Turn to Stone Read Free

peeled the gloves off his hands with a snap. He squatted and stripped plastic booties from his sneakers, then shoved everything in the pockets of his jumpsuit. When he stretched, he grimaced as his back cracked. He took another glance at Sheriff Weik and added, “This one is going to have everybody talking.”
    “A cop committing suicide? Sure.”
    “Yeah, but it’s more than that. Weik and Percy weren’t friends. The rumor around town was that Percy might challenge Weik in the next election. It’s been a while since the Sheriff had a real opponent.”
    “What was Percy’s problem with Weik?” Stride asked.
    Gandy made sure no one was within earshot. “Like I said, it’s all about small-town politics. You have to make compromises, keep important people happy, crap like that. Percy didn’t understand that side of things. He was a boy scout, thought the town should be run a certain way, even if it ruffled feathers. He said Weik should stand up to the County Board more, and he did it in the local paper, which made the Sheriff blow a gasket. Weik figures his cops should be loyal to him, end of story. You got a problem, you go to him first.”
    “That’s not unreasonable,” Stride said.
    Gandy took off his cap, wiped sweat from his brow, and re-positioned it over his flat hair. “Well, Weik’s real policy is that his cops better shut up and do what he says. Percy wasn’t wired that way. Plus, I think Percy felt free to speak his mind the last few years. He figured Weik wouldn’t do anything to him. You don’t fire the local hero.”
    “Hero?” Stride asked.
    “Sure. Four years ago? The abduction at the old Novitiate building? That had to make the papers in Duluth.”
    Stride’s eyebrows rose. He remembered the case. “That was Percy?”
    “That was Percy.”
    Four years earlier, a young psychologist named Kelli Westmark had gone missing in Shawano, prompting a massive search. For a week, not a trace of evidence pointed to where she was or why she’d disappeared. Then a cop—Percy Andrews—overheard two local kids talking about ghosts haunting the ruins of an abandoned monastic estate on the shore of the Red River. Percy investigated and discovered that the missing woman had been held there by a local man who’d gone to her for court-ordered anger management counseling. The man engaged Percy in gunfire, and Percy shot and killed him, rescuing the woman.
    A year later, adding romance to the story, Percy married her.
    And now, three years later, he’d put a gun to his head.
    “People are strange,” Gandy said. “You never know, huh?”
    “No, you don’t.”
    Stride folded his strong arms across his chest and kicked through the snow. He was frustrated by what Percy had done, even though he made it a point not to judge other cops. He knew what it was like to descend into valleys in your life, and he counted himself fortunate that he had people who’d been there to help him. He was in a valley of his own now, bitter about recent mistakes he’d made. However, some valleys were deeper than others, and Percy Andrews had somehow found himself in a place from which there was no escape.
    He wondered exactly what had driven Percy there. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Not for a cop. Not for a hero.
    “Lieutenant?” Neal Gandy was next to him. “You okay?”
    Stride’s dark eyes stared into the night. The parking lot behind him was a hive of light and activity, but across the highway, the cornfields took over, and the empty lands were black. The snow had tapered to flurries. On the county road, a car passed slowly as the driver rubbernecked the police cars and medical vehicles near the church. Where the car headlights lit up the dirt shoulder twenty yards away, Stride saw a teenage boy near the border of the cornfield, astride a red moped. He was about fifteen years old. He had long black hair and a narrow face that was mostly in shadow. His skin glistened with wet snow. The boy stared at Stride