Page 83 of Trapper Road

He offers to drive, but I’ve learned my lesson about taking a ride from the cops. It puts you at their mercy, and I’d rather have my own way of leaving if necessary. Before getting in my truck, I send a quick text to Kez. Not that I think the detective was lying to me, but it’s always a good idea to verify.

Sam: Some new detective just showed up and told me you sent him to take my statement. That true?

It takes a moment before I get a response.

Kez: This is Javi — Kez said to tell you yes. Doc appt is taking longer than expected.

Sam: All Okay?

Kez: Little Bean being stubborn and they can’t get a good look at what they need to. They have Kez drinking something sugary. Hoping that helps.

Sam: Stubborn? No idea where they’d get that from.

Kez: I know, if this is a little girl I’m in trouble.

Sam: You’re in trouble either way. Good luck.

When I arrive at the station, I lock my gun in the glove compartment and make my way inside. Detective Diakos is waiting, and he leads me to an interrogation room and offers to grab coffee, which I take him up on.

Usually this where cops like to make you wait, let you stew in your own sweat and anxiety for a bit, and I settle in for the long haul. Surprisingly, though, Detective Diakos returns in minutes bearing a thick folder and two cups of steaming coffee. It tastes like shit, but I expected that. It’s coffee, and it has caffeine, and that’s all that matters.

Detective Diakos goes through the usual introductions, informing me we’re being recorded and videotaped and the discussion is voluntary. His initial questions are what I would have expected, asking about my relationship with Gwen and thus my ties to the house. How long we’ve been renting it out, what the policies and procedures are, etc.

Then he asks about my whereabouts over the past several days as a formality. I explain about Lanny going to prospective students weekend at Reyne and me staying in a nearby hotel.

“Did you go anywhere? Do anything while you were there?” he asks.

I try to think back. “Not really. It’s a college town so not much for an old man like me to do. I mostly ate takeout, read, slept.”

“What about two nights ago?” He asks. “You stay in the whole night?”

I start to say yes when I remember that’s not the case. “Actually no.” I think back to the phone call with Leonard Varrus and his implied threat against Lanny. It makes me clench my fists under the table. “My daughter was at a frat party, and I was worried about her. I spent several hours in my car across the street keeping an eye on her.”

He raises his eyebrows. It’s obvious he thinks that I may have been a little overprotective, but he doesn’t understand my family and the threats we face.

“I know that may sound extreme,” I explain. “But I had reason to be worried.”

“How’s that?” He asks.

I study the detective a moment, trying to gauge how sympathetic he’ll be if I tell him the truth. There are plenty of folks around Stillhouse Lake, especially in the Norton police department, who aren’t fans of Gwen and see her as little more than a nuisance. So far, Detective Diakos hasn’t shown any indication that he takes issue with me. Plus, I can’t imagine Kez signing off on him talking to me if he was already biased against me. Still, I don’t trust easily.

As if he can sense my hesitation he says, “I’d rather you tell us too much than too little, Mr. Cade. Right now we’re flying a little blind, so anything you can share will help.”

I decide to give him a chance. “I’d talked to an old acquaintance on the phone earlier that evening. His name is Leonard Varrus, and he’d been threatening my family. I called him to let him know that if he continued to do so, we’d file suit against him. He didn’t like that, and before hanging up he made it clear that he knew where my daughter was and strongly implied that something might happen to her.”

His eyebrows go up. “She okay?” he asks. His concern seems genuine.

I nod. “Thankfully, yes. But I wasn’t willing to take any chances.”

“Understandable,” he says. “The guy who was threatening you — if you were worried, why didn’t you go to the cops?”

I almost smile at the naiveté of that question. Only someone who still believed in the system would ask something like that. “I wasn’t sure they’d take my concerns seriously.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

I blow out a breath. I don’t even know where to begin with trying to explain that. “No offense, but we have a history of authorities not responding to threats against us.”

He frowns, as if this is some sort of personal failure rather than the failure of the system itself. “I’m sorry to hear that.”