Thomas Blackhorse's Arc

Chapter 17 of 17

Thomas walked back down the hall. Pablo and Katie were sitting now, her hand on her father's wrist. Ray was on the phone with the warrant desk. Everything looked settled. Thomas knew it wasn't. Juanita had moved evidence out of the property room eight years ago. She had rerouted his own file when he was still on the force. A civilian aide couldn't do that alone. Someone with a badge signed off. Until he had that name, his three witnesses in holding were reachable. He went back to the metal table. Juanita sat with their wrists cuffed to the bar, hood pushed back, the cut on their jaw dark. "You had help," Thomas said. "Give me the name." "Or what," Juanita said. "You'll charge me twice?" "Katie signed. Miguel signed. Your confession stands for the kidnapping. The name buys you nothing from a jury. It buys you something from me." "What." "A cell that isn't in this county. Away from whoever you protected. He won't reach you either." Juanita's mouth moved. Not quite a smile. "Ask the man who kept the sign-out ledger. Ask him who called him the week she went missing and told him to lose it." Thomas left the room. He got in the jeep and drove. Martin Talltree opened the door before Thomas knocked. The old man's braid was loose. He held the door open and stepped back. "You know why I'm here," Thomas said. "I know." "She said someone called you. Told you to lose the ledger. You didn't lose it. You kept it in your house for eight years. Why." Martin sat down slow. "Because if I turned it in, he'd have burned it. And me." He looked at his hands. "Sheriff's lieutenant then. Retired now. He signed her onto the aide roster. He signed the property room log the night your file went missing." He said the name. Thomas wrote it in his notebook. "You'll put that in a statement." "Tonight." "Why now." "Because the girl is alive," Martin said. "I can say it now without a child's body on my conscience." Thomas drove Martin to the station himself. He would not trust a phone. Ray took the statement in a locked room. By two in the morning the retired lieutenant was in a cruiser out of a neighboring county, arrested at his kitchen table before he could make a call. Thomas stood in the hall outside the holding cells. Katie was asleep on a cot. Earl was snoring in the next room. Miguel sat up reading a newspaper someone had given him. Ray came down the hall. "Witnesses are clean. No one inside can touch them now." Thomas nodded. He had the name. He had the aide. He had three signed statements and a girl who was breathing. He still didn't know how deep the lieutenant's reach went, or who else that man had called before the cruiser arrived.