To Protect Their Child

by Sheryl Lynn

  Lillian brought a pot of tea and a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies. “You’re worried about Ric, aren’t you?”

  “That, too.” She guessed what Ric’s real problem was. He couldn’t separate the boy he’d been from the girl Jodi was now.

  “Are you in love with him?”

  Elaine thought about it. “I think so. But Jodi really hurt his feelings, Mama. Even if he won’t admit it.” A cheeky scrub jay sailed to the edge of veranda and cocked a beady eye at her. She tossed it a bit of cookie. It snatched up the crumb and flew away. “McClintock hurt him bad. He’s been running from that hurt all his life. He can’t tell the difference between his situation and Jodi’s.”

  “He’s not talking about leaving, is he?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I swear, sheep have more sense than men.”

  “I know one thing for certain. My days of sneaking around are over. I’m not going behind Jodi’s back to see Ric. Either he makes peace with her, or we don’t stand a chance.”

  The housekeeper brought the day’s mail. Lillian sorted through the bundle of bills, advertisements and catalogs.

  Sipping the lemon scented tea, Elaine watched her daughter. Standing tall, her golden hair shining, Jodi looked so much like Ric it made Elaine’s heart hurt. Jodi worked the longe line with a deft touch, making it seem as if the Morgan read her mind.

  Were Elaine young and dumb again, perhaps love would be enough. She knew better now. She and Jodi and Ric were a package deal. Either they worked out their problems together, or they fell apart.

  “Oh, look,” Lillian said. She handed over a thank-you card. “Pastor Rimes truly is a gracious soul.”

  Elaine read the note written in the pastor’s elegant, old-fashioned script. There had been enough donations to Del’s memorial fund to repair and repave the church parking lot. The pastor intended to erect a plaque in Del’s memory. He asked Lillian to prepare a few words for the unveiling.

  “One thing I’ve always appreciated about the pastor. He knows when the time is right for a sweet gesture.”

  Donations. Elaine could almost smell dewy grass, feel the sharp cold of the October dawn. A hitch of old, instinctual fear over graveyard-ghost stories imprinted on her brain in childhood. “What do I do with it then?” she asked Ric. “Buy me breakfast?” he replied. As clearly as if she held it in front of her face, she saw the envelope: I’m sorry.

  “Honey? What’s the matter?”

  “Did Daddy ever mention bad debts?”

  “Hmm, not that I can recall. Why?”

  “Last October I went early to visit Bobby and Daddy. I found an envelope stuffed with money leaning up against the mausoleum door. It was an odd amount, more than three thousand dollars. There were even some coins.”

  “I’ll be. Any idea who left it?”

  Elaine pulled a facial shrug. “Not a clue. I gave it to Pastor Rimes, and didn’t think anything more about it. But whoever left it wrote I’m sorry on the envelope. Nothing else. No note or explanation.”

  “Are you thinking Bobby’s killer left it?”

  “I do not know, Mama. Could you go through Daddy’s paperwork? See if there were any debts that had to be written off as a loss. I’m going to give the pastor a call.” She raised crossed fingers. “Maybe he kept the envelope.”

  Lillian gave her an admonishing look. “Seems to me a lot of our recent problems are a direct result of certain people haring off on their own, and keeping information to themselves. Report this to Tate. Let him do all the questioning. But I can tell you right now, only one debt was written off.”

  “Who was it for?”

  “Your father loaned Dooley Nichols money to hold off foreclosure. But then Dooley up and died. Maria Nichols wanted to work out a payment plan, but I convinced her it was more advantageous tax-wise if it were written off as uncollectible. Do you honestly think our men died because of a bad debt?” Lillian waggled a hand in a shooing gesture. “Sounds to me like someone has a real guilty conscience. Call Tate.”

  Elaine went indoors to do just that. She reached the acting sheriff. Before she could state her business, he said, “You might want to go check on your uncle, Elaine.”

  “Oh, Gil, what has he done this time?”

  Gil made uncomfortable noises. At length he answered. “He caused a row last night in Chuck’s Feed Wagon when the bartender cut him off. They called me, but the sheriff was gone before I got there. He’d gone up to the Track Shack. Got into a fight with Tate.”

  “He’s drinking again? Oh no! Was anybody hurt?”

  “Just a lot of yelling and blustering. Tate got the old man’s keys away from him, then took him home. I ain’t seen him drunk like that in twenty years.”

  Elaine swallowed hard, her throat aching, remembering King’s shattered expression when the town council demanded his suspension. Being sheriff was all he had; she’d been party to taking it away.

  She asked Gil to have Tate call her whenever the deputy could spare a few minutes. Then she hurried outside to tell her mother about King.

  ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH, Ric had decided. Television bored him to tears. He was sick of reading. Everyone he knew was working. Tate was too busy to give Ric updates on the murder investigation. Walt was knee-deep in a cabinet job he wanted finished by the end of June. Jodi still wouldn’t take his phone calls. Elaine was helping her mother with ranch business, and he missed her so much even his hair ached. Ric felt as if he were in prison, in an isolation cell, forgotten by the world.

  He strapped on the back brace. He kept the chest fasteners fairly loose and the waist fasteners tight, which made it as comfortable as a plastic corset could be. He buttoned a flannel shirt over the brace. A glimpse of himself in a mirror made him grin. He looked as if he wore body armor. “Commando Buchanan reporting for duty,” he said to his reflection.

  Cane in hand, he made his careful way out of the house. Buster scampered ahead, his nose to the ground and his tail wagging. A shout caught Ric off guard. He’d been concentrating on his footing and hadn’t noticed King McClintock swaggering up the street.

  As the old man drew closer, Ric noted it wasn’t a swagger, but a stagger. Buster growled. His hackles lifted while his tail tucked between his legs.

  “I’m talking to you, boy!” King yelled.

  Ric judged the distance to the front door. He’d never make it before King caught him.

  King squelched all hope of escape when he pulled a weapon.

  Buster took one look at the gun, yipped then darted for the house where he slithered out of sight beneath the porch. Ric stared into the bore of a blue-steel revolver pointed at his chest. Wishing he were wearing body armor, he forced his eyes off the gun and up to King’s angry face. “Good afternoon, sir.”

  King’s eyes were sunken and bloodshot. A miasma of boozy fumes surrounded him. His white shirt was wrinkled and grimy, with one tail hanging out. He swayed on his feet, but his gun hand was steady.

  He was good and drunk. Mean and drunk. Ric’s mouth went dry.

  “Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” King’s mustache was stiff and yellowish. His nose was bright red. When he talked he looked like a ventriloquist’s dummy with his lower lip clacking up and down. “Shoulda followed my gut in the first place. Now I’ll show ’em. I ain’t over the hill. I ain’t outgrown my usefulness. Uh-uh! Ain’t no punk bastard gonna make a jackass outta me.”

  Ric kept his gaze steady on King. His ears strained for the sound of neighbors or an approaching car. He wished his dog was a hundred pounds of meanness rather than a gun-shy twenty-five.

  “What exactly does your gut tell you, sir?”

  “You killed Bobby and Del. They wrecked your big plans about worming your way into my family. Got your revenge on all of us, didn’t you? Well, I’m onto you now. You’re gonna confess. Gonna write it down.” He wagged the gun at Walt’s front door. “Get moving.”

  Ric suspected that if he entered the house, the only way he’d be lea
ving would be in a body bag. His only hope was to keep King talking until someone noticed them.

  Ric pretended to chew over King’s words. “My gut says you killed Bobby.”

  King reared back. His eyes were piggy, glowing red in the shadow beneath his hat. “What kinda nonsense is that?”

  “Isn’t that a .44 calibre revolver?”

  King scowled at the gun as if he’d never noticed it before. “That’s right.”

  “Bobby wasn’t shot with Del’s .38. It was a .44 round that killed him. Probably a revolver, too, since there weren’t any ejected shell casings.”

  “I’d no more shoot that boy than I’d shoot my own foot. Get in that house. You got a confession—”

  “And there’s your motive to consider.”

  “What motive?”

  “Greed. Big money from selling your riverfront property. You were conspiring with Axton behind Del’s back. Hiding it from Lillian, too. You stood to make a lot of money if Axton developed that land. Bobby caught you.”

  King used the gun to scratch his cheek. “That’s just plumb stupid. Damned Axton’s been bugging me about that land ever since he showed up. Got to be a regular joke, ’cause he’s knows for damn sure I ain’t selling off nothing with the McClintock brand on it. Is this Raleigh’s big investigation? Trying to prove I killed Bobby? Good God almighty, he’s an idiot! Town should know better than to trust some slick talking yahoo from back East.”

  “If you didn’t do it, then who did?”

  “You!”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something, sir?”

  “What’s that?”

  “At the time I’d just been released from the hospital. Remember, sir? I was on crutches. I couldn’t drive. And I don’t own a handgun.”

  “Huh.” King chewed a corner of his mustache. “Mebbe you had help?”

  “An accomplice.” Ric nodded as if it made sense. “You have a point there. But who? Bobby was the only real friend I had in town. He wouldn’t help me kill himself.”

  “What about your uncle?”

  Ric wagged his head back and forth. “Come on. Walt’s a pacifist. He doesn’t hold with fighting. Doesn’t have much use for firearms either. We have to come up with a better suspect.”

  King was relaxing, looking less belligerent and more interested. Ric took what comfort he could from Elaine’s assurances that beneath all the bluster, her uncle had a good heart. He hoped that applied when King was drunk.

  “Besides, sir, if I wanted revenge against your family, there are easier ways. A custody battle, for instance.”

  “I should have locked you up and thrown away the key when I caught you that time with Elaine. Why couldn’t you leave that girl alone?”

  “I loved her, sir.”

  “And I know exactly what part of her you loved.”

  “Hey, there!” came a high-pitched shout. “Is that you? It is you! What are you doing out of bed, Ric?”

  King turned his head just enough to see Walt’s next door neighbor. In her eighties, she was a spry little bird of a woman. She strode purposefully down the walk. Sunlight glinted off her thick eyeglasses. Her health was excellent, but her eyesight even with glasses was as poor as a mole’s. Her hearing wasn’t good either.

  “Sheriff? What you doing jaw-jacking with this boy when he’s supposed to be in bed? I told Walt I’d keep an eye out for him. What’s he do as soon as I turn my back? Sneaks right outside. Ric, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Her nostrils flared and her nose wrinkled. “Hoo-wee! What’s that stink?” She leaned close to King and sniffed. “It’s you! Smell like a pot of bad whiskey, young man. What are you doing drinking? Ain’t you learned nothing at all?”

  “Go on back in your house,” King said. “This is official police business.” He gestured with the revolver, but she either didn’t notice it or ignored it.

  “Don’t you be official police business-ing with me, King McClintock. I know darned good and well you’re on suspension. You’re drunk, too. Ought to be ashamed.”

  If not for the gun, Ric would have burst out laughing. “Ma’am, this really is police business.”

  “Son, you got to the count of three to get your butt back inside or I’m calling Walt. One, two, three! Fine!” She spun about and marched back to her house. She muttered about foolish children and drunken hooligans.

  “Old biddy’s blind as a bat,” King said.

  Ric pulled at his lower lip to keep from laughing. “I know. But she makes the best apple crisp I’ve ever tasted. And her pork roast is something else.”

  “Mmm-mm. You ain’t tasted heaven until you’ve tried her Christmas cake. Uses enough rum to float a ship. Darned things should be illegal.” King was grinning, his eyes gone mellow. He made motions as if to shove his revolver into a holster, except he wasn’t wearing a holster. He crammed it into the front of his pants.

  Ric half-expected the old man to shoot himself. When the weapon didn’t do worse than make King’s trousers sag, Ric breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Where was we, boy?”

  “Figuring out who killed Bobby, sir.” He wanted to make a dash for the house, but dashing was out of the question.

  “Oh, yeah.” He cocked back his hat and squinted into the sun. “If it weren’t you, and it weren’t me, then who did it? You sure about the .44 bullet?”

  “I saw it myself. Tate is having it tested for Bobby’s blood. Del discharged his weapon that night, but all he hit was the wall. Are you sure you and Axton weren’t scheming to develop the riverfront?”

  King snorted in derision. The force of it made him rock and thrust out his arms to maintain his balance. Ric wondered how long and how much he’d been drinking. He vaguely recalled someone saying that King was an alcoholic. Pity mixed with disgust.

  “Let’s walk on over to the Track Shack. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and we can discuss this.”

  “I don’t like you, boy.”

  “I know, sir.”

  “Been hard on you for a good reason. Boy like you, growing up without no proper daddy, a no-good mama, you’re wrecked before you leave the chute.”

  Ric clenched his jaw against an angry rebuttal. King was calm, and Ric wanted him to stay that way.

  “Reason you turned out good as you did was ’cause I kept a hard eye on you. Yessir. Hard eye and discipline, that’s what keeps a boy straight. Oughtta thank me.”

  When the sun turned to ice.

  “Don’t know what ’Laine sees in you.”

  “No accounting for taste, sir.”

  King laughed, his belly jiggling against the revolver’s grip. The laughter faded into a hiccough. “Always the smart mouth. Ah well, my mama always said, can’t be nice, at least be polite. Reckon since you’re Jodi’s daddy, damn it all, I can be polite across the table from you.”

  “I am more than happy to return the courtesy, sir.”

  King shook a grimy finger. “But I still don’t like you.”

  “The feeling is entirely mutual.”

  King began scowling again, his gaze gone distant. “Hold on just a minute! Did you say a .44?”

  Ric’s scalp prickled with impending trouble. “Tate knows all the particulars. Let’s give him a call. He needs all the help he can get with his investigation. With your exper—”

  With speed and grace that was astonishing in light of his drunkenness, King whipped the revolver out of his waistband. He waved it wildly in the air. “That old fool Tom wasn’t just blowing smoke! He knew all along Axton did it!” He set off in a shambling run.

  Ric shouted at King to stop. His heart sank. Just what this town needed, a hostage situation on Main Street.

  The neighbor came outside again. “I called Walt. He says you best get back in bed pronto or he’s coming home.”

  “Call the sheriff!” he shouted.

  “What?” the old lady asked and cupped a hand around an ear. “Call who?”

  “Call the sheriff!”

  “He was just here.” />
  Ric ground his teeth in frustration. “Please call the sheriff! Tell them there’s an emergency at Crowder Realty!”

  He set off as fast as he could. His jaw clenched against pain flaring through his back. He made it to the corner of Second and Main. From what looked like a distance of a thousand miles uphill, he could see the realty sign. He didn’t see King, or anyone else. Usually the sidewalks bustled with foot traffic, but there was no one out at the moment. There weren’t any vehicles driving on Main either. Ski season was over. The summer tourist season hadn’t begun. Locals were taking care of cattle or planting hay or tending peach orchards.

  “If not for bad luck,” Ric muttered, hobbling onward.

  He prayed Axton Cross could get King talking and keep him talking. This town didn’t need another tragic shooting.

  ELAINE PROWLED the back streets of McClintock. She’d been to her uncle’s house, his favorite fishing spot on the river, and even to the sheriff’s station. She glanced at the cell phone on the passenger seat. Mama was supposed to call if she found King. Her uncle couldn’t have gotten too far. His truck was still parked behind Chuck’s Feed Wagon. All four of his horses were in the corral behind his house. She prayed he wasn’t lying in a ditch, drowning on snow melt.

  She turned onto Main and spotted a familiar figure limping up the hill. Her mouth fell open. Had every man in the valley gone loco? She pulled up beside Ric and honked the horn.

  She was ready to blast him for his foolishness. He yanked open the passenger door. “King has gone gunning for Axton!”

  Incredulous, she searched his face for any sign he was making a joke. He was flushed and sweating. His eyes were wild.

  “First he came after me. Drunker than Clooney Brown. Looks like he hasn’t slept in days. But I got him to talk. Got him calmed down. Then he latched onto Axton for the killer.” He paused to drag in a long breath. “I’m sure he’s at the realty. Call the sheriff or Tate or somebody.”

  She had no time for fear or thinking. She ordered Ric into the Jeep. He hadn’t even closed the door before she punched the accelerator. He used her cell phone to call the sheriff’s station. Elaine steered into the realty parking lot. Axton’s car was there, and so was Linda Pallo’s. The only other car had Pennsylvania plates.