by Sharon Ervin
“That’s not fair.”
“I want you for keeps, Sara.” He studied her face, his jaw set. “I don’t want a relationship. I want a commitment. No more separations, ever.”
“But we need to get things straightened out with the FBI.”
“Okay.”
She twisted, writhing, rubbing her breasts against his bare chest, enticing him. He clenched his teeth and broke away, bending to retrieve her bra and blouse. “First things first.” He took a deep breath and shivered as he released it.
She scowled. “That’s what I thought we were doing, first things first.”
“No, we get things straightened out, get married, and then fool around. I don’t want any distractions popping through that door when we get to the important stuff.”
She sidled closer. He jammed her shirt and bra into her hands. As she took them, she again rubbed her bare breasts against his flesh.
He grabbed her upper arms firmly. “Sara, I’m serious. No sex until...” He stopped. “You are going to marry me, right?”
“Yes.”
“Today?”
“I need to talk to my parents. They’ll want to come. Won’t your family want to be here?”
Grudgingly, he released her and grabbed his shirt. “Sweetheart, family and friends are fine, but all that really matters is that you can make it.”
She gave him her prettiest smile. “Oh, I can make it.”
“We’ll do whatever you want. When?”
“This is Monday.” She reached up and patted the side of his face. “How about...”
“Tuesday’s good.”
“Can you hold out until Friday?”
He slipped his shirt on and she frowned as he began buttoning it. He grinned at her obvious disappointment. “Question is: can you?”
She sighed and murmured, “I guess.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Hear you’ve got yourself a new boyfriend,” FBI Agent William Krisp said, smiling and coming to his feet when Sara walked into his office just before noon.
She was surprised. “How’d you know?”
He reached across the desk to shake hands and motioned her toward a chair. “Sources. Aren’t you afraid you and Larchmont will make the hillbilly boyfriend jealous, flush him out into the open?”
She grinned crookedly. She hadn’t realized he was talking about her date with Kevin. “Krisp, I need to talk to you about Bo.” She chose to remain on her feet as he eased into his chair, regarding her closely.
“I thought that was who we were talking about. Your hillbilly boyfriend. Heard anything from him?”
She ignored his question and leaped instead to one of her own. “Did Bo do anything illegal?”
The agent frowned and slid well back into his chair, waving his hand indicating she should sit. She eased tentatively onto the edge of one of the chairs facing him across his desk.
Pressing his palms together, Krisp tapped the tips of his fingers and tilted his head back to observe them out of the lower part of his bifocals. He seemed to be thinking. He tapped for several seconds before he stopped and focused on his visitor.
“Conspiracy to kidnap you...”
“You’ll have to do better than that. He was as surprised to find me tied up outside his cabin that night as I was to be there.”
“Okay, how about aiding in the commission of a felony, harboring fugitives, conspiracy after the fact, little things like that.”
“Krisp, get serious. I’m not going to scramble to come up with answers to a bunch of unsubstantiated garbage.”
The agent regarded her solemnly.
She stood and started for the door then turned back. “Am I going to have to go out and hire a lawyer to get a straight answer out of you?”
He studied her another moment, then exhaled and leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “Okay, what do you want me to say?”
“I want you to admit that Franklin and Cappy Kindling and their kin folks committed an armed robbery in broad daylight and kidnapped me.”
She sidled several steps back toward her chair.
He pursed his lips and drew another deep breath. “I can agree with that. State and federal charges are already filed.”
“I want you to admit that no one even resembling Bo was in the store or near that stupid truck or even in the area when the crimes were committed.”
He stared another long moment, then nodded grudgingly. “Okay, I admit it. So what?”
“Bo’s the hero in this piece, Krisp. He deserves a medal for everything he did. You can’t be serious about charging him with a crime...any crime. I know you understand that, don’t you?”
The agent narrowed his eyes. “Like I said, so what?”
She plunged ahead. “Krisp, who do you think is going to testify against Bo?”
He sneered. “The Kindlings can’t wait.”
“Have either Franklin or Cappy ever been in trouble before?”
“Not with us.”
She wondered how naive he thought she was not to notice such an obvious dodge. “How about with the local law?”
He smiled a grim little smile and began nodding. “Franklin’s got a sheet but not for anything nearly as bad as he gives himself credit for. He’s a hoodlum wanna-be, but he’s neither well enough endowed nor well enough connected for the part.
“Cappy’s a stooge, trailing around trying to hold Franklin’s coat, which would be an over achievement, if it happened. Why?”
“I’m your only credible witness, right?”
“Okay.”
She gave him a determined look and lowered her voice. “Krisp, a wife can’t testify against her husband.”
He squirmed and stared back at her. “Sure she can.” He hesitated, lowered his eyes and his jowls quivered as he yielded the point. “She just can’t be compelled to testify, if she doesn’t want to.” He took a breath and hurried on, not giving her an opportunity to speak.
“Sara, honey, don’t go there. A young woman like you can’t live in a cabin with no conveniences, have a pack of kids with a hillbilly. He’s an ignorant, backwoodsman with little or no education, probably never had any success in his whole life...”
“Except with me.”
“No. You only did what you had to do at the time. You can’t seriously be thinking about marryin’ the man. Sit down with your mom and dad. Talk it out. Don’t go leapin’ into something you’ll regret the rest of your life.”
“I don’t want Bo Whatever-his-name-is to go to prison for taking care of me. I’ll do what I have to do to protect him.”
Krisp’s face twisted in disbelief. “I don’t believe that.”
She gave him a determined nod, one reminiscent of Bo. Realizing that, she allowed a wry smile.
Krisp stood up and walked around the desk. He strode by her to stare at the opaque pane in the top half of his office door, shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets, and stood with his back to her. Finally he turned, locking his hands together behind him, and walked toward her nodding almost imperceptively.
“They tell me some new guy’s turned up in your world, Sara, girl. He lives in your building.” Krisp ran his tongue along his front teeth. “He’s been watching you. We’ve been watching him. I believe you met him this morning. My people tell me he’s a clean, smooth talking, well educated, fine looking fellow. Is that about right?”
She nodded.
Krisp nodded back. “You can’t tell me you’re willing to sacrifice your future with someone like this new fella’, or like Kevin Larchmont, just an outstanding young guy, for some hairy old coot of a mountain man.”
She felt herself confusing identities again. “I love Bo,” she said softly. “And I’m obligated to him, Krisp. I owe him.”
“Sara, I think you got a little confused isolated up there with that old hermit. You got to feeling sorry for him, tolerated him, maybe even got to liking his craziness a little. But that’s behind you now. You don’t owe him a thing.”
“You don’t
know anything about it. Not about Bo, or me, or Bo and me together.”
“What is it you think you owe him?”
She shrugged and said the words simply, in a matter-of-fact tone. “Nothing but my life.”
Krisp snorted and paced back behind his desk. “Is that what he told you?”
“No. I was there. He saved me over and over again, in some ways I can hardly explain to myself, much less to anyone else. I don’t want to forget his humanity, his kindness--him. He’s a standard bearer for how people ought to be, for how we all should treat each other. I don’t intend ever to forget him.”
The agent took a deep breath then let it out. His body language signaled defeat. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to drop any federal charges against Bo. I want you to clear up any state charges against him. I want you to make people quit looking for him.”
Krisp ruffled. “Hell, girl, we filed those charges against John Doe. ‘Bo Doe’ sounded too ridiculous. We already quit looking for him because we’ve got no idea who we’re looking for, much less where to find him. Unless that hairy bastard turns up back at that cabin, he’s beyond us.”
“He’s free?” she reiterated. “You’re through looking for him?”
Krisp nodded.
She pivoted quickly and started toward the door, then looked back at him. There was something else, something he hadn’t told her.
“What are you holding back?” Poised, her hand on the doorknob, she regarded him somberly out of the corners of her eyes. “What are you not telling me? And why do I have the feeling you want to tell? Come on, what is it?”
Krisp glanced at her, turned his head, rubbed his mouth with a hand, and shrugged. “You are some piece of work, Loomis. Do you know that?” He allowed a grudging smile.
“I’ve been told.” She gave him a questioning look. “Come on, now, spill it.”
His grin broadened as he regarded her. “You play a mean game of thrust and parry.” He patted his pants pocket. “There is one other little bit of information on your friend Bo. Got it here in my wallet. I figured you’d been through enough. For your sake, Sara, I’m going to trash this little slip of paper and forget all about it. It doesn’t seem to have any bearing on this investigation any more anyhow.”
Sara looked at Krisp with new interest. “And what information is that?”
He pulled out his billfold, produced a torn half sheet off a legal pad, and smoothed it out on his desk. “I was willing to let you win by default, Sara, let you go away thinkin’ you’d outfoxed the fox--that being me--but, you see, it isn’t exactly like that.”
Her eyes narrowed but she had a good feeling. Something about his demeanor, the warmth in his voice, the twinkle in his eyes, gave him away.
“Okay. What is it exactly like?”
“The agents at the scene assumed the cabin was built by a squatter on land belonging to the U.S. Department of the Interior, part of the Ozark Mountain National Forest.”
“But?”
“Out of curiosity--and because I’m a damned good agent--I took a look at the county property records. It turns out, that particular patch of ground is adjacent to the national forest land, not on it. And it’s owned by an individual.” Krisp paused, but Sara waited.
He thumped a thick index finger on part of a penciled drawing on the sheet. “It seems that several years ago a fellow name of Alex B. Cadence purchased a piece of that quarter section, that forty acres, right there.”
Sara struggled to control her facial expression, her breathing. She didn’t want to reveal anything. “Is that right?” She concentrated on maintaining an expression of polite indifference. There was another lull. “So Bo squatted on Mr. Cadence’s property instead of in the national forest. Is that important?”
“Only in that it reduces the federal government’s interest in him, being as there’s no encroachment on a federal preserve.”
Relieved, she turned toward the door.
“One other little item of interest,” he added as she rotated the knob.
Clenching her teeth, she waited, her back to him. “Okay, what?” She refused to turn around, to face him. She felt vulnerable and knew Krisp was too sharp not to read her expression, which was probably transparent at the moment.
“That young fellow you met this morning, the clean-cut, clean shaven, young stalwart.”
“Yes?”
“What’s his name, Sara?”
“Alex.”
“Alex B. Cadence?”
“I believe so. Yes.”
“Do you know what that ‘B’ stands for, Sara?”
Agonizingly, she turned, blinking her eyes and biting her lips. “I guess you’re going to tell me, right?”
Krisp smirked a little and shook his head, never taking his eyes off her face. “No, Sara. I don’t know it for sure myself, at this point. But I fully intend to find out, unless you want to tell me.”
Her mouth set in a hard line.
“I’m going to look up that information, Sara Loomis.” Krisp scooped up the piece of yellow paper, refolded it and tore it in half, then tore it again and again until it was a pile of shreds, “just as soon as I get a little spare time to spend satisfying my idle curiosity about questions that don’t appear to be pertinent to anything I might need to know in an official capacity.”
She looked at him, surprised, pleased, suspicious. She had thought he was playing cat and mouse, that he enjoyed watching her squirm, but studying his face, she realized she had been mistaken.
She didn’t know how long he had known, but it was obvious that Krisp not only knew Bo’s identity, but knew exactly where to find him. And, just as obviously, he was making sure she knew that he knew. Now that he was satisfied that she did, he apparently was ready to let it go.
“I like you, Loomis.” Krisp paced toward her. “I’ve liked you from the git/go. You are a fine, fine young woman with character. In my line of work, we don’t ever see too much of that.
“You’re the kind of people, Sara, that helps me remember why I keep at this tedious, tiresome, thankless job. I appreciate you for that.
“Have a productive life, young woman. You’ve got my card. Drop me a line sometime. Let me know how you’re doing. I’ll remember you. Yes, ma’am, I’ll be remembering you for a long, long time, Sara Loomis.”
* * *
His eyes focused on a handful of paperwork, FBI Agent Kevin Larchmont strolled into his own office which was temporary headquarters for regional supervisor William Krisp.
“How’s your social life, Larchmont?” Krisp queried as he gazed out at the street below.
Kevin glanced up from the folder full of papers and grinned. “Great. ‘Guess you heard I took Sara Loomis to the show Saturday night. Even kissed her good night. I think she likes me. I’m going to ask her out to dinner this week. I’ve got a whole campaign mapped out. Going to take it slow and easy.”
Krisp watched as the clean-cut Alex Cadence stepped out of his vehicle parked on the street, grinned, and gathered a giggling Sara Loomis into his arms.
Krisp nodded his approval, then sobered and glanced back at his young agent.
“I see. Well, Kevin, my boy, I don’t know that I’d get to counting too strong on winning the lovely Ms. Loomis. I’m afraid she’s taken.”
Larchmont flashed a silly grin. “You mean that hero worship deal with the old mountain guy? Nah, I can get her over him. No problem.”
Glancing back out at the scene in the street below, Krisp grimaced. “I’m afraid we locked the barn door on Ms. Loomis, son, after her heart had already been stolen. But there are a lot of other fish in the sea.”
“Not like her,” Larchmont said firmly.
Having escorted Sara safely into his vehicle, Cadence, beaming, jogged to the driver’s side, and climbed in.
Still watching, Krisp took a deep breath.
“No, Kevin, there aren’t many like her out there these days,” the chief investigator admitted. “But I�
��ve found out recently that all it takes is one every now and again to stimulate the old juices.
“Yes, sir, that Sara Loomis is one in a million, son. She is a one-of-a-kind, extremely fine, absolutely bodacious woman.”
THE END