by Rod Collins
Nancy kissed his cheek. “I will.”
“I have this business at BB’s to take care of first. Why don’t you follow me over in your truck?”
***
Bud opened BB’s backdoor and said, “Anybody home?”
BB hollered, “Come on up.”
Miranda frowned when Bud and Nancy climbed the stairs and walked into the big airy living space on the second floor.
TJ caught Miranda’s look out of the corner of his eye. I’ll be darned. I think Miranda is jealous.
Bud introduced Nancy to TJ and Miranda. “Nancy Sixkiller, my soon-to-be bride.”
BB shook his head and grinned. Arms outstretched, he walked to Nancy and gave her a hug. He whispered, “I guess I won’t have to shoot you after all.”
“I love him too, you big lug.”
“Then don’t hurt him again.”
Nancy kissed BB’s stubbled cheek and said, “Never again.”
“All right, BB. She’s marrying me, not you.”
TJ said, “Congratulations. The Good Lord finally sent me something to be happy about today.”
Miranda shook off her disappointment and echoed TJ with, “Congratulations.”
Bud said, “Thank you. Now then, Miranda. As I was leaving, you said you had a plan.”
Twenty minutes later BB sent TJ an email saying he was happy to hear TJ would be down later in the day.
It was also agreed that BB would drive TJ back to Portland, but leave Miranda in place as liaison with the FBI SWAT team should that become necessary.
“How sure are you that we’ll have advance notice?” Bud asked.
Miranda shrugged and said, “We have watchers in place. We should have at least the same amount of time as it will take any bad guys to get here … whatever that is. If they come by helicopter, we’ll know it before they leave the ground. If they come by vehicle, we’ll know that too. That should give us plenty of time to have our SWAT team in place.
“Now, I’ve studied an aerial map of this area. There are only three major roads to Dog Lake, so it shouldn’t be too hard to watch and block the roads after the bad guys are in the bottle, so to speak. I think we place the SWAT team in hiding close to the house and leave covering the roads up to Sheriff Blair’s team. What do you think?”
Bud nodded. “It’s good as far as it goes. But there is another summer home on up the lake. We’ll need to evacuate anyone using it.”
Miranda nodded.
Nancy added, “And the Goodnights own a ranch about ten miles west of the lake. They use the Dog Lake road to go into town. The ranch is actually in Klamath County, but they do a lot of their business in Lakeview. They’ll need to know. In the meantime, they can use the back road to Bly. They don’t need to come this way.”
Bud nodded. “The devil is in the details.”
BB said, “I hate to leave you here, Bud, but I think you’re better protected than
Cletus or TJ.”
Bud put a hand on BB’s big shoulder and smiled. “Thank you, partner, but don’t worry. I’ll be all right.” He glanced at Nancy. “I have a lot to live for.”
Miranda looked pensive. I wonder what it would be like to marry, have a child, and live in a small town. She almost snorted at her temporary loss of career focus. Nah. It’s not for me. I like what I’m doing.
Chapter 25
Confession
SPECIAL AGENT WILCOX pulled the big SUV in against the curb and turned to look at Cletus in the back seat. “You sure about this, Mister Falls? We can hide you in a nice hotel not far from our headquarters.”
Cletus shook his head. “No. I got a place.”
Special Agent Brandt opened the center console and pulled a small flat box out from under the standard issue owner’s manual. He offered the small box to Cletus.
“Here’s my card and a burner phone you can use to call us.”
Cletus shook his head. “No way, man. You’ll just use it to find me.”
Brandt grinned. “Hell, Cletus, we can do that anyway. Leroy and I just don’t want anyone else doing it. Take it. If it makes you feel better, find a place away from your hidey hole and call from there, then move. The bad guys won’t find you that way. And please check in once a day. Okay?”
Cletus looked skeptical, but stuffed the box in the pocket of his gray hoodie. Without another word, he stepped out on the curb, slammed the passenger door, and scooted around the corner of a downtown office building.
Wilcox looked at Brandt who just shrugged.
“Think he’ll be okay?” Wilcox asked.
Brandt nodded and said, “If anyone can survive, it’s Cletus Falls.”
Wilcox nodded. “If he wasn’t so damned small, I’d feel better about him being on his own.”
“You mean it – about recruiting him, in spite of his size?”
Wilcox nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do. We can use his instincts and his brains. Brains over brawn, Douglas. Brains over brawn.”
Wilcox fished a ringing cell phone from the inner pocket of his dark blue sports jacket and looked at the number. “Smitty,” he said to Brandt and held the phone so Brandt could see the screen.
The phone rang again and Brandt said, “You going to answer that?”
“No. He’ll get tired of waiting for me to answer, and then he’ll call you, and you can talk to him.”
“Damn.”
Brandt’s cell phone chimed before Wilcox’s phone stopped ringing. Brandt raised his eyebrows and answered the call. “Who’s this?”
“This is very, very Special Agent Winslow Butler. You got the kid?”
“Why do you ask?”
“It’s logical.”
“That doesn’t answer the question. Why do you want to know?”
“I’m going to make your careers, you and Wilcox, and then I’m going to disappear.”
“Why?”
“Why make your careers, or why disappear?”
Brandt looked at Wilcox and pointed at the phone. “Why disappear?”
“I’m in too deep to do anything else. I’m sorry about the whole business, but if I go to jail, I’ll die there, and if Al-Alwani finds me I’ll wish I was dead before he kills me.”
“You on the take, Butler?”
Special Agent Butler snorted and then started in on a slightly hysterical sounding laugh. “You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve been paid. And I’m not the only one. Watch the analysis section. At least one of them is feeding the bad guys information.”
“Who?”
“Hell, you’re the FBI. You figure it out.”
“Why don’t you let us take you in? You can say you were freelancing … working undercover. Give us enough information, and we can get you a lighter sentence.”
“No. No sentence. I won’t do jail time. Come to think of it, if I don’t retire my bitch of a wife won’t get a dime. What a nice thought.
“Anyway, here’s to your careers … have you been paying attention to the local news? Stories about missing women – all hookers, by the way?
“Anyway, the girls aren’t dead. Instead they’ll soon be on their way to that great big sandbox in the Middle East, traveling in a well-provisioned, comfortable shipping container. It is my understanding the container is sitting on a dock awaiting shipment to Yemen.
“Judas Priest,” Brandt said. “You sure about this?”
“Absolutely. By the way, don’t bother coming to the safe house. I’m not there.”
“Wait, wait! Which terminal?”
Brandt shook his head, “Damn it, he hung up.”
“Tell me what he said.”
Brandt’s phone rang again. He let Wilcox see the number on the screen. “Hold on. I’d better answer this first, or Smitty will be shitting bricks.”
Chapter 26
Big News
BUD TRAILED NANCY’S PICKUP to the courthouse, pulled into his reserved parking spot. and walked back down the sidewalk to where Nancy parked.
She put her purse strap over h
er left shoulder, slammed the pickup door, tugged the tail of her car coat into place, took a deep breath, and listened to her pounding heart. Bud ginned when she unconsciously tried to pat her hair into place.
He offered her his arm and pulled her close. “What’s that old song?” he said. “Up, up and away we go?”
“I don’t know that one.”
“I’m not sure I do either.”
The attractive middle-aged blonde behind the counter smiled when they pushed through the front door. “Good afternoon, Sheriff. How can I help?”
Bud glanced at Nancy and then back at the clerk, a big grin on his face. “Good afternoon, Missus Withers. We’d like a marriage license.”
“My goodness, yes. Just wait right here while I get the form.”
Judy Withers hurried through an inner door and closed it behind her. “Ginger,” she almost whispered, “you’ll never believe this. Sheriff Blair and Nancy Sixkiller are out there asking for a marriage license.”
Ginger Callaghan, a prim, grey-haired woman looked up from behind her desk, blinked, then took her gold-rimmed glasses off and set them on the file she was reading. “Oh my. That is big news. And it’ll break a lot of hearts.” She gave Judy a conspiratorial smile and whispered, “Stall until I can get Carol Connor here. She’ll want a picture for the paper, and she’ll want to run a story. Oh my, this is big.” She picked up her phone and dialed the Lake County News. “And about time, too,” she added.
Missus Judy Withers took her time getting the proper form and deliberately took an old worn out ballpoint that was out of ink back to the front desk. “Okay. I’ll need some personal information from each of you. And I’ll need picture IDs. I don’t suppose you have your birth certificates? Now then, Miss Sixkiller, I’ll need your full name.”
Nancy said, “Nancy Louisa Sixkiller.”
“Oh darn,” Judy Withers said, frowning at the ball point. “This thing seems to be out of ink. I’ll be right back.”
Four minutes later Carol Connor, managing editor of the Lake County News, followed by the newspaper’s photographer, Samuel Adams, a tall, thin young man with a blonde ponytail and a world of computer and digital photography expertise, pushed through the door in time to hear Bud Blair’s exasperated voice saying, “How long is this going to take?”
Carol grinned, held out her hand to Nancy and said, “Congratulations!”
Impulsively, Nancy gave Carol a hug. “Thank you. How did you … oh, I see now. Missus Withers was stalling, weren’t you Missus Withers?”
Judy Withers curtsied like a little girl and said, “Yes. Ginger and I thought Carol would like a nice picture for the paper. And it isn’t every day our sheriff gets married.” She hurried to the inner connecting door and peeked in. “You can come out now, Ginger. Carol Connor is here.”
“Do you mind, Sheriff?” Carol asked.
Bud glared at her and her photographer. He was about to say something about a female conspiracy, when Nancy tugged on his arm and said, “We’d love to, wouldn’t we?”
Deputy Hildebrand’s telephone call echoed through Bud’s mind – Roger’s report about the oddsmakers saying Bud Blair and Nancy Sixkiller would be married within the month. His frown smoothed into a smile. He chuckled and said, “I guess we would at that.”
Bud held out his hand to Carol, but she brushed it aside and gave him a hug. She whispered in his ear, “Dad will want to say congratulations in person, but I want to thank you for bringing Sonny back. And I’m sorry I’ve been such a pain for your department. I think I’ve been jealous that you and my father had such a close friendship. That’s rare for a newspaper editor and a police officer.”
Bud hugged her back and said, “Not a problem. Tell Asa hello. I intend to have coffee with him soon.”
The photographer had them stand in front of the counter holding the marriage license out at arm’s length, told Bud (as opposed to asking) to take his Stetson off … and could he take his equipment belt off … to which Bud said “No.”
Carol said, “Just take the picture, Samuel.”
The camera flash led to cheering, and a booming voice said, “Congratulations, you two!” as District Attorney Howard Finch walked in, followed by a half-dozen courthouse employees.
Bud did his best to smile over the attention, shook hands and nodded at offered congratulations. Nancy smiled and almost blushed. But when the DA held out his hand, Bud clamped it in his big paw and dragged Finch over to a corner. Bud said, “I might have some business for you in a day or two.”
Finch pried his hand loose from Bud’s grip, rubbed his hands together, and grimaced. “Damn, but I hate it when you do that.”
He looked up at Bud, and ran his hand through an unruly mass of curly blonde hair in a failed attempt to look a little neater. “Something interesting, I hope. I’m sick of this trespass case I’m trying.”
Bud smiled and shook his head. “How about attempted murder?”
“Who?”
“Hasn’t happened yet.”
“No?”
“Not yet.”
“In that case, who is going to try and kill whom?”
Bud looked at his friend and nodded in the direction of the hallway and said, “Let’s talk in my office.”
Bud gave Nancy a hug and said, “Duty calls.”
She shook her head, and said, “Of course,” a touch of disappointment showing.
When Howard and Bud pushed into the Lake County Sheriff’s office through the interconnecting door from the courthouse hallway, Karen Highsmith looked up. She didn’t smile, but she did manage to say “Congratulations,” without too much disapproval in her voice.
Bud raised one eyebrow, very much aware of her unspoken censure, but settled for, “Word gets around fast, doesn’t it?”
She nodded, then stood up and walked around the booking counter to give Bud a hug. “Ginger just called me.”
He pushed her gently away and said, “Howard and I will be in my office.” He glanced at his watch and added, “Get with dispatch and have all of our officers here at five o’clock. That includes Roger.”
Coffee cups in hand, the two old friends sat across from each other at Bud’s scarred wooden desk while Bud brought Finch up-to-date. When he finished, Bud stared at him and waited.
Finally, Finch rocked the wooden chair back on two legs and said, “I have to wonder how a remote western county can attract so damned much attention from the evil elements of this world.”
He dropped the front legs of the chair back on the floor, slapped the desk top and said, “Okay, Bud. You catch ‘em and I’ll put ‘em away. This time I want TV coverage and the world watching. It’s time the citizens of this country woke up to what’s happening. I swear to the Lord above, the people of our country don’t believe in evil, and it’s going to cost us dearly if we don’t wake up.”
