by K. C. McRae
His next words bore out her thoughts. “I can do any damn thing I want to, McCoy. I’ve been working for that prick Hawkins for three years, and he’s the sorriest excuse for a lawman I’ve ever seen. When the old chief retired and they brought in this new guy, I thought things might change. Turns out, even though he’s from over by Butte, he’s well connected in the old-boy network in this county. You know, the ones not too fond of people with last names like mine—doesn’t matter a damn whether I was born and raised in this county or not.”
“So he’s a racist, and he’s corrupt. Can’t you lodge a complaint?”
Jamie exchanged knowing looks with Kate. “With the mayor who appointed him? Or the city council made up of his cronies? My best bet is to find something else to do.”
“But you love being a cop.”
Distress crossed his face, and he looked away.
“Listen, I’ve got to get back into town and uncover an alibi for you,” Kate said, breaking the mood on the porch.
As she was climbing into her car, Merry called to her. “Kate.” Their eyes met. “Thanks.”
Kate nodded. “I’ll call you later, after I talk to Yvette.”
Merry waved and watched the Volvo leave, pulling a plume of road dust behind it toward the highway. She turned to Jamie.
“You hungry?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“That cutthroat I caught. It’s a day old, but—”
“That’ll do.”
They walked inside and Merry set about fixing the trout. She salted the interior cavity and layered slices of lemon and onion and dabs of butter in and around the fish, then folded the whole thing into a foil packet. While Jamie fired up the barbeque, she assembled a salad, sliced strawberries, and whipped the cream for strawberry shortcake.
Check two items off the list.
When the food was ready, they loaded their plates and returned to the porch, Merry in Mama’s rocker and Jamie sat on the top step. She closed her eyes as she took a bite of trout.
“God, that’s so good.” The words came out almost a groan.
She opened her eyes to find Jamie watching her with an odd expression on his face. Maybe not odd so much as changing, the messages in his eyes warring with one another.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
“Just … for a second there, you looked so … I don’t know.”
She suddenly knew exactly what she’d looked like, savoring that first bite. And he’d recognize that look, not from a meal eaten on a front porch but from long moments of a different sort of pleasure altogether.
She finished eating without comment. They went in to get the shortcake and returned to the porch. The talk turned to Denny Teller’s murder. Jamie didn’t have any information Hawkins hadn’t already imparted, and Merry updated him on everything she’d told Kate. Inside, he helped her put away leftovers and wash the dishes. When they were done, a sudden awkwardness descended between them, and she led the way back outside in order to escape it.
“Does Gayle know you’re suspended yet?”
Jamie shook his head.
“You want to call her?”
Holding her gaze for a long moment, he shook his head again. Then in two long steps, he closed the distance between them, sliding his arms around her shoulders and pulling her to him. She stiffened, half afraid to respond, half afraid not to. His arms tightened, and one hand shifted to her neck, fingers tangling in her curls. He eased her head back so she could see his face.
There was no mistaking the message in his eyes now.
“Jamie,” she whispered, giving a slight shake of her head. “You can’t—”
He bent his head, brushing his lower lip along the length of her upper one, an almost-kiss, soft as goose down. Tentative. Teasing.
The seed of desire that had germinated by the river exploded through her veins, licking at the inside of her skin, seizing her breath and forcing a small moan. His lips moved across her mouth, firmer now, demanding and seeking. Then his tongue found hers, and all pretense of being on the verge of stopping vanished.
She closed her eyes and pressed against him. She wanted to slide inside his clothing like liquid, glide across his skin, surround him, dissolve and soak through his pores. Lose herself in tasting his otherness, receiving without judgment or even thought. She wanted to rip his clothes off, climb him like a monkey, and fuck his brains out.
She slid her hands under his T-shirt, raking her thumbnails over his nipples. He grunted and his hips jerked against hers. Pushing her against the porch railing, he slipped her tank top over her head and leaned her backwards, licking along the inside curves of her breasts as his fingers worked off her bra. She watched through half-slit eyes as he tongued one erect nipple, then covered it with his lips, sucking and pulling, each time a little harder. He scraped his teeth over the sensitive skin, whipping her need into a blistering demand.
Pushing him back and scrabbling at his shirt, she drew it over his head and reached for his belt. He grabbed her wrists and stepped forward, holding her arms to her sides as his mouth sought hers and plunged into another probing kiss.
She broke away, releasing a long shuddering breath. One last attempt at reason. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to concentrate.
“You’re married,” she managed to get out. What was her name again? “Gayle.”
Jamie went still, and she looked up into his steady brown gaze. He kissed her again, their eyes open, watching each other.
He drew his head back, his fingers now entwined in hers by their sides, his chest hot against her breasts. “I love her. But I can’t stop loving you because of that. You’re my … well, you’re my Merry.” Smiling, he moved a hand up and ran his thumb along her jaw. “It’s like you and I are something outside of things. Rules don’t exist for us. They just don’t apply. Even jealousy is silly. Because no matter who else we might be with, it slides off whatever you and I have.”
She wanted to believe him so badly it made her throat ache. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging at his earlobe with her teeth.
He nibbled her jaw in response, then trailed upward to her temple. She arched her neck, and he licked across the hollow of her throat, lingering on her collarbone for a moment before kneeling in front of her.
He pulled her boots off, first the right and then the left. Still kneeling, he unbuckled and unbuttoned and unzipped, drawing her jeans down and tossing them toward the end of the porch.
If anyone drove up now, they’d get one hell of a surprise, Merry thought, standing by the railing, stark naked in the slanting sunshine as Jamie stripped off his own jeans. She grinned at him, and he grinned back.
They moved together with informed ease. She scraped practiced fingernails down his back, and he hissed with pleasure. He smoothed his hands across her hips, cupping her ass and lifting her to the porch railing. Wrapping her legs around him, she arched one eyebrow and urged him forward with her heels. He resisted, pausing to slide his fingertips along the nerves behind her knees, smiling as her eyes widened.
He pushed into her then, with slow, savoring strokes, their tongues entwined. Each exquisite sensation building like an incoming tide. The railing groaned and creaked beneath her as their tempo took on a driving urgency.
They abandoned their kisses, their faces inches apart, eyes locked. The cords in Jamie’s neck stood out, his teeth clenched and his face flushed as he waited for her. Her beginning spasms spawned his own, and they clung together until the convulsions faded and their heartbeats slowed. An alfalfa-scented breeze cooled their sweat-covered skin.
“Good God,” Merry said.
“Uh huh.”
After several moments they disentangled, and Merry staggered inside. She returned with two couch cushions and placed them on the floor of the
porch. They curled together there, watching Izzy graze in her pasture and listening to a Steller’s jay complain from the depths of the big maple.
She turned her head to murmur in his ear. “Thank you.”
He looked down at her with an expression of mild surprise, pulled her closer. “Jesus. All the shit you’ve been through. And nothing I could do to help.”
If he only knew. She wanted to tell him, but her throat was too clogged with relief and gratitude. They sat and watched the sun sink beyond the Bitterroot Mountains, Jamie running his fingers slowly through her hair while silent tears ran down her face.
twenty
Kate called that night, after Jamie had gone home to attempt to explain to his wife why he might not have a job anymore.
“Yvette confirmed that you spent the night on her couch and said you left around four in the morning. Apparently you weren’t as quiet as you thought when you left.”
“That’s good, right?”
“As long as Teller was killed before then. Otherwise it puts you in town when you shouldn’t be.”
“How soon will we know?”
“Tomorrow, I’m guessing.”
“Let me know when you find anything out.”
“Will do.”
“So, Kate? I guess I should ask what you charge.”
“Don’t worry about that now. We’ll figure something out.”
———
The next morning Merry drove to the bank, armed with the key to the safety deposit box she’d found in Mama’s desk when she’d searched it unsuccessfully for the bill of sale for the revolver. Going through the contents of the box depressed her. Her birth certificate lay on top, as if Mama had looked at it recently. Below, she discovered birth certificates for Drew and for both Mama and Daddy. Daddy’s death certificate. Three old silver dollars, an elaborate filigree ring that had belonged to her grandmother and, at the bottom, four old stock certificates from a company that had long gone out of business.
Mama had had a life insurance policy, the proceeds of which would obviate the inheritance taxes on the ranch. But there would be no more money from Frank Cain’s leases for the annual property taxes and day-to-day expenses. Time to look for another job.
Employment pickings were lean in Hazel. But surely the Hungry Moose would have some turnover.
Janelle Paysen said they didn’t have openings right then but gave her an application to fill out. Seated in a window booth, Merry looked out at Hazel’s Main Street traffic. Nine-to-fivers took late morning coffee breaks, and summer tourists littered the sidewalks, wandering in and out of shops and stopping to look at the real estate ads plastered on the inside of Hazel Realty’s plate glass window. Merry wondered if that was where T. J. Spalding worked.
Three gray-haired couples ate their early lunches in the other window booths and a lone woman sat at the counter eating a taco salad and reading a book. A group of four men, all wearing wife-beaters, stained jeans, and seed caps so filthy you couldn’t read what they advertised, came in and sat down at a table near Merry. They could have been brothers: the same longish dark hair poking out around the edges of their caps, the same disregard for laundry facilities, and loud, loud voices that mingled with the smells of coffee and Danish, hamburger grease, and onions.
She didn’t want to work here, inside all day, dealing with stupid sonsabitches pinching her ass and making comments. But she filled out the application carefully, and she knew she’d take any job Herb Paysen offered.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
———
“Rory Hawkins graced me with a visit today.” Shirlene leaned her elbows on the table and directed a worried look at Merry.
After giving the job application to Janelle, she’d stopped by Kate’s office. Kate told her she had bypassed Sergeant Hawkins’s game playing by calling a friend at the state medical examiner’s office. Denny had been killed between midnight and two a.m. She’d called Hawkins and informed him that Merry’s parole officer was willing to provide her alibi. He’d responded by shifting his suspicions to Lauri.
But that morning, when he and Lester came by the house to pick her up for questioning, Shirlene had to tell them she had no idea where her daughter was. Now she and Merry were seated in the back room of her aunt’s dry cleaning business, plowing through the tuna melts Merry had picked up at the Moose. The air inside was heavy with humidity and the sharp chemical odors of solvent, detergent, and chlorine. A dryer droned in the back room.
“He threatened to arrest me—which is no surprise, really—for obstruction of justice or some damn thing. Man watches too much television if you ask me.”
“He thinks you know where she is?”
“Naturally. I’m her mother, so I must know, right?”
“Do you?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, Merry. I do not.”
Merry didn’t smile. “Just checking.”
Shirlene sighed and tossed the remainder of her sandwich in the trash. “I wish I did. I’ve looked every place I can think of.”
Merry ate her last onion ring and wiped her mouth. “So Hawkins decided if I didn’t kill Denny, Lauri must have done it.”
“He said Denny told him he got Lauri pregnant, which somehow, I don’t know how, means she killed him. Make any sense to you?”
“No. Hard to get any child support from a dead man.” But it did explain how Hawkins had known about her visit to Denny Teller; he’d likely learned it directly from the victim himself. Which meant they had to be friends—or something like it. She remembered Hawkins’s threat about finding drugs in her truck, and the smell of pot in Denny’s living room.
The evidence in Denny Stand’s murder pointed to Merry, but she hadn’t shot him. The evidence in Clay Lamente’s murder pointed to Lauri. Was someone framing her, too? But she admitted to being outside his window the night he died. And she also admitted to touching the gun, accounting for how her fingerprints came to be on it. Not quite a frame, then. At least not a premeditated one.
Merry leaned back. “Do you know who Mama sold her gun to? The thirty-eight?”
“You mean the one she kept in the kitchen drawer?”
“That one.”
“She sold it to Bo Lamente.”
A tiny shiver whispered across her neck. “When?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know. Three, four years ago. She only had it for the coyotes when she had those chickens. Harlan tried to give her a newer model, but she liked that old thing.”
“Yeah, thanks for telling me about Harlan and Mama, by the way.”
Shirlene set her jaw. “It wasn’t my place.”
“Still.” She took a sip of soda.
“Anyway, she never used the gun. After she stopped keeping the chickens, she sold it with all your daddy’s hunting guns. Only thing she kept was that old shotgun of our dad’s.” Shirlene’s face softened as she remembered her father, several years deceased.
The shotgun. Merry had forgotten about that old thing. An ancient Remington twelve-gauge, it had always been tucked in the mudroom cupboard. Just having it on the ranch was a parole violation.
“You know if Bo still had the thirty-eight? Apparently it was used to kill Denny Teller.”
Shirlene’s hand flew to her mouth. “So that’s why they picked you up? Bo bought and sold guns as kind of sideline a to everything else he did. He could have sold it to anyone. Or kept it. I don’t know.”
“Olivia might know.”
“She might. You should have Kate ask her.”
“That’s a good idea.” Merry cocked her head to one side, studying her aunt. “You seem … better.”
“Hon, I gotta say, I feel like I got a second wind. I may lose the house since Lauri’s taken off, and now she’s being accused of another murder, but she’s not in jail, and if they don’t find her she’s not going back.
I know it sounds wrong, but I don’t want them to find her.” She paused. “I’m sorry about your money, though.”
“Kate’s a good lawyer.”
“I’m sure she is. And we may have to face a trial, I know. But for right now I’m going to live my life and hope my daughter’s safe, wherever she is.”
“Wherever she is, huh.”
Shirlene rolled her eyes and stood to dump out a bag of dirty work clothes. “So, what’s the deal between you and Kate?”
Merry shrugged. “We knew each other in college.”
Shirlene looked over her shoulder. “Right. You were a mess the other day when she was at the house.”
“I was not.”
“You were. But you don’t have to tell me.”
Several seconds passed. “We knew each other in high school, and then in college we got to be really good friends. Then this older guy, well, not that much older, but out of school, out in the world, came into the picture. They began dating. Then he left her for me.”
“Ouch.”
“It was Rand.”
Shirlene winced. “Double ouch.”
“Yeah.”
“But you two seemed okay after that first time I saw you together.”
“We’ve worked it out.”
Shirlene loaded the clothes into the washer and added detergent and Borax. “You should go talk to Harlan.”
Merry almost choked on her iced tea. “Why?”
“Because he’s miserable. And he thinks you’re angry at him for dating your mom.”
“How do you know I’m not?”
“Because you’re not an idiot, Merry.”
Well, when she put it like that. “I’ll think about it.”
“Yeah. And then when you’re done thinking about it, go talk to the poor guy.”
———
At the ranch, Merry found two cars blocking the circular drive. She’d never seen the Land Rover, but the Cadillac was familiar. That damn real estate doofus was around here someplace.
She climbed out of Lotta—she’d dropped by Shirlene’s house and traded the Blazer for the old pickup—and heard voices coming from the direction of the barn. She slammed the door and strode
