“Who the hell are you? Get your hands off me!”
“Just trying to help, fella. Why don’t we leave this lady alone and go about our business?”
Sturgis paused for a moment, hesitating as if he needed to consider Jeff’s idea, and then turned his unfocused eyes toward Maitlin. “Who are you?”
Jeff stuck his hand out and introduced himself, all the while edging away from Sturgis, who followed him like a belligerent bull after a red flag, moving himself farther away from Brenda. “I’m Jeff Maitlin, the new editor of the Endurance Register. And who might you be?”
“Mike Sturgis, victim of your rag sheet of a paper. And, believe me, I’m gonna have my day in court.” No handshake.
Jeff looked Sturgis in the eye. “I hope you do get a chance to do that. But in the meantime, it might be smart to calm down here where everyone is watching you and wondering if you’d hit a lady.”
“Lady?” Sturgis’s voice rose a few decibels, his arm flailing in frustration, his beer continuing to slop over the side of his glass and onto the floor. “Lady? She ain’t no lady. She’s a lying, sneaky bitch, and I’d have to stand in line behind all the people who’d like to show her how they feel about her trumped-up news stories.” He stared at his now empty glass and set it down on the bar.
Grace could feel her heart pounding and took in the entire room where the bar patrons were hushed in an unnerving calm. She watched as Bill Tully stood on the other side of Sturgis, planting himself in front of Brenda, who was staring up at his back, her eyes blinking as if she wasn’t sure who he was. Grace was close enough to see the tattoos on Sturgis’s muscular shoulders, just beneath the cut-off sleeves of his T-shirt and the clenched fists.
“Hey, Mike,” called a new voice, and everyone turned as two patrolmen from the Endurance Police Department walked into the tableau. Ted Collier patted Sturgis on the back and turned him around, all the while saying in a calm voice, “Now, Mike. We can’t be disturbing people who are eating their dinner kind of quiet-like. It’s time to head on home for now. I’ll be glad to take you and you can pick up your truck tomorrow. I know your wife must be worried.”
Sturgis smiled a drunken smile at Collier, put his arm over his shoulder, and Collier steered them toward the bar exit with Jim McGuire close behind. Grace felt her tense muscles relax while Bill Tully turned to Brenda and asked if she was all right.
“All right? Whadda ya mean? He can’t say those things ’bout me. He called me a lying bitch. That can’t be right. How can he say those things . . . ?” And her voice trailed off in a sigh.
“Why don’t I give you a ride home, Brenda?” said Jeff.
“Home? Issit time to go home?” she murmured.
“Yes, it is. I’ll be glad to run you out there,” Jeff repeated, more insistent this time, and he put his hand under her arm and helped the drunken reporter off her barstool.
“Thanks,” said Tully as he followed them to the door. “I have a buzzer that alerts the cops, and I hit it when I saw which way the wind was blowing Sturgis tonight. He always was a hothead and I don’t want a brawl on my property. Appreciate it if you could get her home. Lots of nights I’ve called a cab. I’ll make sure her car is locked up and it’ll be safe here overnight. Won’t be the first time, and probably won’t be the last.”
Jeff turned to Grace. “Can you wait for me to get back? We still have some unfinished business to discuss.”
“Sure,” she said, and she handed him Brenda’s purse and gave Tully the car keys she’d fished out of it.
“No problem. I’ll be back pronto.” He steered Brenda toward the back exit and they were gone. Tully announced, “Excitement’s over, folks. You all can go back to your drinks.”
Five minutes later Grace drank her almost cold coffee and finished her salad as she waited for Jeff.
“Penny for your thoughts? Well, maybe adjusted for inflation, a nickel,” and Bill Tully sat down across from Grace.
“I was listening to my heartbeat regain its steady tick tock. How do you do it?”
“Do what?” He glanced at her questioning eyes. “Oh, you mean keep the peace in the Wild West?”
“Yes.” Grace looked into Tully’s face and saw a darker look, one she hadn’t seen before.
“Well, let me be clear. This is my place. I’m not about to let anyone—and especially not that idiot Sturgis—take it apart. Worked too many years to get to this point. No one’s gonna tear it up.”
Grace sat back a little deeper into the booth’s back cushion, a reflex reaction to the surly look on Tully’s face. Then, as quickly as it had come, his anger abated.
As if reading her body language, Tully sat back also, his facial features softening into a calmer place. “Sorry, Grace. Sometimes I just get so upset over things I can’t control. Now that Jeff Maitlin, he has his work cut out for him. Just to keep Brenda corralled will be a full-time job. And, frankly, I hear plenty of gossip in my bar. Sometimes I think she’s her own worst enemy.”
Grace took a sip of her coffee. “I used to work with Brenda at the high school years ago.”
“Really? I didn’t know she’d ever done anything but work at the paper.”
“Yes. We both taught English and she was an excellent teacher. Back then you had to be careful with your personal life. For example, I couldn’t ever come here to your bar and sit and drink a beer. It would be all over town, and back then you had to be a pristine role model. Definitely no jokes that began ‘A teacher walked into a bar.’ ” She paused for a moment. “And Brenda seemed to do it too often. Lost her the job, and that loss simply crushed her. Evidently she still has some problems in that area.”
“True.” He paused. “It’d be ‘unprofessional’ of me to tell you how often she’s here. I feel sorry for her because she has too much on her plate. She seems pretty lonely even though she never lacks for male companionship.”
Silence for a few moments. Then Grace picked up the conversation with, “So did you always live in a small town?”
“Yup. Tennessee before here. Elvis country. Worked in a bar for a number of years, so it seemed natural to open up my own.”
“How did you happen to settle in Endurance? It’s a long way from Tennessee.”
“That’s a complicated story. Maybe another time. But I’ve liked my place here and the folks are pretty well behaved, that is once they know I mean business about ‘no funny business.’ Oh, some nights we get a loud crowd that can get a little out of hand, but nothing I can’t handle. I can get ahold of the cops pretty fast, as you saw. Other nights we have cleaning up to do after the college students, who sure throw up a lot. Fortunately, we’re close enough to the college they can walk back.”
Grace looked at Tully’s smile and thought what a charming person he was. He always had a kind thing to say about people ever since she’d first met him. Then she changed the subject. “I laughed when I saw Ted Collier coming in with a uniform on. I knew he had joined the police department some time ago. Such a quiet kid in high school and one who blushed easily. Hard to believe he’s a patrol cop.” Grace’s eyes brightened as she replayed the past. “But that Jim McGuire was a wild child. A specialist at drinking and parties. One time I remember he came to school on a Monday morning and I was his first class. Eight a.m. I swear he was still drunk or hung over. If I had lit a match near him, he would have exploded from the fumes. That was his senior year. Long time ago.”
“Guess you’ve probably taught most of the people I see in town in your classroom, Grace. Do you remember ’em all?”
“I wish I did. No. Mostly I remember their faces. Some I remember because they were awesome students and others I remember because of the four-letter words they yelled at me as they walked out my door to the office.” They both laughed. “My biggest fear is to have brain surgery and as they wheel me into the operating room, I notice that the surgeon is some kid who got a ‘C’ in my class. Hopefully, he did better in medical school.”
Tully glanced toward t
he door. “Looks like Maitlin is back. I’d better get to work. I’ll tell them to bring your main course now. Nice talking to ya, Grace. You should come around more often and grab your crazy friends. You know, Deb and the rest.”
“That’s a deal.”
He went back to the bar just as Jeff walked toward them, threading his way through tables. “Now that was quite an experience.” He exhaled a huge breath as he slid into the booth across from Grace and let his head fall back momentarily.
“Only the beginning, Jeff.”
“You’re telling me. She slept most of the way to her house. Fortunately, I remembered where she lives since one of the guys at the paper gave me a tour of the town and the countryside when I first got here. Managed to wake her up to get her out of my car and in the door. And once she came to and was somewhat coherent, she kept saying your name and a word that sounded like ‘Po.’ Actually, she said a lot of things that made absolutely no sense. Then she rattled on about Sturgis and money and lawyers and threats.” He shook his head. “I have to consider what to do about her.” Silence for a few moments.
“Want some coffee?” offered Grace.
“Sure. I’ll go up to the bar and order it from Bill.” He scooted out of the booth and walked off toward the bar. Grace followed him with her eyes and couldn’t help noticing the veins in his arms below the rolled-up sleeves and his broad shoulders, and she wondered why he wasn’t married, or at least why he didn’t wear a ring.
“There.” He set his cup down on the table, along with a carafe of coffee. Tonsy followed him with their dinners and for a few minutes they ate in silence.
“Now, where were we?”
“Not sure we were anywhere, yet.”
He hesitated, considering where to begin. “To go back to our earlier conversation, a friend of mine saw the ad for the editor job. I’d had enough of the city life. Grew up in a small town and have plenty of happy memories. I knew it would be a huge change and a welcome one. So far I think it’s good. But obviously, I’ve already found a few bumps in the road that need to be fixed.” He paused a moment, his fork in midair, and surveyed the scene in the restaurant. “It’s so quiet here and it’s away from all that goes with big towns—crime, rude people, hurriedness, cabbies to tip, and cold wind whistling around tall buildings. I could go on—”
“I think I get the picture. We complain about being bored and you complain about overstimulation!”
Jeff smiled. “Boredom isn’t a bad thing, at least for a while.”
“So, what exactly is this proposition you have for me? My friends are already chipping away at my spare time.”
Jeff set his cup down. “I’ve thought about some of the content changes I want to make at the paper. Not big changes. I’d like you to write a column and it wouldn’t take huge amounts of time.”
“What kind of column?”
“A book review, say, every couple of weeks. You know, what’s the latest book you’d recommend? I can make a deal with the local book store to buy books for you and after you’re done reading them and writing the reviews, we could donate them to the library. I know you love to read. Have to. You are—or were—an English teacher. From what I hear, a darn good one.”
Now it was Grace’s turn to blush. “Thank you. Sure would beat grading term papers and essays.” She took another sip of her coffee. “Let me sleep on it. I’ll get back to you.”
“Fair enough. You could choose the books. Since you’ve lived in this town a long time, you know your readers.”
Again there was a pleasant silence and Grace considered how comfortable it felt.
He paused, folded his napkin, and looked up. “Well, I hate to end this pleasant evening, but maybe we should finish our coffee and call it a night. Early morning on the way. I wonder what time Brenda will come dragging in.” Then he remembered. “Actually, someone will have to go get her.”
Grace drained the last of her coffee. “I’ll get back to you tomorrow on the offer. Just need to sleep on it.”
“I won’t ask you—as part of the job—to keep an eye on Brenda.”
“That’s a deal.”
They left Tully’s and, despite all the coffee, Grace slept soundly that night, so soundly, in fact, that she didn’t even stir when the Endurance fire engines, ambulance, and police cars raced through town at 2:54 a.m., emergency lights whirling and sirens blaring.
CHAPTER FIVE:
TJ
* * *
At 3:00 a.m., while Grace slept soundly across the street, TJ slipped out of her bed and reluctantly left the warm body beside her. After years of police work, she slept so lightly that she could put her phone on vibrate at night and still hear it. Now she grabbed her cell and moved smoothly out of the bedroom, closing the door.
“Sweeney here.” The voice of the local dispatcher relayed the message, explained what TJ could expect, and added enough detail to cause a grimace.
“The old Quigley house on Route Six? Geez, that’s—” and she remembered this wasn’t a social call—“Got it. I’m leaving now.” The detective tiptoed back into the bedroom, kissed her finger, and lightly touched the head of the sleeping body. She slipped into her uniform, buckled on her gun, and found her jacket. Seconds later, she glided silently out the kitchen door and into her car. Off in the distance she could hear sirens, their ominous message fading into the night.
The words of the emergency call played through her mind. They had made an agreement, one that would allow the dispatcher to quickly tell TJ enough detail to avoid surprises. A night janitor who was driving home from work in Woodbury glanced out the passenger window of his pickup truck and thought he saw flames in the distance. They were down a lane branching off the old highway. He immediately dialed 911 and the dispatcher said his voice was highly agitated. Now he was sure they were flames and he thought the universe was on fire.
In a town the size of Endurance, it only took TJ a few minutes to head west out of town. She could feel the adrenaline kick in, but it sure would be nice to have three cups of coffee straight down. Her fingers drummed a staccato melody on the steering wheel and every so often she glanced in her rearview mirror, but so far she was the lone car headed toward disaster, and she figured the emergency vehicles from the direction of Endurance were ahead of her. She rubbed the back of her neck and listened to the static and occasional voices on her radio.
The Endurance fire and police departments were already there. The radio crackled and she heard the dispatcher reel off the other fire departments from neighboring towns. More static. A body. A body had been pulled out. The coroner called. It was the Quigley house. The detective felt a fluttering in her stomach and checked her belt for her badge—anything to distract her.
Her red emergency light on top of her patrol car cast an eerie glow on the trees as she turned off onto the old highway. Now it was total blackness all around since the change in direction took her onto the crumbling asphalt of a road that used to be the main artery in and out of Endurance. It was no longer used much except for local farm traffic. The tree trunks along the side of the road were thick and their leafy branches so heavy that the darkness made TJ feel like she was in some subterranean world. Every so often she glanced out the side window and saw eyes that undoubtedly belonged to deer as her lights on the curves startled them.
Better slow down, she brooded. Wouldn’t do to have a collision with the wildlife before I get to the fire. It was eerily still as if all the birds, insects, and anything else that made noise were silent or missing within a five-mile radius. In the quiet, she could hear the crunch of her tires as they hit gravel that had washed onto the road from the shoulder. She was almost there and now she could smell the unmistakable first whiffs of smoke.
The road changed direction and curved through a break in the trees that dipped down into a valley hidden from the highway by its depth and the tall timber all around it. Suddenly TJ’s entire windshield was filled with a sky ignited in a panoramic picture so terrifying she felt her
car skid a bit as she instinctively hit the brakes. Huge orange flames and heavy smoke rose into the night, obliterating the darkness and causing the detective to blink rapidly at the change in light. They were lucky the janitor had seen the flames when it first started. The angle must have been just right, she thought.
She pulled up in a clearing a good distance from the house. Two fire trucks, engines running and hooked up to water, toiled tirelessly near the inferno. The Endurance department was at work and she could now hear—ever closer—more sirens in the night as the fire departments from neighboring towns were on the way. Several patrol officers were setting up wooden barriers at a safe distance down the driveway to keep out anyone who might have heard about the fire on the police scanner.
Jim McGuire and Jake Williams were unrolling crime scene tape as an additional barrier. Ted Collier had a clipboard out so he could take names and their business. That way the emergency help would be on the scene but not any stray civilians. Collier let TJ through the tape and spoke through a radio to someone obviously closer to the fire.
TJ glanced at the endless activity and shook her head. The house was fully engulfed. She shielded her eyes and, looking up, saw flames blazing out of the downstairs windows and skyward to the second floor on the west side. Despite the widespread flames, the fire trucks must have gotten here in minutes. Two of the firemen were already inside pushing the fire out the lower windows with high-powered hoses and trying to save what was left of the property, but it appeared to be a losing battle. Chief Jim Bitterman was on his radio, keeping track of who was where. As TJ scanned the side yard, she could see a propane tank with several officers manning a line to protect it from the fire. The noise was deafening as the flames reached into the night, the air filled with the heaviness of smoke. Grit and sparks fell all around.
The heat was overpowering and TJ moved back toward the safety of the gravel driveway. It was virtually impossible for her to take in the entire scene at once: men pointing at various spots and moving from place to place, the fire chief barking directions into his radio, more fire engines pulling in and police waving them through, streams of water whooshing through the hoses and into the fire, and additional uniformed men jumping into the fray, loaded down with forty pounds of equipment. She wouldn’t be needed yet, but it might be wise to keep back where she could have a view of everything and be able to stop any unauthorized people from coming closer.
Three May Keep a Secret (An Endurance Mystery) Page 4
