Return of the Lawman

by Lisa Childs

  “You ever going to forgive them?” he asked in the understanding tone that had always been her undoing.

  She was too old for tears. “It’s over. There are bigger hurts in this world.”

  He slid his rough hand over hers, and she turned hers over to link their fingers. “I hate that you had to find that out from a loser like your ex-fiancé.”

  “That’s history now, Dad.” She kicked her purse that leaned against her dad’s desk. “He wouldn’t take his ring back in person, so I’m going to mail it.”

  Her dad chuckled. “Pawn it. After the way he treated you…”

  She squeezed his hand and forced a smile. “Yeah, well, that’s why I had to leave, to get used and abused in the big city.” The smile threatened to slip. “I can appreciate Winter Falls now.”

  “Can you?” her father taunted knowingly.

  She laughed. “All right. Not yet. But I will if I decide to stay. I haven’t decided yet, Dad.”

  “It’s not the same town, brat. There’s so much growth. New shops, new commerce. Snowmobilers in the winter. Boaters in the spring and summer, and hunters in the fall. A wealthy developer wants to build a huge mall on an old farm just east of town. Winter Falls is in the process of a major growth spurt.”

  His excitement spilled over in his voice, and Lindsey tried to summon some of her own. But she was more excited over the richness of the sticky cinnamon roll and the bite of the bitter, hot coffee.

  Her father laughed. “But you need more action. You were reporting the police beat too long.”

  “I wasn’t covering it alone, just assisting.” She winced over the bitterness in her voice, and her pride stung all over again with her stupidity. Why had she accepted her ex-fiancé’s lies?

  “I read the paper, honey. I recognize my daughter’s voice whether I hear it over the phone or read it in newsprint.”

  She took another gulp of coffee and enjoyed the numbness following the burn. She’d been numb for a while now. It was better that way. “Any action here?”

  “Heated debates over the mall proposal. An old trustee and the mayor are fighting it. The developer is rich and powerful. It’s interesting. It’s not life and death, but it’s interesting.”

  She sighed. “You’re right. It is interesting. I don’t need life and death anymore. Well, not death, anyhow.”

  Her father opened his mouth, but if he scram bled for words, none came out. He stuffed a piece of roll between his lips. They ate in silence for several moments before he spoke again.

  Finally he asked, “Are you going to see her, Lindsey?”

  She didn’t need to ask of whom he spoke. “Would it matter? Would she even know?” She popped another piece of roll into her mouth, but it was like chewing sawdust now.

  “I’ll be honest with you, honey. She probably wouldn’t know you. But I think it might matter to you.” He reached for her hand again, but she pulled back and wrapped it around her cup of coffee.

  None of the warmth permeated her icy cold fingers. “I’ll be honest with you, Dad. I don’t think it would.”

  He nodded, and disappointment flashed in his eyes. “On another note, there’s more news….”

  Lindsey leaned forward, recognizing the tone of her father’s voice. This was something that would matter to her. “Yeah?”

  “He’s back.”

  “Who?”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you because I didn’t want you smashing out the tail light on your Jeep or any other foolishness….”

  Lindsey’s face heated, and she managed a giggle. She thought she’d lost the youthful ability to giggle. “Dylan Matthews?” Then she remembered how he had left ten years ago, and whatever pleasure she’d flirted with faded away. “I’m not the only one who has to forgive this town.”

  “According to Marge, he’s sworn to protect it. He must have forgiven it.”

  She snorted. “I always wondered why you never hired Marge. She’d make a great reporter. She always scoops you.” Her father’s face reddened. Marge had an inside track with Will Warner despite his marriage.

  And she remembered another reason why she’d left. Her father was part of this town with its gossip and secrets.

  AFTERNOON HAD SLIPPED into evening. Dylan had spent it familiarizing himself with a town he’d once known so well. He’d spent it doing anything but returning to the scene of so many of his night mares.

  The leaves crunched under his feet as he walked around the Expedition and headed toward the abandoned house. In the fading light he barely noted the peeling paint and dirty windows. If he were ever fanciful, he might think it looked lonely. But that wasn’t new. It had been lonely for a long time, ever since his mother had died.

  Sheriff Buck had offered him a bed in his home, but part of Dylan’s reason for returning to Winter Falls had been to deal with the house.

  In northern Michigan fall had a nasty habit of slipping swiftly into winter. Dylan had originally planned a brief trip to Winter Falls to prepare the house for cold weather. The pipes needed to be drained and the water shut off.

  And he could have easily asked the sheriff to handle it for him as he had in all the years past. But he hadn’t asked because he’d realized how badly he wanted to leave Detroit for home. This was home. Even with all its night mares.

  He pulled open the screen door and slipped his key into the lock of the back door. It hadn’t been locked or closed that night ten years ago. On rusty hinges the door creaked open.

  Immediately he glanced at the spot in front of the refrigerator. The door of the old appliance was propped open, much as it had gaped that night. The maple boards had been stripped and revarnished, but still the stain shone through the gleaming surface.

  Although his knees shook, Dylan forced himself across the floor. He dropped the house keys onto the counter, rubbed a hand over his face and wiped away beads of sweat.

  The sheriff was right. He should have sold the house. Maybe it was that simple. He shouldn’t have left town, just the house.

  He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and pulled out a letter. He’d received it before he’d left Detroit. He uncrumpled the paper and perused the shaky handwriting of an old man.

  The Winter Falls postmark hadn’t surprised Dylan. Sheriff Buck often wrote to him, and as he’d been working out his notice in Detroit, he had figured the sheriff had had details of Dylan’s reemployment as a Winter Falls deputy.

  Instead he’d found the letter had been written by the lawyer of the man who’d killed his brother and then later himself.

  Although he hardly glanced at the words, Dylan recited them from memory.

  Dylan,

  As I hear you’re returning home, I need to make an appointment with you to handle some unfinished business from ten years ago. I have something from Steve Mars that is addressed to you. I should have given it to you years ago, but when you left town, I thought you wanted to leave those painful memories behind. Now that you are returning, I feel it is my duty to deliver this item to you even though I am retired from my law practice. Please notify me when you return to town.

  Sincerely,

  Chet Oliver

  Dylan crumpled the letter again and stuffed it back in the pocket of his leather jacket. Of the darkened room he asked, “Do I really want anything from Steve Mars?” His gaze fell on the stain on the hardwood floor. Other shadows blended into it, but he knew precisely where the stain began and ended.

  Before he could give it any more thought, his cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and flipped it open. “Dylan Matthews.”

  “Deputy,” the sheriff reminded him, but there was no teasing note in his voice. His booming voice shook.

  “What’s wrong, Sheriff?”

  “Get over to Sunset Lane, Oliver’s place. something happened. I’m going to call it in, but I want you here first. Better yet, you call it in when you get here.”

  Dylan reached into his pocket and touched the letter. He remembered where Chet O
liver lived. He’d gone to the lawyer’s house after Steve Mars’s jail-cell suicide. He’d wanted to know if the lawyer had really believed Steve had killed Jimmy. Why hadn’t the old man given him whatever Steve Mars had left for him then? Why keep it ten years?

  Dylan slipped his phone into his pocket with the letter and picked up his keys. Would he finally get some answers tonight or only more questions?

  WHILE HER FATHER WORKED on his editorial, Lindsey loomed over his shoulder, reading as he wrote. “You’re brilliant, Dad. The things you notice…well, let’s just say you’re a much better reporter than many I’ve known.”

  Her father squeezed the hand she’d braced on his shoulder. “Brat.”

  Behind her on the scarred credenza, her father’s police scanner sputtered out a call. Despite the static and the poor reception of the ancient model, she recognized the voice. Dylan Matthews. Deputy Dylan Matthews calling for the coroner.

  “Chet?” her father gasped when the address sputtered out of the box.

  “Chet Oliver. The lawyer? If he died of natural causes, why wouldn’t they have called his family doctor?” Lindsey narrowed her eyes. Then she grabbed her backpack-style leather bag and slung it over her shoulder.

  “Lindsey.” Her father reached for her arm. “You’re not going—”

  “Do you want the story, Dad?”

  Her father leaned back in his chair and stared at her over the rims of his reading glasses. “I want the story. Are you working for me?”

  She’d come home to see her father. She hadn’t thought beyond that. “I guess I am.”

  “Then remember I’m the boss. Go easy on Dylan, okay, brat?” He softened the warning with a smile.

  “You want the story, Dad. To get it, I have to go to the story.” And the man. Not that she wanted the man. She hadn’t wanted him in a long time. She was over her ado les cent crush.

  In Chicago she’d learned it was better when wishes didn’t come true. Idols were safer admired from afar. Up close they were human and flawed. When she saw Dylan Matthews again, she believed she’d see just the man, not a heart-stopping hero.

  Chapter Two

  DYLAN SNAPPED on his plastic gloves and touched the desk where Chet Oliver was slumped. A bullet in his temple. Dylan had already called the coroner, taken crime-scene photos and dusted for prints.

  This was his inspection. The one that gave him a “feel” for what had happened that night. He hoped the crime scene would speak to him, not that he had much experience with murder investigations.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Sheriff Buck muttered from the chair Dylan had pressed him into earlier. The tiny Queen Anne dubiously sup ported the sheriff’s weight.

  Oliver’s Victorian farm house show cased several antiques. Dylan admired the gleaming mahogany surface of the desk as his fingertips skimmed over it.

  He raised a white residue to eye level. Then he glanced up. Plaster from the ornate ceiling above Chet’s desk. He spied a bullet hole near some cove molding.

  “Did you find it?” Sheriff Buck asked, his breathing ragged.

  Dylan glanced at him and wondered if he should call the rookie deputy to look after the sheriff instead of having him wait outside for the coroner.

  But the kid had turned green when he’d seen the victim, and Dylan had wanted him to get some air. Perhaps the sheriff needed some, too.

  “What? A suicide note?” Dylan gestured at the retired lawyer’s slumped body. “This was no suicide.”

  The sheriff sighed. “It wouldn’t make sense for him to kill himself. He just retired. We went fishing a couple weeks ago. He was looking forward to retirement, to his fight with the developers….”

  “Fight?”

  “Over the proposed mall project. Chet is—was a trustee.”

  “You told me about the developer this afternoon.” Dylan retraced his steps across the room. He dropped his hand on the sheriff’s shoulder. “Oliver didn’t do this.”

  “I saw the gun in his hand.”

  Dylan shook his head. “It was put there. A round was squeezed off. Red marks indicate there will be bruising on his hand. This is murder.”

  “It doesn’t make sense….”

  “How did you happen to find him, Sheriff? It’s getting late for a visit.”

  The sheriff’s shoulder trembled beneath Dylan’s hand. “You didn’t find it?”

  “What? I already said there was no note—”

  “Not from Oliver. It would have been from Steve Mars.”

  Dylan fought a shudder. A ghost hadn’t killed Chet Oliver. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about whatever Chet had for you. He came into the diner after you left today. He said he had something for you, something Steve Mars had wanted you to have.”

  Dylan nodded. “He sent a letter to me in Detroit. Told me the same thing.”

  “A letter’s one thing. But the fool was talking about it in the middle of Marge’s Diner. William Warner was there, getting something to go. It’ll probably be all over tomorrow’s paper. And for what? It’s old news.” The sheriff’s face reddened, and his breathing grew more labored.

  From an antique bureau, Dylan grabbed the glass of water he’d given him earlier and pressed it back into his hand. “Take a sip. Don’t worry. It’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not. I came here to tell him to keep whatever it was. You didn’t need to go through any of that pain again. You just came home. I didn’t want him driving you away.” The sheriff laid his hand over Dylan’s.

  Dylan glanced over his shoulder at the lifeless body of Chet Oliver. “He won’t be doing that now. I looked through his desk and his filing cabinet. There wasn’t anything addressed to me.”

  “That’s just as well.” The sheriff took a swallow of water.

  Dylan shook his head. “But I wanted to know what Steve Mars had left for me. I need some answers. It’s been ten years.”

  “Answers to what?” With a shaky hand, Sheriff Buck set his glass back on the bureau, sloshing water onto the gleaming wood. “Some times things just happen. There’s no reason, no explanation. You just have to move on.”

  Dylan nodded as if he under stood. But he didn’t. He’d been gone ten years, but he’d never moved on. And for his part, neither had Sheriff Buck Adams.

  After Dylan’s mother had dumped him for Dylan’s father, the sheriff had never married. He’d stayed in love with a married woman and then with a dead woman. No, the sheriff didn’t know any more about moving on than Dylan did.

  The young officer scram bled inside. His face flushed and eyes wide, he whispered, “She’s out there.”

  Dylan narrowed his eyes. “Who?”

  “A big-city reporter. She wants to talk to the officer in charge. She has questions, lots of them.”

  Lindsey Warner. “I didn’t realize she was working for her father. I thought she was home—what had Marge said?”

  The sheriff offered no information. The older man rested his head in his trembling hands.

  “Yeah,” Dylan continued as if he’d been given an answer, “with a broken heart. Subdued.”

  “Subdued!” The kid’s voice cracked.

  “She’s not subdued?”

  “Hell, no!” His face reddened even more. “Sorry, sir.”

  “You can handle her.”

  “No, sir, really you should talk to her. I’ve never talked to a reporter before.”

  “Tell her she can come to the station tomorrow. We’ll have more information after the coroner gets here. We can’t tell her anything tonight.”

  The young officer’s eyes filled with doubt.

  “You can do it—” Dylan read the badge pinned askew on the kid’s shirt pocket “—Deputy Jones.”

  After the kid dragged his feet out the front door, Dylan squeezed the sheriff’s shoulder again. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. I promise. We’ll find out who did this and why.”

  Murder had revisited Winter Falls. This time Dylan w
as going to get all the answers.

  He thought again of the stain on his kitchen floor. He reined his thoughts in. Jimmy was gone. A new victim had taken his place. Dylan had to think of something else.

  He thought of Lindsey Warner. Subdued. Hell, no.

  “SUICIDE.” LINDSEY SNORTED at her reflection in the rearview mirror of her Jeep. Then she squinted against the glare of the morning sun ricocheting off the rusted hood.

  The young deputy, Jones, had called it suicide. Of course, he hadn’t offered it freely. No, Lindsey had had to pry the information from him.

  Deputy Matthews had been stupid to let a rookie try to handle her. Even experienced, cynical city detectives hadn’t been able to handle her.

  She gripped the steering wheel tighter as the old Jeep bounced along the gravel road. She was headed to the police department this morning, all right.

  But after Jones’s stuttered explanations, she hadn’t returned home. Although she’d been gone awhile, she still had connections in this town. The coroner played cards with her father.

  Despite the late hour, he’d given her an off-the-record preliminary report. She couldn’t print it until she got confirmation of…

  Murder. A murder in Winter Falls. Again.

  How did Deputy Dylan Matthews feel about a murder on his first day back on the job?

  She hadn’t known Chet Oliver. She’d been gone nine years, and before then, she hadn’t had need of lawyers or city trustees. Dylan knew him, though. Chet Oliver had represented his brother’s murderer, but there hadn’t been much to rep re sent. Steve Mars had pleaded guilty. That case was closed.

  Would this case be closed so easily? Although she hadn’t known Oliver, she believed he hadn’t deserved to die. Neither had Jimmy Matthews. She couldn’t imagine how his brother’s murder must still affect Dylan.

  Some times it still affected her. His had been the first dead body she’d ever seen. Since then, on the police beat, she’d seen many more. It never got easier.

  She shuddered and turned up the heat. Warm autumn mornings didn’t exist in northern Michigan.

  She pressed on the accelerator. She had some questions for Deputy Dylan Matthews. Over the clatter of the heater motor, a siren wailed. A glance in her rearview mirror confirmed the flashing lights on the vehicle behind her.