Page 104 of In Cold Blood

Noah chuckled. “It’s what my kids would say. Too much information.”

“Oh.” She rocked her head back and smiled. Callie glanced at her watch. “You hungry?”

“I could go for a bite.”

As Noah opened the back door so Axel could jump in, and Callie turned to her cruiser, she received a call. Noah was partially paying attention.

“Are you sure?” She had this confused expression. “Can yousend that over to me?” She nodded and thanked whoever it was and then hung up.

“What is it?”

“I had dispatch retrieve Luke’s call log for the evening. You know, to see if there were any inconsistencies.”

“I saw it. There were none.”

“You saw the calls and length. I had them retrieve a little more from the AVL history. The GPS equipment never shut off. They noticed he took a slight diversion that night.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay. You know that dispatch can see the location, direction, and speed of all cruisers on shift. This is all logged for review by command just in case a complaint is filed. Like if a cop was not on an emergency call and was driving over the speed limit and blowing through stop signs. Well, we have the logs of Luke’s calls that night. Where he went, what the call was about, how long it lasted, and so on. Now dispatch will only assign an officer to another call once they see they’re clear. It varies from agency to agency, but here in Adirondack County, that clear for a call doesn’t happen until everything is completed – a report, a booking, the impound of a vehicle, and so forth.”

“Right. So?”

“Well, usually you’ll see the call, the cruiser at the incident location and then they might go down to book someone in. In Luke’s case, we saw him responding to the fight at High Peaks Pub and Brewery. However, he didn’t clear that call for close to forty minutes.”

“So, it took him a little longer.”

“No, the system logged him leaving the pub and heading west before it was clear.”

“West?”

She lifted her phone and thumbed the screen.

“It had him stopping here.” Callie showed him.

Noah leaned forward; his eyes widened.

“Meadowbrook Public Campground.”

“You’re familiar with it?” she asked.

He nodded. “I know it well. It’s where Dax is staying. He lied.”

“What?”

He took out his phone and made a call to Dax. This time there was no voicemail. No way to leave a message. It just kept ringing.

“Son of a bitch!”

He climbed into the Bronco.

“Noah.”

“I’ll tell you on the way. Right now, we need to find him.”

He fired up the engine. Callie hopped into her cruiser and they tore out of the motel lot heading back to High Peaks. Over his cell phone, Noah brought Callie up to speed as they sped back through a wall of pines.

“The fight that night was allegedly between Cyrus and a patron. Luke arrived and by that point, the patron, according to his report, was not there. Harry said they didn’t want to press charges and Cyrus was sent home. I don’t think he was the only one that was sent home.”