Return To Sender

by Merline Lovelace

  Ev shook his head. “I know her lawyer. Several of us in the Albuquerque Marshals’ office had to provide extra courtroom security when he defended one of his skinhead clients against a charge of communicating a threat against a federal law enforcement official. The scuzzball swore his buddies would blow up the Federal building if he was found guilty.”

  Since the Oklahoma City bombing, Sheryl knew, those threats were taken very, very seriously. She remembered the tension that had gripped the city during that trial.

  “Don Ortega gave the guy one helluva defense,” Ev continued, “but he told me afterward he fully expected to go up in smoke with his client. He’s tough but straight. He wouldn’t knowingly aid an escaped prisoner or contribute to the commission of a crime.”

  “But he might do it unknowingly,” Fay argued. “Maybe Inga and company used some kind of a coded message. They’re certainly handy enough at that sort of thing.”

  Ev shook his head emphatically. “Not Don. He’s too smart to act as a courier for a suspected felon. Besides, the supervisor of the women’s detention center swears Inga hasn’t made any calls to anyone other than her attorney. So the odds are that the drop is still on...for a time we’ve yet to determine at a place we haven’t identified.”

  “We’ll identify both,” Harry swore, his face as tight and determined as his voice. “Keep working those computer reports. If you don’t find anything that makes sense, run them again with the day-month combinations for the next five days.”

  His partner groaned. “I’m going to need more energy for this.”

  Polishing off his donut, Ev dug another out of the box in the center of the table. While he munched his way through the report in front of him, Harry turned to the state trooper.

  “I want you to drive out to all the airports we’ve IDed as possible landing sites. Talk to the Customs people and airport managers personally. Ask them to info us on any flight plans with South America as originating departure point or cargo manifests showing transport from or through Rio. Also, tell them to notify us immediately of any unscheduled requests for transit servicing on aircraft large enough to carry this kind of a cargo load.”

  Fay reached for her Smoky the Bear hat. “Will do, Chief.”

  Topping off his coffee, Harry walked back to his seat. “All right, Sheryl, let’s get to work.”

  She shot him a quick glance as she settled in the chair next to his. He’d shed his jacket, but otherwise wore his standard uniform of boots, jeans and buttondown cotton shirt, this one a soft, faded yellow. His clean-shaven jaw and neatly trimmed mustache looked crisply professional, but the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth suggested that he’d hadn’t slept much more than she had.

  No doubt his investigation had kept him awake. It certainly seemed to consume him this morning. He gave no sign that he even remembered brushing a hand across her cheek last night or sending her into a shivering, shuddering nosedive with the touch of his mouth on hers. Not that Sheryl wanted him to remember, of course, any more than she wanted him to kiss her again.

  Not until she’d sorted out her feelings for Brian, anyway.

  “Where do you want to start?” she asked briskly.

  “Let’s go over the wording from the Venice-Antibes-Barbados cards again. Start with Barbados.”

  “Fine.”

  They worked for several hours before Harry was satisfied that he’d extracted all the information he could on that set of postcards. After sending the key words down to the computer center for analysis, they moved on to other cards that had arrived during Inga Gunderson’s four months in Albuquerque. The further back Sheryl reached into her memory, the hazier the dates and stamps and messages got. The scenes on the front side of the cards remained vivid, however.

  “Give me what you can on this one from Heidelberg,” Harry instructed.

  “It came in early April, a week or so before the fifteenth. I remember that much, because it provided such a colorful counterpoint to all the dreary income tax returns we had to sort and process.”

  Harry scribbled a note. “Go on.”

  “It was one of my favorites. It had four different scenes on the front. One showed a fairy tale castle perched above the Neckar River. Another depicted the old bridge that spans the river. Then there was a group of university students lifting their beer steins and singing, just like Mario Lanza and his friends did in the Student Prince.”

  At the other end of the table, Ev groaned. “Mario Lanza and the Student Prince. I can just imagine what the computers will do with that one!”

  Harry ignored him. “What about the fourth scene?”

  “That was the best.” Sheryl assembled her thoughts. “It showed a monstrous wine cask in the basement of the castle. According to Paul’s note, the cask holds something like fifty thousand gallons. Supposedly, the king’s dwarf once drained the whole thing.”

  Harry stared at her. A slow, almost reluctant approval dawned in his eyes, warming them to honey brown. “Fifty thousand gallons, huh? That gives us an interesting number to work with. Good going, Sher.”

  For the first time that morning, Sheryl relaxed. A sense of partnership, of shared purpose, replaced her earlier irritation with Harry’s brusque manner. When he wasn’t glowering at her or barking out orders, the marshal had his own brand of rough-edged charm.

  As she’d discovered last night.

  From the other end of the table, Ev whistled softly. “How the heck can you remember that kind of detail?”

  “A good memory is one of the primary qualifications for a postal worker,” she replied, smiling. “Especially those of us who are scheme qualified.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s ‘scheme qualified’?”

  “Although I primarily work the front counter, I’m also authorized to come in early and help throw mail for the carrier runs. Everything arrives in bulk from the central distribution center, you see, then we have to sort it by zip.”

  “I thought you had machines to do that.”

  “I wish!” Sheryl laughed. “No, most of the mail is hand-thrown at the branch level. I worked at two different Albuquerque stations before I moved to the Monzano branch. I can pretty well tell you the zip for any street you pick out of the phone book,” she finished smugly.

  “No kidding?”

  Ev looked as though he wanted to put her to the test, but Harry intervened.

  “Unless they’re pertinent to this investigation, I’m not interested in any zips but the ones on these postcards. Let’s get back to work.”

  “Yes, sir!” Ev and Sheryl chorused.

  Harry grilled her relentlessly, extracting every detail she could remember about Mrs. Gunderson’s correspondence and then some. They worked steadily, despite constant interruptions.

  The phones in the task force operations center rang frequently. In one call, the DEA advised that the informant who’d tipped them to Paul and Inga Gunderson had just come up with another name. They were working to ID the man now. Just before noon, the CIA came back with an unconfirmed field report that six canisters of depleted uranium had indeed passed through Prague four days ago. Their contact was still working Pamplona and Rio to see if he could pick up the trail. His face alive with fierce satisfaction, Harry reported the news to his small team.

  “Hot damn!” Ev exclaimed. “Prague! Good going, Sheryl.”

  A thrill shot through her. She couldn’t believe the information she’d provided only yesterday had already borne fruit. Her eyes met Harry’s above his latest ream of notes.

  “I owe you,” he said quietly. “Big time.”

  Her skin tingled everywhere his gaze touched it. She smiled, and answered just as softly.

  “All in the line of duty, Marshal.”

  The call that came in from their contact in the APD a little later took some of the edge off Sheryl’s sense of satisfaction. The police hadn’t turned up any leads regarding her slashed tires, nor had they located the man who’d hassled her yesterday morning over his
girlfriend’s welfare check. The woman had moved, and none of the neighbors knew her or her boyfriend’s current address.

  “They’re going to keep working it,” Harry advised.

  “I hope so.”

  In addition to the many incoming calls, the task force also had a number of visitors, including the deputy U.S. district attorney working the charges against Inga Gunderson. Harry and Ev conferred with the man in private for some time. Just before noon, the three of them went downstairs for Inga Gunderson’s custody hearing. The marshals returned an hour later, elated and more determined than ever. The government’s lawyer had convinced the judge to hold Inga pending a grand-jury review of the charges against her, they reported. The good guys had won another two, possibly three days while the woman remained in custody.

  “That’s great for you,” Sheryl said with a sigh, “but it looks like I’ve got Button for at least two, possibly three, more days.”

  “There’s always the pound,” Harry reminded her.

  When she declined to reply, Ev picked up on the conversation.

  “Inga’s attorney asked about the dog. Said his client was worried about her precious Butty-Boo. We assured him the mutt was in good hands.” His pudgy face took on a thoughtful air. “Maybe we should check the mutt out again.”

  Harry’s head jerked up sharply. “You said you went over him while we were at Inga’s house.”

  “I took his collar apart and searched what I could of his fur without losing all ten of my fingers. I might have missed something.”

  “Great.”

  “Or he could be carrying something internally,” Ev finished with a grimace. He eyed the other marshal across the table. “I’ll let you handle this one, MacMillan. You lugged the mutt around under your arm for most of yesterday. He knows you.”

  “I’ve done a lot of things in the pursuit of justice,” Harry drawled, “but I draw the line at a body cavity search of a fuzz ball with teeth. If you don’t mind giving me your house keys and the alarm code, Sheryl, I’ll send a squad car out to pick him up and take him to the vet who works the drug dogs. He’s got full X-ray capability.”

  Sheryl dug her keys out of her purse, then passed them across the table. Poor Button. She suspected he wouldn’t enjoy the next hour or so. Neither would the vet.

  Harry dispatched the squad car, resumed his seat next to hers and reviewed his notes. “Okay, we’ve got details on eight postcards now. Can you remember any more?”

  Sheryl sorted through her memory. “I think there were two, perhaps three, more.”

  They worked steadily for another hour. A uniformed police officer returned Sheryl’s keys and a report that the dog was clean. Fay Chandler called in from Farmington, where she was waiting for the manager of the local airport to make an appearance. Ev went downstairs to confer with his buddies in the computer center.

  Finally, Harry leaned back in his chair and tapped his stub of a pencil on his notes. “Well, I guess that’s it. We’ve covered the same ground three times now, with nothing new to add to our list of key words or numbers.”

  “I wish I could remember more.”

  “You’ve given us and the computer wizards downstairs enough to keep us busy the rest of the night. If we don’t break whatever code these cards carried, it won’t be from lack of trying.”

  Feeling oddly deflated now that she’d finished her task, Sheryl swept the empty conference room with a glance. After only two days, the litter of phones and maps and computerized printouts seemed as familiar to her as her own living room.

  “Do you need me for anything else?”

  Harry’s gaze drifted over her face for a moment. “If... when... we make sense of what you’ve told us, I’ll give you a call. We might need you to verify some detail. In the meantime, I want you to stay alert...and let me know if any more postcards show up, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Preferably before you return them to sender.”

  “We’ll try to be less efficient,” she said gravely.

  A small silence gripped them, as though neither wanted to make the next move. Then Harry pushed back his chair.

  “I know I’ve put you through the wringer for the past couple of days. I appreciate the information you’ve provided, Sheryl. I’ll make sure the postmaster knows how much.”

  He held out his hand. Hers slipped into it with a warm shock that disturbed her almost as much as the realization that she might not see him again after today.

  “You’ll let me know when...if...Inga gets out of custody, so I can send Button back to her?”

  “I will, although if I have my way, that won’t occur for seven to ten years, minimum.”

  “Well...” She tugged her hand free of his.

  “I’ll walk you down to your car.”

  Their footsteps echoed in the tiled corridor. Side by side, they waited for the elevator.

  Why couldn’t he just let her go? Harry wondered. Just let her walk away? There wasn’t any need to prolong the contact. He’d gotten what he wanted out of her.

  No, his mind mocked, not quite all he wanted.

  With every breath he drew in he caught her scent and knew he wanted more from this woman. A lot more. He’d spent most of last night thinking about the feel of her mouth under his, tasting again her wine-flavored kiss. And most of today trying not to notice how her tawny hair curled at her temples, or the way her red silk blouse showed off her golden skin.

  If Harry hadn’t witnessed the scene in her doorway last night, he might have come back to Albuquerque after he cornered his quarry and given this Brian character a run for his money. But the aching tenderness in Sheryl’s face when she’d bid her almost-fiancé good-night had killed that half-formed idea before it really took root. His predatory instincts might allow him to challenge another male for a woman’s interest, but he wouldn’t loose those instincts on one so obviously in love with another man...as much as he burned to.

  The elevator swooshed open, then carried them downward in a smooth, silent descent. With a smile and a nod to the guard manning the security post, Harry escorted Sheryl to the underground parking garage.

  Her little Camry sat waiting in the numbered slot Harry had arranged for her. She deactivated the newly installed alarm with the remote device, unlocked the door and tossed her purse inside. Then she unclipped her temporary badge and handed it to him.

  “I guess I won’t need this anymore.”

  His hand fisted over the plastic badge. “Thanks again, Sheryl. You’ve given me more to work with than I’ve had in almost a year.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Let her go! Dammit, he had to let her go! Deliberately, he stepped back.

  “I’ll keep you posted on what happens,” he said again, more briskly this time. “And what to do with Button.”

  She took the hint and slid into the car. “Thanks.”

  Harry closed the door for her and stood in a faint haze of exhaust while Sheryl backed out of the slot and drove up the exit ramp. Turning on one heel, he returned to the conference room.

  He made a quick call to the task force’s contact in the APD to confirm that they’d keep an eye on the Monzano Street station and Miss Hancock’s apartment for the next few days. Then he got back to the glamorous, adventurous work of a U.S. marshal.

  “All right, Ev, let me have some of those computer printouts.”

  They worked until well after midnight. Wire tight from the combination of long hours and a mounting frustration over his inability to break the damned code of the postcards, Harry drove to his motel just off of I-40.

  The door slammed shut behind him. The chain latch rattled into place. The puny little chain and flimsy door lock wouldn’t keep out a determined tenyear-old, but the .357 Magnum Harry slid out of its holster and laid on the nightstand beside his bed provided adequate backup security.

  Enough light streamed in through curtains the maid had left open to show him the switches on the wall. He flicked them
on, flooding the overdone Southwestern decor with light. The garish orange-and-red bedspread leaped out at him. Decorated with bleached cattle skulls, tall saguaro cacti and stick figures that some New York designer probably intended as Kachinas, it was almost as bad as the cheap prints on the wall. The room was clean, however, which was all Harry required.

  He closed the curtains and headed for the shower, stripping as he went. Naked, he leaned back against the smooth, slick tiles and let the tepid water sluice over him.

  They were close. So damned close. He and Ev had winnowed the thousands of possible combinations of letters and numbers on the postcards down to a hundred or so that made sense. Tomorrow, they’d go over those again, looking for some tie to the local area, some key to a date, a time, a set of coordinates.

  They’d worked hard today. Tomorrow, they’d work even harder. The drop had to happen soon. If Paul Gunderson had passed the stuff through Prague four days ago and was triangulating the shipment through Spain and Rio, he had to bring it into the States any day now. Any hour.

  Frustration coiled like a living thing in Harry’s gut. Prague. Pamploma. Rio. At last he had a track on the bastard. He wouldn’t let him slip through his fingers this time.

  He lifted his face to the water, willing himself to relax. He needed to clear his mind, so he could start fresh in a few hours. He needed sleep.

  Not that there was much chance of that, he acknowledged, twisting the water off. If last night was any indication, he’d spend half of tonight trying not to think of Sheryl Hancock naked and heavy eyed with pleasure from his kisses, the other half thoroughly enjoying the image.

  He slung a towel around his neck and padded into the bedroom. Just as well she had such an amazing memory, he thought grimly. Two days in her company had done enough damage to his concentration. Tomorrow, at least, he wouldn’t have to battle the distraction of her smile and her long, endless legs.

  Harry almost succeeded in putting both out of his mind. After a short night and a quick breakfast of coffee and huevos rancheros in the motel’s restaurant, he entered the conference room just after six. Ev arrived at six-thirty, Fay a little later. They slogged through the remaining reports for a couple of hours and had just been joined by an FBI agent with a reputation as an expert in codes and signals when one of the phones rang.