Colorado Fireman

by C. C. Coburn

  In the morning, he’d order a box of groceries delivered to her from the supermarket and some flowers from Mrs. Farquar, the mayor’s wife. It was the least he could do to make up for all the years he’d stayed away.

  As he lay in bed that night, for the first time in too many years Adam felt the weight of his guilt pressing less heavily on his chest. But he knew that in a small house on the outskirts of town, Jennifer Bennett was mourning the loss of her son all over again.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning the Polinskis’ son and daughter-in-law arrived in town.

  Matt had asked them to come by his office first, before they picked up the old couple from the hospital.

  And while the Polinskis’ son, George, was pleasant enough and grateful for everything the fire department and rescue personnel had done for his parents, the daughter-in-law was another matter.

  Jasmine Polinski’s designer clothes would be the envy of many a woman in Spruce Lake, Matt surmised. But the fur coat she wore would’ve guaranteed her being scorned by nearly everyone.

  Once settled in Matt’s office, she demanded to know where Molly was.

  Matt had patiently tried to explain to her—since her husband had stepped out of the office to take a call—that Molly was still suffering from smoke inhalation and probably shouldn’t be moved anytime soon. He then bit his lip and hinted that Molly might not be a pedigreed basset, after all.

  “They told me she was a pedigreed bassett hound!” she screeched. “Her puppies are supposed to sell for over a thousand dollars each!”

  Matt did his best to hold his tongue. “If she isn’t pedigreed, then any puppies she might have could be very difficult to place. In fact, my brother Will, who’s an expert on dogs…” This wasn’t entirely true, but Will liked dogs and they liked him, so Matt didn’t mind bending the truth about Will’s expertise. “Anyway, he thinks Molly’s mom might have mated with another dog first. I’m afraid that, in spite of your in-laws’ beliefs, Will thinks she’s a mixed breed.” So much for his suggestion that he and Becky stay out of the whole Molly issue. But something about this woman brought out the devil in Matt and he couldn’t resist baiting her.

  “You mean…she’s a mongrel?”

  The word dripped with contempt and Matt hated her for it.

  “I don’t believe you. I want to see her. Where is she?”

  “At my family’s ranch,” Matt told her. “I can take you over there later—”

  “I want to see her now.”

  Matt had no desire to let this poisonous woman anywhere near the ranch, so he opened his cell and called his mother. “I’ll have my mom bring her into town. I’m sure Carly Spencer, who was a neighbor of your in-laws’ and who’s now staying at our family’s ranch, would love to see them before they go to Miami with you.”

  When his mother answered, Matt said, “Hi, Mom. Would you mind bringing Molly to my office? The Polinskis want to collect her here. Bring Carly, too, because Mr. and Mrs. Polinski will be taking his parents back to Miami on this afternoon’s flight.”

  “What’s she like?” Sarah asked. Matt stayed silent. “I see. Carly and I will be there in twenty minutes. Bye.”

  As it turned out, they were a good thirty minutes. Matt tried to engage Mr. Polinski’s son in conversation, but he spent more time taking calls on his cell phone in the corridor than talking to Matt.

  Desperate to convince them to leave Molly in Colorado, Matt searched his desk drawers for a brochure he’d received from the Twilight Years last week.

  He gave it to Jasmine Polinski. “If you’d prefer, your parents-in-law could stay in Colorado,” he said. “We have an excellent retirement home right here in Spruce Lake. I know they allow residents to keep their dogs there. They’ve just completed some excellent independent living units that would be perfect for your parents-in-law.”

  Jasmine Polinski sniffed with distaste. “And who do you think is going to pay for this?”

  “Your mother-in-law told me they own several investment properties,” Matt said. Although why they’d spend their retirement years renting an apartment in a run-down old building, he was at a loss to understand.

  “They can’t be sold!” she snapped.

  “Why not?” Matt asked reasonably, knowing the answer. The older Polinskis had said something about the properties being tied up in a family trust. Matt had the uneasy feeling they were being used as collateral for the younger Polinskis’ investments—and lifestyle.

  “If your parents-in-law could liquidate some assets to help make their retirement more comfortable and keep Molly with them, surely that would be a solution agreeable to all of you?”

  “I told you the other day. They’re coming to live in Miami, and the dog is going to be sold.”

  She was nothing if not forthright about her plans for Molly. Matt had gotten to the point where he’d decided strangulation would be too good for the woman.

  “And do Mr. and Mrs. Polinski know that?”

  “Not yet, but since they don’t have anywhere else to go, they’ll just have to suck it up.”

  “Excuse me?”

  The woman leaned over Matt’s desk and spoke in a low, threatening tone as she tapped a long fingernail on his blotter pad. “Listen, Sheriff, we’re taking my husband’s parents back to Miami with us. What happens to them, or their dog, when they leave this Podunk town is none of your business.”

  “Is it your husband’s business?”

  “He does as he’s told!”

  Matt sat back in his chair to put as much physical space between Jasmine Polinski and himself as possible. “Mrs. Polinski, I’m surprised you don’t want Molly staying with them at your house. She’s a lovely dog and wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “Because, Sheriff, they won’t be staying in our house. They’re going to the retirement trailer park!”

  Bingo! “And they don’t allow dogs?” Matt didn’t believe that for a moment. “Then wouldn’t it be preferable to have your parents-in-law move into a perfectly nice retirement home here, in a community they love?”

  “Like I said, who’s going to pay for it?”

  “You’d rather drag them across the country and set them up in a trailer in Miami? Because it’s cheap?”

  “We all need to economize in these difficult times.”

  “Y…es,” Matt said slowly, taking in her designer outfit and then gazing pointedly at her fur coat. “We certainly do.”

  WHEN SARAH ARRIVED WITH Carly and Molly, things went from bad to worse. Molly looked, and smelled, as if she’d been rolling in something unmentionable. Jasmine Polinski screeched with horror when Molly waddled in wagging her tail and rubbed her fat little body against her leg.

  “Get that mongrel away from me!” she cried.

  Molly growled at the insult and bared her teeth. Then she latched onto Mrs. Polinski’s fur coat and, with a fierce shake of her head, wrestled it off her shoulders and onto the floor.

  The behavior was so uncharacteristic of Molly that Sarah, Matt and Carly were too shocked to react quickly enough.

  Jasmine Polinski lashed out, kicking Molly viciously in the ribs with the pointed toe of her expensive boots.

  Molly howled in pain. Sarah kicked Mrs. Polinski in the shin and Carly dropped to the floor to comfort Molly.

  “I want that dog put down!” Jasmine Polinski screamed. “And I want this woman charged with assault!”

  Although Matt had been appalled at his mother’s reaction, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have done the same thing.

  “First, we don’t euthanize dogs who bite fur coats. Second, I could charge this woman with assault,” Matt said, mirroring the woman’s tone of voice and earning a glare from his mother.

  “But before I do that, I�
��m going to charge you with animal cruelty, which in this county is a far greater crime.”

  He picked up his phone and said, “I’m calling our animal cruelty officer to come down here and take witness statements. Then I’m arresting you.”

  “You can’t arrest me!”

  “I can, and I will,” he said to her, and then into the phone, “Can you come to my office for a moment? I have an animal cruelty case for you.”

  “What’s going on?” George Polinski asked from the doorway. Apparently, he’d finally found time to attend to his parents.

  Jasmine dragged her husband into the room and slammed the door shut. “He wants to arrest me!”

  “Your wife assaulted an innocent animal,” Matt explained. “That carries a heavy penalty. I’m presently waiting for an officer from animal cruelty to come and take statements from the witnesses.”

  Jasmine Polinski pointed her bloodred, perfectly manicured index finger at Sarah. “That woman kicked me!”

  “Only because you kicked Molly first,” Sarah retorted. “What sort of person are you to abuse a harmless animal?”

  “She’s ruined my fur coat!”

  “You have no business wearing the fur of a wild animal on your back!” Sarah yelled.

  His office was starting to sound like a playground, but Matt was loath to stop his mother from venting her spleen. Animal cruelty was unforgivable, and his mom was more than a match for any designer-clad harpy from the East Coast.

  “I’m going to make sure the animal cruelty officer knows exactly what you did to Molly. There’s no way he’ll let her leave this town with you, you lous—”

  “Thank you, ladies, that’ll be enough yelling for now. If you keep it up, you’ll have the prisoners over in the county jail wanting to join the fray.”

  “Yeah!” Sarah said. “But since she’ll be there with them in a couple of minutes, they won’t need to come over here.”

  JASMINE POLINSKI PALED beneath her makeup. Carly concluded she must have watched some of those prison-reality programs on TV.

  “Do you strip-search prisoners?” Carly asked Matt.

  Obviously guessing where she was going, he nodded. “Oh, yeah.”

  “That’s barbaric.” Carly covered her mouth to hide her grin of delight.

  Matt shrugged. “Gotta be done, I’m afraid. Can’t tell what people have hiding on, or inside, them.”

  “But…but I haven’t got anything hidden on me!” Jasmine insisted.

  Matt grinned wolfishly, his lips pulling back over his teeth. “That’s what they all say. In fact, the prisoners who protest the most are generally the ones who’re hiding something. They get searched, from top to bottom.…” He let the last word hang in the air. “Sometimes two, even three times.”

  Carly enjoyed watching the emotions on the woman’s face. She’d gone from arrogant to incensed to horrified in a matter of minutes.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “That will be the animal cruelty officer,” Matt said.

  “Wait! Don’t let him in yet,” Jasmine Polinski demanded.

  “If you want to make a full confession, that’s fine, but you’ll still be charged and incarcerated,” Matt warned. “Might take a while to get you bailed. Could be the judge won’t give you bail. I did tell you this county looks very unfavorably on animal cruelty, didn’t I?”

  “Do something!” she implored her husband.

  “Like what? Seems you’re going to be locked up for the night, my dear.”

  Carly wanted to cheer George Polinski. Maybe he had a backbone, after all.

  Jasmine bent and fished around in Matt’s wastebasket and came up with a crumpled brochure for the Twilight Years. She thrust it at her husband.

  He glanced at it and said, “You have to be over fifty-five to live here. I don’t think it’s an alternative to jail.”

  “For your parents, you idiot!” she snapped, then looked at Matt. “If I…we agree to place his parents in this place, will you drop the charges?’

  “It’s not my call. Animal cruelty…”

  “Please?” she begged.

  “It’s up to your husband. Would he prefer to see you behind bars? Or his parents living out the rest of their lives—with Molly—in the Twilight Years?”

  All eyes in the room swung to George Polinski.

  He took a good long time making up his mind.

  “George! So help me, I’ll…”

  “You’ll what?” George asked. He clearly liked having the upper hand for once.

  She stomped her expensively booted foot.

  “Considering the circumstances, Sheriff,” George said, returning his attention to Matt, “and the fact that our lawyer charges like a wounded bull, it would probably be cheaper to place my parents in the Twilight Years—should that be their wish—than pay to defend my wife’s actions with regard to Molly.” At this point he looked down at the dog for the first time and frowned. “What’s that muck all over her?” he asked.

  Carly scrambled to her feet and rubbed her hands on the seat of her jeans. “It’s engine grease. Molly’s taken to running around with the ranch dogs, but she went under a tractor—a parked one,” she hastened to point out, “and got covered in engine grease. I’ve been trying to wash it off all morning.”

  “I see,” he said, then looked back at Matt. “I’ll call the Twilight Years, and provided they have a vacancy for my parents, I’d be very grateful if you’d drop the charge pending against my wife.”

  “And if they don’t have space for them?” his wife demanded, and then seemed to realize that was a very stupid question, given her tenuous situation. “I mean, of course they’ll have room for them. In fact, I’m sure they’d look very favorably on a generous donation to take them off our hands.”

  TEARS OF LAUGHTER HAD flowed down Sarah’s and Carly’s cheeks after they’d returned to the ranch and told everyone present what had happened in Matt’s office. Will had whooped with joy as he imagined Matt lying with a completely straight face. Even Luke had cracked a smile.

  “So the Polinskis are moving into their new home at the Twilight Years as we speak,” Sarah said.

  “And Molly’s staying here for a few days while they get settled,” Carly finished.

  “And you’re going to wash off that disgusting mix of engine grease and cow manure you rubbed all over her, Will,” his mother said sternly, then smiled and patted his cheek. “Actually, that was such a stroke of brilliance, I think I’ll wash her for you.”

  “I’ll help!” said Alex.

  Carly had loved watching all the children’s faces as she and Sarah had related the story of pretentious Jasmine Polinski and her brush with the law—and a very dirty dog. She was only sorry Adam wasn’t there to share in the fun.

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Carly took a trip to the supermarket to do some shopping for Sarah. While waiting to be served in the deli section, she experienced the same weird prickle up her spine that she’d felt the day of the fire and the other night at the ranch.

  She spun around and came face-to-face with Jerry Ryan.

  “Carly! I wondered if that was you.”

  Carly was so flabbergasted, it took her a moment to regain her senses.

  “What are you doing here, Jerry?” she demanded, unable to hide her shock—or her dismay.

  “Is that any way to greet an old friend? Come on, give me a kiss, it’s been ages!”

  Without waiting for Carly to kiss him—not that she’d intended to—he took hold of her shoulders, kissed her cheek and pulled her into a hug.

  Startled, Carly had remained frozen in his embrace. She needed to get out of this without spending too much time with Jerry. Certainly not enough time for him to question her about what she’d b
een up to and where she was living now.

  She plastered a smile on her face and drew back. “It’s such a surprise to see you here, Jerry. I didn’t know you skied.”

  “Decided it was time to learn, so…I ended up here.”

  In exactly the same town she was living in? Carly fought to control her racing pulse. There was no way he’d accidentally found her here. Carly was sure of it. She’d deliberately avoided telling him about the job in Denver. After the hotel was firebombed, she hadn’t even told her parents where she’d relocated. Until last week....

  “So how’ve you been? How are the kids?”

  Carly had no intention of saying anything about the fire; he’d go all protective on her. Probably insist on taking her and the kids back to San Diego to live with him. Not what she wanted!

  “Great! We love living in the mountains.”

  “You were going to email and tell me where you’d moved in Denver so I could come and visit.”

  She had not mentioned him visiting! “I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy with work, getting the kids settled in school…” She shrugged. “Stuff like that.”

  “I thought your new job was in Denver. What are you doing here?”

  This was starting to feel like an interrogation. And Jerry was standing way too close. She took a step back, bringing the shopping basket up to rest in front of her, and said, “It didn’t work out.”

  Just as she was wondering how she could get away from him before he asked where she was living now, Jerry threw her an unexpected lifeline.

  “If you’re not busy, we could go and have a coffee.”

  “Actually, I am busy.” Carly waved Sarah’s shopping list beneath his nose. “I’ll have to take a rain check.”

  “When? Dinner tonight?”

  Hell, no! Carly shook her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t get a sitter on such short notice.”