Page 14 of Fatal Deception
“I’ll be there in…” Too long. Why did she live all the way out in the middle of nowhere? “A while. Stay on the line with me until the police get there. Were they sending county or Sunrise?”
“I’m not sure. She… The dispatcher wanted me to stay on the line, but I wanted to call you so you could stop Thomas from getting involved.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a damn martyr?”
He took her silence to mean yes. He floored it down the mostly empty highway, knowing it would take too many long miles to get there. Hart wouldn’t have been much closer. Hopefully the 911 dispatcher sent someone from Sunrise. If that tiny department even had someone working night shift.
“Just…stay on the line with me. Go through the whole thing. Start to now.”
“I woke up…somethingwokeme up. I assume it was a gunshot, because I heard a crash, but it was outside.” She sounded clear, careful. Not scared. He’d take that as a good sign. “But then…the second one. It was definitely a window in the house. Everything’s locked up. I set the security system before I went to bed.”
Copeland screeched a turn onto the highway that would lead him out to her place, gripping the phone between his shoulder and his ear.Hisheart pounded like a maniac, a fear he didn’twant to untangle clutching his chest. But she kept giving him a calm, clear rundown.
“I knew it was a gunshot the second time, so I grabbed my phone, and got a gun out of my bedroom safe. I didn’t think I should look out the window if they were shooting at them, which is the only thing I could figure would sound like crashing, so I went into the closest room without windows. The upstairs bathroom. I called nine-one-one first, then I called you. I should call the Kirks. I don’tthinkthey’d hear anything all the way over there, but if they did…”
“You’ll stay on the line with me, Audra,” he said firmly. What if someone got in? What if someoneshother?
He didn’t like all the what-ifs jangling around. That wasn’t what being a cop or detective was about. She’d given him the facts, and he was worried about the maybes.
Unacceptable.
“They’re here. The police, that is.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, something about the pounding and people yelling ‘Bent County Sheriff’s Department’ tipped me off. No one’s made a shot for a while now. I’m getting off and going to talk to them.”
“Audra…” He didn’t know what to say, and she was quiet, waiting for him to saysomething. “I’ll be there in a few,” he muttered, then hit End, tossed his phone in the passenger seat and gunned the engine again.
It took what felt like forever, and he knew he should take a minute to take a breath, calm down. Adrenaline was pumping and he was likely to lash out at the wrong people, but when he realized that only two deputies were standing outside Audra’s house, any fear of lashing out disappeared.
Two lousy deputies for a full-on shooting? He got out of his car, slammed the door shut and marched over to the deputies.Deputy Stanley was a bad cop with a bad attitude and Copeland couldn’t stand him, so it figured he’d be one of the responding officers. But the other was Morris. She was a decent deputy, and she was the one who walked over to talk to him.
She clearly knew the players, because she blocked him from having a conversation with Stanley.
“Whoever the shooter was, they were gone before we got here. We’ve collected some evidence, but nothing that’s probably going to lead us to a perp. Too many guns around this area. Victim has doorbell cam and a security system, so I imagine you’ll want to start there. The shooter shot out the windows in the truck parked right there.” She gestured to Audra’s truck. “And the two front windows on the lower floor.”
Copeland cursed. “You need to keep looking for the shooter. Plenty of places to hide. How can you be sure you looked through all of them?”
“Detective…” There was a heavy sigh. “Whoever it was is long gone. We searched the outbuildings, but Ms. Young said the last gunshot was a good ten minutes before we got here. We didn’t pass anyone on the highway, so they must have headed south, or out into the pastures or mountains. There’s no finding them now.”
“Some emergency services,” he muttered.
“We do the best we can.”
It was said flatly, but Copeland knew he’d ruffled feathers he’d have to unruffle tomorrow. But that was tomorrow’s problem.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll talk to her about getting the video from that doorbell camera.” But what would it have caught in the dark? It wasn’t like she had the kind of high-tech security that might help out. “You take her statement?”
“Yes. It’ll be on your desk in the morning, along with our report.”
“Alright. I can handle it from here.”
Deputy Morris looked back at the house. The lights were on inside, and he could see the cracked glass of all the front-facing windows. “She shouldn’t stay here. Going to get cold real quick in there.”
“I’ll handle it,” Copeland repeated, already striding for the front door. His boot crunched on the first stair. Glass. It littered the entire porch. If he had to guess, there’d been at least two bullets, if not three, shot into each front window on either side of the door. There was almost no glass left in the panes.
He didn’t bother to knock. Just shoved the front door open. Audra was right there in the living room, broom and dustpan in hand. She was wearing flannel pajamas and heavy work boots.