“Yup. And also, let’s see, president, CEO, chairman of the board, secretary, and chief hygienic engineer of Hide and Seek Investigations, LLC.”
“Wow, all that. Listen, the SBI wants to hire you, as an operational consultant.”
“We’re terribly busy,” I replied, Bobby Lee’s good advice still echoing in my ear.
“If Mingo produces a body, Sheriff Hayes will have to act,” she said. “If, on the other hand, you have been working for us, your status would be different. They’d have to come through us to get to you. Ultimately, of course, we’d have to produce you. Which, of course, we would, in the fullness of time. Emphasis on the ‘fullness.’”
“Have been? As in, for some time now?”
“The start date may be left somewhat vague. Look, Hayes doesn’t want to turn you over to Mingo, and he doesn’t want to get into any more pissing contests with that crowd, especially if some black hats decide there’s the possibility of getting a genu-wine mountain-man feud up and running.”
“I’m really expensive,” I said.
“We’re really cheap,” she replied. “But you get a badge and a secret decoder ring. And more importantly, you might be uniquely positioned to stop something really bad from happening.”
“Which is?”
“Which will be the subject of a formal briefing.”
“In the fullness of time?”
“There you go. And not on the damned open telephone, Lieutenant.”
“How quickly one forgets,” I said. “Okay, let me think about it.”
“Take as long as you want,” she said. “But once Mingo produces an arrest warrant, we can’t make this offer.”
“My instincts are to pack up and beat feet,” I said. “As Bobby Lee Baggett pointed out earlier, I’ve done what I came up here to do.”
“But aren’t you just a little bit curious?” she asked.
The lady was a psychic. “Not fair,” I said.
“Hee-hee,” she said, and hung up.
Damn all women and their intuition, I told myself. I dumped my coffee and steadied up on the scotch. I called the shepherds in, and we all went out to the creekside porch. The night was clear and cool, with a waning full moon trying hard to light up the hills. The creek was shiny black and somewhat subdued because of the lack of rain. Frick sat watching the creek; she’d hidden that damned dog leg somewhere in the cabin and I had to find it before housekeeping did. Or worse, didn’t. Frack curled up at my side and went back to sleep. He’d been limping a little after our noisy jog through the mountains, and I had given him a pain pill. I sipped my own version of one.
Bobby Lee was right-I was way off my home turf and would probably be a whole lot safer back in Manceford County. The manslaughter charge had to be bogus: I hadn’t killed anybody that night, and that guy had been breathing when I walked away. He could have croaked after that, of course, but if so, why couldn’t Mingo produce a body?
On the other hand: Carrie’s proposition sounded a lot more exciting than running down writs and warrants for the court marshals. Baby Greenberg had surprised me up in the hills; for a city boy he’d carried his share of the load quite well. And, of course, I was intrigued by Carrie’s guarded references to a crime beyond methamphetamine sales and service. That mean old woman had almost smothered a kid, much as one might wring a chicken’s neck for Sunday dinner. That dramatic gesture with her arms made me think maybe she’d done that before. M. C. Mingo certainly hadn’t seemed shocked; he and Nathan had dumped the child’s unconscious body into his backseat like a sack of potatoes. The cuffing indicated that the kid wasn’t dead, but she sure wasn’t healthy.
I heard footsteps approaching out on the gravel walkway. Frick padded out to the front door. It turned out to be Mary Ellen Goode, of all people. She was wearing jeans and a light sweater, and she ran her hand nervously through her hair when I appeared at the front door.
“I know. I should have called,” she began, but I waved off her apology.
“Come on in. It’s always good to see you.”
That got me a sweet smile. We settled on the porch after she declined the offer of a drink. She still looked very tired, and I wondered what it was going to take to pull her out of her depression. She told me that Janey Howard had finally made a full statement to the sheriff’s office, confirming what the coroner had already concluded, namely, that the man in chains in the lake had been hanged. She’d also given a description of the two men she saw doing the hanging.
“Did you get to hear the description?” I asked.
“Yes. One was older and thin; the other she described as being a heavily bearded fat man. He’s the one who beat her up, among other things.”
“That sounds like the runner I saw taken down by the dog pack,” I said. “Robbins County, taking care of business, perhaps.”
She gave me a sad look. “It depresses me that the only things you and I ever talk about are murder and violence,” she said. “I guess, well, I guess that’s why I dropped by.”
I waited, although I was pretty sure I knew what she was about to say. I think we’d both had high hopes in the past about a possible relationship, but time, distance, and some unholy memories had proved toxic.
She took a deep breath. “I think it best for my mental health that we don’t see each other anymore,” she said. “And I’m truly sorry about that. I had hoped…”
Suspicions confirmed, I thought. “I understand,” I told her. “I wanted the same thing. But I worked a violent profession for many years, and now it looks like I’m right back in it.” I told her that the SBI wanted to hire me to work a problem in Robbins County.
She nodded, as if not surprised. “And I’m the one who asked you to come up here,” she said. “So my problem is partly of my own making. Not your fault at all.”
“I don’t feel like I’m at fault, Mary Ellen,” I said gently. “My life was going pretty well until we uncovered the cat dancers. My ex and I were getting back together, I was leading an exciting and productive police unit, and life was pretty good even if I was just a cop. All that changed when someone started frying bad guys. If I made a mistake, it was getting you involved in all that.”
“I thought I could handle it,” she said. “Now I know better.”
“You need to find a nice guy who’s not wearing any kind of uniform,” I said. “I think maybe you should get out of uniform, too. You have that Ph. D. Go back to the campus. Change your life. Run with some civilians for a change.”
She smiled. “You haven’t been around academia much lately, have you?” she said. She looked away for a moment and then swore softly.
I got up, took her hand, and pulled her up out of her chair. For a moment, I wanted to kiss her, just to see if this was all talk. But the look in her eyes signaled apprehension, not desire. “C’mon,” I said. “I’ll walk you back to your car.”
When we got out to the almost empty parking lot, she surprised me with a warm embrace. I kissed the top of her hair and told her I’d miss her. I was surprised to discover how true that was. Frick had come outside with us and was hovering anxiously, ever sensitive to charged human emotions.
Mary Ellen recomposed her face, slipped into her car, waved, and drove off. As she neared the ramp back up to the hotel’s main entrance, there was a flare of headlights and a rumble of tailpipes as Rue Creigh’s pickup truck popped over the hump at the top and slewed down into the parking lot. Rue’s window was open and her long hair was blowing in the breeze. Her widelipped coloratura face was clearly visible in Mary Ellen’s headlights, and it was my turn to swear. Talk about lousy timing. Rue Creigh’s late-evening arrival was precisely what I didn’t need to happen just then.
Rue drove over to where I was standing with my shepherd and shut the noisy truck down. The engine was powerful enough to literally shake the truck when it stopped.
“Hey there, lawman,” she said brightly. “Did I show up at a bad time?”
I shook my head. “Hello, Miss Creigh. What brings you out at this late hour?”