No Ordinary Sheriff

by Mary Sullivan

  “Yes,” Sierra replied.

  “Good. Don’t worry about washing your face tonight. Just get into your pajamas.”

  He heard dresser drawers opening and closing.”Sierra, take these pajamas in to the twins.”

  “No way, mom. I can’t go back in there. It’s probably still smelly from Hannah’s fart.”

  He heard Janey open the bathroom door. “Here are your pj’s, girls.” She closed the door and laughed. “You’re right, Sierra, it is stinky.”

  So much normal, blissfully happy family activity. It made Cash’s heart hurt. He wanted this warmth and noise and mess and camaraderie in his own home.

  He’d wanted it desperately while growing up.

  He stared through the front window at the fields and hills in the distance. The evening’s broody gloaming, with bare tree branches stark against a fading sky, reflected his unsettled emotions. He wanted to be upstairs and he wanted those children to be his.

  Impatient with his morose mood, he turned on the room’s lamps. They cast wide arcs of warm yellow light.

  He stared back at the window, but could no longer see outside. Rather, he saw his own face, full of self-pity, and thought that was even worse.

  Ben cried full bore now. Cash wanted to run upstairs and comfort him, to hold him until the child fell asleep on his shoulder.

  If he had a family his home would be warm and welcoming, his children would be happy and well-cared for, would never be asked to take on responsibility until they were old enough to handle it. No way would his kids have to take on their parents’ care.

  He would love the daylights out of them and make sure they knew they were loved.

  He jammed his fingers through his hair. Man, he needed to break out of this funk.

  So Danielle hadn’t worked out, and Shannon was a cop with a successful, big-city career. It wasn’t the end of the world. There were still plenty of available women out there.

  Upstairs, the noise gradually eased to murmured tones. He thought he heard Shannon’s rhythmical voice reading a story.

  A short while later the adults came back downstairs.

  Liam wandered in from the back. He’d grown tall this summer. The kid was going to be good-looking like his father.

  C.J. wrangled a bunch of beers from the fridge and they all sat in the living room.

  Without preamble, Janey said, “Tell me about Tom.”

  “There isn’t much to tell,” Shannon replied. “I call the hospital every day. He’s still in a coma.”

  She took Janey’s hand and squeezed it. “It doesn’t look good. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

  Janey grimaced. “I wonder if it’s for the better that he’s dying. He was half-dead already without his family.”

  “Maybe,” Shannon whispered.

  “Tell me about the drugs,” C.J. said. “He said he got them here? I can’t imagine that.”

  Cash nodded. “I’m having trouble with that, too.”

  “When I asked him, he was overdosing,” Shannon said, “but he named Ordinary as the source pretty clearly. He knew what he was saying.”

  She turned to Janey. “Was Tom with you all of the time he visited?”

  “No, he couldn’t be. I had to run Sweet Talk. He often stayed here with the children and C.J.”

  “That wasn’t easy for him, though.” C.J. took a sip of his beer. “He loved the kids, but it pained him to be near them. He asked to borrow the truck one day and was gone for hours. He didn’t say where he went.”

  “What day was that?” Janey asked.

  “His last afternoon here.”

  “Must be when he picked up the drugs.” Shannon stood and wandered to the window. “Where did he go, I wonder?”

  Cash looked at Liam, who sat quietly on an old piano stool in the corner.

  “Have you heard anything around school about crystal meth?” Liam went to high school in Haven. Kids went to elementary and middle school in Ordinary and then had to be bused to Haven for high school.

  “Is that what Uncle Tom overdosed on?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know kids get stuff sometimes. You know, weed. Hash. Even prescription drugs under the table.”

  “Do you know who they’re getting them from?” Shannon asked.

  “I think some of it comes from the bikers.”

  Shannon shot a triumphant glance at Cash, as though to say, See?

  He shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, though,” Liam said with a raised hand to forestall Shannon’s excitement.

  “Do you know whether there’s meth at school?” Cash leaned forward in the armchair. If someone was selling the stuff to high school kids, he’d tear them limb from limb.

  “No. Do you want me to ask around?”

  “Yeah. Can you do it without getting into trouble or getting mixed up with the wrong crowd?” The last thing Cash wanted was to see harm come to a member of this family.

  Liam grinned. “Yeah. I can do that.”

  Cash looked at C.J. “That okay with you?”

  “Sure, if Liam can do it safely.”

  “I can, Dad.”

  “I’ll drive over to the school tomorrow and talk to the principal.”

  Cash stood to leave. “Shannon, can you walk me out?”

  “Sure.” She took a coat from the rack beside the front door, turned on the veranda light and stepped outside.

  Cash followed her, saying his goodbyes as he went.

  “What’s your next move with the bikers?” He settled his cowboy hat onto his head and hooked his collar up to cover his neck.

  “I’m going to interview the gang leader, Cole, when he gets back from some trip he’s on.”

  “As a reporter? Where?”

  “At the farm.”

  “Interview him in town. At a coffee shop, or something.”

  Shannon stared at him as if he had a screw loose. “That would defeat the purpose. I need to get on that land, in their house, to look for the lab.”

  Cash’s hackles rose. “That’s too dangerous.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Let me come with you.”

  “No. How would that help? How likely is a reporter to bring a sheriff along with her on a job?”

  It wouldn’t work. “You’re asking for trouble, Shannon. Those aren’t little boys playing around.”

  “I know. I deal with scumbags like them all the time.”

  “Why?”

  She looked puzzled. “It’s part of my job.”

  “I mean, why did you choose this job?”

  She turned away from him and wrapped an arm around a veranda post. “I want to help people. I wanted to become a police officer because the cops in Billings never caught Janey’s rapist.”

  “So how did police officer morph into DEA agent?”

  “One of my friends in high school had a lot of trouble with drugs. She got really messed up, almost died, and I decided I wanted to put away drug dealers.”

  “What about a family?”

  “What about it?”

  “Why don’t you want one?”

  “I don’t want the burden. I’m dedicated to my career.”

  Once again, it felt like she was holding out on him. He’d swear on a stack of bibles that she wasn’t telling him the full truth.

  Yeah, she was serious about her career. He got that message loud and clear. But he’d seen her with the children. She was born to be a mother. There was no reason why a woman couldn’t have both a career and a family.

  So that left him to wonder why she didn’t want a man in her life, a father for those children.

  So, would she never have children because she didn’t want a serious relationship
with a man and would be too busy in her career rising to the top to care for them?

  The breeze blew a strand of Shannon’s hair over her shoulder. Cash picked it up and twined it around his index finger. It was soft and pliable, sort of like fleeting glimpses he caught of Shannon when she wasn’t in her DEA agent über-capable mode.

  “Why do you have to do this? Chase Tom’s drug dealer? Why can’t you wait for the DEA to take care of it?”

  “I can’t. There are too many people who get caught up in drugs, like Tom did, or like my friend Ruby did. Any drug is bad enough, but meth is viciously addictive.”

  He dropped her hair and she turned to face him, leaning back against the post.

  “I don’t know how many people could get hooked on this drug while we’re waiting for the DEA to have a couple of agents available one or two months from now. How many will die of an overdose while we wait and do nothing?”

  “Okay. Let me ask you this, then. Why do you have to do it alone?”

  “I just do, Cash. It’s who I am.”

  “But what shaped you to be who you are?”

  She didn’t say anything. Just shook her head no.

  Cash sighed. He wasn’t getting anything else out of her tonight. Time to change the subject.

  “Where’s your gun?”

  “Unloaded and hidden at the back of the top shelf in the closet in my bedroom.” She’d understood the question immediately, despite what he’d left unsaid: So none of the children can get hold of it. This wasn’t the first time he’d had the impression they were on the same wavelength, that they thought in similar ways—maybe because they were both cops and saw the world differently than others did.

  “Is there any way you can use your DEA sources to track someone down for me?”

  “Of course. I have my laptop here with me.”

  “Would you mind coming in to the office tomorrow and using mine?”

  “Sure. Who are you looking for?”

  Cash took his time answering, buttoned his coat, snugged his Stetson more firmly onto his head. Then he said quietly, “My dad.”

  * * *

  SHANNON ENTERED THE house. Liam and C.J. were no longer in the living room, just Janey, who sat alone on the sofa flipping through a magazine.

  She looked up. “What was that all about?”

  “Cash doesn’t want me involved in this investigation.”

  “Well, you are going rogue, aren’t you?”

  Shannon sat beside Janey then lay down and put her head in Janey’s lap.

  “Remember when I used to do this after mummy died?” She’d been only six years old and Janey only eleven.

  “What’s the matter, Shanny-poo?” Janey asked.

  Shannon smiled. “You haven’t called me that in years.”

  Janey smoothed hair away from Shannon’s face. “You haven’t done this in years. What’s up?”

  “Tom’s overdose, I guess.”

  “And?”

  “What do you mean ‘and?’”

  “Does this blue funk have anything to do with Cash?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “It sure feels like it does to me.” She combed Shannon’s hair with her fingers. “Not all men are bad, you know. Not all of them are weak. Look at C.J. and Liam.”

  “They’re exceptions.”

  “I know Dad was, and still is, incapable of handling stress, but Tom was perfectly normal before he lost his family. You’ve got such a screwed vision of men because of Dad and because of what happened with Dave Dunlop.”

  “I know. He turned out to be as unreliable as Dad was.”

  “He should have been there for you when you got pregnant, but don’t forget how young he was.”

  “Yeah. These days he trips all over himself trying to make it up to me.”

  “Cash isn’t Dad, you know. And he for sure isn’t Dave. Cash is one of the good guys.”

  “I guess.” Shannon patted Janey’s knee then sat up. “I’m heading up to bed. I’m glad you’re home, sis.”

  * * *

  ON MONDAY MORNING, Mary Lou drove out to the biker farm. She remembered the first time she’d come out. She’d been terrified, but also luridly curious.

  Now these trips were a normal part of doing business.

  She wanted to unload her new product as soon as possible. She didn’t like having it in her purse or hidden in the house for very long.

  Rogers answered her knock on the door.

  “The place is quiet today,” she said.

  “Everyone’s at a biker’s rally in Wyoming.”

  “Why aren’t you there, too?”

  “Someone needs to watch the place while it’s empty.” He looked her up and down, taking his time. He’d never done that before. It gave her the creeps.

  He scratched his belly idly and said, “You want to hang out for a while?”

  She’d liked the spicier sex with her husband yesterday, but she wasn’t so eager to experiment that she would lie with another man.

  Certainly not a bike gang member.

  Especially not this one.

  “Can’t. I have to pick up my boys for lunch.” She pulled the meth out of her purse. “Here’s the latest batch, right on time as usual.”

  “I’ll get the money.”

  He took the drugs into a back room and returned with cash. She counted it before she left.

  “Thanks,” she said, and dropped it into her purse. “See you next Monday.”

  * * *

  AS GOOD AS her word, Shannon came to the Sheriff’s Office right at ten.

  “Good morning,” she said, as bright and frisky as a puppy.

  Cash was sitting at the desk, getting a head start on the research. “Hey, thanks for coming in. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem.” She hung her coat on the rack he indicated then sat on the other side of the desk. She checked out his office, her face carefully neutral, leaving him to wonder what the big city DEA agent thought of it.

  Too small, he guessed. Not enough technology, either. And yet, it suited Cash just fine. There were times when old-fashioned footwork was the best police work.

  “Do you mind telling me what the problem is with your dad?” Shannon asked. “Is he lost? In trouble?”

  “He’s dying. I want to see him before that happens. I need to know that he’s okay, that he isn’t living somewhere in poverty.”

  “Okay, let’s get to work.”

  She pulled her chair around to his side of the desk, sat beside him and logged into government databases.

  In her line of work, she probably had to deal with this stuff all the time.

  She smelled like vanilla again, like down-home goodness. It had him imagining sugar cookies sitting on her erogenous zones and him munching each one. Slowly.

  He had an intense image of sprinkling sugar all over her body and licking it off. The thought shot right to his groin.

  Cripes, Kavenagh, get a grip. You’re not a teenager.

  He knocked a pen off the desk, intentionally so he would have to bend over to pick it up, to give himself a minute to pull himself together.

  With a real effort, he concentrated on the information Shannon brought up.

  “It seems that your father has no fixed address.” She turned to him, her face only inches from his own. This close her eyes were alive with intelligence. “Could he be staying with a friend?”

  “Knowing Dad, probably a girlfriend. He used to work in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, but after he went bankrupt and lost everything, he ended up living there, with all the crooks and prostitutes he used to arrest. It couldn’t have been easy for him.”

  “You said he’s dying. Of what?”

&nb
sp; “Cirrhosis of the liver.”

  “So, he’s visited a doctor or a hospital. He’s been tested and diagnosed. If he went bankrupt and lives in the Tenderloin district, he probably wouldn’t have health insurance.”

  “Probably not. He’s called asking for money over the years, so I know he isn’t often flush.”

  “Did you send him money?”

  “Of course.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “About a year ago.”

  “Where did you send it?”

  “To a Western Union office in San Francisco.”

  “Let’s begin there and look for a medical trail in San Francisco. If he’s that sick, chances are he’s going to stick to an area he’s comfortable in.”

  The door burst open and Scotty ran in wearing his hardware store apron.

  “You gotta come, Cash.” The scent of the cherry cough drops he favored drifted from him. “That kid of yours is causing trouble at the pharmacy.”

  “My kid?”

  “Austin.”

  Austin? Lord, what was it now? Cash jumped out of his chair. “Gotta go.” He ran out the door and down Main to McCloskey’s Pharmacy.

  He could feel Shannon hot on his heels when he entered the store. Brad had a hand wrapped around one of Austin’s biceps and a large bottle of multivitamins in the other. Austin looked like he was fighting tears.

  “What’s going on, Brad?”

  “I caught Austin trying to shoplift.”

  “I wasn’t shoplifting!” Austin cried. His gaze shot to Cash. “I been trying to tell him but he won’t listen. My mom told me his wife said she could get stuff here without paying.”

  When Austin noticed Shannon standing behind Cash, his face turned bright red. and tears threatened. The boy had to be incredibly embarrassed.

  “It’s a lie.” Brad shook the boy. “My wife wouldn’t tell your mother she could have things for free. That’s ridiculous. I’m having you charged. I need to make a lesson of you. You kids can’t come in here and steal.”

  Austin turned to Cash. “I wasn’t stealing! You gotta believe me, Cash.”

  Cash knew Austin was thinking of those consequences he’d listed on Friday morning when he’d kept Austin out of school and had thrown him into jail to teach him a lesson.