Forty-three

For the last ninety minutes, Ginger had squirmed through dinner at Tony’s restaurant. Though they’d ordered their favorite meal—chicken calabrese and a bottle of ciro rosso, all she’d done was pick at her food and check her cell phone every five minutes. Cochran had brought the engagement ring; tonight was the night. After dinner he was going to ask her to be his wife.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked.

“Yeah.” She gave him a distracted smile. “Why do you ask?”

“Because all you’ve done tonight is check your messages.”

“Sorry—I’m expecting an important call.”

Suddenly he grew irked—what could possibly be more important than dinner with the man who hoped to make her his fiancée? “About your mountain music feature?”

“No, something else,” she said, checking her phone yet again

“Some other boyfriend promise to call you?”

“Mary Crow promised to call me the minute she got home,” she replied, irritated. “I just wonder if her plane was delayed.”

“No, she’s here,” said Cochran.

Ginger’s green eyes flashed. “How do you know?”

“Because she almost broadsided me as I was leaving work.”

Ginger frowned. “She was at the jail?”

“She was around six thirty.”

“Then she must be home by now.” Ginger whipped out her cell phone again. “I’m sorry, Jerry, but I really need to talk to her.”

He sat back, exasperated, sipping his wine as Ginger called Mary’s home, then Mary’s office, then, finally, Mary’s cell phone. No one answered at any number; each time Ginger left a growingly insistent call-me-immediately message. When she finally put the phone aside, he’d drained his glass.

“You know, I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” she said, frowning. “Mary promised she would call me. Was Jonathan with her when you saw her?”

“No. Just Mary, driving like a bat out of hell.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” said Ginger. “Why would she leave the jail like that? Why would she be at the jail in the first place?”

“She has a client there, Ginger. She’s been out of town, she probably went to see him.”

“Which way was she going when she left?”

“West,” Cochran replied, growing impatient with the Mary Crow drama. “Probably home to turn off her phone and go to bed.”

Ginger shook her head. “She wouldn’t do that without calling me first.”

She got back on her phone, again trying to reach Mary. Disgusted, Cochran pulled out his own cell phone. A few moments later he was talking to Simp Mathews, on the night desk.

“I need a favor, Simp,” said Cochran. “Go back to the cells and ask that guy Stratton if he knows where Mary Crow is.”

“Mary Crow the lawyer?” asked Simp.

“Yeah. She’s Stratton’s attorney. She was over there earlier.”

“Think he’ll tell me?” Simp asked dubiously.

“Probably,” said Cochran. “He’s still a rookie, jail-wise.”

“Okay,” he said. “Hang on.” Cochran waited while Mathews put him on hold. This night might still be salvageable, he told himself, his right leg twitching with nerves, if I can just find out where Mary Crow went. He heard a scraping noise, then Simp came back on the line.

“Sheriff?”

“Yeah?”

“According to Stratton, she went up to his bird center to let some owl loose.”

“Thanks, Simp,” said Cochran. He clicked off his phone and smiled at Ginger. “I found out where Mary is.”

“Where?”

“Stratton’s place.”

Ginger’s eyes grew wide. “What’s she doing up there?”

“Releasing an owl, according to Stratton.”

“She must have found something else out,” Ginger said softly. For a moment, she just stared at her glass of wine. Then she grabbed his wrist, pulled him to his feet. “Come on—we’ve got to get up there!”

“Why?” he cried. “Ginger, she went up there to let an owl loose.”

“There are things you don’t know, Jerry,” she explained. “Things that we’ve only just found out.”