Return of the Lawman

by Lisa Childs

  “You did. You saved my life. I remember the fire.”

  “You don’t need to talk about it,” Lindsey assured her. She didn’t want to think about that day. “It was a long time ago.”

  Retha pulled her hand from Lindsey’s and touched her scarred cheek. “Not for me. Some times it’s like it never happened. I don’t remember it. And some times I remember too much.”

  “You were terribly de pressed. It’s all right. I know you didn’t really want to hurt yourself.”

  Retha’s dark eyes widened. “What? You think I set the fire?”

  “You were home alone, Mom.”

  “But I wasn’t alone.”

  “But, Mom, I was there. There was only you in the house,” Lindsey insisted. She could smell the smoke again, feel the heat and the urgency to find her mother.

  Retha shook her head. “Maybe then I was alone. But before that I was not alone.”

  Lindsey glanced over at the nurse, but the woman merely shrugged. “Then who, Mom? Who was with you?”

  “Ask Marge.”

  DYLAN PULLED OPEN THE door to Marge’s Diner.

  “I’m closed,” she called out from behind the counter. Then the petite woman glanced up. “You look beat, honey. What can I get you?”

  Dylan paused to inhale the rich aroma of strong coffee and cinnamon mixed with the smell of chicken. The smells of home. This place was as much home as the house that had burned to the ground less than a week ago. Maybe it was more so.

  “What’s cooking?” He slid wearily onto a stool at the counter.

  Marge smiled. “Tonight’s special was chicken à la king. I might have a plate in the back. And I started some cinnamon rolls for morning. You interested?”

  Dylan shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Cinnamon rolls are Lindsey’s weakness, not mine. Got any pie around?”

  Marge snorted. “Have I got pie? You were gone a long time, Dylan. Too long.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t long enough. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back.” He cupped his hands around the mug she filled for him. But the heat emanating through the ceramic did nothing to warm him.

  “You had to come back, Dylan. There was a lot of unfinished business here.” She slapped a piece of peach pie in front of him.

  “unfinished? Enough people died ten years ago, Marge.”

  “Too many.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you serious about that girl?” she asked, ever the busybody.

  Dylan shrugged. “Serious about Lindsey? What would be the point? She’s leaving.”

  Marge shook her head. “She won’t leave Winter Falls, not now, not ever.”

  Dylan shivered. “Her old paper already asked her back. She has a job there, a life there. There’s nothing for her here.”

  “You’re here.”

  “And I haven’t figured out why.”

  “unfinished business again, Dylan. It comes back to that. Eat up.”

  She held the coffee pot near his un touched mug.

  Dylan waved a hand. “It’s late. I should be going. Why don’t you wrap this up for me, and I’ll take it back to my motel.”

  Marge raised her chin. “It’s not that late. I was here alone. Go ahead and eat. I like the company.”

  “No. I’ll just take it with me.”

  “Where, Dylan?”

  Dylan slid his hand over the gun on his holster. “I already said, Marge.”

  “I know what you said. Why don’t you just eat up while we discuss this unfinished business?”

  “Marge.” Dylan sighed. “I know why.”

  “You know Steve Mars was my baby?” The older woman’s eyes filled with tears. “And you killed him.”

  Dylan shook his head. “I didn’t kill him, Marge. He killed himself.”

  “You’re lying. Always such a liar, Deputy Matthews. But the sheriff protected you, as he always has. You’ve been a free man the last ten years while my son has been in the ground.” Her face, usually so attractive, twisted into a mask of hatred and madness.

  “So you waited for me to come home? Then you decided to settle the score?”

  “I didn’t know for sure that Steve was my son. I suspected.” She smiled. “He had my mother’s eyes. I tried to get the records from Chet’s office. But he always engaged his alarm. He really safe guarded his secrets. But when his idiot nephew took over, well, I saw my chance. He forgot one night. But I didn’t.”

  “You took the records from Chet’s office? The adoption records?”

  She nodded, then laughed. “I know Evan Quade is Retha’s son. She’s too crazy to ever realize it, though.”

  Dylan fought a shudder. “After you learned the truth, you schemed?”

  “Yes, everyone had to pay. I offered them hospitality, gave them food and fake smiles, while I plotted their deaths. You were going to be hard. I knew that.”

  “You tried a few times.”

  She laughed, and the sound echoed eerily in the empty restaurant. “Those weren’t tries. I didn’t want you dead yet. I knew you’d get out of the fire. And the gunshots were never close.” She patted her hair. “I’m an excellent shot. I wanted you alive, like this. I wanted to talk to you. I have something for you, you know.”

  “The letter from Steve.”

  She laughed again. “The letter you made him write. Did you force him to pen those lies just before you killed him? You must have.”

  “Let me see the letter, Marge,” Dylan urged. Under the edge of the counter, he held his gun across his knees. He didn’t want to hurt her. This woman had been hurt enough.

  She pulled a folded paper from her apron pocket. “He didn’t say those things. Those are your words.”

  Dylan took the letter from her shaking fingers.

  Dear Dylan,

  I’m so sorry about Jimmy’s death. To protect my sister, I didn’t speak of my reasons for killing him, but I feel I must let you know now. You will be an uncle soon. Jimmy compromised my sister, and instead of owning up to his responsibilities, he laughed. He was never half the man you are. I know that you will help Sarah raise her child, that you will offer the moral guidance that Jimmy and myself are unable to provide. Because I was raised in a secure, loving home, I know that the defect that caused me to put the knife in Jimmy’s back is genetic. Because of this, I know there is no hope for my future. I am a danger to others, and I don’t deserve to live. Please express my love and apologies to all.

  Steve

  “Lies!” Marge hissed. “Lies. Genetic defect. He means my genes! You mean my genes. He wouldn’t have said that. He wouldn’t have written those lies. You made him do it!”

  “He killed Jimmy.” Dylan closed the door on that old question and realized that his instincts had been wrong all those years ago. But not this time.

  “And you killed him!”

  “He killed himself, Marge. He killed himself. Read those lines. That’s Steve’s handwriting, Steve’s words. He gave this letter to Chet Oliver before his death, had to have been at his sentencing. You killed innocent people, Marge. Chet and the mayor had done their jobs. Steve wasn’t angry. He was sorry.” He tried to reach for her hand, but she jerked away from the counter.

  “No!” Her shout bounced off the walls. “You think it’s ended? You think I’m going to accept that? It’s too late, you know….”

  Dylan drew a quick breath. “Marge, nobody else has to get hurt. Come with me now.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “You think I’m crazy? You think I’m going to let you hang me in that jail cell like you hung my son? You’re not taking me anywhere. I’m taking you.”

  Dylan lifted the gun above the counter. “Marge, I have to place you under arrest.”

  Her hysterical laughter rang out. “You think you have backup? That rookie cop parked behind the building?”

  His heart jumped. Jones was supposed to be watching Lindsey. “Jones? You did something to Jones? I talked to him just a little while ago.” And he’d been park
ed in the lot of a private psychiatric hospital, not Marge’s.

  “I brought him a cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee.”

  Dylan cursed. He’d told the kid to stay with Lindsey, to not let her out of his sight.

  “You killed him?” He stood up and edged down the counter toward the back door. Before he made it a few steps, his foot hit something. He glanced down at Lindsey’s leather backpack, lying on the floor next to a booth.

  “Where’s Lindsey?” His heart beat so fiercely it shook his chest.

  Marge smiled again. “Those rolls and coffee are her weakness, Dylan. She had some questions for me. We had quite a talk over coffee and rolls.”

  “Where is she?” Panic streaked through his stomach. He glanced down at the bag again and noted that a cinnamon roll had rolled out of it and onto the shiny linoleum.

  “And you know, it’s too late for the sheriff, too. I sent him something special. Had Will bring it up to him for me. You’d let Will through to see him, wouldn’t you?”

  Dylan shook his head. “What if Will had some himself? Do you want to hurt Lindsey’s father, too? If you hurt her, you know it’ll kill him?”

  “He cost me a child. He deserves to lose her,” she said of her lover. “What?”

  “You never asked who fathered my child? William Warner was my high school sweet heart. When I got pregnant, I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want to derail his dreams of college. I let him go away, and I went away, too. Everyone thought I went to Paris. I just went a few miles down the road and had a baby boy. I met Retha there. And then that tramp goes away to college, and she comes back with my lover as her husband. He should have been my husband!”

  “None of that has anything to do with Lindsey. She never hurt you!”

  “Little bitch treated me like the other woman for years. Treated me like I was beneath her. Her mother was the other woman. Will was mine! He was the father of my child.”

  Dylan kept the gun trained on her. “Where is she, Marge? Tell me now!”

  “It’s too late for her, Dylan. I want you to see her hanging like I saw my son hanging that night.”

  “You were at the jail. You were talking to me out front when Steve used the tie he’d kept after his sentencing….” Dylan remembered. “You know I didn’t do it. You were there. I thought he’d been searched when he was returned to the holding cell.”

  Marge shook her head, tears springing from her eyes and falling like rain on the counter top. “No. You killed him. You hung him and then you stood out front, talking to me, just as calmly as I’ve been talking to you, while he died.”

  “Oh, my God!” Dylan vaulted over the counter and pushed open the door to the kitchen. Nothing hung from the rafters but pots and pans. “Where, Marge?

  “Marge!” Before he could turn around a shot rang out over his labored breaths, shattering the quiet of the diner.

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE COARSE fibers of rope bit into Lindsey’s neck and constricted each breath she struggled to inhale. But the noose could have been tighter and would be tighter if she lost her grip.

  She should have fought her, but the gun had never been far from Lindsey’s face. A twitch of Marge’s finger, and Lindsey would have been gone. She’d figured her chances were better if she went along with Marge’s plan and slipped the pre-tied noose around her neck. The crazy woman thought Lindsey had calmly drunk her drugged coffee and eaten the doctored roll.

  Well, a plant at the diner would need resuscitation soon, but not Lindsey. Not if she could keep hold of the branch from which she currently swung. Her nails scraped against the bark as she struggled to tighten her hold on the ancient oak.

  Fortunately, Marge had made her climb the tree and tie the rope around the branch herself.

  “It’ll be a lot less painful than a gunshot wound, Lindsey,” she’d promised. “You’ll just fall asleep and let go of the branch. You’ll not feel any pain. You’ll just fall asleep.”

  Lindsey had wanted to snort at her in victory. She’d figured that after Marge left she’d be able to untie the rope and jump down. Then she’d run for Dylan.

  But Marge hadn’t waited for her to fall asleep. She’d grabbed her leg and pulled her down.

  Lindsey hadn’t lost her grip on the branch with her hands. And with her legs she’d kicked out at the crazy woman. “Shoot me then, you psycho!”

  Marge had laughed. “I don’t need to shoot you, sweetie. I just have to let the drugs work. You’ll fall asleep soon. You’ll let go of the tree. Holding up your weight will be very tiring.” Then she’d walked toward the cemetery gate and Winter Falls.

  Her grip on the tree slipped a bit. She whimpered, her arms burning from the exertion of holding up her weight.

  With an erratically pounding heart, she struggled to secure her hold on the branch. A bit more slack evaporated between the noose around her neck and the length of rope tied around the tree. She fought down the panic and steadied her breaths.

  She could breathe. The rope wasn’t in a strangle hold around her neck. All she had to do was keep her grip on the tree. Hang on, instead of hang.

  That lunatic was out there some where in the darkness. The street light barely reached beyond the gate of the cemetery. And Steve Mars’s grave was farther down the path, behind the oak from which Lindsey hung.

  Marge could be out there. Or worse, she could be going after Dylan. Lindsey figured she was the bait. Marge intended to lure him to the cemetery and kill him on Steve Mars’s grave.

  “Okay,” she whispered, her voice fading in and out with the constriction of the rope. “Okay, she has to set the trap. She can’t be here now. She’d go to the station or back to the diner. She can’t be here.”

  She could kill him at the station. Who else would be working so late? Dylan would be alone, looking for his evidence to imprison the killer. He thought he knew who it was, but would he have ever suspected Marge?

  Lindsey thought he’d been leaning toward the sheriff despite his claims to the contrary. If not for her mother’s ramblings and a quick check with her brother’s copies of the records from Arborview, Lindsey would have never thought Marge capable of killing.

  But Dylan had the originals from Arborview. He’d planned to go through them. If he didn’t know now, he’d know soon.

  Lindsey glanced up at the few stars she could spy through the branches of the tree. No wind blew, but a few leaves still drifted down onto her and the grave below her dangling feet.

  Why hadn’t she paid more attention in gymnastics? Despite the forced levity of her thought, tears stung her eyes. She couldn’t swing her leg up on the branch again.

  And why did she wear such tight jeans? There was no way. Every attempt loosened her tentative grip. And the muscles in her arms burned with the effort of holding up her weight.

  She had to keep talking, even though every word stuck in her constricted throat. The silence of the cemetery was too un nerving, more so than the noose around her neck. And while her reporter’s brain formed more questions, she was too scared to ask them. What if someone or something answered?

  Bark edged beneath her nails, biting into the quick. She welcomed the discomfort; it kept her alert.

  Because of the quiet of the night, she heard the gunshot. It was far off. Just a pop of sound in the still ness. But she knew what it was. Thanks to Marge, she’d gotten quite familiar with the sound of gunshots.

  “Dylan!” she screamed as loud as she could, a mere croak.

  She couldn’t let that crazy bitch win. Lindsey glanced at the branch again. If she could drag the rope down toward the thinner part, perhaps she could work the knot, or perhaps the branch would snap under her weight.

  She struggled, using her nails under the edge of the rope, digging into it and the bark of the tree. A twig snapped, but too many protruded from the branch, preventing the rope from budging.

  What if Dylan was shot? What if his life bled out of him? What would she do in a world without Dylan? She had to get
to him!

  “Okay, Lindsey,” she panted. She could do this. She had to get a better grasp on the tree.

  She skimmed one hand farther up the thick branch, bark scraping the tender skin of her palm. Now the other one. She wiggled, got her legs to swing and scooted the other hand up, so that she could lock her fingers over the top, near the rope.

  She dragged in a breath, rubbed the skin of her neck against the stinging fibers of the rope, and then she swung her legs again.

  Dylan. She had to get to Dylan. He’d saved her so many times. It was her turn to save him.

  The swing of her legs jerked the rest of her body. Her fingers slipped free of one another. Her hands slipped from the branch, and her neck snapped as the last of the slack left the rope. And she swung.

  AT A DEAD RUN, Dylan crashed through the cemetery gate. The pounding of his foot falls on the asphalt path echoed through the dense trees, cement statuary and marble tomb stones.

  Lindsey had to be here. Beside her son’s grave would be the place Marge would choose to wreak the last of her vengeance. Dylan rounded the path and passed the ancient oak just as a slice of the moon shifted from behind some clouds. Light shone through the branches and onto the silhouette of a hanging woman.

  “God, please, no!” he raged. He couldn’t shut off the flood of emotions. The pain nearly brought him to his knees.

  Her feet weren’t that far from the ground. He reached for her, lifted her, and a gurgle of air slipped through her parted lips.

  From his pocket he grabbed his Swiss Army knife and managed to swing it high enough to catch the rope above her head. The blade gnawed at the thick fibers one at a time until finally the rope broke apart, half hanging from the tree, the other half still a noose around the neck of the woman he loved.

  Fighting down panic, he dropped to the ground with her in his arms. He puffed a couple of breaths into her mouth while his fingers struggled with the knot at the base of her neck.

  “Lindsey, are you all right? Can you breathe?”