The Heirloom Murders - Kathleen Ernst [37]
Chloe froze mid-sentence, mid-stride. OK, she told herself. No need to panic. Maybe some faulty old circuit had shorted out. She instinctively summoned Grandma Ellefson from memory’s murky depths. There’s nothing here that wasn’t here in the light, she used to say, when Chloe or her sister got spooked of the dark.
Then Chloe heard a faint scrabble of sound, off to her left, near the back wall. The fine hairs on the back of her neck quivered to attention.
Get a grip, Chloe ordered herself. Maybe Dellyn had made the noise, and was standing in frozen stillness too, equally spooked.
“Hello?” Chloe called again. At least she’d intended to call. The word came out as more of a quivering croak.
No answer. Chloe chewed her lower lip. OK, still no reason to panic. She’d probably heard a critter. Raccoon, porcupine, or even an owl.
But there was no reason to speculate. Her eyes were adjusting to the gloom. All she wanted to do was get out of the barn. Preferably without tripping over some artifact and impaling herself on a sickle.
She’d taken several steps when she heard a wooden creak. Close. Behind her. As she whirled something hard skimmed the side of her head and slammed into her left shoulder. Her knees buckled. The floorboards smacked her, hard. Chloe landed on hands and knees. Force kept her going, onto one shoulder and hip. “Ow!” she yipped. Something ripped into her arm.
Footsteps retreated toward the door.
Tears scalded Chloe’s eyes as she struggled with pain, and with shock … and finally, with the understanding that someone had actually attacked her.
_____
After leaving Sasso’s, Roelke stopped at the station to use the can, have a soda, and work on his daily report. He kept good notes, but it was hard to be neat when scrawling on a clipboard in the car. Thorough reports might make the difference to the Police Committee. Besides, he liked things tidy.
He recorded the swings through the village park and schoolyard—no sign of trouble—and the speeder he’d pulled over. He made a terse entry about the bar checks, ending at Sasso’s.
Where Chloe had been laughing it up with her ex. He left that part out, but was glaring at the report when someone banged on the door.
Roelke frowned. Once regular office hours passed, people usually called if they needed help. He set the clipboard aside, hurried to the door, and jerked it open.
Jesus. Chloe stood there, her blouse torn, eyes brimming with tears.
Something inside of Roelke went very still, and hot, and hard. That bastard.
“Um, Roelke?” Chloe quavered. “Someone hit me.”
“Come inside.” He put a hand on her shoulder, guiding her as gently as he could while filled with fury. He looked beyond her—her car, no one else in sight—before closing the door. “What did he do?”
Chloe dropped into the chair he indicated. “He hit my shoulder. But I was turning around. I think he was aiming for my head. If I hadn’t been turning, he would have hit me on the head.”
“Were you still at Sasso’s?” Roelke asked. He wanted witnesses.
“What? No!” Chloe blinked, and sniffed. “I was in Dellyn’s barn.”
“What were you two doing in Dellyn’s barn?”
Chloe wrinkled her forehead at him. Then something dawned in her eyes. “It wasn’t Markus, you idiot! I don’t know who it was.” She told him what had happened.
With a stab of regret, Roelke let go of the mental movie that starred him, cop extraordinaire, arresting Markus Meili for assault. “How badly are you hurt?”
“Not badly.” Chloe moved her left shoulder gingerly, then examined her scraped palms. “I was scared more than anything else.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Now I’m mostly pissed.”
“Come with me.” Roelke towed her into the bathroom, where he carefully washed her hands and coated the abrasions with antiseptic. Next he bandaged a bad cut on her right arm, holding his breath, fingers tingling as he reached through her torn shirt. “What did this? Did you fall against something metallic?”
“Just the rough edge of a stanchion, I think.”
“Did you hit your head when you fell?”
“No.”
No fear of tetanus or concussion, then. Roelke