Sweet Talking Lawman

by M. B. Buckner

  He grinned. “Sounds like a winner to me, as long as you don’t mind.”

  She turned and waved to Jory who had moved to join the girl behind the bar, then beckoned Rafe to follow her.

  She led him to a door behind the stage which she unlocked with a key. They climbed the steep staircase and stopped at a second door, this one at the top where she used the key again, then pushed it open and they entered a small, modern kitchen.

  Mesa smiled up at him as they passed into her apartment. “Jory insists that I maintain the two locked doors, for security from within. I also have a rear entrance that he insists I keep secure. Motion sensor lights and a camera that is monitored. He’s a worry wart, but he’s been looking out for me for several years now. Don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  Rafe looked around in surprise at the plants growing in profusion from every nook and cranny of space. “I’m glad you have someone lookin’ out for your safety.” Still following her, through an arched doorway into a larger room he noted the change of color from warm, rich orange and browns in the kitchen to subtle tans and aqua in the living room. A comfortable couch faced a closed fireplace with a large southwestern landscape painting taking up most of the wall above it. A cozy recliner sat at an angle from the couch, a table at the side of it. It was a relaxing room furnished with a blend of colors and décor that lent a simple, elegance to it.

  “Relax and make yourself at home, Rafe. I’ll only be a minute.” Mesa walked past him and disappeared through another door.

  When she emerged again a few minutes later, he found it even harder to breathe. Now she looked like the Mesa he’d known. She wore jeans and a tank top but her bare toes were sticking out from the legs of her pants and suddenly naked toes were the most sensual sight he’d ever seen.

  “What do you feel like having?” She smiled at him from the doorway to the kitchen.

  He was filled with such longing. He walked over to look down at her, his body on fire. “You, Mesa,” his voice rough as sandpaper. “I want you.”

  The phone at his elbow rang, snatching Rafe back from his memories. He lifted it. “Storm Horse.”

  Beth’s voice held a trace of laughter. “Sheriff, Archie Spitzer is on the phone. He wants to know about the rapist you arrested and would like to get a statement from you for the paper.”

  He frowned. Archie Spitzer was not his favorite person and he didn’t want to deal with him at all today. “Tell him I’ll have something for him tomorrow morning.”

  “Rafe, did you ever know Spitzer to take an answer like that? If I give him a brush off he’ll be over here, fifteen minutes tops, in person and frankly, I don’t want to have to deal with him either,” Beth scolded her boss.

  “Alright.” His voice was just short of terse. “Ask him to give me 30 minutes to get my information confirmed and I’ll call him back, then get Levi on the line for me.”

  “Alrighty then,” her voice carried the hint of her smile.

  Rafe shuffled through the papers on his desk, looking for the paperwork on last night’s arrest. The report was almost on top and at the first glance the rapist’s name jumped off the page at him. A frown drew his black brows almost together in the middle of his forehead. He’d known he was tired last night and hadn’t given the perp more than a glance, but he couldn’t believe he hadn’t recognized the man. Especially if the name was right. He pushed his chair back and marched across his office. He stuck his head out the door and looked at Beth. “You got Levi on the phone yet?”

  “He’s coming to it,” she nodded. “He was in the cell block.”

  “When he gets there, just tell him to come on up here. When you copied these papers, did you see who we arrested?”

  She nodded. “Wondered when you’d notice that. Are you gonna call his brother?”

  “Damn,” Rafe swore softly. “Do you think he doesn’t know?”

  “I know none of our people have called him. They’re all standing back waiting for you to do it.” Beth was silent for a few seconds, then continued. “If you wait much longer, I suspect he’ll be in here himself, filing a missing person report.”

  Rafe shook his head. “I don’t know what I’ll say, but get him on the phone for me, will ya?”

  “You got it.” She watched him pull his head back into his office and the door closed again. Working the phone lines, she looked up to see Heather and Spur coming in the door. Without pausing she buzzed his line.

  “Storm Horse,” he answered.

  “Your dog is back and I’m sending him to your office and Heather back to the break room to finish her assignment.”

  “Thanks.” He replied absently and hung the phone up. Who in their right mind would ever dream that the serial rapist that had been terrorizing the town for three months was the mayor’s brother!

  Rafe wanted to throw breakable things and shout curses at the top of his lungs. This was not part of the job he wanted to do. It should be reserved for someone with more people skills, maybe a psychologist or someone with special training. He didn’t like the mayor, never had, but how the hell was he going to tell the man his brother had been arrested for several rapes and assaults?

  Heather opened his office door and waved silently as she released the dog into the room as his phone rang. He tossed her a grateful grin and lifted the phone to his ear as she backed out and pulled the door closed behind her.

  “Hello Mayor Shiver. Yes, it was a busy night and that’s what I need to talk to you about.” Rafe broke the news as gently as he knew how and tried his best to be understanding and patient, but when the man on the other end of the line demanded that his brother be released immediately, his patience broke. “Listen, Ralph. I know that you find this hard to believe and probably embarrassing as well, but we had a tip and set up a stake out and…” He paused and listened for a moment. “Otis entered the house through a window and was in the woman’s bedroom with a knife in his hand and his pants opened. Fortunately, we were prepared and the woman he thought would be there had been replaced by an armed female deputy.” He paused again before he continued. “There just really isn’t much room for doubt, I assure you.” Another brief pause. “Of course you can come see him and bring his lawyer, but I don’t think he’ll fight too hard with all the evidence we have against him. DNA? As a matter of fact we do, he peed all over the floor when my deputy greeted him with her hand gun in his face. I don’t think there’ll be any shortage of DNA. His fingerprints are on the knife and of course, we have his clothes to take DNA from.”

  Frustration and impatience swirled around his personal space as he replaced the phone receiver into its cradle. He’d known that Ralph Shiver would feel he could throw his weight around, but as sheriff, Rafe wasn’t about to turn Otis Shiver back out to prey on the women of his county. He picked the phone up again and spoke to Beth. “Get the District Attorney on the phone for me, and when Mayor Shiver and his lawyer get here, stall them for as long as you can.”

  In the outer office, her brows arched. “I’m supposed to stall them?”

  “Yeah, I want the DA here when they go in the back to see Otis. Make sure…”

  “By whatever means necessary?” she asked, not allowing him to finish his sentence.

  “Whatever means necessary.” He grinned as he nodded, even knowing she couldn’t see him. “I know how creative your mind can be.”

  Beth chortled softly. “I’ll take that as a compliment and I’m sending Levi on in.”

  Rafe was smiling as he hung the phone up again. A light tap on the door preceded Levi pushing it open. He grinned at Rafe. “I see you figured out who we got down there in lock-up.”

  “Why the hell did I have to wait this long to find out?”

  Rafe’s bark was worse than his bite and Levi knew it. His easy grin never faltered. “Who, in this department, can you name that would want to tell you?”

  Rafe swore softly. “Well, Ralph and his lawyer are on their way over here and I’ve told Beth to stall them until th
e DA gets here. Since you couldn’t make yourself tell me it was the mayor’s brother in lock-up, you can help Beth with that little chore.” The phone on his desk rang and he answered it. After only a few words exchanged, he hung up and pushed his chair back. “I’ll be down in lock-up waiting for the DA. He’s on his way. When he gets here, I’ll let Beth know she can send Ralph and his lawyer down and you, my friend, can show them the way.”

  “Dammit, Rafe, you know I can’t stand that man!” Levi started pleading his case, but stopped when Rafe lifted one hand, palm up toward him.

  “Don’t whine, Levi, it’s not manly.” He and Spur exited the door in the back wall of his office, leaving Levi to join Beth in the outer office.

  Two hours later, he watched through a one way mirror as the DA secured Otis Shiver’s signature on a confession. The threat of a trial with witnesses and DNA evidence had swung the mayor to their side and he’d talked his brother into accepting a plea bargain of a slightly shortened sentence and the assurance from Archie Spitzer that the story wouldn’t run on the front page but one time.

  Rafe smiled. He liked it when things worked out so well. Rapist off the street, confession signed, no expensive trial. Yeah, he enjoyed his job. Absently he scratched the big dog’s head and then sighed loudly. “Come on, dawg. Let’s go see if we can find something to eat.”

  He found Levi and the Montgomerys sitting at a booth in The Tepee, the local cafe. He slipped into the seat next to Levi. “Have you heard if Rance Howell’s remembered any more about his accident?”

  Levi took a bite of his mashed potatoes and gravy. “No, why?”

  Rafe shrugged his broad shoulders. “Just seems strange to me. He’s been trainin’ horses for so many years, it just don’t seem likely that he’d have a colt out in the woods unless he knew it was ready for rough terrain. And if the colt was spooky, I know Rance reads a horse better than anyone alive. He’d have been aware of what the horse was gonna do, before the horse was.”

  Krystal Montgomery nodded. “I thought the same thing. I can’t imagine Rance freezing in the saddle and letting himself get rolled on like that. He’s the best horseman I’ve ever seen.”

  Levi took another bite. “Did you ask him about it?”

  Rafe nodded, and then placed his order when the waitress brought a glass of iced tea to the table for him. When she left, he took a sip from the frosty glass before he shrugged. “He was still out cold when Bob and Gibby found him.”

  John Montgomery shook his big head negatively. “Seemed like a hell of a spill for him to survive, considering the horse didn’t.”

  Rafe agreed. “From the insurance report, the colt fell another thirty feet or so among fallen trees and stumps. If Rance hadn’t hung up against that tree he’d have gone over into that sink hole, too. Bob said he didn’t go down and retrieve the tack from the horse ‘till the next day, but from just lookin’, he knew it was dead from the fall.”

  Everyone in town knew Spur and he was granted privileges equal to those of any service dog, so he lay quietly on the floor next to Rafe’s feet. He sat up for a minute, licked his muzzle and looked at Rafe expectantly and then dropped his eyes to the steak in the plate. “Leave it.” The man spoke softly and the animal laid his head back down on his big paws.

  While the humans ate, the dog rested silently, knowing that when they went outside again, he’d be given his share. Today it would be the bone of the huge T-bone steak on John Montgomery’s plate.

  The law enforcement officers indulged in the usual shop and trash talk that accompanied meals shared together, until Rafe looked up and spotted his baby sister and her family coming in the door. They exchanged a brief greeting and when he had finished eating he walked to the table where Jenny and her family had set down. He pulled up a chair and sat down after bestowing a quick kiss to her cheek and shaking Russ’s big hand. He gave Spur the hand signal to lie down again. The dog obeyed, but kept his eyes fixed on the carry-out bag that Rafe placed on the edge of the table. Their little girl, Macie, squealed and reached for her uncle. Grinning he lifted her from the high chair and into his arms. Her short blond curls bounced with joy at being in her uncle’s lap. She immediately turned and began trying to remove the badge embroidered on his shirt front. Failing to get it off with her small hands, she decided maybe she could succeed with her front teeth. She ignored the grown-ups talking, concentrating only on the emblem on the front of his uniform.

  “We heard you got the rapist last night. Good job.” Jenny’s smile beamed with pride. “I knew it was just a matter of time.”

  He shrugged. “We had a share of luck, too.”

  “Macie, don’t drool all over Uncle Rafe’s shirt.” Her scolding was ignored by the little girl and the man wearing the shirt. As far as he was concerned, the child could do no wrong.

  Jenny’s eyes darted up to his. “Did you hear that Mesa’s coming home?”

  He nodded. “Never thought that’d happen,” he responded dryly.

  “She’s always loved her Uncle Rance. She can’t stand to think of him living the rest of his life in some nursing home while her mama ruins everything he worked so hard to keep in the family.” Jenny placed a few French fries on a napkin in front of the high chair and returned Macie to her seat.

  “Even if she has to fight Shirley to keep it? Never thought that day would come. In fact, the last time I talked to her, she swore she’d never come back here, because of her mother.” Rafe quipped. He knew it would be a fight, too. He’d been hearing about some of the money Shirley was spending since Rance’s accident. She’d told anyone who’d listen that she wasn’t getting saddled with taking care of her brother-in-law. He would be better off in a nursing home. She had finally managed to quit drinking and had apparently been seeing Ralph Shiver. It seemed her taste in men hadn’t changed drastically. She’d only gone from slimy to scaly.

  “Are you the one who told her what Shirley was plannin’ for Rance?” He asked, knowing the answer before he saw the anger in her eyes.

  “Yes, I am. She had a right to know. Especially now.” Jenny was distracted by her son, Rusty. Between six and seven, Rusty considered himself almost grown. He picked up his knife, intending to cut his meat, until his mother swept it from his hand. She smiled at her husband. “Would you help him out, please?” She looked at her disappointed child. “When we’re eating out, it’s better if you let your dad help, okay? It’s safer to practice at home.”

  “Why, especially now?” Rafe asked.

  “Well, it’s.....knowing Rance needs her is enough, okay?” Her voice held an edge that he wasn’t used to hearing.

  Rafe shrugged. “Whatever.” He looked across at his brother-in-law. “I’m off this week-end. Are you still hayin’?”

  Russ nodded. “As long as the weather holds. If it rains, I can always use your help with that back bedroom that Jenny wants turned into an office.”

  “Studio. Not an office. It’ll be where I can keep all of my art and craft projects. Someplace where the kids don’t go.” Jenny corrected him.

  Rafe chuckled. “So, you want me to bring over the padlock and hasp? That’s the only way you’ll keep these two curtain climbers out of it.”

  “Hey,” Rusty cut in, grinning at his uncle. “I ain’t no curtain climber!”

  Rafe kissed his sister’s cheek again, and the top of Macie’s head. Then he pushed back his chair and stood up. He shook hands with Russ and with Rusty and returned to his office.

  He wondered why Jenny had censored her answer earlier. It wasn’t at all like Jenny to bite her tongue. She knew something she wasn’t telling him. Oh well, he reminded himself again, Mesa returning home didn’t have anything to do with him. He’d better make sure he kept that in mind. He shuffled the papers he was looking at and tried to concentrate. It was hopeless. He walked out to where he usually found Beth at her desk. It had been cleaned off and she was gone. He glanced down at his watch and was surprised to realize how late it was. If he hurried home, he’d have ju
st enough time to put that sorrel colt in the round pen for a short session before it got dark. He kissed his lips together to summon Spur and headed home.

  After the excitement of the prior week, he was grateful that the next week was uneventful. He’d even thought about slipping into Liberty to see Lynn, a woman he visited on occasions, but decided against it. Lately, all his interest in women seemed to revolve around Mesa coming home again.

  Over the previous weekend, Rafe had worked alongside his brother-in-law loading baled hay and storing it in the barn. His labor was his way of paying for the hay he’d eventually haul to his own barn to feed his six horses through the winter. He’d even talked Levi into contributing some time.

  Levi had taken an interest in team roping and until he found the horse he wanted, he was using Rafe’s old gelding, Hammer. Rafe figured mounting him on Hammer was one of the easiest ways to teach Levi how to be a heeler. Hammer had been at it for over twenty years and was certainly better than any human teacher. Rafe had roped off Hammer when he was still in school, Jenny had learned on Hammer, Russ had learned on Hammer, and even the teenaged Mesa had become a pretty good heeler riding the old bay gelding.

  Now, during breaks and warm up time in the arena, Rusty was learning to ride on Hammer, but Rafe was keeping an eye on a POA mare that was probably going to be for sale soon. Her present rider’s father was looking for a Quarter Horse to replace the smaller mare his son was outgrowing, and Rafe figured he’d get the little mare and Rusty could start learning to throw a rope off her. Hammer was getting too old to pull double duty.

  He went to every team roping he could manage when he wasn’t on duty. His father and his Uncle John had either roped steers or calves and he knew that Uci had enjoyed going with them, so he insisted that she go along with him unless it was too hot or too cold.