The deputy glowered at Dolan and said, “He started it, Jimmy!”
“I don’t care who started it, I’m ending it! Let’s go! Both of you.”
Weber and Parks hustled the two deputies out the door, leaving a restaurant full of astonished patrons staring after them with their mouths hanging open.
“What can I say?” Paul Lewis asked as he handed Angela Templeton a wad of paper napkins to wipe her face. “It’s been a slow news week.”
***
“Okay you two, in my office, now!” Weber ordered as he pushed open the door to the Big Lake Sheriff’s Office and shoved his two recalcitrant deputies in ahead of him.
Mary Caitlin and Robyn Fuchette stared in astonishment at the strange sight, as both bloodied and battered deputies shuffled past them and into Weber’s private office. The fact that a half slice of smashed French toast was still clinging to the back of Buz’s uniform shirt only added to their wonderment. Only Archer Wingate, seated at his desk eating his second cream filled Long John of the morning, seemed unperturbed by the tableau that was taking place before him. Archer swallowed a large bite of his pastry, wiped his fingers on his pants leg and burped, then crammed the last half of the Long John into his mouth.
“What the hell is going on between you two?” Weber shouted, as Dolan and Buz stood before him. “Have you both gone nuts? I ought to lock the two of you in a cell and throw away the key.”
“He started it,” Buz said heatedly. The tall deputy had earned his nickname back in high school, where kids used to say that with his skinny neck and hawk-like nose, he was part buzzard. Now a thick vein throbbed in his forehead, and blood dripped from his nose.
“No, your damned kid started it,” Dolan shouted. “Little pervert needs to be neutered. And I just may do it!”
“Now you listen here,” Buz shot back, but Weber cut him off, slamming his hand down so hard on his desk that it sounded like a gun shot, sending a stack of pink telephone memos and a coffee cup full of pens and pencils flying.
“SHUT UP!”
Mary Caitlin stuck her head in the door and stared at the three men, then withdrew it quickly when Weber sent her a withering glare.
Weber’s hand stung from hitting the desk so hard, but he refused to let it show. “Now, we can talk like grownups or I’ll have Steve Harper bring the fire truck down here and hose you both down until you either come to your senses or drown. What’s it gonna be?”
Both men stood stiffly, staring at each other, hackles raised, each ready to go on the attack at the slightest provocation.
“Alright, you first Dolan. Out with it.”
“He needs to keep that damned kid of his on a leash before…”
“My kid? What about your kid? Like I said, it takes…”
Weber held his hand in front of Buz’s face. “You’ll get your turn. Let the man talk.” He turned back to Dolan, “Go on, what’s this all about?”
“Gina’s pregnant, and that little bastard of his is the one responsible. She’s only sixteen!”
Weber’s mind flashed back to the winter before, when he had caught Billy Carelton and Gina Reed making out hot and heavy in the boy’s pickup. For a moment he wondered if his decision to keep it to himself and let them off with a stern warning might have contributed to the situation they faced today. He turned toward Buz and said “Your turn.”
“Shit, Jimmy, I didn’t even know the kids were friends.”
“They weren’t,” Dolan said. “I know that damn kid of yours lured her off somewhere and took advantage of her. Her mother and I don’t even let her date.”
Weber took a deep breath and decided there was no time like the present. “They’ve been dating for a while now.”
“That’s impossible,” Dolan said. “We told her that she can’t date until she turns seventeen next month.”
“Well, apparently she didn’t listen,” Weber told him. “Last winter I came across them steaming up the windows of Billy’s truck out by the lake.”
“What? And you never told me?”
“I talked to them and let them go. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
“How could you do that, Jimmy? That’s my little girl!”
“Dolan, she’s not a little girl. She’s a young woman. Now, you may not like that, but you’re going to have to accept it.”
“Accept it? I’m not accepting a damn thing! I want that little maggot who did this to her arrested for statutory rape. After I kick his ass!”
“You threatening my kid again?” Buz demanded. “I’m getting damned sick and tired of…”
“Shut up, both of you,” Weber ordered loudly.
Both men clamped their lips shut, still glaring at each other.
“Nobody is kicking anybody’s ass,” Weber said, “and nobody’s getting arrested, except maybe you two. I haven’t decided on that yet. You should both be ashamed of yourselves, acting like a couple of idiots, tearing up the café while you go at each other like a couple of drunks from the Antler Inn. And in uniform while you do it! That looks real good to the citizens and tourists, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what looks good,” Dolan said. “Are you going to arrest that kid, Jimmy? Because if you’re not, I’ll do it myself.”
“You stay away from my son,” Buz warned, but the sheriff cut him off before he could continue.
“Dolan, they’re both under eighteen. It was consensual. No judge would convict. And if he did, which one would he convict? If Gina is a victim, isn’t Billy, too? They’re only a month or two apart in age, as I recall.”
“So you’re not going to arrest him?”
“No, I’m not, and neither are you. And if you touch him, Dolan, you’ll be the one arrested.”
“Well then you can take this and stick it where the sun don’t shine,” Dolan said, ripping his badge from the front of his uniform shirt and throwing it at the sheriff’s feet. “When I pinned it on, I swore an oath to serve and protect the people of this town. What good is it, if I can’t even protect my own family?”
“Don’t do this, Dolan,” Weber said, but the angry man refused to listen. He turned and stomped to the door, then turned back and pointed a warning finger at Buz.
“You keep that kid of yours away from my daughter, do you hear me? Because if I catch him anywhere around her, I won’t be responsible for what happens.”
With that he stormed out the door, slamming it behind him.
It was quiet in the office, and Weber bent to pick up the gold badge from the floor and put it on his desk. Then he looked at Buz, who averted his eyes.
“Now what?”
“Hell, Buz, I don’t know. My first inclination is to send you packing, too. Do you have any idea how much Chet Wingate is going to love this?”
“I’m sorry, Jimmy. But he did start it. I was just sitting down to breakfast when he came in the door acting like a wild man.”
“Did you know about Billy and Gina?”
Buz shook his head. “Like I said, I didn’t even know they knew each other except to say hello to until last night, when Billy told us Gina was pregnant. We used to be real close, but you know how it is with teenagers. You wake up one morning and you don’t even know your own kid. They don’t talk to you any more, they’re busy with their own lives, and you’re not a part of it. And they don’t want you to be.”
“So what does Billy have to say about all of this?”
“Oh, typical kid stuff. They’re in love and want to get married. No idea how he’s going to support a wife and baby. I guess they think they’ll live on love. But that don’t pay the rent or put food on the table.”
Weber sat down and sank back into his chair, looking at the tall deputy who stood before him looking miserable, both about the situation his family was in and for his actions that morning.
“Okay, go home and get cleaned up. I should give you a suspension without pay, but I did see Dolan throw the first punch, so I’m going to give yo
u a break this time. But I expect you to apologize to Kelly over at the café for ruining her breakfast trade, and to Mrs. Adamczak and Angela Templeton, and whoever else you guys knocked halfway out of their seats. And I’m going to have Kelly give me a list of any damages, and I expect you and Dolan to pay for them.”
Buz nodded, “Okay, Jimmy. I’m sorry, man. It just happened so fast…”
“Go on, Buz, get out of here before I change my mind and lock you up after all. And be sure Billy doesn’t go anywhere near Gina until Dolan has a chance to calm down and I can talk some sense into him.”
Buz nodded again, and started for the door.
“Hold on.” Weber walked over to the deputy, turned him around, and pulled the piece of French toast off of his shirt and dropped it into the wastebasket. “The last thing I need is Archer thinking you’re a walking buffet and eating you before you get outside.”
***
News spreads fast in a small town, and Weber knew it was only a matter of time before Chet Wingate got word of the meleé at the café. But he was surprised at how quickly Mary Caitlin buzzed him on the intercom and said, “The mayor’s here.”
Before Weber could reply, his office door banged open and the ill-tempered little bureaucrat marched up to his desk, Councilwoman Smith-Abbot close on his heels.
“What do you have to say for yourself this time, Sheriff?
“I’m handling it, Chet.”
“This is the most disgraceful thing I have ever heard of. Two of Big Lake’s finest brawling like common ruffians in the middle of a crowded restaurant! Have you disciplined those two sorry excuses for deputies yet? I would expect no less than a thirty day suspension for both of them.”
“Nobody has been suspended, Chet. I told you, I’m handling it.”
“My God, Sheriff, don’t you have any pride? Do you have a clue how to run this office?”
The sheriff seethed under the mayor’s verbal onslaught, but unlike many of his encounters, when Weber himself was the target, he knew that the fate of two good men, men he trusted and considered among his closest friends, were on the line.
“It was a personal matter, Chet. I’ve talked to both of them, and we’re going to resolve it.”
“It’s not a personal matter, it’s a public matter!” shouted the mayor. “They weren’t fighting in the back room of the jail, or out in the middle of the forest somewhere, even though that would be bad enough. They were fighting in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Why, it will be a wonder if the Town doesn’t get sued before this is all over with!”
“Chet, I told you that…”
Before he could finish speaking, the door to his office burst open and Mary said, “Tami Gaylord’s on the phone, she says a bear has her trapped in her bathroom!”
***
Tami Gaylord lived in a small, frame house a few blocks from the center of town, and when Weber pulled his Explorer into the driveway he could hear the large woman’s screams from inside the house. As Weber exited his vehicle, Tommy Frost pulled in behind him.
“Sounds like it’s killing her,” the young deputy said. If it were anyone else, Weber might have been inclined to agree. But he had seen Tami go into hysterics over everything from a woodpecker that had attacked the tree in her yard to the winter day when the town’s single snowplow deposited a thick mound of snow across the end of her driveway. In that case, she had called the Sheriff's Office, worried that she might starve to death before somebody could come to her rescue. The fact that she had a pantry full of food and a freezer filled with steaks and chops, or that a woman her size could probably go days without eating, didn't seem to enter her mind. Still, Weber knew he couldn't just ignore the crisis. If a bear really was in her house and on the attack, Big Lake's supply of boutique shop owners selling overpriced Native American art and local woodcarvings to gullible tourists would be reduced by one.
Two more police cars pulled up, and Deputies Robyn Fuchette and Wyatt Trask joined them where they stood in the driveway.
“What can we do?” Robyn asked. In spite of all that was happening around them, Weber couldn’t help but admire her almond-shaped brown eyes, which he had found himself getting lost in more than once in the past. He had not yet mentioned his conversation with the mayor and Councilwoman Smith-Abbot about their relationship to Robyn yet, in part because Weber still wasn’t sure what the status of their relationship was.
“Let's check it out,” Weber said.
The front door of the home was closed, but around back, the sliding door had been pushed open and Tami's small poodle could be seen through an opening into the living room, standing on the back of the couch, barking furiously at a large black bear that was busy devouring a box of Frosted Flakes, on a floor littered with trash. The bear, it’s face was covered with flour, paused to look at the newcomers in the doorway, then turned its attention back to a half-eaten loaf of bread.
“Step aside, I've got a clear shot at it,” said Wyatt as he shouldered his AR-15.
“Put that damn thing down,” Weber told him. “All that's going to do is piss him off. Get your shotgun. You too, Tommy.”
“Are we going to shoot it?” Robyn asked.
“Not if we don't have to,” Weber told her. “But if we do have to shoot it, I want to use something big enough to get its attention.”
All the while, Tami Gaylord’s screams continued to come from inside the house. Weber keyed the button on his handheld radio and asked the dispatcher, “Judy, do you still have Mrs. Gaylord on the phone?”
“Yes, but I can't understand most of what she's saying because she's screaming so much. She said she's trapped in the bathroom and the bear’s outside the door.”
“If she'll shut up long enough to hear you, tell her we're here and to just stay put.”
Tommy and Wyatt were back, both holding pump action 12 gauge Remington shotguns with synthetic stocks and forearms. Weber’s deputies carried their shotguns loaded with three rounds of buckshot backed up by four rounds of slugs. He told them to unload the weapons, then reload them with the slugs first in line.
Taking Tommy’s shotgun from him, Weber said, “Okay, all this guy wants is a free meal. If we left him alone he might leave whenever he's done, but I guess we really should get him out of there just in case he decides to have that damn yappy dog for dessert.”
He turned to Wyatt and asked, “Do you still have those flash bang grenades you were showing me?”
Wyatt nodded, and for once, Weber was glad for his gung-ho deputy’s personal stash of armament. “How many do you want, Sheriff?”
“Just one, Wyatt. All we’ve got is the one bear, that ought to do it.”
“What are you going to do?” Robyn asked.
“I'm thinking that if we pop the flash bang off and stand back away from the door, it might scare it to where it runs back outside.”
“Isn't this a job for the Game and Fish Department?” Tommy asked.
“We've got a call in to Mark Santos over at the Game and Fish Office in Pinetop,” Weber said. “He's headed this way, but he was on the other side of Show Low, so it's going to take him an hour or more to get here. I’m afraid that little mutt of Tami’s will bark it’s fool heart out if we wait that long.”
Wyatt was back with the M-84 flash bang, and Weber handed it to Tommy. “I seem to recall that you were quite the pitcher on the school's baseball team,” Weber told him. “I want you to put that on the far side of that critter, right by the archway into the living room. Everybody else, back off to the side. Hopefully, it will scare the bear and it will run out the door. And if it does, just stay out of its way and let it go. Remember, it's more afraid of us than we are of it.”
“I don't know,” said Robyn. “Did it about pee its pants when it saw me, too?”
They moved to the side as Tommy pulled the pin and lofted the grenade underhanded into the house, then quickly stepped out of the way. The next few minutes could only be described as sheer chaos, as the grenade exploded w
ith a brilliant one million candlepower flash of light and a 180 decibel boom, so loud it shook the house and shattered the glass in the sliding door into a thousand pieces.
The bear yelped, turned tail, and rushed for the open doorway, while Mister Robert, Tami’s poodle, voided its bowels and bladder all over the back of her brand-new couch, and then fainted dead away. The bear disappeared into the forest behind the house, and after they had recovered from the explosion, Weber and his deputies stepped inside. The only sound was the ringing in their ears and their own footsteps as they made their way over assorted dishes, silverware, and food items that the bear had pulled from the kitchen cabinets.
Parks stepped over a fresh pile of bear dung and said, “Well, I guess we’ve answered that question once and for all.”
Weber realized that Tami was no longer screaming. He made his way down the hallway, with Robyn and Tommy close at his heels. When he came to the bathroom door he knocked and asked, “Tami? Are you okay?” When he got no response, he knocked on the door harder and raised his voice. “Tami, it's Jim Weber. The bear’s gone. Open the door.”
When there was still no response from the other side of the door, Weber said, “Tami, answer me or I’ll have to break the door down!”
Only silence met him in return.
“Well, here goes,” Weber said to his deputies, then stepped back and threw his shoulder against the door. It was a flimsy, hollow-core door and gave much more easily against the sheriff's attack than he had expected, banging inward. His momentum sent him stumbling into the bathroom, where he sprawled over Tami Gaylord’s lumpy body sitting in the bathtub with her legs dangling over the side.
Tami was a lot of things, but a good-looking woman wasn't among them, even on her best day. This day, seeing her naked except for a pair of black French-cut panties, at such close range, Weber wondered how she had ever managed to marry four or five different men, who were all happy to give her a large settlement and leave within a year or two of entering into matrimony. He also wondered where anybody could find French-cut panties that big.
9 More Killer Thrillers Page 164