by Rod Collins
“That’s strange.”
“Yes. And I’m inclined to believe Cletus.”
“In the absence of proof?”
“Yep.”
Brandt shrugged. “Okay.”
They were on I-5 headed south before Brandt said, “What do you think of Agent Butler?”
Wilcox hit the emergency lights hiding in the grill and accelerated, the big Ford fishtailing slightly, before he said, “I don’t like him.”
Brandt nodded and braced his elbow against the armrest as Wilcox swerved around a white delivery truck that suddenly slowed when the driver saw the red and blue strobe lights flashing.
Brandt opened his cell phone and made a call. When Jenny Jackson, Miranda Wright’s analyst buddy, answered her phone in her familiar husky voice, he said, “Jenny, this is Brandt. Butler may be dirty. Take a hard look at his bank records … quietly. And anything else you can think of. Okay?”
Jenny snapped, “You don’t do your own dirty work anymore, Douglas?”
Brandt grinned at the vision of Jenny squaring her thin shoulders and leaning forward, green eyes snapping in anger whenever someone interrupted her concentration.
“This just came up. I’d do it, but I’m on a call, and I need your help. And it needs to be done soon.” He paused, then grinned when he added, “It’s worth a dinner … on me.”
She said, “You certain about Butler?”
“No hard evidence. But my gut says we need to look. Okay?”
“Boy, oh boy. If I get caught, I’ll blame it on you. That’s a pretty serious accusation.”
“It’s not an accusation, just suspicion.”
“Lobster. I like lobster … eaten alone.”
“Well, damn it to hell, Jenny, I thought this might be a new beginning.”
She laughed and said, “Okay. If you buy – and if you promise to behave yourself. We can try dining together … again. Just dining out, but that’s all.”
“Marry me, Jenny. Then we won’t have to do all this bobbing and weaving. Thanks. Gotta go.”
Brandt glanced at Wilcox who was trying unsuccessfully to smother a laugh. Wilcox broke into a full belly laugh and damned near drove into the barrier separating the I-5 southbound lanes from the ones running north.
“What’s so funny, Leroy?”
Wilcox wiped a tear out of the corners of his eyes with his left hand and then said. “Well, she’s smart, she’s kind of pretty, and she has a nearly perfect figure: eighteen, eighteen, and eighteen. I just can’t figure where you find magic in all that.”
Brandt looked out the passenger window at the blur of cars Wilcox was passing, and said, “I wish you could understand what that husky voice of hers does to me.”
Wilcox chuckled, and then said, “Rubenesque. That’s how I like my women.
‘Rubenesque.’”
Brandt sniffed and said, “Each to his own.”
Wilcox hit the siren and cut across three lanes of traffic in time for the I-405 exit. Angry drivers laid on their car horns. One flew him a single digit salute. “Up yours,” Wilcox growled dismissively.
Chapter 19
Loved and Lost
DELL BEBE LEANED BACK against his deck rail. A light breeze brought him the gift of the subtle scent of dry pine needles. He studied Bud, knowing his friend’s mind was working on something hard.
A cloud slipped between the sun and the lake, blocking the light and then gliding away to leave the lake blue, open, and sunny again. Breeze-driven waves sparkled with reflected light. A dozen geese flew at tree top level up the lake, honking and talking to each other in a language BB didn’t understand. But he appreciated it. Somehow, they give me a sense that all is right in the world despite human evil.
Bud was watching a dozen or so small mud hens diving and then popping up in open areas in a bed of water lilies, feeding on something. He turned his back on the lake and glanced at BB. “I had to let the vet put Molly down.”
“Well, damn. Sorry, Bud. I figured something was wrong when she wasn’t in the pickup. I just didn’t want to say anything.”
“I know. She’s in the back, boxed up. I need to take care of that before long. I think I’ll bury her by the trail down to the boat dock. She loved running down their just to bark at the mud hens.”
He stopped a few seconds and then gave BB a thin smile. “You know, I think the ducks sort of looked forward to hearing her. There were times when they would gang up and start swimming towards the dock. You want help?”
“No. I might cry, and that wouldn’t do for a tough guy. Western sheriffs don’t cry.”
“The hell they don’t.”
Bud gripped BB’s offered hand, nodded his thanks, and then walked across the deck to the slider, his boot heels loud on the cedar planks. “Let’s see what Miranda and TJ came up with.”
“Doing any good?” Bud asked as he walked to the island counter where Miranda was filling a yellow legal pad with notes. A cell phone was switched on to record their conversation, but Miranda was more comfortable capturing special points by hand.
She shut the phone off and said, “Maybe. We do have a lead … maybe.”
BB closed the slider with a slam and then asked, “How is that?”
TJ started to answer, but Miranda rode right over the top of him. “One of TJ’s friends from grade school, one Hamas Abdul-Kallus.”
“Formerly, Benjamin Green,” TJ butted in. “I’ve known him since first grade.”
“Yes, and he’s the one TJ asked to find the name of the most prominent of the radicals,” Miranda added. “So … we find him and see who he talked to.”
“The name he gave me,” TJ said, “was used on the search warrant which led to the raid on the big mosque. That’s when the trouble started.”
“Anything else?” BB asked.
“Yes,” Miranda said with a look of satisfaction, smiling directly at BB. “Hamas has a wife, Basma, who works for the water bureau. I searched water bureau records, and we found an address in the St. Johns area of north Portland. Which means the FBI will talk to Hamas and his wife. Convince them to tell us who is after the reverend – and after your friend Cletus.”
“If they know, and if they’ll share it,” Bud said.
BB looked at Bud and shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
TJ got off the tall stool at the island counter and carried his cup to the coffee pot. He filled his cup and took it back to the island before saying, “I feel like a coward.”
BB shook his head and wrapped a long arm around TJ’s shoulder with enough force to make TJ spill coffee on the pale-yellow tiles in BB’s kitchen area. “Reverend, you can be brave later. We need you to help us figure this out.”
“But I feel like I’ve betrayed my Lord and Savior. I let him down by not trusting him to protect me.”
BB shook his head. “Not to be cynical, Reverend, but the Christians that were fed to the lions in Roman arenas might have been too trusting.”
Bud appreciated TJ’s dilemma and added, “Reverend, God sent an angel to guide and protect you. This angel’s name is Cletus Falls. Cletus got you out of town for good reason.”
Miranda didn’t say anything, just grabbed a paper towel from BB’s hardwood towel dispenser and wiped the spilled coffee from the floor.
Thomas Jefferson Wildish hitched his skinny butt onto a tall stool. He looked at Bud and frowned. “Sounds like a rationalization to me, but I’ll choose to believe you. I certainly need your help.”
Silence descended on BB’s kitchen, a silence nearly physical in its intensity.
Chapter 20
From Beginning to End
MIRANDA CALLED FBI HEADQUARTERS and asked for Special Agent Smith. TJ and BB listened in as she briefed her boss. When she gave him the address for the home of Hamas and Basma, TJ shook his head and sighed. He realized he’d been holding his breath. “I need to pray,” he said quietly to BB, “for God’s protection of my old friend Hamas and his wife … even if they have strayed
from the path.”
***
While Miranda made her report, Bud drove to his A-frame and parked on the gravel in front of the little garage. He shut the engine down, and stared through the windshield at the narrow path from the front door of the cabin that wandered past the willows to the boat dock. “Crap.”
He was angry, and he knew his anger was irrational. But he didn’t care. There was strength in anger. It was a whole lot easier to be angry that Molly had died than it was to wallow in sorrow. “It isn’t like a human being died,” he grumbled, “but it sure feels like it.”
He took a deep breath and said, “Well, it’s got to be done.”
He stepped out and slammed the pickup door with a little more force than the well-oiled hinges required, then walked to a shovel leaning against a downspout attached to a corner of the garage.
Shovel in hand, he trudged to the edge of the willow patch hiding his small boat dock and started cutting the sod in a square slightly larger than the burial box provided by Doc Saunders. The damp, earthy smell of fresh dirt underscored how temporary life could be and how totally consuming the earth was of mortal remains – man or animal.
He had the hole down two feet when he heard a vehicle slow and turn into his driveway. With mixed emotions, he watched Nancy’s Toyota pickup, tires quietly crunching gravel, ease up beside the county’s pickup. The glare of sunlight on the windshield made it hard to see the driver, but his heart was beating a little faster. And when she slid out of the pickup and closed the door, he thought, Too much sorrow for one day. Broken hearts should have time to mend.
She just stood there and waited. She was in blue jeans, red tennis shoes, and a woolen car coat with a Navajo pattern that dropped to mid-thigh. Bud thought she looked simply gorgeous. A sunbeam lit the auburn highlights in her shiny black hair.
Nancy put her hands in her coat pockets and, with her head slightly bowed, started a slow walk toward Bud. When she was within about six feet, she lifted her chin and said, “Howdy, stranger.”
“Howdy yourself.”
“I think I’m lost,” she said, “could you give me directions to the love of my life?”
Bud blinked and said, “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because I’m a lost soul drowning in sorrow. Besides,” she said pointing to the hole he was digging, “I thought you could use some help.”
He stomped the shovel deep into the damp, soft earth, walked to where she waited, and wrapped her in his arms
“Oh, Bud,” she said and hugged him. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry about everything. And right now, I’m sorry about Molly.”
He set his chin on the top of her head, a faint odor of shampoo tickling his nose. He took a deep breath and said, “I keep trying to understand why you broke the engagement. I mean, we could have stayed engaged even though you needed to take care of your mother.
“And I keep talking to myself, wondering why I would ever take you back. Then I think, well Bud, at least she didn’t leave you for another man. Which gets me to thinking some more and figuring I just wasn’t the man for you after all because you didn’t leave me for another man.”
Nancy squeezed him hard enough to push air from his lungs, then she stepped back to look into his eyes. “I don’t think I understand it, either. I don’t know how I let fear rob me of my courage. That was totally out of character … or at least what I believe my character is or should be.
“But after I left, every time Sonny told me some tale about you, I found myself worrying as much as if we were married after all. I couldn’t chase the worry away. And then I thought, “Why should I worry about him out of fear for a someday sorrow?” I want time with the love of my life, risk and all. My hope is you can forgive me and let me back in.”
He gave her another hug, stepped back, and held her at arm’s length, hands on her shoulders. “Nothing has changed. I’m still a cop. And people might shoot at me again. That’s the nature of the business. And I like being a cop. When I retire in about ten years, I’ll be as safe as any man. But no man is entirely safe in this life. Life is full of landmines. The trick is to not step on one.”
“I understand all that. I’m not asking you to give up police work. I’m asking you to forgive me for hurting you. And I’m asking you to take me back.”
He let his breath ease out slowly through pursed lips.
Nancy figured he was leading up to saying, “No.”
“Listen Bud, I know you have a high-risk occupation. You could get killed. You accept that chance as part of the job. But you won’t take a chance on us? I knew you were going to be an asshole about this!”
Bud snorted. “Look who’s being an asshole.” And then he laughed and said, “Come here, damn it.”
She stepped into his arms and broke into tears, but she managed to choke out a few words. “My name isn’t ‘damn it.’”
***
While Bud finished digging the hole for Molly’s box, Nancy unlocked the cabin with the key she had never given back to Bud, and started the coffee pot. She was nearly overcome by nostalgia at the familiar odor of cold wood smoke clinging to the hard fabric of Bud’s recliner, and by the array of bird photos hanging on the walls, Bud’s photos taken at Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge and at Dog Lake during his years in Lake County.
And as suddenly as her nostalgia hit, it was gone, replaced by happiness bordering on euphoria. “I’m back. Oh, thank you, Lord. I’m back,” she whispered.
***
The burial was short and sweet. Bud filled the hole, set a big rock on the mounded earth as a marker, and then said a prayer for his old canine partner that ran somewhat along the lines that dog was born of dust and to dust returns, loyally waiting to meet its master in the afterlife.
Nancy glanced at Bud and said, “Do you really believe that? Some Indians think that way.”
Bud shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. But what else are you going to say over an old dog you loved?”
Nancy took his hand and said, “I think the coffee’s done.”
She set cups on the small kitchen table and poured. “Why did you tell me to stay away?”
“For the same reason that I want you back in town. I believe some really nasty people are about to descend on us – right here at quiet, peaceful Dog Lake.”
Nancy’s brow furrowed as Bud brought her up-to-date; about last year’s raid on mosques in Portland and Seattle, all because Cletus bought photos of military-style weapons in the basement of the mosque; about TJ finding the name of the imam leader behind it; about someone killing Cletus’ informant; about some jihadists wanting to kill TJ out of revenge; and about TJ hiding next door with BB.
“Why would they look for him here?”
“Because, the FBI tells me the bad guys took TJ’s computer, and because BB sent TJ – who happens to be one of BB’s oldest childhood friends – photos of his new log home. BB says he also emailed directions on how to find him out here.”
“Good Lord.”
“Agreed. I don’t know how long it will take them to plan a raid on BB’s house, but these dudes are big on revenge.”
