In Full Force: Badges of Becker County

by Kathy Altman

  Son of a bitch, that hurt.

  “Okay, Matt.” Charity still sounded exhausted, but at least she sounded happier about it. “Before we go inside, I need to tell you the rules of the range, and I need you to listen.”

  Matt’s head bobbed on his neck.

  “The first rule is that you never take a loaded weapon into the range. In fact, you never carry a loaded weapon at all. I’ve already checked my guns, but I’m going to check them again.” She drew her spare service weapon from its holster. “This is a Sig Sauer three fifty-seven caliber automatic pistol.” She dropped the magazine and racked the slide. “Not loaded.” She put it back into her holster, reached into the duffel bag, and pulled out a revolver.

  “This is a forty caliber Smith & Wesson.” She flipped open the cylinder and showed Matt it was empty, then set the gun aside. She reached once more into the bag. “And this is a nine millimeter Beretta automatic.” As she did with her service weapon, she released the magazine and pulled back the slide. “See? No rounds.” She reversed her actions and repeated them, demonstrating how he needed to keep his hand away from the ejection port to prevent a serious pinch. Again she reversed her actions, and offered the weapon to Matt. “Want to try?”

  He fumbled a bit, replaced the magazine, tried again, and slapped that sucker in like a pro. Grady didn’t know whether to be proud or concerned.

  Matt grinned up at Charity. “Will I get to shoot this one?”

  She bounced a shoulder. “You can fire all three, if you’d like. As long as you follow the rules.”

  Earnestness replaced the delight on Matt’s face. “You never told me the rest of ’em.”

  Charity fought a grin, and Grady fought the urge to wrap his arms around her. “The second rule is to wear eye and ear protection at all times,” she said. “We’ll talk about the others inside. Ready?”

  Grady hadn’t been inside Red Top in years, but it hadn’t changed much. Same lopsided glass-top counter, same peg-boards jammed with goggles and ear protectors and cleaning kits, same dusty shelves crowded with rolls and rolls of paper targets. Same muffled gunshots still loud enough to startle.

  “Grady West. It take you this long to get over that last shoot-off with Charity Bishop?”

  Same wiseass behind the counter.

  “Neely Allan.” Grady shook the outstretched hand. “Good to see you.”

  The old man’s grip wasn’t as strong as it used to be, but his tobacco-stained grin was wider than ever. “Wish I could say the same. You’ve gotten ugly in your old age.”

  “Always did want to be just like you.” Grady could feel Matt staring up at him in shock. He clapped him on the shoulder. “Neely, meet my son. Matt.”

  “Now that’s one good-looking kid. How’d that happen?”

  Charity snorted.

  Grady winked down at Matt. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  Neely leaned over the counter and offered his hand, gaze briefly scanning Matt’s injured eye. “Bet you can out-shoot your dad with one eye closed. Hell, one’s already halfway there. Hope the other fella got it worse.” He was too smart to expect a response. He pulled his hand back and smoothed it over his sparse gray hair. “Ever been to a range before, Matt?”

  “No, sir.” Matt stared at the glass vestibule that separated the range from the storefront. The more thumps and cracks that echoed within the glass, the more Matt’s upper body leaned toward the noise.

  Grady looked at Charity and smiled. Warmth gathered in his belly at the answering curve of her lips.

  “Well, you listen to the deputy here,” Neely said to Matt. “She’ll tell you all you need to know. You want to learn to shoot, you watch her. Like your old man—he never could take his eyes off her. Not that it helped his aim any.”

  Charity pushed up to the counter. “All right, Neely, time to start earning your pay. Give us two sets of ear protection, three targets, and fifty rounds each for my nine millimeter and my revolver.”

  “Done. But Matt here’s gotta fill out some paperwork first. And you all need to sign the logbook.”

  Charity nodded, ignoring Matt’s groan, and reached for a pen. “Bloom around?”

  “He’s out runnin’ errands. Should be back within the hour.”

  While Neely helped Matt fill out a waiver Grady would have to sign, Charity pulled Grady off to the side. “Tell me what you’ve got before Bloom gets back.”

  Peering through the glass at the contents of the cases, Grady slowly led Charity back toward the entrance. He paused at a dusty bookshelf taller than he was, and thumbed through stacks of paper targets. Circles, torsos, squirrels, prairie dogs, buck silhouettes—Neely’s stock hadn’t changed much. Charity moved around to his right, and sidled in close. He enjoyed the sense of solidarity.

  He enjoyed even more the brush of her breast against his bicep when she braced her hands in the small of her back.

  “Sarah Huffman was involved in something shady,” he said, “but only because she wanted to do the right thing. An elderly woman was about to lose her home. This woman went looking for Sarah, who’d approached her before and had told her if she ever wanted to sell, Sarah could get her a good price.” He turned away from the targets and wandered over to a wall display of scopes, Charity right behind him. “The woman ended up signing with one of the other agents when she couldn’t find Sarah. Six months later they’d shown the house twice. One couple was interested, but the agent talked them into buying a different property. The old lady was forced into a short sale.”

  Charity turned away from the scope she was checking out. “Meaning she sold the house for less than what she owed on it?”

  “The mortgage company agreed to eat the difference. It’s not a great solution, but it’s cheaper than foreclosure for both parties.” He leaned closer to a glassed-in riflescope to double-check the price. “Twenty one hundred dollars?”

  “It’s a Swarovski.” Charity eyed it like…well, like Grady eyed her. “It’s waterproof, fog proof, and scratch resistant.”

  Grady looked from her to the scope and back again. “Should I leave you two alone?”

  She snorted, and crouched to examine a different scope, one that looked like it belonged in a Bond movie. Her uniform pants stretched taut across her ass. He remembered her skin being just as taut and before he could get fully lost in the memory, he gave himself a mental shake and got back to the subject at hand. “Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Guess who bought the old lady’s house?”

  Charity straightened, her expression suddenly fierce. “Tarrant?”

  “One of his investment groups.”

  Her eyes went cold. “They sold it for a profit?”

  He pushed at a metal peg jutting from a circular display of gun cleaning supplies, forcing the rack into a lazy spin. “After some basic repairs, they sold it for a significant profit.”

  “Assholes. What did Sarah do when she found out what her boss had been up to?” Charity plopped her hands at the small of her back again. Jesus. Didn’t she realize what that did to her chest?

  Grady distracted himself with a quick calculation of semiannual compound interest on three-year bonds then glanced over at Matt, who was still bent over his paperwork.

  “She went ballistic,” he said. “She tried to convince Tarrant to make it right with the homeowners. When he refused, she threatened to contact Phil Smiley.”

  Charity cocked her head. “But Tarrant already has a negative rep. And even though what he did is far from ethical, it’s not illegal. So why would he care if Smiley trashed him in a small-town paper?”

  “Maybe he didn’t.”

  Her arms dropped to her sides as she considered that. “Are you saying you know someone who would care?”

  He pushed the display rack into another spin. “Guess who’s a member of the investment group.”

  She moved in closer, and stared up at him. Her eyes were looking less haunted than they had out in the parking lot. “Bloom.”

  “He has a lot of
money tied up in his campaign.”

  Charity jammed a hand into her hair and gripped her skull. “You put all of this together by visiting the courthouse?”

  He put out a hand to shush her, and glanced again over his shoulder. “I caught up to Sarah’s other coworker. When she realized how much I knew, she was willing to fill in the blanks.”

  “But we already questioned those two.” She shook her head in disgust. “Doesn’t anyone trust the police anymore?”

  “I may have given the impression I was in the market for a house.”

  “Great. Perfect.” She slapped her hands onto her equipment belt. “Which means word will be out on the street that you and Matt are staying.”

  “What?” Matt popped out from behind Grady and gazed up at him, wide-eyed. “What’s she talking about?”

  “Easy, bud—uh, Matt. We’re just kidding around. Anyway, I thought you wanted to stay.”

  “With Peyton and Drew, yeah.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Grady caught Charity’s flinch. And his kid was only eleven. What the hell would thirteen be like?

  He exhaled. “How about we drop this for now and focus on the reason we’re here.”

  “Good idea.” Neely came around the counter, a set of protective muffs in each hand. “A man’s gotta make a livin,’ so you three need to be shootin’ more than the shit.”

  * * *

  Charity leaned back against the grill of her SUV and stared across the dusk-shrouded plain. A faraway trio of lodgepole pines stood silhouetted against cushiony twilight layers of navy, purple and orange. Wheatgrass rippled under the stroke of a night wind that smelled of sage. Tree frogs exchanged growly chirps and a hoot owl—

  No, wait. That would be her phone.

  “You should be in bed,” Grady said when she answered.

  With you? she wanted to ask, but that wouldn’t be wise in any way, shape, or form.

  “With me,” he added.

  She shivered. Hot, naked skin sliding over cool, silky sheets, hard muscles, and soft laughter, and Grady’s gorgeous mouth—

  “Thanks for working with Matt at the range today,” he said.

  She swallowed. “You’re welcome, though I don’t think he’s eager to repeat the experience. He said he’d rather take shooting lessons from his social studies teacher, who spits when she talks and smells like old potatoes.”

  “He’s eleven.”

  “He’s good at it.” She flinched. Crap. Had she really just quoted Bloom’s favorite movie? “He has an alibi,” she said.

  “Matt?”

  “Bloom. He has an alibi for Sarah’s murder. Tarrant, too.”

  “Maybe they hired somebody.”

  “This seems more personal than that.”

  Brenda June’s nine-hundred-number voice sounded at Charity’s shoulder. “Unit Four, we have report of a ten-one-oh-six at the elementary school.”

  She turned her back on the view. “Grady, I have to go.”

  “What’s a ten-one-oh-six?”

  “Suspicious person. I’ll call you later.” She hung up with Grady and pressed push-to-talk on her mic. “Ten-four, Dispatch. Ten-seventy-seven, twelve minutes. And for God’s sake, Brenda June, is your sister Trudy ever on duty?”

  Charity parked one street over from the school, planning to approach through the trees. This call made the sixth or seventh trespassing report this year. She doubted Turbo or Will had had anything to do with the earlier calls—none of the deputies had ever spotted any damage. And since the boys were still in juvie, they definitely weren’t involved now. If there really was something going on besides the occasional spike in old Mrs. Glammeyer’s imagination, Charity intended to find out what it was, once and for all.

  She called in her position, grabbed her flashlight, and eased out of the SUV. After gingerly shutting the door, she checked her weapon. Five steps into the woods, there was no denying she’d come up with a sucky plan, since she was making enough noise for seven people. And the flashlight didn’t do her stealth factor any favors.

  A killdeer gave her a high-pitched scolding as she stepped out of the woods. She played her Maglite over the side of the school and froze. This was not an old woman’s imagination. This was a hot mess.

  Mo answered on the fourth ring.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” she said.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “All right, I’m not. Can you meet me at the station? I need to see tonight’s security footage for the elementary school.”

  His are-you-fucking-kidding-me pause didn’t last as long as she’d expected. “What’s up?”

  Whispering sounded in the background. Someone giggled, and Charity winced. She was going to owe him, big time.

  “Let me put it this way,” she said. “I also need you to Google how to clean paint off brick.”

  “Shit.” A flapping sound came across the line, as if he’d thrown the sheets back. “I’m on my way.”

  Charity emerged from the woods and was halfway to her vehicle when she spotted a silver compact idling at the entrance to the parking lot. The car was too far away to make the plates. That couldn’t be her vandal…could it? She hopped into her SUV, knowing as soon as her engine turned over, the other driver would peel out and she’d have to make a decision about pursuit. Only…the compact never moved. Even when she pulled up behind it.

  In the glare of her headlights, she saw the driver—a tall, beefy dude—hold up his hands.

  What the hell?

  Five minutes later she was handing back his license, wavering between fury and a reluctant appreciation. “If Grady West hired you to watch over my house at night, why are you here?”

  Beefy Dude, aka Leon, shrugged. “He called, said you were on your way here, and asked me to check on you. I was just getting out of the car when I heard you coming out of the woods. I knew if I took off you’d be right behind me.”

  “Thanks for the save on gas,” she said wryly. “I don’t suppose you sometimes drive a dark-colored truck?” When he shook his head, she sighed. “How long are you supposed to watch my house?”

  “As long as it takes, is what he said.” He scratched his head. “You know he got someone to fix your motion sensors, right?”

  “I do now.”

  * * *

  Mo sat hunched over Charity’s computer while she stood behind him eating the second Pop-Tart from the two-pack they were supposed to share. Ten o’clock, and she should have been off duty hours ago. But Dix had needed time to handle a situation with his wife, and if Mo wasn’t complaining about being yanked away from what he’d alleged had been celestial sex, then Charity certainly shouldn’t complain either.

  Okay, screw that. She hadn’t had sex in months, which meant she had every right to complain.

  “Hey, what are you doing back there? Because it sure as hell ain’t listening.” Mo swiveled around in the chair and scowled up at her. “You’re eating my Pop-Tart.”

  “You ate my cinnamon bun.”

  “That was like, two months ago.”

  “No statute of limitations for cinnamon buns.” She peered down at the screen. “Get anything?”

  He sighed at what was left of the Pop-Tart and scooted back around. “Looks like we have only one tagger.” He pointed at the screen. The image was dark and grainy and the camera’s angle far from ideal, but there was clearly only one figure spraying the side of the building. The slim silhouette emptied two cans of paint before disappearing into the same section of woods Charity had tromped through.

  “Any way we can get a height on him? Or her?”

  Mo shrugged. “I’ll play with it tomorrow, get some footage of someone else and do a comparison. What’s unusual is we have only the one tagger. Generally they work in crews. Pairs at the minimum. One to be the lookout while the other works the cannon.”

  “I assume ‘cannon’ is another word for spray paint can?” she asked dryly. “How old are you again?”

  “Hey.” He swiveled around ag
ain, and snatched what was left of the Pop-Tart out of her hand. Ignoring her squeal, he jammed the square of pastry into his mouth. “It’s not all about the ladies,” he said, his mouth full. “I make time for a book now and then.”

  “Let me guess. You keep your books in a basket by the toilet.”

  “Milk crate. Baskets are girlie.” He turned back to the computer. With a few clicks of the mouse, he brought up the pictures Charity had taken.

  “We’ve already agreed the message looks like an adult trying to set up a kid.” Mo traced the string of bubble-type letters with the tip of his finger. I want to go to the zoo! “Obviously a response to the cutbacks. But kids are all about four-letter words. Like the graffiti at the bus yard. Fuck, shit, prick…words that make ’em feel badass.”

  “Right. There’s no shock value here. Almost as if the tagger didn’t want to upset the kids. Which pretty much puts my brother Lucas in the clear.”

  Mo grunted. “Something like ‘Where’s my fucking fieldtrip?’ would sound more like teen speak. Then there’s the bible reference.” He gestured at the JOB 4:8 dangling off the end of the sentence. “What kid adds a bible reference?”

  Charity read the passage off her phone. “‘Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.’”

  “‘You reap what you sow.’” Mo leaned back in his chair. “A message for the school board?”

  Charity tucked her phone back into its holder on her belt and perched on the corner of her desk. “Maybe it’s a kid smart enough to know how to throw us off.”

  “I don’t think so.” Mo gestured at the screen. “Whoever’s responsible for this throw-up is pure toy.”

  Charity sputtered a laugh. “Now you’re just showing off.”

  “A throw-up is a quick, easy piece, usually two colors like this one—one for the outline and one for the fill.”

  Charity slid off the desk and bent forward to squint at the computer. The letters of the message were outlined in black, and had a lime-green fill. “And what does toy mean?”

  “Inexperienced writer.”