by Mary Logue
Meg took a swig of her beer and nodded. “A vow.”
“We swore it on our hearts. I know it sounds weird, but it seemed like the thing to do. The next day the three of us, along with some other guys, are sent off into the hills to find a hidden treasure—they claim they’ve got the mother of all ammos tucked away in a cave.
“We’re the scouts. We’re not supposed to engage. Just try to light the way for the other guys. We walk for what seems like hours, carefully checking all around us as we go. We almost get to the cave when I hear something. It’s like a chatter, like an animal that’s mad, we’re in its territory. I think it’s nothing, but Doug blows. He shoots at it—whatever it is—like he can’t help it.
“Now we’re in trouble. If anyone is out there, they know where we are. The other guys behind us drop back. We’re stranded close to the cave. Before I hear them, before I see them, I feel them. They’re surrounding us. We’re up on a high ridge, one side a sheer drop-off and the other side dense brush.”
He stopped, and his hand covered his eyes for a moment.
“Are you sure you want to tell me this?” Meg asked.
“Please,” he said, and then continued, “I need to explain what happened to someone. It’s hard to capture how bad it was. Then it happened. Like at some secret signal, the world exploded. I was hugging the earth. Doug was firing back, like a crazy man, he was standing and shooting as if they couldn’t see him, like he was invisible.
“Then it got worse. Doug got hit. I saw him go down. I was crawling over to where he was when I saw Brian start to go over the cliff. I grabbed his hand and he pulled me to the edge. He was dangling and I was holding on. They were shooting at us. Then he fell, and his body got ripped up by shots on the way down. He bounced on the rocks like a rag doll.”
Andrew was shaking. Meg stood above him and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into her. She wanted to know how he had made it. She wanted to know what this had to do with the grandmother. But she just held him until he calmed. He took one of her hands and turned it over and kissed the palm.
“Thanks,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“What for?”
“That you had to go through that.”
“Well, I made it. Somehow I made it through. I dug into a bush, dragged Doug in with me, and the other men came pouring in and took over. I didn’t come out. I stayed in there, hidden, until all the shooting was over. Doug was bad. A bullet had clipped his head. He was bleeding like a stuck pig. We got him out of there, and they choppered him out that night. I was sent home two weeks later. My last tour of duty was over. I don’t know if I could have gone back.”
“What about Doug?”
“I haven’t seen him since. He’s called me a few times, but he sounds pretty strange. Talks about the vow. How we left Brian behind. He wants to see me. Called last night. When I tried to get back to him this morning, I figured out he was calling from his grandma’s. She doesn’t live too far from here, down Fountain City way. I called there and some neighbor answered and said Doug was gone.”
“Oh,” Meg said, knowing there was more.
“And that his grandmother was dead. Someone shot her.”
CHAPTER 19
When Terry took his cap off, Claire could see that he was a little older than she had thought. His hair was starting to thin at the front of his head. He rubbed at his eyes and then stared around the room. “Nice office,” he said.
“It’s just temporary.”
“So you’re not really the sheriff?”
“For now,” Claire said, then wondered why she did that. He didn’t need to know this information, and she was the one that should be asking the questions. “Let me just get this time frame straight. When was the last time you saw Tammy Lee?”
“Thursday night, like I already told that other woman deputy.
I got off work, had a drink at the bar, then we hung out for a while.”
“Anything happen?”
“Not really. I’m not much good after a shift. Tammy Lee wanted to party, but I wasn’t up for it.”
“Is this when she told you about the ring?”
“Naw, she told me that while I was working. Wish she would have waited. Got me all riled up. Maybe it’s stupid, but it just don’t seem right that she would lose the ring before we even got married. Like it’s a bad omen.” He stopped talking, his eyes dropping down to the hat in his hands. “I guess maybe it was.”
“Were you mad at her?”
“Sure, I was mad. Who wouldn’t be.”
“You ever get violent with her.”
“Not much. Maybe once, I punched her. But when she’d have too much to drink she could get nasty. She’d slap me and call me names. But usually she wasn’t like that.” He leaned down and his voice was muffled. “I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Did you think she really lost the ring?”
He looked up. “What do you mean?”
“Did it ever occur to you that she might have taken it off on purpose, maybe she didn’t want to wear it anymore?”
“Sometimes she would tease me, say it was over, but the next day everything would be all right again. Until that Andrew came back. He’s the one you should be talking to, not me. She said he wanted her back. Thinks he’s so big just cause he went over and fought in the war. And he has a temper. You know he slugged me out in the parking lot.”
“Yes, I know that. I also know that you hit him, too.”
“A guy’s got to defend himself.”
Claire reached into the drawer of the desk and pulled out a plastic bag. She handed it over to Terry. “Is this the ring?”
“Hard to see through this plastic,” he complained.
Claire reached into her pocket and handed him a pair of plastic gloves. “Put these on and you can take it out.”
Reluctantly, he snapped the gloves on and then opened the bag. Holding the ring in his hands, he said, “I’m pretty sure it is. Where did you find it?”
His question stopped Claire. Usually she had a questioning all thought out, but this was rather informal. They weren’t charging him with anything, yet. “She dropped it in a friend’s car.”
“Whose?” Terry asked, dropping the ring back in the bag.
“What would you have done if Tammy Lee had left you for Andrew?”
“I’d have killed them both.”
Andrew roused slowly as he heard some music coming from next to the bed. At first he thought it was the clock radio alarm waking him for work, but then he remembered he was on leave. He realized it was his phone in time to grab it and mumble, “Hello,” before it went to voice mail.
“Stick-man, Dougie here.”
“Doug, wha’ time is it?”
“I dunno. Late, or early.”
“What’s up? You coming my way?”
“Yeah, just wondering if we could hook up tomorrow.”
“Yeah, that’d be perfect.” Andrew thought quickly. He didn’t want Doug to come to his parents’ house, not until he was sure that he wasn’t going to be too crazy. “You know where Fort St. Antoine is?”
“I already told you I’ve been doing my recon. Saw that sweetheart of yours.”
“What’re you talking about?” Andrew thought of Meg.
“That Tammy Lee. She is one stacked woman. Feisty, too.”
“When did you see her?”
“I don’t remember exactly. Sometime last week. Before I came to my grandma’s. I was getting pretty tired. Things kinda all mix together in my mind.”
Andrew didn’t want to scare him off, so he decided not to ask him anything more about Tammy Lee. He needed to get Doug, to meet him. That was what was important now. When he was face to face with him, he could ask him if anything happened to Tammy Lee or his grandmother.
“Sure. Well, there’s a bar, the Fort, right on the corner of Highway 35 and Main Street. I’ll meet you there. What time can you be there?”
“I
’m probably going to sleep in, and I’m still a ways away. Haven’t been sleeping that good. Let’s say around eight tomorrow night.”
“Where’ve you been?”
“Around.”
Andrew thought about all Doug wasn’t saying. “Any place in particular?”
“I stopped off to visit my grandma.”
“Oh, yeah. How’s she doing?”
“Not so good. She’s got that cancer pretty bad. But I think she was happy to see me.”
Andrew just couldn’t bring himself to give Doug the news of his grandmother’s death over the phone. He knew Doug had been close to her. Plus, he wanted to see his face when he told him. He needed to know if Doug already knew about the death. “That’s good. See you at eight.”
When Amy walked into the bar, she realized she hadn’t been there in quite a while. She guessed that’s what happened when you settled down and didn’t need to go trolling the local haunts to find some guy. Looking around at the blue air, the rumpled hair, the hunting jackets and baseball caps, the sagging shoulders of the men lined up at the bar, she was so happy she didn’t need to visit very often.
She was still in her uniform, so she got the stares and then the quick looks away. All of the men probably had something in their past they weren’t proud of, some bill they hadn’t paid, some driving violation they hoped no one had seen.
There was a stool open in the middle of the pack and she walked over, sat down and ordered a Leinie on tap. “I’m off duty,” she explained to the bartender.
“It’s okay with me,” he said. “On the house.” He set it down in front of her.
She slid a couple bucks across the bar—he could use them to pay for the beer or as a tip, didn’t matter to her. “You know Terry Whitman?”
Bartender scratched his head. “Terry? Short guy? Works for the railroad?”
“That’s the one.”
“I’ve served him. Not much of a talker. Comes in, has a few brewskis after work, then he leaves.”
“Anyone here a friend of his?”
Bartender looked up and down the bar, shaking his head, then he looked back to a booth and then pointed. “That guy knows him. I think they work together.”
Amy walked over to the booth. A man with steel-gray hair cut short and a weathered face looked up at her without turning his head. He had both hands around his beer glass. “You looking for me?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said to reassure him. Then, without waiting to be asked, she sat down across from him. “Not you. I’m wondering what you can tell me about Terry Whitman.”
“Not much. Cocky guy. Does his job. Don’t know him that well.” He lowered his head to take a sip of beer, barely lifting the glass up. He seemed dog tired.
“You just get off a shift?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“You seem exhausted.”
“Yeah, the shifts aren’t getting any easier.” He kept his gaze lowered at the table as if he didn’t want her to be there.
“I know what you mean,” Amy said, pointing at her uniform even though he wasn’t looking at her. “I just got off too.”
“So this isn’t official?”
She ignored that question. “You heard that Terry’s fiancée died?”
“Something like that.”
“You ever meet Tammy Lee?”
“Sort of. She’d be waiting for him here in the bar most nights he got off. They’d hang around for a while, you know. We didn’t socialize or anything, but I’d see them together.”
“Was she here last Thursday night?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure she was.”
“What state was she in?”
“Kind of happy. She was tying one on, if you ask me.”
“Was that usual?”
“Not unusual.”
Amy now really understood the phrase ‘it was like pulling teeth.’ This guy had a clenched jaw; hard to get anything out of him. “Did you notice anything going on between the two of them?”
“Well, they didn’t leave together.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, she left first. Then Terry finished his drink, hung out maybe another fifteen minutes or so and left.”
“How did he seem?”
“Like usual. Tired, a little pissed off. But that was Terry.”
“Do you think Terry could have killed her?”
He took another slurp of his beer, then looked up at her for the second time. “Don’t know, but wouldn’t surprise me.”
CHAPTER 20
Rich wasn’t sure when Claire was coming home, and for once he didn’t feel like waiting for her to call to find out. Since she had taken over as sheriff, her schedule was more packed and erratic than ever. Often she would come home an hour or two after he and Meg had eaten and stand by the refrigerator, eating leftovers, not even bothering to sit down.
He felt like having someone else cook for him, and he felt like eating a hamburger. Meg had told him she was going out to eat and then ran upstairs to get ready, so he didn’t have to worry about her. He had a feeling she was going to meet Andrew, but he didn’t ask and she didn’t say.
He decided to walk down to the Fort, a small café bar right in downtown Fort St. Antoine. It wasn’t even a mile away. Not that he needed the exercise—pheasant season was going strong and he was exhausted every day from the work—but it was a nice night, and in October you didn’t know how many of those you’d have left. Winter could come along any time. No one in his generation would ever get over the Halloween snowstorm in 1992 that dropped over two feet of snow in a day and half, most of which never melted all winter long. Just more snow piled on top of it.
But tonight, the air was crisp and snappy, like biting into an apple. The sun was leaving the sky a bit sooner every night and he hated to see it go, but there was still a bit of dusk left in the west, over the lake. Not much traffic along Highway 35. The leafers didn’t usually come out mid-week, and the colors hadn’t been that good this year.
He could see the Fort ahead of him, the big red Texaco star all lit up from when it had also been a gas station. No one but a fool would ever take that sign away. It was a classic, and right in keeping with this old rivertown.
When he walked in the Fort, he saw the place was nearly empty. Two kids were playing pool while their parents had a beer. A lone man ordered something at the far end of the bar.
The man turned when Rich came up to the bar, and Rich saw who it was.
“Andrew, how’s it going?”
“Hey, Rich. Not as good as it could be.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“No one’s fault but my own.”
“Sometimes it’s just like that.”
“Want to grab a booth?” Rich asked.
“No.” Andrew lowered his head, then shook it. “I’m meeting somebody here in a bit. But thanks.”
Rich ordered a burger and wondered who Andrew might be meeting, and if he would feel compelled to tell Claire about this rendezvous. He hoped not.
Andrew had made a hard decision. He had to tell Meg they needed to quit seeing each other, at least until this investigation was over. And preferably until he got his feet back on the ground emotionally. He was still upset about the way he had pushed her into having sex with him, assuming she wanted it when he did. If he had even taken the time to think about what she wanted.
Maybe he did need to check into the VA and see a therapist again. He had hoped he could avoid that—certainly no badge of courage in the armed services, but he knew that PTSD was turning up in a third of returning vets. What made him think he would be so lucky as to avoid that curse completely?
When he looked around the bar, he saw Rich Haggard walk into the Fort. Rich was a good guy, but Andrew didn’t know him very well and couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t let Claire know that Meg and he had been seen together.
He hoped Meg would get here before Doug. He wanted to get that talk with her out of the way before he tackled whatever D
oug had going on in his crazy brain. One thing about Doug—at least the Doug he had known in Afghanistan—the guy couldn’t lie to save his life. If he had done something to his grandmother, he would tell Andrew.
Andrew heard the door bang shut and turned to see Doug walk in. He looked rugged, like he had been out on duty for days and hadn’t had time to shave or bath. He certainly didn’t look like he was in the service anymore, as his hair was down to his shoulders.
Yet there seemed to be less of him.
Doug had been a pretty bulky guy in Afghanistan, working out on weights every day, eating more than his fair share of the awful grub. He had dwindled since he had come stateside.
Andrew raised his hand. “Doug, over here.”
Doug nodded, then scanned the room before he walked across it. Still working the area. When he got closer, Andrew could see his eyes were bloodshot and wary, and the scar on the side of his head.
Andrew stood up from his stool and reached for Doug. Doug pulled back for a moment, then grabbed onto Andrew and squeezed him hard.
“Too long, buddy,” Andrew said.
“Yeah, man. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. After what happened over there.”
Andrew wasn’t ready to talk about what happened in Afghanistan. He wanted to get some food and drink into Doug before they got into it.
“How does a burger sound?”
“Yeah, I could go for that,” Doug said, sliding onto a stool, but still checking the room.
Andrew ordered two burgers with fries. “You want a brew?”
“Sure, whatever they have.”
When the two glasses of Leinenkugel’s came, they tapped them together and Doug’s eyes started to water. “Who’d a thunk we’d ever be here like this. Just normal guys drinking a beer.”
“I knew we’d make it.”
“Yeah, but Brian didn’t.”
Andrew didn’t want to talk about Brian. Not yet. “What you been doing with yourself?”