“Robyn, you’re a fine deputy. You earned that badge.”
“You know it, and I know it, Jimmy. I think everybody at work acknowledges that. But how many people in this town are going to think that I only got it by screwing the boss?”
“So what’s the answer, Robyn?”
“I don’t know, Jimmy. But I do know that as much as I love you, I also love being a deputy. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. And I have to be honest, as much as it hurts to tell you this, but if I had to choose between the two, I honestly don’t know what I’d do.”
“I know what I’d do,” Weber told her. “If they make me choose between you and this job, I’ll stick my badge so far up Chet Wingate’s fat ass that it will take a team of surgeons to get it back out.”
“Oh, Jimmy,” Robyn said, and pulled him close.
The first glimmer of daylight was just appearing over the mountain when Weber finally climbed back into his Explorer and drove home.
Chapter 11
Weber was tired and cranky from lack of sleep, but he managed to down enough strong, black coffee to get his eyes open. But it wasn’t enough to make dealing with Tami Gaylord and her attorney, Grover Recker, any easier.
“This is an outrage!” Grover ranted the minute they sat down in the back of Tami’s store. “My client has suffered irreparable harm! She has a concussion, her home has been destroyed, and she is psychologically damaged by this experience.”
“Your client does not have a concussion,” Bob Bennett, the Town’s attorney said. “According to the medical report, she suffered a small bump on her head when she passed out.”
“Passed out because of the hand grenade this man threw into her home!” Grover shouted.
Weber winced as the little man’s voice assaulted his aching head, seeming to echo inside his skull. “It wasn’t a hand grenade, it was a flash bang. It makes a loud noise and a bright flash of light and that’s it.”
“Whatever it was, you threw it inside my client’s home with complete disregard to her safety or to what damage it might do.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Weber said.
“And that’s your excuse? It seemed like the thing to do at the time?” Grover asked.
Weber shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all I’ve got.”
“Well, that’s not enough,” Grover said. “Not nearly enough!”
Grover Recker was a small man with an abrasive attitude who barely made it through law school, finishing at the very bottom of his class at the University of Arizona. It took him three attempts to pass the Bar examination to get his license to practice, and he made his living taking on any case where he thought he could make a quick settlement and get out, usually with a hefty percentage of whatever payment came his clients’ way. The fact that he and Weber had been in the same classes all through grade school and high school didn’t mean he was going to give the sheriff any leeway. Grover smelled blood and was closing in on the kill.
“You can’t just throw a hand grenade into somebody’s house and say, “It seemed like the thing to do at the time.””
“It wasn’t a hand grenade,” Weber repeated, “it was a flash bang.”
“I don’t care what you call it! Your actions were plainly negligent.”
“Actually, I threw it, not Sheriff Weber,” Tommy Frost said.
“Deputy Frost was just following my orders.”
“I don’t care who threw the damned grenade,” Grover said, “the point is…”
“Wait a minute,” Tami interrupted. “You threw the grenade?”
“Yes ma’am,” the young deputy told her. “And I’m really sorry, Miz Gaylord. I’d do anything to make it right with you. I really would. I feel just awful about it.”
Grover started to say something and Tami cut him off. “Shut up, you little twerp! Can’t you see that this poor boy feels bad enough already without you making it worse?”
“Tami, I’m just trying…”
“Oh, get out of here,” Tami ordered, pointing toward the door. “This was all just an unfortunate incident. Why, this young man laid his very life on the line to protect me!”
She turned back toward Tommy and said, “I really appreciate you coming to my rescue after that bruin invaded my home, Deputy…?”
“Frost, ma’am, Tommy Frost.”
“Well, Mr. Tommy Frost, you are my hero! Can I give you a big hug?”
When Weber walked back into the Sheriff’s Office, Mary asked, “Well, how bad was it?”
“It wasn’t bad at all,” Weber told her. “We settled out of court. Oh, and see if you can round up somebody to take Tommy’s shift tonight, in case he can’t make it. He’s working on a special assignment. Kind of an undercover thing.”
***
Weber decided that since the piles of paperwork he so despised had completely taken over his desktop, it was time to accept the inevitable and start whittling away at them. Once he got started, he was surprised at how well it went, and by early afternoon he had made a significant dent. A knock at the door interrupted him and he looked up to see Dolan Reed, in uniform.
“Got a minute, Jimmy?”
Weber waved him in and pushed himself away from his desk. Dolan was obviously uncomfortable, and shifted from one foot to the other.
“Sit down, Dolan.”
Taking a seat, Dolan said, “I guess I’ve got some amends to make.”
“Got your head out of your ass yet?”
“Yeah. I don’t have any excuses, Jimmy. I just went way off the deep end. I’m sorry.”
“How’s Gina?”
“Gina is…. she’s scared, she’s confused. But she’s going to be okay.”
“So what happens next?”
“We pick up the pieces and go on with life. Gina has this crazy idea that she and Billy are going to get married and live happily ever after. No idea how they’ll pay the bills, or feed a kid. She always talked about college, but I guess that’s out the window now.”
“Not necessarily,” Weber said. “A lot of girls have babies and still go to college. Wendy did.”
“Yeah, and it was damned rough. I wanted better for my kids than Wendy and I had.”
“I’m not a father, Dolan, but I think every parent wants that for their kids. And while it was damned rough, you guys made it. I know they’re just kids, but in spite of this little stumble, Gina and Billy both have good heads on their shoulders. They both come from good stock.”
“That kid…. I still want to wring his neck. But I remember back when it was me and Wendy, and I ask myself how I can blame him for doing the same thing I did.”
“That’s the problem with men and teenage boys,” Weber said. “God gave us two heads, but not enough blood to supply oxygen to both at the same time.”
Dolan grinned ruefully. “Ain’t that the truth?”
“Don’t you have crime to fight somewhere?”
“Yeah, but first I need to drive over to see Buz and eat some crow. If he don’t shoot me on sight.”
“Is there going to be a problem there? You’re not going to strangle Billy or anything like that, are you?”
Dolan shook his head, “Naa, I still want to whip his ass, but I’d have to go through Buz and Kathy, and Wendy and Gina to do it.”
Weber extended his hand, and Dolan shook it. “It’s good to have you back, Deputy.”
***
Larry Parks, carrying a thick manila folder, showed up just as Weber signed off on the last form of the day. Not that there weren’t more forms and reports needing his attention, but because he had finally managed to reduce the supply enough to see a good two square feet of the surface of his desk. He had decided that there was only so much a man could do in one day.
“I told you I’ve been doing some research into this Jerry Lee Chandler,” Parks told him. “I just got copies of his full criminal record. He was from Ohio; Mom was a drunk, Dad disappeared when he was a baby. Bounced around from one family member to anot
her and in and out of foster homes most of his life. He spent time in juvenile facilities from the time he was eleven years old. Typical kid stuff; joy riding, shoplifting, burglary, before he graduated to the big time. Besides the armed robberies he got busted for, he was a suspect in half a dozen more, mostly in the Midwest. All credit unions and banks.”
“A regular John Dillinger,” Weber said.
“Yeah, except it didn’t take the whole FBI to bring him down. Just one senior citizen with a gun he bought at a swap meet.”
“There you have it,” Weber told him. “That’s where our government is dropping the ball in the war on crime. They need to get rid of all you highly-trained professionals and hire a bunch of old codgers. Turn a few guys like Carl Weston and Pete Caitlin loose and they’d clean up the streets in thirty days.”
“Hey, I don’t disagree with you at all,” Parks said. “And if you’d hire me to be the dogcatcher, I’d let one of them have my job tomorrow.”
“The ironic thing is that it was an old codger that brought Chandler down after the North Platte robbery that sent him away the last time,” Parks said, reading one of the papers in the folder he held.
“What do you mean?”
“After he shot the guy in the bank, him and his partner ran out and headed for their getaway car parked at the curb. But an old farmer was parked two cars back and heard the gunshots in the bank. He grabbed a .22 rifle out of his truck and was waiting when they hit the sidewalk. He cut loose and got off several shots before they made it to the car. One hit Chandler in the leg and broke his tibia. He fell down, his partner jumped into the car and left him there.”
“Damn! Talk about the Wild West!”
“Well don’t forget, Jimmy. There was a time when North Platte was the Wild West! I think old Buffalo Bill himself hung out there for a while. Who knows, maybe that old farmer was some of his kinfolk?”
“Whoever he was, he had balls,” Weber said. “Taking on a couple of armed robbers with just a .22. Did they ever catch his partner?”
“Partners. Several witnesses said there was another guy behind the wheel. They got clean away with the loot, $48,000. There were two other guys at the other robberies he was suspected of, too. Chandler refused to identify them, even when the prosecutors offered to shave ten years off his sentence if he did. There were a lot of rumors that his gang would come back and bust him out of jail before his trial, but they never showed up.”
“So much for honor among thieves,” Weber said. “Did they ever get the other two?”
Parks shook his head. “Not then, they didn’t. But a year after the North Platte heist there was another robbery, this one was in…” he referred to his paperwork before continuing, “Here it is. Sedalia, Missouri. Same MO, two guys went in and one stayed out in the car. It went bad, too. This time an off-duty cop was in the bank and he followed them outside and engaged them. Killed one and the other two got away, but he was pretty sure he winged the driver. The dead guy? It was a fellow named Timothy Chandler.”
“No way!”
Parks nodded again. “Yep, Jerry Lee Chandler’s older brother. Another career criminal.”
“Don’t tell me,” Weber said. “The cop that shot him? He was a codger getting ready to retire, right?”
This time Parks shook his head. “Nope, he was a rookie in his first year on the job. He probably got promoted right to detective after that.”
“Did the wounded driver ever show up at a hospital?”
Parks shook his head again. “They found the car a couple of hours later in a grocery store parking lot. Just like in the other robberies, it had been stolen two weeks before, and the license plates on it were stolen from another car. There was a lot of blood on the front seat, which supports the theory that the driver had been hit, too. But he never showed up anywhere looking for medical attention. Which means either he wasn’t too badly wounded, or he died and his partner dumped his body somewhere where it was never found. Also never found was the $50,000 and change from that robbery.”
“Do you remember when the mayor wanted to give Archer that Medal of Valor a few months back?” Weber asked, referring to an incident when Chet Wingate had tried to get his bumbling son honored for the one and only useful act he had ever performed as a deputy, when he had driven his patrol car into a riot on Main Street.
“Yeah, what ever happened with that?” Parks asked.
“The Town Council shot him down and Chet pouted for a while,” Weber said. “But I’m thinking we need to award a medal to Carl Weston. Because he certainly did the world a favor when he blew this guy away.”
***
Pleased with himself for getting so much paperwork done, Weber had decided that a nice rib eye at the Roundup Steakhouse was in order. Parks, with his uncanny ability to sniff out a good meal quicker than a bloodhound takes the scent of an escaped convict, was only too happy to keep him company. A couple of quick telephone calls got Marsha Perry and Robyn online, and the foursome met at the rustic restaurant just after 6 p.m.
It being a Saturday evening and the place was busy, but a pretty waitress dressed in a cowgirl outfit and boots got them seated quickly and took their drink orders. Weber wanted a beer, but settled for a Pepsi since he was in uniform, as did Robyn. Parks, deferring to Marsha’s current diet craze, ordered a diet soda, but refused to budge when she tried to talk him out of the sixteen ounce ribeye in favor of a petite cut sirloin.
“You don’t need all that red meat,” she told him, and Parks gave her a pained expression.
“Oh, but I do, lady! Between your insatiable sexual appetite and my active lifestyle, this body needs fuel to operate.”
“Active lifestyle, my foot!” Marsha said, nudging him in the ribs with her elbow. “Who fell asleep halfway through the movie last night?”
“It was a chick flick! You’re lucky I didn’t snore!”
“Who says you didn’t? And as for my sexual appetite, if I’m too much woman for you, whose fault is that? And you can be replaced. Don’t forget, Bob is waiting in the wings anytime you can’t keep up.”
“Bob? Who’s Bob?” Robyn asked.
“You know, Bob,” Marsha told her. “Every girl needs a Bob to fall back on.”
“I just know I’m going to regret this,” Robyn said warily, looking at the evil grin on Marsha’s face. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Marsha leaned over the table and said in a stage whisper, “B-O-B. Battery Operated Boyfriend. Bzzzz Bzzzz Bzzzz.”
Robyn blushed and the table broke up with laughter. Diners at other tables looked at them curiously as they tried to compose themselves, with limited success.
Sitting together in the booth, Weber was aware of Robyn’s leg against his, and memories of their encounter the night before brought a smile to his lips. Never one to miss anything, and with the instincts of a bloodhound, Marsha squinted at him.
“Okay, what’s the smile all about, Jimmy?”
“Smile? What smile?”
“That smile! What have you been up to?”
“Can’t a man just smile because he’s happy? I’m sitting here having a good meal with good friends. Isn’t that enough to smile about?”
Growing up with Weber’s sister Debbie, Marsha had a schoolgirl crush on Weber for years that had evolved into a mature friendship. Though it had been tested in the days after Debbie’s crimes were revealed, their relationship had survived and grown even deeper.
“No, that’s not just a regular happy smile, that’s a… oh my God! You guys did the deed, didn’t you?”
Robyn blushed again, and Marsha leaned over the table again. “Details, girlfriend! I want all of the nasty, sordid, sweaty details.”
Hoping to escape Marsha’s inquest, Weber looked away at the rough cedar walls, decorated with western memorabilia, worn saddles, steer horns, branding irons, and old Winchesters.
Before Marsha could break out the thumbscrews, Robyn was saved when a strident voice said, “I told y
ou I don’t want milk! I told you I want root beer! Give me root beer!”
Weber looked across the restaurant’s narrow aisle to where a casually well-dressed young couple were trying to reason with a petulant boy of about eight or nine as their harried waitress was delivering their food order.
“Now Conner, we’ve had this discussion,” his mother explained. “If you drink soda this late, you won’t sleep tonight. And we’ve had a busy day, haven’t we? And guess what? Tomorrow we’re going on a hike! Won’t that be fun?”
“I don’t want to go on a hike,” the boy protested. “I hate this place! I want to go home.”
“Conner? We’re here to have fun,” said his father, a handsome man with a deep tan and a perfect mouthful of gleaming white teeth. “We can’t have fun if you’re going to behave this way. Now eat your dinner, and when we get back to the lodge I’ll see if we can rent a video game for you to play. Is that a deal?”
Conner shook his head and folded his arms across his chest defiantly.
“I’ll tell you what, drink your milk and we’ll get you ice cream for dessert,” his mother promised. Her tan was even deeper than her husband’s and her teeth were even whiter.
“No! I want root beer!” Conner shouted and swept his plate away in an explosion of beef, French fries, peas, and milk that hit the waitress full force, with stray pieces of food and a shower of milk making their way past the unfortunate woman to land on Parks and Weber’s arms.
As the young waitress stepped back in disbelief at the boy’s assault, his mother quickly corrected him, saying, “Now Conner, that wasn’t nice! You know better than that, don’t you? How do you think these people feel after getting your food all over them?”
“I don’t care!” Conner shouted. “I told you I wanted root beer!”
“Well, just for that, you’re not getting ice cream,” his father told him. “And you can forget all about the video game too, young man!”
“I don’t care,” the boy told him, “I hate the stupid lodge and I hate this place, and I hate you!”
9 More Killer Thrillers Page 166