The fog lifted slightly and she cocked her head. "Oh? And what might that be?"
"Tonight I plan to surprise a guy I think is pulling a scam. Want to come along and watch the fireworks?"
They reached her Jeep. Her interest piqued, Lacy propped her hips against the back bumper. "What did he do?"
"He says the accelerator stuck on his pickup when he was pulling into his driveway. The resulting crash took out two bedrooms and a bathroom, totaled the truck, and caused the claimant grievous physical damage."
"Wow. And you see a scam in all that?"
Mike smiled inwardly. "It's my job to be suspicious. In this case, that's easy. The insurance company has already remodeled the home, which was badly in need of remodeling before the crash, and replaced the truck, also on its last legs. My scammer, let's call him Mr. Smith, claims he's totally unable to walk and is confined to a wheelchair."
"What do the doctors say?"
He shrugged. "Mixed opinions, difficult to diagnose. They can't find anything specifically wrong—broken vertebrae and the like—but they can't say with certainty that he's faking his injuries. Mr. Smith received a rather large settlement for his physical problems, the first installment of which he's been enjoying for a couple of months. He's due to let his guard down."
"Interesting, but how, short of illegally making videos in his own home, do you plan on catching him?"
His smile broadened and tilted to one side. Lacy could see that he was enormously proud of his efforts even before he told her what he'd deduced.
"As an insurance rep, I have visited Mr. Smith in his home a couple of times since the accident. I took those opportunities to have a look around and make note of anything of a personal nature. It seems our Mr. Smith is or was an avid bowler. He has an entire trophy case filled with his awards."
She straightened up. "You think he's going to risk getting caught by going bowling? Is he that stupid?"
"As far as I'm concerned, all crooks are stupid, some more than others. Mr. Smith is fairly clever, but also has a big ego. I think he's headed to a bowling alley all right. Just not in his own backyard."
"Oh? And how would you know where he's going and on this particular night?"
"Because I'm fairly clever, too." He laughed and added, "Also, I hired a neighborhood kid to keep an eye on Mr. Smith and to let me know if he leaves the house with any particular regularity. Saturday night came up aces, and the timing suggests he drives as far as Dickinson."
Lacy considered the ninety minutes or so that would take. "Seems like a long way to go just to throw a bowling ball."
"Not if it defines you. So what do you say? Are you up for a drive and a late supper after we grab Mr. Smith?"
After what she'd witnessed here, the alternative, she knew, would be a long, depressing night filled with what if's and should have been's. Lacy nodded, more to herself than Mike, and said, "Sure."
Then she beeped her Jeep open, grabbed her reporter's notebook and jotted down her address. As she tore the note off and handed it to Mike, he said, "I'll pick you up at six. That will give the bowling league plenty of time to get their games under way."
"I'll be ready. And thanks again for the hot chocolate. I will never forget it."
As she climbed into the Jeep and scooted onto the driver's seat, Mike said, "Would you look at that. I think a pair of whooping cranes just flew over our heads."
"What?" Lacy jumped back out of the Jeep, camera in hand. "Where?"
He pointed toward the top of a towering cottonwood tree. "There, heading south."
By the time Lacy spotted the birds, they were nothing but jetstreams in the sky. All she could see was their black wingtips waving to her in the distance, thumbing their noses, she imagined, in reverse.
Chapter 2
As promised, Brian phoned Lacy later that afternoon. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to tell her anything new about the dead woman except that she was now officially listed as a homicide.
"And the baby?" Lacy asked tentatively.
"No sign of the child, which we're taking as a good thing for now. We've run a check with all the local law enforcement agencies, but so far, nobody has reported a missing pregnant woman."
"So how much of this can I include in my article?"
"Pretty much everything you saw this morning except for the fact that the woman's baby was removed and is missing."
Lacy closed her eyes against the sudden pain that shot across her chest. "I assume that once her family has been located and notified, I'll be free to report on the missing baby?"
"Yes, but check with me before you do. I'm not sure how we're going to handle the problem with the infant yet. As for finding this woman's family, I'd like you to include a description of the victim and some kind of 'do you know this person' comment."
"Sure." Lacy flipped to a clean page in her notebook. "I'm ready for her description."
"About five foot four, around one hundred fifty pounds if she'd still been carrying the baby, long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a mole just below the corner of her mouth on the left side of her face. Doc says she was probably in her third-trimester, so make sure to mention that."
"Will do. Anything else I should include?"
"I think that's about it."
She closed the notebook. "I'll get this in to Chuck right away."
"That your editor?"
"Yes, during the week anyway. I'm not sure if he's in today."
Brian paused then and let out a tired sigh. "Are you all right, Lacy? You sound kind of down or something. Maybe you ought to talk to someone about what you saw at the refuge this morning. I know a couple of folks who are pretty good at that stuff."
"I'm fine, Brian, honest. Just a little distracted, I suppose."
Another pause. "That sounds like a fishing expedition. Am I supposed to guess who or what is distracting you?"
Lacy laughed and felt the tension drain from her shoulders. "It's your friend, Mike. I barely met the man, and now it seems I'm going to be spending the evening with him."
Brian's voice exploded over the phone. "You and Mike have a date tonight, a date?"
Lacy didn't care for his tone or the none-too subtle warning it carried. "I wouldn't exactly call it a date," she said hesitantly. "He's picking me up around six. We're going to Dickinson to try and catch a scofflaw, and then we're supposed to have a late supper together. Did I make a mistake?"
"Ah, bells and pork chops," he muttered.
Brian had made a vow some time back to replace the vulgarities that used to spew from his lips with more suitably Christian words. To date, he hadn't settled on anything in particular so every time he felt the urge to cuss, something new shot out of his mouth. Something decent, even if it made absolutely no sense.
"Pork chops," she echoed. "I'm not sure if that means I made a mistake or not."
"It means," he grumbled, "that I'm not sure either. I don't know Mike all that well yet. It never dawned on me that you two would hit it off so quickly."
Warmth flooded Lacy's cheeks. "I wouldn't say that we've hit it off, Brian. I think Mike just wanted some company on the drive to Dickinson. If you think it's a bad idea, I'm sure I can beg off."
Lacy could almost hear the wheels turning as Brian mulled this over. Growing impatient, she asked, "What is it that bothers you about Mike? Are you concerned for my safety if I go off alone with him? Is he the violent type or something?"
"No, no," he said quickly. "It's nothing like that. It's just that he's led a troubled life up to now, including a broken engagement and a penchant for partying that I'm not sure he's overcome."
After Mike's remarks in the truck, Lacy was not surprised about his troubles in the romance department. The rest puzzled her. She somehow couldn't reconcile a marshmallow-making man to a drunkard. "Partying? You mean he's a drinker?"
"I can't say that's true about him since he's settled down here, but then again, I only see him once a week or so."
"Where? At AA meetings?"<
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This wasn't an impertinent question. In his capacity as deacon for his church, Brian often volunteered to speak at organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous.
"No," he said. "I met him on the job while I was investigating an automobile accident. He was new in town, didn't know but a couple of souls, and we hit it off right away. Other than hunting and fishing together, and unlike some people I know, I managed to talk Mike into attending Sunday services with me and my family. He goes most every week."
Lacy chose to ignore the part of his explanation that clearly referred to her and her lack of interest in joining his or anybody's church. Instead she settled on the things he'd said about Mike. "He sounds like a real upstanding citizen. I can't imagine why on earth you'd have any objection to our going out tonight. Unless, of course, it's to save him from a heathen like me."
Brian laughed, a booming sound that had Lacy smiling into the phone.
"Come on, now," he said, catching his breath. "You know that's not the way I feel. I guess I'm just being overly cautious."
"In that case, let me assure you that you have nothing to worry about. Imperfect man or not, the last thing I'm looking for right now is a relationship."
Lacy could hear Brian 'tsking' over the phone before he said, "A young, healthy gal like you should be out dating and having a good time. It looks like you're finally ready to do exactly that, so I apologize if I put a damper on your date. Think you can forgive me?"
Lacy didn't want to think; not about what she'd had, what she'd lost, or replacing the finest man she'd ever known. Most of all she did not want to think of her plans with Mike as a date. It was better this way, staying numb to her feelings, less painful for sure. So why, Lacy had to wonder, had she agreed to spend the evening with Mike Lundry in the first place? Or was it Landry? Lindy? She couldn't even remember his name. Why indeed had she ever agreed?
"Lacy?" Brian said. "You still there?"
"Sure, but not for long. I'd better get going so I'll have plenty of time to fix myself up and trick the poor fool into thinking I'm gorgeous enough for steak instead of hamburger."
"Ah, sarcasm. I guess that would be my clue that this conversation is at an end. Have a good time tonight and remember... I'll be praying for the both of you."
"Save them all for Mike," she said. "He's going to need them a lot more than I do."
* * *
Her next course of action was to call her city editor and explain the situation to him. They kicked around the ethics of Lacy reporting a story in which she had some involvement, but she assured him that she could remain a disinterested bystander. He finally agreed to let her follow the story, due largely in part to the fact that the paper was short one reporter, who was out on maternity leave. Then she put the finishing touches on her article and emailed it to the Herald offices.
After that, Lacy found herself doing exactly what she told Brian she'd be doing: Fluffing for an evening out with a near-stranger. She washed and dried her hair, touching it up with a curling iron until it fell in soft shiny waves, and then took her time with the make-up. Once she'd finished, every last freckle had been banished from her complexion, her naturally thick lashes were even thicker and darker via two coats of mascara, and her brows were arched just short of come hither. It seemed a shame to waste all that prep work on jeans and a violet turtleneck sweater, but to dress up more than that might suggest more than a simple get-together.
To make sure the evening was just that and not a date, Lacy stationed herself, her coat, and her bag near the bay window and kept a lookout for Mike's pick-up. No way did she intend to wait for him to come calling at the front door.
At two minutes to six Mike pulled up in his big three-quarter ton Ford featuring four doors and plenty of room for passengers in the rear. The truck was black with lots of chrome detail, and shiny enough to have been run through the car wash just before pulling up at the curb in front of Lacy's house.
Before he had a chance to even climb out of the truck, she popped out of her house and hurried down the steps to the sidewalk. They met at the passenger door where Lacy bit her tongue and deferred to Mike's outstretched hand. After he'd ushered her into the truck and closed the door behind her, she fastened her seatbelt and sat rigid as a statue.
From the corner of her eye, she watched Mike climb into the truck and then fire up the beast's big engine. As he reached for the gearstick, he paused and suddenly turned to her.
"Is something wrong, Lacy?" he asked quietly.
She turned her head a quarter of an inch and again, looked at him from the corner of her eye. "Wrong? What do you mean?"
"You look... very uncomfortable, stiff even. You seemed a lot more relaxed this morning."
He had a point, but she couldn't seem to do anything about her suddenly rigid body. "It's nothing," she said, thinking up a fib. "I'm just a little cold."
"I'll turn on the heater."
"Oh, no, please don't. If I don't warm up right away, I'll just put on my jacket."
"Let me know if you change your mind." And with a shrug, he pulled away from the curb.
The next ninety or so minutes were the longest of Lacy's life. Her attempts at conversation were so stilted and so lame, even she couldn't stand the sound of her own voice. She must have been grating on Mike's nerves too because he mercifully inserted a CD—Lacy had no idea who the artist might be—and it played until they finally arrived at their destination.
Once they pulled into the bowling alley parking lot and Mike settled on a suitable spot to park, he removed the CD and powered down the truck. Then he sat there in silence for a few moments, heaved a sigh, and turned to face her.
"This morning when I mentioned bringing you along tonight," he began, "I thought you were actually excited by the idea. I must have misunderstood or something because I can see that you'd rather be anywhere but here. Why don't I just take you back home now and call it a night?"
The ice in her veins managed to melt a little and Lacy turned to face him head on. "But we just got here. Don't you want to at least look inside to see if your scam artist is here?"
"Oh, he's here all right. That's his gray van parked three aisles over on the left."
"Don't you want to go see if he's bowling and catch him in the act?"
He shrugged. "Sure, but I can do that next Saturday now that I know for sure where he'll be. I'm more concerned about you and the fact that you seem to be having such a miserable time."
Lacy's thumbnail shot to her mouth and she clamped down on it with her teeth. This was not the way she'd envisioned this evening, not even close. While she didn't want him thinking of her as his date, she most surely did not want him to think of her as a boring, frigid waste of time and gasoline. But how to explain what she didn't fully understand herself?
Taking her silence as an answer, Mike turned the ignition key and fired up the big engine.
"No, wait," Lacy said. "I really did want to come here and help capture your crook, and I'm looking forward to supper with you, too. The problem is... I don't even know how to explain this, but the problem is that I haven't found myself in a situation like this," she wriggled her index finger between Mike and her own chest, "for quite a while. Since High School, I think."
Mike narrowed his eyes, thinking hard she assumed, and suddenly reached over and took hold of her left hand. After studying her fingers for a moment, he said, "You're married?"
She shook her head.
"You must have been, and fairly recently since you have the imprint of what I'm guessing is a wedding band on your finger."
She glanced at her hand and a tiny smile crept out. "Was married," she admitted quietly. "Danny died in a plane crash about two years ago. I finally stopped wearing his ring a few months ago."
"Ah, dam—I mean bells and whatever. I'm sorry."
"Why don't you just come right out and say it," she challenged, holding back the urge to laugh. "You say bells and whatever, but what you really mean is pork chops. Right?"
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Mike opened his mouth to object or say something, but then burst out into laughter instead. "Right. I forgot for a minute that you know Brian. He's trying to make a better man of me."
Lacy smiled. "I think you're a pretty good man just the way you are. I'm sorry if I ruined the evening, but I'm just so new at this sort of thing, I don't know how to behave."
Curling his hand into a fist, Mike bumped it against his chin a few times as he considered the situation. Then he popped open the console, took out a small plastic bag, and slid some coins out of a holder attached to the console.
"I think I found a way to save the evening." Mike stuck out his free hand. "Nice to meet you. My name's Mike Lindahl."
Lindahl. Thank you. With a shy smile, she slipped her hand into his and said, "Lacy Erikson, and the pleasure is all mine."
"I have a proposition for you, Ms. Erikson," he said, keeping a firm grip on her hand. "I need an assistant, someone to work for me on a case by case basis, and I wondered if you'd be free to fill the job, at least for tonight."
"An assistant to a private eye? Wow, that sounds like a fun job. When can I start?"
"Right this minute, but I have to warn you, the salary isn't much."
"Oh? What's your offer?"
Mike opened her fingers on the hand he'd been holding and dropped four quarters into it. Then he placed the plastic bag on top of them. "A dollar for your services," he explained, "plus membership in the marshmallow of the month club. This is your first installment."
Lacy glanced into her palm and saw that the bag contained several square marshmallows. Her mouth watered as she said, "It's a deal. When do I start?"
"Right away." Mike turned off the engine, closed the console and got down to business, giving her the impression that the long boring ride and subsequent awkward conversation had never taken place. "I meant to ask you when I picked you up, but forgot. Do you have a cell phone with you and does it take pictures?"
"Yes to both questions, boss."
"Great." Mike pulled a narrow briefcase out of the slot in his driver's door and opened it. He lifted a photo out and handed it to Lacy. "That's a recent picture of our Mr. Smith. Study it so you'll recognize him when you go inside."
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