by Liliana Hart
Agatha nodded. “Don’t worry, Heather. I’ll bail you out of jail.”
“Shut up, Agatha.”
“You better be glad Tyler Gunn’s not on duty. He doesn’t give anyone a break.” Karl warned.
Penny came up at that moment with their food and set their salads in front of them.
“Man, I hate salads,” Agatha said once Penny had left.
“Why’d you order it?” Karl asked.
“Long story.”
“I’ll tell you what, Heather,” Karl said, putting up his ticket book. “There’s a spot that just opened up. Go move the car and we’ll save taking away your license for another day.”
Heather looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she glared at Karl and grabbed her Louis Vuitton handbag and her keys, scooting out of the booth with all the quiet rage of Scarlet O’Hara displeased with her servants.
“That woman scares the dickens out of me,” Karl said, taking her seat once she’d left. “Can’t seem to help myself though. It’s fun messing with her.”
Agatha shook her head and laughed. “You’re playing with fire. Much like that mustache you’re trying to grow.”
“You like it?” he asked. “I think the mustache deserves a second chance at being in style.”
“Unless you’re Magnum P.I., that mustache is never going to be in style.”
Penny came back with a cup of coffee for Karl. Agatha guessed he frequented the café so much that she knew what to bring him, because he hadn’t ordered.
“So what’s your interest in Hank Davidson?” he asked.
“He moved in down the street from me,” Agatha said, fighting to steal another look at him. “Heather decided she was going to make him husband number five and asked me to size him up.”
“I heard,” he said, mouth twitching. “You did a good job. Sheriff Coil said he’s a big city murder cop. He’s been specially trained by the FBI to profile people.”
“Oh, really?” she asked, her interest going up a notch. “What’s a big city murder cop doing in Rusty Gun, Texas? There’s definitely a story there.”
“Not much of one,” Karl said, shrugging. “I guess there comes a time when the evil the killers leave behind starts to stick to your soul and it’s too hard to wash it off every day. Sheriff said he retired and is just looking for a place to fade into existence. I guess when you’re high-profile the bad guys eventually come looking for you.”
The bell over the door rang again as Heather came back in, and Karl moved out of the seat to get out of her way, taking his coffee cup with him.
“You ladies have a good day,” he said, winking at Heather and making her scowl. “Try to stay out of trouble.”
Chapter Two
She wasn’t stalking. Really, she wasn’t. It just so happened that it was impossible not to pass Hank’s house on the way back to her own. And she wouldn’t have stopped and stared at all if he hadn’t looked like a fish out of water, or in his case, a cop out of Krispy Kreme’s.
“I hope he didn’t work undercover,” Agatha murmured, bending down to stretch a couple of houses down. She was soaked with sweat and she was pretty sure her spandex was steaming her body. It would probably fall right off her body like a soup chicken when she undressed.
The temperature was brutal for an early morning, and she was thinking if this summer was already this brutal that she might find a cooler destination for the next couple of months.
She’d admired Hank’s front landscaping for years. The Cooper’s had owned the house before Hank had bought it, and they’d spent a lot of time making their simple, single-story cottage look like it belonged between the pages of a fairy tale.
Hank didn’t look like he belonged in a fairy tale. He looked like he belonged in an episode of The Sopranos. He stood in the front yard, legs slightly spread and the water hose in front of him like he was holding a pistol at the firing range. He was wearing a pair of black athletic shorts, a different patterned Hawaiian shirt, a pair of black socks, Birkenstocks, and a cannon strapped to his side.
He looked like a man who needed help. He was about the worst retired person she’d ever seen. And as luck would happen, she was a writer in need of help. She’d been in a slump for the last week, putting no more than a couple of paragraphs on the page, and she’d ended up erasing those. What she needed was inspiration. Sometimes all she needed to give her that extra push was to listen to other’s experiences.
Ever since Karl had told her Hank had moved to Rusty Gun to retire more than a week ago, her mind hadn’t stopped asking the question Why? A man like Hank Davidson, who was used to the constant adrenaline rush and life of the city, didn’t just move to Nowhere, Texas without a pretty darn good reason.
She got moving again, determined to put her plan into motion. Yes, she would be using him shamelessly, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Just introduce yourself,” she said. “You’re friendly. And cops love you. Maybe it’s because you think like they do, or maybe it’s because you ply them with cookies. It doesn’t matter. You’ve got charm.”
She’d barely moved into the vicinity of his yard when the distinctive click and hiss of sprinkler heads popped up all over the yard. Well, she’d complained about being hot, maybe this was one of those unanswered prayers, because before she could blink she was blasted in the face with cold water.
The sound of laughter rang in her ears as she wiped the water from her eyes and tried to move out of the line of fire. It didn’t matter. Every direction was the line of fire.
“Turn them off! Turn them off!” she yelled.
“Well, if it isn’t Miss Nosy,” Hank said, going back to watering his flowers. “I wondered how long it would take you to make your way over here. Haven’t you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not nosy. I was just passing by, and I decided to be neighborly. Were you raised in a barn or something? You don’t turn the sprinklers on people who are trying to be friendly.”
“Lady, you’ve been watching me out your window for the last six weeks. That’s a little more than neighborly if you ask me. I’ve been sleeping in long johns because I was afraid I’d wake up in the middle of the night and see you peeping through my window.”
“Got something to hide, do you?” she smirked.
He turned the water hose toward her.
“Don’t you dare.” She snarled.
Hank snickered and sprayed her new shoes till they were soaked. She stumbled backward, tripping over one of the sprinkler heads, and landed flat on her back in the grass. Classic cop move. Hit her when she wasn’t expecting, like she was a common criminal and drop her to the ground.
Agatha stared straight up, noticing how pretty the canopy of trees was over his yard, and she took a couple of calming breaths. It didn’t help. She turned her head to make sure no one had witnessed her embarrassment and then rolled to her hands and knees.
“Sorry,” Hank said, his smile saying he was anything but. “My hand slipped.”
“Sorry?” she croaked out. “You’re sorry?” She mumbled a few choice phrases under her breath.
“You do that a lot, you know?”
Agatha stared at him blankly. Maybe she had brain damage. “What are you talking about?”
“You talk to yourself a lot. I noticed when you were standing back there on the sidewalk trying to decide how to approach me.”
“How could you possibly see that?” she asked. “You had your back turned to me the whole time.”
He gestured the water hose toward an odd metal disc that hung from the big oak tree. It was obviously lawn art of some kind, different sized circles cut with different designs, and when the wind blew the circles intersected each other. But when the wind wasn’t blowing, it made a perfect disc, just like a mirror.
“A tool of my trade,” she finally said, deciding not to give him the satisfaction of calling her out. “And I haven’t been watching you. That’s my office
window, and I’ve been looking out of it since I was a little kid. I like to watch the neighborhood when I’m thinking.”
“Well, it’s creepy.”
“What’s creepy is that you’re in public wearing that outfit. The only reason you caught me off guard was because I couldn’t stop staring at your Birkenstocks. What is this? 1995?”
“And what about that day at the café?” he asked. “I might be retired but I’ve got ears like a bat. You were sizing me up like a stud at auction.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, scoffing. “I was sizing you up for my friend. I’m a much better judge of men than she is.”
“What’d you decide?” he asked.
“That you’ve got too much baggage. I told her to run fast and hard in the opposite direction.”
“Finally,” he said. “The first sense you’ve shown since you decided to stalk me.”
“Sugar, if you think I’m stalking you then maybe you weren’t the hotshot cop everyone seems to think you were.”
A squirt of water hit her center mass, but this time she charged like a linebacker going in for the tackle. It didn’t occur to her that he was twice her size. She was only seeing red.
“Are you crazy, lady?” he asked incredulously. He dropped the hose and put a hand against her forehead so her swings didn’t even come close to hitting him.
“I was just trying to be neighborly and introduce myself,” she said, panting as she continued to try and reach him. “You big…you big, bully.”
She realized he was laughing at her and it made her even more angry.
“Settle down, wild cat,” he said, chuckling. “You’re the one who came on my property and insulted my shoes. I’m just defending myself. What’s wrong with my shoes? They’re comfortable.”
She took a step back so he was no longer touching her, and they were squared off like two boxers in the ring, waiting to see what the other was going to do next.
“You’re scaring the whole neighborhood in that getup. Wearing a gun and Birkenstocks is like a Republican carrying around a Planned Parenthood card.”
“Are you on medication?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, waving away the accusation. “But it’s obvious you’re way out of your element. The clothes, overwatering your garden, your Yankee accent.”
“I don’t have an accent,” he said. “You’re the one with the accent. And I’m retired. I’m supposed to do stuff in the garden and wear track suits and do crossword puzzles.”
“What are you, forty-five? Give me a break. You’re about as ready for retirement as I am.”
“I’m fifty-two,” he said, stiffly.
“Well, then,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You might as well order your casket and check in at the nursing home. You’re about the worst retired person I’ve ever seen. You’ve got decades left to live.”
“Wow, that’s depressing. Thanks for ruining my morning.”
“Seriously?” Agatha said. She pulled her soaking wet shirt away from her body and stared him down. “Your morning is ruined?”
“Look,” he said, putting his hands up in surrender. “Maybe we should start over. I’m Hank Davidson.”
“Yeah, I know.” She figured at this point she had nothing to lose since she probably looked like a cat that had been given a bath. “One thing you’ll find out real quick is that everyone knows everything about everyone in this town. Believe me, even the deepest secrets are hard to keep.”
“No offense, but my life depended on keeping secrets. And what I learned was that you can keep secrets if you don’t blab them to other people. Even if you tell just one person it’s not a secret anymore.”
Okay, she thought. Maybe he had a point. Heather had been her best friend since grade school. Of course, she knew Agatha’s pen name. And when her parents had been alive, she’d of course told them, even though her career hadn’t been near as high-profile as it was now. They’d been proud of her. Wouldn’t they want to share that with their closest friends?
She sighed, feeling even more defeated. Not only did everyone know who she was, she was still suffering from a major case of writer’s block.
“You look like your favorite dog just got run over,” he said.
“It’s been that kind of week.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Agatha,” she said.
“Old fashioned,” he said. “I like it.”
She narrowed her eyes and said, “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear it.”
He grinned and she decided the best thing she could do was forget she ever met Hank Davidson and walk home.
Agatha didn’t say another word. She just turned on her heel and started walking. She didn’t even care about recruiting him to help her solve her plot dilemma.
“Hey, Aggie,” he called out.
She froze in her tracks, feeling her blood pressure come to a boil.
“Don’t call me that,” she said without turning around. She thought she heard him chuckle and gritted her teeth.
“Nice to meet you, neighbor.”
Her one-fingered salute was quick and to the point, and she stomped away to the sound of his laughter.
Chapter Three
Please tell me the rumors aren’t true,” Heather said from their regular booth at the café.
Her white-blonde hair was freshly blown out and her face was expertly contoured. Between her shoes, her handbag, and her jewelry, Agatha was afraid she’d need an armed guard to get out to her car.
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Agatha said. “This is Rusty Gun. Babies cut their teeth on rumors.”
“Let’s see,” Heather said. “Where should I start? Maybe I should start with you standing like a drowned kitten in Hank Davidson’s yard. Or maybe I should start at the part where you charge him and try to wrestle his gun away from him like a maniac. Or maybe I should start with the fact that you were trying to make a move on my man.”
“To be fair,” Agatha said. “I wasn’t trying to wrestle his gun away from him. And I wasn’t trying to steal him. Believe me, you can have him. He’s no prince.”
“Are you telling me the rest of it is true?” she asked, her mouth open in shock.
“I’m not confirming or denying anything,” Agatha said primly.
“A bus full of senior citizens on the way to Shreveport saw you. I don’t think you can deny it.”
“They’re old,” she said, shrugging. “What do they know? How come they didn’t report that Hank knocked me right on my kiester with his high-powered water hose? He could’ve seriously injured me. And he called me Aggie.”
She took a drink of sweet tea and wished Penny would bring another basket of rolls. She really needed carbs for this conversation.
“The jerk,” Heather said, supportively. “I’m surprised you didn’t shoot him.”
“I couldn’t shoot a man wearing socks with Birkenstocks. What kind of person would that make me?”
Heather winced sympathetically. “I think that cured me of my infatuation.”
It was Wednesday, which meant the special of the day was chicken fried steak and unlimited sides. She was a comfort eater, and it was only by the grace of God, fantastic genetics, and the fact that she ran every morning that kept her from being the size of a house. The way things were going, she was thinking about starting an IV and just feeding herself the cream gravy intravenously.
“Come on, Agatha. What’s really going on. I cannot believe you attacked that man on his own property.”
“I didn’t attack him,” she protested. “At least not first. I was just going to introduce myself. We’re neighbors and I was jogging right by his house.” She was making confetti out of the straw wrapper in front of her. “I thought maybe he could give me a couple of ideas to get my story moving again. I haven’t put any good words on the page in more than a week.”
“Ahh,” Heather said knowingly. “Now the truth comes out. You’ve been a little hig
h-strung lately. And you’re getting a wrinkle between your eyebrows from frowning so much. I told you to come with me to the spa and have a collagen treatment. Marta will get rid of that thing in a hurry.”
“It’s just, I’ve worked my tail off for the last ten years. I’ve lived and breathed writing. I sacrificed for it because I loved it so much. I quit college a semester before graduating.”
“Yeah, but that was mostly because of the creepy stalker. It was safer for you to quit and easier for you to hide by retreating into your writing.”
Agatha sometimes forgot how perceptive Heather was. She might seem like an airhead piece of fluff, but there was a sharp brain buried in there somewhere.
“Okay, so maybe the stalker had a lot to do with it. But it was still a sacrifice. I always regretted not finishing my degree. I sold shoes for Pete’s sake.”
“And they weren’t even the good shoes,” Heather chimed in, looking down at her Jimmy Choos.
“I researched and wrote and researched and wrote. I spent hours and days pouring over crime scenes and talking to cops and immersing myself in that life so I could write books that made people feel as if they were right there on the page. And then the day came that I got published and I thought I’d made it, but I had a choice to make.
“I’d lived for years in seclusion. All because of one man. The fear I had during those years…” Her mouth was dry, so she took a drink of tea. “It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and I never want to experience it again. He watched and waited, and I could feel his eyes on me. I knew he’d end up killing me. He almost did.”
“That bastard’s going to be in jail a long time,” Heather said, patting her on the hand.
“I know,” Agatha said, attempting to smile. “My point is that what happened to me then affected my whole life. Even my writing. After I got published I could have claimed my own name for my books. You’d be seeing Agatha Harley in big letters in all the airports instead of that stuffy old A.C. Riddle. But it was much easier to sit in my room in mama and daddy’s house, in a town that barely warranted a speck on the map, writing my stories and submitting them anonymously. After a while I became that eccentric writer with the mysterious identity, and my publisher decided that helped sales, so now I’ll always be anonymous.”