With a Southern Touch: AdamA Night in ParadiseGarden Cop

by Jennifer Blake

  “That explains the raid on my kitchen,” she said, equally low-voiced. “We should call the police!”

  He gave her a hard glare. “I am the police. Federal police.”

  “Yes, but it’s not your jurisdiction,” she argued.

  “I’m now assigned to this district,” he retorted. “Why do you think I was reporting to the district office in Lanier County in the first place? I’m starting there after my vacation.”

  She whistled softly. “What a comedown from Austin, Texas,” she taunted. “Whose feet did you step on?”

  “Never mind,” he muttered. “I’ve got to go see Jack. You can come, too.” He had an idea of who was hiding in the barn. It was the government witness. They were in no danger, but it was better to get Mary out of the thick of things, anyway.

  “I’ve got notes to prepare. I’m in the middle of a trial,” she began.

  “I’m not leaving you here by yourself with some fugitive hanging around!” he told her firmly, with flashing dark eyes. “If you don’t like that, tough!”

  She was torn between protesting that she could take care of herself and agreeing that she wasn’t equipped to handle a lawbreaker—she didn’t even have a firearm.

  “If I were in your position, Mary,” he said, using her given name for the first time, “I wouldn’t argue. Attorneys represent the law, they don’t enforce it.”

  She gave in gracefully. “Okay. You win. But I’ll need my briefcase and my laptop.”

  “We’ll go in and get them.” He stood up and walked back the way they’d come.

  “Hadn’t we’d better search the barn for clues first?” Mary asked.

  “No,” he said after a minute. “I’m in no position to apprehend him, if he is in there now. And I don’t want to disturb anything or mess up clues. I tracked him to the street, I’m sure he’s gone. Come on. You can ride into town with me. I’ll come back with the police later to search for clues.”

  They went to Mary’s house, where she packed up her gear and changed into neat gray slacks and a white sleeveless turtleneck knit shirt before she joined Curt in the living room.

  “He’ll get away, and we’ll be blamed,” she pointed out.

  He shook his head. “I think he was watching us. He’ll assume we’re brainless and clear up his trail until the police search the barn. Then he’ll come back, feeling safe.”

  “You’d better hope you’re right,” she muttered.

  “You don’t know how I’m hoping,” he replied with a smile.

  The smile startled her. It made her feel giddy inside. She smiled back, feeling stupid.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Twenty-seven.” She looked at him curiously. “Ever been married?”

  He shook his head. “Too busy. You?”

  “Yes,” she said surprisingly. “When I was eighteen. My folks couldn’t talk any sense into me, so they gave in. He was eighteen, too, very mature for his age. I was spoiled and stubborn and I never gave an inch. I drove him nuts. We hadn’t been married six months when he filed for divorce. We’re still friends,” she added quickly. “He’s married and has a nice little family.”

  “What does he do?” he asked, unaccountably jealous.

  She looked sheepish. “He’s a football coach at his local high school.”

  “I hate football,” he remarked.

  She laughed. “So do I. That was part of the problem. It was his whole life.”

  He shook his head. “How about winter sports?” he asked as they went out the front door.

  “Ice skating and downhill racing,” she volunteered.

  “Great! I love winter sports!”

  She grinned at him. It was like a beginning.

  They told Jack what they’d found out at Mary’s house.

  “Any idea who the fugitive is?” he asked Curt.

  “Gee, let me think,” Curt said facetiously. “There’s a federal witness hiding out up here, his cousin lives two doors down from Mary, and somebody’s living in Mary’s barn. Who could it be?”

  Jack gave him a look of disgust.

  “He’s with the FBI,” Mary reminded Jack. “You have to make allowances.”

  “The problem is, I didn’t rush him,” Curt continued. “I don’t know that he’s armed, but his connections usually are, and he comes from a shady background. Mary was with me.”

  That was enough to give Jack the impression that Curt wasn’t putting the woman at risk.

  “We don’t risk civilians, Miss Ryan,” Jack told her, just to make the point.

  “I’m not exactly a civilian,” she pointed out.

  “You are as far as I’m concerned,” Curt interjected. “Why don’t you go and work on your case?” He turned to Jack. “Have you got a place where she can plug in her laptop while we talk?”

  “Sure. Hey, Ben!”

  One of the policemen stuck his head in the door. “Yes, Chief?”

  “Take Miss Ryan to Don’s office and let her use his desk. He won’t be in today.”

  “Yes, sir. Come with me, Miss Ryan.”

  Curt wanted to ask if Ryan was her married name, but he didn’t have the opportunity. She went with the policeman and they were talking about computers all the way out the door.

  Curt waited until Ben closed the door behind them before he leaned forward.

  “The guy’s name is Abe Hunt,” Curt told the police chief. “He’s got a rap sheet as long as my arm. Mary’s got guts, but she’s no match for a guy the size of Hunt should he pull some stunt. He’s built like a professional wrestler. In fact, he did some wrestling in his past. We’ve got to get this guy out of her barn.”

  “The trick is, if we chase him out of there, where will he go? Not to his cousin’s. He’s not that stupid, is he?”

  Curt shook his head. “His cousin took a powder out of town. But, even though the house is empty now, no, he’s not stupid. But he is desperate. He doesn’t want the mob to find him any more than he wants us to. It’s going to be a cat and mouse game all the way.”

  “I can get the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to assist us with the stakeout,” Jack said.

  Curt nodded. “That would be a help. I can get some assistance as well, but FBI agents would stick out like sore thumbs around here. I’ve got a reason, I’m visiting my mother, so I won’t arouse suspicion if I hang out in her yard or even if I spend time at Mary’s house.”

  “We’ll get right over there and search the barn,” Jack added. “That will give Hunt the feeling that, if we don’t find anything, he’s in a safe place.”

  “Good point. That’s what I thought.”

  Jack got up. “I’ll go over and do a thorough search. You and Mary can hang out in Don’s office until I get back.”

  “Thanks, Jack.”

  He shrugged. “It’s my job. Have you thought ahead to what you’ll do when we catch this guy? He can’t be forced to testify.”

  “He can if he’s facing a life sentence for being an accessory to murder,” Curt told him. “Didn’t I mention that another potential witness in this case was found floating in the Chattahoochee River with a bullet to the back of his head?” he added.

  “I’ll bet he’d rather rat on a friend than go down for murder,” Jack said.

  “The friend is one of the big bosses, and he’s going to the chair if Hunt tells what he knows. So our witness isn’t doing himself any favors by hiding out in Mary’s barn,” Curt said quietly. “At least we won’t shoot him on sight. The mob will.”

  “You could almost feel sorry for the guy.”

  “Almost,” Curt chuckled.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can. There’s coffee in the coffeemaker. Just put a quarter in the box and help yourself.”

  “No, thanks. Mary already filled me full of coffee before we came here,” Curt recalled with a grin.

  Jack pursed his lips. “Well, well, fraternizing with the enemy are you?”

  Curt shrugged. “She’s a pretty enemy.”
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br />   “No argument there. See you later.”

  Curt sat down in the chair across from the desk where Mary was working. She peered over her laptop screen at him.

  “You’re very quiet,” she remarked.

  “I didn’t want to disturb you while you were working,” he replied.

  “I’m just rechecking my notes, so that I’ll have them in order for court.”

  “What did this guy do, that you’re prosecuting?” he asked.

  “He smuggled a bale of marijuana into the county on a truck in between bales of real hay,” she said. “He was distributing it to a dozen high school kids for resale when we tipped the DEA boys and they took him down.”

  “High school kids,” he muttered. “Selling drugs, shooting classmates…we live in a crazy world.”

  “Everybody can tell you why,” she said simply. “Too much time unsupervised, too unconnected from their parents, too little natural sunlight, too much time spent at a computer keyboard, video game violence, and the list goes on and on. But nobody has a solution.”

  He leaned back in the chair and studied her. “Make your kids tell you where they are every minute,” he suggested. “Be home when they get home from school. Know who their friends are.”

  “How many kids do you have?” she asked sarcastically.

  “That was my mother’s recipe,” he said with a smile.

  “Obviously, it worked,” she had to admit.

  “Not really. I found ways to get around her and do what I liked. She was a sound sleeper. I could go out the window after she went to bed, and she never knew. Until I got arrested. I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time—with a group of kids using drugs, that is.” He grimaced. “You know what was worse than being arrested? It was having her come to bail me out, and the disappointment in her eyes when she looked at me. I’d let her down. It really hurt her. I never quite got over it.” He smiled. “Needless to say, I kept my nose clean forever afterward.”

  “I guess so. Your mother’s a really nice person,” she added slowly.

  “And you think a bad kid has bad parents, right?”

  “Oh, no,” she said at once. “That’s a naive opinion. Some of the worst lawbreakers have the nicest, most decent parents alive. If a child is inclined to break the law, there really isn’t any way to stop him or her. And once they see the consequences, a lot of times they are scared to death and become model citizens.”

  “I am living proof that it works,” he told her with a chuckle.

  She grinned. “I got pulled over for speeding once,” she volunteered.

  “You bad girl.”

  “It was the only time I broke the law. My dad grounded me for two months. I missed the junior prom and a date that I wanted more than food. I really learned my lesson.”

  “You don’t talk about your mother,” he noted.

  Her face grew taut. “She and I don’t speak.”

  “Why?”

  She stared at her computer screen. “She left my dad and ran away with her aerobics instructor.”

  “Tough.”

  “He was one of those health nuts who don’t eat real food and spend every spare second exercising. I guess he drove her crazy, because she left him two months later and tried to come back to Dad.” Her face hardened. “He wouldn’t let her in the door. Neither would I. She moved to California. Last we heard, she was living with a martial arts teacher.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “She wasn’t ever much of a mother,” she replied coolly. “It was Dad who took me to parties and school dances and track meets. She was never around. She was playing bridge with her friends or working out or traveling somewhere.”

  “She didn’t work?”

  “She didn’t have to, her parents left her a small fortune,” she said coldly. “Dad was never interested in money, although he works hard,” she added with obvious pride.

  “Do you look like him?”

  “Well, I’m not tall, but we have similar coloring,” she confessed.

  “Is he college-educated?”

  She grinned. “Yes, he is. He got his degree about seven years ago. I was so proud of him!”

  “I expect you were,” he said with a smile.

  “She didn’t even graduate from high school,” she added coldly.

  “Maybe education wasn’t important to her. It isn’t, to some people.”

  She cocked her head. “It was to you.”

  He nodded. “My mother worked hard just to get me through school and make sure I had clothes to wear and a house that I wouldn’t be ashamed to ask my friends into. When I started college, she helped as much as she could, but I earned most of my tuition by myself. I never failed a course,” he added proudly. “Money was hard to come by.”

  “I felt the same,” she said. “Dad helped, of course, but I put myself through college on scholarships and working as an assistant manager at a fast-food place at night.”

  “Hard work.”

  “Yes,” she said, sharing memories with him. “But I graduated in the top ten percent of my graduating class. Dad was very proud. She didn’t even come.”

  “Did you invite her?” he asked.

  She averted her eyes. “Well, no. Because I knew she wouldn’t come,” she added belligerently.

  “How about your ex?” he added.

  She chuckled. “We’re not that friendly,” she replied. “I don’t think his wife would like it. She’s very nice, though.”

  “Lucky him.”

  “I’m nice, too,” she said. “I can cook. I can even sew a little.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Are you auditioning?”

  Her eyes slid down to his chest. “You look very good without a shirt,” she said outrageously. “And you aren’t as stuffy and by-the-book as I thought to begin with. You might have potential.”

  “As what?” he asked, stonewalled.

  “I’ll have to think about that,” she assured him, and with a secretive little smile, she went back to her laptop.

  Curtis Russell, FBI agent, folded his arms across his chest and felt vaguely threatened. In a nice way, of course.

  An hour later, Jack was back. He walked into the office, looking disturbed.

  “There wasn’t a sign of entry or occupation in your barn at all,” he said. “Are you sure you saw evidence of a vagrant?” he asked Curt.

  Curt didn’t protest the question. He just nodded.

  “I had the guys go over the place with magnifying glasses. There wasn’t a thing. Considering the lack of evidence, how do I justify a stakeout?”

  “Good question,” Curt had to admit. He stood up with a sigh. “I guess that leaves me. I’ll get my black ops outfit out of storage and sit in the woods with the chiggers all night.”

  “You could have been mistaken,” Jack persisted.

  “I could. But I’m not,” Curt said simply, on the defensive because most of his statements were questioned these days, by the world at large. You make one dumb mistake in your life, he thought silently, and it follows you to the grave!

  Jack was watching him. He grimaced. “Okay, Russell, I’ll do whatever you want me to do, if you’re that sure.”

  “I’ll carry my cell phone out with me. If I call, come running,” he added. “That’s all I’ll ask. Oh, one more thing,” he said with a rueful glance. “Tell your boys not to drag me away in handcuffs in case any of the neighbors see me outside and get twitchy. Will you?”

  Jack hid a grin. “Okay.”

  “What about me?” Mary asked.

  “You go to bed and dream of brilliant summations,” Curt told her. “While the FBI protects you.”

  “Gosh, lucky me,” she drawled.

  “Don’t start that again, or I’ll dribble honey into your bedroom and pour it over your feet. Remember the ants…?”

  “You can’t threaten women,” she pointed out. “It’s against the law.”

  “Who’s threatening women? I’m only planning to feed ants.”

&nbs
p; She glowered at him, but he was already out the door with Jack while she was fumbling with her laptop’s power switch.

  It wasn’t rainy, but the woods were damp at night. Curt was uncomfortable in his bed of leaves, with his cell phone in his pocket and his listening device in one ear. All he heard were crickets. There wasn’t even an occasional loud howl from Big Red in his mother’s living room. Since last night, the dog had been oddly silent.

  When he’d returned home, after being arrested, he’d begged her to phone the pound and have the hairy menace taken away, but she was already attached to the big dog. In fact, she went out later in the day and bought the animal the premium dog chow in defiance.

  Curt, taking matters into his own hands, had phoned veterinarians’ offices asking about the big dog, but nobody had reported one missing. Probably, he summed up, the previous owner was enjoying his sleep and didn’t want the nuisance back again.

  After spending the evening fighting for enough space to sit on the sofa, and with a long-suffering sigh, Curt got up to prepare for his evening’s work. When he left, Big Red was headed into his mother’s room with her. He moved quietly to the dark back door, and went out to play spy.

  He was watching the barn covertly, but it was empty and it remained empty. He knew he’d seen sign, positive sign, that the culprit had been skulking around the outbuilding. But he had no proof. And because he’d tipped off the man by alluding to a visit by the police, all the clues had been skillfully lifted.

  That caused him to wonder if he had the right man. The potential federal witness, Abe Hunt, was a city boy, born and raised in Miami. He had no background that included outdoor activities, including scouting or other boyhood faculties. So how could a guy like that obliterate signs of his occupation?

  There was another curious thing. The man’s cousin, who lived down the street, had packed up his wife and kids and left town. Curt had gone by the house tonight, sneaking around its perimeters to make sure the family hadn’t vacated it so the cousin could hide out there. But there was no sign whatsoever that anything had been disturbed since the family’s abrupt departure.

  The barn was empty and it remained empty. Oddly enough, the big dog wasn’t howling at the window tonight. Everything was sublimely peaceful. Curt leaned back against a tree with a quiet sigh and watched the night go by.