Spring Tide (25 page)

“I bet she likes it. It’s a little more…coordinated than most of her things.”

Jackie laughed. “That’s the idea. As long as she thinks I didn’t pay over a couple dollars, she’ll like it.”

They both came to attention when Rosa’s Brazilian Churrascaria pulled into the parking lot and rolled up to their location. Rosa was in the passenger seat and Ben was at the wheel.

“Is Mom here?” he called.

“Not until later this afternoon,” Jackie said.

“Good. We can catch the lunch crowd before she gets here.”

“You’re going to park here?” Jackie asked, astonished. “After what happened last time?”

Rosa leaned across Ben to answer. “This is where people expect us to be on Saturdays.”

“But if Mom sees you—”

“You just said she wasn’t here, didn’t you?” Ben replied. “We’ll be outta here by one o’clock.”

The truck pulled over to the edge of the highway in the usual spot. Jackie shook her head.

“Do you think my family’s weird?” she asked.

Gail snorted. “I don’t know. No weirder than any other family, probably.”

“Well, cut off my head and stuff me in a suitcase!” Stef called boisterously at the familiar figure stepping out of a beat-up Camaro in her driveway. “Look what the cat dragged in!”

Deuce was already jumping up Womack’s legs for a greeting. Typical. A stranger drives up and that dog’s all, “Hi! Come on in. Let me show you where the valuables are.”

Womack hailed her with a wave and broad smile, then pulled a grocery sack out of his trunk. He approached on flip-flops, wearing tan shorts and a short-sleeved cotton shirt, sunglasses covering his eyes, his wavy black hair pushed back from his long face and his left arm almost a solid block of tattoos. He was tall and big. In a police uniform, he was an intimidating presence. But to those who knew him, he was a lighthearted, easygoing fella. The kind of guy you wanted at a party. He knew how to have fun, but he was also a solid cop, somebody you could rely on in a pinch. Stef hadn’t seen Womack for months. She wondered briefly if he’d tried to kill any other cops lately with his lethal homemade pepper spread.

“Hey,” he said enthusiastically. “Look at you!” He came up and gave her a one-armed hug, then reached for Deuce’s head to give him a pat. “Molina’s dog?”

“Yes. Name’s Deuce.”

“Deuce? Why not Ace? Hey, boy, you some kinda second-rate scout?”

“Molina’s nickname was Ace,” Stef explained. “In his previous life. Nobody called him that anymore except some of his old gang.”

Womack laughed. “Okay, I get it. Ace…Deuce.”

“How’d you find me?”

“I chatted up that cute little Debbie in payroll. I figured they had to know where you are to send you your check. Nobody can hide from Womack, right? But, hell, you’re way off the beaten path, that’s for sure.” He flipped his glasses on top of his head and observed the houseboat thoughtfully. “So this is home sweet home, is it?”

“That’s right.”

“How about showing me around?”

She waved him toward the cabin door and led him inside where he set his bag on the counter. He pulled out a six-pack of Michelob. “Put these in the fridge, huh? And look what else I brought you.”  He took a quart jar from the bag. “My hot pepper spread! This is the real deal, the habanero version.”

Stef held the jar in both hands and laughed. “Thanks! You know I love this stuff.”

“Exactly! I can still see your face from that day. Hilarious! Sweat, tears, snot. Everything that could come out of your head was pouring out! Molina too. I’ll never forget that.”

“Me neither. I won’t be eating this by the spoonful, though. It’s going to last a while.”

After a tour of the boat, they sat side by side in the two lawn chairs on the aft deck with cold bottles of beer. A half-dozen strips of Ida’s World-Famous Beef Jerky lay on a paper towel on the table between them. Womack slung his feet up on the deck railing and leaned back and took a swallow of beer, then smacked his lips. A pair of ducks flew over, momentarily distracting him.

“What’s this place like?” he asked. “Anything ever happen around here?”

“It has its moments. Actually, they’re having a little crime wave here lately.”

“Really? Maybe you can help them out.”

“Naw. Not my job, not anymore. I’m leaving all that to you masochists. Besides, they’ve got a cop on the beat.”

“A cop?  You mean one cop?”

“Right. One cop.”

Womack chuckled. “Really small town. I think I drove through it on the way out here. Right on the river there.”

“That’s it. Stillwater Bay.”

“Have you met that one cop? Is he a Barney Fife sort of fella?”

“Actually, he seems very competent.”

Stef didn’t mind the small talk. She figured Womack had something on his mind, but she was in no hurry to talk about it. They were work friends, good ones, but hadn’t socialized much on the outside, so his coming all the way out here to share a beer was extremely suspicious behavior.

“How do you like small-town living?” he asked.

“Hard to get used to. You can’t walk into a store without seeing somebody you know, even after just a couple of weeks here.”

“That’s a small town all right. I grew up in a small town. They’re okay. Pros and cons.”

“Everybody’s very friendly. And by friendly, I mean nosey. They’re not the least bit afraid to ask everything they want to know. Where you from? What do you do for a living? Is there a Mister Byers? Do you sleep in the nude?”

Womack let out a loud croak. “No kidding.”  He sucked a swallow from his beer, then said, “Do you?”

She gave him an indulgent smile. “What’d you come out here for, you big goof?”

“Just wanted to see my girl,” he replied, smiling his toothy smile. “See how she’s doing.” His smile gradually faded into a look of concern as his long face grew even longer. “How
are
you doing, Stef?”

“Fine. I’m doing fine.” She could tell by the sober look on his face they were done with small talk.

“I heard you weren’t coming back.”

“That’s right.”

“That’s a shame.” He spoke without looking at her. His gaze was straight ahead at the pasture with its dry grass and the tree line beyond that marked the path of Duggan Creek. “The guys all miss you. The girls too.” He glanced at her with a twinkle in his eyes. “Especially the girls.”

Stef took a swallow of beer, and Womack ripped a hunk of jerky off with his teeth, chewing with deliberation.

“Did Shoemaker send you out here?” she asked.

He swallowed the jerky and said, “Not exactly. He mentioned I might want to pay you a visit, that’s all.”

“Check up on me. See if I’ve gone bonkers or something?”

“No, no. Nobody’s worried about you. We all know you can take care of yourself. Everybody misses you, that’s all.”

“I miss you goons too, to be honest.”

“We sure wish you’d come back.”

“Anything interesting going on?”

“Same old, same old.”

It was hard for Stef to broach a serious subject with a guy like Womack. Their relationship had always been on a different plane. But she was intensely curious about what the rumor mill had been spinning out.

“What did the guys say?” she asked.

Womack turned to catch her expression, narrowing one eye. “About?”

“About what happened,” she said impatiently.

“It was terrible, that’s what they said. What do you think?” He stuck another piece of jerky in his mouth.

“Sure, I know that, but I mean about me. Do they think I panicked? Or missed the mark? Or mistook Molina for the perp? They weren’t there. They couldn’t know how it was, so there must have been a lot of speculation.”

Womack regarded her levelly, chewing. He put his beer on the table and took his feet off the railing so he could face her. “Stef, you know what the place is like when something like this happens. Of course there’s a lot of buzz. There’s a couple of jerks talking about something they don’t know anything about. But anybody who’s worked with you would never think you panicked. None of that shit matters. It’s just talk. The only thing that matters is the facts and the outcome of the investigation. I, for one, knew all along you’d be exonerated, and I told everybody that too.”

“Did you have a station pool going on that?” she asked cynically.

“No! It wasn’t like that. Nobody took it lightly. If you think they blame you, that they think you screwed up, you’re wrong. There was speculation. That’s just natural when a tragedy happens and people don’t have the facts. But once the verdict came down, it was over. Everybody accepts that decision and wants you back on the job. Especially me. I’d be happy to work with you any time. It was an accident and it wasn’t your fault. It would have been the same with any one of us.”

“Thanks,” Stef said quietly.

“Is that why you won’t come back?” Womack asked. “You think you don’t have the support?”

She shook her head. “No. Actually, everybody’s been great. No, it’s nothing to do with that. I just wondered what they were saying. You’re right. It’s natural for people to speculate, since they weren’t there and they can’t see this fucking movie that keeps playing over and over in my head.” She drained her beer and set it on the table. “Want another?”

“Sure.”

As she pushed herself up from her chair, he let his hand rest over hers briefly. She wasn’t used to a tender, serious-looking Womack like the sympathetic guy currently regarding her. It made her feel vulnerable and weak. Maybe that was the reason she couldn’t go back, she considered. Everybody would be looking at her like that. It’s one thing to be scarred on the inside where nobody could know about it. But everybody back there
did
know about it. Even if she could forget about it, which wasn’t likely, they wouldn’t. Seeing her, they’d be reminded. There was no way to go back to the way things used to be. And that was the only thing she wanted, to go back to the way things used to be.

She slapped Womack’s hand away with a disapproving grunt. “Hey, you got any new pictures of that kid of yours? Last time we talked, you said she was starting little league.”

He brightened. “Yeah! She’s got an arm on her you wouldn’t believe. I’ve got some shots of her right here on my phone.” He reached into his pocket.

“I’ll be right back with your refill and you can show me.” She climbed down the stairway into the cabin to get the beer.

Unlike her former colleagues, strangers knew only what she let them know. But Stef wasn’t sure she could hide her wounds even from strangers. They were still too raw. Jackie, for instance. Jackie knew there was something haunting her. Her eyes were full of sympathy, maybe even pity. It was unnerving and a little bit maddening. She didn’t want to see that reflection of herself in anyone’s eyes, especially not someone close to her. That was why she couldn’t tell Jackie. Their relationship, if there could be a relationship, couldn’t be a case of rescue. They had to be on a more equal footing. Maybe it was already too late for that, Stef surmised. Maybe Jackie only wanted to be with her because she thought of her as another three-legged cat.

She pulled two beers from the refrigerator, remembering the other day, the look on Jackie’s face when she left. She had been hurt that Stef hadn’t confided in her. What she didn’t know was how tempted Stef had been to do so. Looking into Jackie’s sincere, concerned face, she had wanted to tell her everything. She’d wanted to open herself up and pour herself out.

But it hadn’t been the right time with Marcus just down the hall in the bathroom. Afterward, she was relieved she’d held back. Wanting to share herself with someone worried her. What sharing meant, more than anything else, was making herself vulnerable. That was the scary side of love, showing someone your Achilles’ heel and then hoping they didn’t shove a spear in it. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t
hoping
. It was trusting.

She twisted the caps off the bottles, thinking,
Jackie seems like one of the most trustworthy people I’ve ever met
.