Dead Man Falls

by Paula Boyd

  Turns out, I couldn’t have guessed either, because standing before me, nose to nose, snorting like semi-matching water buffaloes, were Leroy Harper and Harley Danvers.

  Harley was a couple of inches taller than Leroy, but about fifty pounds lighter and all muscle. And if I’d had any doubts about Harley’s parentage, I didn’t anymore. Harley was the body-builder version of the Leroy I once knew.

  A couple of dark-suited name-tagged men had scurried out from the side rooms, but they were both keeping their distance. They didn’t look like they knew what to do any better than I did. Since Harley and Leroy had yet to do anything but snort at one another, I walked over to the nearest staff member and asked for a private room, where we could all chat quietly, out of the way of other guests. That seemed to get them going and they all formed a circle around father and son and urged them into a room. I followed.

  Before I had devised my next move, the door slammed closed behind me and I was left alone with about 500 pounds of irate Harpers. As I got my bearings I realized we were in a viewing room--minus the corpse, thankfully. It had a comfy-looking couch, several chairs and a settee. I went for the settee, figuring I could leap from it and run quicker than from the low-slung couch. I sat down and said, "I don’t know why you two want to kill one another, but you’re in the right place. Go for it. I’ll keep time."

  Both heads spun toward me and matching eyes glared.

  I smiled. "Now, isn’t that nice, you two doing the same thing at the same time."

  They both just stood there like idiots, so I stood up and ordered each of them to opposite chairs. Amazingly, they went.

  Since I had the floor, I proceeded to launch into the condensed version of who was who, and why, and how it wasn’t going to do anybody any good to act stupid about it, blah, blah, blah, both need to act like adults, blah, blah.

  I had just finished with a "You’re a grandfather, for godsakes, you better grow up" speech to Leroy and was launching into a "we can’t change the past" theme for Harley when both double doors banged open.

  Detective Rick Rankin, Sheriff Jerry Don Parker, and probably a dozen uniformed officers stood in the doorway, weapons drawn--at me.

  Okay, I’ll admit I was scared. Really scared. I didn’t move. I didn’t blink. I just stood there, one hand glued to my hip, the other frozen in mid-point.

  "Jolene?" Jerry said, lowering his pistol.

  I still didn’t move, but I did manage to squeak out, "Don’t shoot."

  Rick directed the officers to lower their weapons, and seeing that I had the situation under control, he sent the troops away.

  I let my hands fall to my side and tried to regroup, which was not so easy with Jerry scowling at me. Leroy and Harley were sitting in their chairs, looking like innocent little schoolboys who had been paying attention to the teacher but were now confused by the commotion. Oh, geez. I shook my head. "This was not my fault."

  Chapter 16

  Amazingly, it only took about an hour to explain what had happened, why it had happened and, most importantly, how it wasn’t my fault. I went over that last part several times to make sure Rick and Jerry were real clear on who did what. I wasn’t taking the blame for this one. No way.

  In the end, I guess Jerry and Rick finally agreed because I was back at the hotel and Leroy and Harley were continuing their conversation with Rick down at the police station.

  Jerry hadn’t said much for the last few minutes, just sat in the maroon leather chair and stared blankly. I can only take so much dead air and I was tired of pacing. I was also on adrenaline letdown. "I hope you’re not still thinking that I instigated any part of this."

  He waited a long fifteen or twenty seconds before he spoke. "I am and you did."

  I stopped ambling around the room. "Just how do you figure?"

  "If you hadn’t told Leroy your suspicions about him being Harley’s father, he wouldn’t have gone berserk. But," he added before I could protest, "Leroy is responsible for leaving his post and taking you with him. I’ll take care of that."

  "So, I’m not in trouble or I am?"

  He shook his head. "It sure seems like you should be, but for the life of me, I can’t think of why. I can’t really fault you for figuring out about Rhonda and Leroy. Telling him about it might not have been the best move, but then again he has a right to know."

  "I thought about all that, really I did, and obviously if I’d known what he’d do, I wouldn’t have said one word. But Jerry, I was really trying to protect Leroy by telling him myself. I had hoped he would figure out how to deal with it--quietly--before the world found out. Bad call, I know, and I’ll take responsibility for that."

  Since he didn’t leap to disagree with my assessment, I turned and wandered over to the closet. I had no particular reason for doing so, but standing there staring at Jerry was putting lustful thoughts into my head. In fact, if I were truthful, the first thing I noticed at the funeral home when the door burst open--okay, the second, after the artillery--was that Jerry had changed clothes. Wearing a fresh blue and white striped shirt, cowboy boots, and blue jeans, he looked gorgeous. Forget silk suits and fancy ties, I’ll take Jerry Don Parker in jeans and boots any day. Even now, while he was busy thinking of reasons to be mad at me, all I could think of was how good he looked, which was why I was hiding in the closet.

  "Jolene," he said, walking up behind me.

  I told myself not to turn around, but myself didn’t listen, and when I did, my nose was about two inches from his chest. "Yes?"

  "I’m proud of the way you handled the situation at the funeral home."

  Huh? Proud? I ventured a look up at his face to make sure he was serious. He was.

  "When we got the call, the employee made it sound like a war was about to erupt and we were likely to find two guys trying to kill each other with a female hostage in the middle of it."

  "That’s a fair description." I smiled up at him. "But neither one really knew why he wanted to mangle the other. They were both just upset for all kinds of reasons."

  "You were lecturing them."

  I nodded. "Yeah. I don’t know that they were listening, but at least they weren’t pummeling each other. It was all I could think of."

  He reached down and put his fingers under my chin, tipping my face up toward him.

  "Please don’t tell me I could have been killed," I said, trying to ignore the touch of his fingers on my skin and the husky timbre of his voice.

  "Jolene, I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again. I want to know that you’re safe, always. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you."

  When he talks to me like that, with his deep Texas drawl, rumbling like a building thunderstorm, I pretty much just melt on the spot. Now, I could tell myself that I’m over forty years old, for godsakes, and that I need to act like a mature adult rather than a stupid teenager, but it just doesn’t work that way with Jerry. No one ever has--or ever will--affect me the way he does. One little crook of his finger and I’m on the hook, reeled up like a feeble-witted crappie whose next dive is going to be into the deep fryer. I am not proud of my inherent weakness, nor was I especially proud of the fact that my arms had somehow looped themselves around his neck.

  Jerry bent down and brushed his lips against mine. "We don’t have much time, Jolene," he said, in what might have been a sexy voice if he hadn’t been staring at his wristwatch when he said it.

  I was definitely getting mixed signals. "Time for what?"

  He grinned and gave me another quick kiss, tugging gently at my lip as he moved away. "Not nearly enough time to start that."

  Great, just great. After all the emotional ups and downs I’d encountered today, this was definitely one more I didn’t need. I dropped my arms from around his neck and very nearly screamed. "If you ever lead me on like that again and then stop, I swear I’ll shoot you dead." I shoved at his chest and stepped away. "Got it?"

  He chuckled and followed me back to the middle of the room. I
flopped down on my bed and he disappeared through the adjoining door. "Don’t think you can just snap your fingers and have me jump when you call," I hollered. I would, of course, I couldn’t help it, but he didn’t have to know it. "I’m not that easy."

  In a few minutes he came back in the room carrying a sack with what looked like a rectangular box inside. If he thought he could bribe me with chocolate, he’d better think again. Then again, chocolate is a comfort food and I needed something to comfort me since Sheriff Parker certainly wasn’t doing the job.

  He sat down on the bed across from me and started unwrapping the sack. I tried to ignore him, but my curiosity is a persistent thing.

  "We don’t have but about fifteen minutes to go over this so we’d better hurry." He slid a dark blue plastic case out of the sack. "I can’t quite decide if it is because of the situations you get into, or in spite of them, but I want you to have this."

  He flipped open the latches on the case and opened the lid. A small gray metal pistol with three clips lay on the black foam matting.

  I slid my feet off the bed, sat up and faced him. "A gun?" I stared at the very small and very scary-looking thing, not at all sure how to respond. Carrying something like that had never even crossed my mind. And I do mean never. "For me?"

  Jerry nodded. "However, since you promised to shoot me a minute ago, I might have to reconsider."

  I frowned. "Meaning what, that you fully intend to toy with me whenever you feel like it?"

  He shrugged and grinned, an evil twinkle in his eye. "Yeah, I guess so."

  I rolled my eyes. "Well, then, I don’t need it. Besides, I have a twenty-two pistol at home that my dad gave me. It’s an antique, but it shoots fine."

  "This is different, Jolene," he said, getting serious. "This is for personal protection.--yours. Now, it might not be something you would have ever bought for yourself, but it’s something you need. And, you’re going to learn how to use it."

  There was a distinct and clear "whether you like it or not" attached to the end of that statement, and the tone of his voice also implied that I might as well not bother trying to talk him out of it. Wisely, I took an alternative route.

  "Jerry, I appreciate the thought, really I do, but I’m more likely to shoot myself than anything that needs shooting. Plinking at a few cans up in the forest with a twenty-two is one thing, but this is serious weaponry and I probably ought not play with it. I could hurt somebody."

  He did not say, "That’s the general idea," although his quick glance did a fine job of conveying the point.

  Jerry can speak volumes without saying a word and it is most disconcerting. He rustled the sack around and pulled out a small black nylon holster. "You’ll need this."

  "So I can draw and shoot." I used my finger to play gunslinger. "Bang."

  He did not see the humor. "I need you to do this, Jolene. It’s important to me. You’re important."

  Oh, all right. I’d be serious if I had to. "Thank you, Jerry. It’s really nice. And I appreciate your concern more than you know. But you really shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble."

  "The only trouble is the paperwork, and Rick’s handling most of that for us."

  Paperwork? Like permits and things? I couldn’t see how I’d need any papers since I wouldn’t be using the gun, but I could mention that little detail later. I motioned to the pistol. "Rick knows about this?"

  "Yeah." He shrugged. "Granted, this isn’t normal procedure in any way, shape or form, but we decided that since you have a history of, well, winding up in the thick of things for one reason or another, it was the lesser of the evils."

  I don’t know what evils he had in mind, but if he turned me loose with a gun and expected me to do anything competent with it, he’d think evils.

  Jerry checked his watch again. "We need to get going. You’ve got a handgun safety class starting in a few minutes."

  "A what?"

  "You need to know how to use the gun properly. I could teach you, but you have a tendency to distract me."

  Oh, yeah, happens all the time. Just look how hard it’s been for him to not fling me to the bed and have his way with me today.

  "You need an official certificate for the permit anyway. Classroom training, then whatever it takes on the range." He picked up the gun and held it in his palm. "When you leave the gun club you’ll be able to handle this without even thinking about it."

  Oh, I had some serious doubts about that, but there was no point in arguing. Besides, it was better than sitting in the hotel waiting for something else ludicrous to occur. "Okay, you win, Mr. Sheriff, sir. Lead the way. I’m yours to commando."

  * * * *

  We arrived at the Redwater Falls Gun Club in time for Jerry to acquaint me with the pistol, the clips, the ammunition and the "don’t do anything stupid" basics before class time. I also had time to listen to a few stories about my mother from the guys behind the counter. I didn’t ask to hear the stories, mind you, but once it became clear I was "Miz Lucille’s" daughter, there was no way to avoid it. Apparently, she's become the den mother for the group--more details of my mother's life I wish I didn't know about.

  Jerry cut their reminiscing short by showing off the gun he’d bought for me. The men drooled and cooed over it, then promptly tried to buy it from him--for more than he’d paid. Jerry had snagged one of the last ones made, and the price of the little pistols was skyrocketing daily, or so said they said. No question, the little Colt Mustang Plus II was kind of cute--and Jerry had dropped some serious cash for it--but I also knew it was quite deadly.

  With our safety glasses on and earmuffs hanging around our necks, Jerry and I walked through a series of doors into what looked like a long, narrow, concrete tunnel. We had the room to ourselves, and I counted eight stall-like areas with dials and switches and armrests and target holders.

  Jerry motioned me back to a bench along the wall and sat me down. He gave me a few tips on gun range etiquette and other important tidbits then set me to work loading and reloading the clips, over and over and over.

  I was neither an enthusiastic nor particularly adept student, and the persnickety clips kept spitting the bullets back at me when I tried to stuff them in. I eventually got the hang of it and we moved on to a crash course on the parts of the gun, how to release the clip, how to chamber a round and how not to point the damn thing at him while I was doing any of the above.

  Among the other things that I could legitimately say I’d learned in my brief lesson was that the pistol was a .380 caliber and it had three clips, which held seven bullets each. I also learned in a hurry that your fingers could get mighty sore trying to load the spring-powered gizmos. Ditto for pulling back the top of the gun--called the slide--to chamber a round.

  After all the bullet loading, clip popping and dropping, safety releasing, and chambering business, I was getting the urge to actually shoot the darn thing. "So do I get to try this baby out or do I have to wait for the class?"

  Jerry stood and chuckled just a little. "I have assured John that you have experience with other guns and that he wouldn’t be starting from square one. Let’s try a few rounds before he gets here to make sure I didn’t lie to him."

  "Very funny." Standing, I collected my artillery and supplies from the bench and nodded toward the booths. The two middle ones had targets already hung on the racks. "Does it matter which one I start with?"

  He walked over to the first stall and flipped a switch. The target moved away maybe fifteen feet and stopped. He flipped another switch, which illuminated the paper line drawing, then motioned me over--and promptly took the gun from me. "Every gun is always loaded. Always treat--"

  "Jerry, dear, you have told me that at least eighty-three times since you sprung this thing on me, not that I didn’t know it already. I shall do my very best not to shoot you."

  He set the gun on a small shelf by the switches then put on his earmuffs. I set my clips and holster down and did the same. The headphone things felt kind
of strange, as if they almost completely sealed off my ears, and I wondered if I could hear anything at all besides my own breathing. Then Jerry said, "Ready?" and I heard him okay, which made me wonder how loud the gunshots would sound.

  Jerry picked up the Colt and put it in my right hand, then stood behind me and fit my fingers around and over in what he said was the proper shooting technique: grip with the right, hold back with the left.

  "This is weird," I said, although having Jerry’s arms around me was anything but. "With my twenty-two, all I ever do is just point and shoot--with one hand." And I do just fine, thank you very much. "This two-handed business feels like overkill, so to speak."

  "This stance gives you more stability and you should be more accurate. You’ll get used to it."

  I didn’t really want to get used it and I had severe doubts that I’d be doing this sort of thing much anyway. I was here to humor him, nothing more.

  "Shoot three rounds at the target," he said, stepping away. "Take your time."

  I held the gun like he wanted me to, pointed at the black circle and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, the trigger didn’t pull. Jerry stepped back up beside me and went through the "you have to take it off safety first" drill again.

  "I’m just not used to a safety. My revolver doesn’t have one. But I get it now."

  He nodded, but the look in his eyes didn’t twinkle "Olympic hopeful." I’m not even sure there was a flicker of "she’ll hit the paper" hope.

  I smiled anyway and turned around, determined to prove him wrong. Problem was, I had developed a little case of nervousness--okay, maybe it was a big one--now that I had to prove I’d paid attention. I’d already blown my first attempt at impressing him by forgetting the safety. I didn’t want him to think I was an incompetent idiot, but the potential for that was rather high.