by Lois Carroll
“Nice talk.” He handed a coffee to Mac with his verbal report of his morning rounds. “All’s quiet on the merchant front,” he said. “Some of them are at a meeting at the motel coffee shop this morning.”
Mac nodded. That had to be the meeting Carolyn told him about.
Hines turned to Ellie. “Uneventful night and not a sign of the ‘strange sedan’ that Ms. Ashton said was parked at the corner across from The Costume Nook.” He emphasized the zzz sound in Ms. and Ellie giggled despite her obvious efforts not to.
With the mention of the costume shop, Hines had Mac’s undivided attention. “Whoa! What strange sedan across from the costume shop?”
Ellie explained Mavis’s call the night before.
“I think it’s time you went in person to learn more about that and about White,” Mac ordered. “Get all the details and tell me what you find out.”
“It’s probably nothing and Mavis means well,” Ellie added. “She’s one of Lakehaven’s nosier citizens, and she’s more than set in her ways.”
“Ellie, remember rule number one in police work: Don’t assume anything,” Mac told her. Ellie nodded.
“I thought ‘Thou shalt cover thy own tail’ was rule number one,” Hines interjected brightly.
“No, it’s ‘Thou shalt wear thy necktie with thy uniform’,” Mac countered with a grin.
Hines pulled a wrinkled tie from his pocket and draped it around his neck. Biting into a doughnut, he promptly dropped powdered sugar on his navy lapel. He groaned. “Hey, now look what you made me do!”
“Hines, when you’re done decorating your uniform,” Mac said, leaning way over to bite into his own confection without powdering himself, “come in to the office and let’s see what we have on the breakin. Looks like we should start looking at it as vandalism rather than burglary since nothing is missing.”
“Nothing is missing?” Ellie asked.
“Carolyn said nothing was taken,” he said as he looked through his mail. He popped the last of his doughnut into his mouth and caught Hines looking at Ellie with a smirk. Ellie stifled a smile and looked down. Mac licked the sugar from his fingers and decided to ignore the two of them.
“Ellie, when you’ve finished your coffee, go see that Ashton woman,” Mac ordered in a businesslike tone. “We’ll catch the phone. By that time I’ll be done answering this mail.”
He fanned the few envelopes in his hand and continued into his office. Damned if he was going to let them smirk about his helping out some widow.
Even if he had slipped and called her Carolyn instead of Mrs. Blake.
The Merchants Association officers meeting scuttlebutt was mainly about the burglary. A few members had even showed up at the meeting to learn what they could about it. They wanted to prevent a repeat in their own stores, but no one could really suggest any preventative measures and they didn’t know the cause of Carolyn’s breakin since nothing was missing.
“You ought to talk to Chief Macdonald about what you can do to prevent it happening in your stores,” Carolyn suggested helpfully. “He’d have some good suggestions and he’s very easy to talk to.”
“Carolyn, that’s a great idea,” Susan Kline, the owner of Gifts and Crafts, next to the movie theater, replied. “Maybe you could get him to talk to all of us at our next meeting.”
The others agreed with an immediate chorus of yeses.
“Well, I can ask him,” Carolyn allowed. “He seems to be quite helpful and genuinely concerned. He even came to my store in person to see what happened, in addition to sending someone else right away, of course.”
She felt a rush of warmth when she thought of what happened at their initial meeting. She was glad when the owner of the shoe store spoke and the members quit looking at her.
“The new Chief seems to be on top of things,” he agreed.
Carolyn had to bite her lip to prevent a smile at the intimate picture his comment suddenly presented in her mind. She almost groaned aloud.
Hazel, who owned the hardware store with her husband, couldn’t resist adding her spicy two cents’ worth. “I saw him downtown and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. He’s a hunk.” Hazel was very married but never hesitated to comment on the attractive males in her vicinity. Apparently all she did was look and joke about it. Her husband, who was there at the meeting with her, didn’t seem to mind. He must have been used to her personal evaluations of other men.
“I could stare into those gray eyes for hours. And his strong arms.” Hazel sighed dramatically. “To have those around me…” She suddenly giggled and leaned over and kissed her husband loudly on the cheek. Everyone laughed, which had certainly been her aim.
She easily diverted attention from Carolyn’s discomfort. Carolyn still couldn’t believe she’d struck Mac as hard as she could when he appeared behind her, and ended up in his arms. Hazel was right. Mac was handsome and definitely a hunk.
“Carolyn, are you sure they didn’t take anything?”
“What?” she asked, her mind busy with memories. She came back to the present and realized what they were asking. “Oh, no, they didn’t; they didn’t take anything,” she admitted. “But the smashed glass from the case front got into a lot of the makeup. I couldn’t take any chances, so I threw it out. The loss didn’t add up to my insurance deductible so I can’t collect anything, but you all know how that is.”
The dress shop owner added, “Let’s hope there aren’t any more breakins. I liked it better when nothing happened around here. We get a new Chief and some guy on the police force from Albany, and right away we get crime. Maybe we could have kept crime out of Lakehaven if they’d stayed where they were.”
That was too much for Carolyn. “You can’t blame Chief Macdonald or Officer Hines for the breakin. It’s certainly not related to their being here. I’m sure they’re doing whatever they can to find out who did it, but they said that in any town, more often than not, they never do catch the ones responsible.”
“Really?” Susan asked.
Carolyn nodded. “A merchant’s best protection is being prepared so it doesn’t happen in the first place. I’ll call the Chief today for an appointment to ask if he’ll speak to us about what we can all do.”
All eyes were on her. Though she had the confidence of conviction, she wasn’t at all comfortable with all the attention. Everyone seemed more than satisfied with her handling of the matter, so they went on to other new business. During the rest of the meeting, though, Carolyn found it hard to take her mind off her upcoming visit to see Mac. She had to keep reminding herself that the visit wasn’t for herself.
After returning to her shop and opening for business, she called the police department. “I’d like to make an appointment with Chief Macdonald on behalf of the Merchants Association,” she said to Ellie. She wanted to make sure it was clear as to why she was calling. She didn’t want anyone there to think she would call for any reason other than business. “I’d like the meeting to be at a time other than during store hours, if that’s possible.”
“The Chief is out for a late lunch, but he could see you this evening. But he has a realtor’s appointment just after that, so he wouldn’t have much time to spend with you,” Ellie told her.
Carolyn agreed to be brief. She found herself wiping her palms against her smock after she hung up. What was she so nervous about? The other merchants wanted her to ask him to speak at their meeting. She was in charge of programs. It wasn’t as if she wanted to see him for herself.
Yeah. Right.
Carolyn continued to try to kid herself along those lines until a customer came in and she turned her thoughts to work. The afternoon flew by and before she had a chance to even think about what she would say to Mac, Terri was climbing down from the school bus at the curb and running toward the shop.
“Hi, Button,” Carolyn called as she held the door open for her.
“Look at the neat book I got from the library, Mom!”
Carolyn dutifully commented
about how wonderful the juvenile mystery was and helped Terri find her snack in the little refrigerator in her office.
Seated in her mother’s chair to eat, she looked around the desktop. “Where’s my picture, Mom?”
Carolyn had walked toward the door, planning to leave her daughter to eat while she read her book. She turned back and surveyed the desktop. Not seeing the framed photo of Terri, she strode to the desk and lifted the folder on the corner. Nothing.
Feeling suddenly panicked, her heart rate sped up with worry. It struck her that whoever broke into the office could have taken her daughter’s picture and might intend to do her harm. Carolyn looked almost frantically around the office.
Her gaze rested on a stack of doll patterns on the shelf behind her chair. She hurried around the desk and picked them up. From the bottom of the pile, she withdrew the photo. “Here it is,” she said, a little breathless with relief, but trying to sound cheerful as she placed it back on her desk facing her daughter.
“Why was it over there?”
“I moved it when I cleared my desk to make room for the doll patterns I had to go through last week. When I picked all the patterns up again, I just forgot to put it back,” she added with a smile. “Am I forgiven?” She leaned over and kissed her daughter’s forehead.
Terri nodded and opened her book.
“Come on out front when you finish your snack, okay?”
The child nodded again and Carolyn went back to work. For some time, she thought about the gut-wrenching possibility of her daughter being in jeopardy. Carolyn would do anything to keep her safe. Anything. That was what you did for people you loved. She shook her head, hoping she would never be in that position. She couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to put her life on the line for someone she loved. She even wondered if she would be strong enough.
In no time at all she was turning the OPEN sign to CLOSED, locking the door, and hurriedly packing her briefcase.
“Honey, we’re going to stop at the police station on the way home. I have to ask Mr. Macdonald if he would speak at one of my Merchants Association meetings. Remember the ones I told you about that I have to find programs for?”
“I remember. Can I talk to Mr. Macdonald, too? He was nice.”
“Well, I’m sure he’s a very busy man,” Carolyn said as they put on their coats. “You can certainly say hello and then you sit quietly and read your new book while I talk to him about the program, okay?” Carolyn led her to the back door.
“I already finished the book, Mom. But I can read it again,” Terri allowed.
“That was sure fast.”
“It was a good book. You can read it too if you want, Mom.”
Carolyn smiled. “You all set? If Mr. Macdonald is going to see me before an appointment he has with someone else this evening, we have to get a move on. We don’t want him to be late on our account.”
After being married for nearly five years to Richard, who was married to his work, Carolyn was used to making the way smooth for someone else without any thought to the self-sacrifice on her part. She quickened her steps and opened the car door for Terri to climb in.
“There are doers and there are those who make life easier for them,” her husband had always said.
Of course, he always referred to himself as the doer. She was supposed to make life easy for him. So Carolyn had made sure his breakfast was ready on time and the way he liked it every morning. She kept the house and clothes clean and orderly, and she entertained beautifully when his job required it. They rarely had friends over, other than for work-related events.
In anything around the house, he never helped her much. She finally learned not to expect it. Now, looking back, she wondered if Richard ever had any inkling that she would have liked his help or her own turn at being a doer. During his life she was certain he never thought she was capable of being one. Strange that it was his death that forced Carolyn into being a ‘doer’.
He’d told her often enough that one in the family was enough. Even after she opened the shop, he never took her business seriously. Though he did seem relieved she’d found something to do. His only concession to the fact that the shop had any worth, beyond keeping her busy and not bothering him, had been to admit that the extra money she made came in handy.
Now the shop’s income wasn’t just handy, it was necessary–all that she and Terri had to live on. Though she would forever be thankful his life insurance had paid off the house.
She tamped down her thoughts of Richard as she climbed behind the wheel of her car. Thinking of him always upset her. She didn’t want to think about him now–not just before she was going to see Mac again.
“Gosh, a real lady policeman,” Terri said with a wide-eyed expression after Carolyn had introduced them to Ellie at the police station minutes later. “I told everyone at school I met the Chief of all the policemen, and now I can tell them I met you, too,” she added proudly.
Ellie laughed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” she said, leaning over and extending her hand for Terri to shake in adult fashion. She straightened and looked at Carolyn. “The Chief is expecting you, Mrs. Blake,” she said with a wave of her hand toward the closed door at the end of the room.
“Call me Carolyn,” she urged.
“Thanks. You can call me Ellie.”
Carolyn nodded and hunkered down to Terri. “Honey, you wait for Mommy here on this bench. I won’t be long.”
“Hey, Terri. How would you like a tour of the police station while your mommy talks to Chief Macdonald?” Ellie asked.
“Oh, yes! Can I, Mommy? Can I?”
“Sure,” Carolyn said, stroking the child’s head as she rose. “You be good and do as Officer Cordoba says. Mommy will be back before you know it.”
Terri didn’t even look back at her mom as she skipped toward the communication center with her small hand safely enclosed in Ellie’s. Walking toward Mac’s office, Carolyn hoped Terri kept her little fingers off all the buttons.
Carolyn knocked on the closed door and waited for Mac’s “Come in” before opening the door. “Hi. It’s just me.”
Mac stood immediately. “Is it that late already?” He shuffled papers on his desk into a pile and shoved them to one side.
Carolyn walked into his small office, leaving the door open. She was aware he watched her, but without another word, she looked all around at the sparse furniture and empty walls except for a few maps. Her stomach did flip flops. She swallowed hard and clutched her purse so tightly her fingers were white.
“How are you, Carolyn?”
She took a deep breath and turned to Mac. “Good,” she said, trying to smile, but her lower lip was trembling. She pressed them together briefly in an attempt to stop it and then began her spiel. The faster she asked him, the faster she could get Terri and go home and not feel so nervous. “Thank you for seeing me at this late hour. It’s difficult to keep earlier appointments without closing the shop. I hated to do that today after being closed yesterday. And I had to be closed for a while today, too, because I had a Merchants Association meeting. That meeting in fact, is why–”
“Won’t you sit down?” he asked softly.
His question startled her. She halted the speech she’d been working on mentally all afternoon and stepped to the chair in front of the desk. She sat on the edge of the cushion, holding her purse in a death grip on her lap with both her hands. Actually, she was glad to sit down. Her legs didn’t feel all that strong at the moment. “Thank you. As I was saying, I’m here–”
“Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Her voice cracked so she cleared her throat to achieve a firmer sound.
Mac walked around to the front of the desk and casually perched on the corner with his leg hanging close to Carolyn’s knee. She felt the warmth of his leg so near her own. The feeling was so distracting that she leaned her knees away from his and lifted her purse to clutch it protectively against her breasts. She trie
d to focus on something on his desk so she wouldn’t be tempted to look at his thighs any longer. “I came to–”
“You don’t mind if I do?” Mac rose and walked behind her to fill his mug.
Carolyn released the breath she had stored up to deliver the sentence she’d started. Then she dragged in another breath. “No, of course not. I won’t–”
“Tell me. Did you feel you needed one?”
Startled, Carolyn looked up with a frown as he rounded her chair and sat on the corner of the desk again, coffee mug in hand.
Dear heaven, he’s closer than before. His strong thighs encased in the dark blue trousers and…and… Well, if she looked in that direction…
She used all her willpower to keep her eyes on his face. What was he asking her about? “Needed one what?”
“An appointment. Did you feel you needed to call for an appointment to see me after work?”
She felt her face grow warm and lowered her head. This visit was a mistake. She should have just asked him over the phone so she didn’t have to be so close to him. “I suppose I–”
“Maybe it’s the uniform. I can take it off.”
Her head jerked up. “Take it off?” she squeaked.
He stood and unbuttoned the brass buttons on his blue jacket. “Eliminating wearing this jacket all the time I’m on duty is one of the changes I would make if I had this job permanently. It’s a nuisance. The former Chief had a thing for full uniforms and the Council insisted we keep his policy for everyone. Including me.”
Carolyn’s eyes were wide, but she couldn’t turn away from watching his hands move deliberately from button to button. He took off the dark jacket and hooked it on the coat rack before he sat down again in the same spot as before. This time she actually felt the fabric of his trousers against her knee. He rolled up his shirtsleeves to reveal strong arms dusted with dark hair. She watched the muscles move as he twisted the fabric up to his elbows.
She shut her eyes and swallowed hard. Opening them again, she allowed her gaze to follow his hand as it tugged his tie loose and undid the top button of his shirt. Tiny black curls popped free. She couldn’t admit wanting to feel them, but she gripped her purse tighter to keep her fingers where they were.
