The Maverick / Magnate's Make-Believe Mistress

“And we both know what happens when power is abused,” Hayes said with a scowl. “Years ago, when I was still a deputy sheriff, one of my fellow deputies—a new recruit—decided on his own to investigate rumors of a house of prostitution being run out of a local motel. Like a lamb, he went to the county council and brought it up in an open meeting.”

Alice grimaced, because she knew from long experience what most likely happened after that. “Poor guy!”

“Well, after he was fired and run out of town,” Hayes said, “I was called in and told that I was not to involve myself in that case, if I wanted to continue as a deputy sheriff in this county. I’d made the comment that no law officer should be fired for doing his job, you see.”

“What did you do?” she asked, because she knew Hayes. He wasn’t the sort of person to take a threat like that lying down.

“Ran for sheriff and won,” he said simply. He grinned. “Turns out the head of the county council was getting kickbacks from the pimp. I found out, got the evidence and called a reporter I knew in San Antonio.”

“That reporter?” she exclaimed. “He got a Pulitzer Prize for the story! My gosh, Hayes, the head of the county council went to prison! But it was for more than corruption…”

“He and the pimp also ran a modest drug distribution ring,” he interrupted. “He’ll be going up before the parole board in a few months. I plan to attend the hearing.” He smiled. “I do so enjoy these little informal board meetings.”

“Ouch.”

“People who go through life making their money primarily through dishonest dealings don’t usually reform,” he said quietly. “It’s a basic character trait that no amount of well-meaning rehabilitation can reverse.”

“We live among some very unsavory people.”

“Yes. That’s why we have law enforcement. I might add, that the law enforcement on the county level here is exceptional.”

She snarled at him. He just grinned.

“What’s your next move?” she asked.

“I’m not making one until I know what’s in that note. Shouldn’t your assistant have something by now, even if it’s only the text of the message?”

“She should.” Alice pulled out her cell phone and called her office. “But I’m probably way off base about Kilraven’s involvement in this. Maybe the victim just ticked off the wrong people and paid for it. Maybe he had unpaid drug bills or something.”

“That’s always a possibility,” Hayes had to agree.

The phone rang and rang. Finally it was answered. “Crime lab, Longfellow speaking.”

“Did you know that you have the surname of a famous poet?” Alice teased.

The other woman was all business, all the time, and she didn’t get jokes. “Yes. I’m a far-removed distant cousin of the poet, in fact. You want to know about your scrap of paper, I suppose? It’s much too early for any analysis of the paper or ink…”

“The writing, Longfellow, the writing,” Alice interrupted.

“As I said, it’s too early in the analysis. We’d need a sample to compare, first, and then we’d need a handwriting expert…”

“But what does the message say?” Alice blurted out impatiently. Honest to God, the other woman was so ponderously slow sometimes!

“Oh, that. Just a minute.” There was a pause, some paper ruffling, a cough. Longfellow came back on the line. “It doesn’t say anything.”

“You can’t make out the letters? Is it waterlogged, or something?”

“It doesn’t have letters.”

“Then what does it have?” Alice said with the last of her patience straining at the leash. She was picturing Longfellow on the floor with herself standing over the lab tech with a large studded bat…

“It has numbers, Jones,” came the droll reply. “Just a few numbers. Nothing else.”

“An address?”

“Not likely.”

“Give me the numbers.”

“Only the last six are visible. The others apparently were obliterated by the man’s sweaty palms when he clenched it so tightly. Here goes.”

She read the series of numbers.

“Which ones were obliterated?” Alice asked.

“Looks like the ones at the beginning. If it’s a telephone number, the area code and the first of the exchange numbers is missing. We’ll probably be able to reconstruct those at the FBI lab, but not immediately. Sorry.”

“No, listen, you’ve been a world of help. If I controlled salaries, you’d get a raise.”

“Why, thank you, Jones,” came the astonished reply. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

“You’re very welcome. Let me know if you come up with anything else.”

“Of course I will.”

Alice hung up. She looked at the numbers and frowned.

“What have you got?” Hayes asked.

“I’m not sure. A telephone number, perhaps.”

He moved closer and peered at the paper where she’d written those numbers down. “Could that be the exchange?” he asked, noting some of the numbers.

“I don’t know. If it is, it could be a San Antonio number, but we’d need to have the area code to determine that, and it’s missing.”

“Get that lab busy.”

She glowered at him. “Like we sleep late, take two-hour coffee breaks, and wander into the crime lab about noon daily!”

“Sorry,” he said, and grinned.

She pursed her full lips and gave him a roguish look. “Hey, you law enforcement guys live at doughnut shops and lounge around in the office reading sports magazines and playing games on the computer, right?”

He glowered back.

She held out one hand, palm up. “Welcome to the stereotype club.”

“When will she have some more of those numbers?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Has anybody spoken to the woman whose car was stolen to ask if someone she knew might have taken it? Or to pump her for information and find out if she really loaned it to him?” she added shrewdly.

“No, nobody’s talked to her. The feds in charge of the investigation wanted to wait until they had enough information to coax her into giving them something they needed,” he said.

“As we speak, they’re roping Jon Blackhawk to his desk chair and gagging him,” she pronounced with a grin. “His first reaction would be to drag her downtown and grill her.”

“He’s young and hotheaded. At least to hear his brother tell it.”

“Kilraven loves his brother,” Alice replied. “But he does know his failings.”

“I wouldn’t call rushing in headfirst a failing,” Hayes pointed out.

“That’s why you’ve been shot, Hayes,” she said.

“Anybody can get shot,” he said.

“Yes, but you’ve been shot twice,” she reminded him. “The word locally is that you’d have a better chance of being named king of some small country than you’d have getting a wife. Nobody around here is rushing to line up and become a widow.”

“I’ve calmed down,” he muttered defensively. “And who’s been saying that, anyway?”

“I heard that Minette Raynor was,” she replied without quite meeting his eyes.

His jaw tautened. “I have no desire to marry Miss Raynor, now or ever,” he returned coldly. “She helped kill my brother.”

“She didn’t, and you have proof, but suit yourself,” she said when he looked angry enough to say something unforgivable. “Now, do you have any idea how we can talk to that woman before somebody shuts her up? It looks like whoever killed that poor man on the river wouldn’t hesitate to give him company. I’d bet my reputation that he knew something that could bring down someone powerful, and he was stopped dead first. If the woman has any info at all, she’s on the endangered list.”

“Good point,” Hayes had to admit. “Do you have a plan?”

She shook her head. “I wish.”

“About that number, you might run it by the 911 operators,” he said. “They deal with a lot of telephone traffic. They might recognize it.”

“Now that’s constructive thinking,” she said with a grin. “But this isn’t my jurisdiction, you know.”

“The crime was committed in the county. That’s my jurisdiction. I’m giving you the authority to investigate.”

“Won’t your own investigator feel slighted?”

“He would if he was here,” he sighed. “He took his remaining days off and went to Wyoming for Christmas. He said he’d lose them if he didn’t use them by the end of the year. I couldn’t disagree and we didn’t have much going on when I let him go.” He shook his head. “He’ll punch me when he gets back and discovers that we had a real DB right here and he didn’t get to investigate it.”

“The way things look,” she said slowly, “he may still get to help. I don’t think we’re going to solve this one in a couple of days.”

“Hey, I saw a murder like this one on one of those CSI shows,” he said with pretended excitement. “They sent trace evidence out, got results in two hours and had the guy arrested and convicted and sent to jail just before the last commercial!”

She gave him a smile and a gesture that was universal before she picked up her purse, and the slip of paper, and left his office.

She was eating lunch at Barbara’s Café in town when the object of her most recent daydreams walked in, tall and handsome in real cowboy duds, complete with a shepherd’s coat, polished black boots and a real black Stetson cowboy hat with a brim that looked just like the one worn by Richard Boone in the television series Have Gun Will Travel that she used to watch videos of. It was cocked over his eyes and he looked as much like a desperado as he did a working cowboy.

He spotted Alice as he was paying for his meal at the counter and grinned at her. She turned over a cup of coffee and it spilled all over the table, which made his grin much bigger.

Barbara came running with a towel. “Don’t worry, it happens all the time,” she reassured Alice. She glanced at Harley, put some figures together and chuckled. “Ah, romance is in the air.”

“It is not,” Alice said firmly. “I offered to take him to a movie, but I’m broke, and he won’t go dutch treat,” she added in a soft wail.

“Aww,” Barbara sympathized.

“I don’t get paid until next Friday,” Alice said, dabbing at wet spots on her once-immaculate oyster-white wool slacks. “I’ll be miles away by then.”

“I get paid this Friday,” Harley said, straddling a chair opposite Alice with a huge steak and fries on a platter. “Are you having a salad for lunch?” he asked, aghast at the small bowl at her elbow. “You’ll never be able to do any real investigating on a diet like that. You need protein.” He indicated the juicy, rare steak on his own plate.

Alice groaned. He didn’t understand. She’d spent so many hours working in her lab that she couldn’t really eat a steak anymore. It was heresy here in Texas, so she tended to keep her opinions to herself. If she said anything like that, there would be a riot in Barbara’s Café.

So she just smiled. “Fancy seeing you here,” she teased.

He grinned. “I’ll bet it wasn’t a surprise,” he said as he began to carve his steak.

“Whatever do you mean?” she asked with pretended innocence.

“I was just talking to Hayes Carson out on the street and he happened to mention that you asked him where I ate lunch,” he replied.

She huffed. “Well, that’s the last personal question I’ll ever ask him, and you can take that to the bank!”

“Should I mention that I asked him where you ate lunch?” he added with a twinkle in his pale eyes.

Alice’s irritated expression vanished. She sighed. “Did you, really?” she asked.

“I did, really. But don’t take that as a marriage proposal,” he said. “I almost never propose to crime scene investigators over lunch.”

“Crime scene investigators?” a cowboy from one of the nearby ranches exclaimed, leaning toward them. “Listen, I watch those shows all the time. Did you know that they can tell time of death by…!”

“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry!” Alice exclaimed as the cowboy gaped at her. She’d “accidentally” poured a glass of iced tea all over him. “It’s a reflex,” she tried to explain as Barbara came running, again. “You see, every time somebody talks about the work I do, I just get all excited and start throwing things!” She picked up her salad bowl. “It’s a helpless reflex, I just can’t stop…”

“No problem!” the cowboy said at once, scrambling to his feet. “I had to get back to work anyway! Don’t think a thing about it!”

He rushed out the door, trailing tea and ice chips, leaving behind half a cup of coffee and a couple of bites of pie and an empty plate.

Harley was trying not to laugh, but he lost it completely. Barbara was chuckling as she motioned to one of her girls to get a broom and pail.

“I’m sorry,” Alice told her. “Really.”

Barbara gave her an amused glance. “You don’t like to talk shop at the table, do you?”

“No. I don’t,” she confessed.

“Don’t worry,” Barbara said as the broom and pail and a couple of paper towels were handed to her. “I’ll make sure word gets around. Before lunch tomorrow,” she added, still laughing.

Chapter Four

After that, nobody tried to engage Alice in conversation about her job. The meal was pleasant and friendly. Alice liked Harley. He had a good personality, and he actually improved on closer acquaintance, as so many people didn’t. He was modest and unassuming, and he didn’t try to monopolize the conversation.

“How’s your investigation coming?” he asked when they were on second cups of black coffee.

She shrugged. “Slowly,” she replied. “We’ve got a partial number, possibly a telephone number, a stolen car whose owner didn’t know it was stolen and a partial sneaker track that we’re hoping someone can identify.”

“I saw a program on the FBI lab that showed how they do that,” Harley replied. He stopped immediately as soon as he realized what he’d said. He sat with his fork poised in midair, eyeing Alice’s refilled coffee mug.

She laughed. “Not to worry. I’ll control my reflexes. Actually the lab does a very good job running down sneaker treads,” she added. “The problem is that most treads are pretty common. You get the name of a company that produces them and then start wearing out shoe leather going to stores and asking for information about people who bought them.”

“What about people who paid cash and there’s no record of their buying them?”

“I never said investigation techniques were perfect,” she returned, smiling. “We use what we can get.”

He frowned. “Those numbers, it shouldn’t be that hard to isolate a telephone number, should it? You could narrow it down with a computer program.”

“Yes, but there are so many possible combinations, considering that we don’t even have the area code.” She groaned. “And we’ll have to try every single one.”

He pursed his lips. “The car, then. Are you sure the person who owned it didn’t have a connection to the murder victim?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Ever considered a career in law enforcement?”

He laughed. “I did, once. A long time ago.” He grimaced, as if the memory wasn’t a particularly pleasant one.

“We’re curious about the car,” she said, “but they don’t want to spook the car’s owner. It turns out that she works for a particularly unpleasant member of the political community.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Who?”

She hesitated.

“Come on. I’m a clam. Ask my boss.”

“Okay. It’s the senior U.S. senator from Texas who lives in San Antonio,” she confessed.

Harley made an ungraceful movement and sat back in his chair. He stared toward the window without really seeing anything. “You think the politician may be connected in some way?”

“There’s no way of knowing right now,” she sighed. “Everybody big in political circles has people who work for them. Anybody can get involved with a bad person and not know it.”

“Are they going to question the car owner?”

“I’m sure they will, eventually. They just want to pick the right time to do it.”

He toyed with his coffee cup. “So, are you staying here for a while?”

She grimaced. “A few more days, just to see if I can develop any more leads. Hayes Carson wants me to look at the car while the lab’s processing it, so I guess I’ll go up to San Antonio for that and come back here when I’m done.”

He just nodded, seemingly distracted.

She studied him with a whimsical expression. “So, when are we getting married?” she asked.

He gave her an amused look. “Not today. I have to move cattle.”

“My schedule is very flexible,” she assured him.

He smiled. “Mine isn’t.”

“Rats.”

“Now, that’s interesting, I was just thinking about rats. I have to get cat food while I’m in town.”

She blinked. “Cat food. For rats?”

“We keep barn cats to deal with the rat problem,” he explained. “But there aren’t quite enough mice and rats to keep the cats healthy, so we supplement.”

“I like cats,” she said with a sigh and a smile. “Maybe we could adopt some stray ones when we get married.” She frowned. “Now that’s going to be a problem.”

“Cats are?”

“No. Where are we going to live?” she persisted. “My job is in San Antonio and yours is here. I know,” she said, brightening. “I’ll commute!”

He laughed. She made him feel light inside. He finished his coffee. “Better work on getting the bridegroom first,” he pointed out.

“Okay. What sort of flowers do you like, and when are we going on our first date?”

He pursed his lips. She was outrageously forward, but behind that bluff personality, he saw something deeper and far more fragile. She was shy. She was like a storefront with piñatas and confetti that sold elegant silverware. She was disguising her real persona with an exaggerated one.

He leaned back in his chair, feeling oddly arrogant at her interest in him. His eyes narrowed and he smiled. “I was thinking we might take in a movie at one of those big movie complexes in San Antonio. Friday night.”

“Ooooooh,” she exclaimed, bright-eyed. “I like science fiction.”

“So do I, and there’s a remake of a 1950’s film playing. I wouldn’t mind seeing it.”

“Neither would I.”

“I’ll pick you up at your motel about five. We’ll have dinner and take in the movie afterward. That suit you?”

She was nodding furiously. “Should I go ahead and buy the rings?” she asked with an innocent expression.

He chuckled. “I told you, I’m too tied up right now for weddings.”

She snapped her fingers. “Darn!”

“But we can see a movie.”

“I like movies.”

“Me, too.”

They paid for their respective meals and walked out together, drawing interest from several of the café patrons. Harley hadn’t been taking any girls around with him lately, and here was this cute CSI lady from San Antonio having lunch with him. Speculation ran riot.

“They’ll have us married by late afternoon,” he remarked, nodding toward the windows, where curious eyes were following their every move.

“I’ll go back in and invite them all to the wedding, shall I?” she asked at once.

“Kill the engine, dude,” he drawled in a perfect imitation of the sea turtle in his favorite cartoon movie.

“You so totally rock, Squirt!” she drawled back.

He laughed. “Sweet. You like cartoon movies, too?”

“Crazy about them,” she replied. “My favorite right now is Wall-E, but it changes from season to season. They just get better all the time.”

“I liked Wall-E, too,” he agreed. “Poignant story. Beautiful soundtrack.”

“My sentiments, exactly. That’s nice. When we have kids, we’ll enjoy taking them to the theater to see the new cartoon movies.”

He took off his hat and started fanning himself. “Don’t mention kids or I’ll faint!” he exclaimed. “I’m already having hot flashes, just considering the thought of marriage!”

She glared at him. “Women have hot flashes when they enter menopause,” she said, emphasizing the first word.

He lifted his eyebrows and grinned. “Maybe I’m a woman in disguise,” he whispered wickedly.

She wrinkled her nose up and gave him a slow, interested scrutiny from his cowboy boots to his brown hair. “It’s a really good disguise,” she had to agree. She growled, low in her throat, and smiled. “Tell you what, after the movie, we can undress you and see how good a disguise it really is.”

“Well, I never!” he exclaimed, gasping. “I’m not that kind of man, I’ll have you know! And if you keep talking like that, I’ll never marry you. A man has his principles. You’re just after my body!”

Alice was bursting at the seams with laughter. Harley followed her eyes, turned around, and there was Kilraven, in uniform, staring at him.

“I read this book,” Kilraven said after a minute, “about a Scot who disguised himself as a woman for three days after he stole an English payroll destined for the turncoat Scottish Lords of the Congregation who were going to try to depose Mary, Queen of Scots. The family that sheltered him was rewarded with compensation that was paid for centuries, even after his death, they say. He knew how to repay a debt.” He frowned. “But that was in the sixteenth century, and you don’t look a thing like Lord Bothwell.”

“I should hope not,” Harley said. “He’s been dead for over four hundred years!”

Alice moved close to him and bumped him with her hip. “Don’t talk like that. Some of my best friends are dead people.”

Harley and Kilraven both groaned.

“It was a joke,” Alice burst out, exasperated. “My goodness, don’t you people have a sense of humor?”

“He doesn’t,” Harley said, indicating Kilraven.

“I do so,” Kilraven shot back, glaring. “I have a good sense of humor.” He stepped closer. “And you’d better say that I do, because I’m armed.”

“You have a great sense of humor,” Harley replied at once, and grinned.

“What are you doing here?” Alice asked suddenly. “I thought you were supposed to be off today.”

Kilraven shrugged. “One of our boys came down with flu and they needed somebody to fill in. Not much to do around here on a day off, so I volunteered,” he added.

“There’s TV,” Alice said.

He scoffed. “I don’t own a TV,” he said huffily. “I read books.”

“European history?” Harley asked, recalling the mention of Bothwell.

“Military history, mostly, but history is history. For instance,” he began, “did you know that Hannibal sealed poisonous snakes in clay urns and had his men throw them onto the decks of enemy ships as an offensive measure?”

Harley was trying to keep a straight face.

Alice didn’t even try. “You’re kidding!”

“I am not. Look it up.”

“I’d have gone right over the side into the ocean!” Alice exclaimed, shivering.

“So did a lot of the enemy combatants.” Kilraven chuckled. “See what you learn when you read, instead of staying glued to a television set?”

“How can you not have a television set?” Harley exclaimed. “You can’t watch the news…”

“Don’t get me started,” Kilraven muttered. “Corporate news, exploiting private individuals with personal problems for the entertainment of the masses! Look at that murder victim who was killed back in the summer, and the family of the accused is still getting crucified nightly in case they had anything to do with it. You call that news? I call it bread and circuses, just like the arena in ancient Rome!”

“Then how do you know what’s going on in the world?” Alice had to know.

“I have a laptop computer with Internet access,” he said. “That’s where the real news is.”

“A revolutionary,” Harley said.

“An anarchist,” Alice corrected.

“I am an upstanding member of law enforcement,” Kilraven retorted. He glanced at the big watch on his wrist. “And I’m going to be late getting back on duty if I don’t get lunch pretty soon.”

Harley was looking at the watch and frowning. He knew the model. It was one frequently worn by mercs. “Blade or garrote?” he asked Kilraven, nodding at the watch.

Kilraven was surprised, but he recovered quickly. “Blade,” he said. “How did you know?”

“Micah Steele used to wear one just like it.”