Mercy Falls Read Online Free PDF Page A

fire.
    “Take your hands off me,” she warned Pender, “or I’ll bite your thumb off.”
    “Take it easy, Lucy,” Cork said.
    “Don’t tell me to take it easy. You’re crawling all over my place like a bunch of maggots and this son of a bitch has got his hands everywhere except up my dress. And he looks like he wouldn’t mind going there next.”
    “Let her go, Pender.”
    The deputy did and stepped back quickly.
    “What’s going on?” Lucy asked, only slightly more civil.
    “Where’s Eli?” Cork said.
    “I left him at Bunyan’s. Last I saw of the little shit, he was kissing the lip of a whiskey glass.”
    “When was that?”
    “Half an hour ago. What? Did he do something?”
    “You’ve got the truck, Lucy. How’s he getting home?”
    “He can walk for all I care.”
    “Pender, drive over to Bunyan’s. Round up Eli if he’s there.”
    “Sure thing, Sheriff.”
    “What’s going on?” Lucy said again, only this time with genuine concern in her voice.
    “I was hoping you could tell me.” It was hard to see the woman’s face clearly. Cork opened the front door of Borkmann’s cruiser and motioned Lucy to where the dome light would illuminate them both. “I’d love to know what happened after you called the Sheriff’s Department.”
    “Called you?”
    “At six-twenty, a call came from this location from a woman claiming to be you.”
    “At six-twenty me and Eli were playing pinochle at Bunyan’s, like we do every Tuesday night. Hell, everybody knows that. We go for the walleye fish fry, then play a couple hours of pinochle.”
    A dark blue pickup rolled up and maneuvered alongside the other vehicles that crowded the narrow road. In the back sat a generator and some floodlights.
    “You didn’t call?” Cork said.
    “Hell no.” Something dawned on her, and she tried to pierce the dark with her eyes. “Where’s our dogs?”
    Cork didn’t relish what he had to do, and when he spoke his voice sounded tired. “Somebody shot them, Lucy. I’m sorry.”
    All her spit and fire vanished in an instant, and devastation poured in to replace it.
    Cork looked to Cy. “Would you see to Ms. Tibodeau. We’ll need a full statement, but go easy.” He turned and walked away.
    Larson followed him. “Think she’s lying?”
    “Too simple to check. And why would she?”
    Larson paused and looked up at the hill that was now a towering black shape hard against a soft night sky. “What’s going on, Cork?”
    “I’d say it was a trap.”
    “You guys got pulled out here to be shot at?”
    “No,” Cork said. “To be shot.”

3
     
    C ORK LEFT E D L ARSON in charge with Borkmann backing him up. He intended to drive himself to the Aurora community hospital so that he could check on Marsha and have his ear tended to, but Larson stopped him.
    “You shouldn’t drive.”
    “It’s just my damn earlobe,” Cork said.
    “It’s a bullet wound and your body knows it and any minute may decide to overrule your stubborn brain. If that happens, I’d just as soon you weren’t behind the wheel. Collins,” he called to a deputy who was taking digital photos of the bullet-riddled Land Cruiser, “take the sheriff to the hospital. Radio ahead and let them know he’s coming.” He turned back to Cork. “You want us to call Jo?”
    “No, I’ll do that from the hospital. And I’ll take care of contacting the BCA, too.”
    At the hospital, Cork told the deputy not to wait, that he’d have Jo give him a lift from there. Collins headed back to the rez.
    In the emergency room, Cork ignored the admitting clerk and walked directly to the main hallway. As he approached the reception desk to ask about Marsha, he ran into his dispatcher Patsy Gilman, who was asking the same question.
    Cork had hired Patsy during his first stint as sheriff. She was not quite forty, bright and funny, with deep laugh lines on either side of her mouth, and small intense eyes that noticed everything. She was good in Dispatch because she