by Diana Palmer
He hesitated and then burst out laughing.
She grinned. “Thanks, Marquez. If I can help you, anytime, I will.”
“You can. Call my boss tomorrow and tell him that you think I’m suffering from a high fever and hallucinations and I’m not responsible for my own actions.”
“I’ll do that very thing. Honest.”
The next morning, the local media reported that the pastor of a young woman who’d committed suicide was being questioned by police about some information that might tie her to a cold case. Alice thought it was a stroke of pure genius. Only a total fool would risk killing the pastor now that he was in the media spotlight. It was the best protection he could have.
Marquez’s boss was, predictably, enraged. But Alice went to see him and, behind closed doors, told him what she knew about the murder in Jacobsville. He calmed down and agreed that it was a good call on his detective’s part.
Then Alice went to see Reverend Mike Colman, early in the morning, before the funeral.
He wasn’t what she expected. He was sitting in his office wearing sneakers, a pair of old jeans and a black sweatshirt. He had prematurely thinning dark hair, wore glasses, and had a smile as warm as a summer day.
He got up and shook hands with Alice after she introduced herself.
“I understand that I might be a candidate for admittance to your facility,” he deadpanned. “Detective Marquez decided that making a media pastry out of me could save my life.”
“I hope he’s right,” she said solemnly. “Two people have died in the past two weeks who had ties to this case. We’ve got a victim in Jacobsville that we can’t even identify.”
He grimaced. “I was sorry to hear about Dolores. I never thought she’d kill herself, and I still don’t.”
“It’s sad that she did so much to help a man tortured by his past, and paid for it with her life. Isn’t there a saying, that no good deed goes unpunished?” she added with wan humor.
“It seems that way sometimes, doesn’t it?” he asked with a smile. “But God’s ways are mysterious. We aren’t meant to know why things happen the way they do at all times. So what can I do to help you?”
“Do you think you could describe the man Dolores sent to talk to you? If I get a police artist over here with his software and his laptop, can you tell him what the man looked like?”
“Oh, I think I can do better than that.”
He pulled a pencil out of his desk drawer, drew a thick pad of paper toward him, peeled back the top and proceeded with deft strokes to draw an unbelievably lifelike pencil portrait of a man.
“That’s incredible!” Alice exclaimed, fascinated by the expert rendering.
He chuckled as he handed it over to her. “Thanks. I wasn’t always a minister,” he explained. “I was on my way to Paris to further my studies in art when God tapped me on the shoulder and told me He needed me.” He shrugged. “You don’t say no to Him,” he added with a kind smile.
“If there isn’t some sort of pastor/confessor bond you’d be breaking, could you tell me what you talked about with him?”
“There’s no confidentiality,” he replied. “But he didn’t really tell me anything. He asked me if God could forgive any sin, and I told him yes. He said he’d been a bad man, but he was in love, and he wanted to change. He said he was going to talk to somebody who was involved in an old case, and he’d tell me everything when he got back.” He grimaced. “Except he didn’t get back, did he?”
“No,” Alice agreed sadly. “He didn’t.”
Seven
Alice took the drawing with her. She phoned Marquez’s office, planning to stop by to show the drawing to him, but he’d already gone home. She tucked it into her purse and went to her own office. It was now Christmas Eve, and she’d promised to work tonight as a favor to the woman who’d saved her date with Harley.
She walked into the medical examiner’s office, waving to the security guard on her way inside. The building, located on the University of Texas campus, was almost deserted. Only a skeleton crew worked on holidays. Most of the staff had families. Only Alice and one other employee were still single. But the medical examiner’s office was accessible 24/7, so someone was always on call.
She went by her colleague’s desk and grimaced as she saw the caseload sitting in the basket, waiting for her. It was going to be a long night.
She sat down at her own desk and started poring over the first case file. There were always deaths to investigate, even when foul play wasn’t involved. In each one, if there was an question as to how the deceased had departed, it was up to her to work with the detectives to determine a cause of death. Her only consolation was that the police detectives were every bit as overloaded as she, a medical examiner investigator, was. Nobody did investigative work to get rich. But the job did have other rewards, she reminded herself. Solving a crime and bringing a murderer to justice was one of the perks. And no amount of money would make up for the pleasure it gave her to see that a death was avenged. Legally, of course.
She opened the first file and started working up the notes on the computer into a document easily read by the lead police detective on the case, as well as the assistant district attorney prosecuting it. She waded through crime scene photographs, measurements, witness statements and other interviews, but as she did, she was still wondering about the coincidence of Harley’s last name and the senator’s. The older man had recognized him, had called him Harley. They obviously knew each other, and there was some animosity there. But if the senator was a relation, why hadn’t Harley mentioned it when he and Alice stopped by the house for the fundraiser?
Maybe he hadn’t wanted Alice to know. Maybe he didn’t want anyone to know, especially anyone in Jacobsville. Perhaps he wanted to make it on his own, without the wealth and power of his family behind him. He’d said that he no longer felt comfortable with the things his parents wanted him to do. If they were in politics and expected him to help host fundraisers and hang out with the cream of high society, he might have felt uncomfortable. She recalled her own parents and how much she’d loved them, and how close they’d been. They’d never asked her to do anything she didn’t feel comfortable with. Harley obviously hadn’t had that sort of home life. She was sad for him. But if things worked out, she promised herself that she’d do what she could to make up for what he missed. First step in that direction, she decided, was a special Christmas present.
She slept late on Christmas morning. But when she woke up, she got out her cell phone and made a virtual shopping trip around town, to discover which businesses were open on a holiday. She found one, and it carried just the item she wanted. She drove by there on her way down to Jacobsville.
Good thing she’d called ahead about keeping her motel room, she thought when she drove into the parking lot. The place was full. Obviously some locals had out-of-town family who didn’t want to impose when they came visiting on the holidays. She stashed her suitcase and called Harley’s number.
“Hello,” came a disgruntled voice over the line.
“Harley?” she asked hesitantly.
There was a shocked pause. “Alice? Is that you?”
She laughed. “Well, you sound out of sorts.”
“I am.” There was a splash. “Get out of there, you walking steak platter!” he yelled. “Hold the line a minute, Alice, I have to put down the damn…phone!”
There was a string of very unpleasant language, most of which was mercifully muffled. Finally Harley came back on the line.
“I hate the cattle business,” he said.
She grimaced. Perhaps she shouldn’t have made that shopping trip after all. “Do you?” she asked. “Why?”
“Truck broke down in the middle of the pasture while I was tossing out hay,” he muttered. “I got out of the truck and under the hood to see what was wrong. I left the door open. Boss’s wife had sent me by the store on the way to pick up some turnip greens for her. Damned cow stuck her head into the truck and ate
every damned one of them! So now, I’m mired up to my knees in mud and the truck’s sinking, and once I get the truck out, I’ve got to go all the way back to town for a bunch of turnips on account of the stupid cow…Why are you laughing?”
“I thought you ran purebred bulls,” she said.
“You can’t get a purebred bull without a purebred cow to drop it,” he said with exaggerated patience.
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Say, I’m just across the street from a market. Want me to go over and get you some more turnips and bring them to you?”
There was an intake of breath. “You’d do that? On Christmas Day?”
“I sort of got you something,” she said. “Just a little something. I wanted an excuse to bring it to you, anyway.”
“Doggone it, Alice, I didn’t get you anything,” he said shamefully.
“I didn’t expect you to,” she said at once. “But you took me to a nice party and I thought…Well, it’s just a little something.”
“I took you to a social shooting gallery and didn’t even buy you supper,” he said, feeling ashamed.
“It was a nice party,” she said. “Do you want turnips or not?”
He laughed. “I do. Think you can find Cy Parks’s ranch?”
“Give me directions.”
He did, routing her the quickest way.
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” she said. “Or I’ll call for more directions.”
“Okay. Thanks a million, Alice.”
“No problem.”
She dressed in her working clothes, jeans and boots and a coat, but she added a pretty white sweater with a pink poinsettia embroidered on it, for Christmas. She didn’t bother with makeup. It wouldn’t help much anyway, she decided with a rueful smile. She bought the turnips and drove the few miles to the turnoff that led to Cy Parks’s purebred Santa Gertrudis stud ranch.
Harley was waiting for her less than half a mile down the road, at the fork that turned into the ranch house. He was covered in mud, even his once-brown cowboy hat. He had a smear of mud on one cheek, but he looked very sexy, Alice thought. She couldn’t think of one man out of thirty she knew who could be covered in mud and still look so good. Harley did.
He pushed back his hat as he walked up to the van, opening the door for her.
She grabbed the turnips in their brown bag and handed it to him. She jumped down with a small box in her hand. “Here,” she said, shoving it at him.
“Wait a sec.” He put the turnips in his truck and handed her a five-dollar bill. “Don’t argue,” he said at once, when she tried to. “I had money to get them with, even allowing for cow sabotage.” He grinned.
She grinned back. “Okay.” She put the bill in her slacks pocket and handed him the box.
He gave her an odd look. “What’s it for?”
“Christmas,” she said.
He laughed. “Boss gives me a bonus every Christmas. I can’t remember the last time I got an actual present.”
She flushed.
“Don’t get self-conscious about it,” he said, when he noticed her sudden color. “I just felt bad that I didn’t get you something.”
“I told you, the party…”
“Some party,” he muttered. He turned the small box in his hands, curious. He pulled the tape that held the sides together and opened it. His pale eyes lit up as he pulled the little silver longhorn tie tack out of the box. “Hey, this is sweet! I’ve been looking for one of these, but I could never find one small enough to be in good taste!”
She flushed again. “You really like it?”
“I do! I’ll wear it to the next Cattlemen’s Association meeting,” he promised. “Thanks, Alice.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“It is, now,” he agreed. He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “Merry Christmas, Alice.” He bent and kissed her with rough affection.
She sighed and melted into him. The kiss was warm, and hard and intoxicating. She was a normal adult woman with all the usual longings, but it had been a long time since a kiss had made her want to rip a man’s clothes off and push him down on the ground.
She laughed.
He drew back at once, angry. “What the hell…!”
“No, it’s not…I’m not laughing at you! I was wondering what you’d think if I started ripping your clothes off…!”
He’d gone from surprise to anger to indignation, and now he doubled over laughing.
“Was it something I said?” she wondered aloud.
He grabbed her up in his arms and spun her around, catching her close to kiss her hungrily again and again. He was covered in mud, and now she was covered in it, too. She didn’t care.
Her arms caught around his neck. She held on, loving the warm crush of his mouth in the cold rain that was just starting to fall. Her eyes closed. She breathed, and breathed him, cologne and soap and coffee…
After a few seconds, the kiss stopped being fun and became serious. His hard mouth opened. His arm dragged her breasts against his broad chest. He nudged her lips apart and invaded her mouth with deliberate sensuality.
He nibbled her lower lip as he carried her to the pickup truck. He nudged the turnips into the passenger seat while he edged under the wheel, still carrying Alice. He settled her in his lap and kissed her harder while his hands slid under the warm sweater and onto her bare back, working their way under the wispy little bra she was wearing.
His hands were cold and she jumped when they found her pert little breasts, and she laughed nervously.
“They’ll warm up,” he whispered against her mouth.
She was going under in waves of pleasure. It had been such a long time since she’d been held and kissed, and even the best she’d had was nothing compared to this. She moaned softly as his palms settled over her breasts and began to caress them, ever so gently.
She held on for dear life. She hoped he wasn’t going to suggest that they try to manage an intimate session on the seat, because there really wasn’t that much room. On the other hand, she wasn’t protesting…
When he drew back, she barely realized it. She was hanging in space, so flushed with delight that she was feeling oblivious to everything else.
He was looking at her with open curiosity, his hands still under her top, but resting on her rib cage now, not intimately on her breasts.
She blinked, staring up at him helplessly. “Is something wrong?” she asked in a voice that sounded drowsy with passion.
“Alice, you haven’t done much of this, have you?” he asked very seriously.
She bit her lip self-consciously. “Am I doing it wrong?”
“There’s no right or wrong way,” he corrected gently. “You don’t know how to give it back.”
She just stared at him.
“It’s not a complaint,” he said when he realized he was hurting her feelings. He bent and brushed his warm mouth over her eyelids. “For a brash woman, you’re amazingly innocent. I thought you were kidding, about being a virgin.”
She went scarlet. “Well, no, I wasn’t.”
He laughed softly. “I noticed. Here. Sit up.”
She did, but she popped back up and grabbed the turnips before she sat on them. “Whew,” she whistled. “They’re okay.”
He took them from her and put them up on the dash.
She gave him a mock hurt look. “Don’t you want to ravish me on the truck seat?” she asked hopefully.
He lifted both eyebrows. “Alice, you hussy!” He laughed.
She grimaced. “Sorry.”
“I was teasing!”
“Oh.”
He drew her close and hugged her with rough affection. “Yes, I’d love to ravish you on the seat, but not on Christmas Day in plain view of the boss and any cowhand who wandered by.”
“Are they likely to wander by?” she wondered out loud.
He let her go and nodded in the direction of the house. There were two cowboys coming their way on horseback. They weren’
t looking at them. They seemed to be talking.
“It’s Christmas,” she said.
“Yes, and cattle have to be worked on holidays as well as workdays,” he reminded her.
“Sorry. I forgot.”
“I really like my tie tack,” he said. “And thanks a million for bringing me the turnips.” He hesitated. “But I have to get back to work. I gave up my day off so that John could go and see his kids,” he added with a smile.
She beamed. “I gave up my Christmas Eve for the same reason. But that’s how I got to go to the party with you. I promised to work for him last night.”
“We’re both nice people,” he said, smiling.
She sighed. “I could call a minister right now.”
“He’s busy,” he said with a grin. “It’s Christmas.”
“Oh. Right.”
He got out of the truck and helped her down. “Thanks for my present. Sorry I didn’t get you one.”
“Yes, you did,” she said at once, and then laughed and flushed.
He bent and kissed her softly. “I got an extra one myself,” he whispered. “Are we still going riding Saturday?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “At least, I think so. I’ve got to run up to San Antonio in the morning to talk to Rick Marquez. The minister of the murdered woman was able to draw the man she sent to him.”
“Really?” he asked, impressed.
“Yes, and so now we have a real lead.” She frowned thoughtfully. “You know, I wonder if Kilraven might recognize the guy. He works out of San Antonio. He might make a copy and show it to his brother, too.”
“Good idea.” He drew in a long breath. “Alice, you be careful,” he added. “If the woman was killed because she talked to us, the minister might be next, and then you.” He didn’t add, but they both knew, that he could be on the firing line, too.
“The minister’s okay. Marquez called a reporter he knew and got him on the evening news.” She chuckled. “They’d be nuts to hurt him now, with all the media attention.”
“Probably true, and good call by Marquez. But you’re not on the news.”