Page 104 of Water's Edge

“Get on your knees. I got something special for you.”

“Okay. I’ll accept your surrender. And you don’t even have to get on your knees.”

“I’m gonna let you blow me, and if you do it good, I won’t blow you. Get it?Blowyou?”

Bending lower like I’m getting to my knees I say, “Didn’t you pay attention in the academy?”

“That’s enough,” he says, and I anticipate him shoving the gun into the back of my head again. As he does, I twist, slap his gun away with one hand, and draw Ronnie’s .45 from my waistband with the other. I fall to the floor and hit it hard. Hard enough to start blacking out, but I don’t. I pull the trigger. My bullet hits Jimmy Polito just above the notch in his throat. He lifts his face and I see an expression likeWhat?His gun is again pointed at me. In the academy they taught me to shoot until the target is no longer a threat.

So I shoot.

Twice in the upper chest.

Once in the crotch.

Then a last one in the crotch, because of what he is.

He drops the gun. His hands jerk up to his throat and down to his crotch like he can’t make his mind up. They end up at his throat. He slumps against the cabin wall and slides down onto his butt. I stand over him and watch blood seep between his fingers. His mouth is working like a fish’s when it’s pulled out of the water, and blood oozes down both sides of it. His eyes are fixed on mine. He’s not completely dead.

I lean over and put the muzzle of Ronnie’s .45 against his forehead.

“When you kill someone, make sure they stay dead, asshole,” I say.

His eyes widen just before the back of his skull explodes against the cabin wall.

Fifty-Two

The ambulance had come for Ronnie. It was too late for Officer Jimmy Polito. Captain Martin’s body was found belowdecks on theIntegrity. He’d been shot once in the side of the head with his own duty weapon. Skull fragments and brain matter on the wall indicated he’d been shot at close range. His holster was empty.

His gun was in Jimmy Polito’s hand.

I am sure the gun Jimmy used to shoot me will prove to be the captain’s duty weapon. Polito knew from the police grapevine that Ronnie and I had been traipsing all over Clallam and Kitsap Counties, talking to people about Captain Martin. He was the perfect scapegoat. Larry had already planted the seed of suspicion when he told us about Martin’s pregnant wife drowning. Martin was supposed to be reenacting the tragedy. But that made no sense. Because Martin had lost the baby when his wife died, he’d have wanted to protect Margie’s unborn child.

Even if she was planning to sell it.

Polito intended to make it look as if Captain Martin had come to Ronnie’s place, shot me, kidnapped her, and taken her back to theIntegritywith the intention of dumping her body somewhere like the others. The other boat that I’d seen next to theIntegritywould be towed behind. Jimmy would leave Ronnie’s body on the rocks. He would leave theIntegrityanchored where it would be found in the area of the murder with Captain Martin’s body inside. He’d take the other boat back to Port Townsend, where his car was parked, and probably pull it up on one of the boat trailers I’d seen. It would be ruled a murder/suicide. He’d already tried that scenario with Boyd and his roommate, but when I didn’t believe it, he had to try someone else more believable.

He made one mistake.

Not killing me.

He’d never make that mistake again.

I was released from the same hospital where Jimmy Polito had worked. And now I am sitting in Sheriff Gray’s creaky chair; he insisted, saying it’s the most comfortable. If I move or stand the wrong way it still feels like an elephant is standing on my chest. Sitting is worse, but I don’t want to ruin the sheriff’s chivalrous gesture. He’s in full father mode and has made coffee for us. Ronnie is in the room with us.

Could use a little Scotch in it, but it’s not too bad.

Ronnie sits next to me in the roll-around chair Sheriff Gray borrowed from my desk. She was banged up pretty good. Split lip. Broken wrist. Bruised ribs. Stitches in a cut on her forehead. But she wasn’t raped, or killed, or posed naked on a beach somewhere with that ridiculous all-seeing eye watching her body be discovered.

Getting a deep breath is still difficult for me, so I let Ronnie do the talking.

“Megan and I were watching the hospital surveillance video at my place. She had the idea that the killer might have visited one of the victims when she had their baby. That’s why she asked for the court order for records and video from the hospital.”

The sheriff nods.

“We spent the day running down family and coworkers and friends of the victims in Clallam and Kitsap Counties. We were hearing different stories from what was in the detectives’ reports.”

Sheriff Gray turns to me. “Is that why you didn’t want those detectives in on the debrief?”

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