Small Town Justice

by Valerie Hansen

  “It won’t be the same,” Marsha explained. “I’m not the same. It’s hard to explain. All I can say is that your father’s death affected me in ways I hadn’t anticipated.”

  “You did seem to take it better than I’d expected.”

  She smiled slightly and nodded. “I had my moments. Still do. Once in a while, some thought or outside trigger will set me off and I can’t stop crying.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “Of course not. You had your own grief when you were younger, and then your marriage crashed. Why would I add worry about my crazy feelings if I didn’t have to?”

  “Because I care?”

  “Of course you do. I still miss your dad every day, yet I know it’s foolish to grieve the way I did when he first left this world.”

  “Which is why you’re okay with that woman digging up the past?”

  “That’s part of it.” Shane saw her countenance harden. “The other part is personal. I want to know who killed my Sam as much as she does.”

  “We know who did it.”

  “Do we?” Her head tilted and her eyes narrowed. “If Sam had been able to investigate that hit-and-run himself, I wonder who he’d have arrested.”

  FIVE

  Jamie Lynn managed to shampoo the last tiny shards out of her hair, then gave it a careful combing. That was one good thing about safety glass. It broke into pieces that didn’t have very sharp edges.

  Glad to be back in her own clothing, she smoothed the hem of her red T-top over the hips of white linen slacks and slipped into her sandals. Although the spring day had been warm, she expected a cooler evening so she grabbed a light sweater.

  Ulysses began to dance at the door when he saw her pick up her shoulder bag.

  “Yes, you get to go,” she said with a smile. “And play with that nice little boy again.”

  Truth to tell, she wished she were headed for a pleasant evening of socialization instead of an inquest. Marsha was a lovely person. And the child was darling.

  Jamie set her jaw. His daddy wasn’t bad, either, once you got past the chip on his shoulder. Before he’d learned her identity, he’d been pleasant. Tender. Even joyful, particularly when he’d gone out of his way to catch and look after Useless-Ulysses. The mistake took her by surprise. Made her shake her head and grin. That man had gotten under her skin, all right. It would be nice if his current presence didn’t feel like a touch of poison ivy.

  Still smiling and thinking about rejoining Shane in the parking lot, she scooped up her little dog, tucked him under one arm and pulled the door to her room shut with a bang.

  Ulysses stilled. The beginning of a growl made his tiny body vibrate.

  Jamie Lynn froze. Listened. Waited to see what her pet sensed that she had missed noticing.

  The nape of her neck prickled. Goose bumps tingled along her arms and a shiver traced her spine. She was not alone.

  Slowly swiveling her neck, she glimpsed movement out of the corner of her eye. Before she could get a better look, a meaty hand clamped over her mouth and a deep voice rumbled, “Don’t make a sound.”

  At that point the command was unnecessary because Jamie’s voice failed her. Simply drawing breath was hard enough. Fear paralyzed her. Stole strength from her limbs and thoughts from her mind.

  “You need to leave town,” the man ordered.

  His mouth was so close to her ear she could feel his hot breath on her cheek and smell alcohol. That was how her brother had smelled all too often in his late teens, another reason why he’d been a prime suspect for the fatal hit-and-run.

  Remembering R.J. was enough stimulus to raise Jamie Lynn’s ire. She stiffened. Tried to break free.

  The man’s grip tightened, pinching her face.

  She began to make noise, a whine growing louder behind her closed lips.

  His “Shut up!” was menacing and then some.

  That was apparently enough to set off Ulysses because the little dog’s growl became a fierce bark.

  The attacker loosened his grip on Jamie to reach for the dog and was rewarded by a bite. Cursing, he shook his bleeding hand and took a step backward.

  Jamie unleashed a scream that rattled the windows in the exterior hallway. She bolted, shrieking as she ran.

  By the time she reached the end of the hall, she was almost as breathless as she’d been after the fire.

  Someone grabbed her. She swung her purse and connected with a thunk.

  “Hey. Cut it out. It’s me!”

  She had to blink repeatedly to focus on Shane and take in her new reality. All she could do was point and stammer, “He, he...”

  Shane tried to set her aside. “No! Don’t leave me.”

  * * *

  Although every fiber of Shane’s being wanted to give chase to whoever had frightened her, he heeded her panicky request. “All right. Tell me what happened.”

  “A man. Outside my room. He grabbed me.”

  “Did he hurt you?” Shane studied her face. “It looks like he slapped your cheek.”

  “No. He held his hand over my mouth really tightly and it pinched.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  Shane saw her dark eyes widen as she looked into his. “Yes. He told me to leave town!”

  “All right. We’re calling the police.”

  “Again? They’re going to think I’m looking for attention if I keep having to involve them.”

  “Would you rather let whoever is doing this get away with it?”

  “Of course not.”

  He could tell that she was starting to regain her self-control because she’d released the fistful of his jacket fabric and started to ease away, blushing so brightly the injury to her face almost disappeared.

  Urging her into the motel office, he told the clerk to call 911, then started back outside.

  Jamie Lynn made a grab at his sleeve. “Where are you going?”

  “To look for clues.”

  “Don’t you think that’s best left to the professionals?”

  “My dad taught me how to behave around a crime scene. Where, exactly, were you when the guy grabbed you?”

  “Right outside my room.”

  “6-B?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you stepped away from the door?”

  “I’d turned around to check the lock. You know, jiggle the knob to make sure the door was locked. That’s when Ulysses started to growl.”

  “Good. Anything else?”

  “Yes!” The excitement in that single word gave him added hope.

  “What did you just remember?” Shane asked.

  Jamie Lynn began hugging and petting the dog she still held tucked under one arm. “Ulysses bit him!”

  She directed lavish praise on her faithful pet and began to coo, “What a good little boy you are. Yes, you are. A sweet, sweet boy.”

  “Did he draw blood?”

  “What?”

  “Blood. Is there a chance the dog’s teeth broke the skin? Or was the man wearing gloves?”

  “Um, I don’t think I felt gloves. It all happened so fast I’m not totally positive.”

  “All right. In that case I’ll wait for a deputy. I wouldn’t want to step on the only drop of blood left behind and ruin evidence.”

  “Shouldn’t you phone your mother and tell her we’ll be late for supper?”

  “You’re still going? Even after this?” The incredulous look she sent his way provided the answer before she spoke. He clenched his jaw.

  “Of course I’m going. I meant what I told you and Marsha. I’m not going to let anybody scare me off. If they’d wanted to kill me they could have done it a few minutes ago and you wouldn’t have suspected a thing until you got tired
of waiting and came looking for me.”

  “That’s probably a valid argument.”

  “Of course it is. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I doubt that the fire was meant to be fatal, either. When they couldn’t find me inside, I think they assumed I’d escaped and torched the house to cover their tracks.”

  “What about the shooting in front of the old police station?”

  “They missed me then, too.”

  “Because it’s hard to fire accurately from a moving vehicle,” Shane argued. “That truck was speeding so fast it almost turned over when it skidded around the corner.”

  “Meaning, you believe I’m in real danger?”

  He rolled his eyes as he drawled, “Well, yeah.”

  “Opinion noted,” Jamie Lynn said. She pointed toward the street. “Looks like the cavalry is here. If I get to know these officers any better, I’m going to have to start baking them cookies.”

  Facing her, Shane grasped her upper arms. “Will you at least try to look scared, the way you did when you came running to me, so they’ll take you seriously?”

  “I wasn’t running to you. I was running from the other guy.”

  He was taken aback when she set Ulysses on the ground at her feet, straightened and held out her hands. Tremors in her fingers gave her away. She put on a good act, but beneath the unruffled exterior she was still plenty terrified.

  Shane wasn’t sure whether to be glad she was wary or sorry for her. Either way, at least he knew that inside, where it really counted, she wasn’t nearly as hard-boiled as she pretended to be.

  * * *

  This police officer was new to her. At least Jamie Lynn thought he was. Except for Sheriff Allgood, who was considerably older, the men’s faces were beginning to look alike to her. So was their skepticism. Bidding this particular officer goodbye, she sighed, shook her head and made a face at Shane. “That went about as well as I’d figured it would.”

  “At least he took your statement.”

  “Yes, and promised to send someone to look for drops of blood in the hall. Do you think he will?”

  “I have my doubts.”

  “Then we should try.”

  Shane didn’t seem particularly happy about the prospect of turning amateur CSI. “My success will be iffy, at best. The problem is collecting a sample without contaminating it.”

  He looked to Sadie, the motel’s owner, a rotund, motherly-looking woman he’d known since childhood. “Do you have a plastic sandwich bag that’s never been opened?”

  “Sure do. If you can prove who’s been harassing my guests, I’ll give you anything you ask for.”

  “The bag will be enough,” Shane replied. “Just be sure the seal at the top is closed, just the way it came out of the box.”

  “Gotcha. Hang on. Be right back.”

  “How will that help?” Jamie asked. Confused, she was glad Shane had taken charge because she was clearly in over her head in this instance.

  “Coming from the factory, it should be sanitary enough to store a clean sample. Providing we locate one, that is.”

  Sadie breezed back to the counter and produced the plastic bag he’d asked for. “Here you go. Need a flashlight?”

  “That would be helpful, yes.” Shane turned to Jamie and pointed to her dog. “Carry him. We don’t want him spoiling the evidence.”

  “Right.” Although she did as told, she hesitated inside the motel lobby.

  “You have to come with me,” Shane reminded her. “Otherwise I may search all night and not even be looking in the right place.”

  “I understand. It’s just that...”

  When he turned his full attention to her, she felt the effect of his inner strength as well as saw his determination.

  “I’m licensed to carry a concealed weapon,” Shane told her. “We won’t be walking into this unarmed, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “It had occurred to me.” Holding her wiggling dog closer, she said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

  As anticipated, the hallway was cloaked in shadow. The setting sun shone on a few tiny sections of it, throwing the rest into darkness by comparison. Taking her place at Shane’s shoulder, she pointed. “My room is just past that big potted plant. If there is any blood, it has to be on the other side.”

  “When you ran, did he follow?”

  “I—I don’t think so.” She dropped back one step, no more. There was something terribly comforting about being with Shane Colton in spite of his rigid conclusions about her brother. She supposed, under the same circumstances, she wouldn’t be very open to stirring things up, either.

  That sensible conclusion helped settle her mind a bit, although her body continued to tremble.

  Ulysses’s growl vibrated against her chest and tingled her fingers.

  She touched Shane’s shoulder. “Wait. Stop.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The dog is growling again. He did the same thing just before I was grabbed.”

  Flashlight in one hand, Shane slipped a .38 automatic from a holster inside his belt and stood ready. “Get behind me. Against the wall.”

  She watched from there as he played the beam of light over the entire area, finding nothing.

  “Useless is probably remembering the last time,” Shane said, illuminating the pavement next. “This has to be the right place.”

  “More to the left,” Jamie Lynn told him. “Yes! There.”

  He crouched, inverted the bag and touched it to a dot on the ground before righting it and zipping it closed. “There was more than one drop still wet so I chose the smallest. That will leave plenty for crime scene investigating if they ever send anybody by to look.”

  “What do we do with that?” Jamie asked.

  “Deliver it to Harlan and call in a favor.” Shane holstered his gun, then cupped her elbow. “Come on. We’ll drop this by the sheriff’s office on our way to supper.”

  “Oh, dear. I’d forgotten all about that. Your poor mom must be worried sick.”

  Shane frowned. “You suggested I phone her, so I did.”

  It occurred to Jamie that her unplanned contact with the Colton family was an extraordinary coincidence. Aunt Tessie would have given credit to God, of course. She always thanked Him, even when things didn’t work out the way she wanted. A sense of peace usually followed, too, at least in regard to Tessie. There had been many times when Jamie Lynn had envied her aunt’s faith.

  There had also been times when she had wondered how anybody could continue to trust God when so many things went so very wrong, such as R.J.’s unjust conviction.

  Everyone in her family had prayed fervently for the truth to come out, yet an innocent young man had been sent to prison and remained there. A righteous God wouldn’t have let that happen, would He?

  Following Shane to his truck and climbing in, Jamie Lynn mulled over her original reasons for returning to a town she’d thought she hated. There were nice folks here. Helpful, caring people such as Sadie and Marsha. And even Shane.

  Truth to tell, it was a big step for him to set aside his prejudices and reach out to help her through this maze of confusion and apparent danger. He might cause her untold trouble in the future when she dug into the evidence surrounding the hit-and-run, but right now he was going out of his way to provide aid. As far as she was concerned, that made him a hero.

  She petted the dog in her lap and began to smile as she carried that notion further and envisioned Shane dressed as a superhero. He’d be handsome, of course, and strong, but in his case his costume was denim and his cape slightly wrinkled. Which would make for a bumpy flight, she concluded.

  “Why are you grinning like that?” he asked.

  “Maybe I’m just glad you were there when I needed you and able to find a b
lood sample,” she said.

  He huffed cynically. “If I believed for a second that that was the only notion bouncing around in your brain, I wouldn’t be nearly so worried.”

  When she glanced at him and saw how deeply he was scowling, it was all Jamie could do to keep from laughing out loud.

  SIX

  Shane was not surprised to find that the normally casual atmosphere at Marsha and Otis’s was noticeably altered. Only Kyle seemed oblivious to any difference, and that was mostly due to his infatuation with Useless. Marsha bustled from kitchen to dinner table and back far more than usual, Otis seemed at a loss for relevant conversation and Shane, himself, was determined to protect his family’s feelings no matter what. That made for an atmosphere so strained it was almost palpable.

  It didn’t help when Jamie remarked, “I’m sorry we were delayed. We had to wait for the police again.”

  Shane rescued a bowl of steaming potatoes from his mother’s hands and set it on a trivet. “Everything’s okay. No harm was done this time.”

  “Jamie? Are you all right?” the tenderhearted woman asked.

  “She’s fine.” Shane took his own regular seat across from their guest, unfolding his son’s napkin and tucking it under the boy’s chin.

  When he looked up again, his mother was glaring at him. “Why didn’t you tell me that when you called?”

  “Because I didn’t want to worry you. Like now,” he said with an arch of his eyebrows. “There’s no reason to get upset.”

  One quick glance at Jamie Lynn told him otherwise. Nevertheless, he saw her manage a smile for his mother.

  “It turned out to be a good thing Shane decided to be the one to wait for me at the motel,” Jamie said. “Knowing he was nearby probably scared off the thug.”

  “What’s a tug?” Kyle piped up.

  “A thug is a bad guy,” she explained.

  “Like an ogre?”

  Shane noticed her eyes beginning to sparkle with what he assumed was mirth.

  “A bad ogre, maybe. Not the nice cartoon kind.” She took a helping of potatoes, then passed the bowl. “You know about being careful to not talk to strangers, don’t you?”