by Kathy Altman
“A rookie, huh?” Charity rested an elbow on Mo’s shoulder and turned her head toward his. The piece of toilet paper stuck to his freshly-shaved neck would have earned a smile if she hadn’t known how much it would offend him. “How can you tell?” she asked.
“See the drip marks? The uneven patches of paint? Even in a hurry, that doesn’t happen to the pros.” He shifted in the chair, and she straightened. Mo slid his wallet out of his back pocket, stood, and plucked out a dollar bill. “Soda?”
She shook her head, eyes back on the screen. “But not all kids are automatically experts at graffiti.”
“True.” He backed toward her office door. “They learn faster, though. My gut’s telling me an adult did this.”
“I respect your gut.” Charity rounded her desk, reached for his arm and squeezed. “Thanks, Mo. For everything. Could you please pick this up again tomorrow? See if you can find any similarities between this and the damage done to my car and Scott Langford’s front porch?”
He nodded, brandished the dollar bill and turned to leave.
“Wait.” When he turned back, she bit her lip. “I appreciate you coming in like this at the last minute. Tapping into the surveillance network is something I’ve never had to do. On my own, I mean.”
“One of the regulators could have handled it for you.”
“You’re right. I thought of you first.” Charity glanced back at her desk, and the empty Pop-Tart wrapper topping a stack of files. “I didn’t even feed you like I promised. I’ll fix that tomorrow. And, listen, calling you in tonight doesn’t have anything to do with politics. You know that, right?”
Mo grunted. “What I know is your Camry got trashed and you’re looking for vengeance.”
“True.” Did her smile look as pathetic as it felt? “When you find the culprits, let me know. I’ll be waiting with a bucket of flamingo paint.”
Mo left to get his soda, and Charity started the list of local truck owners she’d meant to put together after spotting the pickup outside Kate’s house. Brenda June appeared in her doorway, her face nearly as white as Mo’s teeth.
Charity’s lungs crumpled. “What’s happened?”
“Allison Young.” Brenda June jerked at her bubblegum sweater, wrapping it tighter around her waist. “She tried to kill herself.”
Chapter Thirteen
For the second time in as many days, Charity found herself in the emergency room at Twin Rivers Hospital. She rounded a corner, and her heart dropped to her knees. Kate sat doubled over in an armless chair, head down, arms wrapped around her shins, the ends of her stringy blond hair grazing the floor.
Oh, no. Oh, please.
“Kate?” Charity touched the other woman’s shoulder. “Is she all right?”
Slowly Kate sat up, and stared at Charity out of bleary eyes. “They pumped her stomach.”
“But she’ll be okay?”
“They said yes.”
“That’s good.” Charity exhaled, and sank down onto the chair beside Kate’s. She squeezed Kate’s hand, but let go when the other woman stiffened.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Kate said. “This is not that. This could never be that.”
Charity wasn’t so sure. She nodded at a passing nurse and shifted sideways in her chair, keeping her gaze trained on Kate’s face. “Can I get you anything?”
Kate shook her head.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Kate drew in a trembling breath. “She took Demerol. Ham—Dr. West prescribed it after my knee surgery last year. I never thought about getting rid of it. I never thought it would be a problem. I didn’t even know she’d come home.”
Charity waited until Kate had finished blowing her nose. “Did she leave a note? Any indication of what made her take those pills?”
Another shake of Kate’s disheveled head.
“Drew said he talked with Allison the night he got out of lockup. Did she seem upset afterward?”
“Yes, but she feels things so strongly. I don’t…this isn’t Drew’s fault.”
Charity had an unhappy feeling Drew would see it differently. “What happens now?”
“They assigned a staff member to sit with her. There has to be someone within six feet of her twenty-four hours a day. They searched her and…said they couldn’t give her sharp utensils to eat with.” Kate covered her face with her hands.
“Would you like me to stay with you a while?”
“No.” Kate’s head came up so quickly, Charity reared back. “This is something Allison and I need to work through together. I won’t repeat my mistake of not paying enough attention. We don’t need anyone else.”
Charity fought a ridiculous surge of envy. If only her own mother had felt the same.
Not about you, Bishop.
There was no sense in telling Kate there would be a number of people involved in this situation. Especially if it turned out Allison had had something to do with Sarah’s death.
“If you need anything, or if you think of anything else we should know, please call.” Charity stood. “As soon as Allison feels up to it, I’ll need to talk with her.”
Kate had resumed staring at the floor.
Charity had her cell in her hand and was dialing before she’d even cleared the hospital doors. When Grady answered, relief sapped the strength from her knees. She plopped down onto a nearby bench.
“About time you called me back,” he growled. When she didn’t—couldn’t—respond, his voice went up an octave. “Char? You okay?”
“Yes.” Then her throat went thick, and she barely managed a “Hold on” before squeezing her eyes shut and forcing her lungs to do their thing. In, out. In, out. The cold air sharpened the ache in her throat, but gradually the hot grip of misery loosened. When she thought she could talk without blubbering, she held the phone back up to her ear. “I’m at the hospital.”
“Why?”
“It’s not me,” she said quickly, ashamed by the thrill his worry gave her. “It’s Allison Young.”
While she explained what had brought her back to the hospital, she found herself yearning for the steady warmth of Grady’s arms.
“Christ.” He was silent for a while, then, “You don’t think she did it, do you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She got to her feet and started lapping the bench. “It could be despair over Drew. Or guilt because it was her property that was used as the murder weapon.”
“What can I do?”
Behind her, the hospital doors swished open. A lanky old man sauntered out, gave her a weary smile and lit up a cigarette. She smiled back, wondering if he realized how much he resembled a pool cue after it had been chalked. Tan shoes, tan slacks, tan jacket—all topped with a powder blue driving cap.
“Charity?”
She walked along the sidewalk, into the darkness, away from the cigarette smoke and the pain on Kate Young’s face. “There’s nothing you can do, but thanks for asking. Really. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
Silence, as they both digested the fact that she’d reached out to him.
“You’re blaming yourself,” he said. “I can hear it in your voice.”
Well, yeah, because what if suspicion alone had been enough to send Allison over the edge?
She paused beside a shaggy pine tree, leaned back, and blinked up at the stars. Her vision was too blurry to appreciate them. “She’s just a kid.”
“She’s in the right place to get the help she needs.”
“I know.” She straightened, reached for the tree with her free hand and pinched off several needles. Rolling them between her thumb and forefinger released a sharp, sweet scent. “I need to get back out on patrol.”
“You’re not done with your shift?”
“I’ll be fine.” She sprinkled the pine needles onto the sidewalk. “Besides, it seems I have a guardian angel.”
A long pause. “You met Leon.”
“I met Leon.” Charity headed fo
r her SUV.
“You don’t sound mad.”
“I was at first.” She pulled out her keys and pressed the unlock button, and found herself cheered by the vehicle’s answering tones. “Then I decided it was kind of nice, having someone look out for me. Until he gets in my way, that is. Besides, I’m betting it was enough of a challenge for you, settling for requesting a quote from Muscoe’s instead of having J.T. go ahead and install that security system.”
“You have no idea.”
She climbed into the driver’s seat, leaned back, and closed her eyes. “Still, I don’t suppose it’ll do any good to ask you to call Leon off.”
“You know me well.”
“I used to,” she said, too tired to regret the wistfulness in her voice.
He went silent, then, “I don’t hate Christmas anymore.”
“Where did that come from?”
“I’m helping you get to know me. You remember how much I dreaded Christmas, right? My folks stayed wasted the entire month of December. Matt changed all that. I even learned how to make those cornflake and marshmallow things. You know, dyed green to look like holly? You’re supposed to put those cinnamon candies on top, but Matt insists we use red M&Ms.”
“That’s sweet,” she said. She couldn’t help a smile, even as she pressed a thumb and forefinger against the burn behind her eyelids. “I’m glad for you.”
“Your turn.”
She bit her lip. She didn’t like this. Didn’t like sitting in the cold, quiet dark, sharing an intimate conversation with the man she’d once given way too much power to. A man whose strength and heat she missed even more than Pop-Tarts Crunch, a cereal that should never have been discontinued.
“What are we doing?” she whispered.
“Distracting you.”
She huffed a silent laugh. Hadn’t he distracted her enough?
“Char?”
The hope in his voice did her in. “Fine.” She thumped the back of her head against the headrest as she considered. Oh, right. “I learned how to ride a horse.”
“You what?” Grady’s amazement came through, loud and clear. “You were terrified of horses. Whenever I took you by the stables, you’d stay in the car.”
“Pathetic, right? But I made friends with this guy at the police academy whose family owned a ranch. The guy who broke my nose, actually. When he found out I couldn’t ride, he insisted on teaching me, as an apology. I was too stubborn to tell him the idea scared the crap out of me, so…I learned to ride. But only well enough to use my knees to stay on instead of my hands wrapped around the saddle horn.”
“You always were strong. You had to be. But that…that’s fucking formidable. I’m proud of you, Char.”
The earnestness of his words warmed her like a full-body hug. “Thank you,” she managed. She sat up, and started the SUV. “I have to go.”
“I’m glad you called.”
“I’m glad you picked up.”
“Good night, Char.”
“Good night, Grady. And thank you. For Leon, and for…making me feel important.”
He cleared his throat. “You are important. And not just to me.”
She was starting to think she could believe that. She thought back to the lady who’d thanked her at Jerzy’s. Maybe she had a chance of winning this election, after all.
If she could solve Sarah’s murder.
“Good night,” she said again. She stared down at her phone for a long time before turning on the heat and dialing Brenda June.
* * *
By six the following morning, Charity was practically whimpering at the thought of her bed and all the crisp, cozy percale goodness it promised. She’d just finished inspecting the holding cells and high-fiving herself because toilet duty was so much more pleasant if the toilets weren’t actually being used when Sheriff Pratt caught up with her.
She smiled a wary good morning. “You’re here early.”
“I wanted to catch you before you left.”
“I updated the murder file and put it on your desk. Dix questioned Drew Langford yesterday. He recognized the ear buds as belonging to Allison but didn’t know they’d been missing. Our biggest lead is a real estate scam Sarah planned to expose. Dix is out double-checking a couple of alibis.” She faltered.
Pratt wasn’t looking impressed. In fact, he was looking downright mean. He motioned for her to follow him into his office, and shut the door.
The longing for her bed increased, but now she wanted to hide under it. “What’s up?”
“I need you back here at four. You’re scheduled to appear before an investigative panel.”
“I’m what?” She needed a chair. She settled for leaning against the door. “What for?”
“The fact that you don’t know is a big part of the problem.”
“Does this have anything to do with the election?”
“The election?” He laughed, and it was a jarring, miserable sound. “You’ll be lucky if they don’t ask you to turn in your badge.”
Oh, dear Lord. “This is about Grady West.”
“It’s about the entire goddamned West family. You bring Grady West into the investigation when there’s an obvious conflict of interest, you speak to Judge Purl on Matthew West’s behalf—hell, you even get yourself assigned as the kid’s community service mentor—you don’t bother to charge Justine Langford with the DUI she deserves, and you buy her son milkshakes and question him at his own convenience while managing to ignore he’s a person of interest in a murder investigation.”
She didn’t know what to say. There was nothing she could say.
“And the last goddamned straw? Your bullshit paperwork skills are setting a felon free. A felon who just happens to be related to you.”
That jolted her upright. “What?”
“Your arrest forms for Hank. Incomplete. The deadline passed. Know what that means? It means he can’t be charged with possession of a stolen firearm. It means you’ve successfully saved your brother from serving time in a maximum security prison. It means if this becomes public knowledge, you’ve blown the election. That’s on top of ruining the department’s reputation.”
“Clarkson.” Charity’s chest and throat were on fire, her head dizzy with horror and shame. Nausea writhed in her belly and her vision blurred. How? How could she have made such a mistake? “Sheriff, I don’t know what to say, I…oh, damn it, damn it…I can’t believe I…” She crossed her arms and dug her fingers into her biceps, praying the pain would distract her from a hot surge of tears. She swallowed hard. “What can I do to fix this?”
Pratt shook his head, his disappointment so much worse than his anger. “The panel convenes at four in my office.” He turned away, reaching for something on his desk, dismissing her. “Don’t be late.”
* * *
She didn’t even try to sleep. Her head spun as she considered over and over the countless implications of the biggest fuck-up of her life. Hank would get away with felony theft, and once he’d served time for the DUI, he’d be back behind the wheel, and maybe this time he’d kill someone. Dix, Mo, Flunker, and Tim and the other regulators—no one, not the public or the courts or other law enforcement agencies would trust their judgment from here on out, and they’d end up paying again and again for her mistake. Bloom, too, because Sheriff Pratt would be retiring in disgrace.
Brenda June may never speak to her again.
Worst of all, Pratt would realize he should never have taken that risk on Charity’s behalf all those years ago when she’d been caught slashing Roberta West’s tires. He should have pursued the charge of vandalism and let her serve her time in jail.
No. Wait. There was something worse. Grady would see her for the loser she really was. But hadn’t that been inevitable?
I’m proud of you, Char.
With a groan, Charity set aside her orange juice and stood up from the kitchen table. Enough already. Pity wouldn’t get her anywhere but back in her pajamas with cookie crumbs clinging to
her chest. If Pratt and his panel ended up putting her on suspension—and she didn’t see that they had any choice—then she might as well get as much work done as she could beforehand. Dix would be working the murder today, so she’d work on running herself down a vandal. She’d start with Lucas. It was doubtful her brother had anything to do with what happened at the school—why should he care about field trips to the zoo?—but he might know who did.
After a quick call to the hospital to check on Allison—the nurse said she was doing as well as could be expected, thank goodness—and a belated call to Grady to let him know what had happened—with more time spent thanking her good fortune that he didn’t pick up—Charity headed for her bedroom and a change of clothes. Her uniform was not popular with the rest of the Bishop family.
Twenty minutes later, she stood on the porch of her childhood home. Lucas must have found time to make repairs, because the floor no longer sagged, but the rest of the house seemed to droop like a Jell-O salad left under a picnic sun. There was more clutter than grass in the yard, and the chickens apparently spent a lot of time on the front walk.
The sharp smell of fresh paint was oddly cheering, until Charity’s mother answered the door, expression scrunched with anger. “They let Hank go yet?”
Charity jammed her hands in the pockets of her jeans to keep herself from shaking Eve Bishop into sanity. Solemnly she regarded the woman who stood before her, gray hair bobby-pinned out of her face, thin hands clasped at the breast of a housecoat dotted with cigarette burns.
“He’s not going to get out for a while, Eve.” Though a hell of a lot sooner than he deserved.
Her mother sagged against the jamb. “What am I going to do without him?”
Charity didn’t get it. What did Hank do but eat Eve’s food, smoke her cigarettes, and steal crap so he could afford to gas up the pickup he shouldn’t be driving?
“You have Lucas,” Charity said. Neither of them expected her to offer up herself as a means of comfort.
“Dumb as dirt,” her mother grumbled. “And half as fun as Hank.” She reached back inside the house and snatched up a beer from the table by the door.
As she tipped it back, Charity noted with shock the fat tears catching on the wrinkles in her mother’s cheeks. Eve never cried. Screamed, raged, begged and bullied, but tears?