In Full Force: Badges of Becker County

by Kathy Altman

  Slowly Pratt stood. He picked up a handful of napkins, rounded his desk, and handed them to Charity. When she offered him half the muffin, he shook his head. “Did you mean it when you said ‘screw the election?’”

  Trying to follow this conversation was giving Charity a headache. And why was she eating a muffin when she already had a Pop-Tart set aside? “I want to be sheriff almost as much as you want me to be sheriff. I get it, you know.” She set the muffin on the bookshelf beside the half-eaten Pop-Tart and brushed her palms together. “You understand what discrimination feels like. Even Dix hasn’t faced the opposition you have. But the job has to come first.”

  “The job that’s supposed to include more than fieldwork and paperwork?” With a grunt, he moved back around his desk and dropped into his chair. “When was the last time you attended a community event? Or hung out at Jerzy’s or the café, instead of taking your food to go? You expect to get elected sheriff, you have to let people see you out there. You have to mingle.” He picked up the stapler and pointed it at her. “Show the community you’ve changed. They don’t see you, they’re going to think you don’t care, and they’ll elect big-mouthed Bloom. What happens then?”

  Then she was fucked all over again. She retrieved her mug and swigged lukewarm coffee. “I won’t know until it happens.”

  Sweat gleamed on his forehead as he picked at the staple jammed inside the chucka machine. “Tell me you can handle it.”

  “Handle what?”

  “Grady West.”

  Her chest squeezed hotly, and the tepid coffee turned greasy in her belly. “I didn’t expect this,” she said. “Not from you.”

  “Cut the bullshit. I was there, remember? You were crying so hard I knew if I followed regs and cuffed your arms behind your back I’d end up with snot all over my backseat.”

  “That was a long time ago.” She stood, tucked the file under her arm and gathered her one-woman picnic. First Brenda June brought up the fire, and now Pratt was bringing up the arrest. Two separate incidents, but both had Grady in common. The first had made her feel closer to him. The second had made her break up with him.

  “Yeah, it was a long time ago.” The sheriff waved a careless hand. “So was The Funk Brothers’ breakup. Doesn’t mean the pain is gone.”

  “I forgave him. I’m a law enforcement officer now, not a lovesick little girl.”

  “You’re an investigator with emotional ties to the family of the suspect you’re investigating. Forgiving is not forgetting.”

  He had a point. And, it seemed, an agenda.

  Charity stalked to the door and turned back to make her own point. Plus her hands were full and she couldn’t let herself out. “You don’t seem to have a problem with me arresting my own family.”

  “You don’t like your own family.”

  Another good point. She tipped her head. “Are you asking me to step aside?”

  He took his time getting to his feet. “I’m asking you to tell me you can handle this.”

  “Well, then.” She spread her feet in a no-nonsense stance that would probably look more intimidating if she wasn’t clutching a Pop-Tart. “I can handle this.”

  Good Lord, let it be true.

  “That’s good,” he said. “’Cause you’ll be handling most of it on your own.”

  Coffee sloshed in her cup as her hand jerked. “What does that mean?” Oh, crap. “Are you retiring now?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then what?”

  “Dix is quitting the force.”

  * * *

  This time Charity was the one tracking Brenda June to the bathroom. The dispatcher stood staring at her reflection in the mirror while water gushed from the tap. Charity turned it off, leaned into the nearest stall, grabbed a handful of toilet paper, and shoved it at Brenda June. “Your mascara’s running.”

  Dispatch accepted the wad of tissue but kept her gaze on the mirror, tipping her chin left and then right. “I’m thinking about letting my hair grow out. What do you think?”

  “I think if you let it grow out, it’ll be longer. Did you know about Dix?”

  Brenda June went limp, and the reflection of her eyes turned sympathetic. “He wanted to tell you himself.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “He’s a man.”

  Charity swallowed, but it did nothing to ease the stinging in her chest. “Do you know why he’s leaving?”

  “He didn’t say.” Brenda June turned and patted her on the shoulder. “The only reason I know he’s leaving in the first place is because I handled his paperwork.”

  “I’ll bet his wife’s behind it.” Charity leaned back against the sink beside Dispatch, and together they stared morosely at the “Wash your hands or you will get sick and no one will have sex with you” sign on the faded turquoise door of the stall facing them.

  “In the end, it’s his decision,” Brenda June said gently. “Dix has been with us longer than you have, so as hard as this is for you, imagine how he’s feeling.”

  Did a so-called friend who refused to let you wallow in self-pity serve any purpose other than to make you feel worse? “You’re supposed to coax me away from the edge, not shove me toward it.” Charity pushed off from the sink and leaned into the stall again, this time grabbing a handful of tissue for herself. “Damn it, I’m going to miss that man.”

  “Me, too. We all will. As soon as things calm down around here, we’ll start planning a kick-butt going away party.”

  With a choked laugh, Charity scrubbed at her face. “I have a strong feeling things are going to get worse before they get better.”

  Brenda June turned back to the mirror and dabbed at the black smears under her eyes. “You’re only allowed to feel sorry for yourself for one more minute, and then you have to go back to feeling sorry for me.”

  Charity sighed. Sentimental, Dispatch was not. Except when it came to Sheriff Clarkson Pratt.

  “So what do you think?” Brenda June plucked at her stunted strands of hair. “Let it grow out?”

  Charity linked her hands behind her head and walked around the dispatcher, considering her from every angle. “Since when do you care what anyone else thinks?”

  “I’m a woman. Of course I care what other people think. That’s the problem.” Her chin jutted. “My hair is too short and everyone forgets I’m a woman.”

  “Everyone?” Charity lowered her hands to her hips. “Or someone in particular?”

  Brenda June rearranged the tissue in her hands, sniffed, and dropped her face into the pile of scented three-ply, which would have been one-ply if she and Charity hadn’t agreed to take turns buying their own bathroom supplies. When Brenda June spoke, her voice was muffled by a cushiony, cloud-like softness. “The election’s in a few months, and after that he’ll retire, and what’ll he do then? There won’t be anyone around to remind him to take his medicine or pay his electric bill or bake him coconut key lime and mango cheesecake decorated with those tiny umbrellas. Not the pink ones, though. He hates the pink ones.” She started to sob.

  Charity wanted to laugh, cry, and knock two heads together at the same time. She smoothed her palm up and down the other woman’s narrow back. Brenda June’s spine felt knobby beneath her knit sweater. “You’ve been in love with Clarkson Pratt for ten years now and his wife’s been dead the last two. Why don’t you ask him out?”

  “He’s my boss. And he thinks I’m too young.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “He didn’t have to.” She lifted her head and stared miserably into the mirror. “Remember when Big Mike asked me out? Clarkson said dating out of your age bracket was like using a frayed four-weight to catch an Alaskan salmon.”

  Charity snagged another batch of tissues and nudged Brenda June to throw away the sodden mess she continued to clutch. “What does that even mean?”

  “Who knows, but it can’t be good.” She fluttered her fingers near her mouth. “His lip was all tangled when he said it.”

 
; “Maybe he was jealous.”

  The dispatcher blew her nose. “Why hasn’t he said anything?”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  Brenda June peered in the mirror again, wiping her face with the fresh wad of tissue. “Why should I listen to a woman who’s given her high school sweetheart the cold shoulder for twelve years because he once pissed her off?”

  “Pissed me off? He did a hell of a lot more than—” Belatedly Charity registered the gleam in the other woman’s red-rimmed eyes. Drawing a breath, she brushed at the front of her uniform shirt, attacking imaginary crumbs—or maybe not so imaginary, considering all the snacking she’d been doing—and giving her pulse time to decelerate. “Nice try, Brenda June. And I did talk to him back then.”

  “How many times?”

  “Once.”

  “To tell him…?”

  “That I wasn’t talking to him.”

  Brenda June sighed. “Good thing I’m too tired to kick your butt.” She opened the door and frowned at Charity over her shoulder. “I don’t get it. Trudy said you and Grady were inseparable during high school. With a history like that, it’s a wonder you two aren’t interested in trying again.”

  “We let each other down.” Charity offered a feeble shrug. “We did it so thoroughly that once was enough.”

  * * *

  Charity stared down at the bright red box in her hand. The label wavered in and out of focus and she sighed. Did she even have the energy to stir eggs and oil into a brownie mix? If she made coffee first, then yeah. She shouldn’t have either, but after the crap day she’d had, sleep was pretty much off the table, anyway.

  Following that disaster of a meeting with Pratt, she’d been desperate to get out of the office to resume the investigation and remind herself why she loved the job. Her first stop had been Kate’s place, but the teacher hadn’t been around to answer questions.

  Charity slid the box of brownie mix back onto the counter and wandered over to the fridge. She stared at the naked surfer magnet Mo had brought her back from San Diego—a souvenir she’d enjoy more if the surfer were male.

  Since Scott and Sarah had already been hooking up, it didn’t make sense that the real estate agent would break up with her teenaged lover to cultivate a relationship with his father. Unless Sarah had hoped for a commitment, or Scott had asked her to. Yet during his interview, Scott had made it clear the relationship was casual. Either Sarah shook off Drew for his own good, or because she had yet another lover in the wings—maybe someone she wanted on a more-than-casual basis. Charity hoped Kate could suggest a name or two. Right after she coughed up the name of her own lover.

  Or…what if Drew had told Sarah about Allison Young’s threat and Sarah had backed off rather than provide the girl a reason to hurt herself? Or what if Drew had lied, and he was the one who’d called it quits? If Sarah refused to go along with that, would Drew have been desperate enough to kill her?

  Crap. Could Sarah have been blackmailing Drew? Charity needed to check with Mo, see if he’d discovered anything irregular with Sarah’s accounts. Though deposits could be gifts from Scott. Charity chewed on the inside of her cheek. Had Sarah used Drew as a means of getting to his father? Had she been trying to hook a sugar daddy, or was this some convoluted plot to get back at Justine for some reason?

  Charity made a face at the model-thin naked surfer girl and yanked open the refrigerator door. A little too hard—the jars lined up under the egg compartment made a clinking, rattling fuss. She snatched up two eggs and shut the door. More rattling—did she really need three jars of olives? She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. What she did need was to find out what Scott had been up to the night of the murder. It seemed far-fetched that he’d kill his lover and let his own son take the fall.

  She set aside the eggs and consulted the box. Vegetable oil. Did she even have any? Her phone blasted the opening notes to the Hawaii Five-0 theme song and she jumped. Served her right for allowing Brenda June to pick her own ringtone. She hustled over to the basket on the table by the front door and scooped up her phone.

  “You just pulled a double shift,” Charity said. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

  “I had an epiphany. For Morrissey’s birthday next month? Peanut butter and jelly cheesecake.”

  “Oh, dear Lord.” Charity wandered back to the kitchen in search of vegetable oil.

  “I still have a jar of the boysenberry preserves Trudy put up last year.” Brenda June made a pensive humming noise. “Or do you think he’d prefer huckleberry?”

  Charity squinted at the pale gold dregs of oil in the bottom of the plastic bottle. Thank God she only needed a quarter cup. “Why would you do that to an innocent cheesecake?”

  Brenda June sniffed. “Mo will like it.”

  “Mo has no taste.”

  “Says the woman who thinks adding colored marshmallows to a breakfast cereal makes it gourmet.”

  Charity hovered at the sink and made a face at her reflection in the window—careless hair, faded tee, saggy jammie pants. She stuck her tongue out at herself. “Presentation is everything.”

  “Says the woman who spends as much time on her makeup as Dix spends on his hair.”

  “Why so mean?”

  “Why so sensitive?”

  Charity turned her back to the window and leaned against the beveled strip of counter that rimmed the sink. “I’m sorry about Pratt.”

  “I didn’t call to talk about him.” Brenda June’s weighty sigh sounded like she’d huffed it through puckered lips. “Okay, I did, but I’ve changed my mind. Tell me what’s up with you.”

  “I lied to him.”

  Silence on the other end of the phone. Charity waited, peering down at the unpolished toes that peeked out of her flip-flops. She waited some more.

  Finally Brenda June huffed air through her nose in a world-weary laugh. “Spill it, babycakes.”

  Charity pushed away from the sink and poked at the eggs waiting on the counter. “He’s worried I won’t win the election.”

  “He said that?”

  “He didn’t have to. This thing with Grady—”

  Brenda June chuckled with satisfaction. “So you admit there’s a thing.”

  “There was a thing.”

  “And how big was this thing?”

  Charity gasped a laugh, spun toward the oven and jabbed at the “On” button. “Brenda June.”

  “Sorry. Go ahead. How did you lie?”

  After squinting at the back of the box, Charity pressed buttons until the target temperature read three hundred twenty-five. “I told him I wouldn’t leave the department if I didn’t win. That I’d stay and work with Bloom.”

  “So you’re not staying?”

  Charity flinched at the piercing outrage in her friend’s voice. “I…can’t.”

  “Why can’t you? ’Cause you’re afraid he’ll talk us into buying decaf for the coffee mess? ’Cause anyone named Oliver triggers painful Brady Bunch memories? Or did you have a mad, passionate love affair, and now you’re—” Brenda June gulped. “Oh, good grief,” she whispered. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “’Fraid so. Though I wouldn’t call two nights an affair. Okay, maybe it was three.”

  “But…he’s married.”

  “He wasn’t at the time.” Charity unearthed a square pan from the cabinet next to the sink and clanged it onto the counter. “And thanks a whole hell of a lot for thinking I’d mess around with someone’s husband.”

  “Wait. The man’s been married for what, three, four years? Where’s the problem?” Brenda June made a squeaking sound. “You don’t still have feelings for him.”

  “Lord, no.”

  “Good. Because Grady West—”

  “Has nothing to do with this.” With a jerk of her hip, Charity bumped a drawer closed and tapped a wooden spoon at the air above the brownie mix. Nope, no magic here. The brownies remained unmade. She set the spoon aside and braced a hand on the counter. “Grady has nothing to d
o with anything. But I can’t imagine Bloom taking me seriously. The man has seen me naked.”

  Brenda June snorted. “Do you really think that matters after all this time?”

  “I’m not sure I want to stay and find out.”

  “If you’re leaving, you should point your car west. I hear Seattle’s lovely this time of year.”

  “Nice try, Dispatch. Good night.”

  A husky chuckle sounded through the line. “G’night, blondie.”

  With a smile, Charity set aside her phone, even as her brain continued to sift through the events of the day.

  Since Kate hadn’t been around, Charity had joined Dix at Sarah’s town house. There they’d avoided talking about his departure while unearthing evidence of multiple lovers in the forms of various articles of men’s clothing and a collection of handwritten notes ranging from sweet to smoldering. Nothing, though, that would lead them to a killer. Then Sarah’s parents arrived, and the ensuing question-and-answer session was more emotional than enlightening. Halfway through the interview, Sarah’s mother started hyperventilating. Her husband panicked and slapped her, which kicked off a loud argument and a nosebleed when she slapped him back.

  Afterward Dix interviewed Hampton and Roberta West while Charity followed up with Sarah’s coworkers. Neither of her fellow real estate agents had much to offer besides speculation about the future of Tarrant Properties and a coupon for waiving closing costs on a thirty-year mortgage. The owner, Keith Tarrant, had been out of the office. Of course no one knew anything about any unethical transactions.

  Back at the station, Charity finally confronted Dix about his plans to leave. Her suspicions had been correct. He’d told her his wife couldn’t handle living in the country anymore.

  “She says it’s too quiet and boring, and she’s miserable. It’s my fault, so I have to fix it,” Dix had said. “I have an apartment lined up four blocks from the station. She’ll be happier in the city.”

  “What about you?”