A Sounding Brass (19 page)

He was thirty-two years old and that kiss in the parking lot two nights ago had transported him back to the age of seventeen,
when a kiss had been a mind-bending event. And what made it worse was that he had no business kissing her if he was going
to make an arrest and ride off into the sunset, the way he’d meant to when he arrived in Hamilton Falls. What was it about
this place that sucked a man in and glued him here? What was it about these women—Julia, Dinah, and Claire—who got to a guy
and made him want to love, honor, and protect when common sense urged him to save himself and run?

Ray sighed and resumed his glassy stare at the station’s largest window while on the radio the late, great Johnny Cash asked
whether the circle would be unbroken. One of the few good things about this town—besides the pie at the diner and Claire Montoya’s
green eyes—was that Luke Fisher had better taste in music than he’d expected. Even the Christian stuff was starting to grow
on him.

Some of the lyrics reflected things he’d thought about off and on. Just this morning, Five Wise, who put out pretty decent
swing, had sung,

I’m just living my life, Lord,

Trying to do what’s right.

Tell me why that’s not good enough

To make me clean in Your sight.

He could relate to that. He wasn’t so sure about the next verse, though, which had something to do with the love of God pulling
a person close and washing them clean. But the one verse pretty much described him. Just trying to do the right thing. That
should be enough, shouldn’t it?

A look at his watch told him Claire would be coming out any minute to carry the daily take over to the bank. But today the
minutes dragged on and she didn’t appear. At ten past noon, Fisher came bounding down the steps, and jogged down the block
to the parking lot as if he had somewhere important to go. Finally, at five past one, just about when he was going to storm
the door to find out what was going on, she came out with a fat envelope under her arm.

He watched her cross the street to the bank, where a dark-haired woman met her at the door with a big smile and escorted her
in. Exactly how much was in that envelope? Was that why Fisher had looked so happy?

He pushed open the door, locked the truck behind him, and strolled in the direction of the bank. But instead of the usual
fifteen-minute transaction, it took forty-five. Ray had memorized the titles of every book in Quill and Quinn’s window display
by the time Claire came out again.

For a guy who would rather listen than read, that was saying something.

“Ray.” Claire stopped beside him, sounding as if she were glad to see him. “Looking for a book?”

Everything in the window had a title that related to birds somehow.
A Nest of Sparrows. SisterChicks on the Loose. Boo Who.
Dinah’s chickens must be going to Rebecca’s head.

“No,” he said. “I was waiting for you. Do you have time for lunch?”

She glanced over her shoulder at the station’s window. “We’re pretty busy today.”

At least she wasn’t thinking about Fisher, whose dust had long since settled. “Come on. You have to eat, and the diner is
fast. A sandwich on me?”

A smile broke over her face and the tension inside him that had been winding tight relaxed. “That sounds great.”

* * *

RAY APPRECIATED
a woman who could eat. As she demolished her Reuben in between dunking her home-style fries in a little pot of ketchup, he
ate his Philly cheese steak and watched her.

“What are you smiling at?” she wanted to know around a bite of corned beef. “I’m starving. Give me a break, here.”

“Must have been a busy day.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not kidding. Guess how much the deposit was just now?”

“I’m almost afraid to.”

She leaned toward him, lowering her sandwich and her voice. “Twenty-five thousand, six hundred and forty-eight dollars,” she
whispered. “And fifty-five cents.”

“People send cents?” he whispered back.

She sat back and said in a normal tone, “You’d be surprised what they send. And that’s just the money. Tons of them send gifts
to Luke—four potholders and a tea cozy today. Thank goodness I figured out how to do mail merge and generate thank-you letters.
We have to acknowledge people’s kindness somehow when we send the receipt.”

“I have a suggestion on a related but different subject.” Something had been cooking in his brain since Luke had shown the
worship center’s design to the congregation and broached his mind-boggling plan. It had been overshadowed by kissing Claire,
but it was part of the reason for the four point five hours of sleep.

“What?” She dunked another fry and ate it with satisfaction.

“Why don’t we go out to the site of the worship center this afternoon and have a look around? That probably qualifies as one
of the sights of Hamilton Falls.”

She stopped chewing and stared at him.

“It’s up at the end of the lake,” he went on, “so it can’t be more than an hour away. Less, if I give my engine a workout.”

She swallowed her fry. “Ray, I can’t leave work in the middle of the day to go gallivanting across the country. I have responsibilities.”

“I know. But this is work-related. Bring along a camera and take some pictures for the before-and-after display.”

“What display?”

“You know, the ones they always have in the foyer so people can see what their money—their gifts, I mean—have accomplished.
You need something to tell people about in your thank-you notes, too.”

Thoughtfully, she dunked another fry. “Hmm. I don’t even know where the site is.”

“I do. The lot numbers were on the design, so I looked it up at the county recorder.”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll slip out a little early, say around four. Meet you at my place then?”

He’d have to be satisfied with that. “Deal.”

* * *

BY FOUR-FIFTEEN
, they were speeding down the highway (well, “speeding” was relative; he
always
drove ten miles over the legal limit) with the lake on their right.

“Dinah used to live down there.” Claire pointed at one of the exits after they’d crossed the river on a metal bridge that
made the tires sing.

“I know—I went out there to arrest Phinehas, remember?”

“Oh, right. Dinah kept one of the river lots, but Elsie sold the rest. Made a fortune, according to Linda Bell—her brother-in-law
is a Realtor. A bunch of execs from the new discount store are building houses out there now.”

“Far from the madding crowd, eh? Can’t say I blame them. If I worked in that place, I’d be hitting the door at a dead run
every day at five o’clock.”

She grinned and rolled the window down so that the breeze blew in. The day was a little cloudy and felt close, as though there’d
be rain by late afternoon. Probably not the best day for a hike by the lake, but at least he was alone with Claire, with no
possibility of Luke popping up like a jack-in-the-box to dish out the Elect’s particular brand of shame.

About which he was still burned on her behalf.

Or maybe he just couldn’t stand the guy. Luke could give her a compliment and Ray would probably get just as burned.

“Crazy Jack Road.” Claire pointed at a sign up ahead. “Turn left there.”

She didn’t seem to mind the silence. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying the ride, with her face tipped into the wind and a
little smile curving her lips. As if she’d heard him thinking, she glanced over.

“Sorry, I’m not much of a conversationalist. Look there. Turn here. Would it help if I told you Crazy Jack Road was named
for a miner who staked a claim up there?”

“Would it help if I told you I didn’t mind a bit? One of the things I like about you is that I don’t feel ‘on’ all the time.
Like a performing monkey or something.”

She giggled, an enchanting sound that made him decide he needed to hear it again.

“No one would ever confuse you with a monkey.”

“Tell that to my boss sometime.”

Another sideways glance, longer this time. “Do you like police work?”

Spinning the wheel to make the left turn on the crazy miner’s road, he nodded. “Yeah, I do. The OCTF is a state agency, so
we have a lot of jurisdictional freedom. Which is why I can come here to testify on one case and stick around to investigate
anoth—” He cut himself off, resisting the urge to smack himself on the forehead. What had he almost said?

“Oops, watch the pothole.” Thanks to the road, his slip had gone right past her. He dodged the gaping hole in the road and
straightened the truck out. Pines and long grasses, burned to a lifeless gold by the heat of summer, whipped past the windows.

“We should see the lake again over that hill.” She pointed. “This bit of land kind of sticks out into it. Have you ever shot
anyone?”

Yow. Talk about dodging conversational potholes.

“Not with the OCTF, no. But when I was on traffic detail years ago, I made the mistake of stopping a carload of crackheads
for having no working taillights on their ’86 Toyota. They pulled a gun and took off, and I discharged my firearm trying to
stop the car. Unfortunately the bullet hit the gas tank.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, they all survived. It’s not like in the movies where there’s a big explosion and everyone gets blown to bits. They all
piled out of the car. The driver fired at me, though, and I returned fire. He died in the OR.”

“I’m sorry, Ray.” Her voice was quiet. Really quiet. He’d probably shocked her stockings off.

“Yeah, me, too. I spent nine months with the in-house shrink. It wasn’t fun.”

“‘Thou shalt not kill,’” she said to the window.

“I believe that. But I also believe in ‘Thou shalt not be killed.’ I did what I had to do to save my life.”

They crested the hill, and the lake spread out in front of them, a changing kaleidoscope of blue and gray as clouds scudded
across the sky and the breeze kicked up a chop on the water. Twenty minutes brought them to a dirt track with a For Sale sign
tacked on the fence. He coasted to a stop.

“This is it. Can you see if the gate will open?”

She hopped out and pulled off the loop of chain, swung open the gate until he drove through, then closed it again. When she
got back in, it was clear the subject of shooting people was closed. “I wonder what the architects have in mind for the gate?
Can’t you just see something welcoming in stone and wood?”

It was hard to see anything but the long stretch of grass, bush, and pine trees as the land sloped away to the lake. His truck
handled the dirt road easily, taking the turns in low gear and blowing a plume of dust behind them on the straightaways. “They’ll
have to do a lot of work on the access,” he said. “I can’t see the family motor home negotiating some of these potholes.”

Another sign at a fence told them they were on private property. Ray shoved the truck into park and got out. Claire joined
him, looking over the barbed wire.

“Are you game for a little trespassing?”

“Technically, we own it, don’t we?” She pulled a little camera out of her jacket pocket and snapped a long shot that took
in most of the view. “Or we will as soon as the deal goes through. I’m not sure about the financial details. That’s the Elders’
business. Is the station buying it? A couple of private partners? It won’t be the Elect, that’s for sure.”

“What do you mean?” He separated two lethal-looking strands of barbed wire and indicated she should slip between them.

“We’re not a registered religious body,” she explained from the other side, holding the wire for him. “Just a group of people
who believe in God. So, we can’t make purchases in the group’s name.”

Okay. Whatever. “They could buy it as a partnership. That happens all the time. A group of guys gets together and buys a fishing
cabin, then they split up the time each one gets to vacation there.”

“Maybe.” She stood with her hands on her hips, scanning the landscape. “Where do you suppose the worship center is going to
go?”

“It looked to me as if they were going to incorporate the creek somehow. The cabins were planted alongside it, and then the
auditorium part was between the creek and the lake.”

“So, over there.” She aimed the camera at a swampy area where the pine trees left off and cattails and willows began, and
took another shot. “I hope they plan to drain a lot of this.”

He did, too. “I hope they plan to raise a lot of money. It’s going to take more than twenty-five grand just to dry things
out.”

The last part of the hike consisted of leaps from hillock to hillock of ground solid enough to support grass, and ducking
under willow branches. By the time they got to the spot where the auditorium was supposed to be, Ray was sweating, scratched,
and sporting a nice collection of mosquito bites. Claire hadn’t fared much better. Worse, probably, because the willows had
pulled her neat hairdo to shreds, and because she was wearing a denim skirt that gave the mosquitoes more real estate on which
to land.

“I swear, I’m going to get my hair cut off,” she grumbled, pulling out pins, raking her fingers through it and pinning it
up again. He couldn’t exactly see the improvement, but what did he know? “If I’m wearing color now, how much worse can a new
hairstyle be?”

Ray wisely kept his mouth shut.

“This must be it.” She gave up on her hair, moved to the side about ten inches, shook the water out of her shoe, and looked
at him. “Right? We’re standing where the auditorium will be?”

“As far as I can tell.” They looked over the marsh together. “Maybe it’s not what we think. I could have the scale wrong.
After all, a quarter inch to a foot is standard, but maybe it was an inch or something. That would put the auditorium up there,
on that slope.” He pointed.

“Yes, but then the cabins wouldn’t be near the creek, they’d be in the trees. You’re sure they were along the creek?”

“Yup. So, we are right. I’m no builder, though. What do I know about drainage? The contractor probably looks at this and thinks
it’s a piece of cake.”