If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance (11 page)

During the summer tourist season, Jake performed seven
days a week, every hour on the hour from 10:00
A.M
. until 3:00
P.M
. He welcomed tourists into his fake sheriff’s office, and with his stick palomino pony, Patches, by his side, he would recite a cowboy poem he’d written, his baritone voice drawing bigger and bigger crowds as the summer went on.

I arrived at his sheriff’s office right before the 10:00 show. Jim must have released the scene so the performances could continue, and no matter how upset Jake might have been, he was a big believer in the show must go on. It was probably a good thing, too; the small room, decorated with only a desk and podium and western art over the walls, was packed. Jake stood at the back behind the podium, the horse in his hand. Without breaking character he sent me a private nod before he broke into the poem of the year. Every poem was original, but they all paid tribute in one way or another to the Old West,
the cowboys, and their way of life. I never found the idea of traveling around on a horse, not having baths and air-conditioning readily available, et cetera, all that appealing, but getting to know the ghost of Jerome Cowbender had given me a new appreciation for that way of life.

“A wink from a star, a campfire lullaby…” Jake began, hushing the crowd.

I found a good spot to stand right outside the door and had settled in to enjoy the show when someone lightly touched my arm.

“You have a minute, Betts?”

“Cliff, sure,” I said.

He looked like he hadn’t slept at all. The dark circles under his eyes were deep, almost as deep as the worry lines around his mouth. He signaled me to walk with him. We moved down the boardwalk about half a block, away from the crowd, and sat down on an old bench outside a currently quiet shop, where tourists could buy everything from noose key chains to diapers printed with hanging platforms. No one was around to eavesdrop, and I was glad to find a place for Cliff to sit.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I’m sure you’re aware that we’re still missing two members of the tourist group.”

“I hadn’t heard that they’d been found, dead or alive.” I swallowed.

“Right. Would you go over the events of your day yesterday one more time?”

“Here?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Sure.” It didn’t take long to tell Cliff the events of the day beginning with the phone call I’d received from Jake asking
me about the sleepover cooking class idea. Once I finished, he backtracked to the beginning.

“Why did the tourists call Jake?” he asked.

I couldn’t remember why Jake had been the one to call me, or if he’d even told me why he was handling things for the foodie group. After thinking about it a long minute, I said, “He’s with the Historical Society. I think that somehow the call got routed to him. Maybe.” But I wasn’t totally sure, and I wondered why Cliff needed to know.

“From the hotel?” Cliff said

“I don’t know.”

That didn’t make sense, at least not without having all the other details, details that probably only Jake could add. Why would the hotel have called him? There would have been no reason for Jake to receive such a call unless there was other information we didn’t know. And it didn’t seem possible that a call would be routed to Jake from the hotel switchboard.

“I think you’ll have to ask him,” I said.

“I will.” Cliff looked around. He was serious and thoughtful at the same time. It was a side of him that I had rarely seen. He’d been the backup quarterback on our high school football team. I’d seen the same sort of mood during the few moments he’d gotten into a game. This wasn’t the right time to reminisce, and football was far less important than what was happening now, but still, the look took me back.

“What is it?” I asked.

Cliff shook his head and glanced out to the street. He wasn’t focusing on anything in particular except maybe his own troubling thoughts.

“Cliff, what’s going on?” I pushed.

“Do you remember Damon Rim, from high school?”

“Of course. How could I forget him?” I said. Damon Rim was our class bully. He was a fairly standard bully, mean to everyone and every creature. No one liked him. After about eighth grade no one wanted to have anything to do with him. Even parents got tired of telling their kids to give Damon a chance.

“Do you remember how he treated Jake?”

“How could I not?” I said. “Horribly.”

Jake had always been a small person, extraordinarily small in high school. He was smart and dramatic and almost seemed fragile at times. These qualities, though adorable to some, made him Damon Rim’s prime target. Damon’s treatment of Jake went beyond putting him in a locker or throwing food at him. In fact, Damon was kicked out of school his senior year for a
prank
he played on Jake that included deadly threats and a dangerous move around a busy railroad track. Damon had held Jake down on the track as a train approached. It wasn’t until the last second when Damon lifted his knee from Jake’s chest that they both escaped their sure deaths. We all thought Damon might be thrown in jail for that one or put into some deep psychotherapy, but instead he just disappeared; at least that’s what I thought happened.

“Remember our senior year and the thing he did to Jake?”

“Yes.”

“We thought he just left, but that’s not what occurred,” Cliff said as he rubbed his hand over his chin.

“What, then?”

“He moved to Kansas somewhere. Later, he was arrested for…well, all kinds of things. He’s still in jail.”

“I hate to say it, but that’s where he was headed, it seemed.”

“No doubt,” Cliff agreed. “But do you remember his
family circumstance? Damon was a later–in–life child. His parents were in their late forties when he was born.”

“I don’t remember that. I don’t remember his parents at all.”

“Right, they left with him, but they had another child who was older.”

“Why do I feel like you’re about to tell me who that older child was?”

“I am. Damon’s older sister is Georgina Rim Carlisle, Greg Carlisle’s wife. Georgina is now, of course, the widow of the man who was killed last night.”

I thought about the overlapping and crossing family ties. “Stuart’s her cousin? So, Stuart is also Damon’s cousin?”

“That’s right. How did you know about Stuart being her cousin?”

“I’m not sure,” I lied. It was better than telling him Sally told me.

“What a bizarre coincidence,” I said a beat later, but I knew what Cliff was trying to tell me. The police don’t usually consider coincidences coincidental. “What are you getting at? Are you saying something about Jake or Georgina or who?”

Cliff seemed genuinely perplexed. “I have no idea, but these are the sorts of connections we look for, that give us leads, that we follow up on. I didn’t know if you…or…”

I blinked. “You want to know if Jake has told me something about the kidnappings or murder?”

Cliff’s eyes were steady on mine. “Betts, come on, you know I’m not accusing Jake of anything. You know me better than that, a lot better.”

“Then, what?”

“Look, kidnapping and murder don’t leave room for
politeness or friendship or loyalty. We have to explore every angle. The fact that Georgina Carlisle is related to the guy who bullied Jake for years has caught our attention, that’s all. I need you to tell me if you know anything; maybe you’ve seen something or heard something or Jake said something—please, stop shooting the daggers from your eyes—something that doesn’t even necessarily mean that Jake might be guilty. Maybe you’ve seen or heard something that might be a red flag that he’s in danger, too. This isn’t about accusing him. This is about trying to find two more people alive before we find them dead.”

I took a deep breath and thought about the last few days. I’d seen Jake here and there, but we hadn’t spent a lot of time together. We did have coffee two or three—I couldn’t immediately remember—days ago, and he had seemed tired, but he’d said he’d been working in his archive room late the night before; that was nothing new. His call to meet with him today was something I wasn’t ready to share with Cliff. If Jake confessed that he’d committed a crime when I talked to him, I’d think about telling Cliff and Jim, but there was a chance I’d try to find a way to get him out of trouble, too.

Jake was the world’s best best friend, and if he’d done something unthinkable, I was willing to listen to his side of the story before making any quick judgments, particularly if somehow, someway Damon Rim had been involved.

“I get what you’re saying, Cliff, but I have nothing else to tell you at this point,” I finally said.

He studied my face for a good moment before he said, “Will you let me know if something comes to mind?”

“Of course.”

“I hope so.” He paused a moment and the air around us seemed to settle slightly. “You on your way to see him now?”

“I just came down to hear the poem,” I lied.

He tried to switch gears as he forced a smile and said, “It’s a good one. You’ll enjoy it.” He paused again and then asked, “Are we still on for dinner tonight at Bunny’s?”

In fact, I had totally forgotten about dinner. “I thought you might be busy, but I’m still available if you are.”

“Can I be a bad date and call you in a couple hours if I think I need to cancel?”

“You can call me right before you’re supposed to pick me up, or we can just meet there. No problem.”

Redating was so different from the original go–around. Dating as an adult was also different than dating as a hormone-crazed teenager. Until that moment it hadn’t occurred to me that Cliff’s job as a police officer might sometimes have to take priority over time we planned to spend together, but of course it would. I could handle it.

He smiled again. “You’re the best, Betts. Really the best.”

“I am? For saying you may cancel our date at the last minute if you need to. I think you’re just too easy to please.” I smiled, too.

“Actually, that’s not even close to the truth.”

The air had settled all the way now. Whatever tense moment we’d had was quickly being replaced by our old-fashioned attraction to each other.

He kissed me quickly but not without a hint of passion. Jim would probably frown on one of his officers kissing in public, especially during tourist season, but that made it even better.

“Oh,” I said. “That was interesting.”

This time he laughed, the strain mostly gone from his tired eyes. I realized that he’d been worried about talking to me about Jake; I understood that. “I’ll call you later.”

I watched him hurry down the boardwalk and across the street to the jail. Only a few months ago I would never have imagined that Cliff would be back in Broken Rope and that he and I would be dating again. I wasn’t ready to call us serious; I didn’t think either of us was ready for that, but I had a sense that wherever we were heading, it was in the right and maybe permanent direction.

A chill shook me as the thought crossed my mind. Had I just jinxed something? Or wait, was Sally close by? Perhaps another ghost? Suddenly, I smelled a new scent, a scent that I didn’t recognize, that was only in the breeze and not attached to anything substantial, at least that I could see.

The ghosts’ scents were a nice warning they were in the vicinity, but Sally’s lavender scent, though pleasant, was much softer and more subtle than Jerome’s wood smoke had been. This newest smell had been so light and fleeting that I wondered if I had smelled anything at all or only imagined it.

I shook it off and hurried back down the boardwalk. If I smelled it again, I would worry about it, but right now, I already had enough on my plate.

Jake was finished with his performance and was letting a little girl pet Patches as he talked to her parents.

Jake’s face was flushed with warmth and the afterglow of applause. I could tell he’d had a successful performance. After I caught his eye, I hung outside the door trying to stay out of the way of the tourists.

Jake joined me only a few moments later. He grabbed the sleeve of my shirt and said, “Archive room, now.”

Jake’s front office would be left open for tourists to peruse the old pictures or look at the items that were nailed down on the desk: replicas of a law officer’s logbook and a number of
WANTED
posters, along with an old charcoal pencil and some tarnished fake coins.

We could disappear into the back room, lock the door, and no one would know or care where we’d gone. The archive room was only known to those who lived full-time in Broken Rope; tourists had no idea it existed. Jake wanted to put together a museum at some point, but we already had a small one in town that he didn’t want to force out of business. He also needed the right space, which he had yet to find. The details were still in the works.

Once behind the closed and locked door and away from all the noise, Jake’s demeanor changed.

“Thanks for coming, Betts,” he said, his face suddenly pale and his voice tense.

“Sure, what’s up?” I asked. I hoped more than I’d ever hoped for anything—including the time I hoped that Cliff being married was only a terrible rumor—that my best friend wasn’t about to tell me he’d kidnapped and/or murdered people.

“Sit down.” He directed me to one of the stools around the large butcher block. I sat on one and he sat next to me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper. “Read this.”

A part of me wanted to tell him I didn’t want to look at the paper. I knew that whatever was on it was going to be something big, something that might potentially change everything. Nevertheless, I took a deep breath and reached for it.

“Read aloud, go ahead,” Jake said.

The piece of paper was just a lined sheet that someone had torn out of a small spiral notebook. The words were composed of block letters written with a pencil, the lines thick and dark,
giving me the impression that whoever had written the note had held the pencil in a tight fistlike grip.

I cleared my throat. “‘We have the other two. They are still alive but will die if you don’t pay. One million dollars cash. Do not go to police or two plus others will die. More instructions tomorrow.’”