Deathscape by Dana Marton Page B

raise. She was competent and tough, wouldn’t take flak from anyone. She had short hair that hadn’t dared to gray yet, and the voice and demeanor of an admiral. Although the six men who made up the Broslin police often ribbed each other, nobody was fool enough to go up against her.
    He glanced at the empty conference room. Looked like the FBI was out. He wished he knew what they were doing.
    He pocketed the sticky note. “Thanks. You’re the best.”
    She gave a bark of a laugh. “Stop kissing up, Sullivan. Christmas is over. I’m not bringing in any more cookies.”
    He put on his best crestfallen expression. “The thought of those cookies brought me back from death, you know that?”
    “ Your stubbornness brought you back. The same thing that’s keeping you from being home and recovering like you should be. You need to take better care of yourself, Jack. Gain some weight back.”
    “ That’s exactly where the cookies come in,” he said, straight-faced.
    She was laughing as he walked out the door.
    In less than half an hour, he was in the woods off Spring Road, walking up to Bing.
    The captain’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
    “ Was driving by, saw the commotion.”
    “ And I’m a woodland fairy. You know what sick leave means? You stay home and heal.”
    “ You sound like Leila. So what do we have?”
    “ A hiker called the place in.” Bing shrugged, then called out, “Anything back there, Mike?”
    “ Locked up tight.” Mike, the other rookie who’d joined the team the previous year with Joe, came around the cabin, a round Irish kid, red hair sticking up all over, eyes green as shamrocks, and a grin that betrayed he hadn’t spent too much time on the force yet. He’d barely seen anything.
    “ Who owns the place?” Jack asked. “You called it in?”
    Bing nodded. “It’s been for sale for a couple of years. Sold recently, but the new deed hasn’t been put into the system yet. When we’re done here, Mike will go to the county clerk’s office to look through the paper files.”
    “ You think it’s connected to Brady Blackwell?” Mike asked Jack with a little too much enthusiasm.
    “ Jack is not investigating Blackwell.” Bing stepped in and effectively ended that topic.
    Mike’s enthusiasm didn’t dim any. “Are we going in?”
    “ What do you think?”
    The rookie’s shoulders slumped after a second of thinking. “No probable cause, no search warrant. We have to walk away.”
    “ Heard that, Jack?” Bing turned to him.
    Jack strode up to one of the front windows, cupped his hands around his eyes, and looked in. A row of gun cabinets stood against the back wall, all filled . In the corner, a stack of metal boxes nearly reached the ceiling, probably ammunition and who knew what else. Instruments of torture, possibly. His muscles tightened.
    He glanced back at the captain. “Kids are out in these woods all the time. Some testosterone-flooded teenage boy gets his hands on this stuff…”
    “ Until they do, there’s nothing we can do about it.” Bing swore under his breath.
    “ And if it’s really connected to Blackwell?” Mike wanted to know.
    Bing glared at him. “Get a fingerprint kit from the car. Let’s see if you can lift anything off the door. If you get something, we can run it against the database.”
    They walked out to the road together. Bing drove away, heading back to the office. Mike popped the trunk of his cruiser. Among all the other emergency response supplies, a standard-issue army shovel caught Jack’s eye, brand-new, still in the wrapper.
    “ Where you get that from?”
    “ Sunday flea market, the old Polish guy in the back row. He’s gotten some army surplus in.” Mike caught on the next second. “Already checked him. He sold two dozen in the last month, but he keeps no record of his customers. No credit card record either. Place like that, most people pay cash.”
    Jack filed the information away. He’d go check out the flea