by Laurel Dewey
She had to figure out a way to call Ron Dickson. Then she had to convince him to check the Property Report Form for that elusive silver cigarette case that somehow jumped from the crime scene photo and into the hands of the homeless man. It went against the rules of the game but Jane knew she had to start making her own rules.
At least, that’s what she told herself as she stood in front of the pay phone outside The Pit Stop. Jane knew that the evidence room was usually quiet in the late afternoon. Fortunately, she remembered the direct line to Ron’s phone. She also remembered that Ron took breaks around 11 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. She figured she could catch him coming back from his break around 4:00 and cut a deal while he was still giddy from the candy bar and bottle of pop. While Emily stood outside the Subaru, practicing her line dancing steps in the parking lot, Jane dialed the number. It rang twice before someone picked up.
“Evidence, Johnson.” Johnson? Jane was taken aback. Johnson was a lackey who worked the back room. “Hello?” Johnson said. “Is someone there?”
Jane’s first reaction was to hang up the phone but she’d gotten this far and she needed to keep going. She lowered her voice in a weak attempt to alter her voice. “I need to talk to Ron Dickson.”
“Ron’s not here. Can I help you?” Johnson asked.
“No. I need to talk to Ron. When is he back from his break?”
“Who is this?”
“When is Ron back from his break?” Jane said, undeterred.
“Ron’s on suspension.”
“Suspension?” At that point, Jane heard Chris’ voice in the background. She knew it went against policy, but she had to find out what was going on. “Put Detective Crawley on the phone!”
Jane felt her heart race as Johnson handed the phone to Chris.
“Who’s this?” Chris asked in his usual gruff tone.
“It’s me.”
Chris quickly spoke to Johnson. “Hey, I need privacy for a bit. Thanks . . .” Chris waited several seconds, then pressed his lips into the receiver. “Jane, where the fuck are you?” he asked in a thick whisper. “I need to talk to you in private. Give me your phone number and I’ll call you back from the pay phone down the street. That way, no one here can trace the call.”
“Chris, I can’t! I’m not supposed to be talking to anybody!”
“Then why are you calling Ron Dickson? Anything you can tell Ron, you can certainly tell me! I’m still your partner, for God’s sake!”
Jane felt the walls closing in on her. She quickly regretted concocting this wild scheme. “Goddamnit, Chris. Why is Ron suspended?”
“It seems that your sweet little Christian pal has a pesky cocaine habit!”
“What?” Jane was floored.
“And guess where he was scoring his coke?”
“From evidence?” Jane said, skeptically.
“You got it!”
“Has everyone down there lost their mind? Ron is not a coke addict. He wears a D.A.R.E. button on his collar—”
“When did you become so fucking ignorant?” Chris said. “I don’t give a shit if he drives around in a mother-fuckin’ van with big D.A.R.E. letters plastered across the side! He’s been pinching the evidence to the accumulated tune of over five ounces! God only knows what else he’s been pocketing. All that time you were talking to him and buying into his Christian do-gooder bullshit, he was a cokehead and you couldn’t even see it! I told you that night when we saw him in the hospital after your little ward fell off the roof of her house that something wasn’t quite right with him! He was sweating and shaky. Hell, he was probably coming down and jonesin’ for some powder!”
Jane thought back to that awful night nearly one month ago. Ron approached Chris and her in the hospital with his finger bandaged—the result of nearly cutting off his left finger while chopping beeswax for his wife’s herbal salve. She recalled his pale complexion and shaken appearance. She also remembered Chris jumping to the illogical conclusion that somehow Ron’s demeanor was connected to Emily’s case. “It’s not true!”
“Pull your head out of your ass, Jane! I kept an eye on Ron ever since that night and I did my own little investigation. I know drug addicts. I know how they think. Ron stands in that cage every day knowing that literally pounds of coke are sitting right behind him in little plastic K-Pak bags. ‘Who the hell’s gonna miss it?’ he thinks. And he would have gotten away with it if I hadn’t convinced Brass about my suspicions. They agreed to do a surprise audit of the property room and what do you know, Joe, but the blow was missing! I’m a fuckin’ hero around here, Jane! A fucking hero! With the amount of coke Ron took, Brass figures he’s been dipping into the powder since May!”
Jane factored the information. “May? How would they know that?”
“They just do, Jane.”
“They just do? What kind of answer is that?”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you! Shit is going down here, Jane!”
“What about Johnson? Did you question him? Maybe he pinched the coke!”
“Ron had blow in his pocket! He was caught red handed! Deal with it!”
“You’re enjoying this. What is it about Ron that you hate so much?”
“What is it about him that you like?” Jane turned toward the sound of the chugging coal train as it inched up the mountain to pick up the day’s black harvest. “What in the hell is that?” Chris asked.
“The coal train.” With that, the train rumbled past The Pit Stop. Once it cleared the area, Jane continued. “Ron didn’t do it, Chris. I don’t care how much you try to convince me. He’s innocent of that and of whatever else you think he did.”
“Whatever else? What exactly do you mean by that?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“You sure are one cocky little bitch!”
“There are some things that you don’t know. And this is one of them.”
“Don’t hold out on me, Jane! You called here for a reason. What do you know? Has that kid been talking?” Chris’ tone was slightly intimidating.
“Maybe. But, if you think I’m telling you, you’re more fucked up than I thought.”
Chris lowered his voice. “Let me pass on some friendly advice. Whatever you do, don’t even think about sharing your information with Weyler.”
Jane’s ears perked up. It was completely against Chris’ character to suddenly become so forthcoming after puffing himself up and dishing out the insults. “Why?”
“You talk to Weyler about anything you know . . . anything . . . and you’ll have another dead kid on your hands. I’m not bullshitting you, Jane. You can’t trust him.” Jane felt her heart skip a beat. “Someone’s coming,” Chris whispered. “I gotta go.”
And with that, he hung up.
Chapter 23
For the rest of that day and most of the night, Jane could not shake Chris’ voice in her head. “You’ll have another dead kid on your hands” played repeatedly in her mind. Of course, Chris was referring to Amy Joan Stover. Jane knew if she thought of Amy too much, the nightmares would start again.
By eleven o’ clock that evening, Jane was still wired. Emily had fallen asleep in Jane’s bed an hour earlier, leaving Jane alone to sort out the “what ifs.” She paced back and forth in the living room, chain smoking with renewed vengeance. Occasionally, she stopped to look out the front window as the huge trucks pulled up across the street by the park to set up for the Peach Pit Days Carnival. By morning, the park would be transformed into a raucous kaleidoscope of colorful tents, food booths and carnival rides. She needed peace and quiet so she could think clearly. Something was very wrong at Denver Headquarters.
As much as she hated to admit it, she was grateful that Chris was able to squeeze out the warning about Weyler. Soon, though, that gratitude was replaced with anger—anger that she was, once again, a sitting duck waiting to be picked off. The anger passed and a sense of intense vulnerability overwhelmed her. It occurred to Jane that it was the same feeling that blanke
ted her that night sitting in the patrol car with Chris while they awaited the return of the Stovers in their SUV.
She thought back to those fateful moments before all hell broke loose. Why did she feel vulnerable, Jane wondered. Maybe it was because Chris was so edgy and pissed off at Bill Stover when he was told to stay put in his house. As they both watched Stover drive down the street accompanied by two unmarked police vehicles for protection, Jane suddenly recalled how Chris shook his head and said, “What an asshole! He really wants to sign his own death certificate!” Up until that moment, Jane had forgotten Chris’ comment. His voice had that same cocky cadence when he picked up his cell phone and called one of the flank vehicles.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Jane remembered Chris saying to the driver on his phone. “I can’t believe Stover was so stupid! He drives off with his family for ice cream so he can get thirty minutes in the outside world! Thirty fucking minutes! It looks all clear from here but hurry up!”
Whatever it was that triggered Jane’s feeling of impending doom and vulnerability on that tragic evening just over six weeks ago, she found herself right back in the middle of the same anxious tension. There was too much going on—too many lies that she had to remember so she wouldn’t blow her cover. It was enough pressure to pretend to be someone’s mother. But now, she had to lie to the sheriff, and pretend that her “daughter” had a severe blood disease. At least, that hinged on whether Dan was able to successfully deliver the bogus message to the sheriff. It was beginning to feel like a bad soap opera.
By the following Saturday morning, the park across the street teemed with carnival visitors. Jane awoke to the discordant sound of pipe organ music against the steady drone of the strident carnies. Emily was not in bed with Jane, a fact that was unusual since she spent every night there. “Emily?” Jane called out.
No response.
Jane dashed out of bed and sprinted down the hallway toward the living room. There she saw Emily perched in a chair, eagerly looking out the large front window at all the action across the street. “I called your name!” Jane said, irritated. “Why didn’t you answer me?”
“I didn’t hear you,” Emily replied as the blaring sound of carnival activities grew more noticeable in the living room.
While she had always taken her job of protecting Emily very seriously, Jane felt a heightened sense of duty ever since Chris’ disturbing comment. Jane sat on the couch, feeling the weight of the world press down on her.
Emily sensed that something wasn’t right. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing . . . Just the usual bullshit.”
“We’re still gonna go to the carnival, aren’t we?”
“It’s just a small-town deal. Convicts put these rides together. Drunken convicts!”
“So we don’t go on the rides. We can eat popcorn and, maybe go to the dance. I mean, I don’t have to go, but you do.” Jane regarded her questionably. “Remember? You owe Dan two dances for fixing the water pipe.”
Jane leaned her head against the couch, in no mood to kick up her cowboy boots. “Fine! But we’ll just go for the dance and maybe some popcorn and then back to the house. Deal?”
“Deal!” Emily said excitedly.
Emily had been dressed in her western attire a full two hours before leaving. Jane emerged from the bedroom dressed in a crisp black western shirt, blue jeans and her weather beaten, scuffed cowboy boots.
“You fixed your hair!” Emily said with a big smile.
Jane self-consciously tousled her hair. “I just washed it and fluffed it up.”
“You look really good.” Jane shrugged her shoulders and slid her pistol into her fanny pack. “Do you have to bring your gun?”
“What do you think?”
Emily stood up, smoothing her jeans. “Just make sure you don’t bump into Dan too hard when you’re dancing with him. The gun might leave a dent on him!”
The two of them strode through the park just as the sun set behind Strong’s Mesa. Jane kept Emily close at hand as they wound around the throngs of people and made their way toward the sound of the country band that was playing “We’re From the Country” inside the large center tent. After paying the entry fee, Jane lead Emily through the crowd until they found two folding chairs near the side of the makeshift, wooden dance floor. Couples of all ages two-stepped and scuffed their boots across the floor. In the far corner, Emily saw Heather and her friends doing their robotic line dancing turns and shuffles to the music. Kathy hovered nearby the girls, taking nonstop flash photographs.
Jane and Emily walked over to a long table filled with homemade brownies, cookies and tubs of red punch. The band wound up their song with a striking fiddle chord as the crowd hooted and applauded. Jane bought two glasses of punch and a brownie and retreated to a pair of folding chairs against the wall.
A road weary, middle-aged cowboy crossed over to Jane, holding out his hand. “May I have the next dance?” he asked, a wad of tobacco wedged firmly in his cheek.
“I’m not in the mood right now, thanks!” Jane replied.
“I’m the best two-stepper in town!” he said, licking his lips and blinking rapidly.
Jane was quickly tiring of the guy’s incessant advances. “No, thank you!”
The guy reluctantly moved on to his next conquest. Emily, who hadn’t missed one word or flicker of an eye, leaned over to Jane and spoke into her ear. “I don’t think he can dance as well as he said he could. Did you notice his face?”
“I certainly did!” Jane regarded Emily with a sense of pride, realizing that her protégé was quickly catching on to the veiled signs of deceit.
The band swelled into another toe-tapping country tune as Dan approached them. “Glad you two girls could make it!” he said, a broad smile filling his face. “We got ourselves a good band this year!” Dan turned to Emily. “Hey, darlin’, would you mind gettin’ me a punch?” He passed her a five dollar bill. “You keep the change!”
Emily’s eyes lit up as she raced toward the food table.
Dan turned to Jane, his voice becoming serious. “I did what you asked regardin’ Sheriff George.”
“How’d it go?”
“Okay, I guess. At least for now, I think some of the heat’s off.”
“Thank you.”
“I can’t guarantee how much time I bought you.”
“That’s okay, Dan. We’re not gonna be here forever.”
Dan’s face fell somber. “I thought you were gonna try and make a home here.”
Jane suddenly realized that Dan had feelings for her. “No. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”
“Where are you headed after this?”
“I don’t know.” Jane looked over at Emily standing at the beverage table. “We have family in Cheyenne,” she said, thinking quickly. “That’s probably the next stop.”
“Cheyenne, Wyoming? Aw, we got lots more to offer you right here! We got a good climate, excellent schools, small town livin’ and we’re just thirty minutes from a Super Wal-Mart!”
“You oughta work for the Peachville Chamber.”
There was an awkward moment between the two of them that was broken when Emily reappeared with the punch. “There you go!” Emily handed the cup to Dan.
“Thank you, ma’am!”
Emily looked over to the dance floor where Heather and her friends were pounding out their moves. Emily yelled above the loud music. “It’s just not right!”
“What’s not right?” Jane asked.
“You and I are ten times better than they are!”
“We’re a couple, Patty. Not a line!”
“How many does it take to make a line?” Emily asked.
“More than two!” Jane announced.
Emily looked up at Dan and tugged on his shirtsleeve. “Are you a fast learner on the dance floor?”
“Well, yes, ma’am!” Dan said proudly.
The band brought the song to a pounding end. Without missing a beat, they launched into a cove
r of the Dixie Chicks’ “Some Days You Gotta Dance.” Sensing the moment was right, Emily grabbed Jane by the arm and yanked her toward the dance floor. “Come on! Let’s show them how it’s really done!”
Jane unwillingly lurched forward. But once she was on the floor, she knew that turning back would only attract more attention. Emily shouted “Cowboy Hustle,” and Jane nodded in agreement. They kicked off a series of synchronized steps that drew the attention of Dan and almost every other male in the place. Heather and her friends continued their tired dance steps, unaware that directly behind them, Jane and Emily were boot scootin’ to a different drummer. After carefully watching the dance pattern, Dan sidled up along Jane and matched her step for step. He proved to be as good a dancer as Jane, shuffling and sliding in perfect rhythm. Kathy stopped taking photos of her daughter long enough to observe the trio that had taken over center stage. A look of dismay mixed with indignation fell over her.
An admiring group of onlookers circled around the trio, cutting off Heather and her friends. The crowd cheered on the impromptu troupe as Heather was forced onto the sidelines. The hooting and hollering reached a fever pitch as the singer belted out the last line of the song. In perfect sync, Jane and Emily along with Dan stomped on cue to the last beat of the music. The crowd erupted. Both Jane and Emily looked around, a bit overwhelmed by the out-pouring of appreciation. Emily caught Heather’s jealous eye and smiled broadly toward the brooding brat.
One of the Festival organizers walked onto the stage and took the microphone. “I think everyone will agree,” he said to the crowd, “that we have a brand-new winner of the line dancing contest this year! Come on up here, gals! You, too, Dan!”
Jane and Emily were shocked by the announcement. Dan backed off, wanting Jane and Emily to take the spotlight, but Jane urged him on the dance floor. The last thing she wanted was to be featured in front of all those people. Emily climbed onstage as the announcer brought out a twelve inch, gold plated statue that depicted a single line dancer in a distinctive pose. He handed the statue to Emily. “What’s your name, darlin’?” the announcer asked, poking the microphone in her face.
