“Allie Krycek,” the man said.
She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. Instead, he sat down across the table from her, then opened a folder with her name on the label and began flipping through it. Like the other cops in the building, he looked ready to go home and get some sleep.
What’s it going to take to get these people excited?
“How are you?” he asked. His nametag read: “Sgt. Harper.”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
He looked up and smiled. “I genuinely want to know how you are right now, Allie. May I call you Allie?”
“Why not.”
“Before we start, do you need immediate medical attention? Do you need me to take you to a hospital? I want to make sure you’re all right to continue.”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
The truth was, her ribs were killing her, but at the moment she needed to talk to this man more than she needed to see a doctor. The idea of Beckard still running around out there made her grind her teeth.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“What about your ribs?” Harper asked, ignoring her question. “You told Corporal Tanner they were broken. Are you sure you don’t need a doctor to look at them?”
“I’ll live for now. Where is he?” she asked again.
“Who?”
“Beckard. If that’s his real name.”
Harper nodded. “That’s his real name.”
“What did he tell you?”
Harper didn’t answer right away. He went back to flipping through the papers in front of him in silence for a moment. He was in his early forties, and out here she guessed the girls probably called someone with his looks handsome, though back in L.A. he would be invisible on the streets.
“That you’re dangerous,” Harper said finally.
He closed the folder and put his hands over it, then looked across at her with a measured stare that she couldn’t decide if it was an attempt at intimidation or…something else. She could easily picture him in an old Western, the aw-shucks sheriff who was smarter than the country bumpkin vibe he gave off.
Or she could have been misreading him completely.
“He’s lying,” Allie said.
“Trooper Beckard?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t tell you what he said.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s lying. And I can prove it.”
“How?”
“There’s a cabin in the woods…”
Harper smiled.
“What?” she said, unable to hide her annoyance.
“It’s an old trooper joke,” Harper said. “A cabin in the woods invariably comes up during an investigation out here.” He waved it off. “Sorry. Go on…”
“There is a cabin in the woods,” she continued, “where you’ll find all the evidence you’ll need that Beckard is lying through his teeth. Your fellow trooper left behind four bodies, but he also made the mistake of leaving behind two eyewitnesses. And a dog.”
“A dog?”
“Beckard killed its owner.”
“You said there are four bodies out there? At this cabin?”
“Yes.”
The police sergeant leaned back in his chair. He had calm eyes, and they hadn’t left her face the entire time. Now, he seemed to be really peering at her, and for just a moment she was afraid the man could stare right into her soul.
“And you said there are eyewitnesses?” Harper asked.
“Two of them.”
“In this cabin in the woods.”
“Correct.”
“So why haven’t we heard from them?”
“Because I told them not to call 911 until sunrise.”
“And why did you do that?”
“I needed the time to kill Beckard first.”
She expected a bigger reaction, but Harper simply lifted both eyebrows as if to say, “Hunh.”
“That’s it?” she said.
“Hmm?”
“I just told you I wanted to kill one of your troopers, and all you do is raise your eyebrows?”
“I don’t like Beckard, either,” Harper said. “The guy rubs me the wrong way. Whenever I meet him, like tonight, I always think he’s hiding something. That he’s doing something he doesn’t want me to know. Doesn’t want anyone to know.” The trooper shrugged again. “Where is this cabin in the woods?”
“You actually believe me…”
“Can’t hurt to check.”
“I don’t know the exact location, but it’s not far from the crash site. Maybe a mile northwest.”
“A cabin one mile northwest from the crash site?”
“I think so. I’m not sure. It was dark, and I was mostly just stumbling around following his blood trail.”
“Beckard’s.”
“Yes.”
“After you shotgunned him.”
“Yes.”
“Hunh.” Harper nodded and seemed to drift off momentarily.
“What?” she prompted.
“There are some good hunting grounds just beyond the crash site,” Harper said. “A lot of hunters have blinds out there. The ones with a lot of money have cabins.”
“This one wasn’t that small. Two bedrooms and a bath.”
“Not many of those around…”
“You actually believe me.”
She couldn’t hide her surprise. She was sure Beckard would have poisoned the well by now. Not just with Harper, but the entire state police in the hour or so since her arrest. He had done a masterful job convincing the college kids back at the cabin, and he didn’t even know them. These were his people, his colleagues.
And yet here was Harper nodding at her. “I believe that you believe it, Allie.”
It was probably just her imagination, but her ribs seemed to have stopped hurting and she was having less trouble breathing. Even the cold in the room seemed to have faded and the handcuff around her right wrist not quite as biting.
“What now?” she asked Harper.
He glanced at his watch. “The lieutenant doesn’t get up for another three hours, and he won’t be in for another five. I’m just the night supervisor, so it’s not my call to make—”
“Beckard is the Roadside Killer,” Allie said.
Now that got the response she was hoping for.
“What are you talking about?” Harper asked.
“Beckard. He’s the Roadside Killer.”
“The Roadside Killer retired. He hasn’t been active in seven years.”
“You’re wrong. He never stopped. He just got more careful.” She leaned forward, staring Harper in the eyes, willing him to see and believe her. “He’s one of you, don’t you get it? He’s a cop. He didn’t retire to Mexico or Cabo. He just adapted. He got smarter. He’s been working the highway, killing all this time, and you don’t even know it.”
“But you did,” Harper said.
“Yes.”
“CID closed the case five years ago. Even the feds stopped pursuing clues. Are you saying you managed to do something, by yourself, that both of those organizations couldn’t with all their manpower?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I had no choice.”
“Meaning?”
“He killed my little sister ten years ago,” Allie said. “For you, the state police and the feds, it was a job. To me, it was goddamn personal.”
Harper left twenty minutes later, and Allie did her best to temper her growing excitement. The state police sergeant had believed her.
He had believed her!
She hadn’t anticipated finding an ally out here, especially this late in the game. She was always convinced it was going to be a solo job; her against the world. The authorities would never believe her because she didn’t have a name or a face or anything that would constitute “evidence.” She had a gut feeling, anecdotes, piles of police reports and newspaper clippings, and endless nights to put them all together. All those killings that were supposed to be random, that she knew weren’t. He had gotten smarter, craftier, and was spreading out his murders beyond his usual hunting ground, even leaving the state once or twice.