Page 79 of Silver-Tongued Devil
Blake started to speak, then caught himself and asked, “Do you have any ideas?” Sawyer shifted restlessly, but Blake didn’t pay any attention to that.
“Yes,” Dakota said. “Usually, people have one sort of… one kind of focus, when they’re planning something. I mean…” She was looking agitated again, and Blake squeezed her hand to encourage her. “If you get an idea to mess with people’s swimming experience, you aren’t going to go put… I don’t know, triplines across hiking trails. Bombs. Whatever. It’s not the same thing. Those wouldn’t look accidental, ever, and they’re too extreme. Plus, with swimming, it’s hidden. That’s what happened to me, right? The danger was hidden. And it would be hard to booby-trap the resort itself, or someplace where you have security walking, anyplace on the grounds. I worked out there for weeks. You have housekeepers in and out of the rooms. Maintenance people. Waiters. A security focus. They’d notice, or they’d trip the booby-trap before you even opened. So what I’d look for would be what else they could do around the beach. What could they hide? What would look like an accident?”
“Like what?” Blake asked. Dakota hesitated, and he said, “Come on. Brainstorm. You’re the one here who does all the swimming. You’d know.”
“Two things,” she said, “that occur to me. Besides something in some other spot on the logs, of course. One’s nastier, but they’re both bad.”
“Tell us,” Blake said.
“All right. First: the rocks. The ones that I jumped off, when you saw me. You have those posted ‘No Trespassing,’ because of course it isn’t exactly safe, but people are still going to jump. To some people, that sign will mean ‘Come on in.’ What if somebody dumped—oh, say, an old, ripped-up set of box springs out there, with some of the springs broken? Or something else metal, something spiky? A person could jump in that wrong spot and be caught, stuck on a spike. They could be hurt badly, could even die, and you’d never find out who did it in a million years. It would look like an accident, too.”
Blake felt sick. Sawyer whispered something that sounded like “Jesus,” but he made a note.
“The other thing,” Dakota said. “Not as bad, but more likely, maybe. Easier to do, too. Youcoulddo it at night, because it’s easy as can be, even without a light. What if you broke a beer bottle and buried the pieces in the sand of the beach? Especially if it was in the shallow water? You put it just under the surface. What are the chances that somebody steps on that on your opening weekend? Every swimmer knows that’s your most likely injury, stepping on something sharp. You have that happen to a couple guests, their feet sliced open? Kids? Babies, even? You wouldn’t kill anybody. It’s not a shark attack. It’s not a drowning. But everybody sees it. Everybody knows it.”
Sawyer was staring at her, but Dakota said, “Somebody who was willing to put that net up with those hooks—that’s what they’re going for. Who sits on those logs at the edges? Kids. Ten, eleven years old. Adults aren’t messing around out there. They’re swimming laps, or they’re holding their toddlers in the water. It’d be kids. And it’s teenagers who jump off the rocks, too. It’s always worse when things happen to kids.”
Blake said, “I’ll get on it. I’ve got nine days.” He was sick to his stomach. Teenagers?Babies?
“Heavy equipment,” Russell said. “Get a couple front-end loaders to turn up that sand on the beach. Have some guys watching for broken glass, raking the sand. It’ll take a while, but if it’s there, you’ll find it.”
“And do it in the water, too,” Dakota said. “They’d do it close in, not far out. The other one’s easier. Hire a couple people with SCUBA gear to go around by the rocks, and anywhere else people might jump.”
“Got it,” Blake said. “And I’m asking myself why I didn’t stick with sports bars.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Dakota said, her tone dry as dust. “I hear people can have accidents in those, too.”
Sawyer inhaled, a sharp sound, and Blake said, “You’re right again.” He looked at Sawyer. “What else?”
“Nothing. I’ve got what I need.” He stood up, collecting his printouts and shoving them back into the folder. “Thanks for the meatloaf, Russell. Orbison, I’d like a word with you.”
“Sure.” Blake shoved himself out of the chair and made his stiff-legged way to the door. Sawyer looked at him measuringly and said, “Front porch, I think,” so they did that.
Blake started it. “I realize I came on a little strong this morning. Maybe too strong.”
“Yeah. You did. But then, men can get that way when it comes to women.”
Just like that, the tension was back. “You’re right,” Blake said. “I’m sensitive about Dakota. Especially when somebody tries to kill her.”
“Seems to me that you could have some prejudices. But there are two sides to every story, and Dakota and Russell—they’ve got an agenda. Dakota might have said something about Steve, but plenty of people have said something abouther.She didn’t have a good reputation when she was younger. Sexually. Of course, it’s not a crime for a girl to get around. The boys are happy enough about it at the time, but they do tend to talk. And, yeah, Steve might have talked, but that’s not a crime either, or I’d have closed down the locker room at the high school a long time ago. And he’s got no record at all. No safety record, no police record.”
“No,” Blake said. “There aren’t two sides to every story. Sometimes, there’s one side. I’m asking you, man to man. If you can’t tell your department to question your nephew, say so. He sure-enough hates my guts. There’s nobody who hates them more, and that’s saying something.”
“I’ll do my job,” Sawyer said, and if Blake was stiff, so was he. “I’m still putting my money on the tree huggers. If you find something else out there, let me know.”
He left. Not an enemy, and not a friend. But at least a sheriff. At least that.
Dakota watched as Blake limped back into the kitchen. He didn’t sit down, though, just leaned up against the wall of the breakfast nook. Trying to make it look casual, like admitting his knee hurt would destroy his manhood. She knew all about that. She lived with Russell.
“Let me guess,” she said, getting up and starting to clear the table. “The sheriff’s concerned that you’re getting yourself into bad company.”
“Now, why would you think that?” Blake asked.
“Yeah, right.” She began to scrape plates. It was no surprise, and it shouldn’t bother her. Blake wouldn’t have heard anything new. He’d already heard it all from her. And if knowing that he’d probably been out there hearing Steve Sawyer’s version of it, what he’d probably said about her, hurt all the way down in her chest? Her chest already hurt.
“You know what I’m realizing?” Blake asked after a moment. “How somebody can turn the tables just by saying it’s so. Somebody does wrong by you the way Sawyer has, and he flips it all the way around, so you’re the one with a grudge and he’s the victim.”
“You just realizing that?” Russell asked, even as Dakota turned to face Blake. She made a cutting-off motion with her hand, trying to signal to him.Stop.
