Humpty Bumpkin

by Sam Cheever

  Buck’s gaze slid downward, evading Hal’s direct stare. “Uh. Yeah. Around back.”

  “Do you have security cameras back there?”

  Buck snorted. “I know it must be hard for you city slickers to believe, but the world outside of Gomorrah isn’t draped in cameras that spy on people. This is the country, son. We enjoy true freedom from snoops here.”

  “Security isn’t a dirty word, Mr. Mitzner.”

  I almost laughed. Hal would never sell that notion around Deer Hollow. Our town motto was, “what you see is what you get and if you try to steal it you’ll be chewing on the business end of a rifle before you can say, Miranda rights.”

  “Snooping in other folks’ business sets a bad precedent,” Buck told him with a glance toward the door. “Nothin’ good ever comes of it.”

  “There’s a body over at the hospital morgue that would probably disagree with you, Mr. Mitzner.”

  Buck flinched. “If that’s all, I got someplace to be.”

  “Buck, please. Hal isn’t wrong. The murder on my property has got me spooked. We’re just trying to figure out who was in the chipper so I’ll know if I need to be worried.”

  “Why would you need to be worried, little girl?” Buck’s voice had gone soft, suspiciously friendly.

  I shrugged. “What if the killing was some kind of message?”

  “About what? Have you been using the wrong hair product? Did you steal a pair of shoes out from under someone’s hand at Barley’s last shoe sale?”

  My eyes burned with unshed tears. I’d always suspected he had a low opinion of me. But having it thrown in my face was hard to swallow. “I actually do have real life concerns just like everybody else, Buck. I’m not just an empty headed twenty-four-year-old.”

  He grabbed a notebook off the counter. “Like I said, I need to be somewhere.” He stared at us until I spun on my heel and we left the store.

  But we didn’t leave the lot. By mutual, silent agreement, Hal and I sat in Hal’s car and watched the store until Buck came out a few minutes later. He locked the front door and, giving the lot a quick scan, hurried to his truck and wasted no time jumping into it.

  The store owner left a cloud of gravel dust behind as he drove out of the lot.

  “He’s hiding something,” I told Hal.

  “Yes, he is.” Hal reached for the door handle.

  “Where are you going?” I asked him.

  “To look around back.” He bent down to look through the door at me. “You coming?”

  The space behind the flower building was dotted with piles of gravel and mulch. Weeds grew up along the building and in the areas between the piles. There was an open stretch about fifteen feet from the building and it sported unmistakable signs of having held something mechanical. The rock was rusty in spots, coated in black oil in others, and showed evidence of tire tracks leading away from the oily areas.

  Hal examined the space carefully before glancing my way. “There were clearly three of something parked here. I have no doubt they were chippers like Marcus said.” He frowned.

  “But?”

  He lifted his head, scanning the roofline of the nearby building. “I was really hoping there’d be security cameras.”

  I shook my head. “I’m afraid you’re going to be continually disappointed if you don’t disabuse yourself of that notion, Hal.”

  He nodded. “I’ll try.” Throwing me a grin, he jerked his head toward the car. “Let’s go.”

  HAL PULLED HIS SUV into my long, winding driveway. He’d been thoughtful all the way home. As we climbed the final hill toward the house, he turned to me. “What do you know about the Johnston’s?”

  I shook my head. “They’re a dead end for us. I think Mr. Johnston’s probably close to eighty and she’s not much younger. I don’t see either of them shoving a body into a chipper and dumping it in my woods. Even if they had a reason for doing it they’re not physically capable.”

  “But they rented a chipper.”

  “Mr. Johnston likes to chop up sticks in the yard. But nothing bigger than my wrist. It’s not them.”

  As we neared the house, it suddenly occurred to me that he was going to need a place to stay. “Have you gotten reservations in town yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  Something about the way he said it gave me pause. “You’re not driving back to Indy, are you?”

  “I’d thought about it.”

  I turned away from him, my teeth worrying my bottom lip. I’d only known him for a few hours and purely on a business basis. His and my relationship was bereft of emotion and stripped of personal connection. Yet I felt as if he had quickly become the shield between me and the horror of my situation and I didn’t want him to leave.

  “You can stay at the house if you’d like. It’s a huge house and there’s only me and Caphy.”

  His handsome face altered slightly and I suddenly knew without a doubt that he would say no. I fought a jolt of panic at the knowledge.

  “Looks like you have company.”

  My gaze jerked upward and I saw the big, black car parked before my front door. A man stood on the wide, covered porch, his medium-sized frame wrapped in an ill-fitting dark suit and his face made unrecognizable behind dark sunglasses. His sandy-brown hair was combed from a side part and looked as if it was glued into place. His red tie was too short, his sleeves just a titch too long. “Men in Black,” I murmured, thinking that if the man on my porch wasn’t government I’d eat some of Caphy’s kibble.

  Hal nodded, his expression stoic.

  “I wonder who it is.”

  “We’re about to find out,” he told me as he pulled around the circular drive and parked behind the visitor’s car.

  I looked at the stern expression and the stiff stance of the man who turned toward us, moving slowly down the steps with his hands held loosely at his sides as if he were ready to draw a gun.

  Something ugly rolled in my chest. I recognized it as fear. “I don’t like the looks of him,” I told Hal.

  He inclined his chin and turned to me. “You stay in the car. Let me speak to him first.”

  I felt like a coward but I did as he asked because my instincts were screaming at me to run. As Hal opened his door my hand snaked out without my conscious approval and latched onto his arm with desperation. “Be careful.”

  His smile should have made me relax. He emitted an unconcerned vibe...a wave of confidence that would have been soothing if the man standing at the bottom of the steps hadn’t already pulled his coat open to show me a gun in a holster across his chest.

  I swallowed hard.

  The man fixed me with a hard look, ignoring Hal as he unfolded his long, intimidating length from the car. I understood in that moment, when the visitor’s dark, hostile gaze met mine, that Hal wasn’t going to save me from my fate.

  Whatever that fate might be.

  “Miss Fulle, you need to step out of the car please.”

  I gulped again because I recognized the voice.

  It was the voice from the phone calls. And I didn’t like it better coming directly from the source, than I had when it had simply been a disembodied threat on the phone.

  l

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hal stepped between me and the man, blocking him from my view. His hand slipped around to his back and lifted his shirt, and I felt my eyes go wide as I spotted the gun he’d stuffed there.

  I reached for the door handle as panic flared. I couldn’t let Hal do something we all might regret. Not because I was too much of a sissy to step out and face whoever was standing on my drive.

  I opened the door and launched myself out of the car. “Hal!”

  He didn’t look my way. “Get back in the car, Joey.”

  “No.” I hurried around the front of the SUV and placed my hand on his arm, stopping him from pulling the gun. “That’s not necessary.”

  His gaze was locked on the other man, unwavering and smoldering with hostility. The muscles under my
fingers were rock hard. In the blink of an eye, my easy-going PI had transformed back into the cop he’d once been. I suddenly realized he would have been an excellent cop.

  He certainly had the attention of the gun-toting intruder. That man had pulled off his government issue sunglasses and his dark, beady gaze was locked on Hal, his jaw hard. “This is none of your business, Mr. Amity.”

  I flinched but Hal showed no signs of being surprised that the other man knew his name. He either had a consummate poker face or he knew the guy. “If you want to speak to Miss Fulle you need to hand me that gun first.”

  The man gave his head a quick shake. “That’s not going to happen.”

  From inside the house, Caphy’s joy-filled greeting had changed as thoroughly as Hal’s demeanor. The happy chirp of her welcoming bark had turned deep, more growl than bark, and she was flinging herself repeatedly at the door, desperate to get to me. “Both of you stand down. You’re scaring my dog.”

  The man with his back to my front door flinched as the wood creaked under her dense, muscular weight and he half turned to make sure she was still safely contained. “Miss Fulle, I need you to come with me. I need to ask you some questions.”

  I didn’t hesitate. “I’m not going anywhere with you. And we’re going to start by you answering some questions of mine. Like, for instance, who are you?”

  Caphy slammed against the door again and the frame rattled. The man twitched, his eyes going wide. “I don’t want to hurt your dog...”

  “You hurt a hair on that dog and you’ll be eating dinner through your butt,” Hal growled. In that moment I didn’t know which of my protectors was more dangerous. I only knew that I’d put money on either one of them over the guy standing in front of us.

  “Give Hal the gun. You have no reason to worry about us, but from where we stand we have all sorts of reasons to worry about you. And I won’t be answering any questions until you do it.”

  Caphy slammed against the window and I heard a crack. I looked at Hal. “She’s going to break through and hurt herself.”

  The other man didn’t like the sound of that. He quickly lifted his hands in the air. “I’ll give you my gun. Just call off that beast.”

  I glared at him, stepping around him as he handed the gun to Hal with two fingers. I unlocked my front door and slipped inside, dropping to my knees so Caphy could reassure herself that I was all right. After a moment of frantic face kisses, her tail snapping loudly against the wall and whining sounds of concern coming from her thick throat, I grabbed her leash from the table beside the door and snapped it on. “Be still,” I told her in my serious voice and she dropped to her haunches beside me, her tongue lolling happily.

  I opened the door and fixed Hal with a look, giving him a quick nod. “You might as well come on in. It’s hot out there. I have fresh lemonade in the refrigerator.”

  The man narrowed his gaze at Caphy and her dense throat rumbled in a low growl. “Be still, girl.”

  She stopped, but her pretty green gaze locked on him, her body vibrating with angry excitement. I turned away from the door and walked to the kitchen, Caphy smashed against my side.

  I didn’t look to see if the men followed. Hal wouldn’t come inside without the other man. And there was no way either of them was leaving.

  I had to admit I was curious now that the voice on the phone had intruded on my life. Clearly, he wasn’t just an annoying junk caller. He smelled like government goon to me.

  And that meant whatever he was there about, it wasn’t good. All the doubts I’d wrestled with from the time I was old enough to know I should be worried resurfaced. I’d thought I was done with them when my parents’ plane had taken a nose dive in our back acreage. I should have known better.

  I was aware of when the man entered the kitchen because Caphy’s big body stiffened and a low rumble filled the air. I didn’t correct her again. It wouldn’t hurt the man to understand what he was dealing with.

  Besides, Hal had the man’s gun. He couldn’t do her any harm.

  I placed an icy glass of freshly squeezed lemonade on the counter of my island and nodded toward the stools. “Sit. Talk.”

  He sat but he didn’t reach for the lemonade. His gaze was locked on my dog.

  Hal walked around the island and stood next to me, Caphy between us. I handed him a lemonade and he took a long swig from it, his hand dropping to scratch my dog between her ears.

  Finally, the man must have realized there was only one way to get to the end of the present stand-off. And that was to push right through it. He frowned, dropping his hands to the countertop and staring at them for a moment before he started to talk.

  “I’m Special Agent Richard Cox with the Criminal Investigation Division of the FBI.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Criminal Investigation? Why are you pestering me?”

  He slipped his hand into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a badge, flipping it open for us to view.

  Hal leaned in and examined it closely. “Why is the FBI harassing a private citizen?”

  The man eyed Caphy before giving Hal a snotty smile. “Investigating, Mr. Amity. Not harassing.”

  “Funny,” I said, “it feels like the same thing to me.”

  Cox shrugged. “I wouldn’t have had to come here in person if you’d spoken to me on the phone one of the twelve times I called.”

  Hal skimmed me a look, his brows lifting.

  I looked quickly away. “I don’t take junk calls.”

  Cox shook his head. “I need to talk to you about your parents.”

  I went very still, my body turning to rock. Beside me, Caphy whined, jumping to her feet. Her worried gaze rose to mine and she gave my thigh a lick. I reached down and rubbed a hand over her soft head, wondering if I could get out of the kitchen before somebody stopped me.

  “Miss Fulle?”

  “My parents are dead, Mr. Cox. They couldn’t have done anything for you to investigate. It’s time the government left them alone, don’t you think?”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said softly, catching me off guard. “But, although your parents are gone, the results of their efforts are still very much alive.”

  Hal crossed his arms over his chest. “What results?”

  I looked at him and frowned, giving my head a quick shake.

  He frowned back.

  “Miss Fulle, I don’t think you want Mr. Amity here for this conversation.”

  I bit my lip, unsure if he was right. The last thing I wanted to do was air my family’s dirty laundry with Hal. I couldn’t bear to see the look of doubt or even pity in his eyes when he learned about my shady past.

  Sensing my distress, Hal turned to Cox, taking the heat off me. I could have hugged him for it. Hal stared at the special agent for a moment and then addressed me without glancing my way. “I’ll be right outside the door if you need me.”

  It was all I could do not to grab his hand and hold him there. My fingers even flicked toward his, but in the end, I was more humiliated by the idea of him finding out, than I was afraid of being alone with Cox.

  The agent waited until Hal strode out of the room before turning to me. “I’m sorry, Miss Fulle. I know this is hard. I want you to understand that the FBI is sensitive to your pain...”

  “Cut the crap, Cox,” I told him in a voice that made Caphy growl softly. Her gaze never left him and her densely muscled form was rigid against my leg. I might sometimes be confused about who the good guys and the bad guys were in my life, but my dog never doubted for a moment that I was to be protected at all costs and the man facing me across my own kitchen was the devil straight from Hell.

  I loved her for that.

  Cox threw Caphy a worried look and then adopted a placating tone. “It’s not your fault, Miss Fulle. We know that. But, unfortunately, your parents have put you in a difficult spot. You’re the only one who can help us make this right.”

  “Make what right, exactly.”

  I wa
sn’t playing with him. Though I’d suspected from the time I was old enough to use rational thought, that my parents might be mixed up in something that wasn’t exactly on the up and up, I never knew what that something was. And the one time I’d found the courage to ask, I’d made my father so angry I wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive me for it. I’d learned nothing and I’d fought with the man who’d always had my back. The one man I could always count on to take up for me and love me unconditionally. Only I wasn’t sure if I’d betrayed that love...breaking the one rule he could never forgive.

  He’d died before I could make things right.

  And now Special Agent Cox was asking me to put a fork in my father’s memory, creating even more harm to him in his death.

  “You’re aware your parents were involved in smuggling.”

  I jerked as if slapped. “That’s a lie!”

  Caphy growled, surging to her feet.

  “I’m sorry to upset you,” he said, glancing worriedly at my dog. “But there’s little doubt of it.”

  “Where’s your proof? You people hounded them incessantly for the last two years of their lives. You threatened and accused and made our lives a living hell. But there were no charges, Special Agent Cox. Why was that? If you had proof you would have charged them.”

  “Miss Fulle...”

  “Isn’t that true, Agent Cox?”

  He looked down at the counter, his jaw tight. “We need your help.”

  “My help?” I shrieked. “You want me to help you destroy the only thing my parents have left in this world? Their reputations...their trusted place in this town’s history?” I shook my head. “Get out of my house.”

  Cox rose to his feet. “I don’t want to do this the hard way.” All cajoling was gone. In the place of his formerly understanding demeanor was the jerkish exterior we’d seen outside.

  “Do your worst, Cox. I know you will anyway. I’ve seen how your kind operates. I haven’t done anything wrong and you have no proof they did anything wrong either. Now leave before I release my dog to escort you out.”

  Of course I was bluffing. I wouldn’t risk Caphy’s safety by releasing her. She’d definitely show the agent her displeasure about his being in our home and he’d make sure she suffered for it.