Wear Something Red

by K.G. Lawrence

  Chapter 27

  After what she considered a mostly good first week on the job, except for all the junk food they were eating, not getting back to see Stephanie and Madsen’s disappearing act, the little sources of frustration started biting at her like persistent fleas as soon as she got to work Friday. Due to Shana’s heroic efforts even after the curse hit her, they had made fantastic progress on the house. Theo’s estimate for the new high-efficiency furnace and the hot water tank seemed reasonable, and she wanted to be done with that as soon as possible, so she accepted the offer. Theo and his dad would install both next Tuesday.

  Mattie called Thursday night to tell her the executors had signed the contract. She came over an hour later, kept her hands to herself, and they completed the paperwork.

  She gave Shana permission to visit with Lily Wiley and Donny Nguyen at Lily’s after she first secured access to both the Wiley’s new private home phone number and Lily’s cell phone number. She also talked to Linda Wiley to make sure it was all right with her. Linda Wiley sounded scattered but agreed without hesitation. Shana was feeling much better this morning, or at least she was putting on a strong game face because she was determined not to miss the opportunity to hang out with notorious kids four years older than her.

  The first bite of the day came when she entered the office to find Kelly and Janine standing on the other side of the gate. Janine’s usually elegant appearance was a bit frayed by her agitation. She kept tucking unruly strands of shiny black hair behind her ear. Kelly was holding the workforce report that Janine was supposed to have submitted to city hall on her way home yesterday.

  “They changed everything on us,” Kelly said when Joan came through the gate. She handed over the report and looked to Janine to provided further explanation.

  “The state changed their submission requirements and their forms. It’s a three phase process now: presentation, budget analysis, decision. City hall just received notice yesterday and a supply of new forms.”

  “Can’t we just cut and paste onto the new ones?”

  “They’re not on the state’s website yet. This year, we’ll have to complete the paperwork on paper.” Janine brushed at her hair before bringing her hand from behind her back to show the thick package of forms she had received from city hall. “They gave me this when I took over the report yesterday.”

  She reached out to take both sets of forms.

  “I’ll do it,” Janine said and again tried to make her hair behave.

  “Thank you.” That’s when the second bite took a chunk out of her.

  “There will have to be some changes,” Janine said. “We wanted to talk to you first.” She looked over at Amelia.

  “What about?”

  “I’d like to go to part-time starting in January. Amelia plans to retire at the end of December. It shouldn’t affect your workforce request, but you will have to get permission to post job notices. Sorry.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for, neither one of you do.”

  She still couldn’t help thinking of rats and ships.

  “I’ll get right on this. We need to get it back to city hall before they close today.”

  “I thought we had until the end of September.”

  “They changed that, too. City hall now has to have their report in by the middle of September instead of the end of October. They’re going to be hard pressed to get that done. Sybil told me it is part of the state government’s new austerity program. If you don’t get your request in on time, your funding is frozen for the next three years.”

  Had Madsen some inkling this change was coming?

  She asked Kelly, “What about our two criminal geniuses?”

  “I shipped them out last night. They came from El Paso to get what they heard was some really potent shit up here.”

  “Where are Rob and Jacob?”

  “They’re still down with the fishing flu.”

  “They were supposed to come in and meet me.”

  “That’s why they’re a short-term solution to our labor needs, ma’am. They love the uniform, but they’re better suited for security at the mall.” Kelly blushed. “They have a tendency to just wander off.”

  “When do they plan on wandering back?”

  “Monday. In fairness to them, they were scheduled to have this weekend off, ma’am.”

  “Tell them they better come in Monday or they needn’t bother to come in again.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The third little nibble came when she sat at her desk and checked her phone to find another text message from Harding. She hadn’t responded to any of the half-dozen or so he’d sent since Wednesday night.

  His message read: I apologize if I offended you in any way. This will be my last text. Hope you and Shana will still visit tomorrow.

  She deleted the text without responding.

  Another nagging nibble was the guilt that went along with deleting the text. She was mad at Mattie for mauling her Wednesday night, not Harding. His only sins were captivating eyes, a wonderfully strong embrace while they danced and being so damned accessible.

  Nibbling became gnawing when she let her thoughts dwell on that lingering sensation of him pressing against her, so she went on the computer to get her mind back on her work.

  It had to be those distracting thoughts. She hadn’t had any significant trouble with their new computers or the network. This morning, however, she spent over an hour unable to get anywhere. The biggest part of the problem was the new procedures. She kept repeating the old FBI ones.

  The computer would remind her that her clicks and keystrokes were commands it could not process. Once, it suggested that she contact her IT department for assistance. Twice the fucking thing froze up and she had to turn it off then back on to release it. Once, she had to call FBI headquarters in Quantico to advise them that they were not being hacked by an inept cyber-terrorist. Fortunately, she reached someone she knew who was very sympathetic because he had just spent the last three hours doing pretty much the same aggravating things with their new system.

  Janine came in twice to point out extra sections on the new forms that she had to complete. By the time she was finished and handed back the paperwork, she was sure about half of her right leg had been chewed off leaving a blank spot that was itchy as hell.

  Colin Foster called her just before lunch.

  “Ready to come back yet?”

  “You have the updated system in your office, don’t you?”

  “Why do you think I’m calling? Some snarky IT guy covered in pimples is currently trying to resuscitate my terminal as we speak. I hope the fucking thing blows up in his face.”

  “What have you got for me?”

  “Craig Harding served two terms in Afghanistan as a Lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps. He was involved in a couple of combat rescue missions that earned him two medals. He was discharged with the rank of Captain. While he was there, he also ran an outreach program to the people of Kandahar and the surrounding villages. He appears to have returned to Kandahar as a civilian after becoming a veterinarian, but he dropped off the grid for over a year before resurfacing in Dominion.”

  “Is there anything about any associations with radical environmentalist groups or eco-terrorists?”

  “I can’t find anything. He’s been known to go stridently on and on if you let him get traction early, but he’s seen as a voice of reason by most. He’s a consensus builder, if that’s even possible where the environment is concerned.”

  “What made him drop off the grid?”

  “Don’t know. He went back to Kandahar. He disappeared. Then, poof, he was back. No one in national security had reason to suspect him of anything, so he wasn’t tracked.”

  “Nothing more on Wiley or Nguyen?”

  “What did Madsen tell you?”

  “The AG’s office assigned him. He says the FBI agreed to that.”

  “Reluctantly, I assure you. The word is they have their own theo
ry about what’s going on. They won’t share and no one else has found out what it is, or aren’t saying anything through the usual channels.”

  “Anything new on Crowley?”

  “I know what you want, Joan, but it’s been so long now, I don’t’ think we will ever find any unambiguous evidence. There might have been more there than the nine, we may never know. Now, when it comes to Colter, it gets a little more interesting. He was promoted from Major to Colonel while in Afghanistan. He was known for his effective counterterrorism missions there. His unit was particularly successful at tracking down and eliminating Taliban groups hiding in what were supposed to be secure, inaccessible sites in the mountains. He’d disappear with his men for weeks at a time, out of touch with everybody, working mostly at night. The locals called his unit the Black Dogs of Hell. They all got tattoos.”

  “It’s the Black Hounds of Death.”

  “He was also reprimanded a few times for unnecessary destruction of village property and the mistreatment of innocents in his quest for the enemy. Nothing criminal or potentially embarrassing to either the military or our country was ever proven, so he was promoted and retired to a farm.”

  “I’ve been to the farm. Some of his old unit is there with him.”

  “Sounds like I should keep digging.”

  “He runs a trophy hunting company and a taxidermy service, too. I don’t have anything but an uneasy feeling right now.”

  “You’re not seeing the Crowley farm again, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Joan, you know I’m on your side, but I had to ask.”

  “See what kind of affiliations he has. And check out who was in his unit, what special skills they have, and where they are now. I only have the names of two of them: Bobby and Billy Cotton. And see if any of them have psychological problems.”

  “Yes, boss. You do think something’s not right, don’t you?”

  “Call me when you get the info.” She hung up. Her phone rang a moment after she did.

  Amelia said, “Kate is here to see you.”

  “Send her in.”

  Kate entered her office wearing a blue, yellow and green floral-print sundress. She had taken care of herself. She looked good in it.

  “What can I do for you, Kate?”

  She took a seat. “You left the party a bit upset, or was I imagining things?”

  “It will just sound like whining, and a bit pervy.”

  “On the contrary, that sounds very promising.” This could end up being an ambush interview for the DGN.

  She just kept looking at Kate and felt another nip at her leg. If it didn’t stop, she was going to kick someone. And she could kick like a mule with her legs.

  Kate cleared her throat. “Maybe I should start; an act of good faith confidentiality wise, so to speak.”

  “If you keep hedging like that, I’m going to get a set of shrub clippers.”

  “I assume I haven’t been the only one chewing on your earlobes since you got here.”

  “Why, do they look swollen?”

  “How much do you know about the last election?”

  “I suppose I should know everything by now after what people have been all too willing to tell, but I got the gist that it became nasty with a bunch of people lining up against you.”

  “That’s the gist of it, all right.” She took a deep breath. “What have you heard about Susan?”

  “It’s true, then.”

  Kate nodded. “Susan told me when she was sixteen after almost driving herself to suicide for two years.”

  Susan became aware of her sexual orientation when she was Shana’s age. That thought brought her breath up short.

  “I thought I could handle anything, but that floored me. I told myself it was okay, but I could see Susan’s fear when she looked at me. She was sure I was going to turn her away or worse.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “She’s my daughter. I’d loved her like she was the only thing in my life for sixteen years. I wasn’t going to suddenly stop because she was . . . but William couldn’t deal with it.”

  “That’s why you divorced.”

  “We divorced after he beat the crap out of her. I had to hit him over the head with a shovel to stop him.”

  That was the same thing Stephanie had done to get her father off her after he’d set the house on fire. Once they were out of the house, he’d put a bullet through his temple. The firefighters found him lying next to mother holding her hand.

  “He just lay there for the longest time. At first, I thought I’d killed him. All I could think about was Susan would be left on her own to cope with what was ahead for her. Then I saw he was still breathing and I just wanted to keep hitting him until he stopped.”

  “I’ve known those feelings.”

  “The only thing that kept him from pressing charges was his ego. If everyone found out his daughter was a dyke, it would reflect badly on his manhood. He allowed me to buy his store, then packed up and left. This being Dominion, everyone eventually found out all the details anyway, including the part about Susan.”

  “Why should that affect your campaign?”

  “For the first two elections it didn’t, but the way they used it this last time hurt her deeply. She was subtly portrayed through whispers as a potential predator of vulnerable and impressionable teenage daughters. It degenerated into horrible rumors after that. I could fight back and watch her suffering every day or I could just let them win. Susan didn’t want me to back down, but I couldn’t bear watching her cry every night after putting up a brave face all day for the sake of my campaign. But that wasn’t the clincher, Morton Colter was.”

  “What did he do?”

  “This is my good faith part. The shame I will take to my grave is that after William left, well, actually a few weeks before he left, I walked right smack into Mort’s arms for a brief affair.”

  Why not give a little bite back. “Jesus, you and Colter? Oh, sorry.”

  “Don’t be. That’s exactly how I feel about it. To put it in the crude but accurate vernacular of modern urban lingo, I was fucking him while he was fucking me over to get me out of office. I’m sure he’s the one who told everyone else all the details I had so stupidly confided in him. He probably started the whispers about Susan. He waited for just the right time when it would be most effective, when it would serve his interests best, that last election.” She groaned. “People should be trained to hide in a cave when they’re too vulnerable.”

  She got up and started pacing. “Maybe Mattie’s right about us. We just keep turning to them like we could actually trust them. Maybe it is our own damn fault.”

  “It’s a two-way street, Kate, you know that. We don’t always do them any great kindnesses either.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if Susan’s way is better. Women make better lovers, better partners, better parents . . . better everything, come to think of it.”

  “Susan is sweet, but I have no interest in women whatsoever.”

  “Me neither, dammit.” Kate sat back down.

  “We’re screwed,” they said in unison, though they didn’t sound as much alike as the Cotton twins did.

  “You’re feeling better now, right? A boring little tale like that had to make you feel better, it just had to.”

  “I appreciate your candidness and honesty. That makes me feel better. Are you sure Madsen didn’t tell you anything about Wiley? Did you have any suspicions of your own? He was your business neighbor.”

  “That’s all he was. He helped Morton hand out the hatchets used against me.”

  “Colter told me he had little to do with Wiley professionally or personally.”

  “For him, that is probably true. As far as Mort is concerned, the fact that Wiley helped him campaign against me would in no way mean the two of them had suddenly entered the same circle of Dominion society. What do you think of Craig?”

  The DGN ambush had been sprung. “I don’t think of him.”


  “There’s something of a Shakespearean protest in that.”

  “No, there isn’t.”

  Kate leaned across the desk. “You looked like you were having a good time dancing with him.”

  “This conversation is taking me back to high school and I’d rather not go there.”

  “Fair enough.” Kate got up and stretched. “If this will help, you have friends in me, Susan, Craig, Harry and Kelly. I can’t speak for Mattie because of what she might be doing and who she’s aligned herself with, but she is your friend, so that should count for something.”

  “What is Mattie doing?”

  Kate just took another nip at her. “I can only suggest that you go to the source to get the information directly from her. Given that you’re the sheriff and she’s your friend, that’s definitely the best way to go. And I would watch out for Leo and Morton, especially Morton. He thinks he’s the one in charge here. Power with no responsibility is particularly dangerous.”

  She looked around the office as if expecting to be overheard. Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. “We want you here because we think you’re perfectly suited for the job. Morton wants you here because he thinks you’re perfectly ill-suited for the job. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, Joan, but you need to know what he thinks of you.” She left.

  Forget fleas, the DGN was full of piranhas, each of whom had a sweet tooth for new sheriffs.

  She took out her phone and texted to Craig: sorry, bn rlly bzy & rlly tired. c u 2moro. look frwrd 2 it.