Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

attitude, I didn’t see anything except glorified civilians. Smithson was going for some kind of look he must have learned as a State Trooper.

I was about a half-second away from ripping his nose off his face when he was saved by the coffee guy. Smithson lurched to the cart, and the guy handed two cups over the counter. Alongside the coffees were two apple crullers.

At least Ellie had manners. “Do you want something, Keeler?”

I shook my head. “I’m okay, thanks.”

Smithson handed over a cup and a pastry to Ellie.

He saw me watching and stopped drinking coffee. “What?”

“You didn’t answer my question?”

“What question?”

“I said, so. Which meant, so what have you done about the situation at hand?”

He said, “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”

I said, “You don’t like me or something. Maybe it’s a trust issue.”

“I trust you just as far as I can throw you.” He looked at Ellie. “And no disrespect. Like I said, your choice, not mine.”

I said, “Just help me out with one thing, so that I understand. Who was it tipped you off that I was the perpetrator out at Beaver Falls?”

“Like I said, I don’t comment on ongoing investigations.” I saw Smithson’s eye crawling down my shirt to the hem, where shirt meets jeans. I looked down. Ellie’s badge was poking out from under, bronze and official-looking in the weak Alaskan light. He looked back up at me, face turning red.

Ellie said, “He’s deputized, Jim, relax.”

She was looking at me sternly. Smithson said, “He’s what?”

“Deputized. I’ve made him a deputy for the term of this investigation.”

Smithson shook his head at her. “What is this, the Wild West?”

Ellie looked around, at the hills above town, a forest that extended a thousand of miles before it returned to some form of human civilization. She said, “Well, yes, Jim.”

He snorted and sipped his coffee. When he came up for air he spoke. “Okay. So you want to know who called in. Answer is, I don’t know. I didn’t take the call. It was logged in at the switchboard and the caller left no name.”

I stepped in. “And then you show up at the Edna Bay Apartments. Same tip off?”

He shrugged. “Same answer. Didn’t take the call. Dispatch sent it out over the radio.”

I looked over at Ellie. She shrugged. I thought about the Edna Bay Apartments. Besides Amber Chapmen, there was the neighbor and the guy who’d walked by with the six-pack in a convenience store bag. Bald head, pointy ears.

The detective said, “So are we done here or what?”

I said, “One second.”

Smithson was already turning to go. He swung to a halt on the ball of one foot. “What?”

There was no reason to make an enemy. Smithson could be useful.

I said, “We got off to a bad start detective. No harm, no foul. I don’t think you’ve done anything particularly wrong, and I’m sorry if I caused you any offence.”

Ellie raised her eyebrows and looked at the policeman. He looked at me.

“Okay.”

Smithson extended a hand and I took it.

I said, “I’d like to get up to speed on your conversation.” I lifted my shirt to show the badge. “As a deputized member of the Chilkat Tribal Authority’s police force.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. She looked at the detective. He nodded. She said, “So I got with Jim about the victim, Jane Abrams. Guess what.”

I said, “Abrams doesn’t exist.”

She elbowed Smithson. “Told you he’s smart.” Then she turned to me. “You found the same thing on the internet. She ain’t there. But all you got was the negative, the woman doesn’t exist. But Jim got a positive, her real name, which is not Jane Abrams. Port Morris PD identified the vic as one Valerie Zarembina of Maryland, from the outside.”

I said, “What’s the outside?”

Smithson said, “What locals call the lower forty-eight states, the outside.”

I said, “Zarembina. Isn’t that something related to ice hockey?”

He said, “That’s a zamboni, Keeler. The machine that cleans the ice on a hockey rink.”

I said, “Identified how?”

Ellie said, “Prints came back from the FBI.”

We locked eyes and I nodded at her. “Okay.”

Smithson said, “I have to go.” He looked at Ellie. “You need more help, you let me know, Ellie.”

I looked at Ellie. “You tell him about the boat rental?”

“Yeah. Told him about the boat.” She looked at Smithson.

He said, “It’s tangential, but I’m having someone follow that up. Ellie gave me the paper.”

I said, “Tangential.”

Smithson sighed. “Keeler, you’re impatient. I have limited manpower and I take orders from the chief. It takes time to properly investigate. We do it by the book, starting with the forensic evidence taken at Beaver Falls, the identification, and the known associations. From there we expand the investigation." He drank from his coffee cup. Wiped a shirt sleeve across his mouth. “Think about it from my point of view for a second. Ellie came up with this story about a mother and her son. Jane and George Abrams. I hear her out.” He turned to Ellie. “Right, Ellie?”

Ellie nodded. “Right.”

Smithson continued, earnest now, like he meant it. “What am I supposed to think? The mother, the son. That’s bullshit right? The vic comes back as Valerie Zarembina. So, I look at you, I look at Ellie. I don’t see the answer to my problems. The answer to my problems is the procedure. One step at a time. Police work. Working the scene, getting the book together. You see what I’m saying?”

I did.

But Smithson wasn’t done. “Right now, we’re at the first stage. It hasn’t even been what, twenty-four hours? You and Ellie are taking it from a different angle, which is the tribal authority’s prerogative. You’re starting at a different place.” He shrugged. “If we meet in the middle, I’ll catch you there.”

Smithson raised his coffee cup and walked away.

Ellie and I crossed the lawn to her building and neither of us spoke until after we had entered the offices and gone past Dave. Dave only barely looked up from his book. I followed Ellie along