by Mary Logue
Doug shook his head. “Not much. For a while they had me on so many meds I couldn’t see straight. So I took myself off all that crap, which made me go berserk. Then my folks threw me out.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, they said I screamed too much at night and drank too much during the day. Probably right.”
“So you were at your grandmother’s?”
Doug jerked, then asked, “How’d you know that?”
“Caller ID.”
“I just stopped by for a moment to say hi. Used her phone.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Not great. Going downhill. Wants to die.”
Before Andrew could ask him anything more, the hamburgers came. He watched as Doug started to wolf his burger down. He ate like he hadn’t eaten in a week and might never eat again.
Meg wasn’t sure where Rich had gone; probably feeding the few remaining pheasants. She grabbed a jean jacket and wrapped a blue scarf she had just finished knitting around her neck a few times. If Andrew liked it, maybe she’d give it to him. She was glad her mom wasn’t home from work yet. Made it easier not to have to avoid or lie if they asked her where she was going. Who she would be with.
Andrew hadn’t sounded that good on the phone. Kind of distant. But the more she knew of what he had gone through over in Afghanistan, the more she understood him. And the more she felt drawn to him, like she could do him some good, help him through this hard time.
As much as she didn’t believe in the war he had fought, she respected him for doing what he saw was his duty. She didn’t want to be one of those people who shunned a returning soldier.
She was running late so she climbed in the pickup to drive downtown, something she rarely did.
Before she backed out of the driveway, she glanced in the mirror and fluffed her hair. She imagined Andrew’s hands in her curls. But tonight she wouldn’t let things go that far—not that she regretted having sex with him. She just wanted to get to know him better and have it happen under better conditions, like in a real bed. Some place where she might enjoy it more.
Meg drove down Highway 35 and knew they were taking a risk by meeting at the Fort. If her mom found out about it, she was just going to say that they ran into each other. What could her mom do? Ground her? A couple more months and she’d be gone. As excited as she was about going to college, she wondered if she would keep seeing Andrew.
She saw Andrew’s Jeep and was glad he was already there. Nice to have the guy be on time and waiting. Showed he was attentive.
When she pushed through the door, everyone in the place looked at her. She saw Andrew right away, up at the bar with another guy. Then she noticed Rich. He waved at her and turned back to his food. She’d talk to him later. See if she could persuade him to not tell her mom.
Andrew stood up and took her arm as she walked up. “Hey, Meg. You look great. I want you to meet a friend of mine.” He gestured toward the scruffy young man next to him. Meg guessed he was about her age. “This is Doug. We were over in Afghanistan together.”
“Doug,” Meg said and held out her hand.
He shied away from her, but ducked his head in a kind of acknowledgement. “Hey, Meg.”
She let her hand drop. “Nice to meet you.”
“Doug’s grandmother lives near here, so he called when he was visiting her. I told you about that. I asked him to join us. I hope that’s okay.”
“Sure. Where did your grandmother live?” Meg asked.
Doug’s eyes dropped to the floor. “On the farm. Down near Fountain City. She was the only family I had left, just about.”
Meg thought it was odd he didn’t say anything about his grandmother’s death.
“His grandmother hadn’t been doing that well,” Andrew explained.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I heard she died.”
Doug lifted his head and his eyes were filled with tears. “She wanted to. She was just too tired to go on living. That’s what she told me.”
CHAPTER 21
Claire walked into an empty house. She could tell because there was no smell of food being cooked in the kitchen, the radio wasn’t on, and Meg wasn’t lounging on the couch, reading or watching TV. Odd to have the house be so quiet.
Claire let her coat fall off of her shoulders. She was almost too tired to hang it up. She wanted this investigation to be over, to get back to petty crimes like brawling drunks, and teenagers TPing houses. A robbery would even be nice. Something she could sink her teeth into, but where no one got hurt.
The bones of Tammy Lee Johansen haunted her. So little left of the young woman, just the ivory structure that had held up her body only days ago.
Claire sat down at the kitchen table and rubbed her face. She knew she had to eat. She looked around to see if Rich had left her a note, but there was nothing. Unusual. Maybe he was mad at her about something. She knew that he wasn’t terrifically happy about her taking over as sheriff, even if it was temporary.
She had decided to hold Terry Whitman in jail over night. His last statement was enough for her to claim suspicion; the threat to kill two people. She wanted to talk to him in the morning, when she was more alert and he was more scared, see what she could get out of him. If he didn’t lawyer up. She was sure he didn’t have his own lawyer, but he could still ask for one. If he did, she’d be looking long and hard at him for the murder of Tammy Lee.
She also needed to talk to Andrew again. She kept getting conflicting reports about his relationship with Tammy Lee. He said he broke up with the girl while in Afghanistan. According to Amy, her sister Bria said she thought Tammy Lee broke up with Andrew, but then said her sister still talked about him all the time. The parents said she broke up with him, as did Terry.
But then why was the ring in his car? Had it slipped off her finger when he drove her home, or had she purposefully taken it off and dropped it so she’d have a reason to see him again, to let him know she was available?
Andrew hadn’t seemed proud of the fact that he had broken off their relationship—and of course, she was inclined to believe him—but who would tell her the truth? Maybe she should talk to Tammy Lee’s sister herself?
Claire took some bread out of the wrapper and put a couple of pieces in the toaster, then she got out the peanut butter and cherry jelly. She needed to eat something. She thought about having a glass of wine, but somehow it didn’t seem to go with her sandwich, so she settled instead for milk.
She sat at the counter eating her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and thought about the Burning Boat. Somehow it made her so sad that she had been enjoying the flames peaking into the sky, not knowing that a body was being burned as hundreds of people stood and watched. She wondered if they would ever dare do another Burning Boat celebration.
When she was finished with her toast and had licked her fingers, then washed her hands, she got out her notes on the case. Bria Johansen, a Minnesota number. What had Amy told her—the woman lived in Hastings and was a school teacher. Sounded reliable.
A woman answered on the second ring. Claire told her who she was and why she calling.
“Do you know anything more?” Bria said. “I’m having a very hard time believing this has happened to Tammy Lee.”
“We’re working very hard to find out who would do this to your sister. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. Tammy Lee and I weren’t very close, but I know I’ll miss her all my life. You just do.”
“Yes, you just do.” Claire resisted thinking about her first husband who had been killed.
“Do you get used to it, being a cop?” Bria asked.
“Not really. I’m often surprised by how much I come to feel like I know the person who has died, even though I’ve never met them.”
“Tammy Lee was a pistol.”
“So I’ve heard. What about Terry, her fiancé? How did you get along with him?”
“Oh, we didn’t have much in common, but he seemed okay. He was on the same wavelen
gth with Tammy Lee and could keep up with her.”
“What about Andrew? Andrew Stickler? Did you know him?”
“Oh, of course I knew Andrew. He was a sweetheart. I think I was nearly as sad as Tammy Lee was when they broke up.”
“So who called it quits, and why?”
“Well, Tammy Lee claimed she was the one who sent a text to him, but I’ve always had my doubts. She seemed pretty crazy about him. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure they would have stayed together much longer if he had not gone off to war. You don’t think Andrew had anything to do with this, do you?”
“We’re just checking out everyone. Had they been in touch much since he’d been back?”
“I guess a little. I think he gave her a ride home one night. She said something about getting together with him at the Burning Boat. I wasn’t surprised. I don’t think there were any hard feelings between them.”
“We found her engagement ring in his car.”
Bria made a sharp intake of breath. “That’s where it went. Tammy Lee said she dropped it. I wonder if she did it on purpose. To tell you the truth, I think she still had a thing for Andrew.”
“Do you think Terry knew this?”
“Tammy didn’t tend to keep quiet about her feelings. He might have.”
“Do you know if Terry was ever violent with Tammy Lee?”
Bria stayed quiet for a few moments. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since I heard how Tammy Lee died. I don’t know if he ever hit her, but he could be terribly jealous. She called here crying one night, this was about a half a year ago, saying she was going to leave him. I guess she had been talking to another guy at the bar when he got off work, and he went ballistic. I told her she could come and stay with me. Next thing I knew, everything was fine. Wasn’t long after that he bought her the ring. She was anxious to get married. Then Andrew came back and she seemed to be having second thoughts.”
“Is there anyone else we should be looking at?”
“I can’t think why anyone would want to kill her. She really just wanted to have fun, like that song.”
Meg ordered a burger and the three of them went to sit in a booth. Andrew squeezed in next to Meg, and Doug sat across from them. Meg was surprised that Andrew and Doug were friends. They just seemed and looked so different. Andrew was calm and smooth where Doug was like choppy water.
“So you already got another girlfriend?” Doug said, tapping his fingers on the table like he was playing a piano.
Meg thought this was rather an odd question and was curious how Andrew would answer it. She wondered if she was his new girlfriend.
Andrew put down his hamburger and said, “What’d you mean, another?”
“I remember that Tammy Lee. How hot she was. You talked about her. You showed me her picture.”
“Remember, I broke up with her.”
“Yeah, but she kept writing you. I thought for sure you’d get back together when you got back home.”
“No chance of that now. She’s dead.”
Doug’s forehead wrinkled. His hand stopped tapping as he lifted it to his face and wiped his eyes. “Really? I saw her just a while ago. Tracked her down. When you threw her picture out, I kept it.”
“When did you see her?” Meg couldn’t help asking. She had noticed that Doug hadn’t asked how she had died.
Doug turned her way, but his eyes were darting around the room. Meg felt his nervous energy like a buzzing electrical current. “I don’t know. The days run together. Like not quite a week ago.”
Meg knew the day Tammy Lee had died; she couldn’t help keeping track of her mother’s work. “Friday?”
“Could be.”
“Did you talk to her when you tracked her down?” Andrew asked.
“Sure. We talked about you. I told her about the vow and how you had broke it. I wanted her to understand that you weren’t good enough for her.”
Andrew leaned forward and Meg was glad there was a table between the two men. He looked like he wanted to hurt Doug. “Doug, why?”
“I’m not going to forget it, Andrew. I saw what you did. I watched it happen. You let Brian die.”
Andrew pushed himself out of the booth and stood, looking down at Doug. “What did you see? What do you think you saw?”
Doug stood up, too, and they were face to face. Andrew was clenching his fists and Meg was afraid he was going to punch Doug. “We promised each other that we would do everything we could to get through the war together. We made a vow that we would go together. You promised, and you broke it.”
“I kept my vow.”
“No, you didn’t,” Doug screamed. “You let go of Brian. You could have saved him, but you let him fall and then they shot him. They shot him over and over again, and you let it happen. He’s dead because of you. I know. I was there.”
“Doug, that isn’t what happened.” Andrew held himself back as he spoke slowly.
Then Doug pulled out the gun.
When Rich stood up from the bar to leave, he saw that Meg, Andrew, and the scrawny guy had settled in a booth. Should he stop by and say something to them? Would he tell Claire about this when he got home? He hated to be in the middle between mother and daughter, and it didn’t happen very often.
As he stood there watching them talk, it looked like the conversation was getting a little heated. Then Andrew lunged out of the booth, and a moment later the other guy did, too. They were facing each other, almost touching, air crackling around them. Meg was starting to get out of the booth.
Rich was getting a very bad feeling. The scrawny guy sucked in air around him like a black hole. He was headed toward something that had nothing to do with what was happening in the bar.
Then the guy pulled out a gun.
Rich reached in his coat for his cell phone and with just a glance punched in the code for Claire’s number.
Time to call in the posse.
CHAPTER 22
Claire registered Rich saying three words—“Meg, Fort, gun”—and she was out the door without her coat, her car keys in one hand, her gun in the other.
She ran to the squad car and then stood for one full long second outside the door, tilted her head up, and prayed to whatever was up there that could help her. Then she was in the car and careening backward down the driveway. As she turned the car toward Fort St. Antoine, she put in a call for backup. Heaven help anyone on the road with her.
It took her just over a minute to get the Fort, but she noticed everything, the cars swaying by going the other direction, the blur of the trees on the sides of the road, the road like a corridor she was headed down, the dotted line in the middle of the road beating a pulse in her head.
She forced herself to slow down as she raced into town and pulled up behind a pickup truck right outside the Fort. Again, a breath. She needed to be calm to save her daughter. Her darling daughter. Meg. Nothing could go wrong. She couldn’t live if it did.
Peeking in the window she saw Andrew and another guy talking with Meg standing in between them. Why did her daughter have to be there? She had warned her about Andrew. Claire couldn’t see the gun, but assumed it was hidden from her view. She had to act as if it was pointed at someone and take every precaution.
Claire ran to the back of the Fort and went in through the kitchen. A lanky teenaged cook was pulling something out of the deep fryer. She clamped her hand over his mouth, then whispered to him, “Get out of here right now. Go out front and when the other deputies come, have them wait for me to signal them.”
She shoved him toward the back door and hoped he had the sense not to let the door slam. Claire ducked down, slipped through the doorway into the main room, and snuck up behind the bar.
When she peeked over the wooden countertop, she saw that a blond guy who looked more than half crazed had the gun pointed at Meg, and Andrew was trying to talk him down. Meg had frozen. It was worse than Claire had imagined, and she had to push all such thoughts away.
Claire pulled ou
t her gun and got ready.
Meg couldn’t believe this guy was pointing a gun at her. She almost wanted to laugh, just to break the horrible tension in the air, to not believe it was real. But she could tell from Andrew’s reaction to him that this Doug was a live wire and apt to go off at any second.
She was hearing what they were saying, but she wasn’t really comprehending it. Words washed through her like glass beads of fear. She was still alive. They were still talking. She was still breathing. Focus on that.
It sounded like Doug was still fighting in the war. That’s all she could figure. He hadn’t been able to come home. He blamed Andrew for something horrible. A friend of theirs had been killed, and Doug thought it was Andrew’s fault. And then all this talk of a vow, that they would all go down together. Just like Andrew had explained in the barn.
Doug was pointing the gun at her, but he was looking at Andrew. He said he would kill her, because that way Andrew would hurt the worst. Just like he had killed his other girlfriend.
Meg raised her hand as if she could stop him from doing something. Then she pointed at the hole at the end of the gun barrel. Maybe it was like in the cartoons where if you put your finger in the end, the gun exploded.
She didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t say any words.
So she reached out and put her finger on the end of the gun.
Andrew remembered that last firefight in Afghanistan in flashes. They had walked into an ambush. Doug was shot immediately. Then Brian started to go over the edge of a cliff and Andrew tried to grab him, flinging out his hand. Brian’s hand grabbed his, and he hung over the drop. Andrew was lying flat on the ground, and Brian’s fingers were squeezing his wrist. The drag on his arm was tearing something deep inside of him. The barrage of bullets thickened in the air. With every breath, Andrew commanded his hand to hold on, and then he felt a slip.
Brian’s fingers flew free.
He let go of Andrew’s hand.
