Ms. Demeanor (Mystery Christmas Book 4)

by Danica Winters

  An uneasiness rose up from his belly as he shut off the tractor, the bucket lowered midway. He stepped down from the machine and made his way across the sticky mud.

  As he grew near, the thing lurched slightly, settling with the dirt around it. Based on the grooves and speckles on the surface, it was definitely a bone. He swallowed back the nerves that had tightened his throat as he reminded himself that, even though it was a bone, it was probably nothing—just some animal remains or detritus of days gone by.

  He picked up the bone, scraping away the mud as he turned it in his hands. It was stained brown from the tannins in the dirt, the long shaft darker than the round ball of the joint. He wasn’t absolutely sure, but it looked terrifyingly similar to a human femur. He laid the bone down near the base of the hill.

  Turning back to the pile of dirt, he looked through it, hoping not to see another piece of bone. He scratched at the cold earth, the dirt and gravel tearing at his fingertips as he frantically searched for anything that could help him make sense of what he had found. His wet fingers grew icy as he worked away, then stopped abruptly when he touched something hard and even colder. His hand closed around something L-shaped and, as he pulled it from the mud, he gave a small, muffled cry. In his grip was a gun.

  There was the clang of metal on metal as pipes hit the ground and bounced behind him. He turned to see his father and Laura looking at him. Merle gasped in shock.

  Rainier dropped the muddy weapon, letting it fall to his feet as he looked at Laura’s pale face.

  “What are you doing with a gun, Rainier?” she asked, disgust and horror filling her voice as she stared at it, and at the bone lying beside it. “You—you haven’t been out of prison for five hours and yet here you are, back to your old ways.”

  “I swear...it’s not what you think,” he argued, raising his dirty hands, palms up. “It... I didn’t know it was a gun when I picked it up.”

  She shook her head. “You can take it up with the judge. In the meantime, you can kiss your parole goodbye.”

  Chapter Four

  He couldn’t go back to prison. For a moment, Rainier considered running, just grabbing one of the old ranch trucks and hitting the highway. Thanks to the many letters his mother had sent him when he’d been away, he’d learned all about the murder at the hands of his former sister-in-law Alli and her escape from persecution. It seemed that law enforcement in Montana was usually two steps behind. Then again, thanks to his own experiences, he wasn’t sure he could rely on that to be completely true, or he would have never found his ass in prison.

  “Laura—”

  “Ms. Blade,” Laura interrupted, as she typed something into her phone.

  “My apologies, Ms. Blade,” he said, careful to use the same sharp tone. “It’s just that I don’t... I can’t go back to prison. That wasn’t my gun. Hell, I didn’t even know it was a gun until it was in my hand. You have to believe me, I never want to waste my time behind bars again.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, and from the set of her jaw and the look in her eyes, he could tell she was struggling to believe him. He had no idea what else to tell her. No doubt, as a parole officer, she would have learned by now that very few people in this world told the truth—and even fewer who were ex-cons.

  He’d long ago given up the idealistic notion that anyone would take anything he had to say at face value ever again. The moment the judge’s gavel hit the block and he’d been delivered the sentence, Rainier had known he’d forever wear a scarlet letter for his crimes. Part of that sentence would be always being thought of as less than and dishonorable—no matter how justified he felt in committing the crime.

  “Can’t we just look past this, Ms. Blade?” asked his father. Merle held his hands together almost as if he was silently praying that Laura would honor his request.

  Rainier could’ve told him a long time ago that that kind of thing had a way of blowing back on a guy.

  “Mr. Fitzgerald, I know your family’s been through a lot in the last month, but that doesn’t mean I can just ignore what’s going on here.” Laura frowned. “I made it very clear to your son that there were certain conditions associated with his parole—conditions he absolutely could not violate. And yet here we are. I can only imagine the kind of trouble he would find himself in if I wasn’t here.”

  “I can assure you that my son has always been a good man.”

  “Let me guess—he’s just misunderstood?” Her lips puckered as she spat the words out like watermelon seeds.

  “I’m not going to make any excuses for my son’s behavior, but you have to know that he wouldn’t intentionally find himself in trouble. Especially not like this.”

  Her gaze swung to Rainier and he nodded, hoping that she would listen to both of them.

  “Ms. Blade, it’s not like I’m asking for a second chance. I’m just asking for any chance at all.” Rainier hated the note of pleading in his voice. He’d never been one to beg, but he’d never been given his freedom and then had it rescinded on the same day.

  “The police are on their way.” Laura pushed her phone into her back pocket. “I won’t tell them about the gun in your hand and the remains at your feet, but you have to promise me that this was just a case of you being at the wrong place at the wrong time and nothing else.”

  A sense of relief washed over him, but faded away again as the piercing sound of sirens echoed in the distance. He looked in that direction, but in the bright afternoon light couldn’t make out their source. Hopefully, his brother wasn’t on duty. The last person he needed to see right now was Wyatt.

  “Do you promise, Rainier?” Laura pressed.

  “Of course,” he said, trying to sound earnest.

  “And you won’t find yourself in any more trouble?” she continued.

  “You’re welcome to stick around and be my wingman as long as you like, Ms. Blade,” Rainier said, giving her a cheeky smile he hoped would ease some of the tension between them.

  The parole officer looked away, making him wonder if his smile had worked, after all.

  “Son, it may not be a bad idea for you to go inside and get out of the spotlight,” his father said, motioning toward the house.

  On the drive back to the ranch, Rainier had told Laura he wasn’t afraid and that he wouldn’t run away from whatever life would bring him. But now, facing the possibility of seeing his brother after all this time, the urge was strong to tuck tail and run on back to the house. Heck, he could even pretend that when his brother questioned him about the remains and the gun that it was the first he was hearing about the findings. Wyatt would probably think nothing of it, and he certainly wouldn’t jump to conclusions like he would if he arrived and Rainier was standing by disarticulated remains.

  His brother had always been like that with him—always thinking the worst. Rainier couldn’t blame him for the trouble he himself got into; he’d always been a little bit of a rebel and the family’s black sheep. But his brother’s condescending attitude certainly didn’t help. It was like every time he screwed up, Wyatt was there to let him know he had seen it coming.

  Once, when they had been young boys, their parents had sent them out to collect eggs from the henhouse. Gathering eggs soon turned into Rainier picking up rocks and pitching them to see who could throw the farthest. Colter and Waylon had joined right in, using different size rocks and different throwing techniques until they had found the one that suited them best. But not Wyatt. Wyatt had stood to the side and kept warning them about how much trouble they were going to get into if their parents found them, or if something went wrong.

  Of course, the other three didn’t listen, and it wasn’t five minutes before Rainier pitched the perfect pebble straight into the back window of their father’s old Jeep. If he closed his eyes, he was sure he could still hear the crackling sound of the splinterin
g glass, almost like someone stepping on the thin crust of ice on a lake.

  Breaking that window had been his first lesson in keeping Wyatt out of his affairs and away from anything fun, as well as how much work it took to raise two hundred dollars to pay for a new window. His father had been understandably angry at the time, but just like now, he’d seemed to understand that sometimes bad things happened. A person could go about living his life between the lines, or as Merle put it, “living between the mustard and the mayonnaise,” but even then couldn’t avoid trouble. Or maybe Rainier wasn’t really the kind who avoided it; maybe he was just as bad and destructive as people expected him to be.

  “Rainier, are you listening?” asked Laura.

  He hadn’t heard a single thing she said.

  “Sorry, what did you say?” he asked, blinking away images of him and his brothers playing around the ranch and causing trouble when they were younger. What he would give to go back to those days, when they’d all still got along and had truly lived for each other.

  “Why don’t I walk with you inside—you know, be your wingman?” she repeated, holding out her hand as if he was some kind of wayward toddler.

  He was unsure if he should be excited or offended by the way she was treating him, but he had to admit the look she was giving him was far more comforting than the one from a few minutes before, when she had found him holding the gun.

  He slipped his hand into hers, and she jerked, almost as if she hadn’t expected him to take her up on her offer. She let go again at once, but not before his father gave him a look of surprise. Rainier was sure his own expression mirrored his dad’s.

  This woman continually surprised him. He’d heard so many things about parole officers when he’d been behind bars. From the stories that got filtered down to him, most sounded like real hard asses, but not Laura. Sure, she had a hard edge to her and she was a no-nonsense kind of lady, but there was something equally soft, almost maternal about her. That softness made him wonder if she had a child.

  He wasn’t sure if he should ask, especially now that she had agreed to take his side and cover up his role in discovering the remains. He didn’t want to compromise her emotionally any more than necessary. More than that, from the second they had met she had made it clear to him that there was going to be nothing more than professional civility between them.

  She walked ahead of him, leading the way back to the house as the sound of the sirens grew louder. As they approached the door, his mother and his brother Wyatt’s fiancée, Gwen, stepped outside.

  Rainier glanced down at his mud-covered coat as he tried to wipe the dirt from his hands.

  “What’s going on?” his mother asked, peering out in the distance toward the approaching police cars.

  Laura smiled, but the action was forced and tight. “No worries, I just jumped the gun—” Her mouth gaped open for a moment as she must have realized what she had said.

  “We just found something a little odd, and Ms. Blade thought it best if we got a crew out here to investigate it,” Rainier interjected.

  “Investigate what?” Gwen asked. “And where’s your father?”

  Rainier turned and looked toward the barn. “He was going to greet the deputies when they arrived. You don’t think it’s gonna be Wyatt, do you?”

  Gwen frowned. “He wouldn’t come roaring out here with the sirens on. He’s been coming out here enough lately that he would know not to create any kind of scene for the neighbors. It’s gotta be somebody else,” she said, motioning toward the SUV hurtling their way. As it drew nearer, Rainier could see there was a patrol unit without its lights on following in its wake.

  The SUV pulled to a sudden stop, skidding on the ice in the parking lot. A woman, her dark hair pulled into a tight ponytail, jumped out of the car and made her way over to them, with Merle hurrying after her.

  “There’s Wyatt,” Gwen said, ignoring the woman and motioning toward the vehicle just pulling into the lot.

  “Who’s she?” Rainier whispered.

  “New recruit. Her name’s Penny Marshall.” Gwen frowned, and the look on her face held a trace of jealousy, but he wasn’t sure why his soon-to-be sister-in-law would have anything to worry about. Wyatt, above all things, was a good man.

  His brother stepped out of the second car. “Penny, wait up. Jeez, woman, you seriously need to slow down. This is my family.”

  The patrolwoman turned around. “Hey, if you want to drive like some old fart, that’s on you. For all you knew, someone’s life could have been in danger out here, and you were driving like it wasn’t some kind of emergency.”

  “If someone’s life was in danger, Penny, we would have been told about it. That’s what dispatch is for. I’ve told you before, there’s no good reason to put our lives at risk when a situation doesn’t dictate it.”

  “Okay, Deputy Fitzgerald,” the woman said, but from the tone of her voice Rainier could tell that she was just playing along and fully intended to keep living her way with or without Wyatt’s approval.

  Rainier liked Penny already. From the looks of her, she was in her early twenties, and from the sound of his brother’s exasperated voice, straight out of the academy.

  Wyatt’s lips puckered and his face darkened as he looked up and noticed him standing there. “So you made it back to the ranch?” He slammed his car door with a little too much force, clearly pissed off. “Is your homecoming the reason for our appearance?”

  Rainier swallowed back the growl that percolated up from his core. He had known this was going to be the closest thing to a welcome he was going to get from his brother, but his expectations paled in comparison to the reality.

  Or maybe it wasn’t the lack of welcome he was upset with, but rather the reality that his brother had been correct in his assessment—he was in fact the reason they had been called. But Rainier would never give Wyatt the satisfaction of once again being right in assuming the worst about him.

  “It’s good to see you, too, brother,” he said, trying to temper his disappointment before it had the chance to pepper his voice.

  “Wyatt, Penny,” Laura said, giving each an acknowledging wave. “Thank you so much for coming on such short notice. There was no reason for you to rush. In fact, if you have somewhere else to be, you are welcome to come back later.”

  From the stress in her voice, even Laura had to have known how futile and ridiculous she sounded. If there was somewhere else for the deputies of Mystery to be, they would have been there, but it wasn’t a town that was usually fraught with crime.

  “Laura, you know if you’re calling we’re going to come running.” Wyatt chuckled as he came closer and gave Gwen a quick peck on the cheek. “Though I have to admit, I did drive a little quicker knowing that my fiancée would be here waiting for me.”

  Gwen smiled, the jealousy disappearing from her features.

  It was nice to see his brother in a relationship, but it was strange to see him act so smitten. Wyatt had always been the serious kind, and watching him loosen up in his presence made Rainier wonder if there was still hope for them to fix their relationship. Then again, Gwen and Wyatt loved each other, and he wasn’t sure he could say his brother loved him.

  “The dispatcher reported that there was some kind of disturbance, something about a parole violation?” Penny asked, looking directly at Rainier.

  “No, no. Everything’s all right,” Laura said with a bit too much indifference. “Actually, it had nothing to do with parole violation. Your dispatcher must’ve gotten it all wrong.”

  “Wyatt,” Merle exclaimed as he came walking around the side of the barn. “What took you so long?”

  Wyatt laughed. “We were worried you fell down or something. Didn’t want you getting hurt,” he teased.

  Their father answered with a long laugh. “Nah, I just found something behind t
he barn Laura thought you and your friend would want to check out. It’s probably nothing, just some old animal bones. In fact, if you guys want to get going, I’m sure we can sweep this right under the rug.”

  “Why does everyone want us to leave all of a sudden? We just got here,” Penny said. “Is this always the way you guys greet one another?”

  Eloise’s cheeks reddened. “Oh, dear, Penny, don’t start thinking that. We’re nothing like that around here. We love our boys. We just understand how busy you all can get, being the pillars of this community and all.”

  “Laying it on a little thick, Mom, aren’t you?” Wyatt asked, raising a brow. “Dad, why don’t you go ahead and show me those ‘old animal bones.’”

  Merle glanced over at him, as if trying to decide exactly what to say or not say to Wyatt about their discovery. Rainier shook his head ever so slightly, reaffirming their decision to keep his role in the findings quiet. It wasn’t that he was being selfish, no. It was just clear that his brother had so much resentment toward him that if he caught a single whiff of his involvement, Rainier’s hope for a life surrounded by family again would be as good as over.

  Chapter Five

  Laura wasn’t sure she really believed that Rainier was as innocent as he and his father proclaimed him, but if she sent him back to prison, it would be an all-time record for the shortest turnaround. In her department, her friend Jim held the current record of three days before his parolee was sent back, after he’d been found in possession of a large amount of heroin. It was a running joke that the parolee had turned back to drugs after spending a day with Jim.

  She could just imagine what the guys around the office would say if they learned that after only a matter of hours she’d found her parolee elbows deep in mud, holding a weapon with human remains at his feet. And that was nothing compared to what her father, the high-powered attorney Dennis Blade Esq., would say if he found out Rainier and the Fitzgerald clan were once again in trouble. He’d made it clear to her that he had nothing good to say about the Fitzgeralds.