Behind the Shield

by Sheryl Lynn

  “Nice thing about being Apache.” She shrugged. “Half Apache anyway. We respect artists. I don’t get pestered much about being single. No matter how much a white girl accomplishes, people look at her funny if she doesn’t land herself a man.”

  He swallowed a piece of carrot so sweet it could be sugared. “I miss being married.” Embarrassed at speaking that particular thought aloud, he froze.

  “Carson?”

  He lifted his face and found those solemn green eyes regarding him.

  “I know it’s too hard for you…me being here. You have a good heart. Have to say you’re a better man than I’ve ever known. So don’t think for a minute I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I really have to go.”

  He wanted her to go. He wanted her to stay. How he’d gotten himself into this dilemma was the damnedest thing. He buttered another biscuit. Food helped him think, so he took seconds and seriously considered thirds.

  Sheriff Gerald called. Carson left Madeline doing dishes in the kitchen while he took the phone into the front room.

  “Sorry to bother you at home, Carson, but I just heard from the medical examiner.”

  “Do you have an ID on the body? Do you know how long it’s been there? Man or woman?”

  “No and no and it’s male. M.E. says a small round hole at the base of the skull counts as a cause of death.”

  “Shot.”

  A coyote howled. It sounded so close Carson flipped on the porch light. He pulled aside a curtain and searched the darkness beyond the circle of light. Coyotes couldn’t hurt Rosie, but they occasionally made her nervous enough to hurt herself.

  “Eventually,” Gerald said. “He was tortured first.”

  Carson dropped the curtain. “How does the M.E. know that?”

  “Busted facial bones and shinbones. And, in the M.E.’s technical jargon, finger bones snapped like sticks. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the screaming. Wonder what made Shay do that to a man.”

  Shay had thirty million reasons.

  “Carson?” Madeline asked from the hallway. “Would you like more iced tea?”

  “Who was that?” Gerald asked.

  Carson pressed a finger to his lips and shot a warning look at her. She started, wide-eyed, and pressed a hand over mouth. She hurried back to the kitchen.

  “Television.”

  “Like hell! You son of a gun, you’ve got a woman up there.” Gerald laughed. “It’s about time. Who’s the lucky lady? Or should I say, who’s making you a lucky man?”

  “Madeline Shay.”

  Dead silence responded. Carson thought it served Gerald right for talking like a dirty old man.

  “Nothing is going on between us. She needs a place to stay. Seeing how someone from Ruff tried to kill her, I consider it my duty to insure her safety.”

  “I’d say that’s carrying duty a mite too far. You’re asking for trouble.”

  “It’s my job.” He heard water running. “I know you don’t believe the Shay connection to the Worldwide hijacking. But the evidence is piling up.”

  “What evidence is that?”

  He listened for Madeline again. He told the sheriff about the strange circumstances of Frank Shay’s last stint in prison and the money Shay gave his daughter and the way he’d divorced his wife then boasted about winning the lottery. How the insurance company based their investigation on the word of a man who claimed to once share a cell with Shay. How the informant claimed Shay and another man escaped with the money, leaving a third behind with his murder victims.

  “It’s still crazy.” Gerald didn’t sound so blustery or confident.

  “I’ve been talking with Paul Imagia. He’s running down names for me. He doesn’t think it’s far-fetched.”

  “And you think Shay’s girl will lead you to the money?”

  “Not even close. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “What makes you so sure? ’Cause of them long legs and big eyes?”

  “You interviewed her last year. Did you ever for a second think of her as being involved in any way with her father or what he did?”

  The sheriff took his time answering. “Apaches are harder to read than any Navajo. One-word answers and no facial expressions, shutting down when they don’t want to talk.”

  Carson wanted an answer, not bigotry. His shoulders ached with growing tension. “Did you ever consider her as anything other than a routine interview?”

  He made a harsh noise. “Her mama was a whole other rodeo! I plumb put her out of mind. Woman’s a lunatic. She must have called me fifty times, accusing me of stealing Shay’s money. I gave her a copy of the inventory to shut her up, but I finally had to get the tribal police to talk to her about harassment.”

  “He picked at her, telling her he’d won the lottery and she wasn’t getting a penny of it,” Carson said.

  “Thumbing his nose at her. It doesn’t prove he hijacked a plane.”

  “It doesn’t prove he didn’t.” He heard an engine and looked out the window. Headlights broke the darkness. “I’ve got company. Have the M.E. check the bones against a man named Deke Fry.”

  “He’s missing?”

  “I’m not positive he even exists. But if we get a match, we might have found ourselves a hijacker.” The shape of a Jeep appeared from the darkness. “I gotta go. Call me if you hear anything.”

  Carson stepped onto the porch before Tony reached the door. His neighbor carried a six-pack of beer under one arm.

  “What’s the crime report today?” Tony popped a beer free from its plastic collar and handed it over.

  Carson studied the can of imported beer. He drank too much when Tony came around. He rubbed his thumb in the icy condensation on the can. “Nothing to write home about.”

  “So who died? The newspaper didn’t say if it was a man or a woman.”

  “I can’t talk about an open investigation.”

  “You’re rating a zero on the fun meter. How about Madeline? Would she like a beer?” He canted his head toward the door.

  Carson’s nerves jumped.

  Tony hooted laughter and opened a beer. The can sighed and fizzled. “Holding out on me. I’m thinking you’re a monk and here you’ve got the best-looking woman I’ve seen in these parts.”

  “What makes you think Madeline is here?”

  “Ooh, a secret.” Tony clucked his tongue. “Sorry about that, but don’t worry, I’ll never tell.” Tony’s smile lost steam and he backed a step. “Whoa, whoa, don’t look at me like that. I was out for a run this morning when I saw her in the window.”

  Carson didn’t know what to do first. Toss Tony off the porch or strangle Madeline. “What did she say?”

  Tony shuffled his feet and glanced at the Jeep as if judging how long it would take to run for it. “You best go figure out where you dropped your sense of humor, man. Nothing happened. She didn’t even let me in the house.”

  Carson chewed his inner lip, judging the depth of Tony’s sincerity. Tony habitually ran where fancy took him and he trespassed with impunity on Carson’s land. On the other hand, Madeline hadn’t said a word. He breathed slowly a few times until certain he wouldn’t erupt in anger.

  “Madeline is in protective custody. It’s not like I don’t trust you, but in this situation I have to play it safe. Nobody can know she’s here. It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “Who am I going to tell?”

  How about all those women you cat around with in Ruff?

  Tony sobered, solemn for a change. “Do you think someone tried to burn Madeline? Deliberately?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I’m sorry for fooling around. I don’t mean anything. You know that, don’t you?”

  Carson popped the tab on the beer and lifted it to his lips. He managed half a smile. “Life is a little stressful right now.”

  “I understand. So how is she?”

  “Okay. She’s pretty tough.”

  “Would she like a beer?” he repeated
.

  Automatic refusal hovered on his tongue. Honesty, however, made him concede his reluctance to let Tony inside had less to do with protecting Madeline and far more with how attracted she was to jerks.

  Chapter Seven

  Madeline lifted her chin and folded her arms across her chest. She refused to allow Carson Cody to make her feel like a rebellious teenager. No harm, no foul was the way she saw it. He was being unreasonable.

  “I’m a grown woman,” she said. “I’d like to know what gives you the right to come in here grouching at me about something I have no control over.”

  From his post at the kitchen sink, he glowered at her. “Why didn’t you tell me Tony had come by?”

  “I did exactly what you told me to do. I didn’t unlock the door. I didn’t invite him in the first place.”

  “Why did you let him see you?”

  She rolled her eyes. It was past her bedtime and she was tired. Tony was his friend and neighbor, but Carson acted as if she had helped Tony burglarize the house.

  “Look,” she said, “if the price of help is you treating me like a stupid kid then I don’t want it.”

  He shut his mouth. His gaze drifted toward the back door. “I want you safe. I don’t have the manpower to post a guard. I need your cooperation.”

  “Is Tony dangerous? Will he hurt me?”

  “No.” His big hands worked restlessly over his biceps.

  “Will he run around telling everybody I’m here?”

  He scratched his arms, tugged at the T-shirt sleeves. Lights danced in his hair and his face was shadowed. “No.”

  “Mind telling me why it’s such a big deal then?”

  “I guess it’s not.”

  Oh, but it was a big deal to him. It didn’t make sense to her and perhaps it didn’t make sense to him, either. “I will stay away from the windows from now on.”

  “Okay,” he muttered.

  “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I don’t look for trouble and I do my best to not tempt fate.” Not a particularly convincing argument considering how she had discounted the problems inherent with moving into her father’s house. “I don’t go into the basement when I suspect a monster is down there.”

  The corners of his mouth tipped into a rueful smile. “Okay.”

  “I overheard you telling Tony I didn’t want company.”

  Tension returned and he shifted his stance, cocking a hip to take his weight. Madeline wanted to slap his hands to make him quit fidgeting.

  “Tony must think I’m socially unacceptable.”

  He snapped up his head and those gray eyes were Arctic ice. “If you’re so hot to see him I’ll run you over to his place for a visit.”

  She flinched. Hot to see Tony? Where had that come from? Then she saw it in his piercing gaze that threatened to swallow her and the pained set of his mouth and the tension that set his fingers to digging at his own flesh and made the very atmosphere quiver. Carson was jealous.

  She despaired over a rise of giddiness. His desire came from pheromones, the instinctive allure of a feminine shape and the frustration of a man denied the comfort of a woman. It came from the animal part of him. His intellect knew her as Frank Shay’s daughter. His heart would always be stone against her.

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Only thing I’m hot for is a pillow for my head. Good night, Carson.”

  “You don’t want to watch television or something?” A surly offer at best.

  “No, thank you.” She gave her beadwork a lingering look, sorry to leave it for the night, but her hands were sore and she couldn’t focus well enough to see the tiny holes in the beads. She went upstairs.

  The house squeaked and creaked. The swamp cooler sounded as if it held conversations with itself, a mechanical language of rushes, whispers, thumping and chugs. Coyotes held a concert and crickets reported the time and weather. Behind closed eyelids, she saw Carson Cody. She felt the ghosts of his hands so tenderly ministering to her after the fire. She heard the sexy huskiness of his voice. The strength of those big arms.

  She flung herself over and punched the pillow. “Sleep, damn it.”

  Light shone under the closed door. A shadow cut the thin rectangle of light. Self-disgust rose at how much she wanted Carson to pause, open the door, come sit beside her on the narrow bed. It relieved her when the shadow kept moving and the lights went off.

  OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS Madeline fell into a routine. Up at dawn to prepare breakfast for Carson and send him off to work. Bead all day. During breaks, dust the house and do laundry and run the vacuum cleaner. Make dinner from the groceries Carson brought home. Clean the kitchen, bead some more while he retired to the front room to read the newspaper and watch television. Carson didn’t offer personal information and she refrained from asking personal questions. Neither talked about the fire or the body. She stayed out of his way and he stayed out of hers. Reason said her attraction to him would cause trouble sooner than later.

  If she weren’t making such terrific progress on her bead projects she might heed reason.

  On Friday, when he came home from work, he was in a mood. He laid a folded newspaper on the table, which he hadn’t done before. He didn’t make appreciative noises about the meal.

  “Sheriff finished with the crime scene.”

  “What does that mean?” She passed him a roasted sweet potato. “Do you know who set the fire?”

  “It means the forensics boys have collected all the evidence they can find. It means you can go back if you’ve a mind to. And yes I know who set the fire, but I can’t prove it. Yet.”

  He believed Matt and Sug Harrigan had set her house on fire. Their uncle, Maurice, mayor of Ruff, swore the boys were with him at the time of the fire. Unless the forensics experts found hard evidence proving otherwise, the sheriff had to accept the alibi.

  “I see.” She took the smallest pork chop. “So if I want, I can set up camp, and go back to working in the garage. You said yourself the well and pump are okay.”

  He set the thickest pork chop on his plate. “You’re not going back there. You’d be isolated, no way to buy groceries or get help if you hurt yourself.”

  That he’d missed her facetious tone seemed a poor omen. “No, I’m not going back there. I’ve been thinking. When taxes are due next year, I’m not paying them. The county can have the ranch and good riddance. It’s brought me nothing but heartache.”

  “Have you thought of somewhere to go?”

  He wanted her gone.

  “I have a friend, Nona Redhawk, who lives on the reservation. She’s isolated enough that I don’t have to worry about running into anybody. I can do for her around her house and studio to pay my keep. She’s gone right now, but she’ll be back soon.” She didn’t want to say Nona was on a lecture tour and wouldn’t return home until June.

  He shook his head. “The reservation isn’t safe.”

  “If you want to get rid of me why are you telling me every place is unsafe?”

  “I’m not trying to get rid of you.”

  “You’ll miss my cooking?” When he didn’t crack a smile, she touched his hand and waited until he looked at her. “Something is wrong. What is it?”

  “You realize there are two active investigations going on. Arson and homicide. The only connection is location and the fact that the arson revealed the homicide.”

  “Okay,” she said, stretching out the word while wondering what this had to do with her.

  “Have you ever heard of a man named Deke Fry?”

  She didn’t need to think about it. “I don’t know anybody named Deke.”

  “The M.E. managed to put the name to the body. He was tortured before he was killed with a bullet in the head.”

  She put down her fork. “One of my father’s prison buddies?”

  “It appears they met outside prison.”

  “My father killed him?”

  “We may never know. The FBI is retracing Fry’s steps, tryin
g to establish time of death.”

  “FBI? I thought the sheriff was investigating.”

  He ate a bite of pork, stalling. He drew a deep breath and unfolded the newspaper. He placed it on the table so she could read the headline story.

  Sixth and Seventh Hijackers? Two photographs of men. One she didn’t recognize, the other was her father’s broad Irish face glowering from a mug shot. An adjoining photograph showed a 727 jet, sporting a Worldwide Parcel logo, with the cargo and passenger doors wide-open. It was grounded on what appeared to be an endless sea of sand.

  She snatched up the newspaper and shook it flat to read the story that took up nearly three-quarters of the page and continued inside. It laid out how four criminals circumvented airport security, with the help of a Worldwide Parcel pilot, and boarded a jet carrying thirty million dollars in cash from Las Vegas casinos. They hijacked the plane and landed it on a salt flat in Utah. They murdered the airplane’s crew, including the pilot who had helped them, and turned on each other. Five hijackers were shot to death. The money was never recovered.

  According to official sources, new evidence linked Francis Brawley Shay III and Deacon Wesley Fry to the hijacking. The story rehashed what had happened on Crossruff Creek a year ago. It covered the fire at the ranch. The burned body was identified as Fry. Her name jumped from the page and her heart raced. The story said she had disappeared. Her mother, Cora Shay, was quoted, “Frank said he hit the lottery and made sure I didn’t get a penny of it. Ha! I should have figured it was from a robbery. Gave everything to that no-good daughter of his.”

  She folded the newspaper neatly. Carson finished eating. She barely touched her plate and didn’t care to. “Is that where the ten thousand dollars came from?”

  “Possible.”

  Hurt arced through her midsection. “If you knew about this, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because all I had was Bannerman’s say-so and no evidence.” He tapped the newspaper. “I don’t know who leaked this. I’ve never heard of this reporter, Nick Iola. Now that the story is out, there’s no going back, especially since this made national news. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to make the connection between thirty million dollars and a deserted ranch as the perfect place to hide it.”