One yelled, “You're under arrest, buster.”
“Put the box down,” the other said, pulling out handcuffs.
Jason put the box down. “Wait a minute.”
The officer handcuffing Jason's hands behind him said, “You can wait in a cell for your lawyer. Is that alcohol on your breath? You been drinking and driving?”
“No. I had one—” Jason shut up.
Footsteps clomped down a staircase between the living room and kitchen. Hyacinth appeared. “Jason? I was up in the attic when I heard somebody break in. I called 911 on my cell phone.”
The officer pushed Jason out the door, telling him his rights.
~—~—~—~ ~
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* * *
Chapter 6
Jason spent Wednesday night in the county jail in Superior. Hyacinth drove his Jeep Cherokee to pick him up on Thursday morning. She'd posted bail. Jason wondered if his sister knew about this, but he didn't dare ask and give away his cover.
Jason took the wheel, trying his best not to speed on Hwy. 13. His mood wasn't helped by huge, slushy flakes falling on his windshield. “Isn't it supposed to be spring?”
Hyacinth said, “I'm really, really sorry, Jason. I didn't know it was you. Forgive me?”
“I had to sleep with two drunks, a guy caught soliciting other guys, and somebody called Sweet Baby Billy who weighed three hundred pounds and farted in his sleep.”
“I guess it'll take a while to forgive me.”
“Just a little.”
He wanted a shower. “You were stealing stuff at Tootsie's, weren't you?”
“Not exactly stealing. Just taking the stuff that I know Tootsie would want me to have.”
Jason slammed on the brakes, then pulled over to the shoulder. It was all over; everything was over; they were over. “Hyacinth, you can't just take stuff because nobody's around watching you.”
She sniffled, of all things.
Furious with her, he still reached out to take her hand. “Hey, I didn't mean to bark at you, but you're in trouble, Hy.”
“It's not that. I have a penchant for trouble that I can't seem to shake. I wanted to start over in Moonstone.” Hyacinth sat back, looking small inside her red-plaid insulated shirt. “I visited Tootsie this morning before picking you up. She's out of her coma but she didn't recognize me. She doesn't know anybody. What if she doesn't remember her own husband?”
Was Hyacinth being contrite for having conked Tootsie on the head? Jason couldn't tell. He also got the feeling that Hyacinth didn't know Tootsie was having an affair. Or was she? As the leader of the Mavens, Hyacinth knew everything.
Jason said, “Maybe she shouldn't remember him. If he tried to murder her...”
“Bob loves Tootsie.”
“Then who tried to murder her?”
“I didn't. And I'm not a burglar. It feels like you don't know me at all.”
“Maybe not, Hy. I met you only two days ago.” He put the Jeep Cherokee back on the highway.
“But I trust you, Jason. The Mavens like you and they're a good judge of character. So why can't you trust me?”
“That group both loves and hates Tootsie. They'll turn on me soon enough. And you.”
“So what? They'll turn back just as fast. That's how they are. They always point out the truth about things, good or bad, but they're like family. Being part of a small community is like that. The Mavens watch each other's back. It's why I moved here. I didn't have that in Madison. I had people ready to stab me in the back.”
He didn't care about the crazy Mavens. He cared about Hyacinth's high jinks. He realized he cared too much.
Jason dropped off Hyacinth, then sailed back through the slush into Moonstone to talk with his sister. He told her, “I quit. I'm leaving Moonstone.”
Lily took a bite of soda cracker. “The one time I'm able to convince County to send me backup for a stakeout and they catch my own brother. I had to tell them everything. Now you can't quit. My ass is hanging bare because of you. I even had to let Hyacinth pick you up.”
Cold fear rappelled down his back. “Does Hyacinth know I'm DEA? That you're my sister?”
“No. She just asked if she could bail you out. She said the misunderstanding was her fault.”
“You didn't give her the bail money?”
“She refused. Said she could cover it. But then, she probably used the gumball machine money to bail you out. If you try and quit, that's the story I'll be telling all my friends in the business.” Lily munched on the cracker in a punishing manner. Crumbs flew. “The woman was inside the house; we had her dead to rights and you blew it. You get jailed and she goes free. But there's one last chance to get her.”
Jason wanted to protest that maybe Hyacinth wasn't their culprit, but he could see how upset his sister was and he had no firm suspects. “What's your plan?”
“I deputize you, then you dog her every move and arrest her on anything that'll stick.”
“She and I aren't exactly friends at the moment. And I was just in jail. They'll let me be deputized?”
“Bro, are you thick in the skull? My boss knows you're DEA and that you're working with the FBI on this case. You're qualified to be a deputy in Moonstone.”
“Oh.” He was tired from not getting any sleep last night and from having every fiber of his being seething over Hyacinth.
“The first thing you do this morning is get back into the sewing circle. If you have to, take Hyacinth home from there and do whatever it takes to make her talk. That's an order this time, not just a suggestion.”
“This is the silliest, damn case I've—”
His sister got up and raced off, slamming a door. Jason heard her retching. He muttered, “Great. Now I'll probably get the flu, too.”
* * * *
That Thursday at eleven a.m., Jason joined the sewing circle again. Willa Hamm wasn't there. He apologized to the group for yesterday, but they were all “atwitter” about him being put in jail by Hyacinth.
Still upset with him, she sat on the opposite side of the circle in the library. She focused on the baby's quilt the Mavens were piecing together. It had baby chicks embroidered on all four corners.
Jason sat between a fawning Lily Bauer and a grinning Ruth. Jason figured this was Hyacinth's way of punishing him. Ruth reeked of a spicy, new perfume she'd bought; the man in Kalamazoo was coming to visit her that evening. Jason longed for Hyacinth's ever-present smell of dish soap, fresh straw, maple monkey bread, and whatever else she was involved in. She didn't glance his way once. He missed her warm, sure hands guiding him. Jason stole looks at her long fingers working a needle; he remembered how she'd squeezed his arm in support after he'd talked about two people dying at his hands.
A great commotion in the hallway outside the mansion's library sent Jason to the door. Bob Winters staggered in, breathless, as if he'd run blocks. “I heard my wife's in the hospital. Somebody tried to kill her?”
Jason helped Bob plop into a chair. Bob sucked an inhaler. Hyacinth rushed over and knelt in front of him. She patted his knees. “Bob, she's in Duluth and okay. We've tried to reach you.”
“I went home just now and found a mess. Stuff gone. I thought she'd left me. It scared the hell out of me.” He sucked on his inhaler again. “I told her I was going to the boat show in Superior after the casino. The roads were icy, so I got a room. She knows I always do that.”
Jason asked, “Were you with anybody at the boat show?”
Bob said, “Sure, Tom Bauer and Greg Johnson. Had lunch with them yesterday, then they went on their merry way to haggle over boats.”
Rita nodded. “Greg came home this morning.”
Lily said, “Tom's looking for a deal on a pontoon boat. He came home this morning, too.”
Jason asked, “So they roomed together?”
Rita said, “No. Greg snores.”
“What time did he come home?”
“Just before I got the news about T
ootsie and went over to her place. Why all the questions?”
Jason said, “Maybe he passed somebody on the highway who could be a suspect.”
What he actually thought was that each of the men had time to conk Tootsie on the head before going home. Jason also wondered about the missing Willa Hamm today. He had an uneasy feeling.
While the women helped Bob get his breath back, Jason excused himself for pest control business and drove to Hyacinth's place. When he arrived he saw no cars. Good. Toad and Tildy weren't around. Jason broke the lock off its rotted wood door and got into the mysterious barn haymow.
To his dismay, it held a mother lode of goods stacked high on rows of tables.
He found other items in boxes in the other buildings. He suspected they could track most of this for sale soon on Internet sites. But he wondered if some of it would be shipped elsewhere using Asher Hamm's access to delivery trucks.
Hyacinth had to be aware of what was going on. But Jason clung to her saying she wasn't the burglar. He shook his head, more confused than ever.
When he went back outside, Tildy and Toad were getting out of their compact car. They looked at him with fearful, blank stares.
Jason wouldn't gain anything by hassling them; they'd only lie. He also didn't have a warrant on him. He'd broken in, too. He could make his sister even more upset if he pursued this now.
Jason tipped his Stetson at the two thieves. “I was looking for Hyacinth.”
“I think she's still in town,” Toad said. “At her meeting.”
“I'll catch her later, then.” Jason was about to drive away when he couldn't help but ask, “Do you guys know anything about stuff stolen from Tootsie Winters’ house?”
Guilt flowered on their faces. Tildy said, “We got a computer from Tootsie, a really nice one, but we sold it. Don't tell Hyacinth. We weren't supposed to sell it yet.”
Now what? Had they just confessed, too? Something wasn't right here. Jason said goodbye, acting nonchalant.
He returned to the LeBarron farm where he fed the chicks. They peeped and pecked. They were all fluffy, healthy babies of various rainbow hues. Hyacinth would be proud of him.
Crap! The thought made him pull up a stool next to the warm brooder lamp and plop down. Why did it matter that he measure up to Hyacinth? She was the criminal, after all. Something was topsy-turvy. I'm under some damn spell! Or Moonstone is like a Bermuda Triangle for men. The women swallow you up.
He ripped out his cell phone and called his buddies in Montana. To his consternation, John “Bozeman” Hall and Kincaid Hunter laughed their guts out.
Boze kept coughing into the phone, “You joined a knitting group? What'd you knit? Any booties?”
“I ... embroidered. A flower petal.” He swallowed hard at the hearty laughter coming back at him. “Is this how it feels? I feel like I've been swallowed by a whale. But instead of a whale it's women.” Jason's heart beat faster with panic. “Is this what you experienced?”
Kade said, “Moonstone women mesmerize men.”
Jason heard all the M's. “This woman may be a crook but she made me this omelet with meatloaf and marmalade and maple monkey bread, and it melted in my mouth.” The “M” words echoed, taunting him.
Boze said, “The women hypnotize men with food. It's real, Jase. They also get you involved in Moonstone life before you realize it. A fever hits you, but it's your values getting twisted up like a lariat and you have to sort it all out, make things right.”
“Crap.”
“What else have you been doing besides learning to embroider and eating excellent food?”
Jason watched the chicks peck at their feed under the brooder lights. “I washed a chicken, aarrgh.”
“Was it fun?” asked Kade.
“I ended up kissing her.”
“The chicken?”
“No, dammit, the woman! Hyacinth Clarehout. And I'm sitting here babysitting a bunch of baby chicks that her friend wants to sell at some festival coming up on May 1st.”
This time his buddies clucked over the phone.
His forehead hot with embarrassment—the fever, Jason asked, “What do I do to get rid of this feeling? I can't sleep, and I even want to let the lady off the hook. But she's guilty.”
“Invite the lady to dinner,” Boze said. “Talk it out. You have no choice now.”
Kade agreed. “But invite her over to your place this time.”
“There's no way I want to be alone with Hyacinth Clarehout, especially if she thinks I'm trying to romance her to make her confess.” Jason was sweating already. He envisioned being naked and making love to Hyacinth on the sofa bed in his loft apartment while chicks peeped in the next room.
“Then have her over to dinner with Peter and Crystal,” Boze said. “Treat her real nice, like family, like you believe her. Guilt her into confessing once and for all. She gets locked up, and you leave town. Case closed.”
Why hadn't he thought of that before? “What wine do I buy for a confession dinner?”
Kade said, “A merlot might be nice. It's an M and she'd appreciate that.”
“And take flowers,” Boze said. “Mums. Another M.”
Jason said, “She needs a pair of handcuffs.”
Boze said, “Maybe not. You're DEA. Keep an open mind. If a case like this busts your chops, maybe it's time you left the DEA.”
“Me?”
Boze said, “You've given the DEA almost a decade. You risk your life every day. You don't know how to live a real life anymore. You don't know how to handle a real woman. Isn't that a sign it's time to start a new era? Have some fun?”
“But what the hell else do I know how to do?”
His buddies laughed. Kade said, “Ask Hyacinth Clarehout. That's how it works. Women know what's best for men. Trust her. It's called love.”
“Love?! Hell, no, this is just an assignment I'm on.”
They were laughing so hard that Jason got mad and hung up on his friends. Mad. An “M” word. As for the “L” word ... His friends were saps. Goners.
He stared at the chicks. They peered up at him in a way that pecked at his heart. How had he gotten involved with these fuzzy fowl? Jason started sweating; even his palms sweat. He had to solve this case and get out of Moonstone fast.
He went over to the log house. Peter and Crystal thought it was a great idea to invite Hyacinth over for dinner that evening.
When Jason went to pick up Hyacinth at her place, he was shocked when she came to the door. “You cut your hair off?” He wondered if she were in the process of changing her looks in order to escape.
But she was ... new. Cute. Sexy. Her hair was in a wavy bob, curly and floaty, sort of like her silkie chickens’ feathers. He ached to touch her hair. His heart pounded so hard he was sure Hyacinth could hear it.
She was dressed in a new way, too. Hyacinth wore a powder blue sweater with a matching blue dress, a simple thing that tucked under her boobs. Her smile was the same old crooked smile, but her lips were luscious rosebuds. She had on shiny lip gloss that glistened in dusk's golden light.
He swept off his Stetson, almost dropping it. “You're ... very pretty tonight, Hyacinth.”
“Thank you. I figured I needed a new beginning after all the trouble I caused you.”
A new beginning. A new era. Jason felt old, left behind in life somehow. He had always thrived on the rules. But now everybody around him kept changing. They were guilty, then innocent, guilty again. Who was the true Hyacinth?
That evening at dinner at Peter's big, new house that smelled of new wood and its own new era for the LeBarron's, Jason tried to think back to a time when he was this relaxed. He had to go all the way back to college, before the fateful fishing trip and before his job with the DEA. His job required him to be suspicious of everybody. Every day. As he looked across the table at Hyacinth, he couldn't get over how pretty she was, how much she liked to talk, and how expressive her hands were. Those hands cradled delicate chicks one moment and built a
windmill the next. They'd touched him in tender ways that made him uncomfortable now.
Jason cleared his throat, and tried to re-focus. He realized yet again how he was never in charge when Hyacinth was around. She was smarter than he was intellectually, which didn't bother him. She was interesting. She was saying something about “barbicels.”
“What are those?” He asked it mostly to watch her hands do the explaining, the hands he shamelessly wanted on him. What if she wasn't a thief? What then?
She said, “That's the stuff that makes a chicken's feather normally hold together. Silkies lack that, so their feathers are more like our hair, flyaway and fuzzy, even on their feet. And they can't fly because of it. Guess what color their earlobes are?”
Hyacinth's earlobes were pink shells peeking out from under the bobbing curls. He smiled back into her hyacinth blue eyes and said, “Turquoise blue. I noticed their ears when I was helping you wash the chickens.”
Peter and Crystal hooted over that. Jason blushed.
Peter served dessert—Crystal's famous chocolate pudding cake. Peter said, “She brought it as a bribe to trick me into finding her missing pet reindeer. That's how we met.”
As they chatted, Jason realized he rarely sat around a table like this. He had no big, happy family, no real home, nobody to answer to except his law enforcement bosses, including his darn sister.
After dinner, Crystal showed them how she was staying in touch with her kids in school by using her new laptop computer for videoconferences. They dialed up a couple of kids right there. The built-in camera let her see the kids and they saw Crystal. The kids asked about her health and the baby in her tummy.
Hyacinth pulled Jason aside and asked him to show her the chicks in his coop. She said, “I promised Tootsie I'd give her a report.”
A couple of minutes later, Jason and Hyacinth stood among the little chicks. Jason found himself anxious, hoping he'd done well. He proudly tossed out chopped carrots for the chicks to eat. “Crystal told me they love carrots. I chopped them myself.”
Hyacinth's eyes soaked up the faint yellow glow of the heat lamps about knee high above the floor. “You've made their little hearts dance.”
Men Of Moonstone Series Page 19
