tracy said.

“Can you imagine a parent doing that to his own child, letting him believe he killed someone all those years? Letting him take the blame? That’s horrific.”

It made Tracy think of Angela Collins, and the A Team’s inability to fully reconcile her or her son’s confession with the crime scene evidence, and Tracy realized they’d been looking at that case all wrong.

“Tracy?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Just thinking of another case.”





CHAPTER 36


Late Friday afternoon, Kins hung up the phone and turned his chair to face Faz. “Hold on to your ass, Faz. This case just got a whole lot stranger.”

“Let me guess,” Faz said. “Tim Collins rose from the dead and confessed that he shot himself.”

“Close. That was Cerrabone. Atticus Berkshire just withdrew as counsel of record for Angela Collins.”

That got Faz out of his chair and crossing the bull pen. “No shit? He quit on his daughter?”

“Cerrabone said the notice just came across his e-mail. No reason given, just withdrawing.”

“Did it provide notice of new counsel?”

“Nope. Just a withdrawal. No substitution.”

Faz considered the information for a moment. “Maybe she doesn’t think she needs one. She hasn’t been charged.”

“That’s not a reason for Berkshire to withdraw,” Kins said.

“He thinks he’s too close to it, too emotionally invested?” Faz said. “You know that old saying about an attorney representing himself having a fool for a client.”

“If that were the case, wouldn’t you have expected him to have secured new counsel for his daughter before withdrawing?”

“Maybe that will come Monday,” Faz said.