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  He actually saw Ellison sleeping on the mattress in the corner and brought his gun up to fire, before he realized that it was just a pile of blankets.

  They stepped in and Bentley closed the door behind them.

  It was musty. The smell was awful, like rotting meat.

  Frank scanned the room. It was small. The mattress lay in the corner where the wall came together. It sat on the ground with no frame and no sheets. Just that pile of blankets heaped on it.

  There was a flat screen television on a glass stand in the other corner on the far wall. That was the extent of furniture in the room.

  There was a pile of cell phones on the floor near the television. Probably close to twenty of them.

  Frank thought about the prepaid cell phone that had been used to call the tip line and it made sense.

  A little way from the cell phones there were several other gadgets in a heap, which Frank didn’t recognize.

  “What are those?”

  Bentley looked in the direction of the gadgets.

  “Some of them look like jamming devices. Some of them tracers. I don’t know a whole lot about this stuff Frank. Remember I was away for ten years.”

  Another thought occurred to Frank. When they had been investigating Sheila’s murder there had been a witness. The old man who had been waving his arms around. He had given a description of the murderer. Short, small. It fit Ellison. But they had dismissed him as a nutter. He had claimed to have called the police, but there had been no call placed.

  “Could that stuff intercept cell phone signals? Reroute them to another phone?”

  Bentley shrugged. “I don’t know if those could or not, but I’ll tell you this, with all this crap in here I’m sure there’s something like that laying around.”

  “He did call the police,” Frank said. He did call them, only he didn’t get through to them. He got through to Ellison. Or maybe it was Collins.”

  “There’s some high tech stuff here,” Bentley said. “I think we can also say why he was able to evade you so easily. He could have been listening to your police band. Your cell phone conversations.”

  A shiver ran up Frank’s back. “God damn.”

  Frank looked to his right. There was another door. He approached it; stepping as lightly as possible.

  The door swelled in his vision as he got closer. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest and the pulse thrumming away in his neck. The hand holding the gun tightened. Frank could feel the sweat popping out on his body.

  He reached out a hand and opened the door.

  Just a bathroom.

  It wasn’t entirely empty, however. The toilet looked fine, the sink ditto. What didn’t look fine was the bathtub.

  There was a furry head sticking out of it. Sharp fangs were bared in a final death snarl. Above this on the tiled wall, written in blood, was the inscription Tempus Fugit.

  “What is that?” Bentley asked. Frank turned and saw the kid peering around his shoulder.

  “It’s a coyote,” Frank said.

  He approached the tub and looked in. The animal’s blood had dried to a deep red and looked like dried paint on the floor of the bathtub.

  “It’s a thin one too. Probably had been scavenging for awhile.”

  “The hunter takes on another hunter,” Bentley said.

  Frank turned to look at him. His face was still serene, but a contemplative look flashed across it.

  “Probably a first kill,” Bentley said. “Not worthy of a crystal.”

  “Speaking of that, where’s the watch?” Frank asked.

  He moved out of the bathroom, Bentley stepped aside to let him through.

  “Maybe he keeps it on him,” Bentley said.

  Frank walked over to the bed and lifted it up. Underneath was a pile of index cards. They were scattered everywhere under there. Sitting in the middle of them was a gold pocket watch.

  Bentley stepped forward and reached out his hand.

  “Don’t touch it,” Frank whispered. “We need prints on it.”

  Bentley hesitated and then withdrew his hand.

  Frank stood with the bed in his hand as they looked at it.

  It was lying open so that they could see the face. It was probably once white but had been yellowed with age. The crystal around it was slightly cracked and more than half of it was missing. From the number one to the number seven.

  “We found him,” Bentley said.

  Just then, there was a rattle as the door behind them opened. A short man with sunglasses and an L.A. Clippers hat pulled low on his head walked in. He was carrying a white, fast food bag. His head was lowered at first.

  Frank was still holding the bed up and his gun was in the other hand, resting at his side.

  “Hello,” Bentley said.

  Ellison looked up. His face was impassive at first and then his attention turned to Frank. A scowl grew and split his mouth open in a howl of rage.

  “You motherfucker!” Ellison screamed.

  Frank dropped the bed. It thudded and bounced against the carpet. He began to raise his weapon when Ellison reached behind his back and pulled out the knife.

  It was a hunting knife. Frank had a vague thought that they called it a buck knife. For deer hunters. It was wide near the hilt and then tapered off towards the top.

  Ellison wasn’t looking at Frank, he was looking at Bentley and that’s where he went when he charged forward.

  His scream was still peeling forward as he launched himself at the kid. Frank pointed the gun, but he had waited too long, there was no way he could fire and not risk hitting Bentley.

  Ellison held the knife like a javelin near the side of his head and crashed into Bentley. They collapsed to the floor and rolled there.

  “Freeze,” Frank screamed. He took a step back from them. Bentley used his arm like a bar against Ellison’s efforts to bring the knife down.

  Frank stood, not sure what to do. He couldn’t risk a shot, but he didn’t want to put the gun down. He grabbed at Ellison’s shirt with his free hand and pulled.

  Ellison came up just enough just enough for Bentley to get leverage and grab the killer’s wrist. He turned it and there was a sickening pop. The knife fell from Ellison’s hand.

  Before Frank could do little more than pull Ellison towards him, Bentley grabbed the knife by the hilt and drove it into Ellison’s chest.

  The killer looked down at the new growth in his body. Frank let go of him and he collapsed to the carpet. The force of his fall drove the knife in farther. There was a tearing sound and then the blood began to blossom.

  Bentley stood up. He was panting and he put his hands on his knees as he drew in breath.

  “Thanks, Frank. Fucker almost had me.”

  Frank continued to stare at Bentley. The gun was still in his hand but it had begun to shake from side to side.

  “You killed him,” Frank said.

  Bentley smiled and nodded. “Got him before he could get us.”

  “He dropped the knife,” Frank said. He could hear his voice and it sounded like a disaster victim who had just walked out of the sight of an explosion.

  “Couldn’t take the chance,” Bentley said. He had regained his wind and straightened to his full height. “You can see that, can’t you? I mean he could have picked it up again.”

  Frank looked down at the body. The right hand was cocked at a nightmarish angle.

  “I don’t think so. You broke his wrist.”

  “It was instinct,” Bentley said. “He tried to kill us. I just reacted.”

  Frank looked around the room, trying to take everything in. Then he turned to Bentley. The kid’s face was red.

  “You have to leave.”

  “What?”

  “Bentley, you’re a recently released psychiatric patient with a history of murder. How do you think this is going to end?”

  “I…” Bentley’s face contorted in shock and worry. “I hadn’t thought about it. He had a knife, it was self defens
e.”

  “I know that, but what do you want me to do about it?”

  “You’re the Sheriff.”

  “Bentley, it’s not all my call. The prosecutor will want to look at it.” A new thought occurred. “Oh God, internal affairs. They’ll want to look at it. They’ll want to know why you were with me. Michaels, other deputies, they saw you hanging around crime scenes.”

  “What do we do?”

  “You need to get out of here and I need to call this in.”

  “Where should I go?”

  “Get to the house. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah, I can manage.”

  “Go to my house and wait there for me. Leave now.”

  Bentley didn’t wait for more. He raced out the open door and down the stairs.

  Frank sat down on the bed and looked at the body. Harvey Ellison. He was dead. The nightmare was over. Frank allowed himself a smile before he fished his phone out of his pocket.

  Twenty-Eight

  “So you came here on a tip from the landlady?” Josten asked.

  Jeff Josten was a detective with internal affairs that Frank was fairly familiar with. He had run cases before when the Sheriff’s department was involved. I.A. was a separate entity, not affiliated with the department, and they covered deadly force cases for every department in Yucca County.

  Frank sighed at the question. It was one he had answered three times already. He looked around the room. Deputies were crawling all over the scene. Roman was there with his case, collecting evidence.

  Michaels was running the show now. He had to; Frank was now part of the investigation.

  “That’s right,” Frank said. “I spoke with her earlier in the day about the Collins murder. It seemed odd and not fitting with the other victims. She told me that Collins had been friends with Mr. Ellison.”

  “So she tells you Collins owned this place and you decided to come and check it out?”

  “At first I was going to just do a quick pass of the place, see if it looked like Ellison might be here, and then call in backup and get a warrant.”

  Josten nodded as he jotted on his notepad. “That’s when you noticed the blood.”

  “You can see it from the front window,” Frank said. “If you put your face close to the glass and look in.”

  “And you decided to enter on your own?”

  “I thought the blood might indicate that he had a victim in here. I felt that it was paramount to investigate.”

  Josten closed his notepad. There was a smirk on his face. “Okay. So you come up here and see Ellison isn’t here? Why did you stay?”

  “I could tell that he had been here and I looked around for a second. Before I had a chance to leave, he walked in and saw me. He pulled the knife out and charged at me.

  “So you grappled with him and broke his wrist.”

  “He was trying to stab me. I turned his wrist and grabbed the knife and stabbed him with it.”

  “You don’t feel like you could have restrained him and arrested him?”

  “No,” Frank said. He looked over and met eyes with Michaels. “I felt that he was still a danger and I used the knife to achieve stopping force.”

  “I think I have all I need,” Josten said. “We’ll be in touch. For now, I’d like you to restrict yourself to office duty. My office will file the report and get back to you in three days.”

  Josten stuck out his hand. Frank shook it. Josten used the handshake to pull Frank closer to him.

  “You’ll be fine; no one wants to see you go down for this. Plus that fucker needed to be taken care of.”

  Frank backed away a bit and offered a weak smile.

  “Have a good day, Sheriff.” Josten said.

  “Thank you.”

  Frank had time to take a single breath and then Michaels was at his side.

  “Where’s your roommate?” He whispered.

  “At home,” Frank said.

  “Good,” Michaels said. “I don’t ever want to hear a different story from you, because they might call me in for questioning.”

  “He was at home the entire time,” Frank said.

  “Uh huh. You know that Roman tells me both the hilt of the knife and the doorknob have been wiped. No prints on them.”

  “Must have slid my hand over it when I dropped it,” Frank said.

  “Just as long as you stick to that,” Michaels said. “We won’t have a problem.”

  Twenty-Nine

  I.

  Frank walked into the place. He wanted to call Katie, but knew that talking to Bentley was more important. Michaels wasn’t the only one they might call in to talk to.

  The house was quiet as Frank stripped his jacket off. He looked over at the couch. Bentley wasn’t there.

  Maybe sleeping, Frank thought. He knew it wasn’t true. The house had an empty feeling. One that he was all too familiar with.

  He got a beer from the kitchen and took a seat on his recliner. He glanced to the couch as if expecting to see Bentley materialize there. What he saw, instead, was a white piece of paper.

  Frank set his beer down and picked up the note.

  Dear Frank,

  I can’t thank you enough for the kindness you’ve showed me and the faith that you had in me. It was nice to have someone believe in me for a little while. I truly hope that I haven’t caused you any problems. In either case, I know that you’re planning on having your paramour over in the morning and I detest goodbyes. With that in mind, I have packed up my scant belongings and moved on. Don’t worry; I won’t live on the streets. I have a plan. Maybe I’ll end up being a profiler for the F.B.I. I think that would be a fine job for me. If you see a letter asking for a recommendation, I hope that you’ll at least consider it.

  It was fun while it lasted, Frank. Take care of yourself and take care of Katie.

  Sincerely,

  Bentley Grimes.

  Frank read the note three times before putting it down. He smiled and turned on the television. Katie would be waiting for a phone call, but he supposed he had time to relax for a minute before he invited his next houseguest over.

  Thirty

  She had gotten rid of the rental car. Frank briefly wondered how big of a problem that was going to be. He supposed that if she decided to stay (if things continued to work for them) that she would have to have her car shipped over from Michigan.

  The cab pulled up in front of the house in the dusk. She had insisted on coming right way, considering what he had told her over the phone, and he hadn’t argued. Hadn’t dared to argue with her.

  Frank stepped forward as she exited the cab and grabbed her suitcases. Two very large Sampsonites that felt as if they had been loaded with bricks.

  Katie paid the driver and then kissed Frank.

  “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.”

  “I know,” Frank said. “It’s quick.”

  “But we can’t look at it as really living together. I mean it’s just a place that I’m staying while we figure out what we’re doing.”

  “Sure,” Frank said.

  They walked into the house and Frank set the luggage next to his coat-rack. Katie walked in a few steps and looked around.

  “It’s very nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The walls could use something. They’re pretty bare. Maybe a picture or two.” She clasped her hands over her mouth and turned to him. “Oh, there’s this thing I saw online. It’s a canvas with all these little sayings on it, like love each day.”

  Frank was smiling as he looked at her. She caught his gaze and they shared a moment. It was almost like telepathy. She gauged him and he gauged her.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just a little excited.

  “It’s okay,” Frank said. “I made pasta. Are you hungry?”

  “Starving,” Katie said.

  They sat at the table. Katie looked at her plate. It was cheese tortellini with alfredo sauce. To be honest, Frank hadn’t really made it. The pasta had come out
of a box and the sauce had come out of a bottle. All he did was heat water and combine the two things together.

  “This is great,” Katie said after her first bite.

  Frank could see her eagerness to please, to be agreeable, and he wondered if that was a conversation they would have to have later.

  There was little talk as they ate, but when they got on the couch and Frank grabbed the remote control, Katie burst forth with it. As if she had just been saving it up.

  “You got home and he had just left?”

  “Left me a note. Told me that he didn’t want to be in the way anymore. He wanted to stay with me until the case was closed and after Ellison was dead the case was done.”

  “But you didn’t kill him?”

  Frank regarded her with serious eyes. “That never leaves this house, you know that right?”

  Katie nodded, returning his serious look with faux seriousness. He could sense the smile hiding under the surface.

  “I’m serious, Katie. This could end my career.”

  “I just don’t understand why you did it?” Katie asked. “If Bentley stabbed the guy, why didn’t you just keep him there and tell them the truth?”

  “Because Bentley would have a lot more questions to answer. He might have even been sent back to the hospital. Maybe even prosecuted.”

  “So what? It’s where he belongs.”

  “I don’t want to get into this,” Frank said. “You didn’t see what I saw from him and I’d rather not have an argument about him.”

  “So he’s out there,” Katie said. She turned to the front window as she said it and Frank saw a shiver race across her back. “Somewhere.”

  Katie turned back to Frank. “I don’t like it. I was happier when I knew he was in the hospital. It wasn’t where he belonged, but at least I knew where he was.”

  “It’s over,” Frank said. Best to put it out of our minds. Besides, I’m sure we’ll hear from him again.”

  Frank turned on the television and Katie scooted over to him. She pressed her body against his. “Do you really want to watch television like an old married couple or do you want to take me to the bedroom?”

  He flicked off the television. That question needed no answer and he carried her there.