by Diana Palmer
“It won’t save you. They have our news everywhere now.”
“Humor me.” He glanced down at the dog, who had his big paws crossed, his muzzle lying on them as he watched television. “This is interesting to you, huh? Don’t have dog scandals, I guess?”
The big dog raised its sad brown eyes to his. It wagged its tail and went back to watching television.
“He’s very intelligent,” his mother remarked.
“How did you arrive at that conclusion?” Curt asked.
“He’s not bounding around the house trying to tear up stuff, and he isn’t barking.”
About that time, the local newscaster came back on and there was an interview with the man in the photograph Curt had been given, Abe Hunt. The dog perked up its ears and barked, once, loudly.
“Hush!” Curt muttered, leaning forward to hear better.
The sound bite was brief and uninformative. The missing government witness had only said that he knew nothing and refused to testify. The newscaster added the information that the witness had since disappeared and foul play was suspected.
“He’s probably lying at the bottom of Lake Lanier,” Curt muttered.
“If he is, dear, he won’t come up again,” his mother offered nonchalantly, working on a piece of embroidery while she spoke. “The water’s so cold that even spring heating won’t send him to the surface.”
“You always come up with these fascinating little tidbits about dead bodies,” Curt remarked. “How do you know so much?”
“I used to date a coroner.”
He shook his head and went back to watching the news.
The dog suddenly lifted its muzzle and howled.
“Stop that!” Curt muttered. “What’s the matter with you?”
The dog looked up at him and wagged its tail.
“He’s probably hungry,” Curt’s mother said, putting down her handiwork. “I’ll feed him some leftover macaroni. Come on, Big Red.”
The dog answered easily to his new name. He leaped down from the sofa with fumbling grace and trotted off after his new master.
Curt gave him a long glare. This was getting to be one miserable vacation. First Marijuana Mary, now the Hound from Hell had moved in with his mother.
* * *
After they went to bed, the bloodhound padded softly into the living room, sat in front of the picture window, and let out a howl that would have awakened people in the cemetery.
The doorbell ringing insistently dragged Curt out of bed, in silk pajama bottoms and no T-shirt. His mother could be heard snoring peacefully right through the closed door as he passed her room.
He shouted at the howling dog before he opened the wooden door. There was Marijuana Mary in an oversize navy blue T-shirt. She was wearing bedroom slippers, pink fuzzy ones, and her blond hair was standing out all over her head. She looked half-asleep and furious.
“Could you please put some tape around the mouth of the Hound of the Baskervilles so that those of us who have jobs could get some sleep?” she asked with venom.
“I have a job,” he pointed out.
“You’re on vacation,” she returned. She had her hands on her rounded hips, and the posture brought Curt’s appreciative eyes to the firm thrust of her breasts against the fabric. She cleared her throat and unobtrusively crossed her arms over her bosom.
He lifted an eyebrow and searched her eyes for longer than he meant to, his eyelids narrowing as he registered her sudden flush.
“Why do you have a dog all of a sudden, anyway?” she asked jerkily.
“My mother fed him and now he won’t leave. Besides, he’s interested in the evening news.”
“So?”
“It’s Mom’s favorite show. She’s given him a name. She never gives up things she names,” he added with a grin. “She’s had me for thirty-four years.”
“She should get a medal.”
“Look here, why are you prowling around the neighborhood in a nightgown at midnight?” he demanded.
“It isn’t a nightgown!”
She glared at him, but her eyes fell helplessly to his broad, hair-roughened chest, and she couldn’t seem to stop staring at him.
“Don’t leer at me,” he said outrageously. “Sexual harassment of men is a misdemeanor. I could arrest you.”
“You son of a…!”
“Foul language is a misdemeanor,” he continued, enjoying himself. “I could arrest you.”
“That dog—” she pointed to the picture window where the dog had begun to howl again “—is a public nuisance and he’s creating a disturbance and disturbing my peace. I could arrest you. I am an officer of the court!”
He put his hands on his own hips and stared down at her with renewed interest. She was very pretty. Not only that, she had a temper that was easily the equal of his own. It had been a long time since he’d been involved with a woman. He considered that he wouldn’t mind getting involved with this one. She had potential.
“Can’t you make him stop?” she wailed, dropping her pose and appealing to his better nature.
“I could, if I knew why he’s howling in the first place,” he agreed. “Why don’t you come in and have a cup of coffee and we can discuss strategy?” He started to open the door.
As if it were an invitation, the dog suddenly made a dash for the open screen door and shot through it like a bullet, barking hoarsely.
“Come back here!” Curt yelled, worried at what his mother was going to say when she found out he’d let her new pet escape. “Oh, hell, I’ll have to go chase him!”
He started out the door barefoot, without thinking how he was dressed, and shot off after the dog.
Mary hesitated, then threw up her hands and ran after him. She couldn’t sleep. She might as well assist.
Lights went on in the neighborhood as the scantily clad man and woman ran along the pavement calling after the baying dog. When he left the sidewalk and ran into the woods behind Mary’s house, she kept going, but Curt hit a low-lying rose branch and yelled in pain.
“Watch out for snakes!” he called after her furiously.
“Snakes?”
It was comical to watch her stop suddenly in place with one foot raised. “Snakes?” she repeated, looking around in every direction.
Curt was standing on one foot holding the other and trying to pick out thorns in the streetlit darkness. Not that it was easy. The damned streetlight was temperamental. It stayed on for all of a minute and then began to flicker and suddenly went out. Two minutes later it flickered again and tried to come on. The power company had been called and called, but they insisted it was natural, despite the fact that none of the other streetlights acted similarly. It was something the neighbors had learned to live with. Curt hadn’t.
“If I had my pistol, I’d blow you away!” he raged at the light.
Doors had opened. The hound was baying wildly.
Mary was jumping from one foot to the other trying to feel her way back out of the tall grass and talking to herself, loudly. Curt was groaning and threatening the light.
A police car came careening down the street, screeched to a halt in front of Curt, and the doors of the car flew open. Two young officers appeared with leveled pistols.
“Hands up!” they yelled.
“I’ve got thorns in my foot!” Curt yelled back, still holding one foot. “I’m FBI!”
“And I’m Princess Don,” came the drawled reply.
“Get ’em up!”
“Go ahead and shoot!” Curt told them, exasperated. “But shoot that damned streetlight first, and I’ll go happily!”
Just at that moment, it went out, leaving the street in total darkness. There were quick commands, doors opened. A spotlight came on at once, but it not only caught Curt, it also caught Mary and the hound dog, both of whom were suddenly standing beside Curt.
“Is it Halloween?” one officer asked the other.
“No,” came the reply. “But I’m calling for backup!” He did, p
ushing the mike on his shoulder and requesting assistance.
“What’s going on out there?” came a furtive yell from the houses behind them.
Curt looked at Mary and they both looked at the dog. It was going to be a long night.
* * *
They were taken into custody and transported to the police station. The two of them were temporarily lodged in a cell while the watch commander phoned Curt’s friend at home. It would be no use to phone his mother. He knew from long experience that nothing short of a bombing would wake her once she went to sleep. But he had asked them to phone his friend, the chief, Jack Mallory, and ask him to come down and identify them.
They had, at least, given Mary a blanket to wrap over her long T-shirt. She sat glaring at Curt from accusing dark eyes as they occupied opposite ends of a long bunk.
“It smells like people threw up in here,” she remarked angrily.
“No doubt,” he replied. “This is the drunk tank.”
“I’m not drunk!”
“Neither am I, but why else would we be running around the neighborhood in the dark in our pajamas?”
“Because of your dog!” she exclaimed.
“He isn’t mine. He’s my mother’s dog.”
“She can explain to the police,” she began.
“She sleeps like the dead. She won’t wake up until nine, and then she’ll wonder why I’m not in the house.”
“Maybe your dog,” she emphasized gleefully, “will go and howl in her ear.”
“Not unless he can open doors,” he said with a sigh. He looked down at himself. “This is not going to look good on my record.”
Her eyes were gleaming thoughtfully. “I’m going to tell them you were looking for a flying saucer,” she said sweetly. “I’m going to tell them you saw an alien and were chasing it!”
“You wouldn’t dare!” he exclaimed.
“Stand and watch me, Russell!” she shot back, pulling her blanket closer. “First you accuse me of raising marijuana and then you try to back into my car, and then you have your dog howl all night so I can’t sleep the night before the most important case of my…career…. Oh, no!” She put a hand to her mouth and her eyes opened wider. “I have to be in court at nine, to prosecute a drug trafficker. The judge will level contempt charges if I don’t show up! And here I sit. With you,” she added with absolute disgust.
“It’s a minor misunderstanding,” he pointed out. “As soon as Jack arrives, we’ll get out of here and everything will be fine.”
“What if he doesn’t show up?” she groaned.
“Just be patient,” he admonished. “He’ll be here soon.”
* * *
Jack did arrive shortly, smiling blissfully, and he had company. The local newspaper had an ace photographer with a maniacal sense of humor. He’d been working late in the darkroom at the newspaper office and Jack picked him up on the way, along with his camera. And before either of the perpetrators could open their mouths, they were photographed in their indecent state.
“There,” the photographer said with a grin. “Recorded for posterity. How will I caption this? Let’s see, ace FBI agent and rising prosecutor frolic in suburban neighborhood at midnight with mysterious red dog!”
“You can say it must be some sort of Druid ritual,” the police chief said helpfully. “They could be part of a cult…”
“Get me the hell out of here!” Curt demanded.
Mary stood up beside him, disheveled hair and flaming eyes. “That goes double for me! I’ve got a case in court in Lanier County at nine! An important case!”
The chief studied her bare legs and fluffy slippers thoughtfully. “Gosh, what an impression you’re going to make on Judge Wills.”
“I’ll promise him a basket of tomatoes!” she said haughtily.
“He’ll throw them at you, if you turn up in his courtroom looking like that,” he pointed out with a chuckle. “Okay, Harry,” he told the photographer. “We’ve had our fun. You can show them your camera now.”
The photographer opened the back of the camera. It wasn’t loaded. Curt and Mary gave him a vicious glare as the jailer opened the cell with a grin and let them out.
“But no more midnight flits,” the chief admonished. “I hate being hauled out of bed when I’ve only been asleep two hours.”
“I’m sorry,” Curt muttered. “The dog was howling and then she came over—” he pointed an accusing finger at Mary “—and flaunted her body at me. While I was staring at her, the dog escaped, and we had to run him down…”
The chief held up a hand. “I’ve heard it all before,” he said with a bored expression. “Just don’t do it again.” He glanced at Mary. “Flaunting yourself at FBI agents again, huh, Mary?”
She kicked him in the shin, turned, and stormed out into the main part of the station, where several officers were drinking coffee. They turned and stared.
“It’s a T-shirt!” she raged.
They only shrugged.
She was out the door when she realized that it was a long walk home and she didn’t have transportation. In her present state, she wasn’t going to get far without trouble.
Curt, who was thinking the same thing, strode past the officers with a superior grin. He had a great physique, and he knew it. Some of the officers standing around were long married and had what was affectionately and colloquially called “dunlap’s disease” (short for the rural Southern phrase, “his belly done lapped over his britches”). He marched out the front door just ahead of Jack, looking as if he’d won a contest.
“Going somewhere?” Curt asked Mary.
“Home, when I can thumb a ride.” She gave him a hard look. “At least they gave me a blanket,” she added, pulling it closer.
He chuckled. “I don’t want one.” He stood taller. “With a body like this, why hide my obvious assets?”
She lifted her foot, and he moved quickly out of range. Thorns were painful enough, without an angry foot in his shin to add to his discomfort. But she was a delight to tease.
“You’ll still have to hunt down your dog asset,” she said wickedly.
“With any luck,” he told her, “he’ll be back in his own home by the time I get to the house.”
“If you two want a ride, hurry up,” Jack called to them from his car. “I’m sleepy!”
They were somewhat discouraged to discover that the photographer was also hitching a ride, but he sat in the front seat and didn’t say a word the whole way home.
“Here you are,” Jack told them, pulling up in the street between their respective houses. “From now on, stay off the streets at midnight. My men only followed regulations by arresting you.” He gave them both a long look and shook his head. “This used to be such a peaceful little town,” he lamented, and powered up his window before they could reply.
They watched him drive off. It was light against the horizon. They’d spent hours at the police station.
“I don’t suppose there’s much use in trying to go back to sleep,” Mary said on a sigh. She glared at Curt. “Thanks to you, I’ll probably fall asleep in the middle of my summation.”
“If you can wrap up that sort of prosecution in one day, I’ll eat your blanket,” Curt assured her.
She grimaced. “It will take three or four,” she agreed. She studied him for a minute and then smiled helplessly. “I guess we did look odd.”
He grinned. “Druidic rituals,” he murmured. “I’ll have to remember and tell the guys about that one.”
“No need. I’m sure Hardy Vicks will tell everybody the minute he hears about it.” She frowned. “Why do you have a dog? Your mother says she’s never had pets. Aren’t you allergic?”
“No, my father was. The dog parked itself in the driveway and refused to move. She adopted it.”
“Yes, but where did it come from?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I have no idea.” He looked toward his house. The lights were on. He frowned.
Just as he was wond
ering why the lights were on, the front door opened, and there stood his mother with the dog.
“So there you are!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing in the middle of the street in your pajamas with Mary? Come to think of it, Mary, why are you in the middle of the street in a blanket?”
Mary turned without another word and darted across the street and into her house, which she’d left unlocked. Curt sighed and went up the driveway to try to explain the night to his mother. The dog watched him the whole way, wagging its tail.
CHAPTER THREE
The next afternoon, Curt waited for Mary to come home and get comfortable before he left his mother—and the dog—and went over to talk to her.
She answered the front door when he rang, but she looked disturbed.
“Something wrong? Besides the obvious?” he added.
“Come on in.” She led him to the kitchen and poured him a cup of coffee. “Your mother says you like it black,” she added when she put it down and sat down to her own cup lightened with cream. “Listen, when I got home last night, somebody had gone through my kitchen and carried off a loaf of bread and some luncheon meat.”
“Didn’t you lock your door?”
She glared at him.
He held up a hand and smiled sheepishly.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I was too tired to call the police again, so I checked the house and locked up and went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I was going to go out back and look for sign when you came up just now.”
“I’ll go with you,” he offered. He sipped coffee. “When I was in the Secret Service, I worked a federal case in cooperation with other government agencies. One had an agent who was Lakota. He taught me to read sign and speak sign language. It was interesting.”
“Lakota?” she asked curiously.
“Sioux.”
“Oh.” She studied his lean face. “Don’t you have Cherokee blood?” she asked abruptly.
He nodded. “My grandfather is on the Dawes Roll—one of the numbered records of all the Cherokee people on the reservation in North Carolina.”
“So you’re one-quarter Cherokee?” she persisted.
“Thereabouts.” He lifted an eyebrow. “You?”