by Paula Boyd
“I called the house when I couldn’t get you on your phone.” He nodded toward the grave sites. “Are you okay?”
“Actually, I’m pretty good for being dead.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Long story and totally not related to why you’re here.” I sighed heavily and dragged myself back to the present-day real world, which looked like it was about to suck even more than the one where I wound up dead. “Okay, so what’s going on?”
“We need to go to the rehab center.”
I frowned. “What happened? What did she do?”
“Nothing yet, but when your mother finds out Perez is leaving in a few hours without resolving anything it probably won’t go well.”
“He’s leaving? Why?”
“There’s nothing suspicious and nobody’s died,” Jerry said, crossing his arms. “That’s a direct quote from my conversation with the captain.”
I rubbed a hand across my face. “What about the lab results? Can’t Travis explain?”
“He has, but there’s no other supporting evidence, nothing sinister or even suspicious, and therefore there is no reason to sully the reputations of fine people or slander a valuable community asset.” Jerry sighed. “That’s also a reasonable quote.”
“Well, that’s just peachy,” I said. “El Capitan was probably the one who tipped them off and gave them time to get the evidence out before Perez got there.”
“Jo,” he said firmly. “The director is demanding an official apology from the police department for the disruption, which she’ll get. She’s also insisting you be arrested.”
“I was kind of hoping she’d gotten over that.” It wasn’t a shocking revelation, but I was appropriately disturbed nonetheless. “I was also hoping I’d be vindicated rather than scapegoated.” I sighed again. “So, did you come to tell me I have to turn myself in?”
“No,” he said. “But you and I are meeting with Perez in her office in about a half hour to—”
“To what? Make it easier for them to arrest me? I don’t think so. This is not right, Jerry, and you know it.” The more I thought about it, the madder I got. “This is bullshit. Perez knows there’s something going on.”
“His captain has decided otherwise.”
“Who’s really pulling the strings here, Jerry, who?” I heard the anger and amplitude in my own voice, but I didn’t care. “Who’s pressuring them? The owner of the rehab center? Some politician? Who’s got the most to lose—legally and illegally? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“Nice car,” he said, running his hand over the top of the silvery BMW.
“Instead of trying to distract me, you could be trying to help.”
“I am, Jolene.” He nodded to a cluster of people at a nearby gravesite. “Let’s sit inside for a minute.”
“Fine.” I walked around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. While Jerry seated himself, I started the engine and the always helpful air conditioner. “You know, I’m thinking once I start rattling off all the screw-ups at her little facility, Miz Director’s going to be more worried about her jail time than mine.”
“That’s one of the problems,” Jerry said, shifting in the seat to face me. “Perez hasn’t given her any details of the investigation, but she’s answered enough questions with viable explanations, at least ones the captain is willing to accept, that nothing seems out of the ordinary.”
“And just what’s her excuse for Lucille’s unnecessary pills? The parade of dead people? Doris almost dying too? You can just ‘oops’ those things away.”
“The official position on Doris is that her daughter was interfering with her treatment, which was the cause of her problems.” He paused and looked at me, probably watching the steam boil out my ears. “I’m sure you can see where that line of thinking leads.”
Oh, indeed I could and it sent a ripple of rage right through me. “That lying bitch!”
“It’s a CYA stance and everyone knows it,” he said. “But until we have something more solid, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Oh, there’s plenty I can do,” I said, straightening in the seat and gritting my teeth. “And they can’t cover their ass enough to stop it either.” I grabbed the steering wheel and squeezed. “You just hop on out now and I’ll go get to it.”
“I can’t do that,” he said, entirely too officially.
“Well, you can’t arrest me, Jerry,” I said, reasonably confident it was true. “And I’m not going to be tricked into showing up for a group ambush either.”
“No tricks, Jolene,” he said. “This case is personal for Perez. His mom died unexpectedly in a nursing home under questionable circumstances. This is his chance to make up for it. He’s on your side. He doesn’t want to arrest you.”
“He may not want to, but he’ll follow orders, now won’t he?”
Jerry did not deny it, just sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Officially, Dan’s hands are tied. Unofficially, if someone brings him something the captain can’t ignore, no matter how much pressure from above, he can pursue it.”
“Great. Good luck with that.”
Jerry sighed. “He still thinks Lucille—and you—can be of help.”
“Uh huh, because clearly that plan’s been working out well so far.”
“There wouldn’t even be a case without your mother,” he said, stating an obvious fact. “She’s the one who realized something was wrong here—no one else had. You managed to get evidence to prove it.”
“Not well enough, apparently.”
“Perez needs admissible proof and staff connections and he can’t stay onsite to try to find them.”
“And you think I can?” I shook my head. “The stuff’s already gone, Jerry. And even if there was something we might find, overhear or whatever, Miz Director has other plans for me.”
“That’s what this meeting is about, making it clear that you’re not going to be charged and that she has to back off.”
Yeah, sounded like airy-fairy wishful thinking to me. “I do not see great promise in that plan.”
“If you don’t show up, you’ll look guilty and it could force Perez’s hand.”
Dammit. It seemed like I found myself backed into a corner every time I turned around. I hated it when people told me I had no choice. I hated it worse when it was true. “I don’t know what you think I can do, but since I don’t see a great Plan B here, I’ll go with you. But here’s the deal, I make no guarantees about anything after that. And if they do try to arrest me or otherwise force me into something, I promise you it will not won’t go well.”
“What part of this is going well now?”
Yeah, there would be that.
He tapped the phone in the console. “I left a few messages.”
“Obviously I didn’t get them.” I grabbed the phone and a whole list of missed calls and voicemails popped up on the screen. Jerry was on the list several times, my mother showed up twice and there was one call was from Gilbert Moore. A rock settled in my stomach. “Oh, crap. Gilbert called too, and he wouldn’t have without a reason. I’ve got to see what’s going on.”
“Make it quick,” he said, opening the door and stepping out. Before he closed the door, he leaned back in. “You can follow me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just go. I said I’d be there and I will.”
He looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes. I will meet you at the rehab center in twenty minutes,” he said, slowly, deliberately and redundantly. “Twenty minutes, Jolene.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll be there,” I said, dialing.
Gilbert answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“Headed to a meeting. I didn’t hear your message. What’s up?”
“We have a problem.”
“Kinda figured that.”
He huffed and sort of growled. “Finch left and I needed to get some supplies, so I started looking around. I opened up one of the ice chests and it was full of bags with—”
; “Gilbert, stop, you know I don’t have any idea about what sample things you need to use for one thing or another. Call Finch. I gotta go.”
“Will you just listen for one damn minute?” he said, pretty much yelling at me. “I know what sampling shit to use. The whole thing is full of drugs.”
“Drugs? Like street drugs? Illegal things?”
“Jesus, are you really that stupid?” He didn’t wait for me to respond with the obvious answer. “You don’t get pills in big plastic bags from Walmart. There’s other shit too.”
I slumped forward, my head thumping on the steering wheel. It was tempting to repeat the process vigorously until I was unconscious, but that really wasn’t going to solve anything. “Look, there’s nothing I can do about it. Call 911 and let Bowman County do whatever they do about these things.”
“Now why in the hell didn’t I think of that?” he said, sarcasm and derision dripping from every word. “It’s your consultants that are dealing drugs from your jobsite. After I call 911, I’ll call the news too.”
“Just because it’s on the jobsite doesn’t mean it’s Waverman. He’s hardly the drug dealing type. And Finch, well, he nearly wets himself if you say boo to him. ”
“And, in your vast experience, Miss Jackson, just what is the drug dealing type?”
How the hell would I know? And that was the point—I didn’t know. And, admittedly, Waverman had rubbed me wrong from the beginning. For that matter, so had Finch. Maybe Gilbert was right. Maybe those drugs were why Waverman had left the hospital and had gone directly back to the site—he needed another hit or whatever. Maybe that’s what almost killed him--twice. “Okay, look, I don’t have time for this. Right, wrong or otherwise, just call the cops, tell them what you know and let the chips fall where they may.”
“You’re the boss,” he said. “Your job, your property, your ass. They can probably be at your house in half an hour.”
I popped my head up off the steering wheel. “Why would they go to my house?”
“Well, I sure as hell wasn’t leaving that shit onsite so they could come back and get it,” he said, his tone still rife with derision over my obvious ignorance. “Didn’t think it’d be real healthy for me if they found it in the back of my truck either. And since my rig doesn’t run without me, I took the stuff up to your house so I could get back to work, which you’d know if you’d listened to your goddamn voicemail. ”
“Why would you do that! I don’t want drugs at my house! Are you insane? You go get that ice chest and put it right back where you found it and call the sheriff. Right now!”
“It’s in the garage on the right side,” he said calmly.
“No! Have you heard nothing I’ve said? I do not need a trunk full of illegal drugs to help me get arrested. If I don’t show up as directed by a test detective in about fifteen minutes, I might as well go directly to jail.” I wanted to scream—just scream—really, I did. “You are the project manager, Gilbert. I need you to take care of this—the right way, right now!”
“Goddammit,” he said, disgusted. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
“Apparently not, Mister Moore, but do enlighten me.”
“People dealing that much shit are real serious about keeping it and I’m not playing guard until the cavalry arrives. I’ve already taken one bullet for nothing and I’m not taking another one.”
He was trying to play the guilt card on me, but I wasn’t buying it. He didn’t get shot at the cabin because of me and this wasn’t because of me either. And while I could sort of see why he thought he had to take the stuff, it was still a stupid thing to do. “Okay, I see why you think you had to do it, but that doesn’t solve the immediate problem of what to do now.”
“I’ll meet you at the south end of Turkey Ranch Road with the stuff,” Gilbert said. “You take it with you and turn it in. Problem solved.”
“Maybe for you,” I said. “But as I have already explained, it is a very bad plan for me. You take it.”
“I’m not leaving the jobsite,” he said firmly. “They’ll be back and I’m not leaving my crew here alone. And in case you’re thinking of just leaving it where it is, well, I wouldn’t.”
I did not have time for this, and I certainly didn’t need to hear him explain any more of my ignorance to me. I had a lot of things I’d be explaining to him when this was all over and he wasn’t going to like it one little bit. “Fine. Ten minutes. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I tossed the phone in the console and headed toward the cemetery gate, muttering every expletive I wish I’d said before I hung up.
I was going to be late to the meeting—no way around that—but how late might be negotiable.
Navigating the winding concrete trails through the tombstones at a dignified speed was not going to help my cause, so I hit the gas and headed for the exit with a totally inappropriate zest and swiftness. To my credit, I generally kept all four tires on the narrow path as I did so. I also voiced a running dialogue for anyone who might be listening, apologizing profusely for past, present and future indiscretions. Not so much to my credit—and in flagrant violation of all that is good and holy—I had only one hand on the wheel and no eyes on the road as I dialed my phone. Jerry picked up just as I cleared the gate and launched the BMW onto the highway. “I’m on my way,” I said. It was sort of true. Okay it was a blatant lie. So were the next words out of my mouth. “I’m just going to be a little late.”
“Jolene…”
“Look, there was a problem at the jobsite and I have to go pick up some stuff from Gilbert. He’s meeting me so I don’t have to go all the way back, but I have to do it. It won’t take but an extra ten or fifteen minutes.” Or perhaps thirty, but who was counting. “If I hurry, I might not even be late at all.”
“It would be in your best interests to be on time,” he said evenly. “Preferably without a police escort. And you do recall that several people are convinced locking you up will solve all their problems? I can only do so much.”
“I know that, Jerry, and I wouldn’t do this if I had any other choice. I’ll explain when I get there.” I could see him shaking his head through the phone. No, not really, but I knew he was. “I’ll be there, Jerry, really I will.”
“You better be,” he said, clicking off.
Well, that had more shades of bad tangled up in it than I could count, and when Mister Sheriff learned why I was late, well, it would only add to the joy. There would be hell to pay on many fronts, but there were illegal drugs on my jobsite and I had no choice but to go get them so I could turn them in. It made perfect sense—on some planet somewhere, in some alternate universe.
“Well, Jolene,” I said to myself. “You can fret and worry about it, chew on it like a dog with a bone like you usually do, or you can just accept your mission and sit back enjoy the ride.”
Choosing Option B, I slipped on my sunglasses, fluffed my hair and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. The theme song to Mission Impossible started playing in my head. I hummed the first few notes, which was all I could remember, and pressed down on the gas. The pretense was seriously lame, but it was better than gritting my teeth and cussing the whole way there and back. And, the juvenile fantasy seemed to be easing my irritation. In fact, I was feeling almost cheerful, humming and singing away. I was, that is, until I realized somebody had changed tracks on me and I was belting out “I see a bad moon rising,” followed by a totally unnecessary stating of the obvious, “I see trouble on the way.”
Then again, trouble wasn’t technically on the way. It had arrived long ago and never left—a fact easily confirmed by my race to pick up a shitload of illegal drugs on my way to meet with my fiancé sheriff and a police detective so I wouldn’t get arrested for stealing stuff from the lab at the rehab center. Yes, trouble was a given. Still, since I was already courting death by pretending I could drive like Tom Cruise, singing “Hope you are quite prepared to die” seemed extra stupid, so I turned off the mental melodies in my h
ead and shifted my attention to a different distraction—my new ride. And oh, what a glorious distraction it was.
Deciding that the silver luxury sedan had to be insured all the way down to its new car smell and ergonomically comfortable seats, I was becoming less troubled by the six-digit price tag. The fancy gadgets were still worrisome, but I was kind of getting over being afraid of driving it. In fact, compared to the take-no-prisoners truck vibe of my Tahoe, the quiet smooth glide was almost like floating on clouds. With just a light touch of the wheel, the car gave a quick tight response and the performance tires hugged the asphalt like a stealthy panther. It was a sweet ride with cushy comfort and jet-propulsion speed. Okay, technically, I don’t know the speed because my eyes were watching for other things—like sheriff’s cars with lights on them—but it seemed superfast to me.
I made the rendezvous point in about half the time it had taken going to the cemetery, so I was slightly ahead of schedule, but Gilbert was there. His white pole truck was parked on the side of the road in wide area near the Turkey Ranch Road cutoff. Heading toward him, I hit the brakes and whipped off the pavement and dropped onto gravel and dirt.
The panther lost its stealthy grip and the car started to spin. As my body flung around with it, I heard myself scream. I also think I cried, saw God, begged for my life, peed a little and yelled a whole bunch of obscenities—but not necessarily in that order. I was staring straight ahead, waiting to be called into the light, when the car jerked to a stop.
Then, the clouds parted—or more accurately, the dust settled—and I could see cars zipping by on the highway off to my right. My hands still gripped the steering wheel and I could hear myself gasping for breath—both good signs that I wasn’t dead. Also good, the car was still purring like a kitten and no warning lights mocked me from the dash. Even better, I was reasonably sure I hadn’t crapped my pants.
I put the car in park, rolled down my window and peeked out, surreptitiously surveying my position on my erstwhile landing strip. The car was perfectly situated, aligned parallel to the highway with its trunk toward Gilbert and its nose headed back toward town. It looked like it had been placed there with deliberate and accurate precision by an expert driver who was showing off her super-cool skills and killer moves. And as long I kept my jelly legs, quivering chin and fear-glazed eyes in the car, no one would know otherwise.