“You planning to try to negotiate?” she asked suspiciously.
“Oh, I have a feeling that would be useless. But before I make a commitment to you, to the town, I’d like to find out how receptive my fellow cops are to having someone like me in the mix. Let me visit around a little. Lotta type A’s in law enforcement, Hope. Some wouldn’t take a rope from a guy like me if they were in quicksand. If that’s going to be the case, I should just save you the time and money.”
“I don’t really care what anyone else thinks about a guy like you.”
He stood up. “Well, you should. I could probably help out a little, but cops don’t work alone. You might not have local police, but you don’t want this new idea of yours to drive away the coverage you have. One thing at a time.”
Mike borrowed Preacher’s computer to fashion a pretty informal résumé and letter of introduction. Because Preacher’s printer wasn’t top quality, he put the information on a disk and drove over to Eureka to have both printed. He chose a simple format that merely listed his experience and gave plenty of phone numbers to check references.
If Mike had been applying for a job, he would have gone into more detail about training, awards, special assignments. In fact, he felt boastful about his accomplishments at LAPD, about his experience. He couldn’t see the advantage in downplaying what he knew about law enforcement and criminal justice, but when trying to fit in with the local cops, he didn’t want to appear arrogant. It was a very fine line. His goal was to become one of them, and he was curious if they would accept him. He was from the city, he was Mexican, he’d been around the block. Around a lot of blocks. One thing the local guys never appreciated was some hotshot hitting town, acting as if he knew it all—whether that happened in L.A. or Eureka. A lot of ex-cops were boastful, eager to play on their war stories. A lot of times their war stories were bullshit.
His first stop was the Fortuna Police Department. The chief, Chuck Andersen, was a big guy with meaty hands, bald, and he wasn’t smiling. Mike got the immediate impression he reserved his smile, kept it inside so it would never appear he was playing around. Mike shook his hand and introduced himself. “Thanks for seeing me, Chief,” he said, handing him a couple of pages. “I’ve been asked to take a job in Virgin River—town cop, more or less.”
“Sure,” the big guy said. He indicated a chair but didn’t sit behind his desk, so Mike continued to stand. The chief looked over the résumé quickly. “How long you been here?”
“Since just before Christmas. Couple of my best friends live in Virgin River.”
“Why didn’t you apply to one of the departments around here?”
“I wasn’t looking for work,” Mike answered. “This was a surprise. I guess the woman who put together a contract for a constable has been looking for someone, but I didn’t come to Humboldt County to work. I came here to fish. Hunt.”
“Not too many people can do that at…” He looked through the résumé briskly. “At thirty-seven.”
Mike took a glance around the office. Family picture, good-looking wife, two handsome kids, a dog. He smiled with a little envy. “I don’t have a family. I was retired from LAPD with a disability.”
The chief’s eyes came up to Mike’s face. “How’d that happen?”
“I got shot,” Mike said without self-consciousness. “During that last assignment on the résumé,” he added with a nod toward the paperwork.
“Gang Unit,” Andersen said. He looked as if he might have memorized the page by now. “Patrol, narcotics, gangs, robbery, gangs again.”
“I worked gangs, then after passing the sergeant’s exam, was reassigned there with my own squad. I loved gangs. I hated narcotics,” Mike said unnecessarily. “I was always good with Patrol. Grassroots policing suited me.”
Finally the chief sat, so Mike took his seat. When he did so, the chief lifted his eyes slightly, maybe surprised. “Marine Corps,” he said.
“Yes, sir. Active for four, reserves for ten.” Then he laughed. “I got through a lot of stuff, then got picked off by a fourteen-year-old.” He shrugged. “No accounting for luck.”
As the résumé described, when Mike had finished his first tour with the Marines, he’d started college on the GI bill, and got his degree in criminal justice while working LAPD.
The chief read awhile. Then he lifted his eyes again. “What’s your mission here?”
“Here? In your office or in Virgin River?”
“Okay, my office.”
“I just want to say hello. I’m going around to the departments. If the meter reads No Help Wanted, I’m not signing that contract. If the local cops think they can stand having a guy like me helping out in Virgin River, I might go with it, see what I can do.”
“A guy like you?”
“Ex-cop,” he said. “I know at least as many ex-cops as cops. I realize most of us come with a lot of baggage, a lot of stories. I used to get real bored with ’em, real tired of all the drama. And here I am—one of them. With drama. With a big story.” He shrugged. “I’m checking out how that goes over. It’s only fair. To you guys.”
“This department doesn’t have any presence in Virgin River….”
“There’s always the chance a problem in Virgin River could connect to your town, your department—in which case I’d like to think there’s someone I could talk to over here.”
The chief seemed to think a moment. He almost smiled. “And the disability?”
“I’m as close to a hundred percent as a guy can get. It was mainly the shoulder,” he said, working it a little bit. “It’s all good. I can shoot straight, angle just fine. I’ve got a left arm that’s getting better all the time.”
“But you’re taking the comp, the disability.”
“Damn straight,” Mike said with a nod. “I paid into it for
fifteen years and it wasn’t the first time a weapon was fired my way. I’m just a working guy. But you know, I’m so damn lucky—the head works, the brain seems okay. I’d like you to know something—if I’d had a chance to talk my way out of that shooting, I might have tried, but it wasn’t like that.” He nodded toward the paperwork. “There’s a report available, if you want it. I was kind of… I was ambushed. That’s all. It was a jump into a gang, and picking off the sergeant was a coup. So… That’s it. I thought I’d come up here and—”
“You could get a good job with a résumé like this. There are lots of places—private industry, corrections, small departments…”
“Yeah, thanks,” he said, chuckling. “That’s nice, I appreciate it. Go ahead and call some folks for references. There are lots of names on that résumé there—and you can get all the numbers of people not on the résumé. If I can help out in Virgin River, great. If it’s a problem—I got a lot of fish to catch.”
“How much can there be to do in Virgin River?” Andersen asked.
“Hopefully, not a lot,” Mike answered. He nodded toward the pictures on the credenza. “Beautiful family,” he said. “Good-looking dog,” he added.
“She’s yours,” the chief said. Then he smiled. “The dog.”
It was Mike’s turn to smile. “You wouldn’t give away that dog,” he returned.
“Nah, but I might trade her for enough dirt to fill the holes in the yard. Try me.”
Mike laughed and stuck out his hand, which Andersen shook. “Thanks, Chief. Enjoyed it.” He gave a nod, the chief gave a nod and Mike left.
To be met with some suspicion and reluctance was not un
expected, but it didn’t make the experience very inviting. Mike was damn glad he wasn’t looking for work. He had to fight himself to keep from being a little insulted; he was a decorated police officer from a big…no,
huge
department. But he reminded himself this was their turf. He was an interloper.
Despite the fact it was intimidating and difficult, he visited the Eureka department, the sheriff’s department, Garberville police, Grace Valley, a few other small towns that had local police, sometimes just one or two cops. The initial reaction was always the same.
Yeah, you’re this big-shot guy? What’re you doing up here, poking around? Why not go after a real job?
A few days later Chief Chuck Andersen called him. “I thought you might want to spend a little time over here,” he said. “Do a ride along, look at a couple of things. See how it’s different in a small city. Maybe give us a perspective…”
“That would be good, sir. I’d like that,” Mike said.
“I called a couple of people at LAPD,” Andersen said. “You have a pretty good reputation there.”
He had an
excellent
reputation there. “Thanks,” he said. “I was better at some things than others. I did okay in police work.”
“Seems like,” Andersen said. “Good to have you helping out. Do a ride along with one of our guys. And Valenzuela? Bring a pillow.”
Mike laughed. “Thanks, sir.”
The sheriff called, then the Eureka chief. Tom Toopeek, the chief from Grace Valley, weighed in, but there were towns that never got back to him. No matter, the consensus was that he would be welcomed as a constable. By state regulation he was not an official law enforcement officer, but
more or less one of the team as far as most of the local guys were concerned. He’d be happy to help out anyone who asked, but what mattered was that he could go to
them
if there was a problem in his town. And he’d be happy to have a purpose again.
He signed the contract. The first person he told about it was Brie.
Tom Booth met a girl in physics who he thought might fill the bill. Brenda. Gorgeous Brenda. Soft, shiny, light brown hair that curled under on her shoulders, blue eyes, drop-dead figure, long legs, a smile that could put him in a trance. She was more beautiful than any girl he’d seen in D.C., which was some kind of miracle—the D.C. girls were pretty awesome. Fortunately, she seemed almost as shy around guys as he was around girls, which could work to his advantage. He struck up a conversation with her in class and learned that she was only a junior, in accelerated math and science programs, and he thought, hot shit. Pretty, smart, nice. Yup, this was a winner.
They talked about her plans for college, his horses. He asked her if she’d like to go out sometime and she said maybe. “Not right now. I’m kind of just getting over a really bad flu. Had me flat on my back right as school was starting and I’m still on medication, so my mom is a little overprotective.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “Maybe we could do homework together sometime, when you start feeling better.” Then he smiled his most engaging smile and said, “If you don’t mind me saying so, you sure don’t look sick.”
“I’m feeling lots better than I did, believe me.”
“So—maybe I could call you sometime? You feeling well enough for that?”
“Yeah,” she said with a smile. “That would be okay.”
“What do you like to do? When you’re not—you know—feeling bad?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Games. Dances. Movies.”
“Great,” he said. “That sounds great. I’ll give you a call one of these days.” And he thought, maybe this isn’t going to be such a boring place after all.
He called her that night. Why waste time?
T
he fall air was crisp and refreshing and Mel, still troubled by a couple of her cases, wandered over to the bar in the afternoon as David napped in Doc’s care. She found Mike sitting on the porch, feet up on the rail, his hat, his Rio Concho, pushed down on his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun, taking in a relaxing autumn day. She sat in the Adirondack chair next to him, scooted forward on the edge.
“Looking for your man?” he asked.
“Actually, I was looking for you,” she said. “What’s going on in there?” she asked, giving her head a toss toward the inside.
“Preacher and Paige are getting dinner ready.”
“Are we alone?”
“Yeah.” He shoved his hat back, took his feet off the rail and put them on the wood planks of the porch, turning toward her. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “What’s the matter? You don’t look too happy.”
“Let me ask you something. Just how much of a cop do you intend to be around here? What if I suspected a possible problem? Could you look into it? Maybe investigate?”
“Well, I have detective experience, but I’m used to having a crime lab to back me up.” He grinned. “I used to belong to the biggest gang in L.A.”
“Gang?”
“LAPD. Lotta backup there. Want to lay it on me?”
She took a breath. “Understand, I can’t give you names or evidence—just a real strong intuitive hunch. And I’ve been doing this awhile.”
“Shoot.”
She looked into his coal-black eyes. “I’m worried that we have a date raper. A kid, I think. I’ve had two girls who were clearly forced—neither willing or able to admit it. The scenarios were different, but there were some alarming similarities.”
“Go on,” he said, encouraging her to continue.
“The first came to me for emergency birth control. She said that she and her boyfriend of a whole two weeks had decided to have sex and at the last minute she lost her nerve, but he couldn’t stop. She was bruised. Held down. Her vagina was ragged and torn. She was visibly upset. But she absolutely insists she was not forced.
“The second one went to a kegger somewhere around town—her first drinking party, though she admits to having a beer or two before. She passed out and didn’t remember having sex, but missed two periods and took a home pregnancy test and told her mother what had happened. The kids at the party were all drunk, she said, and no one remembered anything….”
“Yeah, right,” he said.
“I explained that to her—that in order to have successful intercourse, it was very likely one of them wasn’t too drunk.”
“Very likely? I thought that was a law of nature,” Mike said.
“I thought it was, too,” she said. “It was obviously too late to detect damage or bruising—but she said she’d been very sore all over, especially on her chest.” She laid her hand on her own sternum. “As if hit in the chest with a basketball.”
“Possibly held down as she struggled,” he supplied. “What about bruising on the inside of her thighs?”
“She didn’t recall anything like that, but she was distracted by the fact she was real hung over and sick. The first one, however, had unmistakable finger and thumb prints on the inside of her thighs. Both tested positive for chlamydia. The pregnant one miscarried and, understandably, wants to forget the whole thing. If she can. Neither of them would give me a name or even an age of the boy or boys.”
He winced visibly, inhaled deeply and rolled his eyes briefly skyward. “Jesus,” he said.
“I can’t go anywhere with this. I don’t even have grounds to report it without at least one of them relenting and saying it could have been rape. In the second case, the girl didn’t remember drinking much—I’m wondering if there was a drug involved.”
“Roofies?” he asked. “GHB? That could have made her really sick.”
“She woke up covered in vomit.”
“She’s lucky she woke up. A side effect of GHB is a suppressed gag reflex. She could have aspirated and died,” he pointed out.
“This really eats at me, Mike. There’s nothing I can do. Well, I did do one thing—I got a vaginal swab from number one, but intercourse was a couple of days old and I’m sure she bathed a couple of times before coming in. Even if it turns out there’s DNA present, we might never get that far.”
“But still, good thinking. Any chance you got pictures of the bruising?”
“No. I have nothing. She was nearly hysterical and insisted she wasn’t raped. If she had relented, even once, and said that she’d been held down and forced, I would have reported it. As it stands, all I have is this big ache in my gut that tells me there’s a teenage boy out there who’s out of control.”
“Sounds like it’s time for me to get to know the youth of Virgin River.”
“Whew. I hoped I could dump this on you. I feel a little lighter already.”
“You tell anyone else?”
“Yeah—I did. I called June Hudson in Grace Valley—she and her partner, John Stone, will be watching their patients for similar symptoms. And the family planning clinic in Eureka is aware of my concerns. But Mike—what sickens me most is that my second girl said this happened in Virgin River.”
“Either a teenager whose testosterone popped or a new kid in town. Worth looking at.”
“Thank you.”
“Obviously, if any more girls come into the clinic—”
“Of course. I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“I’ll start looking around, talking to people.”
“Thanks,” she said, leaning back in her chair, relieved.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something else, Mel. I’m ready to discontinue the antidepressant you prescribed after the shooting, during my recovery.”
She smiled at him. “Feeling pretty good?” she asked.
“Stronger, yes. I agree, it was a good idea at the time. But—”
“Sure, sure. We said a few months, right? Sounds good,” she said. “Let’s take you down slowly. I’ll write up a dosage
schedule for you. We’ll have you off in a couple of weeks. How’s that?”
“Perfect.”
John—Preacher to his friends—was thirty-three years old and knew a lot about war and about cooking, about hunting and fishing. He’d served in the Marine Corps for twelve years and followed Jack to Virgin River, where he’d turned himself into one of the best cooks in the region, if little known. But his knowledge of women was recent.
When he met and married his wife, that was when his education began. He’d been a man who knew few women up to that point, and he’d never considered himself much of a lover. In fact, he’d been scared to death of Paige—she was so petite and feminine and he was six-four, muscled, with huge, strong hands and shoulders so broad he had to turn sideways to pass through some doorways. He had been terrified that he’d hurt her, leave a bruise on her.
But she had worked him through it, confident that he was the gentlest man she’d ever known. In her arms he had been transformed. Now he not only understood the female body, but worshipped it. Things he hadn’t known existed were now second nature to him, and his wife was his treasure, the most awesome gift he could ever have received. To make her feel wonderful was one of his greatest obsessions. He knew every erogenous spot to touch, to kiss, and the better he could make her feel, the more he enjoyed his own experience.
She was his partner by day in the bar, working beside him in the cooking and management, and his angel by night in his arms. Between them they parented her son, Christopher, now four years old, and Preacher had the kind of happiness he’d thought existed only for other men. There was one small
problem—he and Paige wanted to have a baby together, and while they’d been married only a few months, she’d stopped taking her pills over six months ago and nothing had happened.
He might be disappointed, but she was beyond disappointment. She’d been pregnant when she stumbled into the bar a year ago, and, as a result of a horrific beating from her then husband, had miscarried. Paige was afraid that there might be some kind of damage to her reproductive organs that would prevent her from having a baby with John—and sometimes it caused her deep sadness.
At the end of every day he would clean his kitchen at the bar, turn off the Open sign and lock the door, read to Christopher after he’d had his bath, then retire to the little apartment he shared with his wife, and love her. Born again in her arms, night after night.
He found her in the bathroom, wearing one of his huge T-shirts, and he caught her softly crying. It had been a very long time since he’d seen her tears, and it knocked the wind out of him. He couldn’t bear it. “Here, here,” he said, pulling her into his strong embrace. “You’re crying.”
She wiped the tears off her cheeks and looked up at him. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I got my period again. I didn’t want it to come. I wanted to be pregnant.”
“You weren’t even late,” he said, for he knew everything about her, about her body. You could set a watch by her.
“Not even an hour late,” she said, and a big tear spilled over.
“Is it a hard one?” he asked tenderly.
“No, it’s nothing at all. Except, I thought maybe finally…”
“Okay, it’s time,” he said, wiping away the tear. “You should talk to Mel. Maybe to John Stone. See if we should check something out.”
“I get the impression that could be expensive.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” he said. “Never mind money—this is about us being happy. We want a baby. We should do what we have to do. Right?”
“John, I’m sorry—”
“Why are you sorry? You’re not in this alone. Everything is both of us. Right?”
“Month after month…”
“Well, now we’re going to face it and ask for advice. We’ll get some help. No more crying.”
But she dropped her head against his chest and wept anyway, and it tore his heart out. He couldn’t stand Paige to be in any kind of pain. He lived for her happiness; she was his world. His life.
“Are you crying because you’re PMS-y?” he asked.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Cramps? Want me to rub your back?”
“No,” she said. “I feel fine. Really.”
He lifted her chin and kissed her deeply. Lovingly. Lustfully. “Want me to make you feel a little better? I know how.”
“That’s okay, John. There’s no need.”
“You don’t have to be shy with me. There’s no part of your life, your body, that puts me off. I love every bit of you.”
She sighed deeply. “I should just take a shower and crawl into bed. I’m feeling sorry for myself.”
He reached behind her and started the water. Then he ran his hand up the back of her thigh, over her bum and under the large T-shirt she wore, caressing her back, pulling her close to kiss her some more. When he released her lips, he slowly pulled the T-shirt over her head. He loved the way she stood so erect and comfortable when she was naked in front of him, when he filled his eyes with her. He lowered his lips to her
naked breast and drew gently on a nipple, causing her to let her head drop back and sigh deeply. If there was anything about his life with her that was past magnificent, it was the fact that she was as easily turned on by him as he was by her. Their love life gave her a constant glow. And he knew exactly how to make the tears go away.
He pulled the shower curtain wider for her to step inside, but then he quickly shed his clothes and got in with her. He pulled her into his arms again, his mouth on hers, his hands on her body.
“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered against his lips.
“I never do anything I don’t want to do,” he said. “I’m going to give you something happy to think about.” He kissed her forehead. “Baby, I love you so much.”
Mel and Jack had just finished having dinner together at the bar when Paige approached their table. “Mel, do you have a minute? I wanted to ask you something. Something medical.”
“Sure,” she said. “We can kill two birds with one stone—I have to nurse the wild one. Maybe we can go to your place.”
Jack handed over the baby. “I’ll take the bar,” he said.
Mel didn’t have a lot of occasions to be in Paige and Preacher’s room behind the bar, but those few times she was, warm memories flooded back to her. This was where Jack had lived when she came to town; this was where David was no doubt conceived. She remembered the night so well—she’d had a major emotional meltdown, standing in the rain crying over her dead husband on the anniversary of his death, and Jack had held her. Then he’d dried her off, given her a brandy, put her to bed. Sometime later he’d joined her there and showed her a life and love she’d never known could exist for her.
Now the room held the influence of Paige—pictures of Christopher, some toys in the corner, flowers on the table. Paige had drifted into their lives almost exactly a year ago, a battered wife on the run, and with Preacher’s strength behind her, had divorced her abusive husband and seen him sent to prison.
Paige sat on the sofa and Mel took the big chair, settling David on the breast. He curled around her comfortably, gently kneading her breast with his chubby hand.
“John wanted me to talk to you—I’m sorry to bother your evening, but you weren’t around Doc’s much the last couple of days.”
“No problem. You’re not bothering my evening. He’s bothering my evening,” she said with a smile. “He’s crabby tonight. Too much running around, I think. Not to mention cookies. What’s on your mind?”
“I’m not getting pregnant,” she said. “It’s only been six months or so that I’ve been off the pill, but in my previous life it was as though I couldn’t keep from getting pregnant. What do you think I should do?”
“Well, let’s see—are your periods regular?”
“As clockwork,” she said.
“The assumption is that you’re ovulating regularly, then. Usually, if you’re going to do any kind of infertility workup, you start with Dad—make sure you’re dealing with an adequate sperm count. It’s the cheapest and quickest test, plus you don’t want to do a complete workup on Mom until you rule out Dad. And after all, we know you can get pregnant.”
“Well—I could before,” she said.
“Still, there was no indication any damage was caused beyond the miscarriage,” Mel said. “Bleeding stopped right
after the D & C and you haven’t had any peculiarities—like real heavy or weird periods, have you?”