Juliet's Law (10 page)

Desi's head jerked up. “
Murdered?
That's impossible. Who would kill him? I mean, aside from me, of course.”

“Don't even joke about it,” Juliet cried.

“I wouldn't really kill him. You know that.” Desi jumped up. “What happened?”

“He was shot,” Josh said. “Last night some time. Found his body on the reservation.”

Desi's jaw went hard as she looked at her friend. “Last night,” she repeated. “How did he die?”

“Shot,” Josh repeated patiently, understanding Desi's shocked and disconnected reaction.

“Damn,” Desi whispered. “This is not good for our team at all, is it?”

Grimly, he shook his head. “Half the town heard you tell him you'd kill him.”

She took a breath. “Well, then you'd better get out there and find out who really did it. I'll be damned if he ruins my life, that bastard.” She shook her head. “What a lousy day.” She bent her head and started to cry. “That poor cat is still out there in agony and I'm worried sick that he's going to hurt someone.”

Juliet sank down beside her sister, putting her arms around her and whispering, “Shh. It's okay. You'll be all right.”

“Find out who killed him, Josh,” Desi said.

“I will,” Josh said. “I promise.”

 

The skies were getting heavy by midafternoon, when Desi came in from tending her wolves. “I think it's going to snow for real tonight,” she said, shedding her down coat and hanging it on a hook. “We have plenty of food, but do you have enough reading material?”

Juliet looked up from the paperback she was reading, curled up in a nook by the windows, Crazy Horse the dog beneath her knees, like a furry pillow. She scratched his forehead idly as she read, nibbling little foods like
pistachio nuts and small candies, as she had all her life. Reading and nibbling were always her favorite things. As a child, she'd sometimes read a book a day, happily inert in some corner. In those days, it had usually been a cat who curled up with her.

“Very funny,” Juliet said, because they'd bought a paper bag full of novels at a used bookstore the day before. “I think I'll live.”

Desi smiled, and it lightened the dark circles beneath her eyes, though there was only so much to be done. “Let's make some cookies, shall we?”

“Definitely an excellent idea.” Juliet yawned and put her book down. Crazy Horse groaned and fell to one side. “Did you call Miranda? Let her know what happened?”

“Yes. And Mother and Dad. They're in Greece and send their love.” With an exaggerated smooching sound, she kissed the air, then rolled her eyes. “I told them not to interrupt their trip for this. We were divorcing anyway.”

Not, Juliet thought cynically, that they would have anyway. They'd never been fond of Claude, which had probably been at least part of his appeal. Desi had never been able to resist needling her mother at every possible chance, a repayment for the endless, endless prodding and poking the eldest daughter had endured from their elegant, blue-blooded mother. She plopped down on the bar stool by the counter and plucked a chocolate chip out of the bag Desi had opened. “What did Miranda have to say? How is she?”

“Fine. I told her you were here and she sent her love.” Desi settled a bowl on the counter. “Does she know about the rape? I wasn't sure.”

Juliet shook her head. “Can that just be our secret? I hate how people look at me after they find out.”

“She's your sister. She won't look at you that way.”

“Why burden her with it? There's no point, and it will just upset her.”

Desi lifted a shoulder. “What if she'd been raped? Would you want her to tell you?”

With excruciating care, Juliet lined three chocolate chips up into a triangle. “Yes,” she had to admit. “I'd feel left out if she didn't tell me.”

Desi nodded. “Exactly.”

“I'll think about it,” Juliet promised.

“Before we start the cookies,” Desi said, wiping her hands, “I worried about this all night last night—come here and let me show you how to operate a pistol. You probably will never need to know, but there are some times you might need to have a gun, and I'd feel better knowing that I'd showed you.”

“I don't want to shoot a gun, Desi!”

Desi rolled her eyes. “Don't be a baby. Just let me show you.” She opened the gun cabinet and went through the steps of loading and firing both the rifle and the handgun. Juliet went along with it, but she couldn't imagine ever really using either one of them.

“Guns kind of give me the creeps,” Juliet said.

“That's because you're in the city and people use them to kill other people. In the mountains, they make up for not having large, savage teeth and long claws.”

Even Juliet had to chuckle at that. “I'll just hope I never have to use them then.”

“I'm sure you never will.” She went back to the
kitchen and popped a handful of chocolate chips in her mouth. “I'm so tired I could sleep for a year!”

The dogs exploded into a frenzy of barking, all of them racing to the front window that looked out toward the driveway. “Who's that, I wonder?” Desi said, wiping her hands on her apron.

Juliet was the first to see the flashing red lights. “Uh-oh.”

She rose and went to the window, where she saw two vehicles with official Mariposa county shields on the sides. Lights on. “This looks official,” she said, and turned around, lifting a hand, palm out, to caution Desi. “Don't say a single word, Desdemona, do you understand me? Not a word.”

“You don't think they're arresting me, do you?” She widened her eyes. “I'm a vet! A
doctor.
We don't kill things, we save them. They can't really think I'd kill him?”

Juliet opened the door to the sheriff and two deputies, each dressed in green and khaki uniforms. “We're here for Desdemona Rousseau,” one of the officers said.

“S
he's here. You know her, right there.”

“Desdemona Rousseau,” the sheriff said, “You're under arrest for the murder of Claude Tsosie.”

Looking stunned and shaky, Desi said, “I can't leave my sister. She doesn't know how to live up here in the mountains. By herself.”

“Then she'd better get to town.”

“Somebody has to look out for the property,” Desi said. “The wolves—”

Juliet raised her palm. “Stop talking, Desi. I'll call Josh. You just go with them, we'll get you out in no time.”

The sheriff snorted unpleasantly. “Not this time. Not in this town.”

With hands that trembled visibly, Desi untied her
apron and came around the counter. She reached for her coat, hanging by the door. The sheriff pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Her face was the color of the flour on the counter.

Juliet protested. “Are handcuffs really necessary? She's obviously cooperating.”

“Regulation,” he said, but Juliet doubted it. He just wanted, for whatever reason, to make this more humiliating for her sister.

Once she had her coat on, Desi held out her wrists. The sheriff gruffly ordered her, “Turn around.”

Desi's nostrils flared, a sign when they were children that you should clear the area. She turned around woodenly, and met Juliet's eyes as the handcuffs were fastened. “Don't stay alone,” Desi said. “Call Josh, right now.”

“I will,” Juliet said. “Don't
worry.
”

Handcuffed, head down, Desi was led to the SUV. Over her shoulder she said, “
Now,
Juliet.”

But Juliet waited until the SUVs had gone down the road into the pinkening dusk, her heart pounding so hard it felt her ribs would break. The case was circumstantial, it was true, but it was a very good circumstantial case. If they didn't find out who had really killed Claude, there was a very good chance Desi would at least go to trial. In a town so severely divided, that seemed like a very bad idea.

Whistling for the dogs, she headed back inside with the pack. She wondered if she ought to just go ahead and drive into town and find Josh rather than call him. But then she'd have to drive back up the narrow,
twisting road in the dark. And, judging by the sky, the snow.

Josh's cell phone number was on the list taped to the wall and she dialed it with purposeful stabs. There was no answer until a voice mail message said, “This is Joshua Mad Calf. Leave a message.”

Odd that he didn't answer the cell, especially as a cop. She frowned and said quickly, “Josh, this is Juliet Rousseau, and they just arrested my sister. I need your help.”

She hung up and held the phone in her hand for a long moment, trying to decide what the best course of action would be. They'd have to set bail fairly quickly, but maybe not until Monday morning, which would mean Desi would molder in jail all weekend.

Beyond the uncurtained window, snow suddenly started to float down.

Great. Just great. She'd never learned to drive in the snow. And she
would
have just broken up with her boyfriend, who knew all sorts of things about criminal law that were unknown to her. She made a face. Who else could she call? Most of her friends were in entertainment or civil law.

No blinking neon sign came on in her imagination. No dancing choir came kicking through the room with placards around their necks. Outside, it was quickly getting dark, and the snow would begin to pile up, and her sister was going to jail for a crime she didn't commit.

Juliet hoped she hadn't committed, anyway. She was 99.9% sure, but her study of the law had shown her
people did some pretty crazy things sometimes. Even people devoted to healing. Scorned lovers, in particular.

Her stomach plummeted. If she, Desi's sister, could think such things about a woman she'd known and loved all of her life, what would a jury think?

The phone in her hand rang suddenly and Juliet answered it breathlessly. “Hello?”

“Looks like your sister is finally going to get what she deserved,” said a woman's voice.

For a moment, Juliet was stunned into silence. The line held a faint buzz, eerie and somehow menacing. “Who is this?”

But of course the threatening party didn't answer. Just hung up. Juliet pressed *69 to see if she could get a number, but the robotic voice simply said, “That number is unavailable.”

Outside, the gloaming edged the peaks and the tops of the trees with an opal stain. Juliet wished she could enjoy it, but she walked over to a lamp and turned it on, her throat getting tighter and tighter. The idea of driving into town, without any clue of who she would seek out or what she'd do when she got there, seemed intimidating. Even worse was the idea of driving back here after she'd done whatever she'd done in town. Driving through the snow. On dark mountain roads in a little rental car not particularly designed for the task? No, thanks.

But even worse than that was the idea of staying here in the cabin alone. The uncurtained windows showing the whole world she was here by herself. The distance to town if anyone or anything—

What? She said to herself. Attacked? This wasn't a horror movie, with a deranged serial killer lurching through the high mountain forests of the San Juan range, or a rabid bear so hungry for blood he'd smash through windows and back doors.

And even in the event of murderers or wild animals, there were three dogs, wolf mixes that were enormously loyal to protect her. Three
big
dogs.

Still, she stood with the phone in her hand, her throat so tight she could barely breath, her heart pounding wildly. Tears stung the backs of her eyes and furiously, she blinked against them.

She was so tired of being afraid! Tired of being frozen. Tired of giving her whole life up to the possibility that something bad would happen again. Inside her head was a voice screaming:
just do something!

And yet her body could not break free of its prison.

 

As Josh drove back to town from a call to a domestic dispute in the wilds beyond Mariposa Falls, he listened to Bonnie Raitt. He loved her better than any singer alive, loved her smoky voice and the richness of her sorrow. In her expressions of lusty love, lost and found, he connected with the sense of the mystical, as deep as any worship service. It was a passion he'd shared with Claude, actually. They'd spent many an enjoyable hour drinking ginger ale and listening to Bonnie. It was hard not to like Claude when he'd turned on the charm, and Josh, though he held himself aloof, had wanted to like the man.

What an absolute waste of a human being, he thought now. Claude had been born with talent, intelligence,
charm and a very pretty face. He could have done anything, gone anywhere, and he'd actually started out on that path—earning a scholarship to college, working his way through, going into the Peace Corps after graduation. All the right things.

And yet, somewhere, he'd let himself get twisted into a parody, a Coyote thinking he knew more than he did.

Now he was dead.

Josh had taken himself off the case. He was too close to Desi, and the signs were pointing too hard toward her. He'd never be able to be objective about the evidence if it ended up pointing to her. Worse, he was afraid he'd ignore things he ought to notice.

Sometimes it wasn't possible to be both a good cop and a good friend. Josh had chosen friendship.

As the truck descended through an aspen grove in full blaze, the phone on his hip suddenly trilled with the message signal. A phone call had come in while he'd been out of range.

He punched the button to reach voice mail and held the phone to his ear. There were six new messages.
Six?
Good God.

The first two were from his mother, who told him that Glory had chipped a front tooth and had a dentist appointment on Monday morning—did he want Helene to take her? The second one was that Glory had asked permission to spend the night with one of her nursery school playmates and Helene was pretty sure Josh wouldn't want her to, but she'd promised Glory she would ask.

The third was a hang-up. The fourth was his boss with a very gruff order to call him immediately. There
had been some news on the Tsosie case. The fifth was his boss again, repeating the message.

The sixth was Juliet, her voice wobbly as she reported the news that Desi had been arrested. He swore and pulled over to make phone calls properly.

Damn! He'd only been in the mountains for an hour and a half. How could so much have happened in such a short time? This morning, the skier Claude had been involved with had come in to make a report, and Josh had been concerned about her swollen eyes and shaky hands. She was pretty young, and it had to be traumatic to have a boyfriend murdered. Her alibi was airtight—she'd been drinking at The Black Crown with a group of Germans who were hiking the Mariposa trail. By the number of witnesses that had come forward, half the town must have been in the pub that night.

First, despite the urgency of everything else, he called his mother. “Is Glory all right? How did she chip her tooth?”

“She went down the slide facefirst before anyone could stop her.” There was a mix of exasperation and pride and weariness in Helene's voice. “She has a mind of her own, that girl. It's not bad,” she added, “and it's a tooth that'll come out in a year or two.”

“Okay.” Josh took a breath. “Mom, they arrested Desi a little while ago.”

“Oh, no!”

“I'm going to the jail and see what I can find out, then go up and see her sister, and I'll be back after that.”

“Why don't you just let Glory sleep here again? You go and get some real sleep. You sound beat.”

He nodded. “All right. I'll let you know if I hear anything more.”

“If you talk to Desi, give her my love.”

“Will do.”

When he hung up, he called Desi's home phone, and Juliet answered wearily. “I just got your message,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“
I'm
fine. I'm worried about Desi, though. When will they have her arraignment? When can we get her out of there?”

“I'm going to town right now to see what I can find out.” Snowflakes were floating out of the sky, sticking to his windshield and he frowned. “I want you to look around the cabin to make sure you have everything you'll need for three or four days, too. It could snow a lot with an Albuquerque low like this.”

“You mean I could be stuck for three days up here by myself?”

“Easy.” He turned the heater knob to defrost to melt the snow collected in little tufts over the windshield. “Look around and see what you might be missing. Water, food, firewood. We'll make sure you're prepared.”

“You mean Desi might not get out of jail for
days?
”

He hesitated. The truth was, he doubted she'd be able to make bail at all if this shook out the way he thought it was going to. “Maybe, maybe not. Don't get all worked up about it just yet, though. Let me do some talking and see what I can find out.”

He heard her take a breath and consciously release it. “Okay. Thanks.”

“I'll be there in a little while.”

He put the phone away and drove into town, worried on some low level at the way Juliet sounded. Not exactly frightened. Not panicky, which he could actually understand, given that she was a city girl and the mountains could be intimidating.

Something else. Hushed. As if a hand were pressing down on her. With a scowl, he resolved to get this taken care of as fast as possible, and then get up there and check on her.

And, he thought, maybe he should gently try to discover her story, whatever had traumatized her. It was obviously not resolved.

 

Juliet tried to pretend it was a normal night. She put some music on her MP3 player and stuck an earphone in her ear, determinedly singing along with the Black Eyed Peas and Dido as she creamed sugar and butter for the cookies Desi had started before she was arrested. The supplies were fine—she could survive for weeks on the food in the cupboards.

Outside, snow started to fall in a sturdy, determined way that seemed very different from the dinner-plate-sized flakes that had fallen her first night here. Once she'd read that the aboriginal peoples of Alaska had many names for snow, and this seemed a place where you'd want different names for it, too: Plate snow. Flurries. Blizzard snow. She stirred chocolate chips into the mix and stared out the window. This would be rain snow. Small flakes that were heavy enough to make a little bit of noise when they were falling steadily, as they were now. It was
collecting more slowly than the other snow had, but with greater determination.

What if she was stuck here for three days, all alone?

Don't think about it.

Dropping spoonfuls of dough onto the cookie sheet, she tried to remember what it had been like to be brave, long ago. What had made her brave? She'd gone to college far away from her family, lived alone in an apartment in Berkley when she'd gone to law school, found her condo in Hollywood and lived there alone, in a neighborhood that was both good and bad, for several years. She'd traveled all over the U.S. by herself, stayed in hotels, navigated strange cities without much distress.

How had she done it?

The sound of a truck engine came to her as she took the last batch of cookies out of the oven. Juliet saw Josh, snow catching in his long glossy hair, headed across the yard.

He looked grim. Furious.

Beautiful.

His beauty struck her across the solar plexus, blazed into her throat. Against the snowy forest, with the very last of the daylight hanging in the clouds, he looked like an enchanted and ancient being emerging from the trees to visit the mortal realm for a moment. She wanted to put her hands in his hair, touch his cheekbones, kiss his throat, breathe in the enchantment.

She pressed her hand to the hollow of her throat, tried to brush the startling recognition off her face with her palm, and opened the door. “Did you see my sister?”