Page 97 of Return of the Spider

“I read you your rights,” French said. “First thing.”

“For what?” Beech demanded. “We are allowed to own bows. They’re not guns. And we are allowed to hunt.”

“Not for humans, you aren’t,” Sampson said.

“For humans?” Beech said, losing color. “No, no, we’ve—”

“Shut up, Harry,” Diggs said. “This is wrong, so until you talk to a lawyer, just shut the hell up.”

His friend appeared to have been on the wrong end of a gut punch, which was how I still felt when the sheriff’s cruiser and an ambulance met us in Diggs’s front yard. French had Beech and Diggs transported to the state police barracks in Coatesville while an EMT checked me out.

I had a livid diamond-shaped bruise low over my sternum, that egg on the back of my head, and signs of a mild concussion. But I turned down the offer of a ride to the closest hospital.

“If I feel different in a half hour, you’ll take me there,” I said when Sampson protested. “I want to see what’s in that trailer first.”

French agreed. I sat outside when they went in. But although I had a colossal headache, my mind became less foggy with each passing minute, and soon I felt strong and clear enough to go inside and help with the search.

We combed through the double-wide and the yard around it for more than an hour. We did not find the .44 Bulldog pistol, but we had the rope from the deer pole. And we came across several items that were violations of Diggs’s parole, including marijuana and cocaine.

But it wasn’t until Sampson searched a shed in the back of Diggs’s place that we knew we had him cold. John exited the small outbuilding wearing gloves and carrying a handful of blasting caps with tags that readPROPERTY OF KEEGAN’S GRANITE.

Tommy French saw them and broke into a toothy grin. “Well, well, well.”

CHAPTER

80

Two hours later, john Sampsonand I were at the Pennsylvania state police barracks in Coatesville, a long, low brick-faced affair surrounded by leafless bushes. John and I were on the phone with Chief Pittman while Tommy French was on another line with his supervisor.

“An arrow to the chest?” Pittman said. “That had to hurt, Cross.”

I had thought he’d be angry that I’d been caught with my guard down. Relieved, I said, “I have a whopper of a bruise on my chest, and my ego’s a bit crushed, but I’ll be all right, sir.”

“Good, good,” Pittman said. “Are we ready to announce this? That we got the Bulldog killer and maybe the strangler? Or should we call them the white-van killers?”

Sampson said, “Give us a chance to talk to them first, sir. Bothhave lawyered up, but we’re going to tell them what we found in the double-wide, see if that will pry something open.”

“Anyone searching Beech’s place?”

I said, “French sent a team right after we took him into custody.”

“Keep me posted.”

“We’ll call as soon as we know something,” John promised and hung up.

French finished his conversation, and a sergeant led us all to a hall outside an interrogation room. The sergeant knocked, leaned his head in. “Detectives would like to talk to you, Ms. Cox.”

A few moments later, Emelie Cox, Diggs’s public defender, exited the room and crossed her arms. “My client says heaccidentallyshot one of you.”

“Me,” I said. “For the record, he whistled at me and heard me identify myself as a cop before he shot me. It was no accident.”

Cox, a petite redhead in her thirties, said, “Hear him out. To clear up whatever you think he’s done, he says he’ll answer your questions unless I tell him not to.”

In the interrogation room, Diggs looked across the table at me with an agonized expression. “Look, man, I’m sorry. I did not mean to shoot you.”

“But you did!” Sampson said, slamming his hand on the table. “You shot him. If it hadn’t been for his vest, my partner would be dead now.”

Diggs cringed like a kicked dog. “I admit I saw him coming through the woods. Saw the pistol. I did not know what to think. I came to full draw on a guy roaming around the woods with a pistol. Who knew what he wanted?”