Page 81 of In Cold Blood

“From what I hear, yeah.“

“Geesh, Noah. What is going on out there?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. The deeper I look into it, the more tangled it seems to become. But get this, they think I had a hand in beating him up. Can you believe that?”

“Actually…”

“Forget I asked.”

She chuckled. “No, that’s hard. I mean, sure he was an asshole, but I wouldn’t wish that on any of us. So, what are you going to do?”

“Well, by the sounds of the way things are, I can’t see Parish being back at this anytime soon. And by the time State gets around to finding someone to assign, they might lose vital evidence. You know how these things work. Time is of the essence. Anyway, I’ll find out more this evening. I was supposed to have the deputy sheriff who was assisting Parish come over for dinner, but that was to collect some information from the cabin. I’m not sure if she’ll show now.”

“She?”

“Yeah. She knew my brother well.”

“Uh-huh. Dinner?”

“It’s not like that.”

“No? Hey! I wouldn’t fault you. It’s about time you got back on that horse. The damn tools of your trade will shrivel up if they don’t get some usage.”

“Savannah.”

Savannah laughed. That was just like her, bringing humor in at the darkest of times. Many cops were like that. It was a way of dealing with all the crap they saw daily. In some ways, he needed that conversation as a strange heaviness had fallen over High Peaks, and he could feel it deep in his core.

21

Fear was ever-present in her line of work.

It broke some officers and energized others. From her early days as a patrol officer, she never really took for granted the nights she made it home alive. The chances of being targeted for a beating or having a crazed lunatic end her life with a gun or knife were always at the forefront of her mind. It was par for the course in law enforcement but even more so working for the Sheriff’s Office.

Unlike local PD who were confined to a small jurisdiction, a deputy sheriff patrolling over a million acres could be waiting a good thirty minutes for backup. Of course, backup could arrive sooner if game wardens were on hand but there was no guarantee. A first responder’s life was always a big unknown.

Callie downed her third cup of coffee that day just to stay awake.

Her nerves twitched.

She pulled at the bottom of her eyelids.

She’d spent the morning gathering as much information as she could about the hours leading up to Parish’s attack. She’d pored over surveillance footage from cameras at the lodge,hoping to see those involved, but due to the sheer number of tourists in town, Parish’s vehicle was just out of view of the cameras.

She’d seen him exit the hotel and then disappear.

There was no way to tell whether it was one or multiple people who jumped him.

While the hotel was supposed to keep a record of every vehicle's license plate to avoid people using the lot for parking overnight, they had become lax in doing so. And so that made it virtually impossible to determine what vehicles shouldn’t have been there. Multiple vehicles had gone in and out over the following hours.

Of course, that was assuming his attackers had used a vehicle at all. She was fairly certain they hadn’t. There were many ways to get into the parking area without being spotted. The entire property was hedged in by dense forest.

To complicate matters, she’d found Noah’s phone number as the last outcall on Parish’s phone. While she didn’t think he had anything to do with it, Parish and Noah hadn’t exactly been cautious in conveying how they felt about one another. There was a mutual disdain.

But was that enough reason to jump him?

And how could he, if his truck was trashed?

Still, protocol was protocol. They had to ask the hard questions.