by Jada Ryker
As if it required superhuman effort, Burke Lee lowered his shaking hands.
“Nonsense.” Berea shook the dog’s paw at Burke Lee. “Princess is the sweetest and most beautiful Pomeranian in the world. She’s as scary as a feather duster.” She slid nearer to Burke Lee. His face tightened.
Clay blocked her path. “Mrs. Kenton, the hotel has a strict policy against dogs on the premises. She can’t stay here.”
“The hotel is run by a bunch of ostriches with their heads in the sand. Everyone knows the world is becoming more pet friendly. If they want to stay in business, they’ll have to open the hotel to the four-footed sector.” Berea laughed when Princess licked her wrinkled cheek.
Burke Lee rose from the couch and walked unsteadily to the door, swinging in a wide arc around Berea and the dog.
Berea frowned. “Burke Lee, you’ll have to learn to work with Princess. And you will too, Althea. She’s central to Mayla’s story. Before my daughter’s death, we had a wonderful little Pomeranian named, of course, Princess.” The age-spotted hands tightened on the little body. “Princess died in the fire with my daughter.”
Burke Lee’s body was stiff. “Let’s meet in the morning, Mrs. Kenton. We can decide on our next steps. I also have documents for you to sign. I don’t think we need… Princess… in the meeting.”
* * * * *
In the corridor, Althea shuddered. “I thought Berea was going to throw a hissy fit when we said we wouldn’t help solve the murder. I was a little afraid of her. She’s become a fanatic over her daughter’s murder. I was glad the dog’s appearance sidetracked her from her tantrum.”
“Since we’ve known her, she’s been obsessed with finding the killer. Now, she’s obsessed and a millionaire.” Clay started to take her hand. He sighed, his hand falling to his side.
“Clay, please don’t be angry with me.”
“Thea, I’m not angry with you.” His gray eyes were as melancholy as a rain-misted sky. “The issue is between you and Marisa.”
Althea watched as he strode away. His shoulders were set and his back was ramrod straight as he disappeared around the corner. She wondered if he was slipping away forever.
* * * * *
In the dim pool of light cast by her reading lamp, Althea bent over the typewriter. Marisa. A spasm of pain brought tears to her eyes and despair to her heart. I miss her so much. She’s the child I never had. Can we ever get back our warm, easy, loving relationship? Or is it gone forever?
She thought about Clay’s comments. She lightly tapped her fingers on the keys without typing as she racked her brain. What is the nature of honor? She blinked the tears from her eyes. Is it intrinsic, something within the heart and mind? Or is it extrinsic, molded by the culture and subject to its mores? Her fingers nimbly flew across the keys of the ancient manual typewriter.
An Alien Act of Honor
By Seretha Ranier
Part One
“We’re not here to question you again about your husband’s murder, Mrs. Brooks. The sheriff’s office dispatcher received several irate phone calls this morning about a flying object headed for your pond.” His broad shoulders hunched under the thick, aviator-style navy uniform jacket, Sheriff Norton tugged the wide brim of his hat further over his eyes to protect them from the swirling snow.
Shivering in the wind tunnel created by the open door to the dim entryway of the old Kentucky farmhouse, Mae Rue Conner Brooks frowned in disbelief. “You want to check my pond for a UFO?”
A maelstrom of snow swirled across the wide front porch. Sheriff Norton pivoted his back to the wind as his tall deputy slammed a fist the size of a country ham to the top of his hat to anchor it.
The sheriff’s dark gaze swept over her from her messy brown hair to her bare feet. “Mrs. Brooks, isn’t that the same black dress you wore a week ago to your husband’s funeral?”
The sheriff’s gentle tone, contrasting with his former barks and growls of interrogation, brought tears to Mae Rue’s tired eyes.
His round red face twisted into a knowing smirk, the deputy gestured at her wrinkled dress with his free hand. “She heard the police car, ran to change into her widow’s weeds, and sniffed an onion to bring on the fake tears.”
Mae Rue started to close the heavy front door. “It’s bad enough you hound me about Jeremy’s death, as if you could seriously think that I shot my husband with his own gun in his man-cave cabin on the far edge of the farm. Now, you want to use this flimsy UFO pretext to poke around the land.”
A heavy boot jammed into the narrowing space between the door and the frame. “Deputy Blackburn.” She glared at the figure towering next to the sheriff like a creature hovering over its mad scientist creator. “Remove your foot from my door before I fetch the axe and remove it from your ankle.”
Sheriff Norton was authoritative. “Mrs. Brooks, we have to check the area around the pond. If a small aircraft crashed, then people could be hurt.”
Mae Rue stiffened in disbelief. “I didn’t hear or see a thing. You want to look for evidence I’m guilty, without a search warrant. If you don’t leave, I’ll call an attorney. I’ll also file a civil lawsuit against you and the Sheriff’s Department for trespassing and harassment.”
Mae Rae patted her dress. Damn it, my cell phone’s in my purse, she thought. It’s difficult to make a grand gesture if I have to scurry to the kitchen for it.
Sheriff Norton leaned into the narrow opening. “Most of the townspeople think you’re a murderer. Do you really want the rest of them to turn against you because you can’t show even a small amount of compassion for possible accident victims on your dead husband’s land?” His dark brown eyes glittered. “If there’s a trial, this town will be the source of the jury pool.”
Mae Rue’s thoughts raced. What if people are lying in a field, hurt? He’s already convinced I’m guilty of killing my husband. Letting him check the property is not going to change his mind one way or the other. And he won’t find anything to hurt me.
“Sheriff, you and your minion wait while I change. I’ll take you to the pond.” As she closed the door, Mae Rue heard the deputy ask his boss: “What’s a minion? Is that a cartoon character?”
Part Two
The trio rounded the house, their boots sinking in the soft drifts of snow. Sheriff Norton stopped abruptly, his deputy plowing into him like a stocky Guernsey steer running into a thoroughbred stallion. “What the hell?” The sheriff pivoted toward Mae Rue, his face as frozen as the icicles hanging from the broken eaves of the house.
“Snowmen?” Mae Rue rubbed her eyes with her gloved fingers. When she opened them, the snowmen were still there. “Where did they come from?”
Her slim figure thickened by the heavy camouflage-patterned coat and fur-lined pants, Mae Rae stared at the quiet tableau. Heaving in a breath of arctic air, she circled warily around the largest, adult-sized statue, fashioned of three balls of snow increasing in size from top to bottom. Her dead husband’s furry hat slid to one side of her head, the ear flaps moving in the cold wind as she wove between the two child-sized snow creatures.
Deputy Blackburn snorted, streams of vapor filling the cold air in front of his disbelieving face. “A grieving widow making snowmen? Did you have your so-called farmhand Coy Mitchell help you? Or do you keep him in your bedroom for other duties?”
Enraged, Mae Rae swung at the smug oxen features of the deputy. A hand caught her wrist. She turned on the sheriff. “Let go! He deserves a thrashing.”
Sheriff Norton’s square jaw tightened. “No. If you hit him, then I’ll have to arrest you.” His teeth gleamed against his brown-sugar skin in a rare smile, a dimple making an irreverent appearance in his stubble-roughened cheek. “He might deserve it, but not here and not now.” He turned his head. “Blackie, Mitchell’s truck is gone and there aren’t any tracks. He must have left before the snow started falling early this morning.”
Mae Rue twisted her wrist free and stared up into the dark, unreadable eyes. “W
hat did your pet lummox mean by ‘so called’ farmhand?”
“Of course, you’d pick up on that from his rant.” The sheriff dropped her wrist as if it was too hot to hold, in spite of the cold air. “Blackie, you know you’re supposed to keep the details of the investigation to yourself.”
“But Coy Mitchell is not a farmhand. Jeremy Brooks was married to Mitchell’s sister Amy less than two months when she died in that freak accident in his grain silo. Mitchell must have taken the job to get close to his former brother-in-law.” The deputy’s bottom lip protruded. “And I’m not a lummox. Is that a type of ox? I have been called a big ox before, and it’s very hurtful.”
“Jeremy told me he’d never been married. You’re lying.” Mae Rue tilted her head back, staring up into the falling snow. I caught Jeremy in so many stupid lies. Is the deputy telling the truth? The sky was as gray as her mood, and the clouds were as heavy as her heart.
The deputy’s grin was mean, his blocky teeth and round head like a jack-o’-lantern. “It’s a matter of public record at the courthouse, Mrs. Brooks. Or a simple online search on your computer—”
“Be quiet, Blackie.” The sheriff moved away, staring at the ground around the snowmen.
One cautious eye on his boss, Blackburn inched nearer to her. He whispered, “Jeremy should have married my youngest sister, Beth Ann, the paralegal. She turned down a full-ride law school scholarship to stay near him. After Amy died, Beth Ann started haunting Jeremy’s favorite honky tonks.”
Blackburn watched his boss circling the snowmen. He breathed heavily, his exhales noxious. “Beth Ann was perfect for Jeremy. She can bale hay as well as any man, especially when she’s mad. She can field dress a deer.” He chuckled. “She’s not bad in a bar fight. My sister was there after Amy died, ready to be plucked like a ripe apple off a low-hanging branch. Then Jeremy passed her by for you, a mousy little librarian who can’t even line dance—-”
The sheriff held up a hand, cutting off the disgruntled flow of words. “Quiet, Blackie. Look at the snow around the snowmen. What do you see?”
Blackburn lumbered to the sheriff’s side, his eyes following the pointing gloved finger. “Smooth snow?”
“Exactly! Where are the footprints?”
The deputy shook his head, sending his hat to one side of his huge head. “Footprints?”
Despite her average height, Mae Rue felt short as she joined the taller men. She clenched her fists. “The snowmen builders should have left their footprints. But the snow is smooth. Where are their prints?”
Sheriff Norton shook his head. “It’s still snowing, and it’s windy. The breeze could have scattered fresh snow over the prints.”
“Or maybe the UFO scattered snow over the footprints.” The deputy perked up. “Let’s get to the pond. When I was a little boy, I used to catch frogs in there. If we find a crashed UFO and those weird little men, I bet I can get on television.” He quickened his pace toward the gate in the fence.
CHAPTER SIX
In the trauma hospital’s corridor, Marisa took a deep breath and tried to calm her angry thoughts. “If Elizabeth Furlong purrs at Alex one more time, I’m going to scratch out her fake blue eyes!”
“She not only wants Alex’s old job, she wants Alex.” Tara shook her head. “Elizabeth is careful to only ‘act out’ when he’s not present or not paying attention. And she’s really good at pouring on the old-fashioned sex appeal. Did you notice Tom was wearing a tie the exact same shade of blue as Elizabeth’s suit? I wonder if it’s a coincidence.”
“I didn’t notice,” Marisa admitted. “But I have noticed that our meetings drag on nearly twice as long since she arrived. She pretends to ask questions. But the questions are really intended for her to show how much she knows about any subject.”
“I think Elizabeth also craves being the center of attention,” Tara mused. “It’s as if she doesn’t exist unless people are looking at her and talking about her.”
Marisa smiled. “If we stop talking about her and thinking about her, will she disappear?”
“If it was that easy, I’d use that technique on my many enemies.” Tara’s green eyes danced.
“You don’t have enemies.” Marisa focused on the petite body and beautiful face. “Not legions, anyway.” She frowned in thought. “Maybe Elizabeth is an only child. If so, she grew up on center stage. Now she’s like a drooping plant without the nourishment of compliments and attention.”
“Marisa!” Tara’s curls bounced with agitation.
“What?” Marisa feigned innocence.
“Did you forget? I am an only child!” Tara put one hand on her hip.
“New theory,” Marisa said, not bothering to hide her amusement. “Elizabeth is one of a litter of eight piglets. She was ignored by her mother. To get the sow’s attention, she had to dance around the mud and squeal at the top of her lungs.”
Tara laughed so hard that she had to bend over. “And now, she has to stand out from her peers by doing the same things,” she gasped.
Marisa stopped at her outer office door. “Psychology 101, at least of the porcine variety.”
After Marisa unlocked the door, Tara stepped inside. “Why are you still working at the human resources receptionist’s desk, Marisa? It’s been six months since your friend Jonah was murdered in your office. Don’t tell me you’re afraid to use your own office?”
Jerked from her thoughts of slapping the hell out of Elizabeth Furlong, Marisa shot a carefree grin at her best friend.
Tara touched her arm in concern.
Well, poop, Marisa thought in disgust. I fell short of the carefree mark. She admitted to herself that Tara was difficult to fool. “Of course I’m not afraid. The maintenance staff is still working on it.” She glanced at the closed inner office door. She hastily slid behind the reception desk before the other woman could her goad her into doing something she most definitely didn’t want to do.
Tara put her hands on her hips. Her curves were accentuated by the violet jacket and skirt, cut from stretchy material designed to emphasize, rather than camouflage, her luscious figure. With her legs flowing from the short skirt to the high-heeled purple pumps, Tara could’ve been dressed for a night out on the town, rather than her job as the trauma hospital’s Marketing Director. “I spoke with Carlos earlier today. In spite of his embarrassing infatuation with the gorgeous Elizabeth, he is the Maintenance Director. Your office has been ready for you to move back in for months. He thinks the reason you stay out here in the outer office is because you’re superstitious.”
Marisa held up her hands in surrender. “You got me. I don’t want to move back into my office. There aren’t any vacant offices for me to use, so I’ve been using the reception area.”
“Jonah came to you for help,” Tara said. “You’re smart and resourceful, and he thought you’d have the answer. He didn’t know a killer was close on his heels. He wouldn’t have brought danger into your orbit on purpose…”
Marisa’s face softened.
“…because he was your boy-toy turned friend…”
Marisa growled. “He was not my boy-toy!”
“He was half your age,” Tara insisted, “and your relationship was based on sex. Therefore, he was your boy-toy.”
“Stop saying boy-toy!” Marisa hunched her shoulders. “You’ve said it like three times. Jonah was my friend.”
“After the wonderfully athletic sex, yes, he was your friend.” Tara’s tones were soothing. “You proved his importance to you when you risked your life to solve his murder. You wouldn’t do that for just a boy-toy…”
“Tara!” Marisa could feel the steam pouring out of her ears.
“Forget the…” Tara grimaced. “…you know. BT.” She smiled slyly. “What if Alex realizes you need your assistant back? He may decide to let you rehire her. If you’re out here, where will Janie sit?”
Before Jonah’s murder, the reception desk had been occupied by Janie, the human resources assistant. A cheerful g
randmother in her late sixties, Janie had been employed by the trauma hospital for over thirty years. She had ruled the outer office with a smile on her face and steel in her spine, handling visitors who ranged from angry employees to upset family members with aplomb.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get Janie back.” Marisa smiled. “Do you remember how she turned the office into a greenhouse of plants and flowers? Her pride and joy was a rhododendron she had received thirty years ago from her husband on her first day at work.”
Tara glanced up at the bare walls. “Of course I remember. Janie used metal hooks to guide the dark green leaves all along the wall.”
“By the time she left, Janie had guided the growing vine all the way around the room and back to the huge potted base.” She sighed.
“Marisa, I think using your reception area as your office will give Elizabeth more ammunition against you.” Tara was concerned. “What if she calls our corporate office and tells them you’re some kind of nut? I’ll help you move your stuff back into your office.”
Marisa swallowed. “I see your point. I’ll get the stuff moved this weekend.” She avoided Tara’s green gaze.
“Marisa, you’re fibbing. I can always tell. I’ll help you now.”
As they moved the base of operations into the inner office, Marisa brought Tara up to date. She told Tara about her relapse, Alex’s rescue and ultimatum, and what they’d found in her brother Mosely’s room. She pressed her fingers to her eyes to stem the tears. “And Althea’s betrayal still hurts like hell. It was so unexpected. I loved her, and she used my pain to sell her books.” She sniffed.
Tara slid her arm around Marisa’s shoulders. “Have you tried talking to her about it?”
Marisa leaned into the warmth of her friend’s hug. “We haven’t spoken since the night Mosely died.” As the weight of misery bowed her, tears streamed down her face.
Tara pulled her friend’s head to her shoulder. She patted Marisa’s back in soothing circles.
