Another Solution (Crowley County Series Book 4)

by T. E. Killian

  Chapter Thirteen

  Monday morning Jason was having a difficult time concentrating on his squad’s reports for the past week. He would read a few lines then his mind would begin to wander again.

  He thought back to yesterday. So many things had happened yesterday and even the last few days that he just couldn’t process all of it at one time.

  He decided that he needed to think about Palmer and this other guy Winslow. He’d left a note in the briefing room for Palmer to come to his office as soon as he arrived. He hoped to talk with the guy before briefing. He needed to know what was going on between Palmer and Winslow.

  At a knock on his door, Jason looked up to see Palmer standing in the open doorway. But before he could say anything, his intercom rang and it was Floyd.

  “Jason, I need to see both you and Palmer in my office right away.”

  Jason looked up at Palmer and said, “That was Floyd. He wants to see both of us right now.”

  Neither man spoke on the short walk to Floyd’s office. Jason took in Floyd’s posture and facial expression as the big sheriff sat behind his desk. He didn’t think this looked good as he and Palmer sat in the chairs in front of Floyd’s desk. Something was wrong. This was too formal.

  Floyd didn’t waste any time getting to the point. He said, “Gentlemen, we have a problem!”

  He leaned forward and looked straight at Palmer. “Larry, we now have a supposed eye witness to the shooting the other day who says that you shot the suspect after he threw his gun down.”

  Floyd leaned back in his chair and watched for reactions. Jason was shocked and quickly looked over at Palmer who wasn’t showing any change in facial expression.

  Finally, he said, “That’s bull! The guy was waving that sawed off shotgun at me so I shot him. That’s exactly how it happened.”

  Floyd ignored Palmer’s outburst and turned to Jason. “Is there anything you can remember that will help here?”

  Jason shook his head. “No. I was busy around the corner with the getaway driver until after the shots were fired. When I came around the corner, the guy was sitting against the wall and Palmer was kicking the shotgun away from him.”

  Palmer gave him a glaring look but Jason shrugged his shoulders and said, “I’m not saying you did or did not shoot an unarmed man. I’m just saying that I didn’t see anything. That’s all.”

  They both looked back at Floyd who was looking at Palmer. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay on Admin leave a little longer until we can get this straightened out.”

  Palmer hit his fist on the chair arm. “I can’t just sit around and hope that someone else gets this straightened out as you called it. I want to be able to investigate it myself.”

  Floyd gritted his teeth then said, “You are officially off duty until further notice. Now both of you get out of here. I’ve suddenly got a lot more work to do now.”

  Jason led the way out through Crystal’s office and motioned for Palmer to follow him back to his office. Once there he pointed at a chair and Palmer sat in it. Jason closed the door before going around behind his desk and sitting too.

  As soon as they were both settled, Jason looked Palmer in the eye and said, “I may be willing to help you.”

  Palmer didn’t comment. He seemed to be waiting for more.

  Jason gathered his thoughts and jumped in. “First, before we even discuss your problem, I have to have an answer from you.”

  He intentionally paused for effect. “Now, I want to know exactly what your relationship is with Ben Winslow.”

  Palmer flinched slightly at the name but otherwise he kept staring back at Jason.

  When the guy didn’t answer right away, Jason stood and said, “Then I guess you’re on your own out there. But if Floyd or I either one catch you doing anything you shouldn’t be doing, you’ll be off the department so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  As he talked, Jason made his way around his desk, past Palmer and opened the door. He stood there for a long moment holding the door open before Palmer finally spoke.

  “All right. Have it your way. Close the door so we can talk.”

  Jason worked hard not to grin as he went back behind his desk.

  Palmer looked at Jason and said, “Ben is my cousin. His mom is my dad’s sister.”

  Okay, Jason didn’t see that one coming but he needed more, much more. So he sat there without acknowledging what Palmer said in any way.

  After another long standoff, Palmer again said, “Okay. All I did before I moved here was ask Ben to keep an eye on Karen for me.”

  Jason still waited. He knew there had to be more.

  “I guess you could say that he got a little carried away with his watching Karen. It seems that the guy’s got it for her in a big way.”

  Finally, Jason thought he’d heard enough. “Okay, now the next question. What did you two talk about in the restaurant parking lot yesterday?”

  Palmer came up out of his seat. “What were you . . .”

  “Hold on Palmer. I’m a cop remember? Not only that but whether you like it or not I’m still your supervisor too.”

  Palmer sat back down and stared at the floor for almost a minute. “He wanted me to get Karen away from you for a little while so he could talk to her.”

  “Why couldn’t he do that at work?”

  “He said that with everybody there knowing about you and her, he couldn’t talk to her the way he needed to.”

  Jason was still tossing all that around when Palmer said, “And before you ask, I told him no. Then he got mad and started yelling at me. That’s when I went back inside the restaurant.”

  That seemed to be close enough for Jason to what he saw. “Yeah, I saw him yelling at you as you walked away from him.”

  Jason let the guy stew for a few more minutes while he tossed some ideas around in his head. The bottom line came out to be, could he trust Palmer? He finally decided to try it for at least a little while and see what happened.

  He turned back to Palmer and looked him in the eye. “I had better be able to trust you. I could at least lose my stripes over this if it doesn’t work out.” He snorted. “It could even cost both of us our jobs.”

  Palmer showed surprise but kept silent.

  “Okay, if you’re willing, here’s what we’re going to do.” He paused and smiled. “You remember the last thing Floyd said before we left his office?”

  When Palmer shook his head, Jason continued, “Well, I’ll refresh your memory. He said that you are officially off duty. Did you catch the extra emphasis he put on the word officially?”

  Palmer’s face lit up and he started to say something but stopped and waited for Jason to finish.

  “I’m going out on patrol officially in a few minutes. Notice that I also put emphasis on that word. Otherwise, I’m going to start investigating your shooting on my own. If you change out of your uniform, keep a low profile, and do everything I say exactly as I say it, I’ll take you along with me.”

  Palmer was clearly shocked now. “You’d do that for me?”

  Jason shook his head. “Don’t get too excited. I’d do the same thing for any other member of my squad if I thought they were in the right.”

  Palmer was quick. “So does that mean you think I’m in the right here?”

  Jason smiled and said, “Let’s just say that I’m giving you a little slack here. It’s up to you to convince me completely.”

  * * *

  Karen was so happy as she was getting ready for work Monday morning that she was humming to herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she was this happy. So many things were just going great. Her mother had actually expressed her approval of her and Jason getting married.

  She had to wonder exactly what Granny had said to her mom. But did it really matter? What mattered was that Vickie Bierstadt left after a visit with Karen in a better mood than when she had arrived. Amazing.

  Sure, some things about her life were still unsettled. Ben was
still bothering her at work. And someone was calling her and had left her a note. If it wasn’t Ben then she had two problems out there to worry about.

  On her way in to work, she continued to hum softly to herself but she still noticed a dark car following her. She couldn’t see the driver except to know that it was a man wearing a cap and big dark sunglasses.

  The car had been following her ever since she turned onto the county road from Granny’s lane.

  She tried speeding up then slowing down but the car stayed the same distance behind her.

  When they entered town and she turned onto the state highway toward the hospital, the car turned also and stayed behind her all the way to the hospital. When she turned in there, it continued on down the highway.

  Coincidence? She didn’t think it was. So she sat in her car in the parking lot and called Jason.

  After she disconnected, she was sorry she called him. He made her promise she would leave her car at her house tonight and let him go back to driving her again.

  Oh well, she had to admit that she would feel safer if she was riding with Jason instead of driving by herself after this incident. It was just so limiting that was all.

  She was closing her car door when the car she’d seen following her drove through the far end of the parking lot and out onto the street again. She hurried into the clinic after that.

  When she walked into the therapy room, she was somewhat surprised to see Ben sitting with a few other therapists. Oh my! Could that mean that she had two men harassing her? She didn’t think that if Ben had been driving the car that was following her, he could have beat her into the building and especially be sitting in a group the way he was.

  Now what?

  Jason! She quickly sat at her workstation and pulled out her cell phone to call Jason again and tell him that it couldn’t have been Ben following her.

  Jason wasn’t too pleased to hear that bit of information though. He said it really complicated things.

  She started work in a rather confused state of mind.

  After her nine o’clock, she called Daisy who was as always eager to go to lunch with her.

  Now, she just had to keep her mind on her work and make it through the rest of the morning. She just knew that Daisy and maybe even Jo or Sue Ann would be able to help her deal with this new development.

  It was almost like déjà vu when she came out of the restroom at midmorning. There was Ben again. And he was blocking her path again. This was certainly starting to get old.

  She decided that he wasn’t going to push her around this time. She stuck her finger in his face and said, “If you don’t move right now, I’m going to scream and then I’m going to the sheriff’s office to get an order of protection against you.”

  He stepped back a bit. His face turned red but she could tell that she had not only shocked him but her outburst had moved him just enough for her to quickly brush past him.

  After that, she would look up every once in a while to see him glaring at her from across the big room. Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure that what she’d done before had been all that wise after all. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to make Ben angry.

  That was when she wished she had someone at work that she could sit and really talk to. But there was no one. None of the other women there were Christians or at least they didn’t act or talk as if they were. It hadn’t taken her very long to grow tired of the inane conversations the other women had about clothes and boyfriends.

  She just didn’t fit in with the rest of the therapists there. She suddenly felt lonely. But that feeling only lasted a short time before she remembered she was going to lunch with three of the nicest strong Christian women around.

  Those thoughts kept her going for the rest of the morning.

  As she was finishing with her eleven o’clock, Jason and Larry appeared just inside the swinging door from the front.

  She motioned for them to come over to where she was so she could continue putting her equipment away. As they were approaching, she couldn’t help but think about the fact that these two men were together. That was when she realized that Larry wasn’t wearing his uniform but Jason was. What could that mean?

  Jason stepped up to her and she knew he wanted to kiss her for she wanted to kiss him. But he only grinned at her and said, “Hi Karen. I’m glad I got to see you this morning but we’re actually here to see Ben Winslow.”

  She smiled back at him and was about to answer when Larry said, “We’re both cool with each other now Karen.”

  She was so startled that all she could manage to say was, “Good, I’m glad.” And as she said it, she realized she meant it very much.

  She looked around and said, “I’m afraid you just missed Ben. It looks like he already left for lunch.”

  When Jason only frowned, she said, “Are you going to talk to him about his harassing me. If so, you need to know that he tried to trap me in the hallway outside the restrooms again this morning just like last time.”

  Jason growled and said, “No, but it’s beginning to look like that boy doesn’t want me to find him right now.”

  He looked into her eyes and said, “Karen. How much do you know about Winslow?”

  She shook her head. “Not very much I’m afraid. He’s only worked here about a month now. Why?”

  He seemed to be debating about what to say next. Then he said, “Well, I can’t really say right now. We just need to talk to him about some other things.”

  She shook her head again. “I don’t know anything about him and I don’t really want to. But you might try the front. The HR person might be able to tell you.”

  He smiled down at her again and touched her cheek. “Thanks. I’ll see you when you get off work this afternoon. Okay? I’ll follow you over to your house again to leave your car there.”

  “Okay.”

  She watched the two men leave. She couldn’t help but think about the fact that one of them had been her past but the other one was her present and most definitely her future.

  * * *

  When Jason and Palmer left his office earlier, they went to the detective squad room to find out who the new witness was.

  They knocked on Lieutenant Rob Salter’s open door and stepped inside.

  After handshakes all around, Jason said, “Rob, I know I’m not actually in on the investigation of Palmer’s shooting the other day, but we were wondering if you could just give us one bit of information.”

  The tall thin detective sat up straighter and ran his hand through his almost white blond hair.

  “I have a feeling I’m probably going to regret this but what do you need to know?”

  Jason smiled and said, “Just the name of this new witness who’s popped up, that’s all.”

  “That’s all!” Salter shook his head. “You know you can’t be bothering witnesses now, Jason.”

  He grinned back at the man. “Sure I know that and you know I wouldn’t do that, don’t you Rob?”

  Without another word, Rob opened a folder on his desk and while he was looking out the window behind him, turned it so Jason could see a name written on a Post-It note stuck to another paper.

  Jason jumped up and headed for the door with Palmer right behind him. As he passed through the door he called out, “I owe you one Rob.”

  The detective lieutenant’s laughter followed them out into the larger room.

  They took Jason’s Tahoe and Jason only drove a few blocks before pulling over to the curb and turning to Palmer.

  “Does this Ben Winslow, your cousin, have a brother?”

  Palmer was shaking his head even before Jason finished asking. “No, just three sisters. Why?”

  “The name in that file was Dan Winslow spelled the same way.”

  “Oh.”

  Both men were quiet for a few minutes. Then Palmer said, “I don’t know what kind of cousins he may have on the Winslow side. I never met any of them. I think they all live in southeast Kansas somewhere.”

/>   “Great. That’s no help at all right now.”

  Then Jason thought about Karen. “Let’s go see if Karen can help us out.”

  The receptionist just told them to go on back since Karen was probably finished with her last appointment before lunch.

  When Jason went through the door and saw Karen moving around her workstation in those same ugly scrubs that he’d first seen her in a year ago, he had to stop and just stare at her.

  He was almost as shaken this time, as he was that first time. She took his breath away.

  He came back to the present when Palmer elbowed him on the arm and said, “Man do you ever have it bad.”

  Jason turned to look at the guy but Palmer spoke first. “I know I probably don’t have a right to say this but I’m going to say it anyway.” He frowned. “You’d better threat her right.”

  Jason shook his head and grinned back at him. “You’re right. You don’t have the right to say that but don’t worry. I plan on spending the rest of my life treating that little woman more than just right.”

  After they talked to Karen, they stopped out front and weren’t able to gain any more information on Winslow so they left to get lunch.

  Jason was more than a little disappointed that Karen was going to have lunch with her friends. He’d been hoping he could get her to go somewhere with him.

  He turned to Palmer once they were back in his Tahoe. “Want to stop and get some lunch?”

  “Can’t, I’m meeting Brandi at a fast food place near the high school.”

  “Okay.”

  Jason stopped next to Palmer’s car at the station and before he got out, Palmer turned to Jason and said, “You think that since we’re going to be working together that maybe you could start calling me Larry?”

  Jason thought about it for a bit. Did he want to get that friendly with this guy? Why not?

  “Okay, Larry. I’ve got a ton of paperwork to get through this afternoon. Maybe somewhere in between I can get a lowdown on who this Dan Winslow might be.”

  Jason had just pulled out of the compound at the station and had decided to see if he could crash the party at Best Friends when he heard a cracking sound. Then everything went black.