Huckleberry Lake

by Catherine Anderson

  He’d been hard at work for about twenty minutes when Slade walked into the barn and caught him grumbling to himself.

  “What put a bee in your bonnet?” Slade asked.

  Kennedy wanted to tell the man it was none of his business, but that was no way to speak to his boss. “Nothing serious,” he replied. “I just have the hots for that girl who got attacked the other night.”

  Slade came to lean against the stall gate. “Hmm. Why is that a problem?

  Irritation crept into Kennedy’s voice. “She’s seventeen.”

  “Uh-oh. Jailbait. Steer clear of that, son. It could spell trouble.”

  Kennedy forked another mound of straw and manure into the skidder bucket. “I know that. Do I have stupid engraved on my forehead?”

  Slade crossed his arms. “Oh, boy. She’s got your tail tied in a knot, judging by the temper you’re in.”

  That comment aggravated Kennedy even more. “It isn’t only about sex. Why is it that everybody always boils everything down to that?”

  “Sex makes the world go ’round,” Slade replied. “Not to mention that procreation keeps the globe populated.”

  “True. But it isn’t only about that. She’s pretty, yes, and I’d have to be dead not to notice. But I don’t have scrambled eggs for brains. It’s just that she’s pretty and smart. She’s planning to become a vet and work to rehabilitate wild animals so they can be returned to their natural habitat.”

  Slade said nothing, and Kennedy sent him a questioning look. “What?”

  The older man crossed his ankles. “Just thinking. It sounds like the two of you have a lot in common.”

  “Exactly!” Kennedy jabbed the pitchfork tines into the earth and cupped his palms over the handle end. “She’s got her sights set on college. She doesn’t want to make any dumb mistakes that might ruin her plans. I don’t know if she’s saving her wages for college, but I think she is. She’s perfect for me. You know? Only I’d have to be nuts to even take her out on a date, let alone get involved with her.”

  Slade scratched behind his ear. “Son, the age difference may seem gigantic to you right now, but in the end, relationships between men and women aren’t based on birthdates. It sounds like you’ve found a young lady who’s a good fit for you. As long as you keep your fly zipped, there’s nothing wrong with you dating a girl that’s younger. You have some lofty plans of your own, and you don’t want anything to screw them up, either. It sounds as if you two could be good for each other.”

  Slade left the barn then to let Kennedy mull that over. As Kennedy finished the stall, he considered the possibility of dating Jenette. Problem. He hadn’t dated much since coming to Mystic Creek, and he wasn’t confident in his ability to keep his jeans zipped with a girl he found so attractive. He should probably just stay away from her. Only he kept remembering what she’d said in the text about her sister and how she didn’t want to make the same mistake. Maybe when his willpower bit the dust, Jenette’s would kick in. Or, if all else failed, he could use superglue on his zipper tab.

  * * *

  * * *

  As Erin emptied the dishwasher that evening, she couldn’t get Wyatt off her mind. His failure to leave the pasture with her that afternoon had been more eloquent than words. He truly meant to keep things platonic between them, which bothered her. Okay, okay. I agreed to those terms, but if he’s truly attracted to me, why isn’t he willing to at least take a shot at romance? She had no answers. But something he’d said kept circling in her mind. “I had what you might call a difficult encounter with a woman. There was a lack of communication, and I had a brush with the law. It all got sorted out eventually, but when I came out on the other side of it, I promised myself that I’d never have anything to do with women again.” The story had been so vague that she hadn’t stopped to think at the time that she had at her disposal a wealth of information. Brushes with the law normally remained on someone’s record, and with her training and a law enforcement computer, there was very little information on the Internet she couldn’t find if she dug deep enough.

  Once the thought entered Erin’s mind, she couldn’t banish it. She didn’t finish unloading the dishwasher. Instead, she went directly to her bedroom to grab a quick shower. Then she threw on clean civilian clothes, hopped into the county truck, and drove to the sheriff’s department.

  When Erin stepped inside the building, Noreen Garrison, one of the department’s dispatchers, glanced up from her desk. When she recognized Erin, she beamed a smile and pushed at her red hair, which had recently been cut to frame her face in a pixie style. “Hey! You’re the last person I expected to see this evening.” She winked and dimpled a cheek. “If you’re hungry, we’ve got warm pizza and I brought a batch of my chocolate chip cookies.”

  Erin had already caught a whiff of the pizza. Normally she would have been reminding herself that nothing ever tasted as wonderful as it smelled, but she was too preoccupied right then to worry about her calorie intake. “I pigged out over at the Morning Grind late this afternoon, so I’m not hungry. Not even pizza tempts me.”

  Noreen’s blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “I quit dieting. Hank says I’m perfect just the way I am.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not that he’s seen me without clothes yet to be a good judge. But I don’t feel so unhappy with myself now.”

  Erin was pleased to see the happy glow on her friend’s face. Hank Bentley, a hefty man who reminded her of Hoss in the old Bonanza reruns, had given Noreen the cold shoulder for a while because of a department rule, instituted by the sheriff, that none of his staff could date one another. When Erin had learned of Noreen’s attraction to Bentley, she’d gone behind the scenes to talk with other deputies, and they’d formed a committee to petition the sheriff for a change in department policy. Now a person could go to Sheriff Adams to ask for permission to date a colleague. She was glad Hank and Noreen had gotten special dispensation.

  “You look fabulous,” she told her friend. “And you shouldn’t feel even a tiny bit unhappy with yourself. Hank is right. You are perfect just as you are.”

  Noreen blushed. “Well, nobody’s perfect, I guess. I’m just glad Hank likes me back.”

  Erin felt as if she were talking to a teenage girl, but when she thought about it, she guessed Noreen probably wasn’t much more experienced. Afflicted with dyslexia, she’d grown up feeling second-rate, married a man who preyed upon her insecurities, and then had divorced him for the sake of her children. She’d had little opportunity to interact with men. Not that Erin possessed a lot of knowledge about the opposite sex. She supposed many people felt out of their depth when it came to dating.

  “What are you doing here so late?” Noreen asked. “I thought you’d be enjoying your unexpected day off and doing something fun tonight.”

  Erin had already devised a response to that question. “I just came in to catch up on paperwork.” It wasn’t uncommon for deputies to drop by the department at odd hours to file shift reports. “And I did spend the afternoon out at the ranch with Uncle Slade and had a wonderful time.”

  “Good! After what I did to you, it pleases me to see you enjoying life a little.”

  Erin gave her a warm smile. Not so very long ago, she and Noreen had been archenemies, with Noreen making sure Erin never had a moment to call her own. But Noreen had done her best to make up for that over the last few months, and Erin was now helping her memorize police codes despite her difficulty with reading. It was fun, and Noreen was amazingly receptive to alternative methods of learning. She’d even stopped chewing bubble gum at work.

  Erin wagged her fingers at her friend and headed into the back room, which was partitioned off from the front by a wall of glass windows and a personnel door. Only two deputies had desk duty, and both of them were on the phone, either fielding questions or trying to mitigate a domestic dispute without dispatching another officer to the scene. Erin enjoyed desk duty. It w
as one of the few things about police work that she actually liked.

  Her colleagues only nodded in greeting. She inclined her head to acknowledge the gestures and found a desk in a back corner where no one could look over her shoulder while she did some sleuthing on a department computer. In only minutes she was so immersed in her research that she barely heard the telephones ringing or the other deputies talking. Knowing Wyatt’s name had made short work of finding information on him.

  It took her an hour to read everything, and afterward she felt sick to her stomach. With shaky hands, she cleared her Internet history on the computer, then collected her purse and left the building with only one thought in her head. She needed to talk with Julie. It was almost eight thirty, a little late to knock on someone’s front door, and Erin knew Julie was normally in bed by nine. But this was an emergency. What Erin had learned shocked her to the core. She also had no idea what she should do next. No two ways around it, she absolutely had to hash it out with Julie, who always kept a level head and thought of every possible consequence before she offered Erin advice.

  Erin hoped the drive to Julie’s house might clear her head, but twenty minutes later, she still hadn’t calmed down. She hurried up the front steps of the Victorian-style home’s front veranda and rapped her knuckles against the ornately carved door. Then she leaned on the doorbell, which sent out a muffled peal of musical notes. Moments later she heard the hollow thump of bare feet on the hardwood floor of the entryway, and the next instant, the door flew open to reveal Julie in silk pajamas and sporting a pillow-tossed mane. The blue streak, which she’d worn in her dark hair since her divorce, feathered over her hazel eyes like a bedraggled geisha fan.

  “Erin?” she said, blinking owlishly. “What on earth? Has something awful happened?”

  Erin moved over the threshold, forcing Julie back a few steps. “I just found out something really awful, and I need to talk.”

  Julie pushed the door closed. “Okay. I was asleep, but, yeah, that’s what best friends are for. What did you find out that’s so awful?”

  Erin pushed at her wind-tousled hair. “Wyatt Fitzgerald raped a woman.”

  Chapter Eight

  Julie looked as if her feet had put down roots through her wood floor. Her eyes went wide, and her face drained of color, making her smoky-rose pajamas look almost red next to her skin.

  “What?” she whispered. “Say that again, because my brain just froze.”

  “He didn’t do it intentionally,” Erin hurried to say. “Don’t misunderstand.”

  The sleepy look left Julie’s eyes. “How in the hell can a man rape a woman without meaning to do it?”

  “I know, I know.” Erin followed her friend through the beautifully decorated living room, which lay in shadow because no lights had been turned on. Julie had appointed the area with touches of Victorian stuff to offset her preference for comfortable furniture, creating a perfect blend that remained true to the style of the home without making it too fussy. “I’m still reeling, Jules. I’ve barely gotten my mind wrapped around it. And, oh, God, my heart just breaks for Wyatt.”

  As Julie entered the kitchen ahead of Erin, she pivoted on one bare foot to gape at her. “Your heart breaks for Wyatt? What about the poor woman?”

  “Her, too,” Erin said. “I’m sorry for her, too. Oh, Julie. It’s so awful.”

  Julie swept the drape of blue hair away from her face. “Okay. I thought about making herbal tea, but ‘awful’ calls for wine. White or red? Since you’re the one upset, I’ll let you pick.”

  Aware of Julie’s preference, Erin said, “White will be perfect.”

  Julie went to her fridge, where she always had a bottle chilling. She kept reds in a rack on the counter. “White it is.”

  Erin went to sit at the round table Julie had found at a garage sale and refinished in white to go with her kitchen cabinets and countertops. She’d accented the room with touches of forest green, and once again, Erin wished she had the same knack for decorating.

  Julie came to the table with two glasses of wine, one of which she passed to Erin before she sat across from her. “Okay. The first order of business is for you to calm down, so take a couple of big gulps before you tell me anything. Maybe then you can share what you just learned without making me hate Wyatt Fitzgerald’s guts.”

  Erin took a sip of wine and followed it with a deep, calming breath. “You won’t hate him when you hear the story. The poor guy. It’s awful, Jules, but he really didn’t mean to do it.”

  Julie followed her own advice and took two big gulps of wine. “Okay, if you say so, I believe you, but it’s kind of hard to envision.” She snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it. He was just walking around with a hard-on, the woman just happened to be naked and bent over, and he ran into her from behind.”

  Erin felt miffed with her friend. “That is not nice.”

  “Sorry, but like ninety-nine percent of our gender, I get bent out of shape when I hear the R word.”

  Erin nodded. “I understand, but it isn’t only my opinion that the incident occurred accidentally. A judge and jury, eight of them female, felt the same way. Wyatt was as much a victim as the woman was.”

  “Go on.”

  Erin sighed. “Have you ever noticed how beautifully Wyatt speaks? For a deaf person, I mean. His pronunciation is almost flawless, and that is extraordinary for anyone profoundly deaf. I won’t go into detail, but he got a language program and practiced his speech for hours and hours in order to talk like everyone else. The reason he did that is because he was shunned by other kids when he was in school. Can you imagine how that felt? To never fit in. To ask girls out and get laughed at. To be the outcast who couldn’t even hang out with other boys because they wanted nothing to do with him?”

  Julie’s expression softened. “That’s awful. Kids can be so cruel. And no, I can’t imagine it.”

  “Well, that was Wyatt’s life back then, and he hated school because of it. He couldn’t wait to get home to spend time on his grandfather’s ranch with the animals. I think that’s how he became so amazing with horses, because they accepted him when everyone in the outside world wouldn’t.”

  “That is so sad,” Julie conceded, “but I still don’t get how that landed him in court for rape.”

  “Long story. According to the court documents and all the testimonies, Wyatt got a job in Medford, Oregon, as a hired hand on a ranch. By then, he had fallen into a habit of passing himself off as a hearing individual. He made friends with another ranch hand who liked to cruise bars, looking to hook up with women, and Wyatt started going out with him, pretending he could hear.”

  “Okay.” Julie nodded. “I would have, too. Who wants to be a pariah his whole life?”

  “Exactly,” Erin went on. “I can’t blame him for not wanting to advertise his disability. It wasn’t a crime to pretend he could hear, and on the surface, what harm could that do?”

  “I can’t see how it could harm anyone.” Gripping the stem of her goblet between her index finger and thumb, Julie turned her glass back and forth in a slightly agitated manner. “And I definitely can’t see how it could have led to rape.”

  “It couldn’t unless the situation was exactly right. Let’s say a woman comes on to a guy, so he goes with her back to her apartment, where she’s still all over him and acting eager. Only she’s recently divorced, hasn’t been out with any guys since her husband, and she turns out the lights to undress because she feels suddenly shy. And then, after going to bed with the man and letting things escalate, she changes her mind.”

  The color drained from Julie’s face. “Oh, my God.”

  “I know. Right?” Erin’s stomach clenched. “Wyatt couldn’t see her, and without a view of the person he’s with, he can’t communicate. I know that firsthand. When he walked me to my porch in the dark the other night, I said something to him without thinking, and h
e never replied. He hears nothing, Julie, so when there’s no light, he’s both blind and deaf. Well, not totally blind. He has excellent night vision, so far as I can tell, but he can’t see another person’s lips well enough to determine if they’re even talking, let alone what they’re saying, and unless there’s some source of illumination, he can’t accurately read sign language, either. And in this particular instance, the woman had a sudden change of heart when they were in bed together. We’re talking when Wyatt was at point of entry, possibly with his chin hooked over her shoulder. He said in his testimony that he felt the vibration of her voice, but he had no clue what she was saying. He didn’t know she’d changed her mind until she started scratching his back, and by then, he had already entered her.”

  Julie’s face was now nearly as white as her cabinets. “Oh, dear God, poor Wyatt.”

  “He backed off instantly. Even the woman admitted that on the stand. But at the time, she believed he ignored her pleas for him to stop, and she called the cops. She accused him of rape, he was arrested and charged with the crime, and if not for her honesty on the witness stand, he could have been convicted.”

  “In other words, by pretending he could hear, Wyatt created the perfect storm.”

  “Yes,” Erin agreed. “I forgot to say they were both intoxicated. Apparently the woman had consumed more alcohol than Wyatt had, because in her testimony, she said she suddenly realized how drunk she was and decided she was in no condition to make wise choices. Having sex with a stranger was something she’d never done.”

  “I can understand that,” Julie said. “Look at me with Blackie. I’m still on the fence. It’s important to be sure before you jump into the sack with a guy.” Julie shrugged. “Well, that’s not true for a one-night hookup, but when feelings are involved, I want to be sure nobody gets hurt.”