Bench Trial in the Backwoods

by Maggie Wells

  She inclined her head. “Noted, boss. For now, I think I’m going to finish this motion and keep moving ahead.” She made a swimming gesture with her hand. “You know I’m a shark.”

  He smiled. “I know you are.”

  He crossed into the break room to grab a few paper napkins and a plate. The cool December breeze poured in through the hole in the window. Harry scowled but refused to give it more than a moment’s notice. Hustling back to his office, he entered to find Alicia standing in front of his desk staring down at the pile of mail he had opened in the moments before discovering this last bout of vandalism.

  “Snooping?” he asked as he strode into the room.

  “Admiring the fan art,” she replied, nodding to the framed photo of Samuel Coulter. “We need to bag those as evidence.”

  “I know.”

  He made a slow circle, then spotted the plastic grocery bag from the Piggly Wiggly in his trash can. “This will do for now. I’ll call Lori and have her come get it.” Using the letter opener, he finagled the note, envelope and framed photo into the bag, then dropped it on his credenza.

  “I wonder if this is his handwriting,” Alicia mused as she dug into the bakery bag.

  Harry shrugged and handed over the plate and a paper napkin. “I couldn’t tell you, but I’m sure someone will be able to.”

  “I had a nice talk with Marlee Masters this morning. She said she and Lori Cabrera were going to help me get in good with some of the ladies around town,” she said with a saucy smile. “Apparently, folks around here don’t cotton to strangers,” she said, exaggerating her drawl.

  He laughed, then extracted the cinnamon twist from the bag, wrapping it in a napkin as he sat down in his desk chair. “I’d like to say it isn’t true, but I don’t wanna be a liar.” He took a giant bite of the doughnut, then, using his free hand, extracted the printed invitation to Simon’s Christmas party from the pile. “I believe they concocted this plan without getting you to sign on first,” he said, waving the heavy card stock in her direction.

  Alicia looked up, the cream-filled doughnut held aloft between her thumb and middle finger. “Oh?”

  “We’ve been invited to a Christmas party, remember?” His smile grew sly as he rocked back in his chair, peeling back the napkin and preparing to take another bite of his doughnut. “I believe Ms. Masters and Deputy Cabrera have arranged your debutante party.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Come in, come in!” Simon Wingate said, standing back to wave Harry and Alicia across his threshold. Alicia blinked at the man’s effusive greeting. His whole demeanor seemed lighter and brighter since Coulter, his former client, had been arraigned and held without bail. Taken aback, but not willing to show it, Alicia plastered a smile on her face as their host gave Harry’s hand a hearty shake. She stepped into the warmth of the foyer and nearly jumped out of her skin when Simon whipped a bunch of broccoli from behind his back and held it over her head.

  “What do you know? Mistletoe, right here in the entry. Almost doesn’t seem fair,” he said, leaning in and tapping his cheek to indicate she should kiss him.

  Harry snorted, pulling Simon back a couple of steps to give her some room. “Watch it. She can take you down in more ways than you can count.”

  To his credit, Simon appeared mildly chastened. Offering Alicia a weak smile, he said, “Sorry. Not well done of me. I was trying to get under Harry’s skin.”

  “Well, it worked,” Harry growled. “Has to be the lamest excuse for mistletoe I’ve ever seen,” he added derisively. “I can’t believe Lori’s letting you get away with that.”

  “Lori’s not letting him get away with anything,” the woman in question said, entering the foyer. She snatched the broccoli from Simon’s hand and threw it directly at the man’s forehead. “For someone so smart, you sure do like to act a fool sometimes.”

  Lori turned to Alicia and offered an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry. Somebody gets overexcited when he hosts social gatherings and forgets about important things like consent and personal space. I’m sending him to obedience school next week.”

  “I’m not a dog,” Simon retorted, tossing the broccoli back to Lori.

  She snagged it midair. “Stop acting like one.” She rolled her eyes at her boyfriend’s antics. “You’re going to scare her off. She’s not used to obnoxious men like you.”

  Simon let out a snort and closed the front door. “I don’t think I could scare this woman if I tried. And how do you know what kind of men she’s accustomed to being around? I’m willing to bet some of those federal agents are downright obnoxious.” He turned to Alicia. “Am I wrong?”

  She gave a chuckle. “I can absolutely say you are not wrong.” She thrust the bottle of wine they’d brought with them into Simon’s hand. “He wasn’t nearly this rambunctious the last time I saw him.”

  Lori rolled her eyes. “He was regretting his god-awful taste in clientele,” she said, glaring at Simon while making the pronouncement. “Weren’t you?”

  “I rue the day,” Simon responded, his expression sober. “Can we all forget my past indiscretions and move on knowing I am the charming and lovable guy you see standing in front of you?”

  Alicia shrugged. “If she can forgive you, I think any of us could.”

  Which was true. When Alicia first came to Pine Bluff, Lori and Simon had an intense sort of vibe between them. It was obvious to anyone with eyes there was an attraction, but Lori was hell-bent on bringing Simon’s most important client down. It took some time and careful maneuvering for Simon to wriggle out of his attorney-client relationship. Alicia was glad to see the enmity she’d witnessed between the deputy and the defense attorney morph into something happier. By the time she’d left town, there was no doubt Lori and Simon would end up together, and now here they were.

  Simon smiled, and Alicia nearly had to take a step back. He was almost as blindingly handsome as Marlee Masters was golden. No one could blame Lori Cabrera for falling hard for a man she didn’t entirely trust. She’d fought it. In the end, Alicia gave the younger woman credit for going with her gut. Wingate was one of those guys who could talk the bark off a tree. Unlike Harry, whose good looks and approach to life were shades more understated. But not any less appealing. At least, not to her.

  “Where do you want us to throw our jackets?” Harry asked, and Alicia exhaled some of the tension she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  His pragmatism was a balm to her. His calm in the face of Simon’s exuberance made her grateful to have him by her side. For a woman who prided herself on keeping an even keel, she was beginning to feel a bit scattershot in the face of Harry’s unshakable cool. Through everything happening to him in the past few weeks, she’d only seen him lose his temper in brief flare-ups, though she knew the man had to be raging inside.

  As was she. Bronson had sent her a text. Apparently, he was regretting sending his favorite minion away and insisted she be back in the Atlanta office Monday morning. When she explained what was happening to Harry, he told her the protection of a local district attorney was outside the scope of her job, and unless she had something solid leading to further drug-trafficking arrests, he would see her in his office or she’d find herself on disciplinary leave.

  “You may want to hang on to them,” Lori said, waving them toward the back of the house. “Everyone is in the kitchen or on the patio. We have a fire going,” she explained. “I will show you where the refreshments are.”

  Harry slipped out of his leather jacket. Ever the gentleman, he held the collar of her coat so she could shed it more easily. Lori took their jackets and led them to the back of the house.

  In the kitchen, she offered Harry his coat again and he blinked at it in confusion. She gestured to the sliding doors to the patio. “Most of the men are out there. They have made fire. They must stand by fire and drink beer as men do,” she said, grunting each wo
rd in a bad caveman impression.

  Harry rolled his eyes. “Gee, thanks. I love being classified by my gender as a Neanderthal. For the record, I cook, and I cook well.”

  Lori laughed. And Alicia watched as her hostess casually tossed her coat onto a mound piled on a bench near the back door. “You can complain to us about gender inequalities in about two or three hundred years. In the meantime, scram. I want to talk to Alicia and I don’t want you around,” Lori said, tipping her chin up and defying him to contradict her.

  “You’re a lot bossier here than you are at work.”

  “I’m not the boss of you at work,” Lori shot back without missing a beat.

  Harry checked with Alicia, silently making sure she was okay with the plan. She nodded vigorously. This was exactly how she wanted the evening to go. Alicia had taken Marlee’s words at the bakery to heart.

  Divide and conquer. She would let Marlee and Lori pave the way for her with the women of Pine Bluff. There was no better way to know the pulse of a place than to get in with the locals.

  “Run along. Don’t set yourself on fire,” she said dismissively. “We’ve had enough excitement for one week.”

  “I concur,” Harry said dryly. He lifted a hand in farewell and made his way toward the patio.

  The second the sliding door was pulled shut, Lori took Alicia by the elbow and escorted her to the hall. “You have had a heck of a week. Are you sure you’re up for a party tonight?”

  “I am most definitely up for a party tonight,” Alicia stated, meeting the other woman’s gaze directly. “And I’m counting on you to tell me who I need to get to know.”

  Lori’s eyes narrowed, but her lips curved up and she gave an appreciative nod. “Marlee will be here soon, and between the two of us, we’re going to introduce you to everybody who’s anybody in Pine Bluff.”

  “And will those everybodies who know anybody have any clue as to who might be doing some of the things happening to Harry?”

  “If they don’t know them directly, they will have knowledge about them,” Lori declared. “We haven’t told too many people what you do for a living,” she said quietly.

  Alicia quirked an eyebrow. “Cool. Thank you.”

  “It’s a good idea,” Lori said. “First of all, you’re a Fed, and people around here are still wary of the DEA. The methamphetamine busts a couple years ago threw the town into a tailspin. There have been ongoing repercussions for a lot of families. They are also wary around me and Ben because we’re ‘the law,’” she said, using air quotes. “Country folks get a bit touchy about people nosing in their business. Even people they know.” She sighed. “They’re going to be even more on their guard if they know you’re with the DEA. So for our purposes tonight, I’m going to be introducing you as Harry’s girlfriend.”

  Alicia startled, taken aback at hearing the label spoken out loud.

  “If they ask how you met, be vague. Tell them you consulted on a case or something—don’t get too specific,” Lori said in a low voice. “They’ll want to pry, but they want to pry more about you personally and professionally.”

  Alicia swallowed hard, and a small knot of panic tightened her stomach. “Personally? Like what kind of personal stuff?”

  Lori dismissed Alicia’s worries with a wave. “Like the romantic personal stuff. And it’s none of their business. But they want the story, so make up a good one. Go with the old ‘Our eyes met across a conference table and I couldn’t resist him.’” She circled a hand to indicate this was enough to get the ball rolling. “The next thing you knew, the two of you were throwing down.”

  The notion was so ludicrous, a laugh burbled out of Alicia. “Throwing down.”

  Lori grinned. “I know it’s silly, but people around here like a juicy story, so don’t be shy about embellishing. The more they think they know about you, the more they’ll be apt to tell you about themselves. People in small towns are like eggs. They have a tough shell, but once you crack the outer coating, it’s all going to come spilling out.”

  * * *

  TWO HOURS LATER, Alicia could say without a doubt Lori wasn’t lying.

  She’d been introduced to everyone from Simon’s grandfather Wendell—a dapper older man whose honeyed drawl made Alicia think of porch rockers, seersucker suits and mint juleps—to a woman named Susie Troutman, who obviously prided herself on being the town’s font of information. Alicia didn’t know exactly how it happened, but she found herself squished into a love seat in the living room with a hairdresser named Shelly on one side, Susie the talker on the other and a shrewd woman named Trudy parked in a nearby armchair, watching Alicia like a hawk.

  Harry had popped into the room, she assumed to check on her, and all the women cooed. It turned out, Harry was a natural at this whole “act like we’re together” thing. He strolled in with a beer in one hand and a bottle of water for her. Their audience watched appreciatively as he handed over the water and asked if she needed anything from the overburdened buffet set up on the dining-room table. He oh-so-casually pressed a kiss to her forehead before wandering away again. When he was out of earshot, they pounced, demanding to know how they had met.

  She and Lori exchanged an amused smirk before she cautiously started to spin a tale. “Well, I knew Ben in Atlanta.” She paused, not wanting to say they worked together because someone might be able to add one and one and come up with the DEA. “We kinda ran in the same circles,” she added with a wave of her hand. “Anyway, I came down here to visit a few months ago.”

  When they all nodded, she faced Marlee. With a slight incline of her head, Marlee signaled her to say whatever needed to be said. “The truth is, I was single, and I was hoping to find Ben was too when I came down here,” she confessed, leaning closer to Susie. She fixed Marlee with a playful glare. “Unfortunately, I was too late.”

  “You snooze, you lose,” Marlee called back.

  “I guess so. Anyway, I had been laid off at my job, and Marlee and I got to talking, and the next thing I knew, she offered me a position with Timber Masters. I’m telling you, it was a godsend,” she said, shifting her attention to hairdresser Shelly.

  Almost on cue, the other woman pressed her hand to her chest and opened her eyes wide. “Nothing short of divine providence,” she said with a nod, prompting the others to agree.

  Alicia did her best not to smile when she saw a few other heads bob in agreement. “She’s a saint. I met Harry through Ben and Marlee.” She ended with a shrug, but a sharp elbow from Lori told her the story wasn’t going to cut it in terms of being juicy enough. Thankfully, Marlee picked up the baton.

  “She came down here to try to steal my man,” she said with a broad smile. “I had to explain to her how those of us who grew up here in Masters County protect what’s ours, but I was taught to be generous with what I have, and I try to be. With everything except my man,” she added with a playful glare.

  There was a general murmur of laughter and good-natured agreement. Alicia ducked her head, and her cheeks warmed. She hoped the blush was visible.

  “Honestly, I wasn’t trying to steal anybody’s guy. Last I’d known, he was fair game.”

  “I was afraid she’d start making eyes at Simon,” Lori interjected.

  Alicia’s eyebrows rose right along with everybody else’s. “I did not.”

  “Only because I was onto you.” Lori sniffed and rolled her shoulders back, assuming the confident posture of a woman who knew she had her man wrapped up tight. “But I can’t blame you. The man is hot.”

  There was another general murmur of agreement as a couple of other women drifted over from other conversations, deepening the circle around the love seat.

  “Y’all are making me sound desperate and man-hungry,” Alicia argued. She turned to Shelly the hairdresser. “Do I give off some kind of man-hungry vibe?”

  The other woman pursed her lips as if giv
ing the question serious consideration. “No. I think if you were man-hungry, you’d have had some highlights done or something.”

  Alicia barked a laugh. “Exactly.”

  As if summoned, Simon Wingate appeared in the doorway to the living room. “Did I hear somebody in here is man-hungry?”

  There was a general chorus of nos and orders to go away. Chuckling, he raised his hands in surrender and backed out of his own living room.

  “You already have more woman than you can handle, mister,” Lori called after him.

  Simon’s response floated back to them. “Don’t I know it.”

  “I didn’t come here to steal anyone’s man. You know how it is when your whole life is turned upside down,” she said, turning to the skeptical woman in the chair nearby. “I wanted a fresh start.”

  “But you didn’t stick around long,” Marlee said with a chuckle. “I know it’s hard to find good people these days, but usually people stay in my employment for longer than three weeks before they get a better offer and move on.”

  Alicia rolled with it. “Aw, you know I’m sorry about having to leave so quickly. It was too good to pass up,” she said with a helpless shrug. Turning back to Susie, she explained, “I was recruited by a headhunter for a big firm back in Atlanta. They were offering the sun and the moon, and I was already at the point where I was going to have to sublet my condo to make the mortgage payment. It didn’t make sense to stay here.”

  “But what about Harry?” the woman named Trudy asked, finally leaning in a bit. “Wouldn’t he have been reason enough to stay?”

  Alicia wanted to say something pithy about setting the women’s movement back another fifty years but bit her cheek. She wasn’t there to sermonize; she was supposed to be making friends.

  She tried for a sort of downcast, dejected pose, but wasn’t sure she quite got it right. So she did the next best thing. She threw Harrison Hayes under the bus.

  “He didn’t ask me to.”