Dangerous

by Lee Magner

  Chapter 4

  “You’re under arrest!” exclaimed one of the lawmen, leaping down from the roof of his car, brandishing a pistol in Case’s direction.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Case said in amazement.

  “No. I surely am not. Let me see your hands.”

  “What’s the charge?” Case asked incredulously.

  “Disturbing the peace.”

  “The dog disturbed the peace, not me!” Case exclaimed angrily.

  “Watch out now, or we’ll add resisting arrest,” the lawman said with a fierce frown. “I was told there could be trouble here. But we’re ready for it.”

  Case rolled his eyes.

  Luther snorted in disgust.

  “I’ll call the sheriff and make your bail,” Luther said, giving a stoic shrug of his bony old shoulders.

  “Bail?” Case bellowed. He cast a withering look at the lawman who was handcuffing him and marching him toward the unmarked car. “You’d better hope this poor excuse for a town can afford the lawsuit you’re going to lose for this, Officer.”

  “Lawsuit?” The lawman paused and looked Case over suspiciously. “Now why would there be any lawsuit?”

  “This is an unlawful arrest,” Case snarled.

  The lawman looked a little doubtful, but decided against backing down. He’d rather be reprimanded by the mayor for being overzealous than let some felon escape and have to explain that!

  “Oh, yeah?” he huffed. “We got orders from the mayor himself.”

  “Oh, really?” Case said, a dangerous smile gliding across his face. “Grissom’s gone out too far on the limb this time, then. And I’ll be only too happy to saw it off while he’s dangling out there by his fingernails”

  The two lawmen didn’t like what they were hearing and turned as one to Case, saying, “Shut up! Get in the car!”

  As Case was being fastened into his seat belt, he looked back at Luther and nodded goodbye with a wry, philosophical smile.

  As the car pulled away, Case glanced up at the bedroom window and caught a glimpse of a face he knew well. It was Seamus. He was watching as Case was driven away in handcuffs.

  Case thought he saw something in Seamus’s face, but in the dark, at that distance, he couldn’t be sure. It had seemed like pain. As if it hurt him to see Case being taken away by the local police.

  “Well, Da,” Case whispered to himself. “It seems nothing changes. Not for us. Not around here, anyway.”

  He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes.

  At least he’d get his ten-minute nap, he told himself. And time to think of what to do next.

  Case smiled bitterly.

  “Welcome back, Case,” he muttered sarcastically on behalf of the hostile inhabitants of Crawfordsville. “We’re sure glad you dropped in.”

  He wondered if they already had the tar hot and the feathers plucked and waiting.

  He’d know soon enough.

  “Say, Mayor, isn’t that the unmarked car you had stakin’ out Luther’s place?” Farmer Yokum asked.

  Grissom Bonney, the honorable mayor of Crawfordsville, choked on his frothy glass of locally brewed beer. His wife, the stately and unflappable Honoria, pursed her lips, plucked the white linen handkerchief from his suit pocket and efficiently brushed off the amber liquid that was dribbling down his conservative blue-and-silver tie. The one she had personally selected for him the last time she was in Cincinnati.

  “Grissom, put down that beer!” she whispered sternly. “And wipe your mouth!” She pushed the handkerchief into his hand.

  The mayor wiped the white froth off his mouth and chin and stuffed the dampened hankie into his wife’s outstretched hand.

  “What would you do without me, Grissom Bonney?” she murmured archly. She stared at the damp handkerchief. “Sometimes I think my mother was right. I should have gone away to teachers college instead of putting you through school.”

  The mayor was not listening. For one thing, he’d heard all this before. More important, there was an unmarked police car with a little red light flashing on its roof, sitting down by the pavilion. He peered at it, trying to make out who was inside the car. Or at least, how many people.

  The mayor’s palms began to sweat and be suddenly felt very warm. He tugged at his tie and stretched his chin. Surely they hadn’t picked up Seamus Malloy and brought him here! Why, a third of the town was still milling about, drifting slowly toward their cars. If people saw Seamus, the mayor shuddered to think what kind of a riot might break out. He blinked and squinted, trying to see who was in the car.

  Honoria helpfully reached for his glasses case, but was stopped before she could pull it out of his inside jacket pocket.

  “I can see perfectly fine, Honoria,” the mayor said crossly, restraining her by grasping her hand firmly with his.

  The farmer who had asked about the police car looked quizzically at the mayor.

  “Looks like they come to see you, Mayor Bonney,” he opined.’ ‘Does that mean the stakeout’s done? Sure didn’t last too long, if’n you ask me.”

  “I didn’t ask,” snapped Mayor Bonney.

  “Grissom!” Honoria hissed. Then, under her breath, she added, “The man votes!”

  “Yokum never voted for me in his life,” the mayor told her huffily. He turned to the farmer. “Isn’t that right, Yokum?”

  “That’s about right, I reckon.”

  “So I’ll tell him whatever I damn well please, Honoria. And you stay out of it!”

  Honoria was clearly taken aback by her husband’s public display of testiness. Her surprise rendered her momentarily speechless, a rare occurrence for Honoria Bonney, normally never at a loss for words.

  Grissom Bonney squared his pudgy shoulders and placed his hands solemnly on his wife’s forearms.

  “You stay right here, Honoria.” He gave a strict, sideways glance toward Farmer Yokum. “You, too, Yokum. This is official business. And…” he added with melodrama, “it could be dangerous.”

  Then be turned and briskly walked toward the lawmen’s parked car, where a small crowd of curiosity seekers was gradually forming.

  Honoria rolled her eyes, looked heavenward for strength and impatiently tapped her toe.

  Farmer Yokum lifted his glass of lemonade and took a long, unhurried swallow. When he was finished, he turned his head in Honoria’s direction and observed, “The mayor sure does get excited ‘bout things, don’t he, Honoria?”

  Honoria aimed a look of pure exasperation at Yokum.

  “Well,” the farmer drawled, tossing his empty paper cup in the green wire trash receptacle nearby, “I gotta get up early in the mornin’. So if’n you’ll excuse me, ma’am?” He tipped his finger against his forehead and nodded in farewell.

  Honoria gave him an automatic, brittle smile and paid no attention to him as he left.

  Her eyes were riveted on her husband… and a dozen other people, all of whom were closing in on the police car. Among them was her son, Franklin. And his date for the evening, Clare Browne.

  Honoria bit her lower lip and laced her aristocratic fingers together as if in prayer. She wanted Franklin to stay away from this old problem. But he was more difficult to manage than her husband.

  “Franklin,” she murmured. “Stay away from this. You escaped this scandal the first time, but just barely. Think of your career…”

  Honoria Bonney stood there in the cool evening air, staring across the empty and disheveled picnic tables, willing her son to sense her message to him.

  As if he had, he turned and looked at her.

  In the darkness, his eyes were hard to see. And his thoughts were unknowable.

  Déjà; vu.

  That’s what it felt like.

  Case sat in the back seat of the police car and watched the faces gathering around outside. The Reverend Roland Lightman and his submissive wife, Martha. They looked as uncertain now as they had fifteen years ago, when he’d been cuffed and shoved toward jail during the
early-morning hours on the day Lexie’s body was found. And there was their son, Peter Lightman, Case’s high school classmate. He looked older, but just as scared and insecure as Case remembered him. And Peter’s sister, Paula. She’d filled out a little, Case thought wryly. And she had a man in tow. Looked like a future husband to Case. Domesticity was stamped all over the guy’s face. And in the resigned way he allowed Paula to drag him around.

  The mayor had arrived, huffing and puffing from hurrying to the car in a failed attempt to beat the crowd. But he could elbow people out of the way with authority, and he was bellowing orders at the lawmen in the front seat.

  “This is why I told you to call me on the cellular phone we just bought!” the mayor was complaining furiously. He glanced in the back seat and saw Case then. His mouth froze in mid-speech and he stared at Case in stunned amazement. “Case?” he asked in disbelief. “Is that you, Case?”

  “It’s me, Grissom. I must say, I wasn’t expecting you to roll out the red carpet for me like this,” Case said dryly.

  The lawmen in the front seat looked thoroughly confused.

  The mayor went from stunned to infuriated.

  “What is Case Malloy doing in handcuffs in the back seat of this vehicle?” the mayor whispered furiously.

  “He was disturbing the peace… and you said, if there were any trouble, any trouble at all, to arrest the felon and put him in jail and we’d get him out of town before daylight.”

  Case lifted an eyebrow.

  “Really?” Case interjected. “Is that how due process works ’ here in my old hometown, Grissom?”

  Mayor Bonney’s face reddened. He hated being called Grissom by anyone except his closest friends and family members, and Case failed to qualify on either count. And he’d been caught in a bold, but unfortunately legally untenable, plan for getting Seamus out of the way. The mayor turned his embarrassment and anger onto the most reasonable object he could find. The two boobs he’d posted as-lookouts.

  “What kind of trouble was there!”

  “Well, Fitch’s dog started kickin’ up quite a fuss and so we tore up that hill faster’n lightnin’ in July and grabbed this fella here. The dog had him cornered in his car, y’see…”

  The lawmen looked at each other uncertainly. The mayor did not look pleased.

  “That’s it?” the mayor asked in red-faced amazement. “Luther’s dog barked?”

  Case leaned back in the seat, enjoying the trip for the first time.

  “I dunno, Grissom,” Case said, thinking aloud. “How much do they settle wrongful arrest suits for these days?”

  The mayor sputtered, but Case lost interest in the mayor. Over his shoulder, he saw someone else. Franklin Bonney. And next to him, Clare Browne.

  She saw him at the very same moment.

  Their eyes met.

  And for a second, everything else melted away.

  There was just the two of them.

  Staring at each other.

  Recognition. And remembrance.

  A friendship that had been more than friendship. Two people who had left a lot unsaid between them fifteen years ago.

  Franklin leaned over and whispered in his father’s ear.

  Case noticed, but didn’t look away from Clare. She filled his eyes, and for some reason, he just couldn’t pull himself away from her. Not just yet.

  “Case? Are you listening to me, boy?” the mayor demanded impatiently.

  Case reluctantly turned his gaze back on the mayor.

  “No, Mayor. I’m afraid I wasn’t.” And he hadn’t been called “boy” in quite a few years, but he let that go for the moment. “Were you and Franklin making me an offer of financial settlement?”

  Franklin’s face was a mask, but there was a cold anger somewhere under it. Case sensed it.

  “Well, not exactly.” The mayor turned to the lawmen. “Unlock those cuffs,” he ordered. When they hesitated and would have protested, he bellowed, “Now!”

  Case held his wrists out and the lawman riding shotgun produced a key and unlocked the handcuffs. Case rubbed his wrists and sat back in the seat. He grinned at the mayor, waiting.

  “Now, I apologize, Case. Uh, this was, uh, a mistake…”

  “A mistake?”

  “Yes, uh, but we’re rectifying it now, just as soon as we can, so there’s no harm done, is there? Uh, the boys here’ll be happy to give you a ride home.”

  Case lifted an eyebrow.

  “They don’t look happy to me, Grissom.”

  The mayor glared at the lawmen.

  The two lawmen grinned unhappily and shifted in their seats.

  “Uh, where, uh, are you staying, Case?”

  Case didn’t answer. He wasn’t certain whether he’d be staked out if he told them. Or worse. He didn’t trust the fine people of this town. Except for one of them. He glanced at Clare. She was staring at him as if she were going to have to paint his portrait from memory the following day. It was unsettling. He shifted in his seat and frowned.

  “I don’t have to answer questions, Mayor,” Case stated.

  “No, no,” the mayor hastened to agree. He’d seen the accountant’s report on the state of the town treasury. They definitely could not afford a lawsuit. And he knew that Case had had an Irish temper as a youth. Who knew what kind of fuss he’d kick up as a man? The mayor couldn’t take that chance. He was accustomed to placating people to keep the town on an even keel. He reached across the shoulder of the lawman who was driving the car and offered his hand to Case. “No hard feelings?” he said with a hopeful smile.

  Case hesitated, looked at Clare. There were hard feelings, all right, he thought bitterly. But he could show them that he was a man who’d left this little two-bit town behind. He could show Clare that he wasn’t the rough, rebellious youth she remembered. He was a man. He could smile like a shark with the best of them.

  Case shook the mayor’s hand. Hard.

  The mayor smiled painfully and withdrew his hand as soon as Case released it.

  “I don’t really appreciate being driven around the countryside in a police car, Grissom,” Case drawled. He opened the back door and got out of the car. When he looked around, the small crowd shrank back. People began drifting away. Case’s hard, unblinking gaze sent them on their way, one after another.

  “Yes, well, that would be embarrassing,” the mayor conceded.

  “Why don’t you give me a ride, Mayor?” Case suggested.

  The mayor coughed. He tried to imagine the newspaper stories: “Mayor drives son of convicted murderer back to house of Luther Fitch where Seamus Malloy, released after fifteen years of hard time at the…”

  Then Clare spoke.

  “I can give you a ride home, Case,” she said.

  It was the samesoft, throaty voice he remembered. He stared at her, wondering how he could resist the temptation of accepting. It was tempting—just a few minutes with her…to see what she was like after all these years. He knew he shouldn’t. He’d promised himself he’d avoid her. Her eyes were that same warm chestnut color that he remembered. God, he’d almost forgotten. But now it came back with vivid clarity. She had beautiful eyes. Warm eyes. Tender eyes.

  “No.” He rejected her offer curtly. He saw her flinch. Saw her stiffen her resolve. Damn. Nothing had changed between them, he thought. They had battled over everything in the old days. And now they were stepping back into their wrestling match all over again. He sighed inwardly. Oh, Clare. Don’t do this, he thought.

  “Well, if you don’t want the police to take you back where they found you, and if you don’t want to walk, then you’d better take my offer,” she warned. She motioned toward Franklin, who was standing silently by her side. “You see, Franklin and the mayor were planning on having a very important discussion with that man over there…” Clare pointed toward a well-dressed man who’d joined Honoria in the distance. “Campaign business,” Clare explained. She dangled Franklin’s car keys from her slender fingertips and grinned at Case
. “But I can take you home. Aren’t I at least a good substitute for the mayor? I represent him at a lot of meetings,” she added, trying not to smile. Those “meetings” weren’t very important.

  The mayor, definitely not liking the idea of being tomorrow’s headline, hurried to support Clare’s offer. He motioned for the police to leave immediately and resume their round-theclock guard of Seamus.

  “That’s right,” he said, giving Clare a light hug and grabbing Franklin by the elbow. “Thanks, Clare. Uh, sorry about this unfortunate business, Case,” he added.

  Franklin frowned and resisted his father’s tugging.

  The mayor glowered at him and muttered under his breath, “You don’t need to be on the front page tomorrow, either, Franklin. Remember…election time is coming up sooner than you think.”

  Franklin looked at Clare. His opaque eyes showed very little of his true thoughts.

  “Is this wise, Clare?” he asked softly.

  There was a deadly undercurrent in that soft question. Clare found it unsettling. She knew that Franklin could be a little distant sometimes. Reserved. Cool. Even cold. And calculating.

  But there was a different quality to his utterance. It was a quality that would have frightened her if anyone but Franklin had been speaking.

  But it had been Franklin. Franklin, whom she’d known almost all her life. So she shook off the uneasiness in her. Put it down to being tired and excited about seeing Case again, and worried about the way he was being treated.

  Clare shrugged and smiled ruefully.

  “I don’t know if it’s wise, Franklin, but it’s what I’m going to do,” she said. She brushed a quick, platonic kiss on his cheek. He responded with a light hug, the way a casual friend would. But his eyes kept returning to Case. And Franklin wasn’t smiling.

  “All right, then,” Franklin finally agreed. “Drive him home. Then take the car to your place. Just lock the keys in the car when you’re done. I’ve got a spare set. I’ll have the mayor drop me off at your mother’s house after we finish talking with Janessky about the new campaign fund-raising laws. Don’t bother to stay up, though. I’ll probably be quite late. I’ll just pick up the car and drive home.”