An Angel for Dry Creek

by Janet Tronstad

  “This’ll be great!” Linda lifted out a small stack of the plates. “We thought we’d have to spring for paper plates—but this, this has more style.”

  Glory pulled open a drawer and found it full of stainless steel spoons.

  “And forks!” Linda pulled open another drawer.

  “They must not have even packed when they left,” Glory said as she reached up and opened a top cupboard. There in thick plastic bags were linen tablecloths and napkins.

  Dust filtered down as Glory and Linda pulled the bags off the shelf. Neither one of them saw the glass pitcher leaning against the bags. When Glory pulled out the last bag, the glass pitcher rolled off the shelf, fell to the floor and shattered.

  Surprised, both Linda and Glory screamed.

  “No!” Matthew’s roar could be heard before he burst from the kitchen and into the dining area. He didn’t stop in the doorway of the room to look around. Instead, wielding a piece of pipe, he simply threw himself in front of Glory and gently but quickly pushed her to the floor. He stood, half-crouched, over her.

  Only then did he look around. “Where is he?”

  Matthew’s face had gone pale, and he looked fierce. He had a streak of black soot on his cheek and his hair had a film of white ash covering it. His eyes were pink from some irritant in the kitchen. He even wore a dish towel slung around his hips like a holster. He looked more like a back-alley bum than a hero. But all Glory saw was a warrior ready to do battle to defend his friend.

  Glory was humbled. She’d never had anyone leap to her defense. She lay on the linoleum catching her breath. “It was a pitcher.”

  “A water pitcher?” Matthew was puzzled until Glory gestured to her left. His face went even whiter when he saw the pieces of glass. “Well—why—thank God I didn’t push you in that direction. I could have hurt you myself.”

  “But you didn’t,” Glory quickly offered. She felt nothing but smooth linoleum beneath her arms and legs. “You thought it was a bullet, and you rushed to my defense.”

  Glory had forgotten she and Matthew were not alone.

  “A bullet?” Linda whispered. Her voice cracked. “A real bullet? Here?”

  Glory pushed herself up until she was sitting. The Jazz Man was standing in the doorway from the kitchen, and Linda was still standing beside the counter with the bag of table linens in her hand.

  “There’s no need to worry.” Glory stood and brushed her jeans off even though she knew there was no dirt left on the floor. “It’s nothing.”

  “But why would you think there’d be a bullet?” Linda persisted. Her eyes had grown round, and she looked even younger than the first day Glory had met her.

  “You some kind of crook or something?” the Jazz Man questioned Glory. He measured her and still appeared unconvinced. “The police after you?”

  “No, the crooks are after her.” Matthew laid his piece of pipe down on the counter and took two steps over to Glory.

  Matthew willed his panic to still itself. His pulse was pounding. His hands had been too scared to sweat until now. He knew he wasn’t the man for Glory. Not really. But none of that mattered to him when he thought the bullets were flying. He felt a primitive need to protect her, as an animal needs to protect his mate. It was unthinking and unquestioned. If Glory needed protection, he needed to protect her.

  And that wasn’t all. Matthew stepped closer to Glory and tucked her into his arms. He could smell her spice perfume and feel stray strands of her hair as they brushed his chin. But for all that, he held her loosely. It was her, not him, that he was most aware of. He didn’t kiss her. Didn’t dream of doing more than hold her. For now, holding her within the circle of his arms was enough. Just to simply stand together with his arms wrapped around her. Matthew slowed his breathing until his pace matched hers, and they breathed as one.

  The Jazz Man cleared his throat, but neither Matthew nor Glory responded. They just stood together. Finally Linda tugged at the Jazz Man’s sleeve, and they both walked into the kitchen.

  Glory didn’t even notice they had gone. She was wrapped in a safe, safe cocoon. She felt as if she was underwater. As if everything that was noisy or demanding was distant. Nothing could reach her. Nothing could touch her. She had never felt as safe as she did now.

  “We need to check back with the department,” Matthew finally said. He uncurled himself from around her. “They might know more about this hit.”

  “Yeah,” Glory agreed as she fought her sense of loss. Reality was intruding, demanding her attention. She missed the sense of being detached with Matthew. If all that ever happened with a scare like this was that Matthew hugged her because he was worried about her, she wouldn’t mind a bullet drill every half hour.

  “I see,” Glory said fifteen minutes later as she stood beside the counter in the hardware store and talked to her friend Frank back at the department. The fire from the potbellied stove warmed the inside of the hardware store. The air smelled faintly of this morning’s coffee and fresh popcorn. The hardware store was much too homey to be a backdrop for the hesitant words she heard over the telephone from Frank’s mouth.

  “What’d he say?” Matthew asked, tight-lipped, when she hung up the phone.

  “Sylvia called him.” Glory kept her voice even. She wondered if this was how a person in shock felt. The sense that she was not inside her own body. “Those two boys she told me about—the ones that said there was a hit out on me—didn’t show at the center today. Not even for basketball. Another kid said they had flown out on business last night. Frank checked the airport. They bought tickets for Billings, Montana.”

  Matthew felt the breath leave his body. It just whooshed away. Dear God, we are in trouble. Help us. He didn’t even notice he had uttered his first prayer in two years.

  “Can they ID them? Has the flight landed in Billings yet? Maybe we could contact the authorities there.”

  Glory smiled. Matthew thought like a cop. “Yes, Sylvia gave pictures to the Seattle police. Frank will fax them to us with the ones of the crime scene, said he’d fax them all right away. And yes, they contacted the Billings authorities. And yes, the boys were on the plane. But they were too late. The plane had landed, and they’d picked up their luggage forty minutes before Sylvia knew they were gone. They’d already left the airport terminal.”

  “So they’re here.”

  Glory nodded. She felt like a guppy in a fishbowl. No matter which way she turned she was too visible. Where would she be safe now?

  “Car rental agencies? Did they check with car rental agencies?”

  “The Billings police have the whole airport under surveillance. But Sylvia didn’t think they would rent a car. They don’t have a credit card, don’t even have legitimate driver’s licenses.” Sylvia had added that they probably had fake licenses, since they’d gotten on the airplane, but Matthew didn’t need to know that.

  Matthew raised an eyebrow. “How old are these kids?”

  “One’s fourteen. The other’s fifteen. They probably look older.”

  “Great. We’re doing battle with babies,” Matthew muttered as he ran his hand through his hair.

  “These babies have been in a gang for the past five or six years.” Glory bit her lip. She needed to think. “They can probably kill someone with a knife quicker than they can cut up an apple—and with less mess.”

  Matthew smiled wearily and started to pace. Even on his crutches, he seemed to need to move. “I know. I’m just not used to how tough children are these days. Makes me worry about the twins.”

  “The twins have you. They’ll be okay.”

  Matthew nodded, then suddenly turned. “Kids like that—how’d they get the money for airplane tickets?”

  “I don’t know.” Glory hadn’t wanted to tell him this. The tickets were a problem.

  “Did they pay cash?”

  Glory nodded. She bit her lip again. She desperately needed to think.

  Matthew stopped pacing and sat down in a straight-backe
d chair beside the counter. “Somebody gave them the money, then?”

  Glory nodded. She didn’t need to say what was obvious. The boys were on a job. How else could they afford to fly to Montana?

  Matthew ran his hands through his hair again. He stood up as though he couldn’t bear to sit and, once he was up, sat down again as though he couldn’t bear to stand, either.

  “Where are those drawings you’ve made?” Matthew demanded. “If we can figure out why someone wants to shoot you, they won’t have just one target. They’ll have to kill us both.”

  “What! That’d be crazy!”

  “We could let Frank in on the theory, too,” Matthew continued. “Once the authorities know why you’re a target, you won’t be a target.”

  Glory nodded. It made sense. Besides, work sounded good. If nothing else, it would stop the slow scream she felt working its way up from her belly. She’d never been hunted before. And to have the hunters be two of Sylvia’s kids…Something was wrong with the world.

  The drawings she’d made yesterday were still on the table near the front window of the store. She’d drawn the murdered butcher from several different angles and at several different times, ranging from when he’d just been shot to a final picture of the chalk outline just after the police came and were ready to take the body away.

  “You have a photographic memory?” Matthew asked as he looked at the set of drawings for the fifth time.

  Glory nodded. “For pictures, when I see something I remember it.”

  “Do you think it through or just close your eyes and remember?”

  “Mostly, close my eyes and remember. Why?”

  “Then maybe somebody switched that package of meat on you,” Matthew suggested. He pointed at the only two drawings that included the fallen package of meat. Each drawing had the meat in the corner where it had flown out of the butcher’s hand when he was shot. At first glance, the packages looked alike. But then Glory saw the differences. The sticker was on the right for one package and on the left for the other. There were three small steaks in one package and two medium-size ones in the other.

  “I must have remembered it wrong.”

  “Have you ever remembered something wrong before—a picture you were drawing?”

  Glory thought of the hundreds of photos she’d drawn as a student and as a sketch artist. She’d gone from bowls of fruit to crowd scenes. In school she’d learned to be quick with details and at the police station she’d learned to be accurate. Even now she could close her eyes and see the scenes from the murder scene. “No, I’ve never gotten it wrong before. At least, not that I know of, and I would have known.”

  Matthew nodded as though that’s what he’d expected. “Then we have our first clue.”

  “But why in the world would anyone switch the packages of meat?”

  “And who would do it?”

  “And when,” Glory added. Matthew was right. They just might have their first clue. “They had to do it while we were sitting there waiting for the police to arrive.”

  “Was the gunman still loose?”

  “No, he was tied up with some guy’s belt. A customer tied him to the end of a display case. The gunman didn’t even try to escape. He just lay there on the floor and waited.”

  “So whoever changed the meat was just hanging around, then.”

  “I suppose, but there was hardly anyone near us. The store manager had some of that ‘Caution—Wet Surface’ tape on his counter and he taped us in.”

  “Us?”

  “Myself, the gunman and two other customers. But the other customers were holding the gunman down. Even when he was tied up, they didn’t leave his side.”

  “Was the meat package close enough to the tape that a customer outside the taped area could switch it?”

  “Not unless he had arms the size of King Kong’s.”

  “Then that leaves the manager.”

  “The manager?”

  Matthew nodded. “Wasn’t it Sherlock Holmes who said once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth?”

  “I suppose the manager could have done it. He was walking around swinging that tape here and there. He had big pockets in his butcher’s apron, too.”

  “Now all we need to do is figure out why.”

  “That’s the hard one.”

  “We don’t have time for hard.” Matthew picked up the telephone. “What did you say was the name of that market?”

  “You’re going to call Benson’s Market?”

  “How else am I going to talk to this manager?”

  It took Matthew five minutes to be connected to the manager at Benson’s Market. It took him only two minutes and four questions to have the man swearing at him and threatening to turn state’s evidence and tell the feds.

  “Who’d he think you were?”

  Matthew shrugged. “I told him I was Matthew. He must have heard there was a Matthew somewhere.”

  “Or he’s so eager to squeal, he doesn’t care who knows what.”

  Matthew nodded. “He told me there wasn’t supposed to be any hassle. That the meat deal was supposed to be low risk. The money isn’t that much, not when there’s the murder, and he swears he didn’t know about the murder. And then someone’s calling asking pointed questions sounding like they know something…”

  “Not that you know anything.”

  Matthew grinned. “He didn’t know that.”

  “We’ll have Frank call him and lean on him, too.”

  Matthew nodded. “I’m beginning to think the road between here and Seattle is probably sprinkled with stolen meat.”

  “The rustling!” Glory put the two together.

  “What better way to make a profit on stolen cattle than to have them butchered and sold in independent stores?”

  “But why change the package of meat?”

  “Something about the codes. The manager was actually pocketing a good sum of money by buying the stolen meat. When the butcher started talking about the computer red-flagging super sales based on the price the meat was logged into the system, the manager panicked. The manager was shadowing the real prices behind the invented prices to keep track of his windfall and something was going wrong.”

  Pieces of the puzzle clicked together in Glory’s mind. “And the butcher figured this out. That’s why they killed him.” They’d solved the mystery. That’s what had been itching at her mind. The fact that her visual pictures were different when she recalled the scene. Someone must have found out about her memory. She was noted in the police department for never forgetting a crime picture.

  “I’m safe. Now that the pictures are out, there’s no reason to kill me.”

  “All we need to do is find those boys and convince them of that.”

  Glory nodded. That was the problem, all right. Finding those boys before they found her.

  Matthew spent the afternoon making and waiting for phone calls to Seattle. He talked to Frank. He tried to talk to Sylvia, but he finally found out that she had left shortly after warning Glory about the boys and was flying into Montana herself.

  “Billings airport is going to be busy.”

  “Billings can’t possibly be busier than this place,” Glory grumbled. Mrs. Hargrove came into the store carrying a bent shepherd’s staff.

  “What’s this I hear about bullets flying and hit men coming to town?” Mrs. Hargrove demanded as she walked toward the counter. She was wearing a black wool coat over a green gingham dress.

  “I know now’s not a good time, with the pageant and all.” Glory said. “I didn’t plan this.”

  “Well, of course you didn’t, dear. And don’t worry about the pageant. A few bullets won’t stop us.”

  “Speaking of the pageant, I might not be able to be your angel.”

  “Well, surely you don’t think they’d try anything at the pageant.” Mrs. Hargrove was shocked. “That’s a holy moment!”

  “That didn’t stop Herod in th
e original pageant.” Matthew was worried. With everyone in costume, two teenagers could sneak up before he could pick them out. A bathrobe and a loose turban was all the disguise they’d need. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to pick them out fast enough to protect Glory.

  “Well, if need be I’ll fly from those rafters myself,” Mrs. Hargrove said starchily. “I won’t fit into the costume, but I can wear a big white apron and some of my husband’s winter long johns.”

  Glory blinked. Had she heard right? Long johns and…“Fly from the rafters?”

  Mrs. Hargrove gulped. “I guess we haven’t told you yet. Tavis had this great idea.” Her face beamed. “A flying angel. Now, won’t that make the pageant special?”

  Glory blinked again. “A flying angel? Me?”

  “Well, it won’t all be flying. First you’ll start out standing on the rafters, singing a carol.”

  “Singing? Me? I haven’t even practiced.” Glory didn’t know what was more alarming, the singing or the flying.

  “Don’t worry about it, dear. I’m sure whatever you sing will be just fine.”

  By nine o’clock that night Glory had practiced “Silent Night” exactly three times. Each time Matthew and the twins sang it beautifully. She wasn’t so sure herself.

  “Hang this one on that low branch,” Glory directed from her place on the chair. She, Matthew and the twins were finishing decorating the five-foot pine tree at Matthew’s house. She held out a golden ornament to Matthew.

  “And don’t bunch all the red ones together.”

  “Are you really going to fly?” Joey asked for the fourth time that evening.

  “It’s more like a swing.” Glory had gotten very specific descriptions from Mrs. Hargrove and Tavis. The ropes were heavy and the rafters strong enough to hoist machinery. The angel’s long robe would hide the seat of the swing, and the ropes, Tavis had assured her, would be scarcely visible in the darkened barn.

  “Nobody’s going to fly or swing anywhere unless we find those two boys,” Matthew said sternly. After closing the hardware store, he’d looked both ways down the street before he’d rushed Glory to the car. They’d stopped at the café so Matthew could show the faxed photos to Duane and Linda and ask them to keep an eye out for the boys.