Conard County Justice (Conard County: The Next Generation Book 42)

by Rachel Lee

  She looked at Major Duke, fearing that trying to keep him in line would be like bull riding. Then she accepted the inevitable. This was her assignment, and even though it might put her on the wrong side of the investigation, in terms of her involvement, it was still important, and Gage thought it necessary. She had one burning question, however.

  “How much information from our investigation should I share?”

  “Whatever you deem necessary.”

  On her shoulders, then. Lovely.

  * * *

  GAGE HAD VELMA call another officer in to take over desk duty. “Seems like you two may need a bit of discussion. Get yourselves over to the diner for coffee, maybe lunch.”

  Cat smothered a sigh, figuring she was going to have to reinforce Gage’s limits over coffee, and probably endure a brain picking by Major Duke.

  They crossed the street together and walked halfway down the block to the City Diner, known to everyone as Maude’s diner because of its cantankerous owner. Cantankerous or not, Maude was another of those people around here who was both a fixture and well loved. This kind of thing was also a part of the charm of living here.

  For the first time, she faced the seated major across a table. She had a clear view in the light from the diner’s front windows. Mavis, Maude’s daughter, appeared in lieu of Maude but slammed down the coffee cups with similar disdain. She’d learned well.

  They took their menus, and Cat remarked, “Everything is good, but everyone raves about the steak sandwich.”

  Cat ordered the chef salad. A light lunch seemed best when she didn’t know how the conversation would go. Her stomach was already trying to knot. As she expected, Duke ordered the steak sandwich.

  While they waited, he looked unflinchingly at her across the table. “You’d much rather volunteer to hike up and down Mount McKinley than be sitting here.”

  Actually, she would. She loved the mountains. “That obvious, huh?” Might as well be blunt, although she was bothered by being so readable. She’d tried for years to suppress that tendency in herself.

  “I can’t say I blame you.”

  Well, well. The admission surprised her. “Then you get it?”

  “Yes.” Their lunches arrived, and he sat back to allow the plates to be banged down in front of them. Coffee, dark and aromatic, filled their cups. She reached for one of the small creamers and dumped it in hers. Ordinarily she preferred her coffee black, but the way her stomach was feeling...

  He glanced at his sandwich, then lifted half of it as though reluctant. He raised it partway to his mouth and looked at her over it. “I didn’t ever not get it,” he said before biting off a mouthful.

  She paused with a container of blue cheese dressing hovering over her salad. “Then what was this all about?”

  “Informing your office. Making a few things clear. Setting the boundaries I need to stay inside. Regardless, if you don’t get the murderer, I will.”

  She believed him. She also feared what he might do if driven by rage. This man was trained to kill. “Then why do you want to know the boundaries? Isn’t this a pointless exercise if you just want to shoot someone?”

  “I might like to prevent this bastard from ever breathing again, but I’d prefer to see him locked up for life.” He looked down a moment. “In my opinion, life in prison is a far worse sentence than a quick death.”

  She nodded, stabbing her fork into a swirl of chef’s roll and salad. “I’d agree with that.”

  “But I’m not leaving here without finding him. I have three weeks.”

  “Now we’ve got a time limit?” She arched a brow.

  “It’s good to know the boundaries,” he said, echoing himself and Gage’s earlier remarks. “For both you and me.”

  She supposed it was. And now her favorite salad and dressing had become flavorless. It was then she faced needing to get a handle on herself. Most of what was going on was in her imagination. Maybe he hadn’t pressed as many buttons as she’d thought. Maybe he wasn’t here to rip up half the county in his search for his brother’s killer. Maybe he didn’t want to barge through this place like a furious bull.

  It was time to find the common ground where they could work together. Because that was basically what Gage had handed her. A job that required finding that ground. With the major. She wondered how much of an eye she’d need to keep on him and if it was going to be full-time. She supposed she’d find out, but it would be a heck of a lot easier if she didn’t start out in complete opposition.

  He amazed her by saying, “I guess I didn’t create a very good first impression with you.”

  “No. You didn’t. You had death in your eyes.”

  “Hardly surprising,” he retorted. He was already finishing the first half of his sandwich.

  Cat had hardly made a dent in her lunch. She forced herself to take another bite before speaking. “Look, we’ve got to work together now. We need to find some mutual understanding.”

  “I thought the sheriff had made that clear.”

  “He set the rules. Repeatedly, if I know Gage. But this is about more than rules. You’re going to have to work with me on this. I can’t have you doing things and telling me about them later.”

  “Understood.”

  Oh really? she wondered.

  “Let me make something clear, Deputy. I’m a military officer. I follow rules all the time, some of them quite restrictive. My own judgment generally comes into play only in combat and tactical operations where the situation is constantly shifting. I have to stay within the Uniform Code of Military Justice. On the other hand, when my superior tells me something like Go take that hill, I have to figure out how. There’s a lot in the balance, not the least the safety of my soldiers.”

  “Okay,” she answered, willing to listen.

  “There’s not really a conflict here.”

  Time would tell, she thought. At least now she could taste her salad. “How do you want to set this up?”

  Which was giving him a lot of leeway. Still, she wanted to know how he envisioned what they were going to do together, then decide how much of it was possible. She could still try to be the rein on him. Try probably being the operative word.

  He glanced away, ruminating as he finished his sandwich. “I want to get to know people who knew Larry. Try to figure out if they know anything or sensed anything. Sometimes people find it easier to talk to a grieving relative than a cop. Or am I wrong?” His gaze snapped back to her.

  “I’ve been a cop since I started dealing with cases like this. I can’t say for certain. One thing I do know is that friends and family try to avoid saying anything disparaging about the deceased.” She almost winced as the word came out, knowing that it sounded cold. He was probably far from wanting to call his brother deceased.

  “Never speak ill of the dead,” he remarked. “Thing is, Larry wasn’t perfect. Nobody is. Do I think it was impossible for him to have an enemy? Absolutely not. His job often made people furious at him. He could just as well have affected others around him the same way. I know he wasn’t here long, but it doesn’t always take long to make someone hate you. An ill-considered comment can be enough.”

  “Larry used words like a master.”

  “Exactly. And he could slice like a knife in very few words when he saw or heard something he didn’t like. Anyway, people might find it easier to talk with me because I know Larry wasn’t perfect. I hope.”

  That was a good point. Maybe. She ate another forkful of salad, getting a mouthful of delightful blue cheese, along with meat rolls. The knot in her stomach was easing, and her taste buds were evidently waking up.

  He just wanted to speak to people who’d known his brother? Sounded innocuous enough. But there were other possibilities looming in the shadows. She stared down at her salad, suspecting that she’d let her tension leave too soon.

  * * * />
  DANIEL DUKE STUDIED the woman with whom he’d been partnered. She clearly didn’t like it any more than he did. He was a man used to going on missions and making his own decisions within the confines of what was legal. Things were different in a war, of course, but he knew where the bright lines were, and he kept himself within them.

  He didn’t like the idea of someone peering over his shoulder and trying to control him. She had been chosen to be his watchdog. He was already chafing at the idea. He could move more freely on his own.

  The Ranger in him, he supposed. There had been a few times when he’d air-dropped into enemy territory with nothing to rely on but himself. He had always accomplished his mission.

  He’d also seen enough of the expressions crossing Cat Jansen’s face to guess that she didn’t like this, either.

  He’d managed to set her back up. In the long run, that wouldn’t matter. He’d come here for two purposes only: to bury his brother and to find a killer. If the sheriff’s people succeeded, he’d be content, although it wouldn’t be as satisfying. But this wasn’t about satisfying himself.

  He glanced toward Cat as he finished his sandwich. It seemed she was eating without a whole lot of pleasure. Uncomfortable situation.

  But he noticed again the arresting combination of black hair and brilliant blue eyes, a combination that would make anyone look twice. It had been the first thing he had noticed about her when he walked through the door of the office. And while uniforms seldom enhanced a woman’s attractions, he still felt hers from across the table. When she moved, he could tell that she was fit, maybe even athletic.

  But he wasn’t here to notice a woman’s beauty or anything else. They needed to forge a working relationship somehow, although he’d have been satisfied to tell her to continue her other duties and he’d keep her informed.

  She didn’t strike him as the type who was going to give him a leash that long.

  Oh hell, he thought and reached for a potato wedge. He’d begun all wrong, but he didn’t know how he could have begun better. He was furious beyond words over his brother’s murder. He wanted the killer to face trial at the very least, and when he returned to his battalion, he wanted to know the guy was in jail. Caught. Going up the river as fast as possible.

  Only when justice lay within reach would he be able to properly grieve for Larry. Because justice had indeed been important to Larry, something he’d been willing to risk his neck over. Then there was Duke’s own guilt. He’d never be able to overcome that now, but he could deal with finding justice. Finding peace for Larry.

  He spoke at last, trying to discover a way to meet this woman somewhere in the middle. Neither of them was happy to be here.

  “Larry always used to say that the dead can’t rest without justice.”

  Her head lifted from her salad, and he felt again the impact of her eyes. “You said he believed in it.”

  “The thing is, my brother was a realist, hardheaded and fact oriented. Then he’d say something like that. It was one of the things that drove his reporting.”

  “While I only knew him a short time, I didn’t see anything remotely fanciful in him.” She paused. “So you think Larry won’t rest?”

  “I don’t know what comes after we die. It’s all a mystery, and I tend to rely on facts, too. But since I don’t know, I want Larry to get his justice. And frankly, I want justice, too.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  She sounded as if she did. Well, maybe that was a step in the right direction. He certainly needed to find one, since he’d started wrong, at least as far as Cat was concerned.

  Parsing through the problem, trying to come up with a strategy, he slowly ate potato wedges and gave Cat space to enjoy her salad while he looked out the window. Spring sunshine drenched the street, and all the buildings appeared to have arisen early in the last century. He suspected renovations in this town tried to preserve the past, not erase it.

  Maybe she needed to understand that he hadn’t had to come to the police. He’d done so because he didn’t want to get in a war with the cops here. That could mess everything up. And while he’d tried to make that clear, he wasn’t sure he had.

  There was Cat’s reaction. He had to figure out how to persuade her before this became a bigger problem.

  * * *

  NEARLY TWENTY MILES AWAY, in a fold in the earth that cradled them in secrecy, three men sat around a small fire. The stream that trickled beside them, clearly runoff from the remaining snow high above in the mountains, made a pleasant sound as the afternoon began to wane.

  It was far nicer than many of the places where they’d made a surreptitious camp. They all dressed casually, like campers or hikers, in jeans and long-sleeved shirts of varying plaids. Hiking boots finished off the unimpressive ensembles.

  “You getting anywhere?” asked Man One.

  “I hate these new phones,” Man Two remarked. He held a smartphone in his hand. “The only contacts I can find are in recent text messages. The rest must be in the cloud somewhere, and we can’t even get cell coverage here.”

  “What’s a cloud?” Man Three asked. “And how can you be sure those aren’t his only contacts?”

  “Oh hell,” said the first man. “He was a reporter. He probably had hundreds of contacts.”

  “No help to us,” said the third man. “Hundreds of contacts? How do we weed through that?”

  “We look at only the ones around here,” said Man Two. “But I need his cloud access, and he’s got it protected. When he said he’d put a copy in a place we’d never find, he might have meant that. And breaking into the house of one of his poker buddies last night turned up zilch.”

  “Clouds aren’t that safe,” the first man said. “Remember when that motion picture company got hacked? He probably wanted a copy he could reach that would be safe. Maybe an external hard drive or flash drive.”

  “Or,” said the second man, “he might have kept notebooks and files. You know, old-fashioned paper. I dated a reporter a few years ago. She always kept her notes on paper. In those reporter notebooks, for one, and she had drawers full of files.”

  The first man looked at him. “Any reason?”

  “She said it was the best way to protect her sources. She said that too many people could get into her computer.”

  If a breeze hadn’t been wending its way down the narrow gully, ruffling grasses and the just-grown leaves of spring, they might have heard a pin drop.

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?” the third man demanded. “We didn’t know to look for that kind of stuff last night.”

  The second man shrugged. “Who thinks of paper files these days? I sure as hell don’t. That just popped up from memory.”

  Their search had just gotten bigger.

  “We can’t break into that house again,” said the second man.

  “Nope,” agreed the first man. “We may have screwed that up. But I’m still not sure about his poker buddies and other friends here. Did he know any of them well enough to turn over serious information to them? We don’t know.”

  “There’s no way to find out,” said the second man. “Maybe the most important thing we can do is find out where he stashed the information.”

  “There’s another team working on his contacts back in Baltimore,” the first man reminded him. “Maybe they’ll find out.”

  “I hope so,” said Man Three. “Because I sure as hell don’t want to go back without finding something.”

  The three exchanged looks.

  “Why,” asked the second man, “do I feel like we’re Curly, Larry and Moe?”

  “Because,” said the first man, “we weren’t given decent intel. We have to do that as well as find the stuff.”

  They all fell silent again. Each of them was thinking of events in Afghanistan.

  Then Man Three stirred. “H
ey, One? Did you know Larry Duke?”

  “Why?”

  “Because when you were...interrogating him, I got the feeling you did.”

  “Never met him,” came the clipped response from the first man.

  The other two exchanged glances. Neither was quite sure they believed it. They knew they’d come for the money. What if Man One had a different agenda?

  Chapter Two

  Daniel Duke made his way to the town’s only motel, the La-Z-Rest. It didn’t take him long to recognize the place had probably been here since long before he was born, but it was clean. Compared to a lot of places he’d slept, he wouldn’t have complained regardless.

  He doffed his uniform, putting it into a garment bag and hanging it in the closet. The shirt went into a laundry bag the motel provided. He’d chosen to wear the uniform for his arrival because it acted like a credential all on its own. Now he shed it so he wouldn’t stand out.

  Then he pulled on regular clothes, jeans and a chambray shirt, pretty much what he wore at home. Blending in with the locals was something he’d needed to do at times during his career, and sometimes that blending had required clothes he wasn’t used to wearing. This was easy by comparison.

  He felt he’d gotten a reasonable first concession from the sheriff. He hadn’t expected to take part in the official case, but he hadn’t wanted to be totally hampered, either. He might have a minder in Cat, and yet as annoyed as she was with the situation—he couldn’t blame her for that—she’d shown signs of coming down off her high horse.

  Looking back over their initial meeting, in retrospect he saw that he had probably come across as critical of her department. He was a naturally blunt man because he needed things to be clear when managing his own troops. On the other hand, he knew how to play political games when required. Until recently he’d been on an accelerated path up the command ladder, probably destined for a star on his shoulder one day.