“The least you can do is let Cormac go.”
“Have you seen that guy’s file? You know what he’s done? He should have been locked up years ago.”
“And if he had, I’d be dead, and so would you and four other people.” I matched him, glare for glare. “He saved my life, Sheriff. That’s all I’m paying attention to right now.”
His glare set like stone, unrelenting. “That man’s a killer.”
Yes, but… “You can’t deny he saved my life.”
“That girl couldn’t have really hurt anyone,” he said, giving a huff that was almost laughter.
“Didn’t you see what she did to me?”
“You had a few cuts,” he said.
Then I realized, maybe he hadn’t seen. It had been dark; I hadn’t even known how bad it was until I got inside and saw all the blood. Marks simply might not have seen it. Once again, I kicked myself for not taking pictures.
I said, “Then you don’t believe she really turned into a wolf. You’re buying the ‘insane woman in a wolf skin’ version.” He answered with a cold stare that said it all. “How can you believe in werewolves but not in skinwalkers? How can you believe in magic enough to curse my house, but not enough to believe what she was? You just want to put Cormac away because you can, without giving him the benefit of the doubt or anything!”
“Ms. Norville, I think we’re done here.”
“You’re a hypocrite—you’ve broken the law yourself, in the name of protecting people, when you did those things to me. Well, Cormac was doing the same thing.”
Marks leaned forward, hand on his desk, his glare still hard as stone. Nothing could touch this guy, not when he was like this. “He shot and killed an injured, dying woman in cold blood. That’s what he’s being charged with. Goodbye, Ms. Norville.” He pointed at the door.
I glared at him, my throat on the edge of a growl, and he couldn’t read the stance. All he saw was an angry, ineffectual woman standing before him. And maybe that was all I was.
I left, gratefully slipping out of his territory.
I went back to the hotel, where Ben greeted me with, “Where are the donuts?”
I’d forgotten. Crap. I shrugged and said, “Didn’t get them. Got lost.”
“In Walsenburg?” Clearly, he didn’t believe me. I just smiled sweetly.
Later, we returned to the county jail to see Cormac. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him, not after the attack, not before or after the hearing. It had been frustrating, sitting five feet away in the courtroom and not being able to say anything to him.
I had hoped Marks would be there to meet us. That he’d have seen the error of his ways and come to make amends by releasing Cormac. That all this would just go away. Wishful thinking. He wasn’t there, and Cormac was still locked up.
“Has Marks talked to you?” I asked Ben. “Maybe changed his mind about all this?”
“Are you kidding? He’s not even returning my calls.”
So much for my grand speech at him having any influence and giving us that Disney happy ending.
Still, Ben had a plan. “I have to go to New Mexico. Talk to people who knew Miriam Wilson. Find out if they knew what she was, and if she killed anyone there. Espinoza’s not going to have to dig too much to prove that Cormac’s a dangerous man. So I have to prove that he didn’t have a choice but to kill her.”
“He didn’t,” I said. “Did he?”
“That’s what I have to prove.”
A deputy ensconced us in a windowless conference room, like a thousand others in police stations and jails all across the country. I bet they all had the same smell, too: dust and old coffee. Strained nerves. Ben got me in by claiming I was his legal assistant. Then the deputy brought Cormac.
Ben and Cormac sat across from each other. I hid away in the corner. I both did and didn’t want to be there. I hated seeing Cormac like this. I didn’t know exactly what this meant. Objectively, he looked the same as he always did, half slouching, appearing unconcerned with what went on around him—moving through the world without being a part of it. That orange jumpsuit made him look wrong, though.
Ben had a pen and paper out, ready to take notes. “I need to know everything that happened while you were gone. Between the time you left the cabin in Clay and when you got back in time to shoot her.”
“I told you before.”