The boys jumped into a rush of movement, dragging out horses and loading them up with saddles. John lifted one finger.
Dan halted. “Make it quick.”
“She had the letter C on her cheeks.”
“What?” Dan shook his head. “That’s not possible, there’s no team C.”
John shrugged. “Take it or leave it.” He turned to the door.
“Hold up.”
John turned back. Dan accepted the reins of a gigantic black horse. It took every ounce of will not to step back in an act of self-preservation. Dan smiled. “Here.” He threw a set of keys and John caught them. “The truck’s been on its last legs for five years but it runs. Or thereabouts. I don’t have anything else with four wheels and I usually ride Indigo everywhere anyway.” He patted the flank of his horse, while the animal stared at John.
“The ranch has more than one truck, don’t they?”
Dan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m aware of that.” He swung up on the horse. “Truck’s over by the house.”
“Hey, thanks.”
Dan shrugged and kicked the horse into gear. At least that’s what it looked like to John. The farmer, and the four guys with him, took off in a cloud of dust kicked up by horse’s hooves and a thunderous noise. John looked around, half expecting the woman to emerge again. Had it been Andra?
On the surface she didn’t seem the type to get involved in a game, even if the participants he’d observed so far seemed to take it seriously. Could she put aside the way the mayor and his wife—and the doctor and his wife—had dismissed her as being irrelevant? She probably wasn’t the first person they’d snubbed and he didn’t figure she’d be the last. No one else at the dinner had spoken to her. Did that mean everyone knew what the town’s figureheads knew, or did they simply follow their lead? Most of the men he’d met so far didn’t seem like the kind of guys who followed anyone’s lead but their own.
John found the truck and drove back into town. Streets were deserted. The whole town looked like the fake towns he’d done training in, both in the military and with the marshals. He half expected to see a dressed-up mannequin on the sidewalk.
John parked outside the sheriff’s office and took the stairs two at a time. Pat was asleep on the couch, all the lights were on and the iPad had died. John set it on the coffee table and put his son in bed but left both the lamp in the bedroom and the light above the oven on. He left the truck and walked to the Meeting House.
Deputy Palmer still wasn’t there, though it was hard to tell when everyone buzzed between radios stationed around the room to the table. Pieces were shifted, knocked over and moved to opposite ends of the map. By the looks of it, Dan’s team B had made it across town.
“Team A’s flag has been taken.” Hal strode over. “That’s both teams who’ve had their flag taken by a member of this team C. What is going on?” He stared down the major general. “There isn’t supposed to be a C team.”
The major general stood perfectly still. “There is no C team.”
John stopped at the other side of the table. “I saw one of them.”
Both men turned to him. The noise in the room dissolved into silence. The major general’s eyes narrowed. “Impossible. I would have been notified. That was not part of the battle plan.”
“Did A team say it was a woman who took their flag?”
Hal said, “They did.”
“Probably the same woman I saw. Probably decided to make her own team and show you all what she’s made of.” John liked the idea. He’d always admired women with cunning, which—it turned out—was both the reason why he’d gotten married and also the reason why he was now divorced.
“Impossible.”
“She took the B team flag at nine-seventeen. When was the A team flag taken?”
Hal grinned. “Nine thirty-five.”
“There is no way…” The major general’s rant dissolved into rambling.
John folded his arms, liking this woman even more. “So she made it from one end of town to the other in fifteen minutes and got herself two flags.”
The major general’s craggy face turned red. “I would have been notified!”
“Because things always go the way you planned in battle?” John shrugged. “Sometimes a new enemy crops up, one you weren’t expecting. It would be a shame to let her get the jump on both teams and get away with it, wouldn’t it?”
The major general rubbed the palm of his hand across his girth, which was covered with a wool vest. “Not under my command!” He turned to the pentagon woman. “Call all troops back to the command center. I want all intel before we mobilize the teams to retake the flags.”
She snapped straight. “Yes, sir!”
Five minutes later both teams poured into the Meeting House. Dan and Bolton both strode over, but not without glancing sideways at each other. Bolton was the first to talk. “Whose idea was it to have a team C?”
John studied the man’s dark features. He’d seen him somewhere before but couldn’t place where. Likely it was a law enforcement connection; DEA by the look of the man. He seemed the type to infiltrate drug cartels and bring down their empires while simultaneously winning the heart of the cartel boss’s virgin daughter.
John didn’t trust him at all.
He was going to have to do a serious amount of reading in the next few weeks if he was going to get to the bottom of who each of these people were. And that was the short-hand route. It would take too long to meet each individual person and determine the threat level of them living in this town. He had to know what they were capable of if he was going to decide whether to trust them with the formative years of Pat’s life. Because there was no way John could shelter the kid from a whole town.
Bolton chewed out the major general on his lack of sharing. It appeared Bolton didn’t know the old man had no clue what was going on, either.
Dan glanced aside at John. “The truck start okay?”
“A little slow on the uptake but once it got warmed up it was happy.”
Hal leaned toward them. “Sounds like my kind of woman.”
John burst out laughing, as did Dan, but the farmer didn’t seem to find it quite as funny. Bolton glared at them. “Do you mind?”
John stared at the man and tried to remember any big cases or busts but he’d been undercover for a year, which put him severely out of the loop on that stuff. He glanced at each of the men. “Any of you seen Deputy Palmer? He was supposed to be in here tonight, supervising.”
The men glanced at each other.
“Care to share?”
Dan was the one who spoke. “Palmer’s not a bad guy. He’s just a little…exuberant. Probably wandered off to give someone a citation.”
“He said he’s lived here all his life. Does that happen often?”
“I’m a native, too.” Dan shrugged. “Palmer and I went to school together. The guy never met a rule he couldn’t follow.”
John smiled. “Anyone else feel like weighing in?”
Bolton sniffed and turned away. Hal said, “He’s fine enough. For a young un’.”
“All right.” John motioned to the map on the table top. “So what’s the plan for team C?”
The major general lifted his chin. “Intelligence indicates it was the same woman who took both flags.”
Dan said, “So who is she? You saw her, sheriff. Any idea who it is?”
John had a fair idea, but he wasn’t going to give them everything. These were the kind of men who had to figure it out for themselves instead of having him take half the fun out of it for them. Besides, he could be wrong. “I’ve met maybe a dozen people in town. I couldn’t say for sure who it was in your barn. Slender. Five-seven. Hair was covered, dressed in all black. Dark brown eyes. That’s about it.”
“Great.” Bolton rolled his eyes. “I had one of those in my barn, too.”
Was he questioning John’s ability to sheriff, or just his observational skills? John studied him. “You got a problem?”
Bolton didn’t even blink. “Marshal Mason whose older brother is the director, gets all the cushy assignments. Living life on the edge, undercover, reeling in the fugitives and walking away clean.”
“Right.” That was why there was a cut on his forehead and a bruise the size of a football on the back of his shoulder. Still, John wasn’t sure this was totally about him and not also in part about Bolton’s feelings over whatever it was that had happened to him.
He was going to have to read up on that later. “Have you considered talking to someone about your pent-up frustration for authority figures? I hear there’s a shrink in town.”
Bolton’s chest shook, which in anyone else might have amounted to actual laughter. “Ah, so you’re the hand-holding, hug-your-fellow-man type then?”
“Not hardly.” John stuck his hands in his pockets. “I just have enough issues to know when I’m staring at them.” The man wasn’t going to respect John’s sob story of Alphonz or his associates looking for revenge. “Just looking for somewhere quiet to raise my boy.”
“Dude, you picked the wrong town if you’re lookin’ for a quiet life.” Bolton’s lips twitched and he almost smiled. Almost.
“Thanks for the heads up.”
The door flung open. One of the two kids John had seen on the street rushed in, winded, with snot dripping onto his upper lip. “She’s dead. We found her.” He sucked in a breath. “She’s dead.”
**
The street behind the Meeting House on the south side of Main looked much like the street behind the sheriff’s office. The rear of the buildings faced a row of residential houses. John half-expected the dead woman to be the same woman he’d seen in the barn. He checked his watch as they jogged to where the second of the pair he’d seen stood. The boy’s hands shook and he made gagging sounds.
10:05 p.m.
“Okay, here’s close enough.” John held out his arm to stop the group who’d run with him from the Meeting House a ways back from the body.
None of them should be here with him. But did they listen? His repeated attempts to get them to remain at the meeting house were ignored. He hardly needed an audience for this.
John motioned to the kid. “Step this way, please.”
The guy stumbled to them.
“Did you check to make sure she’s dead?” John could see her, sprawled at the bottom of a wall. He could also see the blood. When the guy turned greener, John looked at the crowd who’d followed. “No one goes closer than this.”
The major general shoved to the front. “I’ll take care of her. This woman needs to be treated with respect.”
“And with all due respect to you, this is my job.”
“You only just arrived. That hardly makes you one of us.”
“Perhaps that’s a good thing. Since it makes me impartial.” He waited but the Major General didn’t say more. John turned to Bolton. “No one goes closer than this.” He motioned to the two guys who discovered the body. “They don’t leave and they don’t talk to anyone either. Not even each other.”
For a second Bolton looked like he was going to refuse, but he nodded. John looked around, scanning the area as his brain worked through everything that needed to be done.
“I need someone to find Deputy Palmer.” Matthias’ brother, Diego, broke away from the crowd and sprinted down the street. John turned to Bolton, who stood at the front of the crowd staring at the body. “I’ll need the doctor, unless there’s a medical examiner in town. I also need to know if there are any retired cops, a judge, a district attorney. Anyone like that.” He took a breath. “I’m going to need all the resources available.”
Bolton nodded and turned to one of his guys. “March, go get Simmons. Bring him to the sheriff’s office. Oh, and start a pot of coffee.” Bolton sighed. “It’s going to be a long night.”
“Simmons?”
“Former superior court judge.”
“Justice Anthony Simmons?”
“That’d be him.”
Great. That guy was pushing ninety years ago when an angry protestor bombed his office, killing five people and declaring war on the Supreme Court and Simmons in particular. John scratched the side of his head and the scab from Alphonz’s guy’s gun-butt.
He’d figured witness protection when Simmons disappeared, only showing up again to testify against the eco-terrorist. The rest of the group had tried to kill him. But no one had ever been killed while under the protection of WITSEC. At least not if they followed the rules.
John strode to the body. Her blonde hair was matted with dirt. Face down on the ground, she was tucked against the side of the building as though someone tried to make her as inconspicuous as possible. Her white pants and red blouse were smeared with dirt. She could be any number of the blonde women he’d met the past two days.
He made his way back to the group. “If I’m going to process this scene, I’ll need to run by the sheriff’s office.” For supplies and coffee.
Bolton’s eyes flicked to settle on John. “Get what you need. I’ll maintain the scene.”
He should just ask the man if he’d been a cop. No one else talked like that other than people in the business, wannabes and true crime fans. So which was Bolton Farrera?
John crossed the street to the back of the sheriff’s office, trailed by another set of footsteps. He glanced back and saw Matthias behind him. “Need something?”
“Not me, but if you’re going to be up all night working do you want me to hang out in case Pat wakes up?”
John stopped at the back door. “Actually that would be great.” Too bad nice people always weirded him out. No one was that selfless. Because John had never met anyone who started out nice and stayed that way, instead of revealing an ulterior motive. Could he trust this guy with his son? Everything so far said yes. But was it enough to go on?
“I can take him to my mom’s for breakfast, if you’re still busy, or sleeping or whatever. He can meet my nephews and then Pat’ll know kids his own age he can play with.”
“Okay.” John unlocked the door and they went in. He should have thought of that. But for some reason John assumed Pat being here with him would be enough. He must have had friends at school and in his neighborhood and he’d need that here, too. “There’s a couch and TV upstairs and someone stocked the fridge.”
“That’d be my mom. She likes to make everyone feel welcome when they get here.”
And yet she wasn’t on the “welcoming committee” as Betty Collins had called it. The unassuming way Olympia had made their first days better meant a whole lot more.
“Tell her I said thanks.”
Matthias grinned. “Sure thing.”
“Make yourself at home. If I’m not here, leave a note when you go to breakfast.”
John pulled open cabinets in the office, searching for anything that looked like stuff he’d need to process a murder scene—tweezers, police tape, gloves, evidence bags. A body bag. He pulled a duffel bag from the shelf above a rail where someone had hung vests and winter coats and unzipped it. “Bingo.”
Still, he needed his camera.
Matthias was still standing at the bottom of the apartment stairs.
“You need something else?”
“Well…” He ran a hand through his scruffy black hair. “I don’t know where you’re at with all this, but if it comes time tomorrow is it okay if Pat comes to church with my family?”
That was all? The young man looked nervous. John turned back to his bag. “That’s fine. Just call me on the radio if you guys need anything.”
“Okay, cool. I’m going to head up.”
John followed him up and dug out the camera he’d packed just because he always used the thing to take pictures of Pat. That was years ago now, but it wasn’t like he could’ve upgraded his ancient phone to one with a camera. It wouldn’t even work here.
Pat was still sleeping soundly, so John wrote him a note about Matthias but not the dead body and left it on the other pillow.
Matthias barely glanced up from his shoot-em-up movie when John slung the bag over his shoulder and headed out again. If he was done with the scene by morning, he’d probably need a break. There wasn’t much of a better way to contrast death than with church. He understood the fundamentals of religion. Although why God needed to die and come back to life didn’t make much sense. Couldn’t He just could poof whatever and do what He needed?
John blew out a breath as he walked. The night air wasn’t too cool and when he got back to the scene, Bolton was holding the crowd back. John dumped the bag and cordoned off the area with police tape and the help of two street lamps and a rusted ladder on the corner of the building. The area was huge but he didn’t have anything else to use to hold up the tape. And since this was his first murder investigation, he didn’t want to make the area too small and miss something.
He looked at Bolton. “Is the doctor here yet?”
“On his way.”
“Anyone else? Palmer?”
Bolton turned so his back was to the group all straining to see the body. “Not yet.”
John moved closer and lowered his voice. “Any idea who it is?”
Bolton shook his head. “Can’t tell from here. Not from the back of the head.”
“I’ll call you over when the doctor gets here and we flip her.” John dug in the bag for his camera.
“What happened to her?” It was the woman from the command center who’d looked like she belonged at the Pentagon. “Who would cause an accident like this and then leave?”
“I want to know why she was out on Battle Night. She’s wearing bright colors, so she wasn’t part of it.” Hal frowned in the direction of the woman. “Maybe she bumped into someone coming around a corner and hit her head.”
The major general planted his feet, hip width apart. “Clearly she was up to something. Check for paint. If there isn’t any on her then it’ll be clear no one involved with Battle Night was the cause of this. She probably just had a heart attack or something. Terribly tragic, but nothing to get all fussed about.”
“We’ll have to wait to draw any conclusions.” John gripped the camera in his hands. “There isn’t much you all can do, unless you have some prior training processing a crime scene.”
At least two of them gasped.
“You think its murder?” The woman covered her mouth.
“This was just a horrible tragedy. Like I said.” The major general shook his head. “There’s no need to get all riled up now. We’ve still got a team C to rustle up.”
“Speaking of which, why don’t you do that?” John didn’t care what the reason was. He didn’t need an audience for his first real case as a sheriff. Dan looked about as happy about all this as Bolton. John headed over to him. “Any way I can get some floodlights or such to light this place? It’s pretty dark to work.”
The farmer tore his eyes from the body. “I’ll rouse Shelby and Aaron. See if the theater company has stage lights we can use.”
“Thanks.” He turned to Bolton and handed him a notebook and pen. “I want a list of their names and then a record of everyone who comes and goes. Then get them to go home.” John motioned to the two who’d found the dead woman. “They don’t leave.”
“Right you are, boss.” There was humor in Bolton’s eyes.
John didn’t think this was a man anyone had ever ordered to do anything, but now wasn’t the time to mince words. Not when he was likely looking at a murder investigation in a close community of people fiercely protective of their privacy.
“You think its murder?”
“Not for sure until we get her turned and figure out what happened.” John nodded. “But it could—”
A golf cart turned the corner travelling fast, followed by another immediately behind it. The doctor and his wife hopped off the first, the mayor from the second. The ranch hand who fetched the doctor jumped from his perch on the back of the mayor’s cart and jogged over behind them. He opened his mouth, but the mayor started yelling.
“Betty!”
He started to run to the body but John grabbed him. The older man fell to his knees.
“Betty!”