by W L Ripley
“And yet,” Jake said, “made his way home.”
“Big heart,” said the vet. “Dogs are like that. Better than most people you ask me. Someone chained him up and Travis rubbed the fur and flesh off his neck straining against it. God, I hate people do this stuff. I’ll keep him a couple days until he’s strong enough to come home. I can try to find him a home you want.”
“No,” Jake said. “I’ll keep him.” Knowing Gage would want that. But, wondering if he wanted a reason to keep him.
“Good. Travis could use a friend right now.”
“Both of us,” Jake said.
Travis was calm now and allowed Jake to scratch his ears. Travis licked Jake’s hand. Okay. Good first step.
“This is not a dog that would take such treatment lightly,” said Billings. “He’s a hunting dog. Proud. Labs are loving animals and one of the friendlier breeds, but I would bet he’d fight back when threatened or someone threatened his owner.” Jake filed that away. “We find someone with a dog bite and maybe we’ve got our guy. I find out who did this I’ll file charges.”
“You knew Gage,” Jake said. “Why would anyone take his dog?”
“I don’t know.”
“Gage’s death? You hear anything about that?”
“Just what I hear around town.”
“You know anything about him getting fired by Alex Mitchell?”
Billings opened a jar of dog treats and fed one to Travis. “Well, only gossip and scuttlebutt. Hate to traffic things like that. Not good for business.”
“Well, it would help me.”
Billings paused, pushed by his hat with a thumb and said, “I’ll tell you this much. Alex Mitchell and Gage were not getting along. There have been rumors why that was happening but that’s all I care to say. People hear their vet is carrying tales they won’t trust me to watch after their animals.”
“I understand.”
Jake thanked him and asked to pay but Billings said to wait until Travis was better. Travis would need a few days under the vet’s care which meant Jake would have to postpone leaving Paradise. Realizing that he had inadvertently made a commitment when he decided to keep the animal. Billings said he would call County and ask if anyone had been treated for dog bites or given rabies shot at ER.
Jake left the animal clinic and tried to call Buddy, no answer. He needed gas so he pulled into a C-store to fill up. He had just flipped open his gas cap and inserted the nozzle when he heard his name.
“Well, well, Jake Morgan.”
He turned and saw her leaning against a gas pump, one hip cantilevered and smiling a 100 watt smile prettier than a summer morning: a time elapsed photograph, from girl to woman. Unbelievable.
“Harper Bannister,” he said, looking at her. “Little teeny bopper last time I saw you. Braces and skinny. You filled out some.”
“How do you like it?” she said, twirling once. Having fun. And, he had to admit she looked great.
“Well, you’re not the ugliest girl in the world.”
She cocked her head and said, “You don’t recognize a genuine ‘ten’ when you see one?”
“There are no tens,” he said.
“Now there is.”
Look at her, being cute, making him smile.
“Give your smile a nine and a half. Your eyes maybe a nine.” Her eyes were more like a 12 but no use over-stating it. “Give you another nine for your personality.” He liked the light sprinkle of freckles brought out by the sun.
“Buy me lunch,” she said. “I’m hungry.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“You’re going to get a better offer?”
“Just going to keep throwing yourself at me, that it?”
“If you’re lucky and play your cards right.”
“It’s a deal,” he said.
Lunch with Harper was nice. Relaxing. Jake picked up some food for an impromptu picnic and they sat on a park bench close to the World War II memorial in the town square, the Heroic G.I. looking down on them. The sun warmed them and his worried mind over his night with Pam melted away at the vitality of Harper’s smile.
A new day. He could certainly use one.
She said, “Hmm.” She looked at him and then nodded as if settling on something. “This seems to have some symmetry. You think?”
He smiled, feeling it a little but said, “Two old friends, right?”
“Time passes and then we both appear at the same place at a different moment. Comfortable, isn’t it?”
She was young, fresh and something new for Jake. Wash away the night before with this lovely person. People would walk by and speak to her, asking how her father was and tell him hello. She would smile and say she would do that. The world seemed to gather around her. Could he get a do-over? Could he hope for such a thing?
“So, what are you doing these days?” he asked.
“I work as a para-legal.”
“That’s like a lawyer, right?”
“Something like it except doesn’t pay as well and you do the scut work, but I don’t mind. My boss lets me off when I need to do something or just want a day off. Doesn’t say anything as long as the work’s done.”
“What do you do for excitement?” he asked.
“Like do I go out, hit the clubs, wait for Mister Right or some semi-cowboy to buy me a drink? I don’t care for that. Rather curl up on my sofa with a good book, but I like to be out and about. I run a few times a week, not a fanatic about it. I hike, swim, stay active.” Looking at her, seeing the healthy glow, he guessed she worked out more than she let on. “I don’t know, I like living here, always have. This is home.”
“Looking at you, I’d say you hit the clubs, you’d need creep-repellant to keep the semi-cowboys off you?”
She made a face. “Asking what my sign is. Like that? Telling me I’m the one they’ve been waiting for all their life or some line they heard in a movie. Who needs it? What about you? You married? No? Girlfriend?”
Thought about it. Last night with Pam? That was more like an auto accident. Hit-and-run. So he said, “Nothing with a future.”
“Maybe not a future,” she said, “but, the way you look your past must be something. You seem flavored by your absence from our little community.”
He gave her a look, one eye closed. “Careful now.”
“How long are you going to be here?”
“Couple weeks.” He squinted from the sunlight, surprised at mentioning two weeks. “Get things done and head back.” If he was allowed to return. Being in limbo with the rangers bothering him.
“Sorry about your dad. He was a good man. So was Gage.”
“Part of life.”
“That’s how you view it?”
“Words. All I have now. Gage was a close friend.”
“He was funny,” she said. “Dad stopped him once riding a bike at one in the morning. Gage had been drinking. Dad asked him what he was doing riding a bike that time of night. Gage told him he was in no condition to walk.”
Nodding his head, Jake said, “Classic Gage Burnell.”
Harper ate like she enjoyed it as much as he did. Didn’t talk about how she needed to lose a few pounds or what new diet she was on. No, this one ate what she wanted, didn’t pose, a genuine person. A girl with a barefoot personality. They walked around the downtown area, happy to have her by his side, taking in the familiar sights shaded by time. Afterwards he drove Harper back to her car at the C-Store. When he stopped his pickup she didn’t get out right away.
“So,” she said. “You going to ask me out?”
He smiled. “What would your dad think?”
“I’m all grown up now and he doesn’t make those decisions for me anymore.”
“He carries a gun, you know.”
“More reason to treat me nice. You carry one too.” He gave her a sidelong look and she said, “I know about the bank hold-up. You’re a hero.”
“I’m not.” He decided to change the subject. “There must b
e a dozen guys around here chasing after you.”
She shrugged. “They’re tiresome. One thing on their minds and it’s not my eternal happiness.” Her face brightened, playing with him. “Maybe I like older, mature men who stop bank robberies.”
“I’m not that much older.” Maybe not so mature either, thinking about it.
“Maybe I’m just interested in you. Give you a chance. Think about that.”
Just like that.
“Okay,” he said. “How about I take you to the game tonight?”
She smiled and it burned through his defenses.
“Pick me up at six, okay?” she said and got out of the truck. She leaned into the window and said, “I’ll be hungry again, so I’ll need popcorn and a couple of hot dogs at the game.”
She was delightful. Been too long since a woman made him smile. Thinking of her as a woman now. No longer a little girl.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, I need to tell you I’m damaged goods. Just went through a divorce.”
“No damage showing. Anybody I know?”
“Tommy Mitchell,” she said.
Jake closed his eyes and leaned his head against the seat headrest.
Harper Mitchell? Tommy Mitchell’s ex-wife?
It just gets better and better.
Chapter Nine
“You were married to Tommy Mitchell?” Jake said.
She shrugged. “Not my best moment.”
“I know him.”
Harper smiled. “What I hear.” He started to ask her about that, but she said, “Police Chief’s daughter. Remember? Also a para-legal. If something happens in this place, I usually know so keep your nose clean.”
“Do my best.”
Jake sitting on his front porch, his, realizing it. The porch, more like a deck jutting out from the front of the brick ranch house, looked out across the lawn and the fields, seeing the barn and remembering delivering winter calves, his bio teacher called the process ‘parturition’, sometimes having to reach in the cow’s vaginal tract, nasty but warm, feeling good on freezing hands. Summers with hay down his shirt damp with perspiration, smell of dirt when the plow or a disc tore into the land. He had good memories of farm life, but it was never a destination. Well, it had been once, but time and circumstance changed things. Not always for the better but usually forever.
Watching the smoke trail from the cigarette, something bubbling at his subconscious, cop curiosity kicking in. He walked to the back and around the area around the dog pen. He could see where tire tracks had left impressions, but they could’ve been from Gage’s vehicle.
But where was Gage’s vehicle? Remembering Gage had sent him a photo of a new SUV. What was it? He hadn’t seen it. It wasn’t the car Gage wrecked. There were only two vehicles on the farm now other than Jake’s. Alfred’s Ford pickup which needed tires and a car covered with a tarp. The vehicle under the tarp was an old Lincoln Mark IV Jake had attempted to restore and given up on years ago. Weird that Alfred hadn’t gotten rid of it.
He kneeled and examined the ground around the pen and noted what looked like footprints. A lot of them. Different sizes.
He noticed a disturbed area where the grass was twisted and broken. Something most wouldn’t notice but Jake’s training triggered him to watch for such things. A struggle? He looked closer and saw three sets of footprints. One small, and two much larger. Gage was 5-9, 160 pounds. He didn’t make those prints. Too big for the small set, not big enough for the other two.
Fat Boy Haller was a large man. Don’t jump to conclusions, a lot of people had big feet. The small prints were interesting.
Back in the house, Jake went through Alfred’s and Gage’s files and documents. Also a pile of unopened mail. Gage was a highly organized person, one of the reasons Jake had entrusted him to serve as caretaker for Alfred’s place. Jake tried Gage’s laptop, but it was pass-worded. There was a four-drawer file cabinet with farm bills and documents in it. Bills, tax receipts and tax filings.
Bills and paid receipts arranged by month. Taxes arranged by year.
All of it neatly filed and in order.
But, the last two months were missing and no tax files or bank statements for the present year. They were gone. Everything gone since Alfred died? Where were Alfred Morgan’s files? Where were Gage’s personal files? Conspicuous by their omission. No reason for Gage to remove them. Or was there? Something Jake needed to check.
Jake pulled the old files out of the drawer and set them on the kitchen table, giving each file a careful look. After an hour he had separated a few from the rest. There were a few phone numbers, some doodles and a couple of notes Gage had written to himself.
Jake called one of the numbers and a secretary at the county recorder’s office answered. Recorder’s office? That would be one of many things. Deeds, mortgages, certificates of titles and many other documents and records and ranging into coroner certificates, bankruptcy filings and land titles. Something to do with the land dispute? Wishing Gage had given him more information. What was the surprise Gage mentioned?
Jake asked if their office received a call from a Gage Burnell? The secretary told him she just started working there and didn’t know, offering to ask someone and have them call him.
Jake hung up and called the other numbers on his land line.
Two of them were businesses. Law firm of Benchley and Robinson and the State Highway patrol. He didn’t know what to ask either of them, so he apologized and said he had the wrong number.
A third number was a recording. He recognized the name on the caller ID.
Pam Mitchell.
He clicked the button to break the connection.
Thought about it.
Time for a look at Mitchell Enterprises.
Chapter Ten
Jake drove out to Mitchell Enterprises’ liquid fertilizer plant where Gage Burnell had been fired. When Jake and Gage were in high school Mitchell Enterprises had started with a trailer and a couple of low silos and had now mushroomed into modern low slung office building, with several airport hangar sized metal buildings and giant fertilizer tanks. He took a good long look and drove on.
Leaving the plant Jake returned to town to pick-up Harper. He saw the police lights in his rearview mirror. He wasn’t speeding and his license was current. Taillight out or his truck matched the description of someone they were looking for? He pulled his truck over to the side and the police unit pulled in behind him.
Seeing Sheriff ‘Doc’ Kellogg get out of the unit told Jake it wasn’t a busted taillight.
What could be more perfect?
“Hello, Doc,” Jake said, when Sheriff Kellogg approached his door.
“License and registration,” said Kellogg.
Jake started to protest. He was a law enforcement officer and knew there was no probable cause. He also knew he was a stranger in a land turned strange. He was on a lonely stretch of road and it would be his word against Kellogg’s, the county’s elected protector.
“Did I do something wrong, Doc?” Jake asked with as much civility as he could muster.
“Wait in your vehicle, sir,” said Kellogg. Officious was a strange posture for a man who had known Jake since he was a kid. Something up.
Jake watched the sheriff walk to his unit and get inside. Kellogg would run his plate through the computer. By now Kellogg would know Jake worked for the Texas Department of Safety. Would that make any difference? What could he charge him with? Nothing Jake could imagine so what was this about? This is not going anywhere you can’t handle. Let him have his little roust and enjoy the football game with Harper Bannister. Don’t let him push your buttons.
Kellogg returning now.
Jake turned on his cell phone video recorder.
“Step out of the vehicle, sir,” said Kellogg. ‘Sir’, when he knew his name. Curious.
Jake opened the door and restrained the urge to say something and Kellogg asked him to accompany him to his unit. Jake did as he was asked
. Commanded? What could you do?
Jake sat in the passenger seat and waited.
Kellogg said, “You’re wondering why I stopped you.”
“It occurred to me,” Jake said, looking out the window at a cornfield, half of which had been harvested, bent stubs of corn stalk robbed of its seed.
“I want to talk to you.” No violation, no probable cause. “Heard you’re a Texas Ranger now.”
Jake said, “Are you surprised? I promise to be a good citizen and get one of those “support your local sheriff” bumper stickers. How’s that?”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
“The explanations would be too much trouble.”
Kellogg stared at the side of Jake’s face, saying nothing. It was quiet. Jake looked out the windshield. It was a police trick. The uncomfortable silence. But the phone recorder wouldn’t last much longer and may have already finished.
“I didn’t think much of your hero act at the bank. Ever think what could’ve happened to the customers?”
That’s what we’re trained for, thought Jake, but he wasn’t going to argue with Kellogg.
“No, you didn’t,” said Kellogg, continuing. “Just playing hero. Like you were back in high school playing quarterback and sneaking my daughter out late at night.”
“That what this is about? If that’s all I’ll be going now.”
“You’ll go when I say. I got a call you were snooping around Mitchell’s Chemical facility.”
“You have snooping laws?”
“You had some trouble with the Mitchells recently.”
“I’m concerned about Gage’s death.”
“What does that mean?”
“You investigate his death?”
“Of course.” Sheriff Kellogg paused, took his ticket book and tossed it up on the dash of his SUV.
“You knew Gage had some trouble with the Mitchells, specifically Alex before his accident.”
“I notice you had some trouble with the Mitchells yourself. What does that have to do with his accident?”