Thirty-Two and a Half Complications

by Denise Grover Swank

  The man looked from me to Joe, narrowing his eyes. “Is there anything I can do for you, chief deputy?” He grinned. “Sorry we haven’t had a chance to drop off a plate of cookies to welcome you to town.”

  The men behind him laughed.

  “Oh, that’s not necessary,” Joe drawled, rolling back his shoulders. “There’s plenty of time for all of us to get acquainted. And I have a feeling we will.”

  The man staring down Joe grumbled, then turned away, heading out the doors with his friends. And Samantha Jo.

  “What the hell were you doing, Rose?” Joe’s angry voice barked as soon as they were out of earshot.

  “I’m in church, Joe.” I shrugged off his hand and stepped away. “Surely you can’t object to that.”

  “That’s not what I’m objecting to, and you know it.” He moved closer. “Why were you talking to those guys? Did this have anything to do with you talking to Toby Wheaton at Jasper’s?”

  “Why do you always assume the worst of me? I was heading over there to talk to Samantha Jo. We went to school together and she was in the bank robbery too. I was going to check on her and see how she was handling it.” It wasn’t a total lie.

  Joe’s anger visibly faded. He seemed to be buying my story.

  “You can check the police report to verify that she was at the bank that day,” I volunteered. “And ask your date if I went to school with her.”

  His mouth dropped in shock. “Date? Who said we were on a date? Violet asked me to help her get the kids to church.”

  “Why on earth would you agree to that?” I scoffed. “You can’t stand Violet and you never once went to church the entire time we were together.”

  His grin turned wicked. “Maybe that’s because when I was with you I had better things to do in the morning before I got out of bed.”

  A blush rose to my cheeks, but thankfully Neely Kate appeared beside me.

  “Well look at you, Detective Simmons,” she said, looping her arm through mine and pulling me back a step. “I didn’t know you were a church-goer.”

  “Seeing as I’m no longer with the state police, detective is no longer necessary,” he said, tilting his head good-naturedly, but I knew him well enough to read the challenge in his eyes. “It’s Chief Deputy Simmons now.”

  This was all for show. Joe was well aware that my best friend knew about his current employment. So what was he trying to prove?

  “Do you know what’s so strange?” she asked. “You always hated this town. Yet here you are, living in it by choice.”

  He shrugged one shoulder and gave her a smug grin. “Well, that’s the beauty of being in the sheriff’s department. I don’t have to live in town. I only have to live in the county.” He turned his attention to me and winked. “Are any of the places by your farm available for rent or sale, Rose?”

  “Leave her alone, Joe Simmons,” Neely Kate spat out.

  Joe’s smile fell, and a mask of authority settled over his features. “If you just wanted to talk to Samantha Jo,” he asked me, “what caused all that ruckus?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they recognize me because of Crocker.”

  It was obvious he didn’t believe me, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it. “You better not be trying to investigate this case, Rose.”

  Neely Kate’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “What case?”

  He grinned, but it wasn’t friendly. “Don’t encourage her, Neely Kate. Tell her to leave this one to the authorities. Next time I might not be around to save her.”

  “I’ll tell her to keep that in mind.”

  I snorted. “Or you two could pretend that I’m actually here.”

  Neely Kate looked past Joe and smirked. “Someone’s not happy, Joe,” she singsonged.

  Sure enough, Violet walked up with Mikey on her hip. Ashley was with a group of little girls on the other side of the foyer. Violet put her hand on Joe’s upper arm, her face tight with anger. “Joe, I wondered where you had gotten off to.”

  “I had some official business to take care of, and lo and behold, I ran into Rose.” He waved a hand toward me as though he was presenting a prize.

  Violet gave me a withering look. “Imagine that.”

  “I’m surprised you’re not here with Brody MacIntosh,” Neely Kate sneered.

  Violet tried to look affronted, but instead she looked like she’d been caught red-handed. “What a silly thing to say, Neely Kate. Everyone knows that Brody got back together with his wife.”

  Neely Kate glared at my sister. “As if that would stop you.”

  Rage flooded Violet’s face. She glanced around, but I knew it was all for show. “Where’s Mason?”

  “Working.”

  “On a Sunday morning?” she gloated. She’d warned me before that she thought he was a workaholic.

  “He’s working on a big case.”

  “Oh, really.” Joe shifted his weight. “Which one?”

  I straightened my back and crossed my arms. “Seeing as it’s official county business, how do you suppose I’d know, Chief Deputy?”

  Violet put her hand on Joe’s arm. “Sundays are sacred. And how you choose to spend them says a lot about your character.”

  “Yeah, it sure does,” I said dryly, arching my brow at her pointedly. “And in Mason’s case, it says he’s a dedicated, hard-working, conscientious man who works long hours to ensure that the citizens of Fenton County get justice.”

  Violet grabbed Joe’s hand and interlaced their fingers. “No, Rose. It shows where his priorities lie. And that’s clearly not with you.”

  I expected Joe to gloat, but his expression was rigid as he jerked his hand away.

  “Go enjoy my castoff boyfriend while living in my castoff house, Violet. I hope you’re very happy being second best.”

  I spun around and started for the door, Neely Kate right behind me, when I heard Jonah call my name. I groaned, not because I didn’t want to see him, but because I needed to escape from Violet.

  But Jonah was an observant man—part of the reason he was a great therapist—and he followed me out the door and onto the white concrete steps. “Hey,” he said when he caught up with me. “Got a minute?”

  I nodded, afraid to say anything. Neely Kate and I followed him to the end of the wide steps, where we would have a little more privacy.

  “I saw what happened in there. I’m sorry.”

  “You mean with Violet?”

  He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “All of it. You need to be careful with those guys, Rose. They may go to church, but they mostly do it to prove they’re rehabilitating.”

  Neely Kate put her hands on her hips and shot him a glare. “Then why do you let them into your church?”

  “I don’t consider them dangerous to most of the parishioners, Neely Kate. Otherwise they wouldn’t be here. But Rose is a special case…” He looked into my eyes. “You had a vision of one of them, didn’t you?”

  I gasped. “How did you know?”

  “I know you by now. I know they only last a second or two, but your face gets an odd expression, as if you’ve gone on a trip and left your body behind.”

  Neely Kate’s eyes brightened. “Yeah! You’re right, Jonah. I hadn’t thought about it.” She lifted an eyebrow at me. “Although you don’t look like that when you close your eyes and have one on purpose. Only when a vision catches you off guard and your eyes are staring off at nothing.”

  “Okay…”

  “So did you have a vision?” he asked.

  “Yeah, only I don’t know whose head I was in. I didn’t say or do anything in the vision. I just saw two guys in a dark room. One of them was Mick, the bank robber in the SpongeBob mask.”

  “Did you see his face?” Neely Kate asked, excited.

  “No, but I saw the other guy’s face.” I took a deep breath. “They need ten thousand dollars more and they figured out a place to rob. But my vision ended before they said where.” I sobered. “And Mick was the one who
killed Mr. Sullivan…I’m sure of it. He said Mr. Sullivan knew too much and was going to give them away.”

  “You have to tell the police,” Jonah insisted, a worried look in his eyes. “What did you say after you had your vision?”

  “That they were going to rob someplace else. All of them heard me.”

  Jonah’s mouth pressed tight. “You’re not safe, Rose. I know you can’t report your visions to the police department, but you should tell Joe.”

  My shoulders tensed. “I can’t.”

  “Why not? I know it’s an awkward situation, but he knows about your visions. He’ll believe you.”

  Neely Kate shook her head. “There are a few things you don’t know about.”

  He looked around. “I noticed Mason’s not here. Did you talk to him about…you know…?”

  I gave him a soft smile. I knew what he was asking. “Yes, and while he admits the timing stinks, he would welcome it. And Neely Kate knows all about it.”

  “So what do I not know?”

  Neely Kate filled him in on everything, but stopped after saying that Joe had insisted on driving me home after I found poor Mr. Sullivan’s body. I took over from there and told him the hard part.

  Jonah was just as understanding as I’d known he would be. “And how did Mason react when you told him about the kiss?” he asked.

  I sucked in a deep breath and waited for the burning in my eyes to fade. “Not well. But he forgave me and we made up. Kind of…It’s just going to take some time.” I paused. “But he needs to talk to you, Jonah. Can you call him and set something up? Soon?” I leaned into his ear and whispered, “Hitting Joe unlocked his guilt over what happened in Little Rock. He’s having violent nightmares. I’m scared for him.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “He told me he’s open to talking to you.”

  Jonah gave me a hug. “I’ll call him this afternoon.”

  “Thank you.” I kissed his cheek and leaned back. “Now tell me who those guys are.”

  “Rose…” he groaned.

  “Now you know why I can’t ask Joe for help. But if you tell me their names, I can give them to Mason. He’ll figure out a way to unravel this mess.”

  He grimaced and looked out into the now-emptying parking lot. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

  “Jonah, at least one of those men was involved in Mr. Sullivan’s murder. What if they kill someone else?” It was a low blow and I knew it, but I was desperate to save my business.

  Jonah cocked his head. “And you’ll tell Mason all the information I give you rather than trying to solve this on your own?”

  “I’ll tell him. I promise,” I said, leaving out the fact that I fully intended to continue pursuing the matter with Neely Kate. I felt more than a little guilty about making a lie of omission to a man of the cloth, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  He released an exaggerated sigh. “Okay…the big guy with the tattoos and the earrings—he was standing next to the pretty girl—is Moose Mahoney. He works out at Weston’s Garage. The skinny guy next to him is T. J. Majors. He works with Moose. The other guy, the redhead, is Eric Davidson. He’s got a job as a manager at the Burger Shack. And then Lars Jenkins is the one who came up to you after your vision.”

  “And where does Lars work?”

  “He’s currently unemployed.”

  My attention perked up. “So he’d need money?”

  “Rose.”

  “This is all information for Mason.”

  “Maybe I should just talk to him myself.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “He stayed home because he said he’s working on some big case he can’t tell me about. He’s anxious about this one, but he won’t tell me anything about it.” I gave him a smile. “He worked in the office at the farm all day yesterday, and then he was back at it this morning.”

  Jonah’s smile twisted slightly. “Mason needs to find more balance between work and a personal life. I was hoping he’d find that with you.”

  A band squeezed my heart.

  “Oh, Rose,” Jonah exclaimed when he saw my face. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s not a sign that he doesn’t care about you…it’s just his personality.”

  “It’s okay.” I shook myself. I needed to stop worrying about my relationship with Mason. I’d done everything I could to make things right. And the perfect way to keep my mind off my relationship troubles was to focus on recovering my money. “So what did Lars used to do?”

  Jonah gave me a look that told me he’d taken note of the change of subject, but he answered anyway. “Lars has an interesting past. He used to be a ranch hand in Texas.”

  “So what brought him here?”

  “A job. A farmer in northern Fenton County was starting a big cattle farm. He hired Lars to oversee it.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Lars has a temper, and one day he cracked and beat up his boss. He served some time, but then he returned to Fenton County.”

  “So he doesn’t have a job now?”

  “No, he’s currently living with a woman out at the Lazy Dazy trailer park.”

  That was more information than I’d hoped to get. “Thanks, Jonah. You’ve helped more than you know.”

  “From the look on your face, I think I’ve helped you too much. Tell Mason.”

  “I will.” I grabbed Neely Kate’s arm and dragged her down the steps. Neither one of us said anything until we got into her car.

  She hung her hands on the steering wheel, tapping the plastic with a pink nail painted with white polka dots. “Well, that was quite a morning.”

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  She turned to face me. “I don’t know about you, but I have a hankering for the Golden Corral.”

  I broke into laughter. “Miss Mildred might be there, and seeing us would sure send her teeth flying across the buffet.”

  “Oh, my stars and garters!” she laughed. “I couldn’t believe my eyes when that happened!”

  I stopped laughing. “She heard us, Neely Kate. She heard I might be pregnant and that I kissed Joe.”

  Neely Kate released a huff and her mouth twisted to the side. “How bad could it be?”

  “I don’t care about me, Neely Kate. I’m thinking about Mason. What if I destroy his reputation?”

  “Mason will be just fine. And women like Miss Mildred only have power over us because we let them.”

  I knew she was right, but I was still worried.

  “I’m hungry,” she said, turning on the car. “What do you say we skip the flying teeth at the Golden Corral and get ourselves over to Big Bill’s Barbeque?”

  My mouth dropped open. “Hot wings? Are you serious?”

  She shrugged and started to pull out of the parking lot. “Ronnie Junior likes ’em.”

  “Ronnie Junior?”

  She shrugged again. “If it’s a boy. Maybe.”

  If I were pregnant, Mason and I would have to discuss things like that too. It was an overwhelming thought, so I pushed it away, moving on to something over which I had more control. “We need to talk about my vision and try to figure out which one of those people was attached to it.”

  “Let’s do it over lunch. Do you need to go home to Mason to check in before we visit Samantha Jo?”

  The flutter in my stomach at the words home to Mason made my lips tip up, but the smile fell just as quickly. Part of me wanted to kill Joe for doing this to me, but the tension between Mason and me was partly my own fault.

  “No, he’s busy with that case I mentioned. But I’ll call to let him know.” I pulled my phone out of my purse but the call went to voice mail after several rings. “Hey, Mason. I’m going out to lunch with Neely Kate before we go see Samantha Jo.” I paused. “I miss you and love you. I’ll see you when I get home.” I hung up, feeling sad.

  “He didn’t answer.”

  “No, and that’s not like him.” I frowned. “Maybe he decided to start the housing search before
his momma gets here.”

  “That was the plan all along anyway, right?” she asked. “For him to move out?”

  “Yeah, but I like having him there. I’ll miss him too much if he leaves, especially with his busy schedule. I don’t want him to move out.”

  “So tell him you want him to stay.”

  “Yeah…” Although I’d felt this way before Joe and the baby, I still worried that asking him to stay would come across to him as reactive.

  Neely Kate pulled into the gravel parking lot of a ramshackle old house that looked like it was about to cave in. It had once been painted white, but what little paint hadn’t flaked off was now a drab gray. A lopsided sign hung on the roof boasted the faded words Big Bill’s Barbeque. I’d driven by Big Bill’s plenty of times, and one of my male coworkers used to bring their hot wings for potlucks when I worked at the DMV, but I’d never actually been there. Now I was having second thoughts.

  Neely Kate laughed. “I know it looks scary, but it’s worth riskin’ your life for, I promise.”

  “Maybe I should force a vision and make sure we’ll survive our lunch,” I joked.

  Her eyes lit up. “That’s a good idea.”

  I shook my head. “If you’re really that concerned about your stomach, maybe we should skip this…”

  “Not for that, silly. For the case.” She turned to me, her eyes narrowing. “I’ve said it before—you don’t use your gift nearly enough. Think of all the things you could figure out. We could figure out.”

  “And blurt out. Don’t forget that part. That’s what got me into trouble with those guys.”

  “Well, let’s get our wings and figure out which guy was the object of your vision while we eat.”

  After our bathroom encounter at the church, I wasn’t sure wings were the best choice, but I wasn’t about to contradict Neely Kate.

  We walked into the main room, which was crowded with about fifteen mismatched tables covered in red-and-white-checkered plastic tablecloths. Almost all of them were occupied. The baseboards were coated in grime, and greasy spots coated the tops of the walls. The entire restaurant looked like it needed a good scrubbing, but from the way the ceiling sagged slightly in the middle, I had to wonder if dirt was the only thing holding the place together.