Colorado's Finest

by Lynn, Sheryl

  “These are honeybees,” Diana said. “Gentle. They won’t pursue us. It’s important not to swat them. Okay?”

  Tate felt bees crawling in his hair—his black hair. He forced down a groan. Moe’s weathered face had turned pasty. The men grasped the downed man’s shoulders. A bee stung Tate’s palm. He gritted his teeth and pulled.

  “Move slow,” Diana said, her voice calm and assuring. She was gently scooping bees off the man’s back and legs. “Pull him slow. Are you sure you aren’t allergic?”

  If he was, he was in trouble. Along with the sting on his hand, he had a sting on his back, and at least two on his forehead. A bee writhed in a frantic circle on Moe’s forearm, trying to free itself from its embedded stinger. They pulled the man toward the house. As Diana had promised, the bees didn’t pursue them. Those insects that could, flew away from the fallen man.

  Diana urged them to roll the man over. The grotesque sight made Tate recoil. The man’s face was purple and blotched, with his eyes swelled shut and his tongue protruding. He sported a shoulder harness holding a .22 automatic. Tate pulled the weapon free. It was fully loaded.

  “Is he dead?” Moe asked.

  “He will be. We need paramedics, right now.” Diana dug in her pocket and produced a folding knife. She cut off the man’s tie, then unceremoniously ripped open his shirt. His chest was as blue as his lips. She jerked the man’s head back, exposing his swollen throat. Tate could see he wasn’t breathing. She looked around. “Either of you have a ballpoint pen?”

  Moe fished in a shirt pocket and brought out a pen. He handed it over and she unscrewed the barrel then flung the insides away. She clamped the nib end of the barrel between her teeth, then stretched taut the skin over the man’s adam’s apple.

  “Diana?” Tate suspected what she meant to do, but didn’t believe it.

  “I said, call the paramedics. Now! Move it!” Sure and swift, she cut into the man’s throat. Dark blood seeped and trickled. She jammed the pen barrel into the hole. Air rushed out. She held it in place with two fingers.

  Tate flipped open his cell phone and dialed 911. He told Moe, “There’s a first-aid kit under the passenger seat in my truck.” Moe took off at a run. Tate reached emergency services.

  “Tell them we have a man in anaphylactic shock and cardiac arrest. Get down here, hold the pen.” As soon as he did so, she began compressing the man’s chest. Tate relayed information from her to emergency services. His gut churned when she blew into the bloody pen barrel. Brave woman. When Moe returned, she explained to Tate how to tape up the pen so it didn’t shift.

  She never broke rhythm in performing CPR. Sweat poured from her brow and dripped from the end of her nose. Her face turned bright red. Fifteen compressions, then two big breaths into the pen.

  “Two man CPR is easier,” he said. “I’ll compress, you breathe.” Even for a woman as fit as she was, CPR was hard work. She sat back on her heels, shook her hands and rubbed her biceps.

  He folded his hands, found the man’s sternum, then began compression. She counted five beats, then breathed into the pen.

  It finally caught up to Tate that Diana had reacted like someone trained in emergency response. Not only did she know exactly what to do, but she was in total command. It felt perfectly natural to hop to when she ordered it.

  “Hey, Red.” He kept his eyes on his hands. His back and shoulders were burning with effort. One, two, three, four, five—Diana breathed into the pen. Sweat made bee stings burn like drops of molten metal. “Are you holding out on me? Are you a copper?”

  “I’ve never been a police officer. Stop. Let’s see if there’s a pulse.”

  Tate sat back on his heels and flexed his aching hands. She probed the man’s swollen throat and then his groin. She shook her head. He renewed CPR.

  “Moe,” she said, “don’t pick at the bee stings. Use a credit card or driver’s license to scrape them off. How does your tongue feel? Any shortness of breath?”

  “I’m okay,” Moe said.

  Tate’s stings burned like crazy. He didn’t even want to know how many times he’d been stung. But he was able to assure Diana that he wasn’t having an allergic reaction. He strained his ears for the sound of sirens. Television shows made CPR look like a stroll in the park, but in reality it was exhausting work. His underarms grew greasy with sweat. His shoulders ached. He might have to keep this up for a long time until the paramedics arrived.

  He waited for her to breathe for the guy again. Then he asked, “How’d you know how to help this clown?”

  Moe leaned in close, his eyes bright with curiosity.

  Diana sighed. “I’m a physician. Keep compressing, three, four, five…”

  DIANA STOOD NEXT TO HER truck and fed bits of bread to the goats. She watched the ambulance drive away, its emergency lights flashing. Now that the excitement was over, her knees felt watery, and her chest ached. Her salivary glands were tight. She’d rinsed her mouth with straight peroxide then with vinegar. A useless exercise if the bee-stung man carried some blood-borne disease, but it made her feel a little better anyway.

  Tate approached. He’d put his shirt back on, which she considered a shame. He had a body that could make an anatomy professor weep in ecstasy. Examining his well-defined pectorals and heavily muscled shoulders would make a fine diversion from her fugitive sister and gunmen invading her farm.

  He stopped out of range of the goats’ inquisitive nibbling. Clucking her tongue, she lightly fingered the bee-sting welts on his forehead and the developing bruise on his chin. “Poor Tate. My critters are giving you a working over today.”

  She rested a hand against his chest. Hanks of black hair fell boyishly over his forehead, and somehow made his flinty eyes look dangerous. His temperament was mellow, good humored. He didn’t need excessive noise or bluster to call attention to himself. If, however, the man who’d run away ever got a good look at Tate’s expression, as it was now, he’d flee the state and never look back.

  “I’ll live.” He cocked his head, his gaze probing. “Guess that explains the couch.”

  “What?”

  “I was wondering how you afforded that leather couch on what I pay you. How come you didn’t tell me you’re a doctor?”

  She looked past him to Gil. The sheriff sat inside a marked Range Rover. He was writing up the incident. Moe sat inside the Rover, too, probably filling in details.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with waitressing,” she said.

  “You saved that guy’s life. The paramedics are way impressed.”

  She’d never heard this tone of voice from him before. It occurred to her that he might be angry with her. She drew her head aside. “If he lives, it’ll be God’s doing, not mine.” She shoved her shaky hands in her pockets.

  “So what gives? If you’re a doctor, why are you working in a dive and living in the middle of nowhere?”

  The past was gone, an illusion, nothing to dwell on, nothing to talk about. She walked her dharmic path now. “Let’s just say I wasn’t supposed to be a physician.”

  “Your hands looked pretty good to me.”

  He was angry. This felt like an interrogation. “My hands were never the problem.” She dropped her gaze to his sidearm. The man who’d been stung by bees had been carrying a weapon. The man who ran away probably did, too. Thinking about them made her shiver. “I’m suddenly in a hurry to get out of here.”

  He scratched furiously at his ribs. “Right.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  He turned his head, revealing a set jaw and thunderous brow. He grabbed her shoulders and gave her a little shake. He was trembling. “Damn it! That mope had a gun! I know you’re nuts, but I didn’t know you’re crazy! You scared the hell out of me. I don’t believe you took off running like that!”

  She blinked rapidly. Reviewing what had happened, she conceded that his anger was justified. Years as an emergency room physician had trained her to react. Personal danger had not even entered the
equation.

  She could have been killed.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t think.”

  He gave her another little shake, but as his hands slid off her shoulders it almost felt like a caress. “You…you’re…you’re the best waitress I ever had. I don’t want to lose you.”

  So the anger was more personal than professional. She was contrite, but pleased, too, that he cared so much. She hugged herself.

  Gil and Moe left the Rover. In unison, they settled broad-brimmed hats on their heads. Gil stared in the direction the ambulance had gone. He handed a cell phone to Moe and said something that caused the old cowboy to nod. Then Gil beckoned to Tate and Diana. He walked toward the beehives. The bees had settled, but he stopped a good thirty feet away. “What the heck is your sister into, Diana?”

  “I wish I knew,” she said. Bernadette’s criminal behavior had begun early. In grammar school she’d been a liar and a thief, a chronic truant and troublemaker. She’d only been twelve years old when she discovered illicit drugs, alcohol and older men. Perhaps Bernie understood what went through her mind, but Diana did not. She never had. “Right now, my queen concerns me. If she’s dead, I could lose the hive.”

  Gil’s normally placid face turned dark and furious. “I’ve got dead and wounded men, a nut with a gun running around, and you’re worried about bees?”

  “What can I say? I’m their caretaker. Besides, you don’t need speculation, you need answers. I don’t have any.” She took two steps then stopped. “Don’t you want to know why those men were raiding my hives?”

  Diana fetched her beekeeper hat and smoker from the barn. She settled the broad white hat on her head and draped the veiling over her shoulders. She’d been stung enough for one day. She checked the fuel in the smoker can, then lit it and pumped until pale smoke curled from the spout.

  Tending a hive required slow, almost dance-like movements. The work soothed her shaken soul and settled her thoughts. She smoked the fallen hive until the bees stopped flying. Each hive rested on cinder blocks so air could circulate. Last year’s tall grass formed a tawny curtain around the blocks. A dull silver-colored case had been hidden beneath the fallen hive. She pulled it free—it was very heavy—and set it aside. Then she righted the hive onto the cinder blocks and worked off the lid. A few more puffs of smoke further quieted the bees inside.

  Gil was shouting questions, but she ignored him.

  The combs were dripping honey, many of the cells broken, but the forms were intact. She lifted forms one by one until she found the queen. Workers circled the much larger queen, grooming and fussing over her.

  “Good girl. So sorry about the excitement,” she murmured. She gently settled the form back into place and replaced the lid. Left alone, the bees would soon have the hive back in order.

  Only then did she turn her attention to the metal briefcase. “Oh, Bernie, what have you done now?”

  “What have you got?” Tate called.

  She left the enclosure and fastened the gate securely behind her. Anger rose, hot and disturbingly familiar. Hadn’t she left all this behind? The endless drama, the useless anger, the agony of watching loved ones self-destruct. She’d learned her lesson and walked away. And trouble followed.

  She lifted the veil off her face and scanned the horizon. Bernie knew darned well her pursuers might come here. Men with guns. Bernie didn’t care.

  Diana gave the case to Gil. He looked worried, which worried her.

  Her anxiety increased when the sheriff placed the case on the hood of the Rover and snapped open the latches. It was packed tight with fat bundles of twenty- and hundred-dollar bills. Tate whistled, soft and low. Moe asked if the money was real. The sheriff muttered a curse. All Diana could do was shake her head.

  “You’re out of here, Diana,” Tate said. “Right now.”

  THE SHERIFF STOOD BEFORE a large topographical map of the Maya Valley and surrounding mountains. He rocked on his heels. “What the hell is going on, Tate?” He turned his head. “I don’t like bodies dropping in my jurisdiction.”

  The metal briefcase sat on a desk between Tate and the sheriff. It lacked identifiers and clues to its origins, but somebody wanted it back.

  The station was quiet except for the tapping of a secretary typing up a report and the dispatcher handling the radio. All available personnel were either involved in the fugitive search for Diana’s sister, or looking for the man who’d run away from Diana’s farm, or transporting evidence to various labs. Gil had banished reporters, but that didn’t stop the phone from ringing off the hook with journalists in search of headlines.

  Hands on his hips, Tate glared at the briefcase. All the staring in the world couldn’t force it to give up its secrets.

  Bernadette had chosen a good hiding place for her stash of cash. So how had those mopes known where to look?

  “Sheriff?” the dispatcher called.

  “Yeah, Ellen, what?”

  “The forest service guys want to know if you have more flyers.”

  “My budget is shot to hell,” Gil muttered. Then louder, “Tell them I’ll get something to them tomorrow morning.”

  Nearly sixty percent of the county was made up of either national forest or Indian reservation; the sheriff’s jurisdiction was fairly small, and so was his budget. Bernadette was gobbling up the sheriff’s budget like cheap chocolate.

  Gil checked his watch. “You look beat. Go home and get some sleep. I still need you on patrol tonight.”

  Tate waved off the concern. He dropped onto a chair and rested his chin on his fist. He shifted his attention to the pistol he’d taken off the injured man. It was tagged, nestled inside an evidence bag. Its serial number had been acid-burned off. Crooks eradicated serial numbers when they meant to dispose of a weapon. The only reason to dispose of a perfectly good firearm was because it could be used as evidence in a crime.

  “Any empty vacation cabins with the phone service hooked up?”

  “Maybe. Why?”

  “Those guys knew right where to look.”

  “Do you think Bernadette tipped them off?”

  Tate couldn’t think of another explanation.

  Gil perched on the desk edge and crossed his arms. “Doesn’t make sense. Why go to the trouble of hiding the money if she meant to give it up?”

  A call came in for the sheriff. Gil listened, responding with the occasional “uh-huh” and scribbling on a sheet of paper. He hung up. “That was Jimmy, down in Durango. Mr. Bee-sting is officially deceased.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Tate said dryly.

  “Sure you are. His ID says he’s Richard Taylor from Los Angeles, California. Jimmy gave his prints to the Durango P.D. They’re running them through the computer for us.”

  California added more geography to the mix, Tate thought and rubbed his weary eyes. This just kept getting better and better.

  “And Jimmy checked the airport. Two passengers fitting the descriptions of our guys came in on a morning flight out of Denver. Taylor rented a car.”

  Tate straightened on the chair and snatched up Gil’s notes. “Jimmy needs a promotion. Hey, Ellen! Need an APB on a rental car.” He read off the rental’s make, model, color and license plate number to the dispatcher. Then he called the Durango-La Plata airport and spoke to the head of security. He soon learned that Taylor’s partner was listed on the manifest as John Williams. Richard Taylor, John Williams—common enough names, and probably phony.

  In any case, if Williams showed up to turn in the rental car or make a flight, he’d be detained. Tate called the airport in Denver and spoke to the head of security there. The man promised to check manifests.

  Tate glowered at the telephone, mulling over his next step. “We need to do a door-to-door.”

  “You’re joking.”

  Tate dropped a hand on the metal briefcase. “Our girl isn’t looking for money. She’s looking to hide. Only she can’t find her mother, so she shows up here. Then our guys, suppo
sedly out of L.A. turn up via Denver. How’d they know Bernadette would be here? How’d they know to look at the beehives?”

  “She’s tired of running, so she tips off the boys from L.A.?”

  “Not probable, but possible. She may have broken into an empty house or talked her way into an occupied residence in order to use the phone.”

  Gil dragged a hand across his eyes, then opened a desk drawer. He brought out the book that contained the volunteer deputy alert roster. Grumbling to himself, he took it into his office and shut the door. Hard.

  Tate studied the case notes, searching for any lead he might have missed.

  Diana walked into the station. Tate’s heart leaped at the sight of her, taking in every detail from the soft bobbing of her hair to her curvy hips. Then it sank in that she was alone. He jumped to his feet. “You really are crazy!”

  Clutching a brown paper sack to her chest, she backed a step.

  “You’re supposed to be at Ric’s place. There’s a gunman running around.”

  A not-quite-chastised expression pulled her features. She looked as tired as he felt. Crow’s feet were apparent around her eyes, and her shoulders sagged. “If I’m not safe in the sheriff’s station, then what’s the use of hiding?”

  He opened his mouth to yell at her, but she held up a hand and shook her head firmly.

  “Save it.” She placed the paper bag next to the briefcase. She dropped onto a chair with a thump. A heavy sigh escaped her.

  He felt bad for losing his temper. It had been a long time since he cared enough to yell at anybody. Diana had him rattled every which way. “Is everything okay up at Ric’s place?” He opened the bag. It contained clothing and two matchbooks. He dumped it all on the desk.

  “Ric hooked up the propane, then he helped me put up temporary fencing for the goats. He even showed me how to work the hot tub.” Her smile was strained. “That man? Did he make it?”