Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [7]
Alex closed her eyes for a moment and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. This was awful. Nothing like this had ever happened in Home since she’d been on the force, not while she was an officer and not while she was chief. It was going to be a terrible mess, but more than anything else, her heart went out to Pete McNamara. To have to defend your home against armed intruders and then to have your wife killed by them … It was almost too much to imagine.
The demands of the job took over and shoved the human reaction out. “Has Clint secured the scene?”
“Yeah. I sent Delgado over there right away to give him a hand. You want me to call the sheriff?”
“No, I’ll do it while I’m on my way.” The city of Home had an agreement with the sheriff’s department to handle anything the local police couldn’t. With all the complicated demands this crime scene would entail, Alex knew her little four-man force would need help.
“Okay, Alex. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Thanks.”
Alex closed the phone and went to get her gun and badge from the bedroom, along with the wind-breaker that had the word POLICE in big letters on the back. It was too warm tonight for a jacket, but she figured she’d better wear it anyway.
A light shone under the door of Jack’s room. As she went by, Alex paused and opened it.
“Hey! “ he said from the chair in front of his computer. He was slouched down so far there was no telling how much damage he was doing to his spine, Alex thought. “What happened to respecting each other’s privacy?”
“What happened to grounded for two weeks?” she shot back at him. “It’s now a month, that’s what happened.”
He jumped up. “What?”
“I know you snuck out, Jack. I checked your room earlier, and I saw you drive in with your lights out a few minutes ago.” She gestured toward the badge she’d clipped to her belt. “Chief of police, remember? I’m observant.”
He shook his head and glared at her. “This is totally unfair.”
“No, I’ll tell you what’s unfair,” Alex said. “I have to go out now and look at two dead people, including a woman I’ve known for years and considered a friend. Now that’s unfair, Jack.”
CHAPTER 5
An ambulance and two police cars were already at the McNamara place by the time Alex got there, their flashing lights splashing garishly over the street crowded with onlookers from the neighborhood. Every light in the house seemed to be on.
Alex parked behind the ambulance. On the drive over here, she had been able to force thoughts of her problems with Jack out of her head and concentrate on the horrific crime that had taken place tonight in her town.
Several of the neighbors called out to her as she walked across the yard toward the front porch. They wanted to know what had happened, and you couldn’t blame them for that. Evidently there had been a lot of shots fired inside the McNamara house, and then the cops and the ambulance had shown up. You didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that something really bad had gone down.
J. P. Delgado stood just inside the open front door with his thumbs hooked in his belt. His lean, handsome face was set in solemn lines as he looked at Alex and shook his head.
“It’s bad, Chief, mighty bad.”
“Inez is really dead?” Alex asked, keeping her voice pitched low.
Delgado nodded, then inclined his head toward a hallway on the other side of the living room. “She’s still in there, down the hall by the den. The M.E. isn’t here yet. Dead guy’s still in the den, too. Clint’s got Mr. McNamara in the kitchen, and the EMTs are working on the wounded perp.”
“Is he going to live?”
Delgado shrugged. “He was hit twice, shoulder and leg, but Mr. McNamara got him with an old.45 automatic. Those things can kill you sometimes, even if they just tag you.”
Alex knew that. That was why the.45 had been the standard sidearm in the army for many years.
“Eloise said it looked like Mr. McNamara interrupted a burglary in progress. That the way it looked to you?”
She valued Delgado’s opinion. Despite his relative youth