Hannah had no reservations about David's career choice. Oh, she fretted about him, sure. Wavered between monitoring the scanner Delbert bought her, and switching it off when an incident in progress frayed her nerves, instead of soothing them. But if anyone grasped how it felt to earn a paycheck for doing what you loved most, it was Hannah Marie Garvey.
As for the other half of his reflexive "Hell, yes"? Luke Sauers had promised months ago to buy David's land, if he lost the election. At the time, his campaign manager was a couple of bottles shy of killing a six-pack, and the offer was a duke's mixture of a bet, a reassuring gesture and a worst case scenario escape clause.
Luke
would
buy him out, though, circumstances be damned. He wanted the place for himself. Had, since David carved out a slice of Eden with a brush-hog, a bulldozer, a chain saw, a lot of sweat and a little blood.
With his property out of the equation, Hannah could keep her cottage and her job at Valhalla Springs. Hopefully, voters would let him keep his.
Ruby plucked at David's sleeve, startling him from the mental black hole he'd retreated into. The noisy diner, with its brightness and smells, crashed over him like a sensory ambush.
"I can see what you're thinkin'," Ruby said. "It's writ' all over your face that buttin' into your business ain't none of mine."
Evidently, his zone-out hadn't lasted longer than a few seconds. "Believe me, Miz Amyx. That was the furthest thing from my mind."
He passed a hand over his eyes, the heel grinding into the right one. The socket was so dry, it should have squeaked. Between blinks, he glimpsed a man swaggering by the window. The blurry profile was depressingly identifiable.
Jessup Knox wasn't a regular customer. Ruby was wont to say he'd inspired the Right to Refuse Service sign taped to the cash register. To David's knowledge, she hadn't booted Knox or anyone else out the door. The privilege was reserved for the day she ran out of insults to hurl at the smarmy burglar alarm salesman.
"If you're what the cat dragged in," she told David, "then that there's the bull-footed peckerwood it hawked up."
He smiled. "Now, Ruby"
"Gimme two shakes and I'll box up your usual, so's you can eat it somewhere else in peace."
He thanked her but declined. Running against Jessup Knox was one thing. Running from him was another. "Just a couple of scrambled eggs and wheat toast will do me fine."
Hearing Knox greet the Liar's Club like kin, which several probably were, David added, "And put whatever he orders on my check."
Second thoughts must have countered whatever argument she was poised to make. "All right, Sheriff." She backed away, saying, "But if that fool leaves afore you do, I'm tossin' a steak on the grill and you're gonna eat it."
Knox rounded the dividing wall and halted. Fists knuckling his hips, he bellowed, "Dave Hendrickson?
What are you doing hiding back in the corner, ol' buddy?"
In a dozen words, starting with a nickname no one else had ever used, David's opponent had him on the defensive and struggling not to show it.
The owner of Fort Knox Security mounted the chair across from David as if it were a saddle. He signaled for a cup of coffee and sloshed David's in the process. "Boy, if those bags under your eyes get any bigger, airlines are apt to charge extra to carry them on board."
David's expression was devoid of humor. "Like I keep trying to tell you, Jessup, this job you want so bad isn't eight-to-five."
"It would be, if you trusted your deputies to do theirs."
Ruby mopped up the spilled coffee, then banged a second cup on the table. It was filled from a nearly empty carafe. David's was topped off from a full, fresh one. "You eatin', Knox? Or jes' here to harass the sheriff."
Knox massaged the gut straining against his shirt's pearlized snaps. God help David if one of them gave. Picturing fifty pounds of blubber unleashed like a deployed air bag shriveled an already waning appetite.
"Much as I'd love to dunk a sweet roll in this cup of swamp water," Knox said, "I'm still digesting that fine breakfast the mayor bought me at the Short Stack."
Ruby sniffed and stalked off, muttering about ptomaine, botulism and birds of a feather.
"That gal's been funny-turned since Heck was a pup." Knox licked a fingertip and ran it along the chair rail above the wainscoting. "I wonder how long it's been since County Health dropped by for a look-see."
"Two weeks. She scored ninety-nine out of a hundred." David couldn't resist adding, "Seventeen points closer to perfect than the Short Stack."
"You don't say." Knox shrugged. "Could be, not all the tips she gets are in quarters and dimes."
Don't take the bait, David warned himself. Ruby doesn't need you to defend her, and she'll cuff your ears if you try.
"So, Dave. What's this I hear about that new squad car the taxpayers bought after you totaled the old one?"
Only a fool answers loaded questions. David swigged his coffee and gained a greater understanding of why restaurants with drive-thru windows became an overnight success.
"I hear tell, you wanted your cruiser painted black and white. Wanted the whole
county motor pool
repainted black and white." Knox wagged his head. "Boy, it's so easy to hammer you for pissing away money, there's no sport in it at all."
Back when the wrongful-death lawsuit was still in the fiscal liability column, Luke told David not to requisition a box of paper clips until after the election.
He'd respectfully but adamantly ignored the advice. A sheriff who weighed ideas and decisions against a calendar wasn't protecting or serving the public. Of course, neither was Mayor Wilkes, whose son's body shop customized patrol units with expensive, ultra-blue reflective bands and pinstripes.
Police departments across the country had realized that black oversprayed on a predominantly white cruiser's trunk, fenders and hood cost far less than custom trim. A true two-tone paint job also enhanced recognition in low light, sunlight, in drivers' rearview mirrors, and from air-evac and highway patrol helicopters.
"Why stop with the cars, Dave? Ask the city council to change Sanity to Mayberry, why don' tcha? Make deputies carry a bullet in their shirt pockets like Barney Fife."
Knox's jibes echoed the county commissioners' when David presented the idea to repaint the county motor pool. Not one of them glanced at the studies, surveys, testimonials and cost estimates he'd submitted.
Ruby delivered a heaping plate of eggs, toast and bowls of butter and homemade strawberry preserves. "You sure that's all you want, Sheriff?"
David nodded. Aromas wafting upward that should have had his taste buds slapping high fives, revolted him. Somehow, he had to choke down every bite.
"What's the matter, Dave?" Knox said. "I'm just funnin' with you. Can't you take a joke anymore?"
Thinking a swallow of coffee he didn't want might open his throat enough for the food he didn't want, David was reaching for the cup when his pager went off. He'd never doubted the Almighty's existence, but a little divine intervention now and then was a beautiful thing.
Marlin Andrik's badge number appeared on the LED screen. The chief of detectives wanted a return call,
stat,
and in private, not broadcast on the radio or out a cell phone's speaker.
"What's up?" Knox angled his head for a peek at the numeric message.
Marlin didn't send his personal bat signal just to chat. David stood and pulled out his wallet. Three singles and two twenties.
Shit.
Ruby was in the back somewhere. There wasn't time to wait for change. Throw an Andy Jackson on the table and his unworthy opponent would happily report that David pissed away his own money the same as he did the county's.
His eyes flicked to Knox. Laying the three ones beside his untouched plate for a tip, David said, "Thanks for picking up the check, ol' buddy."
Someday, he'd feel bad for sticking Elvis with the tab. In his next life. Maybe the one after that.
* * *
"Good morning. Clancy Construction and Development. How can I direct your call?"
Another day, Hannah thought, another new receptionist. Considering this one's voice and eastern accent, she was younger than Hannah's bathrobe and a native St. Louisan.
"Jack Clancy, please," she said, and gave her name.
"Do you want to leave a message on Mr. Clancy's voice mail?"
"No, thanks. Anyone who knows Mr. Clancy knows better than to leave a message on his voice mail. He just hasn't figured out we're on to him yet."
"Then I have to put you on hold." The receptionist's tone suggested that Hannah was one of many stuck listening to a canned instrumental version of Streisand's Greatest Hits. She tipped back the handset, as though it would keep "People" from looping in her brain the rest of the day.
Chin resting on her palm, she surveyed the great room. Replacing the desk phone with a cordless model was supposed to enable multitasking during times like these. Dusting, for instance. De-humping the area rug where Malcolm played ostrich and buried chew bones the size of a brontosaurus's femur.
From this perspective, the leather couch appeared in need of a shave. She hadn't slathered conditioning cream on it since
well, never.
There were recipes to clip from the stack of magazines on the trunk used as a coffee table. Books, CDs, DVDs and videos on the shelves beside the fireplace crying to be alphabetized. The patched bullethole in the corner of the ceiling had a cobweb goatee. And look, just
look
at the
"Hey, sweet pea," Jack said in her ear. "Sorry you were on hold for so long."
"No problem." Hannah slumped in the chair, exhausted. "It gave me the chance to do a little housecleaning."
"Mental? Or actual?"
She held out the phone and glared at it. Fifteen-year friendships were such a pain in the ass sometimes. Clapping the phone to her ear again, she said, sweetly and sincerely, "Up yours, Clancy."
"So, this cottage you aren't cleaning. It's still in Missouri, I presume."
"Uh-huh. We stayed mostly on the southern edge of the storm front. A little hail, a
lot
of wind and rain. Nothing that me and Toto couldn't handle."
"Be glad Malcolm isn't a poodle. Mother said she had to double Itsy's and Bitsy's recommended daily dose of Valium."
"No offense to IdaClare," she said, "but teacup poodles aren't dogs. They're pot scrubbers with feet."
"They're Furwads from Hell. You're just their aunt Hannah. I'm even-Steven with them in the will. And I bought her the damned things."
"Live and learn," she said, grinning. "And speaking of Stephen, how's the best OB/GYN in St. Louis? Besides too busy to call me once in a while to dish about you."
A lengthy pause deflated her smile. She'd sensed Jack's relationship with Stephen Riverton had become less than blissful, despite their many years together. Or because of them. Staying in the closet socially, purporting to be career-centric bachelors who lived in the same condo, not the same loft, must be emotionally equivalent to water gradually wearing down stone.
Jack cleared his throat. "He's fine. I'll tell him you said hello."
Hannah heard a No Trespassing sign being posted. Until recently, few ever had been, by either of them. Now the inflection was almost routine and it hurt.
They hadn't anticipated that her move to Valhalla Springs would affect their friendship. Why would they have? If a long-ago, impulsive, horribly failed attempt at being lovers hadn't destroyed it, nothing ever could.
Or so they'd believed. The first hairline fractures appeared almost immediately. Soon after, Jack's brief, impromptu visit mended them, only for a larger crack to emerge and branch into deeper, wider ones.
Once upon a time, he'd considered Hannah an equal. If asked, he'd say he still did and always would. She'd like to think when he was no longer her employer, they'd rekindle that platonic, no-holds-barred, two-Musketeers friendship they'd both taken for granted. Except what would a sheriff's wife and a resort developer have in common?
Hannah recognized the quiet creaks she heard in the background. The toes of Jack's Italian shoes, crossed on a corner of his desk, were tapping
impazientemente.
Perpetual motion in some form came naturally to a man forever on the run from himself.
"We're still on for Saturday, aren't we?" she asked.
"Saturday?" Jack's voice rose, as if the conversation had suddenly veered into obscure territory.
"The day after tomorrow," she prompted helpfully. Then, "Last clue, Einstein. Your birthday."
"Thanks, but I know when my birthday is. The same day I finalize a golf course development in Michigan."
Wonderful. The timing of her planned face-to-face-off about employment qualifications wouldn't have been optimal, but David would have been there for the birthday cake cutting, and he always had a gun somewhere on his person.