The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

Chapter 7

“See, that’s the thing, Miss Mary,” Roan said as he took a key out of his pocket and stuck it in the padlock. “I don’t know what kind of person you are.”

The lock sprang apart in his hands. He disposed of the crime-scene tape with a sweeping gesture, then pushed the door open and held it while he looked back at the woman standing there in the hard-baked dirt alley, huddled like a refugee inside his jacket. Her eyes were shimmering behind the lenses of those damned ugly glasses she wore, and he grabbed and held on to his anger like a desperate man. “Fact is,” he continued, hardening his voice, “I don’t even know who you are. Do I?”

She stood where she was, ignoring both his remark and the open door, and said in a voice tight with impotent fury, “You searched my shop?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s what happens when you get charged with murder. You coming in, or not?”

She moved grudgingly through the doorway, throwing him a hot bitter look as she passed him. “My lawyer said you’d searched my house, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. What did you expect to find? My bloody shoes? A smoking gun?”

“That’d be nice,” Roan said affably, “but no, actually.” He closed the door while she flipped a light switch and they moved together through a storage room that smelled of the permanent waves his mother used to get every spring and fall, past a tiny bathroom that held a toilet, a vanity and an assortment of mops and brooms. “I have a lot more respect for your intelligence than to expect anything like that. Fact is…” He paused to let her go ahead of him through a pink-curtained doorway. “I was hoping I might find something that’d tell me a little bit about you. Like…you know, what your real name is…where you come from. What the hell you’re doing in my town.”

She was moving ahead of him through the salon, between rows of hair dryers and wash basins, slowly, as if in a daze. She hadn’t turned on the lights, and even though the front of the shop was mostly glass, with the weather being gray and overcast like it was, the room had that ghost-town look closed places get when you’re used to seeing them full of people and chattering voices and laughter.

She said without turning, in a soft, weary voice, “My name is Mary. And I didn’t shoot Jason Holbrook. That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” he said just as softly, as he moved close behind her. “If I could believe it.”

She turned her head quickly to one side as if she meant to reply, and the jerking movement made his jacket slip off her shoulders. He caught it before it fell and settled it around them again.

Then, somehow, without any thought or guidance from him, his hands came to rest there, too, as if that was where they belonged. Before he could think of all the reasons why he shouldn’t be touching her, or, God knew, even talking to her, he found himself curving his fingers around her shoulders and turning her to face him.

“Dammit, Mary,” he said in a low, guttural voice that wasn’t familiar to him, “I almost do believe you. But the problem with one lie is, it poisons everything you say. I know you lied about who you are, so how am I supposed to know if you’re telling the truth when you say you didn’t kill Jason?”

She gazed at him for a moment, her eyes that opaque gray color he was beginning to hate because it reminded him of shuttered windows…and felt like a door slammed in his face. Then she turned her face from him in a hopeless way that made him want to shake her. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you. If my lawyer…”

He was frustrated enough that he did give her a little bit of a shake, just enough to bring her eyes back to him. “For God’s sake, Mary, forget the lawyers. I know the damn protocol. Just…give me a reason to believe you. That’s all I’m asking.”

Instead of answering, she slipped off his jacket and handed it to him-though he supposed that was a kind of answer, just not the one he was hoping for. Then she moved away from him, rubbing her arms as she gazed distractedly around her at the clutter left by the searchers.

Roan drew a breath, reining in and gentling himself down the way he’d seen Boyd do with a riled-up horse. Even so, he couldn’t keep his exasperation out of his voice.

“Look-all I care about is getting the person who did this thing. But I have to tell you-and the reason you’re being charged with it-at this point the right person looks like you. Do you understand that? There might not be much in the way of physical evidence against you, but that isn’t gonna matter. This is a small town and this is a personal killing. Jason was a jackass, especially where women are concerned, but the fact is, there isn’t another person around here who had a big enough beef with him to go and shoot him over it.”

He paced a few slow steps to the windows and stood looking out at the street, which was mostly empty here in spite of all the hullabaloo going on just a block away at the courthouse. He watched a couple of scrub jays courting one another in a yellow-flowered shrub across the way, apparently oblivious to the un-springlike weather, and felt a certain edginess in his spirit. He was dragging a restless hand through his hair when he remembered it was a favorite habit of the senator’s and made himself stop.

“Mary,” he said with a sigh, “to a certain extent, my hands are tied here. The father of the man you’re accused of killing is a United States Senator, a powerful man with a lot of pull. If I hadn’t arrested you, he’d have found somebody else to do it-the state lawmen, probably.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Her voice came from behind him, faint and breathless.

He turned, and because he knew he had to, hardened his eyes and voice. “Because if you didn’t kill Jason, then whoever did is still walking around somewhere in this town. My town. That idea doesn’t sit too well with me.” He shrugged into his jacket and said distantly, “Look, if you want to get whatever it is you came in here for, I’ll run you home.”

She jerked slightly and her arms came across her body in a defensive embrace. Almost whispering, she said, “You don’t need to do that.”

“Well, since your car’s been impounded-” He stopped when she gasped softly. “Yeah,” he drawled with a humorless smile, “so in case you were thinking of leaving town that way, I guess you’re gonna have to come up with a plan B.”

He watched her while she struggled with it, the tension in her body and the fire in her eyes the only outward signs of the battle he knew she must be fighting against emotions he could only imagine: anger, fear, frustration and despair. And then, as she turned slowly to survey the disarray left by the searchers, he saw her shoulders sag with defeat-or was it only a temporary retreat? Maybe even a feint to throw him off? How in the hell was he supposed to know what was going on inside her head when she shuttered her eyes like that?

Trembling deep inside, Mary picked up a pink smock that was lying over the back of a chrome-and-leather swivel chair and slipped it on. It was all she could do to make herself look at the sheriff in silent acquiescence. For a moment he looked back at her with a certain wariness in his eyes, as if he’d been caught off-guard by the sudden lull after the heat of battle. Then, and with a wry smile and a nod of mock gallantry, he waved her ahead of him.

When they reached the ruffled curtain that divided the back rooms from the salon, he reached past her to pull it aside for her-more gallantry that could only be meant in a sarcastic way, given the fact that he was the man who’d arrested and charged her with murder. And if that was so, why did the brush of his arm against her shoulder make her shiver, and heat blossom in her belly at his nearness…his smell?

“You sure must like pink,” he remarked as he twitched the curtain back into place.

“I hate pink,” Mary said in a choked voice, and she was shocked to discover how close to the surface the anger was, and the tears. And the fear.

He threw her a startled look, no doubt wondering why anyone should become so passionate over something so un-passionate as the color pink. But he only said mildly, “Coulda fooled me.”

“This is all Queenie’s,” she said, trying not to let her voice show how fast her heart was beating. “I’ve…never cared for pink.”

He tilted his head back and looked at her from under his hat brim. “No kidding? Neither does my daughter. Thinks it’s awful girls are expected to like pink.”

There was a pause while they maneuvered through the back door, the sheriff trying to play the gentleman and open it for her while Mary tried her best not to let her body brush against any part of his. Outside, she waited, hunched inside the thin nylon smock that was no barrier at all to the wicked little wind that skirled around her ankles and reached freshly under her skirt, while he snapped the padlock in place.

He turned back to her, hitching his jacket closer against that taunting wind, and went on in a conversational, almost friendly tone, “In her case it’s maybe because she’s a redhead. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that redheads don’t like pink. Why is that? Think maybe because it clashes with their hair?”

“Or their skin tones,” she said dully. And it was her turn, now, to watch him, and to wonder what might be behind the sudden transformation from steely-eyed lawman to easygoing companion. Be careful, Mary…be careful. He’s trying to lull you into saying too much.

They started down the alley together, and after a moment, because the silence felt awkward to her, she said neutrally, “So, your daughter has red hair?”

“Got it from her mother.” Glancing at him she saw something flicker in his eyes, a brief darkness, like a bird’s shadow. It was quickly gone, though, and he added with an air of surprise, “Come to think of it, she wasn’t partial to pink, either.”

Mary felt the keen blue eyes studying her, inviting her comment, but this time she had herself together enough to know better than to reply. They don’t miss much, those eyes…

They went the back way through the alley to the parking lot behind the courthouse that was reserved for law-enforcement vehicles and the various officers of the court. Mary knew this place; it was where she’d been brought from the jail early this morning by two sheriff’s deputies she’d never seen before. They’d put handcuffs on her and whisked her into the courthouse through a heavy steel door at the top of some concrete steps and into a barren little room where she was to meet with her lawyer, Mr. Klein, and change into the clothes he’d brought for her to wear before the judge. She could still feel the cold bite of those handcuffs…and the sick fear in the pit of her stomach.

Suppressing a shudder and making a conscious effort not to rub her wrists, she allowed the sheriff to guide her to an SUV with the department’s logo on the side. He unlocked the door, opened it and waited for her to get in, then went around to the driver’s side, taking off his hat as he opened the door, and tossing it onto the back seat.

Like we’re going on a date, Mary thought, and almost smiled at the irony.

The sheriff spoke briefly and, to Mary, unintelligibly into his radio, then started up the SUV. His ice-blue gaze slid across her when he turned to look over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking space, and she couldn’t hide her shiver.

“Cold?” he asked, and turned on the SUV’s heater without waiting for her reply.

She turned her face quickly to look out the window, emotion catching her unawares. Why are you doing this? Why are you being nice to me? she wanted to ask-and then, to her dismay, she did.

“If you’ve told me the truth about killing my b-Jason,” he said, narrowed eyes focused on the road ahead, “I’ve got no reason not to be nice to you. Do I?” She didn’t answer, and after a moment he shook his head and let out a breath in an exasperated sigh. “Ah…Mary. I don’t know what I can do to get you to trust me.”

She gave a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Trust you? You must be joking. You arrested me for murder.”

She saw the depressions in his cheeks deepen with his frown before they were partly obscured by a big, long-boned hand scrubbed impatiently across the lower part of his face. “Dammit, I told you, I didn’t have a whole lot of choice.” He threw her a brief, stinging look. “The truth is, I-ah hell.” Scowling through the windshield again, he growled, “Look, I want the truth, that’s all. If you didn’t kill Jason, if you’ve got nothing to hide, then…then for God’s sake tell me who you are. Tell me what your real name is…who you’re being protected from.”

Mary made an involuntary sound, then just gazed at him, heart pounding.

He turned his head to give her a sardonic little smile. “Oh, yeah, I’ve pretty much figured that part out. Look, dammit,” he said, facing forward again, “if you’re a federally protected witness, you know I’m gonna find that out sooner or later. The U.S. Marshal’s Office isn’t going to protect you from a charge of murder.”

“Then why do you need me to tell you anything?” she said bitterly, watching houses and yards flash by, bravely clinging to their fresh spring finery in the face of winter’s spiteful reprise. Blackberry winter…that’s what my mother used to call this weather.

Thoughts of her mother were so unexpected, and so predictably painful, she wasn’t even aware of where they were until the SUV came to an abrupt stop. For a moment she stared at the little white clapboard house without recognizing it as hers. Then she noticed that while she’d been in jail the big lilac bush beside the front porch had come into bloom, and that brought another flood of unwelcome memories.

“I want to help you,” the sheriff said softly.

She couldn’t help herself. She laughed-and was shocked when she felt warm fingers brush her cheek.

Her breath snagged delicately, like roughened skin in fine silk. She caught and held it with infinite care, terrified to let it go for not knowing what might come with it. It had been so long since anyone had touched her this way…gently, with that special kind of tenderness that happens between lovers…and how was that possible when this was the man responsible for her utter and complete humiliation?

She wondered what he saw when he looked at her…a beautiful woman, a pitiful victim or a vicious killer? What did her skin feel like to his work-roughened fingers, and did he feel her blood surging hot and wild beneath it?

“If you’re innocent, why is that hard for you to believe? It’s my job to protect the innocent, just as much as it is to catch bad guys.”

His voice was like his fingers…warm, a little rough, but gentle and oddly stirring. His fingers caressed her cheek as he watched her…stroked a strand of her hair aside as if it were an obstruction to his view. Under their hypnotic spell she no longer felt the least bit cold…and yet she shivered. Protect? Who can protect me, if the marshals won’t?

Loneliness and longing descended on her like a blanket, pervasive as the need for sleep; her eyelids grew heavy, and the muscles in her face and neck cramped with the fierceness of her struggle against the desire to rest her cheek on his hand.

“I can’t help if you won’t talk to me, Mary.”

Talk to me…

Could he help her? Against all common sense, was it possible this man would protect her-this man who, by all indications, appeared to be trying to put her in jail for the rest of her life? What was it about him that, against all common sense, made the urge to trust him so strong? Was it his eyes, that seemed to know so much? His voice, so soft and yet so powerful? His hands, so strong and yet so gentle?

While she struggled with it, tense and silent…on the verge of giving in, his hand left her cheek. He leaned across in front of her to open the door, muttering, “Oh, hell, I just hope to God Harvey Klein doesn’t catch me talking to you like this.”

Her skin felt tingly and cold where his hand had been. She wanted to put her hand up and rub the spot, almost as if he’d slapped rather than caressed her. Instead, in ignominious retreat, she cringed back from his arm and the too-intimate warmth of his body, grasped the door with both hands and held on to it for support as she slipped blindly from the car. With the pavement firm under her feet, she turned to slam the door, only to find the sheriff still leaning toward her, one arm across the back of the seat she’d just left. The other hand was holding out a key.

“You’re gonna need this.” He nodded toward the house. “It’ll open both locks, here and the one at your shop.”

She took the key and managed a stiff and grudging, “Thank you.”

The steely blue eyes seemed to darken as they stabbed into hers, and his mouth curved into what she knew better than to think was a smile. “I’m going to be watching you, Miss Mary. Count on it. So do yourself a favor-don’t try to leave town.”

Then she did slam the door. As she hurried up the walkway, she heard the SUV roar to life and drive away, but she didn’t look back. She wouldn’t look back.

Alone on the porch she paused, shivering with anger and cold and hopelessness, bathed in the scent of lilacs that was almost too sweet to bear. She stood staring at the criss-cross of yellow police tape and the padlock on the front door, with the key to the padlock a nugget of warmth in her cold hand. Warm from his hand… And the thought of lifting it and inserting it into the lock, of opening the door and going alone into that stranger’s house, made her very soul cry out with loneliness.

Caught up in her misery, she almost didn’t notice it at first…the peculiar ratchety humming sound that seemed to come from nowhere…and all around her. And then…something soft, warm and heavy bumped her leg. As Mary stared down at the broad feline head covered with moth-eaten fur and sporting a pair of scarred and tattered ears, it nudged-incredibly-at her ankles. The strange snarling sound grew in volume. The mottled back arched and the raggedy tail quivered as the sinewy body twined and rubbed itself around her legs.

“Oh, Cat,” she whispered. And a tear fell with a soft plop to make a tiny wet stain on the wood porch floor.

The days that followed were easier than Mary, in the long dark hours of that first sleepless night, had feared they’d be.

No sooner had she left the house the next morning, filled with dread but determined not to crawl into a hole and hide like a coward, than a sheriff’s department SUV came cruising down the street and pulled up beside her. Her heart gave a drunken lurch and slammed into her ribs as the window slid down and a familiar rumbling voice drawled cheerfully, “Mornin’. Just happened to be passing this way, thought I’d give you a lift to your shop.”

“Yeah, right,” Mary muttered without pausing. She’d almost been looking forward to walking the half-dozen blocks in spite of the persistent wind and a hint of frost in the air…remembering a long-ago life in a faraway place where walking to work in all kinds of weather was the normal way of things. New York, New York… She’d had so much there…friends, an exciting career…and Joy, who’d been more like a sister than a friend. Why wasn’t it enough? Why wasn’t I happy with what I had?

Why am I letting myself remember all this now? I can’t think about this now.

“Thanks,” she said distantly as she strode briskly along, “but I’m fine.”

The car rolled silently, keeping pace with her, and the growl from within was deeper and somewhat less cheerful. “Mary, get in the car.”

She halted and turned, hugging her sweater around her and lifting her face to the wind, grateful for that wind now, hoping it might be blamed for the breathlessness of her voice and the flush she could feel burning her cheeks. “Am I being detained?” she inquired in a cool, polite tone. “Should I get in back? I assume that’s where you put prisoners.”

The sheriff made an exasperated sound. “Don’t be ridiculous. My department’s impounded your car. I’m giving you a ride to work.”

“All part of your service to the community.”

“Right…keeping dangerous criminals off the street.” He leaned his long body across the seat to yank the passenger-side door open, the way he’d done the night before. “Mary, don’t make me come out there and get you.” Though his tone was mild, she caught the glint of a dangerous light in his steel-blue eyes.

Her pitiful rebellion fizzled as quickly as it had flared, and she even felt an odd sense of relief as she got into the SUV, pulled the door shut and clicked her seatbelt into place. The thought flashed into her mind: I’m safe now.

“That’s better,” the sheriff said, sounding almost as if he were purring. He glanced at her as he put the SUV in gear. “Did you sleep well?”

Mary looked back at him and thought the gleam in his eyes seemed more amused now than dangerous. “Please don’t try to pretend this is a just a friendly favor,” she said evenly, though her heart was still beating hard and fast. “At least respect my intelligence enough for that.”

A wry smile tilted his lips and deepened the dips in his cheeks as he transferred his narrowed gaze to the road ahead. “Fair enough,” he said.

The SUV pulled into the street, and Mary rode to work in a tense and humming silence.

Throughout the rest of that day, as she was cutting someone’s hair, dabbing on color, sweeping the floor, answering the phone or ringing up someone’s check, and happened to look out the window or catch the street’s reflection in a mirror, more often than not she’d notice a sheriff’s department patrol vehicle cruising by. Her heart would quicken, her stomach clench and the sour taste of fear rise into her throat, but she would only return a serene gray gaze to whatever client she was working on at the time and murmur a reply to whatever had been said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place.

I’ll be watching you…

Her clients, too, seemed anxious to maintain the myth that nothing had changed at Queenie’s “We Pamper You Like Royalty” Salon and Boutique…that the quiet and retiring lady wielding scissors and pouring noxious chemicals on their hair hadn’t just been charged with committing a cold-blooded murder. Mary had dreaded going into the shop, had wondered whether she’d have any clients show up at all, but to her surprise, not a single person cancelled her appointment that first day. In fact, as the week progressed she seemed to have even more business than usual. She suspected Ada Major of having a hand in that; it was a small county, and virtually everyone in it had served on Miss Ada’s juries at one time or another and could probably expect to do so again.

Mary thought she also had Miss Ada to thank for the fact that almost no one stared at her openly or whispered when her back was turned-although some did try too hard to be upbeat and cheery, and her older clients-those of Miss Ada’s generation-did tend to give her motherly little pats of sympathy. Mary didn’t mind. She was grateful to have people around, work to do, to keep her from thinking about what lay ahead.

The sun hadn’t set when Roan turned his department SUV into the alley behind Queenie’s Salon and Boutique, but at that time of year it was already well into the dinner hour and the last patrol car to drive by the front of the beauty shop had reported its owner appeared to be closing up, getting ready to leave for the day.

He pulled up beside the back door of the salon and turned off the motor and keyed his radio mike. “Donna, this is SD Mobile One, I’m gonna break for dinner. Call me if you need me.”

“What do you mean, ‘dinner,’ Sheriff?” the dispatcher’s scratchy voice came back. “Don’t you think you oughta go home?”

Roan chuckled, signed off and settled down to wait.

Sitting alone in his car as the evening quiet nestled around him, he began to feel a peculiar sense of restless anticipation that had nothing to do with the possibility the woman he was waiting for might try to escape his jurisdiction. The way it felt to him was more like the first time he’d asked Erin out on a real date, when he’d knocked on her door and was standing there on her front porch where he’d stood a hundred times before, hearing Boyd’s heavy footsteps coming across the hard pine floor. A hundred times before he’d stood there, but this time his heart was beating like a tom-tom, his belly was quivering, his palms were wet and his mouth was dry, and he’d kept telling himself, Man, what’s wrong with you? It’s just Erin, we’ve known each other since we were babies! Only he’d known good and well the way he felt inside was trying to tell him something he needed to listen to, which was that it wasn’t just Erin anymore, and never would be again.

He knew it was one thing, though-feeling like that over a girl he’d known all his life and had known he was going to eventually marry for about half of it, and who was his best friend besides-and that it was something else entirely to be getting a quiver in his belly over a woman he’d just arrested and seen charged with murder, and who he was going to be expected to do his best to help convict.

He knew all that and it didn’t change a damn thing, so he was feeling less than pleased with himself by the time the back door of the salon opened and the cause of his frustration appeared, looking like a mouse venturing out of her hole.

She hesitated when she saw him waiting there, looking for a moment as though she wanted to slip back into that hole and close the door. Then, darting a desperate look around as if searching for a new place to hide, or run to-or hoping there’d be somebody else there to rescue her-she came slowly toward the car. Roan rolled down his window and she halted, looking now like someone about to meet the hangman. She drew a shaky breath and said, “Okay, what now?”

Blame guilt, or his grouchy mood; he snarled back at her, “What do you mean, what now? I’m here to take you home, dammit.”

And instantly her shoulders got hunched up and she seemed to flinch. “You don’t need to do that.”

He couldn’t seem to stop himself from scowling at her. “Look, are we going to go through this again? I brought you here, I’ll take you home. Get in.”

Still she hesitated, and he said impatiently, “For God’s sake, Red, you don’t need to look at me like I’m the Big Bad Wolf. I’m just giving you a ride home.”

He didn’t know what to think when she went pale and jerked back as if he’d slapped her.