True Confessions

by Rachel Gibson

  With a flourish, Hope signed the bottom of her statement and left the room. She handed Hazel the folder and watched her skim it.

  “Lord help us,” Hazel said and flipped it close. “If the prosecutor needs anything else, he’ll be in touch.”

  Hope glanced at the empty hallway one last time before leaving. Without looking back, she walked past the information desk and out the front door. But as she moved down the sidewalk and around to the parking lot, she felt somehow let down. She’d anticipated… what? Friendly conversation? A repeat of last night? Something.

  A door on the side of the building opened and she glanced over her shoulder. Dylan stood at the top of the steps, his gaze directed at the duty belt he buckled at his waist. Without taking her eyes from him, Hope shoved her car key into the lock and watched Dylan walk down the concrete steps, his long legs closing the distance between them. He clipped some sort of microphone to the epaulet on his right shoulder. His full attention returned to adjusting his belt and he didn’t notice her. She couldn’t see his face for the shadow created by his black Stetson, but he appeared much as he had the first time she’d seen him. His tan dress shirt with the permanent creases sewn up his flat abdomen and chest. Star on one pocket, name badge on the other. Those tan trousers with the brown stripes up the sides. Hope had never been a sucker for a man in uniform, but she had to admit, Dylan made it look good. Then again, he made Levi’s look good, too.

  Her stomach did that weird little flutter thing again, and she reminded herself that she’d forgotten to eat. She’d been working and hadn’t eaten breakfast. Plus, she’d drunk about a pot of coffee. Hope opened the car door and he must have heard that, because he finally glanced up.

  He paused by the left front fender of her car and looked at her from beneath the brim his hat. The corner of one eye was swollen and black-and-blue. “Hey, there, how are you feeling today?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, but you don’t look so good.”

  “You should see Emmett.”

  “Pretty bad?”

  “He got what he deserved.” Dylan walked toward her, moving close until only the car door separated them. The man didn’t seem to know the rules of personal space. “I’m surprised to see you before noon,” he said.

  Hope looked into his green eyes staring at her. Being the focus of his intent gaze was a little disconcerting, and she wrapped her hands around the top of the doorframe. “Why, because I’m working?”

  “No, because of your hangover.”

  “I wasn’t that drunk.” When he simply kept staring at her, she confessed with a shrug, “Well, maybe a little, but I have to be worshiping at the porcelain shrine before I get a hangover.”

  “Lucky you.” With the tip of his index finger, he pushed back his Stetson. “What are you busy working on today? Your flora-and-fauna article for that Northwest magazine?”

  “Actually, this afternoon I’m going to take pictures of the area.”

  His gaze slid to the front of her shirt, framed in the car window. “Dressed like that?”

  “I thought I’d change.”

  He placed his hands beside hers on the doorframe and slowly raised his eyes back up to her face. “Where are you going to take your pictures?”

  “I’m not real sure. Why?”

  “ ‘Cause I don’t want to get another call like last night.”

  “Are you saying last night was my fault?”

  “No. I’m saying you have a talent for trouble, and maybe you should just stay close to home for a while.” His hands brushed the outsides of hers and she felt his touch clear to her elbows.

  She stood a little straighter and tried to ignore the sensation. “Maybe you shouldn’t think you can tell me what to do.”

  “And maybe you should do something about that smart mouth.” He leaned closer. “I’ve never said this to a woman, and it’s just an opinion.” He paused, and she thought he might kiss her, but he didn’t. “Maybe you should consider becoming an alcoholic. You’re a lot nicer when you’re loaded.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff. But in the future, when I want your opinion, I’ll ask you for it.”

  “Really?” A slow, evil smile curved his mouth. “Honey, are you going to ask me on the bone phone, or should I make other plans?”

  Hope felt her brows pinch together. That phrase was not only offensive but juvenile. She hadn’t heard it since college, when she and her friends used it to refer to oral sex. She opened her mouth to tell him to grow up, to tell him real men didn’t talk to women like that; then she recalled in perfect detail their conversation last night about the busty blonde in the Buckhorn.

  She made a long, mental groan and quickly climbed into her car. “You should make other plans,” she said and tried to shut the car door.

  Dylan easily held it open. “Just in case, do you want my number?”

  She gave one hard tug and he finally let go. Without a word, she fired up the Porsche and shoved it into reverse. She already had his number and it was 666.

  Hope pulled the Porsche into the parking lot behind the Gospel Public Library. She hadn’t written anything nonfiction in a while, but the first place she always liked to start was with old newspaper articles. It wouldn’t hurt to check and see what the library had stored on the late Sheriff Donnelly. Shelly had seemed hesitant to talk about Hiram, and Hope didn’t know anyone else in town-except Dylan. There was no way she’d ask him for anything. Not now. She didn’t want to be within a mile, let alone speaking distance, of him. Not after he’d told her she should become an alcoholic. And especially not after the way she’d humiliated herself the night before. Her cheeks still burned when she remembered what she’d said, which had always been her biggest problem with booze and why she rarely got tanked. She thought she was funny when she wasn’t.

  If she wanted information, she would have to rely mostly on FBI files. It could take a while for them to comply, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted to write an unsolicited article. That was a lot of work for no guarantee, and even if she did decide to write it, she didn’t know what angle she would use-if she would slant it more toward a publication like Time or People. But the more she discovered about the old sheriff, the more intrigued she became. How had he gotten caught? And exactly how much money had he embezzled? Last night Dylan had mentioned something about videos. Had they been circulated through town? What was on them, and who’d seen them?

  The Gospel Public Library building was about the size of two double-wide trailers stuck end to end, and the compact windows let in very little natural light. The inside was crammed with shelves and tables, and the front desk was piled with books. Regina Cladis stood behind the desk, her white hair a perfect dome on her round head. She studied several Goose Bumps books held close to her face, then shoved her Coke-bottle glasses down her nose and turned her head to study the covers out of the corner of one eye.

  “Wash your hands before you open these,” she admonished three boys as she pushed her glasses back up her nose. “I don’t want any more black fingerprints on the pages.”

  Hope waited until the boys had left with their books before she approached the desk. She looked into the librarian’s enormous, slightly out-of-focus brown eyes and noticed Regina’s irises were huge and cloudy.

  Hope figured the woman had to be legally blind, at the very least. “Hello,” she began. “I need some information, and I was hoping you could help me.”

  “Depends. I can’t check out library materials to anyone who hasn’t resided in Pearl County for less than six months.”

  Hope had been expecting that. “I don’t want to check out library materials. I’m interested in reading local news reports from five years ago.”

  “What specifically are you interested in reading?”

  Hope wasn’t certain how the town would react to an outsider poking into its business, so she took a deep breath and just jumped right in. “Anything associated with the late Sheriff Donnelly.”

  Regina blinked, shoved her
glasses down her nose, then turned her head and looked at Hope out of the corner of her eye. “Are you the California woman living in Minnie’s old house?”

  Such intense scrutiny was more than a little unnerving, and Hope had to force herself not to back away. “Minnie?”

  “Minnie Donnelly. She was married to that no-good Hiram for twenty-five years before the good Lord called her home.”

  “How did Mrs. Donnelly die?”

  “The cancer. Uterine. Some say that’s what sent Hiram over the edge, but if you ask me, he was always a pervert. In the third grade he tried to touch my heinie.”

  Hope guessed she no longer had to wonder if people would talk to her.

  Regina pushed her glasses back up. “What do you want with the news reports?”

  “I’m thinking of writing an article about the old sheriff.”

  “Have you ever published anything?”

  “Quite a few of my articles have appeared in magazines,” Hope answered, which was the truth, but it had been a long time since she’d had anything appear in more mainstream publications.

  Regina smiled and her eyes got even bigger. “I’m a writer, too. Mostly poetry. Maybe you could look it over for me.”

  Hope groaned inwardly. “I don’t know anything about poetry.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. I also wrote a short story about my cat, Jinks. He can sing along with Tom Jones to ‘What’s New, Pussycat?’”

  Hope’s silent groan turned into a throat cramp. “You don’t say.”

  “It’s true, he really can.” Regina turned to a file cabinet behind her. She took a key from a rubber bungee cord around her wrist and, feeling for the lock, opened a file drawer. “Let’s see,” she said as she pushed her glasses to the top of her head. “That would have been August of ‘95.” She stuck her face into the drawer and studied several small white boxes at close range. Then she straightened and handed Hope two rolls of microfilm. “The projector is over there,” she said, pointing to a far wall. “Copies are ten cents apiece. Will you need help with the projector?”

  Hope shook her head, then realized Regina probably couldn’t see her. “No, thank you. I’ve had lots of experience with these things.”

  It took Hope a little under an hour to copy the newspaper articles. Because of the grainy projector screen, she didn’t take the time to read them. She skimmed mostly, and from what little she saw, it seemed the late sheriff had been involved in several fetish clubs he’d found via the Internet. Over the course of a few years, he’d embezzled seventy thousand dollars to meet with other members. He’d met with them in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, and toward the end, his taste in girls had gotten younger and more expensive. In the last year of his life, he’d become so careless he’d paid for a few of them to come to his house. What Hope found most surprising was that for all his recklessness, no one in town knew a thing until his death. Or did they?

  One name that drew her attention to the fuzzy screen every time it appeared was Dylan’s. He was always quoted as saying, “The FBI is investigating the case. I have no information at this time.” Luckily for the reporters, the other deputies hadn’t been so tight-lipped.

  When Hope finished, she gathered her Xerox copies and returned the microfilm. It was just after noon by the time she drove to Timberline Road, but she hadn’t been home two minutes when the doorbell rang. It was her neighbor, Shelly, and she had something on her mind.

  “You know,” Shelly began, “I haven’t had a neighbor for a long time now, and I guess I was hoping that we could be friends.”

  Hope looked at Shelly standing there on the porch, her head cocked to one side, a few stray sunbeams turning her hair copper. She had no idea why her neighbor was so upset. “We are,” she said, although she didn’t think one lunch automatically made people friends.

  “Then why did Dylan have to tell me about what happened to you at the Buckhorn?”

  “I haven’t had time to tell you,” Hope answered, even as she wondered if Shelly was really seeking friendship or just wanted information about what had taken place the night before. “When did you talk to Dylan?”

  “This morning when he dropped Adam off. He has quite a shiner. Emmett Barnes is a scary guy and you could have been really hurt.”

  “I know, but a man named Hayden Dean stepped in. If it weren’t for him, Emmett would have hit me.”

  “Probably, but those Deans aren’t much better, believe me.”

  “Really? I was going to try and find out where Hayden lives so I could see how he’s feeling today.”

  Shelly shook her head. “Stay away from those people. I think Hayden is his own first cousin.” One red brow lifted. “If you know what I mean.”

  Hope smiled, no longer caring if Shelly wanted friendship or information. It had been so long since she’d stood around gossiping with another woman, she’d forgotten how much she missed it. “Do you want to come in? I think I might have a diet Pepsi.”

  “Diet? Do I look like I need a diet?” asked the neighbor who looked like she’d had to lie down to get her Wranglers zipped up. “I don’t diet.”

  “I might have some tea.”

  “No, thanks. Wally and Adam and I were just headed down to the lake for a late picnic. Why don’t you join us?”

  Hope had a million and one things to do. Finish her alien story, take photographs of the area, have them developed at the one-hour photo place in town, scan them into her computer, then transpose some aliens into pictures. She had to read over the articles she’d xeroxed at the library, and she had to decide if there was a story in there somewhere. One that hadn’t been told before.

  Her eyes felt scratchy, her brain mushy. A few hours lying on the beach, emptying her head, and chatting about anything but work sounded like heaven. “Okay,” she said. “Give me ten minutes.” As soon as Shelly left, Hope ran upstairs and peeled out of her clothes. She washed her face and shaved her legs. Her blue-and-green tie-dyed one-piece was cut high on her hips, and she liked it because it made her legs look long. She grabbed an old picnic basket she found in the pantry and checked for petrified rodents. It was clean and she tossed in a few diet Pepsis, grapes, crackers, bleu cheese, and her Minolta camera and case. With a beach towel over one shoulder, a pair of Japanese flip-flops on her feet, and her sunglasses covering her eyes, she headed to the lake.

  Adam and Wally were already in the water, while Shelly relaxed beneath the shade of ponderosa pines. She sat on the beach in a chaise longue, drinking a Shasta Cola and chowing on barbecued potato chips. She wore a Hawaiian print halter with a matching swimming skirt.

  “We brought extra sandwiches if you’re hungry,”

  Shelly offered as Hope sat in the chaise next to her neighbor.

  “What kind of sandwiches?”

  “Peanut butter and jelly, or ham and cheese.”

  “Ham and cheese sounds good.” Hope sat, straddling the lounge chair. The metal frame warmed the insides of her thighs as she placed her picnic basket between her knees. “I brought some fruit and some cheese and crackers,” she added as she opened the basket.

  “Is it squirt cheese?”

  “No, bleu.” Hope spread the cheese on a cracker, plopped a grape on top, then bit into it.

  “Ahh…no, thanks.”

  Hope glanced at Shelly, who was watching her as if she were eating entrails. “It’s really good,” she said and popped the last of the cracker into her mouth.

  “I’ll just take your word for that.”

  “No way. I ate your cooking, now you have to eat mine.” Hope fixed Shelly a cracker and handed it to her.

  “This is your idea of cooking?” She looked doubtful, but she took it anyway.

  “It is these days.”

  Shelly bit into it, chewed carefully, then declared, “Hey, this is better than I thought.”

  “Better than squirt cheese?”

  “Yeah, except for bacon flavor.” Shelly motioned for Hope’s basket and they swapped.

 
; “You can eat anything in there but the peanut butter and grape jelly,” Shelly told her as Hope pawed through the items. “It’s Adam’s and he’s real picky about his jelly. It has to be real smooth, no seeds or anything. Dylan has to make his sandwich special for him.”

  Hope chose a ham and cheese made with the kind of soft white bread she hadn’t had since she was a kid, and greasy potato chips. “Where is Adam’s mother?” she asked as if she weren’t dying to know.

  “Most of the time she lives in L.A.,” Shelly answered as she plopped a grape on top of a mound of bleu cheese. “But when she has a visitation with Adam, they stay somewhere in Montana.”

  “That’s unusual.” Hope popped the top to a can of orange Shasta and raised it to her lips. “Usually it’s the father who has visitation.”

  Shelly shrugged. “Dylan’s a good daddy, and when Adam needs female influence, he goes and stays with his grandma and aunt at the Double T. And, of course, a lot of the time he stays here with me and Wally when Dylan is working.” Shelly bit into the cracker, then asked, “Do you have children?”

  “No. No children.” Hope waited for either the puzzled frown to wrinkle Shelly’s brow or the oh-you-poor-thing look to cross her face. Neither happened.

  “This stuff is addicting,” Shelly said while fixing herself another cracker.

  Hope relaxed in the chaise and ate her lunch. She watched Wally and Adam stare intently down, hands poised over the surface of the lake. The meal was greasy and fattening and she polished it off with three Oreo cookies and a piece of licorice. When they traded the baskets back, all that was left in Hope’s basket were a few pitiful grapes still on the vine, the two diet Pepsis, and her camera. She removed the Minolta from its case and pointed it at the two boys diving to catch minnows with their hands. Hope wasn’t a great photographer, but she knew enough to get the shots she needed. She focused the lens and snapped.

  “Are you taking pictures for your flora-and-fauna article?”