As Arn pulled to the curb in front of his house, his headlights shone off a forest-green Impala parked at the curb. Pieter’s warning rang in his head, and he grabbed the gun he’d just bought today, a snubbie .357 revolver, from the glove box. His hand clutched his gun inside his jacket pocket as he approached the house. He bent his ear to the door. Muffled voices rose and trailed off inside: Danny’s and a woman’s. He took his hand out of his jacket pocket and chided himself for being so jumpy. But as his hand rested on the door knob, Arn reminded himself that women can be just as deadly as any man. And as ruthless. He shoved his hand back into his pocket, his finger finding the trigger, as he stepped cautiously inside.
He followed the voices into the kitchen. Danny was laughing beside Georgia as they leaned against the new countertop frame that waited for Danny to finish it. Arn bent and slipped the gun into his ankle holster and then stepped into the kitchen. Clusters of candles illuminated the new folding kitchen chairs Danny had “found,” and he’d thrown a blanket over the card table as a quick tablecloth. An aria playing from Danny’s one-speaker stereo filtered through the room, and odors of something special wafted past Arn’s nose. They stopped laughing when they spotted Arn.
“Mr. Danny was just telling me how you two met.” Georgia smoothed her skirt. “But he won’t tell me his last name.”
“That’s Danny Boy. Mr. Mysterious.” Arn motioned to the table set with flowered plastic Chinet, not the pauper’s paper plates they’d been using. “What’s this?”
“It’s your gourmet meal for the evening.” Danny grabbed a flashlight and opened the oven door. “Buffalo stew with corn bread.”
“Where’d we get buffalo?”
Danny’s hand covered his heart. “We Lakota always know where the buffalo roam.”
“You in on this?” Arn asked.
“It’s Danny who thought of a nice impromptu dinner.” Georgia sat on a folding chair. “It just happened to be my day off when he called.”
Arn bent and whispered to Danny, “Where’d you get a phone?”
Danny covered his mouth with his hand. “Those folks two doors down. They’re still not home. And they got a landline. Now sit.”
Arn took a seat across from Georgia and waited for Danny to serve them. “It’s going to be hard to impress a chef. I mean a cook.”
“I’m impressed.” Georgia scooted her chair back from the card table and laid her napkin beside her plate. “And full.”
She picked up her plate but Danny stopped her. “Until we get the kitchen set up, it’s easy to clean up after meals.” He grabbed the plates and stuffed them and the plastic utensils in a garbage bag. He tied the drawstring and slipped his coat on.
“Where you going?” Arn asked.
“Take out the trash and then to bed. Unlike some people”—he exaggerated a look of scorn—“I got work to do here tomorrow.”
Danny disappeared out the back door and Arn stood to refill their coffee cups. “I’d say let’s sit in the living room, but it’s full of things. And I have no sitting room yet.”
“This is just fine.” Georgia sipped her coffee and leaned back in the chair. “How’s Chief White doing?”
“Doctors are hopeful. They brought him out for a few moments today. I stopped by, but they wouldn’t let me see him.”
“Pieter said he ran into you. And that witch Adelle.”
“She was there with her husband.”
“I’ll bet he told her he’d be busy jogging?” Georgia said.
“You psychic?”
Georgia laughed. “Meander gets all the dirt at the hospital. The only running Dr. Dawes does is into the arms of other women. Makes Adelle madder’n hell. She deserves him. Just like Hannah deserved what she got.”
Arn refilled their cups and sat back across from her. “You never did explain what happened to her.”
Georgia scooted her chair closer to the space heater and hugged her cup. “The year after Butch was murdered, Hannah took a double gainer off the bridge outside Laramie. Drunk.”
“So she never straightened out?”
“Just ’cause her husband was dead?” Georgia laughed. “Hannah hit the sauce even harder after Butch died. She collected the hundred thousand bucks the feds give spouses for line-of-duty deaths and drank through it by the time of her wreck. If I hadn’t insisted she set some aside for Pieter’s college, he never would have been able to attend.”
“Must have been devastating for him to lose both parents inside a year.”
Georgia stood and emptied the grounds in preparation for brewing another pot of coffee. “After the police were through working Butch’s crime scene, I took Pieter to the house to gather his things. He moved in with me, and Hannah never saw him after that. She never even went by her own house that I know. It went back to the bank when she didn’t keep up payments.”
Arn laid his hand on Georgia’s. “You must have done something right, by the way he turned out.”
Georgia smiled wide. “I guess I did.”
A key rattling in the door caused Arn to jump, and he bent and grabbed his ankle gun. He put his finger to his lips and tiptoed toward the door. He stood off to one side and unlocked the deadbolt, flinging the door open in one smooth motion. Ana Maria’s eye widened and her legs buckled when she saw the gun pointed at her, and Arn quickly stuffed it in his back pocket.
“My key won’t work,” she sputtered.
“Danny installed a new lock today. I got a key for you in the kitchen.”
Ana Maria followed Arn into the kitchen and stopped when she saw Georgia. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“You’re not interrupting anything,” Arn said and introduced them.
“I’d know that face anywhere.” Georgia stood. “I see you every night doing the news. How’s the special coming along?”
“We’ve got tips coming in every day. I’m optimistic we’ll find your brother’s killer.”
Ana Maria fidgeted, her eyes darting to the door, wanting to tell Arn something. Georgia picked up on it and nodded to Arn. “I have to turn in. Got the day shift tomorrow.”
They walked through the house, and Arn held the door for Georgia. She stepped gingerly off the steps and froze when she saw the police car parked across the street under the light. “Are you in trouble?”
“Just a precaution to keep Ana Maria safe. She been getting threatening calls over her TV special.”
Georgia reached out and brushed his cheek as she touched the bandage dangling from his ear like an oversize gypsy earring. “Connected with that?”
“I believe it is.”
Arn opened her car door. “This is our first one,” she said.
“First one what?”
“Dinner date, thanks to Danny. Now all I got to do is talk you into taking me on a real date.”
Arn was certain he blushed even in the darkness. “As soon as I make some headway in this case and can take a breather, I’ll call.”
“Understood.”
He waited until Georgia pulled around the corner before walking up to the police cruiser. The officer’s head slumped against the headrest, and even with the windows shut, Arn heard snoring. He slapped the window and the officer jumped. He grabbed his flashlight and shone it into Arn’s face. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m one of the people you’re supposed to be protecting.” Arn shielded his eyes. “Now if you can’t keep awake, maybe Lt. Oblanski can find a replacement.”
“Please don’t do that, Mr. Anderson.” The cop rubbed his eyes and sat up tall in his seat. “I won’t go to sleep again.”
“We’ll let it slide this time,” Arn said and walked back into the house.
Ana Maria huddled around the space heater in the kitchen. “He was at tonight’s taping.”
“Who?”
“The guy who grabbed me. The one who attacked you.” She used the chair to steady herself as she sat. “I was interviewing Lt. Oblanski at the front entrance to the police department. He’d just started connecting Johnny’s shooting with Butch Spangler’s case when that man walked in back of my cameraman. Just enough on the periphery I couldn’t see his face.”
“You’re sure it’s the same man?”
“You know that woman’s intuition thing you always hammered into me? Well, mine went off louder than gunshots in a closed room.” Her legs trembled and her foot tapped nervously against the leg of the card table. “It’s the same Old Spice I noticed before. And I smelled it in spades tonight. The guy must bathe in it, it was so strong.”
“We need more than that to go to Oblanski.”
“His black drawstring on his hoodie. Same as the guy had the other night. How many guys go around wearing white hoodies with black drawstrings?”
Arn tried to come up with an argument to refute her logic, but knew it was a lost cause. Ana Maria was right.
“He came around to say hello,” Ana Maria said. “To let me know he was still thinking about me.”
Arn slipped his gun out of his boot and set it on the table. “We know someone got in the house last night. He could have killed us right then if he’d wanted to.”
“Except he didn’t want to.” Ana Maria’s hand shook holding her coffee cup. “He wants to play with us a little first.”
“Which is why I had Danny hang that new door yesterday, and install a new lock this afternoon.”
“And there’s a cop out front.”
Arn forced a laugh. “If you can wake him long enough to do something.”