Jack Murray, Sheriff

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Frank Eaton. Frank owned the pizza franchise over on Lewis Street. He was a chunky guy, going a little soft, liked his beer. Well, hell, Ray liked his beer, too.

  “Damned bitch,” Ray said again, giving his head a shake to clear it. “Called the cops on me because I was a little late bringing the kids home. Doesn’t want to remember they’re my kids, too. Can you believe it?”

  “Beth’s a nice lady,” Frank said, looking steely-eyed. “I don’t like to hear you talking about her this way.”

  Ray squinted. “You think you know her? You don’t know shit. You buy forms from her. You’re a goddamned customer.” He spit the word out. “Maybe you’d be good enough to touch her. Not me. I wasn’t a customer.” He swayed, caught himself and straightened. “Maybe you did touch her. How about it? Is that why I wasn’t good enough anymore?”

  Frank grabbed him and shoved him off the stool. Ray stumbled back into a table and chairs.

  “Go home,” Frank said with disgust. “And stay there if you’re going to talk filth about Beth.”

  Ray was suddenly so angry he was blind. His head felt like it might burst with the fury dammed up. He launched himself at the other man. It felt so good when his fists connected that he swung again and again. Frank fell backward and Ray went after him, swinging, swinging, feeling a nose crunch under his knuckles, the soft gut give like bread dough. His anger roared in his ears, drowning any other sounds.

  Hands were yanking him off, and he fought them, still trying to make contact with his bloodied fist, needing to shatter, to hurt, to exhaust himself until that anger had dwindled like gas in his rig.

  Next thing he knew, he was being sick outside in the rain, just before he was tossed in the back of a police car. Alone there he hunched in on himself, his stomach still heaving. Cops. Somebody had called the cops. If it was the same bastard…

  Through the grille he couldn’t see who was in front. But he didn’t know either of the cops who hauled him out in the dark alley behind the public safety building. They shoved him through the door and propelled him down a hall. When he started to retch, they pushed him in a small bathroom, where he threw up again. Then they locked him in a cell.

  Ray was past caring. He was drunk and angry and sick.

  Bitch, he thought woozily. Thought she was too good for him. Called the cops on him. His own wife. Ex-wife. Had the whole damned town on her side.

  Well, there was one way he could get to her, make her pay attention to him. One way he could feel strong again.

  It wasn’t like he’d really hurt her. He didn’t have to. He just wanted to see fear in those blue eyes. Fear that told him he still had some power over her.

  He passed out still thinking about her, the woman he loved.

  WHEN THE PHONE rang a second time, only moments after Beth hung up the receiver, a twinge of uneasiness, even fear, made her hesitate to touch it. But she knew she had to answer.

  Nothing. The response was the silence she had expected. She couldn’t even hear any breathing. It was almost creepier than an obscene phone call. Beth slammed the receiver back down and closed her eyes, breathing slowly to calm herself.

  “Who was it?” Steph asked from right behind her.

  Beth jumped, but managed a casual mien by the time she turned. “Hm? Oh, nobody. Wrong number.”

  “How come there’re so many wrong numbers lately?”

  “Heaven knows.” Beth forced a smile. “I think that’s a pun. When we first moved in here, the phone company gave us a number that used to belong to the Assembly of God Church. We got ten calls a day from people wanting the church. Maybe this is something like that.”

  Stephanie nodded, satisfied. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Meat loaf. Get your sister, and both of you wash your hands.”

  Beth made a point of having a sit-down dinner as many evenings as possible. This was the one time they had together when nobody was distracted by the TV or homework or a friend. Working as many hours as Beth did, and with the girls’ nonstop activities, dinnertime sometimes seemed like a peaceful oasis in the middle of their lives.

  But tonight she had a hard time concentrating on Stephanie’s complaints about the science teacher.

  “Everybody’s afraid to ask him questions. If you do, he just gives you this look and says you weren’t paying attention. I mean, maybe you weren’t, but maybe you just didn’t get it the first time.”

  Beth made appropriate noises of sympathy even as her thoughts went back to the troubling phone calls. They’d gone on for a week now, several a day, sometimes two or three in a row like tonight. She’d hurry to answer the phone, but there was never anybody on the other end. It was dumb, petty—but also unnerving.

  Should she get Caller ID? She had always thought of it as a nuisance, when ninety percent of the calls were from the girls’ friends. Some of their parents undoubtedly had blocks on their phones, and it seemed so unfriendly to forbid those calls. Caller ID would certainly stop this silent stalker—but then what might he do instead?

  She sighed unconsciously. What if she called the phone company and complained? Hadn’t she read there was another technology that allowed calls to be traced instantly? Would they be interested enough to bother, when the caller wasn’t obscene or threatening?

  Beth wanted to believe some stranger was doing this to her and her family. Maybe even a teenager, who thought it was funny to scare somebody.

  But underneath she couldn’t help remembering what the sheriff had said. If he got some satisfaction from scaring you…he’s going to do it again. Ray knew she didn’t have Caller ID. Had he discovered he liked scaring her? Only, why would he choose a method so juvenile? Did he just hope to unsettle her, eroding her basic sense of security?

  What if she asked him outright? Would he let himself smile when he denied making the calls, just to make sure she knew?

  Damn it, she could ignore the calls, Beth thought in frustration. They weren’t what really bothered her. It was the motive behind them. If the caller was older than fifteen, he had to be sick. No normal human being enjoyed scaring total strangers. And if it was Ray…

  Automatically, Beth took another bite. The meat loaf was tasteless in her mouth.

  Dear God, if Ray was the one calling…

  Her mind wanted to balk. Not Ray. It couldn’t be Ray. She had loved him once, married him! How could she not have known what he was beneath the facade?

  Again she heard, as though as a faint echo, Murray’s voice. How long will just scaring you be enough?

  “Mom.”

  Beth tuned in to find both girls looking reproachfully at her.

  “Are you listening?” Stephanie asked.

  “Yes, of course,” she lied. “But let’s hear about Lauren’s day now.”

  Her younger daughter wrinkled her nose. “It was boring. But I forgot to tell you….” Strangely, she hesitated, darting a glance between her sister and her mother. “Well, last Tuesday…or maybe it was the day before…anyway,” she finished in a rush, “you know that man who came to our house when Daddy was so mad.”

  Stephanie looked down at her plate. Beth nodded. “He’s the county sheriff.”

  “Well, he came and talked to our class.”

  Surprised and disturbed, Beth said, “About anything in particular?”

  “Just what to do when you’re home alone. Stuff like that. He was really nice.”

  Nice. If you didn’t mind being treated like a helpless woman who ought to be grateful for “protection.”

  No, that wasn’t fair, Beth admitted reluctantly. He was nice. He’d stopped when he didn’t have to get involved, listened patiently, offered sound advice and never given her the feeling that he considered her to blame in any way.

  “I’m glad you thought so,” she said neutrally. She tried to make her voice casual, the new subject not an obvious extension of the last one. “Listen, guys, have either of you talked to your dad this week?”

  Out of the corner of her eye she sa
w Stephanie duck her head again. Stick-straight brown hair brushed her cheek, and thick dark lashes shielded her eyes. She crumbled her garlic bread without actually eating any of it.

  But Lauren said, “He called last night.”

  “Did he have anything special to say?”

  A small frown furrowed her brow. “I don’t think so.”

  “Did he tell you what time he’ll pick you up Saturday?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Without looking up, Stephanie mumbled, “The usual time.”

  “Is he taking you anywhere?”

  “He said maybe to a movie. Mom—” Stephanie stopped abruptly. “Never mind.”

  “Come on.” Beth reached over and brushed her daughter’s hair back from her face. “You can’t start and not finish.”

  Stephanie shrugged, looking almost sullen for a moment. “It’s not any big deal. It’s just… He’s always promising to do something with us, and then he doesn’t. I mean, I’d like it if he’d take us to a movie or Art In The Park or someplace, but he never does. I wish he wouldn’t promise something when he doesn’t mean it.”

  “Oh, honey.” Beth reached over to lift her daughter’s chin. She struggled to hide her own sadness. “Have you talked to him about this?”

  There Steph went again, hunching her shoulders and refusing to meet her mother’s eyes, as she had increasingly often lately. “No,” she mumbled.

  “You know, he isn’t a mind reader. Maybe he’s just been tired, maybe having you at home with him makes your dad feel more like you’re a real family. Try talking to him.”

  For what good it would do, Beth thought grimly. There had been a time when Ray listened. Now, it seemed as if he was too self-absorbed to think about anyone else’s feelings. Or was she just being negative, projecting her own anger?

  Stephanie shrugged and made an unhappy face. “But if I say something, it sounds…oh, I don’t know, like I’m saying he lied! And it’s not that. It’s just that it’s kind of boring at his apartment, and I wish he wouldn’t tell us he’s going to take us somewhere and get us excited and stuff, and then not do it. You know?”

  “Sure I do.” Beth stood long enough to give her daughter a quick hug and kiss on the cheek. “But I still say you need to talk to him. If you don’t tell him differently, he may think you’d rather not go anyplace special.”

  Another twitch of the shoulders and an unenthusiastic “Yeah, I guess.”

  Lauren had been listening without comment, but now she said, “I’ll talk to him. I don’t mind.”

  “No!” Stephanie said with quick alarm. “You’ll tell Dad I think he breaks his promises. I don’t want him to know that.”

  “I won’t…”

  “Yes, you will! Don’t you dare say anything to Dad!”

  Lauren stuck out her tongue. “Well, then you do it.”

  They were off and running with the kind of bickering calculated to fray any parent’s patience. As she dealt with them, Beth reminded herself of how well they usually got along. And at least the quarrel was reassuringly normal. The day when neither wanted to talk about their father at all was the day when she really had to worry.

  As if she wasn’t worrying now.

  BETH ADDED PAPER to the copying machine, snapped the tray back into place and smiled at the customer. “All set.”

  “Thanks.” The woman, a volunteer at the local animal shelter, went back to copying fliers about a free spay/neuter day.

  Hearing her name, Beth turned. Maria Bernal, a friend who owned a women’s clothing store half a block away, was hurrying down the aisle between printer cartridges and pens. Hispanic, a little plump and very pretty, Maria took Beth’s arm and steered her into the back room. “Well, did he bring the kids home on time this weekend?”

  “More or less.” Beth automatically gathered up the remains of an employee’s sack lunch left on the one table and tossed it in the garbage. “He was only an hour late.” Her dry tone didn’t reveal how torturous that hour had been to Beth, who had come to dread every one of the girls’ visits to their dad.

  “You look tired.” Never less than blunt, Maria studied her with the practical eye she’d give a new clothing line. “Why no sleep? Is he still calling and hanging up?”

  Beth took a can of cola from the tiny refrigerator and, after Maria shook her head at the offering, popped the top. She needed the caffeine, although the artificial energy would do nothing for the weariness adding years to her face.

  “I don’t know that he…” she began.

  Her friend waved an impatient hand. “Okay, whoever. Is it still happening?”

  Beth’s voice went flat. “The past two nights it’s been the doorbell instead. The first couple of times, one of the girls answered and nobody was there. God, I was scared when I realized—” She broke off. “What’s horrible is that he must have been watching somewhere. The second time it was Steph, and she was scared to death. She had the sense to slam the door quick and lock it, but when I came running she was shaking. He must have seen.” Beth searched her friend’s face. “How could he do it to her, Maria?”

  “God, I don’t know.” Maria took her hand and squeezed. “The son of a… Well, you know what I think of him. And we’re not talking about ‘whoever’ here, are we.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I don’t know,” Beth said desperately. “It’s hard to believe Ray could be so cruel.”

  “A woman scorned is nothing on a man. You know, he may not let himself realize that Steph and Lauren are scared, too.”

  “It’s getting so I hate him.” Until she heard herself say the words, she hadn’t known her feelings were so caustic. “And what if it wasn’t him?”

  The question was unanswerable. Maria made a helpless gesture. “Have you called the police?”

  “What can they do?” Beth asked. “I’ve tried hiding by the window where I can see the front door, but then no one comes. If he’s able to figure out when I’m watching, do you think he’s going to come striding up on the front porch with a police car in my driveway?”

  “I think they can be more subtle than that.”

  “Maria, I can’t.” All Beth’s misery poured out. “This is Stephanie and Lauren’s father we’re talking about. What if I’m wrong?”

  Maria’s dark eyes were compassionate. “You’d still have a problem. Maybe a worse one.”

  She hadn’t thought about it that way. Was it scarier to think of a stranger persecuting them this way, or Ray?

  The question wasn’t one she could shake. It stayed with her long after Maria had bustled out.

  Usually Beth snatched a quick lunch in the back room, but she’d been so tired this morning she’d given the girls lunch money instead of sandwiches, and now she had to go out herself. The Bluebird Café three blocks away had good daily specials and the booths offered more privacy than the tiny tables at the deli around the corner, so she chose to go there. The walk would do her good.

  She’d barely taken a forkful of flaky crust from her turkey pot pie when she saw Sheriff Jack Murray enter, a big, broad man in another of those beautifully cut gray suits that hid the gun he undoubtedly carried. She should have sat with her back to the door, Beth thought belatedly, although she had no idea why she was so reluctant to face him again.

  Because he’d heard her screaming at her ex-husband?

  Six or seven booths were occupied, but his gaze went straight to her and he waved off the waitress, coming directly to Beth. “May I join you?”

  What could she say but “Of course.”

  The waitress followed, but he didn’t take the menu. “A cup of coffee and apple pie,” he told her, before he scrutinized Beth as directly as Maria had. “Your clerk said you were here.”

  Surprised, she said, “You came looking for me?”

  Justifiably, he ignored the question. “How are things going with your ex-husband?”

  Beth opened her mouth to say a bright “Just fine!” and found she couldn’t get the lie out. Sh
e closed her mouth, opened it again and finally sighed. “Well, we’ve had no repeat of the infamous temper tantrum. I guess I can deal with everything else.”

  That was a lie, too, of course; even at this moment, even when she was distracted by this blunt-featured man who knew too much about her life, her stomach churned and her chest was crowded with anxiety. What would tonight bring? A ringing telephone, with no caller on the other end? The chime of the doorbell, with no one standing on the doorstep? Or would something scarier yet happen?

  She met the sheriff’s eyes and had the unnerving feeling that he had read her mind. More roughly than her remark called for, he said, “You shouldn’t have to deal with anything. If he’s trespassing or violating his visitation rights—”

  “I should have him arrested?” How she wished she could! “I don’t think that would solve our problems.”

  “It might wake him up.” He stopped when a newcomer slapped him on the back and wanted to talk about a speech he’d apparently given the night before.

  Beth took the opportunity to eat, watching Murray respond with the easy geniality of a born politician. He had a reputation as a tough cop—too tough, according to his opponent in the last election. Beth had voted for him, anyway, liking the job he’d done as chief of the smaller Elk Springs city police force before he ran for sheriff.

  At the same time the waitress brought his coffee and pie, the other man moved on with apologies for interrupting their lunch, and Murray’s expression became grave. “Are you aware that your ex-husband was arrested for assault and battery over a week ago?”

  “Assault?” Staggered, Beth shook her head dumbly. The fork dropped from nerveless fingers. “No. No, I wasn’t.”

  “Got in a fight at the tavern. Not all his fault, apparently, but he broke the other man’s nose, really worked him over. According to the bartender, the fight was over you.”

  “Dear God.” Beth bent her head and pushed her plate away, struggling with her nausea. A fight in a tavern. For the thousandth time, she asked herself how it had come to this. She and Ray had been high school sweethearts. She had thought he was so strong, someone she could lean on forever.