She decided to nip that particular weed in the bud before it even sprouted. “I’m going with you,” she said.
He gave her a half grin. “Are you, now?”
“I am.”
He stood there a long time, and she could tell he was debating the pros and cons of taking a civilian along on what might turn out to be the arrest of a suspect wanted for a violent felony.
“Come on,” she said, heading toward the door. “Time’s a-wastin’.”
She figured, if he’d been distracted while chasing Dolly into the station, he might have left the cruiser unlocked, and she could get into the passenger seat before he could stop her. She couldn’t picture him trying to throw her out right there on Main Street in broad daylight, in front of God and everybody.
Chapter 12
“Stella May, you know I have great affection and respect for you, as a woman and a wonderful human being,” Manny said as he drove the cruiser down the highway that led out of town, toward the old Patterson plantation and beyond to the run-down motel in question.
“Why, thank you, Manny,” Stella replied. She shot him a too-bright smile in hopes of warding off the second half of his statement. She could smell a big “but . . .” coming and the tone of his voice told her she wouldn’t like it. “I’ve always thought the world of you, too. You are truly a man among men, Manny Gilford.”
The sideways look he gave her told her that he wasn’t falling for the flattery. “Yeah, yeah. Turn down the charm there, girl. You’re about to blind me with it, and I left my sunglasses back at the station.”
“You know I meant every word of it.” She batted her eyelashes at him and wished she’d thought to put on some of that red lipstick he liked so much before she’d come out today.
“I meant every word I said, too. But that’s not gonna stop me from saying my piece before we get to that old motel. You’re going to hear what I’ve got to say, or I’m going to turn this vehicle around and take you back home right this very minute.”
She dropped the playful, flirtatious routine and sighed. “Okay, okay. I can tell you feel mighty strong about it, so let me have it. Both barrels. Just remember that your birthday’s coming up, and you’re particularly fond of my apple pies.”
“Oh, man. You don’t play fair at all, Stella Reid. Holding an apple pie hostage? That’s downright ruthless.”
She shrugged. “Just as long as you remember, you might have a badge, but I do the cooking.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. What I’ve got to say is: Fine woman that you are, you’ve got a major flaw in your character. It’s a failing that could get in our way today, and I need your reassurance that it won’t.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t take orders worth a tinker’s damn. Not even when it’s important, maybe even life and limb being at stake. That’s not going to do today.”
“What’s the matter, Manny? You’re not comfortable with a woman using her own best judgment in a situation? I thought better of you, Sheriff Gilford. I thought you was one of them enlightened gentlemen who understands that womenfolk are just as smart as the men around them.”
Manny groaned and shook his head. “This is not the time for a political discussion, Stella. My whole life, I’ve understood that females are considerably smarter than us knucklehead men. I’m pretty sure you know how ‘enlightened’ I am in that regard. But I’m not talking to you now as a man to a woman or even as a friend. I’m talking to you, a civilian, as your sheriff.”
Again, she shot him a coquettish grin. “You gonna arrest me, Sheriff Gilford? You gonna put handcuffs on me and throw me into a jail cell and feed me burnt biscuits and water gravy?”
“I’ll do worse than that. I’ll stick you in a cell with the drunkest bum I’ve got in residence at the moment.”
Stella looked down the road and realized they were fast approaching the driveway that led to her house. Farther down the highway was the plantation and then the motel. This was a critical moment when Manny could change his mind, and if he was aggravated enough, he could just dump her there on the highway and let her walk home.
She didn’t really believe he would. He loved both her and her apple pies far too much to take the chance of losing her friendship forever.
But one couldn’t be too careful, and he was wearing a particularly serious scowl at the moment, so . . .
“How do you suggest I correct this serious character flaw I’ve got, Sheriff Gilford? Feel free to offer whatever wisdom and guidance you feel you need to dump on me. Don’t hold back. Let me have it all. I can take it.”
He pulled over to the side of the road, shifted the cruiser into “Park,” took a deep breath, and said, “As your sheriff, and more importantly, the one who’s actually been trained for this job and has done it for years, and therefore knows what’s best and safest for all concerned . . .”
“I’ve always respected your authority, Sheriff. You know that.”
“Bullshit.”
“Manny!”
“You never do what you’re told, but if you wanna go out there with me to that motel, you promise me right now—and you mean it, too, like you’ve got your hand on a stack of Bibles—that you’ll do what I say.”
“I swear, as God is my witness, if you say, ‘Jump,’ I’ll hop as high as a toad frog with a firecracker up his butt. Would that suit you, Sheriff?”
“I detect a note of sarcasm, Mrs. Reid.”
“You do? What a smart feller you are. All that trainin’, I presume.”
They sat in silence a moment, then he reached over and took her hand in his. Squeezing it tightly, he said, “Stella, I’m sure you’d hop or run or clobber somebody good and proper, if I asked you to. Probably before I even asked you. You’re very brave and smart and strong. The problem is—you’re also headstrong and opinionated. You look to your own judgment in every circumstance and don’t take ‘No’ for an answer.”
Stella started to argue, but then she remembered all the times her mother, Florence, and even gentle Elsie had said the same thing. Even Pastor O’Reilly had chastised her a couple of times for not being as cooperative as she needed to be when serving on several church committees.
“Okay,” she admitted. “I might’ve heard that once or twice in my lifetime. You could have a point there about this bein’ a serious flaw in my character. I accept that.”
He chuckled. “Thank you for that concession, Mrs. Reid. I can’t imagine it was easy for you.” He squeezed her hand again, then patted it. “Don’t get me wrong. On a regular day I find bullheadedness most appealing in a woman. But on a day like today, independent thinking on your part could get one or both of us killed. I’m looking to arrest a man who’s known for his violence and overall rotten attitude. Yesterday, he nearly killed a woman, and he knows if I take him in, he’ll be spending a long stretch in prison. That makes him a desperate character. You understand?”
She nodded.
“Today, right now, I want you to promise me that you’ll do what I say without any argument or hesitation. Even more importantly, if I tell you to do nothing and wait for me, or hide somewhere, or keep quiet and say absolutely nothing, you’ll do that, too.”
Stella thought it over but only for a few seconds. She turned in her seat to face him, looked directly into his eyes, and said with great solemnity, “I promise you, Manny, like as if I got my hand on a ton of Bibles right this very minute, that I’ll do everythin’ you say. I won’t put you or myself in jeopardy.”
He looked enormously relieved. “Thank you, Stella. I believe you, and I appreciate it. You’ve put my mind at ease.”
He leaned over and kissed her quickly on the cheek, then pulled the cruiser back onto the highway and headed down the road toward the motel.
As they continued on their way, she was uncharacteristically silent. Finally, he reached over and nudged her elbow.
“Okay,” he said. “What’s up? You got something else you need to say?”
“
As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Oh no. I knew it couldn’t have been that easy. What is it? Spit it out.”
“That promise I just made you . . .”
“Yeah? What about?”
“It ain’t an open-ended agreement. It’s just for today. In fact, it might just be for this one trip out here to this old motel. Once that’s over and done with, we go back to just being you and me, and me doing what I think is best in any given situation. Unless, of course, you’re about to arrest some vicious felon with a bad attitude toward womenfolk. Okay?”
He laughed, hard and long. “I never thought for a moment it was a permanent state of affairs, Stella May. I know you far too well for that.”
* * *
“Okay, there it is,” Manny said as they passed a copse of trees and saw the end of a long, ramshackle building, mostly hidden among a pervasive overgrowth from the nearby, encroaching woods.
“It probably never was the Taj Mahal, but I expect it looked better in its youth,” Stella said, taking in the sagging roof, broken windows, and rotting walls that were almost completely bare of their former protective paint.
Even the sign that read MABEL’S MOTEL was almost unreadable and hung haphazardly from one corner, blocking the door to what had once been the office.
“It’s youth . . . like maybe forty years ago,” Manny said. “I’d forgotten all about this even being here until Dolly reminded us.”
“Good thing she did, or we’d still be wondering who on earth ‘Mabel’ was.”
Manny drove slowly, as he approached the motel. No true driveway remained intact, but there was something resembling a path—or at least, a disturbance in the vegetation—that led from the front and around the side of the building.
“Looks like a car came through here recently,” Manny said.
“That’s what I was thinking, too.” Stella could feel her pulse rate quickening. One glance at Manny told her that he was on high alert, as well.
Now that they were at the motel and the situation was unfolding, she realized with a sense of gravity how important his former words and insistence on her cooperation had been.
She was a grandmother with seven grandchildren to raise.
He was, for all practical purposes, the provider of law and order to a community that seemed to be increasingly in need of it.
Plus, he was Manny, her friend, one of the people nearest and dearest to her heart. She would never forgive herself if, through a moment of arrogant stubbornness, she allowed him to be hurt or worse.
Likewise, if anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself. Manny already carried a heavy burden of misplaced guilt on his soul over the death of his Lucy. Stella couldn’t imagine him handling the tragic passing of yet another woman he cared for.
“What do you want me to do, Manny?” she asked him with all sincerity and humility.
“I’m going to drive just a little bit closer. Then I’m going to get out and walk up there. I don’t want him to see or hear us or the cruiser. If he is in there, it’s best he doesn’t know I’m here until it’s too late for him to run.”
“He might not even be here. All we had to go on was that letter, and that didn’t say anything about a motel.”
“True. This could be nothing at all. Just a wild goose—”
Manny caught his breath, and so did she.
They had both seen it at the same moment. The battered old pickup that the Lone White Wolf Pack members were so proud of.
The truck itself was nothing to boast about. It was in much the same condition as Mabel’s Motel. Rusty, rickety, and on its last legs.
It was the “decoration” that the LWWP had been positively giddy to display to their fellow McGillians when they had driven the truck so proudly down Main Street a couple of months ago.
The most “artistic” of the three, Billy Ray, had taken a can of spray paint to both doors and adorned them with swastikas.
The rendering was sloppy at best. The cross misshapen, with curved corners and streaks of red paint running down, lacked sophistication, but it was disgusting and offensive, and the citizens of McGill figured that was exactly what Billy Ray had intended.
Sheriff Gilford had demanded that they paint over the symbols of hate, but Billy Ray, who had never managed to learn his multiplication tables, considered himself quite the expert on the United States Constitution. He had informed the sheriff and any other citizens who dared to object that his swastikas were protected under the freedom of speech afforded to him as an American citizen.
Manny had spoken to Judge Patterson about it. The judge had advised him that, if it went to court, Billy Ray would probably prevail. So, Manny had decided it wasn’t worth the ruckus or running the risk of having Billy Ray’s ugly mug on national TV, representing the fine city of McGill, Georgia.
“If his truck’s here, he’s here,” Stella told Manny. “Since he painted that mess on the side of it, he ain’t been drivin’ anything else.”
“True. He’s in there. Which makes everything I said to you earlier all the more important, Stella.”
“I know. Tell me what you want, and that’s what I’ll do.”
Manny thought for a moment, then said, “I’m going to leave the car here. With all those weeds he can’t see it from inside. I’m going to sneak over there and get a look-see through those windows. Hopefully, I’ll spot him, go inside, and arrest him without incident.”
“I’m afraid for you, Manny,” she said. “You need backup. You need deputies—and not ones like Mervin the peckerhead.”
Manny shrugged. “Sometimes you gotta make do with what you’ve got.”
“Again, what can I do to help?”
“You can stay here in the cruiser with the windows closed and the doors locked. Do not get out of this car until I tell you it’s okay.”
“How’s that gonna to help you though?”
“It will free me up to think about my job and not about whether somebody I love is about to get hurt.”
“I understand. What else can I do? There’s gotta be something.”
“There is.” He drew a deep breath and avoided her eyes when he said, “If you hear or see anything, anything at all, that suggests that maybe things haven’t gone my way in there—I want you to drive this cruiser back onto the highway and hightail it outta here. Once you’re well on your way, a good piece down the road, then stop, pull over to the side, and use that radio to call the station and tell Merv what’s going on. Tell him to get hold of Doc Hynson, and as many other able-bodied men that he trusts, who have weapons and know how to use them, and get them out here on the double.”
Stella gave him a solemn nod. “You got it, and what’s more, I’ll be prayin’ for you the whole time.”
“There you go. Better yet. The fervent prayer of a righteous woman avails much and all that good stuff.”
“Exactly.”
To her surprise, he leaned over and a gave her a quick but sweet kiss on the lips.
Then he pulled his sidearm from his holster, checked, and replaced it. Moment later, he had gotten out of the cruiser, locked its doors, and was making his way through the thick brush toward the derelict motel.
“Lord, watch over him and keep him from harm,” Stella whispered. “I know you love him, good man that he is, and I don’t know what this town and its people would do without him.”
As she watched him creep up to the nearest filthy and broken window and peep in, she added, “I don’t know what me and my grandbabies would do without him either, for that matter.”
It was after the sheriff had checked the final window, turned, given her a thumbs-down, then disappeared, working his way around to the front of the building, that Stella realized . . . Manny Gilford had just told her that he loved her.
Chapter 13
“Somethin’s wrong. Somethin’s just gotta be wrong,” Stella told herself as she squirmed on the seat of the cruiser and strained to hear any sounds or see anything moving thro
ugh the tangle of weeds and overgrowth that surrounded the motel.
She glanced at the time on the dashboard clock, did some quick math, and figured that Manny had been gone for twelve minutes.
“It doesn’t take that long to check ten rooms and come back,” she said.
Her own pulse was the only sound she could hear as it pounded in her ears. That and a couple of crows quarreling in a nearby tree.
In all the time he’d been gone, not a single car had passed on the highway.
Is this it? she thought. Is this what he meant when he said if I thought he might be in trouble, I should haul buns outta here and call for help?
“He ain’t in there, layin’ on one of them ol’ rotten beds, takin’ hisself a nap,” she muttered to herself. “He’s gotta know I’m out here dyin’ by degrees wonderin’. If he was all right, he would’ve—Oh! There he is!”
He had reappeared on the right side of the building, the same place he had disappeared, what felt to Stella like several lifetimes ago.
He seemed okay. No blood or even dirt on his clothes. He was moving fine, not like an injured man.
The only thing that seemed amiss was the look on his face.
He looked . . . perplexed. That was the only word she could think of to describe his expression.
To her delight, he waved an arm, beckoning her to join him.
She did, in record time.
“What is it?” she said softly when she reached him. “What did you find? Is he here? Did you—?”
“You don’t need to whisper. Nobody’s going to hear you.”
“Oh.” A wave of disappointment swept over her. It had all been for nothing. No Billy Ray. No arrest. They were back to square one.
“Come see this,” he said, taking her hand and leading her back the way he had come, along the side of the building, then to the front.
“See what?” she asked. “There’s something to see? This wasn’t just a dry run after all?”
“Wasn’t a dry run, darlin’,” he said. “Not by a long shot.”
“Oh, good.” She looked up at his troubled face and added, “I reckon.”
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