Speed Trap

by Patricia Davids

  Kathryn took a sip of her tea, then said, “I thought the number of meth labs dropped off once the state passed stricter controls on over-the-counter cold medications.”

  “They did—for a while. Instead of stealing the pseudo-ephedrine or ephedrine from the local drugstores, they’re getting it off the Internet from Canada or Mexico.”

  Reports from narcotic units in both Kansas City and Wichita pointed to the fact that large shipments of meth were coming out of Mandy’s area. She knew she had a major drug ring operating almost under her nose. She just couldn’t pin them down. Yet.

  Mandy ate in silence as she tried to figure out what she had missed. After a few minutes, she felt her mother’s gaze on her and looked up. “What?”

  “I said Candice Willow’s daughter is expecting again.”

  “What will that be, her fourth?” Mandy forked a piece of meat loaf into her mouth and braced herself for another round of why-don’t-you-settle-down-and-raise-a-family hints from her mother.

  “Candice’s daughter is the same age as you are.”

  “Really? She’s been busy.” Mandy tried to hold back her sarcasm but failed.

  “Grandchildren are such a blessing.” A heavy sigh followed Kathryn’s comment.

  Mandy studied her mother’s carefully blank face without comment.

  Kathryn took another sip of tea, then said, “Did I mention Candice’s oldest son is coming for a visit. He’s a doctor. A radiologist.”

  So that’s where this was going. Mandy laid down her fork and laced her fingers together on the table. “I’m guessing he’s single.”

  Kathryn brightened. “As a matter of fact, he is.”

  “Don’t you dare try and fix us up.”

  “I never suggested such a thing.”

  Mandy rolled her eyes. “Grandchildren are a blessing. He’s a doctor. Come on, Mom, I can read you like a rap sheet.”

  “Grandchildren are a blessing, and I’d like to have some of my own before I die. It wouldn’t hurt you to go out on a date once in a while.”

  “Fine. I’ll go out with the next guy who asks me. In case you haven’t noticed, they’re not exactly lined up around the block.”

  Mandy rose from the table and carried her dish to the sink. “If and when the right guy comes along, it will happen. If not, then that’s okay, too.”

  “Candice’s son could be the right one. How will you know if you don’t meet him?”

  As soon as he hears I’m a sheriff, he’ll run the other way. They all do.

  “Just meet him. That’s all I’m asking,” her mother continued with a slight pout, then changed the subject.

  After clearing the table and loading the dishwasher, Mandy bid her mother goodbye and left. Walking down the porch to the next doorway, she unlocked her side of the duplex and went in.

  The quaint two-story Victorian house with its wraparound porch had been remodeled into a duplex. It had turned out to be the perfect place for them. Living next door to her mother gave Mandy peace of mind and her mother a sense of independence.

  Mandy stopped in the kitchen to check her phone messages. The machine showed a red 0. She’d left clear instruction that she was to be called if any new leads or new information on Judy Bowen’s case became available. Apparently, none had.

  Feeling unusually restless, Mandy turned around, snatched her car keys off the hook and walked out of the house.

  The drive across town was short. Timber Wells boasted only four thousand residents and a total of four traffic lights.

  Pulling into a large parking lot, Mandy stopped and stared at the front entrance of the town’s hospital. She could have called to check on the baby, but what she really needed was to see him—to make sure he was doing all right.

  Inside the building, the nurse on duty gave her a room number. Mandy found the pediatric ward and quietly opened the door to room 222. An elderly woman sat in a wooden rocker, holding Colin. The baby was whimpering softly.

  “How is he?” Mandy crossed the room for a better look.

  “Fussy, but I would be, too, if I had a broken collarbone.”

  Mandy took note of the small sling that held one arm pinned to his sleeper. “I’m Sheriff Scott. I just wanted to check on him before I called it a night.”

  “I know who you are. I understand this little man owes you his life.”

  “I was in the right place at the right time, that’s all.”

  “It was by the grace of God you were there, and it was a brave thing to do, young lady. Would you like to hold him awhile? I really need to get back to my other duties, but he cries whenever I lay him down.”

  Taken aback, Mandy shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not much good with kids.”

  “Nonsense. Anyone can rock a baby. Sit here.” The woman rose to her feet, leaving Mandy little choice but to do as she was told.

  Taking the baby carefully, she held his small, warm body close. He whimpered again. Mandy looked up in concern. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt him.”

  “Be careful not to jar his arm, and he’ll be fine. The nurse gave him something for pain in his last bottle. It should take effect soon. Once he’s asleep, you can put him to bed.” With a smile of encouragement, she left the room.

  Slowly, Mandy relaxed and as she did, the baby’s whimpering stopped. Before long, he drifted off to sleep. Instead of laying him down, she continued to rock him gently.

  He was a beautiful child. His long eyelashes lay in blond crescents against his chubby cheeks. His tiny bow mouth made sucking motions as if he were dreaming about his next bottle.

  Mandy smiled. The warmth of the emotions he evoked in her heart nearly took her breath away. She stared at his delicate face. It felt so right and natural to hold him in her arms. She began to hum a soft lullaby.

  Perhaps one day she would have a child of her own. She’d thought there would be time to settle down after the academy and after getting her career started, but then her father had been killed and her mother had needed so much of her time.

  Time was exactly what had slipped away. Now, Mandy was stuck in a small town where even the bravest of men hesitated to ask the sheriff out on a date.

  “I shouldn’t whine when my life is so full of blessings,” she whispered to the little boy who slept in her arms.

  She shouldn’t, but sometimes it was hard always being the one in charge. Always looking to right the wrongs in other people’s lives. It was harder still when she couldn’t right that wrong.

  She’d never be able to give this little boy his mother back, but she would do her best to see that justice was done.

  An hour later—long after her young charge and her arm had fallen asleep—Mandy managed to tear herself away. Laying him down, she stood for a moment rubbing away the pins and needles until feeling returned to her hand.

  Kissing the tip of her fingers, she gently touched them to his forehead. “Sleep tight. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  Smiling, she realized she’d just made a date with the cutest guy in Timber Wells. Too bad he was only four months old. Somehow, she was sure this wasn’t what her mother had in mind.

  Someone had tried to kill that beautiful baby. Someone had succeeded in killing his mother.

  Mandy vowed she wouldn’t let him or her get away with it.

  Garrett turned his truck into a parking space in front of the county courthouse just after ten o’clock in the morning. It had been two days since he’d learned of Judy’s death.

  He sat for a long time staring at the modern one-story brick structure and the immaculate green lawn that surrounded it. Flags fluttered in the breeze from a pair of flagpoles to the right of the low broad steps. Wiley, his paws parked on the armrest of the passenger’s side door, barked excitedly.

  Garrett rubbed his palms on the top of the steering wheel. He didn’t like confrontations, but the news of Judy’s death followed by what he’d learned this morning left him reeling. Sheriff Scott had a lot of explaining to do.

>   Judy had a son.

  A child who would grow up without a mother because she had been coming to see Garrett—and he still didn’t know why. A heavy sense of responsibility settled in his chest. Try as he might, he couldn’t dislodge it.

  He knew what it was like to be motherless.

  Why hadn’t the sheriff told him about the baby? Could the child be his? According to Judy’s pastor, the baby’s age made it possible, but surely Judy would have told him she was pregnant with his child.

  Like Garrett, Judy had lived a hard life. When they first met at a truck stop in Overland Park, she’d been nursing a cup of coffee and a black eye from her latest in a long line of boyfriends who used their fists on her face.

  She’d looked so alone, so lost. Garrett knew exactly how that felt. When she turned her heartrending smile in his direction and poured out her sad story, Garrett found himself determined to save her.

  And she let him. They’d married within a month.

  His dreams of a family to love and cherish the way he’d never been loved soon evaporated. Judy had a serious drug problem. She stayed with him a couple of years, but not out of love.

  Garrett had simply been her free ride until she found something better. One day, she was gone.

  Like everyone he cared about.

  Getting out of his truck and closing the door, Garrett faced the courthouse again. He didn’t relish the idea of setting foot inside a police station. There were cells inside where men were locked away. Just the thought made his skin crawl. If he had a lick of sense, he’d go home and finish his corral.

  Except he couldn’t. He needed answers, and Sheriff Scott had them. Facing his fears, he walked up the steps.

  Inside the building, he found the door marked with the sheriff’s seal. He stepped into the room and saw a plump woman in her midfifties behind the counter.

  Two deputies were seated at desks behind her. Garrett recognized Fred Lindholm, and his hands balled into fists.

  The last time Garrett’s mother had called for help, Lindholm had been the one to respond. His help amounted to telling Garrett’s father to sober up and take it easy on his old lady. Less than a week later, Garrett’s mother left for good.

  Maybe if Lindholm had done his job and arrested Garrett’s father, things might have turned out differently. The coil of anger and fear inside Garrett wound tighter, but he knew better than to let it loose.

  At the desk next to Lindholm sat a younger man with short red hair and wide serious eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. His name tag said Ken Holt. Garrett didn’t know him, but if he was anything like Lindholm, he’d be a good man to avoid.

  “May I help you?” the woman asked.

  Garrett shifted his attention back to the receptionist. “I’d like to talk to Sheriff Scott.”

  “She isn’t in right now. Can I take a message?” The woman smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She lifted a large pink leather purse to her desktop and began searching for something.

  “When do you expect her back?” Garrett asked.

  She pulled a stick of gum from her purse, unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth. “That’s hard to say.”

  Behind him, he heard the door open and a cool voice he recognized said, “Mr. Bowen, what are you doing here?”

  He turned around to see Mandy framed in the doorway. Once again he was surprised by how pretty she was. The very air around her seemed charged with rare energy. The nameless fear that squeezed Garrett’s throat eased.

  He breathed in the scent of her freshly starched shirt. Beneath the smell of ironed cotton, he caught a subtle sweetness. Honeysuckle?

  A tenacious vine with delicate flowers and a heady perfume that belied its tough nature. The description certainly fit the good sheriff.

  Why did he find her so attractive? The answer eluded him.

  He pushed the thought aside and got back to the reason he was here. “Why didn’t you tell me about Judy’s baby?”

  Mandy walked past him and entered a nearby office. He followed her, determined to get a response.

  A cluttered, heavy wooden desk occupied the center of the room. On the walls hung certificates and wanted posters and a large framed picture of a man in a police uniform with Mandy’s slender build and square chin.

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she stood in front of her desk and regarded Garrett with a steady stare. He had the feeling she was stalling for time, searching for a way to respond.

  “Where did you hear that she had a child?” Her tone was cold enough to frost the windows.

  “Today when I called the minister she worked for to see about funeral arrangements, he asked about her son. Why didn’t you mention she had a kid?”

  Mandy shrugged. “I didn’t think it was any of your business. You never mentioned she had a child.”

  “I didn’t know.” He kept the bitterness out of his voice with difficulty. Judy had always said she didn’t want kids. Maybe she just hadn’t wanted his kids.

  The pain of that thought made him flinch. “Is he my son?”

  Mandy’s face softened for an instant, but the look was gone so quickly he wondered if he had imagined it. She shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  He stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Judy wasn’t home much the last month she lived with me. I think she was seeing someone else, but the baby could be mine. Can I see him?”

  “No. This is still an open investigation.”

  “Do you have any suspects? Besides me, that is.”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss the case.”

  His bottled-up anger slipped its leash. “I didn’t have anything to do with Judy’s death. Are you even looking for the person who did?”

  “I resent the implication that I’m not doing my job.” Her eyes snapped with suppressed irritation.

  He couldn’t back down. Not now. “Resent away. I want answers.”

  Mandy raised her chin. “Mr. Bowen, the best thing you can do is go home and let us do our job.”

  Once again, the pretty sheriff was throwing up a roadblock. If she hadn’t been so eager to pin Judy’s death on him, he might have accepted her suggestion.

  No, if he was going to get answers, he’d have to get them himself.

  “I’ll find out what I need to know with or without your help, Sheriff.”

  Mandy took a step closer. “Don’t get in my way, Mr. Bowen. If you do, you’ll regret it.”

  THREE

  “That one’s gonna be trouble,” Donna said as Mandy came out of her office to watch Garrett cross the street to his truck.

  Mandy wasn’t happy he’d found out about the baby. It wasn’t like the child could identify his mother’s killer, but that didn’t mean he was safe.

  She picked up the phone and dialed the number for the pediatric floor. Her encounter with Garrett brought her protective instinct rushing to the forefront. She needed to make sure Colin didn’t get any unauthorized visitors.

  After leaving instructions with the nursing staff to notify her office if Garrett tried to see the boy, she hung up.

  For the past two days. she’d spent several hours each evening with the baby, reading Mother Goose stories he couldn’t yet understand, singing songs that seemed to soothe him. This morning, she’d stopped in to visit before coming to work. Somehow, she knew she needed to see his bright eyes and dimpled smile before she started her day.

  Colin had become firmly wedged in her heart. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the idea that he might be Garrett’s child.

  Donna crossed her arms over her ample chest. “I don’t trust Mr. Bowen any farther than I can throw him.”

  Fred and Ken came to stand beside Mandy. She looked at them. “Besides his arrest, what do we actually know about him?”

  “Not much,” Fred admitted. “His old man drank like a fish. He hit hard times after his wife ran out on him about fifteen years ago. He had to sell off some of the ranch. He died about ten years ago. I hear G
arrett’s been buying some of the land back, bit by bit.”

  “He doesn’t go to church,” Donna interjected.

  Mandy folded her arms. “I’ve seen his ranch. It isn’t exactly prosperous-looking. Where’s he getting the money to buy land?”

  Fred leaned his elbows on the counter. “We can look into his financial records.”

  Ken cleared his throat. “Besides ranching he’s a cattle buyer on the side. My uncle has used him a few times.”

  Mandy glanced at Ken. “What does that entail?”

  “If a farmer or a rancher is too busy or doesn’t like traveling to the sale barns, he hires a fellow to do it for him. He’ll give the buyer an order for so many feeder steers or so many heifers. Guys who do it full-time can make good money if they don’t mind the travel.”

  Donna interrupted again. “All that traveling sounds like a good cover for running drugs.”

  Mandy held back a smile. At times, Donna could be overly dramatic. The dispatcher had moved from a small town in Missouri to Timber Wells the same time Mandy had. Her experience as a dispatcher in that state made her exactly what Mandy had been looking for, and she had worked out well in spite of her outspoken ways.

  Planting her hands on her hips, Donna continued. “A man doesn’t shun his own community unless he’s got something to hide. I’ve got a bad feeling about that one.”

  Unsure exactly what her own feelings for Garrett were, Mandy turned around and picked up a file from the front desk. “I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the day, Donna. You can get me on my cell phone.”

  Donna perked up. “Where are you going? You know how I like to keep track of my people.”

  Mandy strongly suspected Donna’s attention to details was part of her naturally nosy nature, but she did a good job even if she was prone to gossip. She’d proven to be an asset in the community, as well. She volunteered at the high school and at the Prairie View Community Church in her free time with at-risk youth.

  “I’m giving a Meth Watch talk at the high school with Agent Riley of the KBI. After that I’m headed to Wichita to interview people who knew Judy.”

  Mandy was dreading the talk. Public speaking wasn’t her gift, but keeping kids off drugs was a cause she believed in.