Shepherd's Watch

by Angie Counios

  Shepherd’s Watch

  © Counios & Gane, 2017

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing.

  March 2017

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the author or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  While this book is suggested by actual events, it is in its entirety a work of fiction. All characters’ names have been invented, all characters have been composited or invented, and incidents have all been fictionalized.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Counios, 1968-, author

  Shepherd’s watch / Counios & Gane.

  (A Shepherd & Wolfe mystery)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-927756-95-9 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-927756-96-6 (EPUB).--

  ISBN 978-1-927756-97-3 (Kindle)

  I. Gane, 1973-, author II. Title.

  PS8605.O8937S54 2017 C813’.6 C2017-900935-4

  C2017-900936-2

  Printed in Canada.

  21 20 19 18 17 2 3 4 5

  Cover © istockphoto.compiranka.

  Book design by Heather Nickel.

  Interior image © istockphoto.combildfokus

  Production made possible with the support of Creative Saskatchewan.

  www.ynwp.ca

  1

  Terry Butler peers through his glasses, turning the engagement ring over in his grease-stained hands.

  “I don’t know what the hell I’m looking at.”

  The jewelry store clerk leans in with a lint-free cloth and scoops it out of Terry’s hands. “Diamonds are graded by many factors: their brightness and the colour of light they reflect but also their craftsmanship and size.”

  “What’s that mean to me?”

  She forces a smile. “That this ring is of exceptional value.” She polishes the edges where Terry handled the band with his dirty fingers and sets it back in its spot in the display case before moving down to the end of the counter.

  “Perhaps this might be more fitting?” She fetches another ring and brings it back, placing it on the soft mat on top of the glass counter.

  Terry stares at it but doesn’t pick it up. His eyes shift back and forth between the ring she just carried over and the one below it in the case. Maybe it’s the way the light fills the display but Terry’s sure that the new one doesn’t shine as bright.

  He doesn’t know much about rings, but he knows which one his girl, Miranda, is going to like more.

  He pushes a finger against the glass, leaving a dirty smudge that the clerk will need to clean later. “How much for that one?”

  He probably wouldn’t have spent so much time worrying about the ring if he’d known he’d be dead by nightfall.

  2

  Outside the jewelry store, Terry unlocks his car and gets in. He’s got to get back to Huber Motors.

  He knows he has the money—well, almost all the money. There’s some in his savings, but it’s still not enough. He might be able to set up an in-store line of credit, but that could be tricky, and payday isn’t until the end of the month. He could scrape together a private advance from the safe money he holds for his side job. Then when his butthole boss, Huber, gives him his paycheque in a few days, he could replace it and no one would know he’d borrowed anything.

  He drives past Donnie’s Pizza and waits at the only intersection in town with a stoplight. It’s Friday and Estoria is buzzing with people buying food and booze for the weekend. He checks his watch—only a few minutes left on his break—so when the light turns green, he guns it across.

  At the car dealership, he scans the room for Miranda. He doesn’t see her anywhere, but Huber’s at his desk, signing contracts. Huber glances up at the clock on the wall, and Terry waits for him to start something, but Huber, thank God, keeps quiet.

  “Where is she?” Terry asks, blocking the doorway of his boss’s office.

  “What’s it to you? She’s got her own stuff to do.”

  Huber is always playing favourites with her and Terry hates it. He could be a minute late and get dragged into the office, but Miranda can go for an hour-and-a-half lunch and Huber will conveniently not be around to notice. But it’s not worth getting into and Terry starts to move away.

  Huber grabs an envelope off his desk and calls him back, “Hey, Butler!”

  Terry walks over and takes it. He tears it open and adjusts his glasses to see the total on the cheque. “This is lower than normal!” he glares at Huber. “What gives?”

  “You kept coming in late last week.”

  “I was helping my buddy Little Joe with his car.”

  “Not on my time.”

  “But he bought it from you!”

  “Yeah, and he should have come to me to get it fixed. You don’t do service calls for all my customers, do you?”

  Terry shakes his head in disgust—Huber’s such a dick—and is walking to the shop when he notices another cheque in the envelope.

  He pulls it out. Six hundred dollars. Written on the memo line in red ink are the words discharged / laid off.

  Terry storms back into the office and slams the cheque on Huber’s desk.

  “What the hell?!”

  Huber leans back in his seat, hooking his hands behind his head. “Seems Christmas came early for you.”

  “Cut it out! You firing me?”

  “I’m downsizing.”

  “But the work bays are full!”

  “For the guys that show up.”

  “I’ve been here since your dad ran this place!”

  Huber’s not having it. “In this economy, you’re either making me money or costing me money. I got to cut back.”

  Terry’s hands ball into fists. “Isn’t that your new fully loaded muscle car sitting out front?”

  Huber sits up in his chair. “Yeah, because I bust my ass every day.”

  But Terry’s not done. “Oh, and that’s why you’re never around and it’s Miranda who’s running all over town doing your crap?”

  Huber leans forward with a shit-eating grin. “Yeah, and what’s she doing for you?”

  Terry doesn’t wait for him to finish. He’s over the desk, tackling Huber to the ground. They wrestle on the floor, and Terry gets one good swing at Huber’s smug mouth before a customer and a couple of service guys from the back pull him off.

  “Get the hell out of here!” Huber yells as he straightens his tie and rights the chair behind his desk. “And when you see Miranda, tell her I said hi.”

  3

  Terry fiddles with his bent glasses as he spins out of the dealership, smacking a garbage can hard and sending it skittering across the parking lot. In a last gesture of rebellion, he snatches a wrench from under the seat of his truck and pitches it at the front window of Huber Motors, but it falls short and only kicks up a little puff of dust that is whisked away in the wind.

  A country song about Saturday nights and back-road parties plays while he drives across town to Miranda’s. He turns the volume up, overenthusiastically tapping the steering wheel as he sings along.

  Huber will likely press charges and Terry hopes they won’t be too serious. Now that he thinks about it, getting the boot could be for the best—he wasn’t getting what he deserved anyway. He should’ve quit a long time ago.
<
br />   Only trouble is, this sure as shit cuts his chances at getting a line of credit at the jewelry store—and he only has about two-thirds of what he needs to buy Miranda’s ring. He could likely scrounge up a little more, take the extra out of his safe money, but he’d have to pay it back without anyone noticing, and that wouldn’t be easy.

  And Miranda—what’s she going to say about him getting fired? She’ll be pissed, but maybe he could take a bit of his severance and take her out for the night. Maybe, if he got a few beers into her, they could blame Huber together.

  As long as he has her, everything will work out.

  4

  He pulls into Miranda’s driveway and walks toward the house. His hockey duffle bag is sitting on the front step, a white envelope jammed in the side pocket, but he ignores it and goes to the door. It’s locked.

  “Babe!” he yells, knocking. “Where are you?”

  She comes to the door wearing too tight jeans, a spaghetti-

  strap tank top in red, and hoop earrings. Her lips are glossy, her hair in a ponytail.

  “Didn’t you hear me calling?”

  “What do you want, Terry?”

  “What do you mean, what do I want? Let me in. I’m taking you out. Supper, drinks—the works.”

  He tries to push the door open, but she’s got her whole body wedged against it.

  “Terry, stop.”

  “Wait, are you in one of your ‘moods?’ ” He adds the air quotes for emphasis.

  She looks past him at the duffle bag and the envelope. “Didn’t you read it?”

  He glances at the paper sticking out of the bag, a dull worry worming its way into the base of his skull—he’s had enough envelopes for one day. “Why would I?”

  “It’s for you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re over.”

  “Come on, enough of this,” he grumbles. “Let me in.”

  “Take your stuff and get out of here.” Miranda’s face is strained. She’s ready to cry.

  He slides an arm through the doorway, reaching for her, trying to hold her hand. “Come on, baby, let me in. Let’s talk about this.”

  She leans back from his grasp, keeping her weight on the door. “Terry, I’m done talking.”

  “Why? What happened? I thought—” He thinks about the ring and how good he had felt on the way over. “I thought we were doing good together?”

  “Terry, it’s just…”

  “What?”

  “I need something else. I need to move on.”

  His hand falls down to his side, and Miranda takes advantage of it to close the door on him.

  The lock clicks shut.

  Standing on the porch, forehead against the door, he cries out, “I love you!” but she’s already gone.

  5

  Two hours later, Terry stumbles out of the Hillside Bar, the afternoon sun sunk low in the sky. He leans back through the door, yelling goodbye to his buddy, Bartender Chad. Only Bartender Chad seems to feel sorry for Terry and the wrongs he’s suffered: Miranda’s cruel words and that jerk-ass, Huber.

  As he heads for his truck, Terry shifts a fresh case of beer under one arm and digs in his pocket for his keys, but all he finds are the two cheques from Huber.

  He pulls them out and raises them to the sky, sneering at them. “Huber, you lazy son of a bitch.” He stuffs them in his pocket and swings the beer over the tailgate into the back of his truck. “Couldn’t even wait ’til the end of the month to get rid of me.”

  He searches again for his keys, finds them this time, and sticks the right one into the lock after three wrong tries.

  “End of the month? Wait…” he mumbles to no one in particular. “If today’s Friday, then—” He tries to calculate the days in his head, then on his fingers, and nearly falls over.

  But the math makes sense.

  “Aww, shit!”

  If he’s right—and he’s pretty certain he is—this is the week he’s supposed to do his other job. He can’t figure out how he’s messed up the days, but he’s glad he figured it out before it’s too late.

  He hops into his truck with newfound energy. He’s got to hurry back to Miranda’s to pick up his safe money, then get to the lake.

  6

  He sits in his truck, scoping out Miranda’s place, swiveling his head left and right. No vehicles on the road or in the driveway. No sign of her at all.

  “Good,” he announces, “because screw her.”

  He drives around to the back alley, parks the truck tight to the shed, banging his door against the siding as he tumbles out.

  “Shh…”

  His attempt at stealth fails, as does any pretense at sobriety. Still, he shuts the truck door gently and walks up to the rear entrance of the house with a casual air.

  He peers through the window in the door, rapping on it. “Miranda? You home?”

  Silence.

  “Perfect.”

  He twists the knob, then shakes it. Locked. He checks under the welcome mat but finds nothing.

  She must’ve moved the key.

  He looks around and sees a potted plant on the patio table. He checks underneath.

  “Bingo!”

  He picks up the house key, waving it at an invisible Miranda. “You dummy!” He congratulates himself with a one-sided

  high-five, impressed by his own cleverness.

  He slides the key into the lock and goes into the house, shutting the door behind him.

  Inside, he forgets to remove his heavy boots and goes straight for the kitchen. There’s a big bouquet of roses on the table that wasn’t there the day before. He searches for a card on them but doesn’t find anything; he digs in the garbage under the sink, but it’s empty.

  Pushing the mystery flowers out of his mind, he opens the fridge and takes out the remains of a tuna casserole. He throws the whole plastic container in the microwave. While he waits for it to heat, he stares at the bright flowers and decides to check out the bedroom.

  “More than one way to find out who they’re from.”

  He finds the computer tablet she keeps by her bedside and swipes to open it up, but it wants her passcode. He tries her birthdate, but it doesn’t unlock.

  “Crap.”

  He tries a few more combinations, using as many of her family’s birthdates and phone numbers as he can remember, until it finally locks him out. He tosses it aside and searches through the bedside table, but there’s nothing of interest.

  Beep beep. His leftovers are ready.

  He grabs his food and douses the steaming casserole in hot sauce. Spoon in hand, he goes down to the basement.

  The whole space is a testament to the time and energy he put into Miranda. When they first started dating two years ago, her basement was bare concrete walls and wood joists, but now there’s a small living room with ceiling tiles and a few half-framed rooms.

  While he finishes the last cheesy bite of tuna, he moves to the back office and picks up the small ladder he keeps nearby. Setting the plastic container down, he climbs the rungs, reaching up to the ceiling tile behind which he hides his money. These acrobatics are too much for his inebriated brain, and he tumbles backwards into a stack of boxes of Miranda’s tax receipts, scattering them across the floor.

  He finds his glasses and sets them back on his face, then uprights the files and jams them back into the boxes at random. That’s when he hears someone come through the front door.

  “Terry? I’ve called the cops.”

  Shit, it’s Miranda. Maybe, if he just doesn’t move—

  “I know you’re in here. I saw your truck out back.”

  He hears her moving around the house above him, opening and closing doors. He sets the ladder up again to try and get his money, but now she’s at the top of the stairs, yelling, �
��Terry, get the hell out of here!”

  She’s coming down the stairs.

  He can’t get the money without being seen, and she’ll definitely ask questions he doesn’t want to answer. He’ll have to leave it and hopefully come back for it later.

  He folds the ladder up and sets it against the wall, taking his tackle box and the fishing rod off a shelf before turning to go.

  She’s standing at the bottom of the stairs, arms folded.

  “Relax,” he says. “I just came back for the stuff you forgot to pack.”

  Miranda stares at him as he passes; she’s pissed, but he doesn’t care. As he goes by her on the stairs, he whispers the word “bitch” before pushing out the back door.

  7

  Terry drives like a maniac out of town; he’s running out of time.

  Every third Friday of the month for the past two years, he’s headed across the lake with three coolers full of ice. One of the coolers holds a small, resealable, plastic bag full of cash that his buddy Little Joe gives him. On the far shore, he’d meet a woman named Cousin Rachel and exchange these coolers for identical ones that are zip-tied shut. Cousin

  Rachel isn’t a member of Little Joe’s family, but Terry’s sure she’s part of some family of the mob variety.

  If Terry never cuts the zip ties, always keeps the coolers closed, and never asks any questions, he can keep doing the run and earn himself five hundred bucks every month. He’s cool with the arrangement—ignorance is bliss—and he likes not being tossed over a bridge chained to a block of cement.

  But without the cash for the coolers, he has a big problem.

  He has to come up with a plan so he doesn’t miss the meeting—there’s no time to wait around for Miranda to leave.

  Steering one-handed, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the two cheques, adding the totals in his head. Should be close enough. Huber might be a jerk of a boss, but he does pay what he owes, so Terry sets them on the seat next to him, satisfied with his solution.

  He snatches a pen from the glove box and scribbles on the memo line of one of the cheques, only to find the pen dry. He tosses it out the window, digs out a black marker from the centre console, checks to make sure it works, then signs the back of each cheque, the ink seeping through the paper. He gazes at them over the rim of his glasses, pleased that he’s averted a crisis, unaware that the truck has swerved over the yellow line.