Authors: Nadja Bernitt
Pauline was the least of Meri Ann’s worries. She pushed up from her chair and bid Becky goodnight.
As she climbed the stairs, an image of Becky kissing a girl behind the high school gym came back to her. It had shocked her, a naive thirteen-year-old. She freaked, angry at first, then heartbroken. She’d believed they shared everything. And the revelation of Becky’s sexuality felt like a betrayal. Meri Ann had scribbled a hateful note and tucked it inside Becky’s purse when she wasn’t looking. Minutes later, she realized her cruel mistake, but she couldn’t get the note back. Karen had seen it all, threatened to tell Becky. Meri Ann beat her up. Badly. So badly Meri Ann paid with a six-month detention, badly enough that Karen never said a word.
Meri Ann put on the flannel nightgown and slippers. She turned back the bed covers, but couldn’t make herself get in bed. The window drew her. She parted a pair of beige lace curtains. She’d parted them countless times before, waiting for her mom’s or dad’s car, the familiar beep of their horns when they’d come to pick her up.
The moon and one street lamp cast light down the lane, a quiet scene with nothing moving but a scattering of leaves. Then a pale flutter caught her eye; something moved at the edge of Becky’s side yard.
She leaned closer to the window, trying to see, but the bedside lamp created glare. She cupped her hands between her forehead and the glass, peering down.
A figure with long, dark hair had stepped out from the thicket and leaned against the trunk of a cedar tree. It looked like a woman. The hem on her ankle-length raincoat ruffled in the breeze. At first Meri Ann thought she might be walking a dog, but there was no sign of a dog or a leash. The woman stared up at Meri Ann for a good two minutes, bold and unmoving.
D
etective Jack Mendiola was late, later than his usual late but didn’t hurry. He parked his dark green Chevy Blazer in his assigned space at the Ada County Criminal Justice Building, reached under his tan baseball cap and rubbed his aching head. He sauntered across the parking lot. With every step his forty-two-year-old bones complained of on-and-off-the-job abuse.
Work was his life, usually but not today. His attitude sucked and he’d admit it in a heartbeat. First off, he’d rather be fishing. If his boss hadn’t caught him last week and dragged him to the Table Rock crime scene, he’d be in Stanley Basin, knee-deep in Cutthroat Creek, fishing for trout. Even if he came home without a nibble, or froze his balls off in the icy water, he’d be happier than working this case.
Lt. Detective Dillon’s office had a glass window on the hallway as well as one on her inside door, looking over the open-seating for her detectives and support staff. No one went in or out without her knowing it.
Sure enough she caught him as he approached the hall window.
She rose and tapped on the glass, all demanding five-foot-three inches of her. She was his boss, a good-looking woman who played fair, who worked hard to get where she had, and worked harder to stay there. She didn’t play favorites and knew her job inside out. He felt just the smallest twinge of guilt watching her spectacular tits jiggle as she motioned him inside.
“Damn,” he whispered.
“I heard that,” she said as he entered. “Morning, Jack. You look like shit.”
He tipped the brim of his baseball cap, then took it off. A lock of his hair fell onto his forehead. “So what’s up, lieutenant?”
“Are you ready for this woman from Florida? She’s due in at ten and it’s quarter till. Need I remind you, you’re not on vacation?”
Jack focused on an inspirational poster on the wall behind her, not on her saucer blue eyes. They were almost as big as Kari’s brown ones, Kari, his slut ex-fiancée. She’d flitted off six months ago and shacked up with an Australian tennis pro in Portland. Last week she’d flitted back. Wanted to get together. But no way he’d shove marbles up his nose twice. Women ranked low on his list these days. And, as Dillon had so rudely reminded him, he now had the one from Sarasota to deal with. A detective no less.
“Jack? You listening?”
“Yes, ma’am, raring to go.” He offered an easygoing grin. It vaguely reminded him of how he felt when he wasn’t so damn mad at women.
“Clue me in, Jack. You know what I mean? Agenda.”
It wasn’t really a question. Since Kari had left, he’d gone through the motions at work and not much more. Still he didn’t like having it called to his attention. “What’s so hard? She’ll identify the evidence. Get her blood tested, and find us some sample DNA. Sounds easy to me.” He wanted that smart-ass answer back the minute he’d said it.
“Easy?” Dillon’s glare could have cut glass. “This woman’s lost her mother. Granted, a long time ago, but this discovery’s fresh. She’ll want to know what the hell we’ve been doing. Let me rephrase that. What
you’ve
been doing for the last fifteen years.”
A small blood vessel broke in his left eye. He felt it pop, winked it shut and winced. He expected she enjoyed his discomfort, a sort of God-Got-You comeuppance for his defensive comeback and his obvious night of drinking. “I handled a few interviews,” he said in a penitent tone. “I was only a rookie.”
“The cold case was your file.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mendiola shifted his broad shoulders self-consciously. He hadn’t meant to sound like a jerk. Years ago, his older brother went MIA in Kuwait. He knew about loss and the emptiness that comes from waiting.
“I’m not saying you did anything wrong. You’re good, Jack, a damn good detective. But a hot-headed Basque, with an attitude that sucks.”
He’d already ‘fessed up to poor attitude three minutes ago in the stairwell. “Careful, Lieutenant. Racial slurs are a no-no.”
“Get off it. You’re only half Basque.”
“True.” Though he’d inherited his dad’s dark burly looks, his mom came from a long line of red-headed Hamiltons.
“You and your shit-eating grins. Don’t treat me like one of your groupies. I mean it. If you play games with me, you’re off this case. Neles can handle it.”
Interesting. According to every breathing soul in the sheriff’s office, Neles loved to get into her pants. Honorable Neles wanted to marry Dillon, but she’d put him off until her youngest kid graduated high school. Neles had five more years to slip in and out of her bed, five more years of secret fucks, and pretending nobody knew.
Jack rose from his chair. “Okay, Neles, then. Why not give it to him in the first place? Let me work his sexual abuse case. Nasty work, but somebody’s got to check out the porn sites.”
“Shut up, Mendiola.”
He stared out Dillon’s window that opened into the detective unit’s open seating arena. Most everyone was gone, but not skinny, devoted Pete Neles. He sat at his tidy desk, his red hair sharp in a military buzz-cut. “I’m supposed to be on vacation,” Jack said.
“But it was your cold case, Jack, and I go by the rules. Now get out of here before I really get mad. I know you’ve got some personal problems, but get a handle. The next time you smart-mouth me, it’s on record.”
Eager to leave, he went to the door.
“Before you go, here’s another case.” She reached for a file on the desk, gave him a kindly look. It’s a hay theft turned nasty. The cowboys who stole the hay got into a shootout with a yuppie rancher out in Eagle. Shot a $75,000 prize-winning Charlois bull.”
She handed him the file folder. “Can you believe it?”
Jack glanced briefly at the top report, then closed the folder, slapped it against his leg. “Yes, ma’am, I can.” He grinned honestly for the first time that morning. Not that he enjoyed seeing gun-happy citizens, or criminals, or a hapless bull wasted, but the case had rhyme and reason. Theft was real. Protection of property was real. And he appreciated reality after the wierd scene on Table Rock.
Mendiola left Dillon’s office, nodding to Joe Deet who worked primarily with teens and drugs, mainly Ecstasy these days. From the exhaustion on his face, it looked like Joe could use a little of the drug himself. Pete Neles, on the other hand, brimmed with energy. He gave a quick, “Hey” as Mendiola passed.
“Hey, yourself,” Jack came back.
Messages littered his desk like over-sized pink confetti. His nephew, Tony Hamilton, had called six times that morning. There were several other calls, but none of them urgent. He knew what Tony wanted: six thousand dollars to stave off his creditors and save his fledgling custom automotive business. Jack had promised to look out for him after his brother’s divorce. He’d seen him through his angry phase, his scrapes with the law and finally his vo-tech classes. In the process, he became Tony’s big brother. He loved him, trouble or not.
The phone rang, a grating high-pitched squeal. He snatched up the receiver mid-ring.
Tony didn’t say hello, only, “Do you have it? It’s got to be certified. And if I don’t have it by one o’clock, I’m screwed.”
Mendiola patted the breast pocket of his heavy wool shirt. “It’s in my pocket. I’ll be there by noon, no later.”
The door to the detective section opened and a slender, dark-haired woman, maybe thirty, entered. Dillon came out of her office, briefly spoke to the woman and pointed her in his direction.
He bid his nephew goodbye and hung up.
The brunette strode confidently across the room, her backpack worn over her shoulder. In her tan khaki slacks and gray fleece jacket, she reminded him of an advertisement for a pricy outfitter. She wore no makeup, no earrings, nothing to take away from her pale brown, wide-apart eyes that made him feel naked. He didn’t want to like her looks. He didn’t want to like her or any woman right now. But he couldn’t help but feel drawn to her—just a tad.
She stopped at his desk and held out her hand, a strong suntanned one with neat unpainted fingernails. Her firm handshake was brief, her fingers like ice.
“Detective Mendiola?”
He nodded. “And you’re Ms. Fehr.”
“Detective Fehr.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She seemed anxious, which he understood. But he also noted an edge of frustration and it seemed too soon for that.
“Let me say right off, I’m sorry about your mother. Nothing’s happened since yesterday, so I can’t add anything new. We’re working it.”
He cleared a stack of papers from the chair beside his desk and motioned for her to sit.
# # #
Meri Ann studied Mendiola, the man charged with finding her mother’s killer. His voice now had a face, a boxy face with a short, straight nose, and a deep chin. He was handsome in a boyish way. But his olive black eyes swam in bloodshot pools. His left eye was redder than his right, and his breath whispered whiskey.
She eased down into the chair, counting the six desks in the room. “This the homicide unit?”
“Nope this is it for CID, crimes against persons and property all in one. Boise’s Police Department’s got the lion’s share of funding. But we do just fine, covering the county.” He sounded defensive, and she let it drop.
“Thanks for seeing me,” she said. “I realize it’s an imposition and I’ll try not to be a pain in the ass. I’m ready to help in any way, but first I want to see the crime scene.”
“No problem,” he said. “If you want we can leave right now. Well, after you identify the bracelet.”
“Sure.”
He took a key from his center drawer and unlocked the bottom right. He removed a plastic bag with a gold bracelet and handed it to her.
She stared at the Florentine etching, the five diamond chips. Her mother had worn the bracelet since the Christmas morning when Dad had taken it from a red velvet box and fastened it on her wrist. Meri Ann had to force herself to hand it back to him. “Yes, it’s hers. She wore matching gold hoops, too. Were they at the scene?”
“No, ma’am, just the bracelet.” He tucked it into the bag and locked the drawer. He eased up from his desk.
She noticed his pistol on a belt-clip, worn the same way she wore hers when on duty. He checked for it the same way she did, a touch to the leather flap before leaving. Funny how you get used to the weight, the security of your weapon.
She rose from the chair. Even in fancy tooled cowboy boots, he wasn’t much taller than she. Probably five-ten or eleven, two inches shorter than her almost ex-husband, Ron.
Mendiola grabbed a baseball cap and closed an open case file on his desk.
She read upside-down and noted the file wasn’t her mother’s. Printed on a yellow Post-it note were the words “cow theft.”
Meri Ann glanced sideways at Mendiola. She didn’t know what she expected, but not someone so casually dressed, so tired and so obviously hung-over.
She hoped to hell he was smart.
M
eri Ann rode beside Mendiola in his almost new Chevy Blazer. They were heading up Shaw Mountain Road, the only road to Table Rock.
He leaned into a turn, and his wide shoulder nearly touched hers. “You know this place?” he asked.
The serpentine road curved in and around an upscale subdivision dotted with BMWs and Volvo wagons. The sprawl of fancy new homes crept up the once pristine hillside. “Not anymore,” she said. “Guess I didn’t expect this much growth.
“Yup. Helluva change from when I was a kid. I’d come here with my dad and shoot chukars. So many damn birds you couldn’t miss. Now we got yuppies, execs from Albertson’s or Hewlett Packard or escapees from Silicon Valley.”
Vacant lots broke up the rows of houses like missing teeth in a jawbone. “You did a house-to-house?” she asked.
He thumbed at the last block in the subdivision. “Starting here, ma’am, and on up ahead to Buckner’s place.”
He nodded in the direction of a showy lodge-pole arch, an entry to a side road. Western-style letters scrawled across a yellow pine placard:
Wild
Horse
Ranch
. The dude ranch, or whatever it was, sat a quarter of a mile down a narrow road.
“Like I said before, nobody saw nothing.”
Meri Ann slumped against the seat and cracked the window.
His broad hands gripped the wheel. His focus alternated between the road and a film of dust accumulating on his pristine dashboard. “The dust, ma’am,” he said, politely.