by Rod Collins
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Pitiful.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean people are giving odds that you’ll be married before the month is out.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
“It won’t hurt your chances of being re-elected, Boss. And don’t tell me you don’t want to keep your job.”
“Well, damn. You’re just full of good news. Go talk to whoever is living in that wreck of a trailer again, and see if there’s gang trouble brewing.”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“Four or five years ago, I would’ve agreed. But when the cartels came after us, I started thinking anything was possible.”
“By the way, Boss. We need to hire a new deputy. Larae said she was determined to be a stay-at-home mom.”
“Well, damn.” Bud took a deep breath … then said, “Okay. Ask her to think it over. And if she’s still serious, I’ll need a formal letter of resignation. You know, Roger, I’m wondering if Gar, I mean John Bernard, would work for us?”
“Doubt it, Boss. You want me to ask?”
“Do it. And keep me posted of any progress on this drive-by shooting.”
“One more thing, Boss. You’ll be getting a call from Sonny. He and Carol Connor are getting married, and she plans to keep on running the Lake County News. It means he wants his old job back … and since you never got around to hiring an undersheriff…”
“I’ve been waiting for you to ask for that job.”
“I like it up here in North County.”
“Tell him to call and the job is his.”
Bud hung up and was reaching for the phone again when Karen knocked and pushed his door open without waiting. She put a vase with a dozen long stem red roses on his desk. “These just came. No tag.”
“No tag? Well, dang. They’re for you. An apology.”
She put her hands on her hips and stared for a long ten seconds. Somehow, she reminded him of his mother when she was about to give a much younger Bud Blair the “What for.”
Karen slowly shook her head. “Bud, you are just about the dumbest man I know when it comes to women. You should only send flowers in the good times, and keep your mouth shut in the bad.”
Bud frowned, reached for the flowers, then dropped them, vase and all, in his wastebasket. “Okay. Lesson learned.”
Karen stooped to retrieve them and glared at the sheriff. “Well, we can’t waste these beautiful roses.” Then she whirled on her heel and took them back down the hall.
Chapter 8
Molly
BUD FIDDLED with uninteresting paperwork, drank a second cup of coffee, and stalled off the dreaded trip to see Molly … and the vet. He finally snagged his tan Stetson off the hat rack and walked up front.
“Karen, I have to be gone for a bit. I’ll be on the radio if you need me.”
She started to say, “That’ll be a welcome change,” but something in his eyes stopped her. She settled for a nod. “Okay.”
He knew it had to be done, but he also knew he wasn’t going to like what was coming. He wound up circling the block twice before pulling into the parking lot. He sat and stared at the white concrete block building that housed the veterinary, at the chuckhole in the asphalt paving leading around back to the barn and the stables, and at the orange tabby perched on the window sill, soaking up the morning sun.
Brenda Brown, Doc Saunders’ lanky, redheaded assistant watched until she saw Bud open the pickup door. She walked to the back and said to the big gray-haired, crew-cut man stitching up a wounded cat, “Doc, the sheriff’s here.”
“Okay. I’m finished with this guy,” he said, pointing to a sedated tomcat that lost a fight with a bigger tomcat. “Give this old-timer his antibiotics and wrap him up.”
He peeled off the blue latex gloves, stuffed them in the disposal, and sighed. Saunders liked being a vet. He didn’t like sheep or goats, but he liked doctoring when he could actually save someone’s beloved milk cow, horse, dog, hamster, ferret, Myna bird … or tomcat.
But that wasn’t the case this time, and he dreaded giving Bud the bad news.
This was a special dog, and not just to Bud. Local people were used to knowing which county pickup was the sheriff’s because the little black Lab had her nose stuck out the window, ears floating in the breeze. And somehow the dog sent a message that the sheriff was one of the good guys and not just some hard-nosed cop.
Brenda patted Doc’s meaty shoulder. “I’ll take care of this tabby. You take care of our sheriff.”
Bud followed Doc to a room in back. Molly was laying on a stainless steel examination table, too sick to do more than try to wag her tail. Bud stroked Molly’s head, watched another listless twitch of her tail and listened to a quiet whimper.
Without being asked, Doc said in a quiet and sympathetic voice, “She’s in pain and probably won’t live more than a few more hours. You should let me put her down. It’s the kindest thing we can do now. And if you want, I can have her cremated.”
Bud said, “Damn,” and then nodded. He said flatly, “No, no cremation. I’ll pick her up this afternoon and take her back to the cabin … bury her down by the lake.”
The vet started to say he was sorry, but the look of sorrow in Bud’s hazel eyes stopped him. “I’ll have her in a nice box suitable for burial.”
Without another word, Bud petted Molly one more time, then turned quickly to walk briskly out the door and back to his pickup.
Doc looked at Brenda and shook his head. “Bud didn’t cry, but I think I’ll cry for him. He hasn’t had a good run this year.”
Brenda nodded and smiled, her blues eyes twinkling. “I think he’s going to be a lot happier soon.”
Doc frowned and asked, “What do you know?”
“Nancy Sixkiller is back living in town. You see, Doc,” she said patiently, like a mother instructing a fairly dense child, “Bud never got himself a new girlfriend, which tells the ladies of the town he’s still carrying the torch for Nancy.
“So, he grieves for Molly, Nancy consoles Bud, Bud likes being consoled, and then Mother Nature takes over. Ergo, I’ll bet you twenty dollars Nancy marries our sheriff … and soon.”
“Soon?”
“Pregnant ladies like to marry the fathers. Especially unmarried pregnant ladies.”
Doc shook his head, his gray eyes amused, and asked, “How do you know all this?”
“Well, she’s been gone almost six months, and she looks to be about six months pregnant. Now, she’s back. So, we think our sheriff is the daddy.”
“You ladies sure spend a lot of time digging into other people’s business.”
Brenda laughed. “She isn’t the only woman in the county who finds Bud attractive. If I wasn’t happily married…”
Chapter 9
Rescue
CLETUS HELPED THE OLD WOMAN carry her packages to the front door of an older, well-kept single-story home a block off Fremont. She said, “Thank you, young man. Your mama raised your right,” but she didn’t invite him in. And in truth he didn’t want to bring trouble to her door.
He trotted back to Fremont, caught the first bus heading east, and got off on 57th. He started walking south on 57th, then ten minutes later he caught a short hop on the southbound TriMet bus towards the Hollywood District.
A neon “Open” sign over the entrance to Mary’s, a mom and pop café sitting just south of Sandy Boulevard, looked to be the best bet for getting off the street and out of sight.
He nodded to an apron clad, gray-haired woman who was pouring coffee into a big white mug that was parked in front of an elderly man.
Cletus heard her say, “Stan, Evelyn’s been gone a year now. You need to get out and meet some new people, maybe even a nice widow woman.”
Cletus slid into a booth where he could watch the door. “Be right with you,” she said across the room.
Cletus waited until she took his order for coffee and a cinnamon roll, then he pulled
out his wallet and thumbed through a collection of business cards until he found the one he wanted.
FBI Special Agent Sara Watkins answered on the second ring. “Special Agent Watkins. What can I do for you?”
“Sara, this be Cletus, Cletus Falls. I hope you remember me.”
“Yes I do, Cletus. How have you been?”
“Well, I was pretty good until Reggie got hisself killed. You know the dude I’m talking about?”
“Yes. The informant who gave you the pictures of all those guns in the mosque we raided last year.”
“Yeah. That one. You know he’s dead?”
“Yes. I know.”
“Good. No, I mean it’s good you know about it, not good that Reggie’s dead. Now listen, Sara, I had a black dude shooting at me about half-hour ago. Never saw him before. Came at me. Asked if I was Cletus. Pulled a gun … and I ran. Got a bus between him and me and ran all the way to the Lloyd Center.
“I think they made Reggie talk before they killed him. Probably told them who I was. Maybe told them about taking the pitchers in the basement of the mosque.”
“Hold on, Cletus. I’ll be right back.”
He nodded as the waitress set down his coffee and a china plate cradling a hot cinnamon roll coated with warm icing that worked hard at dripping on the table. A smaller plate held two little tinfoil-wrapped squares of butter, a butter knife, and a fork. “Thank you,” he mouthed.
Sara came back on line. “Cletus, how would you like to spend a couple of days at our safe house in West Hills?”
He had a flashback to the first time he saw this attractive FBI agent. He was sure he would never forget the pull of her teal-colored blouse against a shapely bosom. “You going to be there?”
She laughed and said, “No. Someone else is in charge of the house now, but if you’d like I can come by for a visit. Now, where are you?”
“I’m in a café called Mary’s. It’s on 57th near Sandy in Northeast. Don’t know the number.”
“That’s okay. You sit tight. We’ll send a car for you. Agents Brandt and Wilcox will pick you up.”
Ten minutes later he dabbed his icing-coated lips with a paper napkin and watched a black Ford Expedition pull up against the curb in front of Mary’s. Two suits got out. FBI for sure. One black dude and one white.
The two agents studied the street and then walked into the café.
Without preamble, they slid onto the bench opposite Cletus. Special Agent Brandt showed Cletus his ID and asked, “Mr. Falls, do you have any picture ID?”
“How do you know who I am?”
Special Agent Wilcox, who somehow reminded Cletus of Dell BeBe, said, “Well, we don’t. But we were told to look for a black man in Mary’s café.” He swiveled his head to look at the nearly empty café. “You’re it.”
Cletus opened his wallet and showed them his Portland State student body card before saying, “You guys need a little imagination. I mean, a black SUV? You might as well paint ‘Cop’ on the sides.”
Agent Wilcox grinned and said, “But that’s who we are. Shall we go, Mister Falls?”
Cletus put a five-dollar bill on the table and, sandwiched between the two agents, walked out to the big Ford Expedition.
When Wilcox headed for the on-ramp to get on I-84 West, Cletus was comfortable, but when he took the exit to I-5 North, Cletus said, “Hey. This isn’t the way to the West Hills. Where we going?”
The white dude, Special Agent Brandt, turned and looked back at Cletus. “Sorry. We want to take a statement about what happened when the perp shot at you. And we want you to look at some mug shots. See if you can identify the man. We’ll do that at FBI headquarters. Then we’ll take you to the safe house. Okay?”
“Okay. Where is FBI headquarters?”
“Out by the airport.”
Chapter 10
The Gathering Storm
BUD BACKED THE COUNTY’S white pickup with a gold “Lake County Sheriff” shield on each door into his reserved slot on E street, then shut the diesel engine down. By habit he studied the street and, satisfied no threat was visible, took a deep breath, picked his tan Stetson off the passenger seat, and settled it on his head.
His cell phone rang before he opened the pickup door. “Sheriff Blair,” he answered.
“Listen, Bud,” BB said without preamble, “an FBI agent will be landing at the Lakeview Airport in about two hours. I’d go myself, but I need to be here at the house.”
“And you want me to pick him up?”
“Yeah. I do. But it’s a her, not a him.”
“And do what with her?”
“Bring her out to the lake, to my house.”
“What’s going on, BB?”
“Do you remember TJ Wildish?”
“Sure … the little guy who got himself straightened out several years back. And then became a reverend of some kind.”
“Right. He helped the FBI identify the stud duck on the Portland terrorist pond and gave the FBI the information needed for a warrant to search the mosque in Northeast.”
“Okay,” Bud said. “What else?”
“The informant who gave my snitch, Cletus, all the nice pictures of arms in the basement of the mosque? He was killed in a hit-and-run accident. FBI forensics is saying it wasn’t an accident. And I’m afraid he was tortured for information before he was ‘accidentally’ run down. I got word some radical Muslims are after TJ. I’m going to hide him out here until we get this sorted out.”
“Judas Priest!” Bud said.
“Dutch is sending this FBI agent down here to interview TJ, if he ever gets here, and try to work it in reverse. You know the drill … TJ heard from somebody, who heard from somebody else, who… Anyway, the FBI is hoping to gather enough information to make some arrests, and then TJ can go home again without fear of anything worse than a random mugging.”
“All right. Does this FBI agent have a name?”
“You are not going to believe this, Bud. Her name is Miranda Wright.”
Bud Chuckled and said, “Wow. I’ll bet she takes a lot of ribbing from her cohorts.”
“Her boss says she’s one of the best.”
“When will she be here?”
“Her plane is due at about one-thirty.”
“Miranda Wright. Okay. I’ll be there.
Bud’s cell phone chimed twice, telling him another call was coming in. “Gotta go, BB. See you this afternoon.”
Bud picked up the call. “Sheriff Blair.”
“Bud, this is Nancy. I just heard about Molly from Brenda Brown, the vet’s assistant. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I am, too. I’m going to bury her down by the lake.” He took a deep breath and, without really meaning to, said, “I just can’t imagine not watching her run down to the dock to bark at the mud hens.”
“Don’t you do anything before I get there,” she ordered. “I’m coming out right after my shift.”