“What?” he asked, sounding baffled as his smile dropped. “You’re arresting me?”
“You have the right to remain silent and you can refuse to answer any questions.” I walked behind him, still being careful to keep the gun aimed at him. Once I was behind him, I reached down and gripped the handcuffs from where I kept them on one of my belt loops. Opening the first cuff, I secured his left wrist and then his right. “Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.”
“You have no right to arrest me,” he interrupted. “I was just kidding. I promise I’ll be a good boy from here on out.”
“You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future.”
“An attorney, as in Judd Gibson?”
“Whoever.”
“I mean… he’s the only attorney in Hope and he also happens to be a good friend of mine,” Alexander Johnson pointed out with a large smile that said he really wasn’t taking his arrest seriously.
“If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish...”
“Judd Gibson,” he interrupted again. “Instead of continuing to say attorney, you should just call Judd by his name since he’s the only lawyer within a hundred miles of here.” He took a breath. “Otherwise, you might confuse your arrestee.” He took another breath. “Or would it be you’re arrested?”
Damn, this town was way too small and this guy was wayyyyy too annoying. “If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present,” I continued.
“Without Judd present.”
“You will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney.”
“…to Judd.”
“Stop interrupting me!”
“Well, if you’d start specifying Judd, I wouldn’t have to!”
“Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney… ugh, without Judd Gibson, present?” That was when I realized I had no car to put him in, so I’d have to walk him back to the station.
Son of a…
“I’ll answer all your questions, honey,” he promised as I grabbed his arm none too gently and ushered him forward. He glanced over at me and smiled widely. He was handsome but he knew it. And there was still that niggling little reminder that I’d seen this man in that bizarre vision I’d had when I’d touched John Doe. Not to mention his steel gray eyes were the same as those I’d seen in the face of a wolf…
“Don’t call me honey,” I barked at him. “It’s Chief to you.”
“All you had to do was ask me nicely… Chief.”
This guy was exasperating and then some.
Chapter Ten
Truth was, I was itching to go back and study those prints in the snow; after all, I was pretty damn certain the human prints had ended exactly where the wolf prints had begun.
Crazy, I thought. Impossible.
An elaborate hoax—that was all this was. And Alexander Johnson was undoubtedly part of it. No way was his sudden appearance a coincidence. Well, I would know soon enough. The bastard was going to talk, with or without Judd Gibson. I would make sure of it.
And as to the vision I’d had and his steel gray eyes which I’d sworn I’d seen before? There was nothing to make of either so I shoved both pieces of information to the dark recesses of my mind, where they would never see the light of day again.
We continued through the park, which paralleled a small river, which, from what I understood, was pleasant during the non-cold-ass months. Unfortunately for me, I’d gotten here in the beginning of winter, which was about how badly I wanted to get out of Anchorage. Anyway, the ice was only now beginning to break up, and I could hear it cracking as it moved down the short embankment.
He’d been dead. I thought about the corpse again as I guided the handcuffed Alexander over the snowy path, one hand inside his elbow. I hated myself for noticing the way his bicep flexed and undulated inside his light jacket. Maybe Mom was right, I was spending too much time alone…
And what the freaking freak was Alexander Jerkoff doing wearing a light jacket in the middle of winter anyway? I was clad in my police-issue, all-weather down jacket, and I was still ill-prepared for just how cold it was tonight.
We continued along the path, and I continued to replay the evening’s events over in my mind. The man coming up the stairs had been the corpse I’d loaded on my sled. I was sure of it. No doubt in my mind. No question—the corpse had been one and the same. It was the same corpse I’d confirmed had no pulse. The corpse Dr. Moody had performed an autopsy on. Was it possible it had never been a corpse in the first place? Just a plant?
Come on, Elodie, I yelled at myself. You know the difference between a real dead body and a fake one!
Right. I did know the difference. And I knew that body was real.
So, no. I didn’t buy this line of reasoning. John Doe had been dead. Very, very dead. I’d confirmed it myself in the field. So had Miguel.
So had Miguel…
The depth and depravity of the joke was impressive. Too impressive. Someone was going to spend a night in jail, and that someone was Alexander Bicep. And then I’d turn on the good doctor, himself. Because he’d had the biggest part to play in this stupid prank, aside from little, unsuspecting me.
And Miguel? I asked myself. Do you think he was in on it, too?
Maybe he was. I mean, he doesn’t seem like the type to do something like this, but how well did I really know him?
Not well…
If that’s the case and Miguel did have something to do with it, I’ll have no problem landing his ass in jail, too!
If I had to throw the whole freaking town in jail, I would. Just to prove I wasn’t going down without a fight.
Yet somehow I just couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe what I’d witnessed had been… real? I mean, I’d seen with my own eyes a naked and autopsied man walk up the damn stairs holding a bowl of his own organs, his chest cavity swinging open like storm shutters in the wind. His face had only been rudimentarily pulled down. And Dr. Moody’s expression—he’d been shocked and more so, afraid. His reaction would have been near impossible to fake.
And the blood. So much blood.
What of the tracks in the snow? The ones that had just vanished. Where had they gone? And where had the wolf tracks come from? And then Alexander Johnson just happened to show up, wearing nothing more than a light jacket and jeans? Not to mention that I’d seen him before? As soon as I’d touched John Doe?
No, you forced that bit of info away, remember? I reminded myself.
I paused, shaking my head, as my thoughts returned to the idea that maybe the body had been planted in the ice from the get-go. I remembered the point at which Miguel and I had found John Doe in the woods. Maybe Miguel and his friends had planted it? Left it there to make the new chief of police look like a fool. Well, congrats, boys, because your little ruse was working like a charm.
No, I thought. No cop would deface a corpse just for the sake of a joke.
I just couldn’t believe that. And especially not Miguel. Even though I didn’t know him well, his serene silence and overall pensive manner didn’t lend themselves to a hoax of any sort, let alone one of this magnitude.