Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [103]
“He’ll live to go to prison. You hit me instead.”
“I did?”
“Let me see where he shot you,” he demanded, staring again at the blood staining her pants. “EMT’s on the way.”
Chloe winced when he tried to look at her wound, still oozing blood. “Joel didn’t shoot me.”
“Then who did?”
“A damn hog bit me!”
“What?”
“Don’t worry.” Chloe’s laugh was tinged with hysteria. “It’s not the first time I’ve been bit in the ass by an Ossabaw.”
Roelke didn’t speak to Joel Carlisle during the drive to Waukesha. He didn’t speak while they waited in the ER at Waukesha Memorial, or while a nurse cleaned the fire retardant residue from his eyes, skin, and hair, or while a doctor splinted Carlisle’s broken finger, or while he got his own shoulder wound cleaned and stitched. He didn’t speak while they drove to the county jail behind the courthouse. He handed the young man over to the deputies and completed the necessary paperwork while processing took place.
By that time Roelke was, he thought, in control. “You got an interview room open?” he asked the deputy on duty. “We’ve had a lot of trouble with this kid in Eagle. I want to ask some questions.” He was more cognizant of the lie, now. He would not be able to tell the chief it had come from pure adrenalin.
He didn’t care.
Joel Carlisle was soon waiting in Room 2. Roelke went to the door and stared down at the young man. He looked like some mewling college boy. Carlisle now wore an orange jumpsuit and paper booties. His glasses were clean, his damp hair slicked to one side. A purplish-green bruise was blooming where Roelke had banged his forehead on the roof of the squad car before shoving him into the backseat. He sat slumped, eyes down.
Roelke slammed the door behind him. Carlisle jumped.
“All right,” Roelke said. “You and I are going to have a little talk.
____
Roelke walked into the Eagle PD at 7:45 the next morning, three hours early for his shift. “You got a few minutes?” he asked Chief Naborski.
“What’s up?”
Roelke handed the chief the report he’d labored over into the wee hours. “Things got a little crazy after you left yesterday.”
Naborski let Roelke sweat, reading the lengthy report through twice, then staring out the window for a small eternity. Finally he got up. “Marie,” he barked. “Hold my calls.” Then he slammed the door and returned to his seat.
This was not going to be any fun.
“Officer McKenna,” Chief Naborski said. “Were you off duty when you drove onto Old World Wisconsin property yesterday? Was it your dinner break?”
Roelke had too much respect for Chief Naborski to lie. “No sir. I was on duty.”
“Were you called there to provide mutual aid?”
“No. I drove there on my own accord.”
“Did you deliberately disobey my instruction to leave the Old World problem alone?”
“Yes.”
The chief regarded him. “Officer McKenna, you have screwed up six ways from Sunday.”
“I know.” So much for getting that one full-time position. He’d just handed it to Skeet on a golden platter.
The chief tipped his chair back on two legs, his expression grim. “Why don’t you tell me about all the mistakes you made yesterday.”
Roelke spent an uncomfortable five minutes on the highlights: ignoring the chief’s order, leaving his own patrol to drive onto state property, not letting dispatch know where he was, lying to Marge Bandacek in order to override her authority, lying to the Waukesha deputies so he could question Carlisle himself. He didn’t mention the epithets he’d hurled at Carlisle, or the bruises Carlisle was sporting. Most cops wouldn’t care. Chief Naborski would.
When he finished, the room was silent. Roelke couldn’t even hear Marie’s typewriter. She was probably listening at the door.
Finally Chief Naborski let his front chair legs thump back to the floor. “Officer McKenna, you know it is my policy to discourage personal relationships with Eagle residents.”
“Ms. Ellefson doesn’t actually live in—”
“That is irrelevant in this situation,” the chief snapped.
Roelke told himself to keep