Dove in the Window (24 page)

“I’ll talk to him. Grovel a bit and promise I’ll never do it again.”

“Groveling wouldn’t be bad, but if I were you I’d try to refrain from breaking one of the ten commandments.”

I slapped his chest lightly. “Hey ...” Then I thought about it. “Well, maybe you’re right.” I lay my head back down on his shoulder. “I think I might actually be able to sleep now.”

“Me, too. One last thing though.”

“Mmm?”

“Just so we’re clear on this. As mature and understanding as I am being about why you feel obligated to help your ex-brother-in-law, given the opportunity, I’m still going to kick his sorry ass.”

“Yes, dear,” I said, laughing softly in the darkness, knowing he was just letting off steam.

Or so I thought.

12

IN MY DREAMS there were bells. Shrilling, screaming bells. I woke with a start when I felt Gabe fumble over me and reach for the phone.

“Why isn’t that stupid thing on your side of the bed?” I asked, his warm chest smothering me in not an unpleasant way.

“Ortiz,” he said into the phone.

I struggled out from under him and glanced at the clock. Ten after six. The alarm would have gone off in twenty minutes anyway. It seemed we’d fallen asleep just seconds ago. I pulled the edge of my pillow over my head and tried to go back to sleep. Gabe’s terse, angry voice cut through the down feathers and caused me to bolt up and listen.

“He’s here,” he said, then was silent. “No, I’ll bring him down. Give us an hour.” He slammed the receiver back on the phone.

“What’s going on?” I asked, pulling our thick quilt up around my chilled arms. I knew enough from his side of the conversation that it most likely involved Wade and that it wasn’t good. Just how badly had he beaten Kip?

“Kip Waterman’s body was found this morning behind the Frio Saloon. The Sheriff’s Department wants to talk to Wade.” He threw back the covers and pulled on a pair of white boxer shorts. He flung our bedroom door open, letting it hit the wall with a deep, wood-chunking thump. Pulling on my robe, I scrambled after him.

He was already dragging Wade up out of the sleeping bag when I reached the guest room doorway. A bleary-eyed Emory sat up in the queen-size bed.

“What the ... ?” Wade sputtered as Gabe shoved him down on the bed.

“Get your boots on, Harper,” Gabe said. “I’m taking you down to the sheriff’s office.”

Wade sat on the edge of the bed looking up at Gabe with confused, bloodshot eyes. The cloying old-liquor smell of him filled the room.

“Maybe he should take a shower first,” I said.

Gabe frowned at me. “He’s going now.”

“What’s going on?” Emory asked, reaching for his velour robe.

“Kip Waterman’s dead.” Gabe spit the words out. “The person last seen fighting with him was Wade.”

“What?” Wade stood up, wobbled, then abruptly sat back down. “How ...” His chapped lips parted in surprise.

“I’m getting dressed,” Gabe said. “Be ready to leave in ten minutes.”

“Think I’ll start a pot of coffee,” Emory said, laying a hand briefly on my shoulder as he passed. “Looks like we’ll be needin‘ it.”

Wade looked up at me, his face a mixture of confusion and resignation. “We threw a few punches, blondie, but he wasn’t dead when I went to the john. He was laying next to the creek a-bellyachin‘ about Shelby. I only connected twice.” He balled up his right fist and looked at it. Blood stained the crevices brown.

“Go wash your face and comb your hair,” I said, trying to buy myself some time while I thought about what to do. Again, I felt torn between my husband and someone who’d been a part of my life for a good deal longer than Gabe. Just how much did I owe Wade because of our past connection?

The benefit of the doubt
, at least, a small voice said.

“There’s a new toothbrush in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom,” I said. “And don’t say anything until I can get Amanda down there.”

He stood up, grabbing on to the brass bed post for support. “Who’s Amanda?”

“Your attorney,” I said grimly.

I went into the bedroom, closing the door behind me. Gabe was bent down, combing his hair in front of my vanity table mirror. He was already dressed in jeans and a navy cable-knit sweater.

“I’m going with you,” I said.

He slipped his comb into the back pocket of his Levi’s. “No, you’re not.”

“You’re going to railroad him.” I tore off my robe and reached for my jeans.

He came over and took both my shoulders in his hands. They were warm and familiar and, at this moment, not one bit comforting. His thumbs lightly caressed my collar bone. “
Querida
, I’m not doing anything. I’m merely making it less embarrassing for everyone by taking him down to the sheriff’s department myself.”

“How did Kip die?”

“He was apparently knocked out with some blunt object. Then someone held his head down in that creek out behind the saloon. Preliminary call by the coroner is death by drowning, though until they do an autopsy they won’t be completely sure if it was the blow that killed him or the water.”

I pulled away from his hands. “I’m calling Amanda.”

A sharp, disgusted sound came from Gabe’s throat.

I pulled on my jeans and zipped them up. “He deserves to have someone on his side.”

“If he’s innocent, he doesn’t have anything to worry about.”

“Right. No innocent person has ever been convicted in our wonderful legal system.” I looked over at my angry husband. “Please, Gabe, just give him a fair chance.”

He ran a hand across his face in exasperation. “It’s not me you have to convince. I probably won’t even sit in on the questioning. The homicide happened on county land. Again, it’s up to the Sheriff’s Department.”

I walked over and lay my hand on his chest. “But they respect you. They’ll listen to you.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I would do anything for you, you know that. But this time ...” He cupped my chin in his hand. “This time, I think you’ve called it wrong.”

I touched his hand briefly with my fingertips, then pulled my chin away, though not in anger. His eyes turned down in sadness.

“We have to go.
Yo te amo
.”

“I love you, too, Friday.”

After he’d left with a cleaned-up and subdued Wade, I dialed Amanda’s home number. In the background, Bonnie Raitt was giving the whole world something to talk about.

“Hey, Benni Harper, how’s tricks?” she asked, breathing hard.

“I’m sorry to bother you so early ...”

“Don’t sweat it, girlfriend. I was just doing some serious bonding with my treadmill. Hold on a minute ...” In a few seconds, the background went silent. “So, is this your before-coffee morning voice or is something wrong?”

I quickly told her the situation. As I talked I sensed more than heard her mental switching from good ole girl to experienced attorney.

“How long ago did they leave?” she asked, her voice all business.

“About five minutes ago.”

“That doesn’t give me much time with the way that husband of yours drives. You said the victim was found behind the Frio Saloon?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s the sheriff’s baby, all right. I’ll get down there as quick as I can. You said you told him not to say a thing until I got there?”

“Yes, but I don’t know if he’ll listen to me.”

I heard her inhale deeply and I could picture her shaking her auburn head. “You’d better hope he does, my friend. Meet me there.” She hung up without saying good-bye.

Feeling that I’d done as much as I could for now, I finished dressing and went into the kitchen. Emory had a cup of coffee waiting.

“So, what’s the story?” he asked, handing me the warm blue mug.

I added cream and sugar, explaining as much as I knew at this point. “I called Amanda Landry, that attorney I told you about who belongs to the co-op. She’s going to meet me there. Then I guess we’ll see just what they have on Wade.”

“And how about you and the chief?”

I sipped my coffee. “We’re fine, considering the impossible circumstances. I think we’re actually starting to form something that supersedes his job and my relationships in this town.”

“I think they call it a marriage,” Emory said, pulling the tie on his robe tighter.

“Ha, ha,” I countered halfheartedly.

“Is there anything I can do, sweetcakes?”

I looked at him a moment. “Unless you can find someone who might want both Kip and Shelby dead so that my ex-brother-in-law can get off the hook and back to Texas ... not much.”

He looked back at me, his green eyes steady. “Not ever bein‘ one to mince words with you ... what if he’s the one?”

“He’s not.”

“You sound certain. At the risk of getting my head bit off, why is this so doggone important to you one way or the other?”

I stared down at my scuffed boots. “I’m not sure. Maybe it’s one last thing I can do for Jack. Next to me, he loved Wade more than anyone in the world. Gabe called it
la familia
last night. It’s like that. One last thing for Jack, because his family meant everything to him.”

Emory held out his arms, and I went to him, feeling warmed by the touch of someone whose blood carried the same genetic codes as mine.
La familia
. That of the blood and that of the heart. Both were important. Who could say which affected us more deeply?

“Bad stuff going down, honey,” the receptionist at the sheriff’s office said when I walked in. She was a woman I’d met and talked to at length about our common interest in antique conversation print fabric at a sheriff and city police picnic last summer. Mary Agnes was a tough, no-nonsense lady who looked like Hollywood’s version of the perfect grandmother—all lace-collared dresses and a halo of pink-white hair. She’d driven a school bus for fifteen years until she decided to, as she put it, pursue a safer job path working for the sheriff’s department. She ran the busy office as efficiently as a seasoned drill sergeant, leaving in her wake a sometimes cowering, but always grateful, group of detectives and lab technicians. At Christmas she received more gifts and cards of gushing adoration than the sheriff himself. Those detectives knew which side of the bread to butter.

I rested my elbows on the high wooden counter. “So, what’s the scoop?”

“Your handsome husband’s gulping coffee in John’s office, your hungover ex-brother-in-law’s being grilled by the county’s finest, and I sent that smart-mouthed attorney friend of yours down to the break room to cool her heels and nasty tongue with a soft drink.” She peered at me over her half-moon tortoiseshell glasses. “You tell her to watch her mouth, or I’ll make sure she’ll regret it.”

“I humbly apologize on her behalf, Miss Mary,” I said, borrowing the title dubbed by her students. “She’s from Alabama,” I added as a bone to appease her, feeling like a turncoat.
Sorry, Amanda
, I said silently,
but we need Miss Mary on our side.

“Figured as much,” she said with a flip of her wrist. Mary Agnes was a transplanted Bostonian—according to her, a Yankee-in-exile even after forty-two years. “You tell her I wouldn’t take attitude like that from the Pope himself, even if I was still Catholic.”

“I’ll tell her. How long have they had Wade?”

“About half hour or so. He went in voluntarily, you know. And they have to stop any time he asks for an attorney. He apparently hasn’t asked yet.” She stamped a stack of papers—bam, bam, bam—then looked up at me. “Nice-looking boy, but he’s about a half bubble off plumb, isn’t he?”

“Sometimes, Miss Mary, I think more than a half.”

In the break room, Amanda was pacing in front of the drink machine like a caged badger. A half empty paper cup of Seven-Up sat on the round table next to her. She was dressed in a navy pinstriped power suit with matching pumps. With her three-inch heels, she’d stand an inch taller than Gabe. I was impressed. I hoped the detectives would be ... when they finally saw her.

“Benni!” She pulled an unlit cigarette out of her mouth. “You said you told your brother-in-law not to talk to anyone before I got here.”

“I also told you he often doesn’t listen to me. I didn’t know you smoked.”

She pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and looked at it irritably. “I haven’t for years. It was either this or a Twinkie.” She tossed it in the large green trash can and picked up her Seven-Up. “Where did they get toad-lady? She could have given Margaret Hamilton a run for her money for the Wicked Witch of the West role.”

“She was real impressed with you, too,” I said, sitting down at one of the unwashed tables. A dusting of sugar dotted its brown surface. Amanda sat across from me. “What did you say to piss her off so quickly?”

“Nothing, I swear! She just took an instant disliking to me.”

I nodded and didn’t press it. Amanda’s demeanor, especially when she was caught unprepared, could get a bit snippy. And Miss Mary Agnes did not tolerate snippy. All those years driving school buses, I guessed.

“Forget her,” Amanda said, reaching down for her black leather briefcase. “I’m going crazy out here imagining what stupid things your brother-in-law might be sayin‘ to make things harder for me than they already are.”