Lethal Lawman

by Carla Cassidy

  But before he could follow through on the impulse she straightened her shoulders, her eyes faded to that familiar cool blue and her hand stopped trembling. “Then we need to figure out who it is and find out why I’m being threatened.”

  He couldn’t help but admire the inner strength she appeared to tap into, so unlike the fragile woman he’d loved and married. “That’s the plan,” he replied.

  “Have you considered Edward Cardell?”

  He eyed her in surprise. “Why would he want to threaten you?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “He’s the number one person of interest in Aunt Liz’s disappearance. He’s called me a couple of times since she’s been gone but I’ve never answered his calls.”

  Frank’s head muddied with this new information. Edward Cardell had been Liz Marcoli’s secret lover. He’d been the last person to see her alive before he’d left town for a couple of days to stay in a primitive cabin in the mountains. The cabin had been thoroughly checked and there had been no indication that Liz had ever been there.

  “Why didn’t you answer his calls?” he asked.

  “Because I have nothing to say to him. Because I don’t want anything to do with him.” She raised her chin a notch. “Aunt Liz didn’t tell us about him and I don’t know that he isn’t responsible for her disappearance. There’s nothing he has to say to me that I want or need to hear.”

  Frank made a mental note to check in with his partners and see what they knew where Edward Cardell was concerned. “Why would he leave a threatening note?” he asked, trying to make sense of everything.

  “I don’t know—maybe because I refuse to speak to him.” She released a barely audible sigh. “I don’t even know that it was him. While I haven’t gone out of my way to offend anyone since I’ve been back in town, I also haven’t gone out of my way to be particularly friendly with anyone. I know people call me ‘the ice princess’ behind my back, that people think I’m stuck-up and vain and shallow. Who knows who I might have offended without knowing it?”

  Frank wasn’t sure what to say. Everything she’d said about herself was true, although he saw something very different in her. Yes, she was distant and had kept herself isolated, but he’d also caught glimpses of the real Marlene Marcoli beneath the facade she kept up in public.

  She definitely had strength, but he also sensed more...a vulnerability, a sadness that she used as a shield to keep people out. Frank couldn’t help but be curious as to what that shield hid. He also couldn’t help but want to explore exactly who the real Marlene Marcoli was in relation to the face she put on in public.

  “So, what happens now?” she asked and then raised her coffee cup to her lips. There was no tremble of fingers, no fear sparking from her eyes. She might have had a slip in control momentarily, but she was firmly back in control now.

  “I’ll check out Edward Cardell to start with. Did you write me out a list of people you have contact with here at the store?”

  She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. “Most of the people are from the Amish community, so I’m relatively sure that list is filled with dead ends.”

  “Then in the meantime I suggest you watch your back. No more nights here alone in the store. Check your surroundings when you’re out in public. The note might have been an isolated incident or it might be the beginning of something more. At this point we just don’t have enough information to make an educated guess on what comes next.”

  She nodded, as if she’d expected nothing less. She pointed to the paper plate between them. “Let me gather you up some of those things for you to take home with you. I made a big batch of both the bars and the cinnamon bites and then the rain kept everyone out of the store today.”

  “I’d love to take some home with me,” he replied.

  She got up from the table. “Just sit tight and I’ll be right back.”

  He took another sip of his coffee as he watched her leave the room. Who had left the note on her doorstep? He opened the piece of paper she’d given him and quickly scanned the names. He knew most of the people she’d listed and he couldn’t imagine any of them leaving a threatening note or wanting to harm anyone.

  Why Marlene? What had she done that she wasn’t aware of? Who had she offended to the point that they’d left that note? Or was it possible that this was somehow related to the disappearance of her aunt? Was there somebody in town who, for some reason, had a rage directed toward the Marcoli family?

  He smiled as she returned with two plastic white carrying cases and a large foam container that a restaurant would use as a carry-out box.

  “Here you are.” She handed him the heavy foam container.

  “It feels like you put too much in here,” he protested. “Don’t you want to take some of this home for yourself?”

  “I kept a little bit for myself.” She flashed him one of her rare, genuine smiles, and as usual a fireball of heat exploded in the pit of his stomach. “I confess that I not only love baking, but I also have a sweet tooth and love a little something sinful before going to bed.”

  Frank tried not to think of all the sinful things he’d like to enjoy with her in the bed. “Thanks again,” he said as she stood, as if since their business was concluded there was no reason to hang around.

  He would have liked to hang around. He would have liked to ask her what kind of music she listened to. If she enjoyed dancing or going to the movies. He’d like to ask her all the kinds of questions that gave insight, that promoted some closeness between people.

  But he didn’t. He got up from the table. “Do you need to close up the front or anything before leaving?”

  “No, I already took care of it.” She picked up her plastic containers. “So, I guess I’ll just hear from you if and when you find out something about the note or my aunt.”

  He nodded. “Needless to say, the search of the cabins was called off today because of the weather, but the men will be out again first thing in the morning. As far as the note―” he patted his pocket, where he’d placed the list of names she’d given him “―I’m going to check out these people and ask some questions around town and see if we can figure it out.”

  “You have my number if you find out anything,” she said as they both walked toward the back door.

  He wondered if that was a subtle hint to him that any further personal contact wasn’t necessary or particularly wanted.

  As she opened the door and stepped out into the deep shadows of twilight, he realized that she just wasn’t into him, that she apparently meant to remain isolated and distant.

  He left the building and stood just behind her as she locked the store door and then turned back to face him. “You never told me—did you give your father the rocking chair?”

  “I did. I took it to him late last night and he sat in it and looked like he’d been rocking in it for years. He told me it was the best present I’d ever gotten for him.”

  “I’m glad he likes it,” she said.

  “He loves it,” he replied.

  They moved away from the door and he walked with her to the driver’s side of her car. She unlocked her door and opened it, and at the same time a loud ping resounded.

  Frank instantly recognized the sound and saw the hole that had exploded in the door upholstery. He reacted instinctively. Foam and plastic containers flew as he grabbed Marlene by the arm, threw her down to the ground and pulled his gun from his holster.

  He covered her body with his own, his gaze sweeping the shadows of the wooded area behind where they were parked. Somebody was there...somebody with a gun.

  He was acutely aware of several things all at the same time. The air seemed to hold its breath with the anticipation of danger. The only sound he heard was the frantic gasps that escaped from Marlene, who felt warm and soft and achingly vulnerable beneath him
.

  Somebody had nearly shot her and he knew with a sickening gut feeling that the shooter was still in the woods, waiting for another opportunity.

  “Marlene, I’m going to count to three, and when I do, I’ll shift off you and I want you to slither on the ground like a snake to the front of the car.” She’d be a more difficult target there with the full length of the car between her and the shooter.

  “One,” he whispered. “Two...three.” He moved just enough that she could slide out from beneath him, and at the same time that she began to move toward the front of the car, he fired off several covering rounds.

  An answering shot replied, hitting the side of the car just above Frank’s head. He followed Marlene, crawling on the ground to where she crouched by the front bumper.

  When another bullet slammed into the car, Frank pulled out his radio and called into dispatch. “Get everyone out to the back of the Roadside Stop,” he told Erin. “Marlene Marcoli and I are pinned down by gunfire coming from the woods.” He didn’t wait for a reply, but instead tucked the small radio back in his pocket and eased to the corner of the car to view the woods, knowing that if anyone approached from that area, he’d shoot first and ask questions later.

  * * *

  Marlene felt as if she’d entered some kind of altered universe. As cop cars squealed into the back parking lot and men left their cars with guns drawn, her heart thudded a kind of fear she hadn’t felt for a very long time and had hoped she’d never feel again.

  It seemed as if every lawman in the county had shown up, and within minutes men were combing the woods and Steve and Jimmy, Frank’s partners, approached where he and Marlene remained crouched in front of her car.

  “You two okay?” Jimmy asked. He was a handsome Italian, shorter than the other two men but imposing with his broad shoulders and big arms.

  “Yeah, thanks to the fact that whoever was in those woods firing on us apparently wasn’t a sharpshooter,” Frank replied tersely.

  “So what happened exactly?” Steve asked as both Frank and Marlene straightened up.

  “I’d stopped by here to speak to Marlene and as we left the building somebody started firing.” Frank glanced at her, then back at Steve. “I think they were trying to hit Marlene.”

  She swallowed the horror of his words. Somebody had tried to kill her. Somebody had stood in the woods with a gun ready to blow her away.

  “If somebody had fired a shot at Roxy, I might be able to understand it. She manages to piss off people without even trying,” Steve said, his affection for Marlene’s sister evident in his voice. “But you? Who have you ticked off?”

  “That’s why I was here tonight, to talk to her about who might be angry with her,” Frank replied. He turned to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, his touch warming the ice that had taken over her entire body. “Why don’t you go sit in my car until we’re finished up here?”

  She nodded, unsure if her voice would be as calm, as cool as she wanted it to be if she answered him aloud. She slid into the passenger seat of Frank’s car, instantly surrounded by what had now become the familiar scent of his cologne.

  She clenched her hands tightly together in her lap, feeling as if everything she’d worked so hard for in the past year was spiraling out of control. And she desperately needed control.

  Somebody had left her a note. And now somebody had tried to shoot her. She was finding it difficult to absorb the enormity of what had just happened. Somebody had tried to kill her and she knew of nobody in this small town who would harbor such hatred against her. She refused to consider that her past might be back to extract some kind of revenge.

  She closed her eyes, and her head filled with a vision of her ex-husband. Matt McGraw had been a handsome charmer on the surface, but something much darker in the depths of his heart and soul.

  They’d come to an agreement with their divorce and she’d walked away without looking back. She couldn’t imagine that after all this time he would suddenly want to hurt her anymore, that he would attempt something like what had just happened. He had too much to lose by doing something so foolish.

  No, it had to be somebody here in town, somebody in her present, not some ghost from her past. But who? The note had been unsettling, but this had been attempted murder.

  By the time Frank finally slid into the car behind the steering wheel, she’d managed to calm herself with deep breathing and mentally separating herself from what had just occurred.

  “Whoever was in the woods isn’t there now,” Frank said as he started the car engine. She began to open the passenger door but stopped as he touched her arm. “Sit tight. You aren’t going home tonight.”

  “What are you talking about? I have to go home.”

  “Not tonight. You can stay at my place until we figure out where we go from here.”

  A sense of panic crawled up the back of her throat. “No, I need to go home.” She needed the security of her pink bedspread, of her little space above Minnie’s shop that had become her safe haven in the world.

  Frank stared at her in disbelief. “Marlene, are you aware of what just happened here? Somebody fired a gun pointed at you with the intention of hitting you with a bullet. Wake up and face reality. Somebody just tried to kill you. The last place you’re going tonight is back to your apartment.”

  He put the car in Reverse. “Consider yourself in protective custody for the night.” He pulled out of the parking lot at a speed that nearly snapped her head back.

  “But I don’t have clean clothes or pajamas or makeup,” she protested. The world was upside-down and she knew she sounded silly, but she was desperate to hide from the fear deep inside her, to escape and forget this entire night had happened.

  “You can make do for one night,” Frank replied. His features were rigid, set in a sternness that made her realize she was no longer in control of anything.

  Fear gripped her stomach with icy fingers. It was just like before. No power. No control. She didn’t know what frightened her more, the fact that somebody had just tried to kill her or the idea that the control and power she’d fought so hard to maintain in her life had been shattered by a note left at her door and the explosive bang of a gun.

  “I don’t even know where you live,” she said in an attempt to fill the tense silence that had grown between them.

  “In a house with three bedrooms. You’ll be safe there for tonight.”

  “I’m sure I would be safe in my own place. There’s only one way into my apartment and I have a sturdy new door with strong locks on it.”

  “There’s also a door and stairs that can be accessed through Minnie’s shop. Don’t test me, Marlene. Right now I’m not in the mood to argue with you. It wasn’t just your butt that was in the line of fire.”

  His unyielding tone let her know the subject was closed and she might as well make the best of the situation. Neither of them spoke again as he drove away from the shop.

  His words served to remind her that she was being selfish, that it wasn’t just her who could have been killed in that volley of bullets. He could have been mortally wounded, as well.

  He appeared to have no specific destination in mind. He drove down Main Street, turned onto one street and then another, his gaze almost constantly watching his rearview mirror. He drove by her place and then drove partway up the mountain near where Sheri lived.

  It was obvious he was checking to see if they were being followed before finally landing at his home, and this fact made her grateful that she wasn’t going back to her little apartment all alone.

  For the first time in a year, she didn’t want to be alone. As the full ramifications of the drama she’d just endured shuddered through her, fear again filled her heart. This time it wasn’t her loss of control that scared her, but the sole fact that someone had tried to kill her.

 
“I’m sorry,” she finally said, breaking the tense silence that had filled the interior of the car.

  “About what?” He didn’t look at her. Darkness had completely fallen outside, and in the faint glow from the dashboard, his features remained taut and edgy.

  “About giving you a hard time for having my best interest at heart. I appreciate you taking me to your place for the night.”

  He shot her a quick glance. “Ah, an apology from the ice queen. It’s definitely been an interesting night.”

  She didn’t take offense at the nickname; she was only grateful that he wasn’t angry with her for her initial, irrational reaction about needing to go to her own home.

  Fifteen minutes later he pulled into the driveway of a ranch house that from the outside and in the gleam of a nearby streetlight looked as if it could use a bit of tender loving care. The grass was overgrown and weeds choked out what apparently had once been a flower bed lining the walkway to the front door.

  He punched a button and the garage door automatically opened. He pulled inside and waited for the garage door to close before he shut off the engine. “Home sweet home,” he said as he motioned to her to get out of the car.

  From the garage he opened a door that led them into the kitchen. “Want some coffee or something?” he asked. She shook her head negatively as she looked around the room with vague interest.

  It was spotlessly clean, with sage-green curtains hanging at the windows and a round wooden table holding a large glass container with brown pebbles in the bottom and sage-green fake flowers sprouting from the top. The result was simple, yet elegant. She found herself wondering if Frank had redecorated after his wife’s death or if the house was haunted still by the woman’s decorating touches, by her ghostly presence.

  “I’ll show you the rest of the place and then we need to talk,” he said.

  A headache chased across her forehead. It was already after nine and she was struck by a heavy exhaustion of too much stress. “Can’t the talk wait until morning?”