wasn’t like they’d been best friends when he’d lived in Pike. At that age two years between them meant they were never in the same classes. And since his move to Boston, he’d barely glimpsed her during his fleeting visits.
Still it was an effort to force himself to nod his head. “That would be great.”
Together they climbed into the SUV and Kathy started the engine. Pulling out of the parking lot, she turned onto the street heading south.
She drove slowly as they bumped over the thick layer of ice, her fingers clenching the steering wheel. Then without warning she heaved a harsh sigh. “I’m sorry about Rudolf.” Her gaze remained locked on the road.
“Are you?”
She sent him a startled glance. “Of course.”
Kir turned in his seat. It’d been sheer impulse to ask Kathy to come to his father’s house, but he realized this was the perfect opportunity to get some answers.
“Dad said you refused to talk to him.” He didn’t bother with polite small talk. Kathy had never been chatty, not even when she’d been Rudolf ’s deputy. She was blunt to the point of rudeness. He intended to be the same. “That you wouldn’t take his calls.”
Her jaw hardened at his words. “He accused me of refusing to do my job. In fact, he implied that I was assisting a murderer to escape justice.”
“He could be difficult,” Kir agreed.
Kathy snorted. “He was a pain in the ass.”
It was true, but Kir wasn’t letting this woman forget that she owed Rudolf Jansen her career. “He was also the only one willing to battle against the prejudices of Pike to hire a woman as his deputy.” Kir didn’t add that at the same time Rudolf had overlooked her sketchy family. She came from a long line of con men, petty thieves, and moochers. When his father had first hired her, Kathy had been living out of her car.
Kathy’s expression was stoic, but the flush that crawled beneath her freckled skin proved Kir had made a direct hit.
“That’s true,” she muttered. “He hired me and trained me to be a good cop. I considered him to be a second father.”
There was a hint of genuine regret in her voice. Kir frowned. “So what went wrong?”
“He got shot.”
“You blame him for that?”
“No, he blamed me.”
Kir’s breath hissed between his clenched teeth. His father might have drowned himself in alcohol and self-pity after the shooting, but he’d never blamed anyone for what had happened to him. Not even the low-life drug dealer who’d pulled the trigger. “That’s not true. He never said a word about you being responsible. In fact, he’d always said that every day he walked out the front door he never knew if he was coming home. He accepted the dangers of his job.”
“He didn’t blame me for getting shot. He blamed me for taking the job he loved.” Kathy sent him a quick, bitter glare as she pulled the SUV to a halt in front of the two-storied white house with green shutters and a steeply slanted roof. “And he wasn’t the only one. I didn’t put the bullet in Rudolf ’s head, but more than one person believed I was quick to take advantage of the situation.”
Kir shoved open his door and slid out of the SUV. Did he resent this woman for taking his dad’s place? Maybe a little. It’d been hard to watch his father struggling to accept his forced retirement while Kathy walked around town, doing his job. He’d never actually considered how difficult it might have been for Kathy to step into the shoes of a man who’d been close to a legend in this town.
With a sharp shake of his head, Kir led the sheriff to the side door that opened directly into the kitchen.
“You’ll probably want to take off your coat,” he suggested as the warmth of the house wrapped around him. “I’ve had the heater on high since I returned for the funeral. The place felt like the inside of a freezer when I first arrived.”
Kathy halted next to the kitchen table that was piled with boxes. Absently she pulled off her parka, hung it on the back of a chair, and glanced toward the old ceramic mug that was stained from forty years of Rudolf ’s morning coffee.
“I should have gone to the funeral,” she apologized.
“It was a simple graveside service.” Kir shrugged, careful not to offer blame or forgiveness.
Kathy could wrestle with her own conscience. God knew he was having