by Dale Mayer
He dug around to find a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, then headed back out. She followed. Outside, he pointed where the machine had signaled. Gently they removed the shingle, and underneath they found the bullet. Carefully he pulled it out, looked at her, grinned, and said, “Now we need to check this against the rifle.”
She nodded. “I’ll take that in this afternoon and get it sent out.”
“You’re not going alone,” he said. She looked at him in surprise. He shook his head. “You can’t. Your vehicle is still in the shop,” he said. “Besides it’s not safe. There’s just too much going on right now.”
She shrugged. “In that case, I guess we’re going back to town.”
“Yep,” he said cheerfully, “and that’s okay too. The ribs are all settled in. I’ve got the steaks marinating for tomorrow night. I’m not sure where you’re at for vegetables, but, if there happens to be any corn on the cob, that would be good,” and he waggled his eyebrows.
She shook her head, smirking. “I didn’t realize you were such a foodie.”
“Of course I’m a foodie,” he said. “I love food.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, we all love food,” she said, with a chuckle.
“Yeah, but I really, really love food.” He smiled and said, “So, is there any corn locally?”
“There might be,” she said. “If not, we can head over to one of the farms where I often buy veggies.”
“Good,” he said, “we could just shop there instead of town.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “Let’s head to the station first and get this taken care of.” They hopped into the truck and headed there. When they arrived, she unlocked the door and quickly took care of what she needed to do, then got out the materials to ship the evidence. She stopped and frowned. “Unless you want to go to Denver?” she said. “We can do the trip in and out, and I can drop this off at the main station there, where the ballistics staff can handle it.”
He immediately nodded. “That would be best,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll be waiting even longer, right?”
She nodded and made a quick call, checking on her truck to find out it wouldn’t be ready for another twenty-four hours. Frowning, she decided to leave that issue alone for now. “Yes, and dealing with all the shipping hassles,” she said, “sometimes, if it’s important, I do drive them in.”
“Let’s go,” he said.
She nodded, quickly locked up, and, with both the weapon packed up in a case and the bullet in an evidence bag, they drove into Denver. On the way there, she asked him several questions about his family, his kids, and what he wanted to do with his life.
At that, he just laughed and said he was doing it. “I see my kids in the summer, and I work for Levi when I’m not with my kids.”
“Does he just give you time off?”
“That’s my agreement,” he said, “my time with my kids is time off from Levi.”
“As long as you can afford it,” she said, looking at him sideways.
He shrugged. “I’ll make it work,” he said. “The kids are important.”
She liked that about him. By the time they hit the station in Denver, and she had delivered both the weapon and the bullet and then documented the details in a report, they hopped back in.
“Do you want to grab some lunch while we’re here?” he asked.
“We can,” she said. “A nice burger place is up ahead.”
“We can do that,” he said. “I also wanted to pull some records from City Hall.”
“It’s Saturday,” she said, with a shake of her head. “You won’t get very far.” He frowned at her, and she frowned right back. “It doesn’t matter what you want to do. It’s still a government site, and nobody will be interested in opening up for you on the weekend.”
He groaned. “Fine, I’ll have Levi get it for me.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Recent transfers of property in your county, past and current owners, land use restrictions, mortgage holders, mechanics liens, that kind of thing.”
“Get Levi to do as much as you can while he’s at it,” she said, “since they have connections that we don’t.”
“Isn’t that interesting?”
“It really is.”
“You know what?” he said. “While we’re here, we might want to look at a few other things in town.”
“Like?”
“Well, I’m not sure how you are for firepower.”
“Meaning weapons?” she asked. “I’ve got a .22 and my police issue.”
“Right,” he said. “I also arranged with Levi to pick up a couple weapons somewhere else.”
“What do you mean by somewhere else?”
He looked at her sideways. “At a friend’s place.”
She rolled her eyes at that. “Right, a friend.”
He laughed and said, “How about we do a stop-off, and I pick them up?”
“Sure. I thought you had a handgun with you.”
“Well, I brought one here, yes,” he said. “But we could always use a little more.”
She just shrugged, as if it didn’t matter.
He drove to a small shop and walked in to find one of Levi’s friends, who looked up at him, smiled, and said, “You must be Bonaparte.”
She looked over at him and asked, “Does everybody know you?”
“Hell no,” he said, “but, in this case, it’s a good thing.” He introduced the two of them and said, “Richard, this is Sheriff Angela Zimmerman.” They shook hands, and he continued, “Levi said that you had something here for me.”
Richard nodded and picked up a weapons case, sitting off to the side, and said, “This one’s for you.” Bonaparte opened it up, looked at it, and whistled. “Oh, this will do perfectly. How much do I owe you?”
“Levi’s already taken care of it.”
“Nice to have friends like Levi,” she said, with a smile.
“Don’t forget. This is still a job for him. He supplies everything.”
“I get that,” she said. “It’s just irritating in a way.”
“Don’t let it irritate you,” he said. “That’s what friends are for. Sometimes we need everything our friends can offer.”
“Well, right now I certainly do,” she murmured. She watched as Richard added ammo to the case and packed up the weapon. She faced Bonaparte and said, “But we don’t have a license for it.”
Bonaparte looked to Richard, who immediately pulled out the paperwork and a side holster for the weapon and handed it to him.
She looked at it in surprise, then at him and asked, “How did you get that?”
“Legally,” Bonaparte said. “We travel all the time with weapons. If I had driven here, I would have brought more than I could have flying.”
She nodded slowly and said, “I don’t need to think about it, do I?”
“I’m here with all the paperwork in hand.” He signed for their receipt, and then they left again.
She looked at him sideways. “Does Levi really have ways to do all this?”
He looked at her in surprise and then nodded. “In every state in the country and in most of the countries in the world. Obviously not all because we haven’t been to every one at this point in time.” He tilted his head in consideration. “You know what? That would be an interesting question to ask him, whether we’ve completed jobs in every country or not.”
“I guess,” she murmured. “I didn’t realize just how global they’ve become.”
“Very,” he said, then smiled at her. “Have you had any interest in traveling?”
“Not a whole lot,” she admitted. “I’m pretty much a homebody.”
“Not a problem being a homebody, but sometimes people like to actually get out and leave so that they enjoy coming back.”
She burst out laughing. “That’s an odd reason to travel.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think a lot of people travel like that. They just don’t think about it that wa
y. They all have to get away, but, as soon as they do, all they want to do is get home again.”
“It just seemed funny, the way you put it,” she said, shaking her head yet smiling.
He grinned. “That’s good,” he said. “Now let’s go home.”
“But we didn’t get lunch.”
“You know something? I can practically taste those ribs,” he said. “And my instincts are saying, we need to get home.”
She looked at him in surprise and then frowned. “Well, if that’s what your instincts say,” she said, “let’s go.”
He picked up the pace and headed home.
*
As soon as they got close to town, Bonaparte slowed down. As they entered the town limits, he looked at her and asked, “Do you need anything from the office?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He checked her again. “There haven’t been any calls, have there?”
She shook her head and then quietly said, “No, and, yes, I noticed.”
“Because there’s no crime or because nobody’s calling for help?”
“I honestly don’t know,” she said.
“Have you checked your radio?”
She looked at him in surprise and quickly pulled out her phone. “Run over to the station for me, will you?” Inside the station, she walked into her office and then headed to where the dispatch radios were. Nobody was in the office, but it also appeared that the radios weren’t even working. She frowned, quickly pulled out her phone, and called Lana. “Hey, Lana. Were the phones working when you left yesterday?”
“Yes, of course they were,” she said, her voice light, chirpy, and easily audible to Bonaparte.
“It just seems strange because there have been no calls at all today,” Angela said.
“Well, there weren’t any yesterday either,” she said. “It’s just really, really quiet.”
At that, Angela stared at Bonaparte, one eyebrow raised. “Or they’re not working.”
Lana replied in an equally quiet voice, “Or you’re just looking for trouble. It’s a small town. We haven’t had any problems in a long time. It used to be we had lots of weekends without trouble. Go home and rest, Sheriff. There are no problems.”
Angela frowned, as she hung up the phone. She turned to him. “She doesn’t seem to think there’s a problem.”
“Any way to check?”
“I’ll call the township and have them check with 9-1-1 dispatch.” It took her a few minutes, while he wandered around, studying the angles and anything to do with the office that he could, but it was all pretty well a common setup and otherwise empty. She turned and said, “Dispatch said that they’ve had phone problems for the last two days.”
He nodded. “And has that been put down to anything?”
“They haven’t found any cause for it.”
“So, the true question is, … do we have reason to be alarmed about it?”
“I guess not,” she said, frowning. “It just seems odd.”
“Have you heard rumors from anybody? Do the citizens know where you are, and would they try to find you, if they couldn’t get through?”
“Well, if they knew where I was, they would certainly come find me,” she said. “That’s happened before, when the phones have been down. Or sometimes people just prefer to report their issues to me personally.”
“So maybe it’s not a case of there are no problems. Maybe it’s a case of nobody wants to call you.”
She frowned. “Why would that be?”
“Well, maybe it’s not because they don’t want to call you. What if it’s because they’re afraid they’ll have some trouble if they do call you?”
She fisted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Again you’re talking in circles.”
“I don’t know what’s behind it,” he said. “But, if the phones are out, then that’s a perfectly legitimate reason to worry,” he said, “because that’s obviously a problem. But, if nobody’s calling, and they do actually need you, what are the chances they’re not contacting you either because they don’t want to cause trouble for you, or they don’t want to be in trouble themselves?”
She ran a hand through her hair and stared at him. “I don’t want to think that anybody here needs help but isn’t calling.”
“Do you have any people you normally check on?”
She nodded. “Some seniors I always keep an eye out for.”
“Have you heard from them lately?”
She shook her head. “No, but now you’re making me worried,” she said, groaning.
“And what about your girlfriend? The one who we spoke to. Would she tell you if there was a problem?”
“I don’t know if she would now,” she said. “Obviously we have a few issues we need to sort out.”
“Not to mention potential charges.”
She rolled her eyes at that. “That’s just a great way to keep a friend, isn’t it?”
“All I’m saying is, maybe you could check with her to see if she’s heard of anything going on.”
“Already on it,” she said, with a sigh. “I just sent her a text. And this used to be such a nice simple town.”
“I’m not sure that it isn’t,” he said. “Let’s just be sure we haven’t got any problems before they get there.”
Her phone rang, and she answered and immediately frowned.
The conversation didn’t appear to go too well. He looked over at her. She was frowning at him, as she spoke on the phone. “Look, Isabel. Is there a problem?”
He couldn’t hear the other half of the conversation.
Angela replied, “Okay. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m coming over.” And, with that, she hung up. She looked over at him and said, “Let’s go.”
“I’m all good to go,” he said, “but maybe you should tell me why.”
“Because she sounded off, as in very off, like she couldn’t talk.”
“As in, she may have had unwanted company?”
She nodded slowly. “When I told her that I was coming over, she told me to bring the cookies.”
“Bring the cookies?”
“Yes, and the thing is, she has a gluten intolerance, and cookies aren’t something she would eat.”
“But she—” He stopped. “So it’s a message?”
She nodded. “I would say so.”
“Let’s go then,” he said. “Finally we might get to see some action.”
Chapter 7
Angela insisted on driving his truck, and the trip over to Isabel’s place was fast and furious, but two blocks before her friend’s street, Angela took a right turn and drove around.
“Where are we going?” Bonaparte asked.
“An alleyway stops two houses from her place,” she said quietly. “There’s also a walkway behind her place, but vehicles can’t drive in there.” She drove around the block, came up in the alleyway, parked there, and hopped out. She checked her weapon and then strolled to where the walkway started. He fell in step beside her. Up ahead she pointed to the house in question.
He nodded. “So somebody could certainly reach her place from back here. That doesn’t sound very safe.”
“Small town again. Remember?” she murmured.
He nodded. “Yeah, but you’ve got a bad apple here.”
“I personally think,” she said, “we have a couple of them. Maybe even a whole damn orchard.” She gave him a cheeky smile and then said, “I’ll go around to the front.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll search out the back and head in through that way.”
“You might not like what you find,” she said.
“You might not either,” he said, by way of warning.
She frowned and nodded. She kept on walking, until they came up to the side of the house. She pointed to the kitchen and then moved forward, so she could come around on the front side. As she walked closer to the house, she listened for any sounds, anything going on inside. Seemingly nobody was here. Still fro
wning, she walked until she got to the front walkway, where she stomped on the steps a little loud to let everyone know she was coming—but also to draw attention away from Bonaparte in the back. As she walked up onto the porch, she knocked on the door. There was no answer. She knocked again and then called out, “Isabel, where are you?”
The door opened, and Isabel was there, glaring at her. “I told you that I was fine.”
Angela studied her friend intently, but she could see the nervous flicker in her eyes. “I know you did,” she said, with a genial smile. “But that’s what friends are for, isn’t it? I just came to make sure you were okay, maybe have a cup of tea.”
“I can’t do tea right now,” she said, but this time there was a tiny break in her voice. “It’s not a good time.”
“Well, I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “Seems to me that we should sit down and talk. We’ve got a few issues. Remember that conversation from earlier?”
At that, her friend’s face went blank and then flushed. “I really don’t want to discuss it right now,” Isabel said, and then gave her a meaningful smile and half a nudge toward the porch steps.
“I get it,” Angela replied. She stepped forward, forcing her friend to step back again. “But I think these things need to be dealt with.”
Just then Johnny stepped into view, stopping her forward progress. “Hey, bitch, she just said she doesn’t want to talk with you now.”
“Oh, look at that. Trouble. I see the riffraff found you,” she said, with a glance at her friend to find a look of terror in her eyes. Angela studied Johnny. “You here alone?”
“What if I am?” he said. “I’m invited, but you’re not. She told you to get lost.”
“No, she didn’t say that. She said, it wasn’t a good time. That’s a whole different story. Not a good time means that you’re here. Get lost means she wants you here.”
At that, Johnny’s face flushed. “She wants me here just fine.” He turned and glared at Isabel. “Don’t you?”