Texas Lawman

by Ginger Chambers

  Jodie shook her head.

  “What’s up?” Shannon asked after a small silence. “Is it those men from this morning? Rafe told me they want to talk to you.”

  “They think I can tell them something about Rio.”

  “They looked pretty rough. I was watching from the window,” Shannon explained. “I know they’ve been through a lot, but...well, I was glad Tate was here. It made everything more...official.”

  “I was glad, too.”

  Shannon hesitated, then said, “Jodie? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want, okay? But is something going on between you and Tate? I mean, really going on? Not just kid stuff?” When Jodie stiffened, Shannon continued in a rush, “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s that darned Parker directness I’ve caught from Rafe and Mae. Forget I said anything, okay? It’s just that I’ve been worried about you. First about why you stayed away for so long, then if you still had feelings for Rio, and now...” She took a breath. “Oh, forget all this. Please! I’m embarrassing myself.”

  Jodie smiled tightly. It seemed to be her purpose in life to make people worry. “It just means you care.” she said quietly.

  “We all do!” Shannon exclaimed. “Right down to Shep, Jr.”

  The puppy was sprawled, sound asleep, on the floor at his mistress’s feet.

  Shannon laughingly amended, “When he’s awake, that is.”

  Jodie moved to the window. Shannon had unknowingly struck another chord. A moment before, she’d said that Jack’s genes ran true to his ancestors. Did hers, in relation to the Parkers? Where did she fit in? She’d been running away from “being” a Parker for so long she no longer knew. She loved them deeply, each and every one. And they—as they’d proved this morning and were still proving now—were willing to lay their lives on the line to protect her. And how was she repaying them? By harboring a suspected criminal. A man who, from the beginning, they’d warned her to stay away from.

  A whisper of panic moved through her. What if Rio had made up the story? What if he truly was responsible for Crystal Hammond’s death? And now she’d involved Tate in what could easily prove to be a lie!

  She jerked her hand to her mouth to keep from crying out.

  Shannon, who’d continued to watch her, came over to brace her shoulders. “Whatever’s going on,” she said quietly, “I have to tell you, it’ll work out. I’m the all-time expert on that, remember? Things can look pretty bleak for a while—” she was obviously referring to the tragedy in her past, the plane crash she’d spent long months recovering from “—then when you least expect it, sometimes from a source you’d never ever expect, the bad is replaced by good. I love the life I have now with Rafe and the boys. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. And at one time I thought my life was over. I wanted it to be over.”

  Jodie said huskily, “I’m not so sure this can work out. It’s all such a...” She shook her head, unable to go on.

  “Just give it time,” Shannon urged.

  Jodie nodded, but she knew that time was a commodity she didn’t have. If Tate’s search went past Wednesday, she’d have to admit everything—and then suffer the consequences.

  TATE’S SENSE of urgency increased as the day wore on. His mother and Rose had received the same negative responses as Jodie. So far, no one they’d spoken to had hired a person fitting this Joe-Bob’s description in Briggs County. Their only hope, it seemed, would lie with the sheriffs of the other counties.

  Tate pulled a couple of his deputies from their accustomed routes to patrol the public roads near the Parker Ranch. He wanted to be sure, in case Rio Walsh decided to leave whatever hiding place Jodie had devised for him and make a break for town or beyond, they’d catch him before he got very far. Tate also had asked Chief Lovell to help him keep an eye on the Hammonds. At last report they’d yet to leave the town limits, and Tate had given instructions that he be notified the second they did.

  Their stubborn determination to talk to Jodie worried him. Would she be able to keep quiet about everything she knew? Or would that feisty redheaded Parker temper get the better of her and she’d tell them exactly what she thought—and in the process divulge information she could have received only from Rio? Then they‘d’ know, and press even harder.

  She’d looked frightened this morning standing on the porch. His heart had twisted at the sight of her and he’d wanted to do something—anything—to take her fear away. Then again, maybe a healthy dose of fear was a good thing if it kept her on the ranch and kept her quiet if accosted.

  Tate smiled weakly. Jodie Parker keeping quiet. That had the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell!

  CHIEF LOVELL called a couple of hours later. “Just thought you’d wanna know. They’re still at the Waterin’ Hole, orderin’ beer after beer. Jimmy says they’re holdin’ it pretty well, not stumblin’ around or causin’ any trouble. But if they get in that truck of theirs and try to drive off, I own ’em! Not a doubt in the world they’re over the legal limit. You got a spot for ’em to sleep it off, right?”

  “You bet. I’ll tell the deputy on duty to fluff up a few pillows just in case.”

  Chief Lovell hooted with laughter. “You do that!”

  Tate cleared the remaining administrative work from the day before by meeting with several citizens. Two were officials of his mother’s women’s club who were there to request a contingent of deputies be on hand during the fund-raising fair they were holding the following weekend. They’d used the county park for the past two summers, but this year they were worried about adequate protection.

  “The world seems to have gone crazy lately,” club president Marybeth Hardy said. “Troublemakers everywhere. Even here! There are so many people we just don’t know anymore.”

  “When I was a child we never had to worry about something terrible happening,” vice president Wanda Brinks, an energetic sixty-year-old like Marybeth, contributed. “It’s those drugs everybody’s putting up their noses or into their arms or swallowing like there’s no tomorrow. It makes them do crazy things. Decent people can hardly step out of their homes anymore!”

  Tate listened patiently, then said, “Our drug problem’s pretty low. It’s around, but limited. If I believed what the people on TV said about how awful everything is everywhere, I’d be afraid to come out of my house.” The women tittered. “So don’t worry. Have your fair. One uniformed deputy will be plenty. You never had trouble in the past and you won’t this year, either.” He shook each woman’s hand as he saw them out.

  The next citizen was far harder to deal with. Harvey Stevens seemed to think that owning the town’s largest car dealership gave him special rights. “Dammit!” he exploded, pounding his fist into his hand. “It’s just not right! I pay my taxes—more than my share in fact. So when I need a policeman, I expect to find one, not have him off doing double duty to help the county! You have deputies. You have a budget. Use them! Stop poaching from Del Norte!”

  Tate sighed inwardly. This wasn’t the first time the car dealer had come to complain. “The last time you were here, Mr. Stevens, I explained how our mutual-assistance pact works. Is there something about it you still don’t understand?”

  “The whole damned thing actually!” Stevens shot back.

  Tate launched into a replay of his previous explanation.

  The car dealer listened, then at the end, after Tate had outlined all the advantages, he stubbornly maintained, “I still don’t see where it’s to my benefit.”

  Tate’s temper snapped. “It benefits both the county and the town, Mr. Stevens. It’s not about poaching money or personnel. It’s about stopping crime while being chronically underfunded and understaffed. My deputies and I help Chief Lovell, and he and his officers help us.”

  “There! See? That’s what I’m talking about. The whole sordid affair isn’t balanced. I’m sure you call for help much more often than Chief Lovell calls you.”

  “The jail is a county lockup.”

  “Which I helped pay for with my
county taxes!”

  Harvey Stevens was a stupid and argumentative man, who seemed to like nothing better than a good fight. Tate wished he could just deck him and get it over with. Instead, he dug deep inside himself for a wellspring of icy calm and said levelly, “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Stevens. I’m going to make you a promise. If we get a call that someone’s causing trouble out at your car lot and the town police need our help, we won’t respond. I’ll cite everything you told me just now. Then everyone can be happy. Does that sound good to you?”

  The car dealer sputtered.

  “In fact,” Tate continued, dragging out a sheet of paper and a pen. “Why don’t we formalize it? Your town tax money is to be used exclusively in town, and your county tax money in the county. It’s not to be comingled. Of course if the need arises at either your home or your business, you’re forfeiting your right to have the town police call the county for assistance. And you’ll in no way hold either agency responsible.”

  He slid the paper and pen across the desk and dared the other man to use them.

  Anger flashed in the car dealer’s eyes as he scrunched the paper into a tight ball and threw it into the wastepaper basket on his way out.

  “Do I take it, then, you do want us to respond?” Tate asked as the door slammed shut.

  Tate chuckled dryly, then indulged in a few moments of highly uncharitable thought.

  It was at times like this that the task-force job looked mighty appealing. He loved police work, not politics. Not dealing with ill-tempered boors who caused almost as much irritation with their complaints as the criminals they employed him to arrest.

  He went home, changed out of his uniform, heated a frozen dinner and ate it watching a sitcom on TV—all the while trying to relax. But the tension he’d lived with for the past day and a half wouldn’t let him. He kept thinking of Jodie and the Hammonds—and what would happen to her if they ever learned she knew where Rio was.

  He muttered a curse, collected his off-duty gun, clipped the short holster to the belt looped through his jeans and hid it under the cotton shirt he wore loose over a black T-shirt. Then he climbed into his own Ford sedan and headed for the Watering Hole on the outskirts of town.

  The place was relatively quiet on Monday nights, as if trying to recover from the weekends, when cowboys from the surrounding ranches and workers from town converged to let off a little steam. Chief Lovell never let things get too far out of hand, though, and for the most part the participants respected his rules.

  A juke box was playing an old Patsy Cline tune as Tate strode in through the old-fashioned swing doors. He was immediately hit by the scents of perspiration and stale beer.

  The only lighting came from naked bulbs hanging weakly here and there, but it was enough for him to spot the Hammonds sitting at a table near the far end of the bar. A few other patrons were scattered about, and when one recognized him, he waved him over.

  “Hey, Tate! Long time no see! C’mon—lemme buy ya a beer!”

  Tate slid into a chair with the best available view of the Hammonds and smiled at his tablemate. “It’s been a long time, Dale. What you been doin’ with yourself?”

  “Oh, this and that...this and that.”

  Tate was on speaking terms with everyone in town—from oldest resident to freshest newcomer. He knew their names, where they worked, how many kids they had or didn’t have. Dale Travers was a hard-luck kind of guy he’d gone to high school with. Over the years he’d never seemed to get anything in his life together for long enough to make it count. Still, he had a good heart.

  Tate spent the next hour nursing a lone beer and commiserating with Dale, while the Hammonds continued to drink steadily. From time to time other people joined Dale and him at their table, and from time to time Rufus Hammond looked over and frowned, as if their loud laughter annoyed him. But he didn’t recognize Tate. And why should he? Out of uniform Tate knew he looked very different.

  He heard only bits and pieces of the Hammonds’ conversation, but it was enough to confirm what he’d suspected—they’d spent the better part of the day working themselves up into an even finer fury. Their anger was now all-inclusive, aimed not only at Rio Walsh, but at the Parkers, himself and anyone in town who they thought had gotten in their way.

  Only when they began to make threats did Tate decide to intervene. He got slowly to his feet and walked to their table.

  Considering the number of empty bottles littering it, none of them appeared any worse for wear. They looked just as mean and just as determined as they had that morning.

  “Whaddaya want?” Tom Hammond, the older son, snarled.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing,” Tate said evenly. “And it seems to me that maybe you boys should hang it up for the night. Before some of these good ol’ boys behind me hear what you’re sayin’ and take exception. You’re way outta your territory, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  Tom Hammond jerked to his feet and in the process knocked over his chair. “Just who the hell do you think you are, comin’ over here to tell us—”

  His words were cut off by his father’s sharp order. “Right your chair and sit down, Tom!”

  Tom stared at him.

  Rufus Hammond hooked a foot around his son’s leg and swept it out from under him. Tom crashed to the floor, and as he struggled to fight his way back up, his father murmured to Tate, “Where do we know you from? You look familiar.”

  “We met this morning. At the Parker Ranch. I’m the sheriff.”

  A whisper of a smile touched Rufus’s mouth. “Yeah. That’s it. I remember.”

  Tom Hammond needed help from his brother. Tate was fully aware of what each man was doing, where his hands were, what his eyes were saying. “Like I said,” he repeated quietly. “I think you boys should call it a night.”

  The younger son’s round face was flushed from alcohol and outrage. “No one tells us what to do!”

  “And just in case you’re thinkin’ of driving, don’t!” Tate added. “Motel’s not that far from here and the walk’ll do you good. Maybe it’ll help sober you up.”

  “Like I said—” the younger son growled.

  His father lifted a silencing hand. “You think you’re really somethin’, don’t you, Sheriff?” he said to Tate. “When all you are is a...” He used a string of words that would have provoked a less disciplined man.

  The other voices in the bar grew quiet as one by one the occupants realized what had been said and to whom. Their narrowed gazes moved from Tate to Rufus and back to Tate.

  Dale was instantly at Tate’s side. “Did he just say what I think he said?” he demanded, his whipcord body taut as he bounced on his toes, ready for battle. “Look-a-here, you! This is my friend! And nobody talks to one ’a my friends that way!”

  Tate put a restraining arm across Dale’s midsection. “I’ll overlook what you said this time, Mr. Hammond. Takin’ into account the circumstances. Just remember what I said earlier. You mess with anybody in my county and you’re gonna pay for it. You’re not in Colorado now. Sheriff Preston isn’t in charge.”

  His overshirt moved during the restraining action and revealed that he was armed. A smile pulled at Rufus Hammond’s lips as he slowly got to his feet. Then without saying another word, he walked away, not seeming to care whether his sons came or not. Like trained dogs they quickly followed.

  The music played on, a wailing voice lamenting the duplicity of a one-time lover.

  Once the show was over, the other occupants of the dimly lit room went back to their conversations and their drinks.

  “Way to go, Tate!” Dale cheered. “If you ever need help with those SOBs, you just let me know. I’ll be ready.”

  Tate patted him on the back, told him to take care and followed the Hammonds outside.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BY THE NEXT DAY waiting had become intolerable for Jodie. She had to know what was happening. But when she placed the call to the Briggs County Sheriffs Department and it was ans
wered by Tate’s mother, her first instinct was to hang up.

  Jodie had never really gotten to know Emma Connelly. The difference in their ages and circumstances had prevented it. But she knew the older woman was admired in the community for the way she’d handled herself the day her husband died. While on dispatch duty, she’d taken the call from the mortally wounded Dan Connelly, who’d dragged himself back to his patrol car to pass on whispered information about his assailants so they could be apprehended. Then she’d talked steadily to him, encouraging him to hold on until help arrived—only to learn later from Jack that her husband had died with her name on his lips.

  “Mrs. Connelly? It’s me, Jodie Parker. Is, ah, Tate in?”

  “Jodie Parker?” Emma Connelly repeated, surprised.

  “Yes.”

  A pause followed, then Emma asked, “How are you? I suppose it feels pretty good to be home again.”

  “Yes. Yes, it does.”

  Another slightly awkward pause, then Emma said, “Tate’s in his office. I’ll put you through.”

  The line clicked before Jodie could say thanks.

  “Sheriff Connelly,” Tate said briskly.

  Jodie pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Tate, this is Jodie. I couldn’t wait. Have you found anything yet?”

  He took several seconds to reply. “Nothing so far.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nope.”

  “But you have started—”

  “We’re doing all we can, Jodie.”

  Short. Sweet. To the point. It was obvious he didn’t want to talk to her. She felt at a disadvantage for having called him. “Well I guess I should let you go. You’re probably very busy and—”

  “I’m busy, but not that busy,” he cut in. His voice softened. “I always have time for...constituents.”

  She laughed lightly, her heart rate accelerating. “I didn’t vote for you.”

  “But you would’ve, wouldn’t you, if you’d been here?”