Texas Lawman (4 page)

Where would he be now if he’d been encouraged from the onset, instead of discouraged? If Mae hadn’t thought it a waste of time for a grown man to smear dabs of color on a canvas?

Jodie marched straight to the bathroom and, stripping off her clothes, stepped into the shower.

She did not want her darkened hair to make anyone think she was trying to look like a Parker. When Mae said that, it had stung!

Was that what Tare Connelly thought, too? Was that why he’d found the entire affair so amusing last night?

Jodie wet her head under the spray of water, poured a huge dollop of shampoo into her hand, worked it into a massive lather, then rinsed. She repeated the process until all traces of black had been washed down the drain and her hair once again gleamed with coppery-red highlights.

“TELL HER SHE’S GOT to stop hasslin’ me, Tate! First thing I wake up, last thing at night, all the while I’m tryin’ to do anythin’! She even calls me at work–at work.t–to complain. I’m gonna get fired. She’s gotta stop it. Tell her she’s gotta stop it! You’ll do that for me, won’tcha? Tell her she’s gotta stop or … or you’ll take her in, put her in jail. Yeah, that’s it. She wouldn’t like that, not a bit. ” Cause then she couldn’t get at me! You’ll tell her, won’t ya? Won’tcha? “

Tate listened patiently as Jimmy Evers gave his side of the story. Before that, he’d listened patiently to Jimmy’s wife, Eve, as she’d told hers. He and Jimmy stood outside the Everses’ ramshackle house, the front screen door hanging loose on its hinges, trash scattered about the yard and several long-dead car hulks littering the driveway. Jimmy, dressed in dingy jeans and a torn undershirt, reeked of sour mash.

“She says you hit her, Jimmy,” Tate said evenly. “I never did!” Jimmy denied. “I pushed her, but she was comin’ at me with a pot. One of those big heavy ones. If I hadn’t pushed her, I’d be on my way to the hospital right now … this very minute … prob’ly dead! Then she couldn’t hassle me anymore, could she?

Maybe I shoulda let her do it. Just let her haul off and”

Tate cut into the torrent of words. “She says you hit her before she’Xried to hit you.”

“That’s not true!” Jimmy blustered.

“Then why’s she got that big bruise on her forehead?”

“She got that when she fell!”

“Fell after you hit her?”

Jimmy shook his head vehemently. “No! No! I pushed her. After she came at me, I pushed her an’…an’ then she fell.”

Tate took hold of Jimmy’s arm while reaching for the handcuffs attached to the back of his service belt. “I’m gonna have to take you in, Jimmy. You can tell it to the judge.”

Jimmy tried to back away. “Uh-uh! I don’t wanna tell nothin’ to no judge.”

Tate swung the man around so he could lock his wrists firmly behind him. “This has all happened before, Jimmy. No use you causin’ trouble now.”

As Jimmy continued to protest, Eve appeared inside the screen door. She was a tiny woman, bone thin, old before her time. “What’s goin’ on?” she demanded. “I’m takin’ Jimmy to jail, Eve,” Tare said.

“Why’d you tell him I hit you, Evie?” Jimmy whined, twisting his head so he could see his wife.

‘“Cause you did. But I don’t want you to take him to jail!” she told Tare as she pushed outside. “I’m afraid it’s out of your hands now.”

“Evie!” Jimmy wailed.

“I won’t press charges!” Evie declared angrily.

“I still have. to take him in.”

“But he didn’t hit me! I … I lied!”

Tate shook his head as he took Jimmy to his patrol car. “All I can go by is what you told me earlier and what I see with my own eyes.”

“Evie.t” Jimmy wailed louder.

Tare was bending to put the reluctant man into the backseat when Evie, undoubtedly suffering from a drink too many herself, attacked him.

“Let him go! Let him go!” she screeched. “You don’t have any right! I’ll file a complaint, all right, but it won’t be against him. It’ll be against you?”

For a small woman she packed a good wallop. Still, Tate ignored the blows raining down on his back until he had Jimmy secured. Then he turned to deal with the distraught wife. After a short scuffle he overpowered her.

Tears streamed down Evie Evers’s cheeks as she stood with her arms pinned against her sides.

“Eve … Evie, listen to me!” Tare said urgently. “He’s hurt you today. He’s hurt you in the past. Just last week one of your neighbors called to complain that Jimmy was waving a gun at him and yellin’ that he couldn’t sit on his own porch. Your man makes a whole world of trouble for himself when he drinks. You know that!”

“But I love him,” Evie moaned, her faded blue eyes pleading for understanding.

Tare suppressed a weary sigh. How many times had he heard that before? Not only here, but during the years he’d worked street patrol in Dallas. “Did you talk to those people I told you about?” he asked.

Her body twitched and she turned her face away. “No.”

“Do you still have their card?”

“I have it, “she admitted. But she wouldn’t look at him, probably because she had no intention of using it.

“Give ‘em a call, Evie. That’s what they’re there for, for people like you and Jimmy. They can help.”

By this time Jimmy had started to cry. They could hear his blubbering through the closed window. He wasn’t crying for the misery he’d caused his wife, though. He was crying for himself, because once again he was in trouble.

As Tate settled behind the wheel, he watched Eve Evers return to her house. Other eyes were watching, as well, from behind the cracks in drawn curtains. Something else for the neighbors to talk about.

THE BRIOGS COUNTY Sheriff’s Office was located in Del Norte, the county’s largest town, population a fairly even 1,200 souls. There were only two other towns within the county limits and both were small enough to miss if you blinked. The remainder of the county’s 6,000 square miles was mostly isolated ranch-land, policed by “Fate and his four deputies. Because resources were spread so thin, an informal understanding had been worked out between the Del Norte police force–a chief and two officers—and the sheriff’s office, where they would each make themselves available to assist the other when called upon. The jail, though, belonged solely to the county, and as sheriff, Tate was charged with its administration, a job that caused him innumerable headaches. Some problem or other always

seemed to crop up, just as his predecessor, jack Denton, had warned.

Jack had accomplished cluite a bit during his long tenure as sheriff. He’d ushered Briggs County into modern times, pressing for and then overseeing the building of the new jail facility and the purchase of new patrol cars. He’d also demanded that the county provide uniforms for himself and his men. While the counties surrounding them were just now starting to think about changing from the good-ol’-boy, everybody-knows-who-we-are jeans and white shirts, the members of the Briggs County Sheriff’s Department already wore professional-looking uniforms.

“Ain’t nobody gonna mistake one Of my men for something’ they aren’t!” Jack had decreed. And he was right. Today’s population was very mobile. Lawmen weren’t known by everyone in the county anymore. When they gave a command or drew a gun, it was to everyone’s advantage to know that they were on official business, with all the appropriate authority.

Tate parked the patrol car next to the low stone building and took Jimmy Evers through to the jail facility in back.

“Let him dry out,” Tate instructed one of the jailers, “then he can call whoever he wants. He’s not goin’ anywhere for a while.”

He started to turn away, but was stopped by a hasty, “Sheriff?. Doug Rawlings has been complaining he needs some pain pills for his back. Says if you don’t do something about it soon, he’s gonna file a lawsuit.”

“Another one?” Tate muttered dryly. “Tell him I’ll

see if I can get the doc to stop by. But he’s goin’ to have to wait his turn. Be sure to tell him that, too. “

Tate made his way along the connecting hallway to his depart men In contrast to the new jail, the sheriff’s domain hadn’t been spruced up since shortly after the Second World War. The walls were painted an institutional green, and the lighting was an inadequate fluorescent. A long wooden bench that had been rescued from a derelict bus station was pushed against one wall, and across from it sat a faded couch of unknown age. This served as the holding area for people awaiting questioning or for those from the community who wanted to speak to someone in the office. A scarred wooden table stood in the opposite corner, on which was perched an ancient, though still functional, coffee-maker, a jar of creamer, a box of sugar cubes, a stack of cups and a few assorted plastic spoons. Above it was a map of the county and a bulletin board covered with notices and Wanted posters. The place had looked the same for as long as Tate could remember, and if anyone ever had the bright idea to change it, he’d put up one beck of a fight. He liked it the way it was.

“Tate?” Emma Conneily, still slim and in her early fifties with short silvery hair and the same brown eyes as her son, was a dispatcher for the sheriff’s office and had been since before Tate was born. “A sheriff from up in Colorado’s been trying to get hold of you for the past couple of hours. He left his number, wants you to call. I put it on your desk.” His mother also did double duty as clerical help, assisting Rose Martinez, who’d been with the sheriff’s office for almost as long as Emma had.

“Thanks,” Tate said.

Her gaze ran slowly over him. “You want to come by for dinner tonight? You look like you could use a good meal. I’ll cook you a steak.”

He smiled. “I might just take you up on that.” Tate proceeded to his private office, a small room dominated by a huge walnut desk and lined with file cabinets. After hanging his service belt and hat on the prongs of the antique deer antlers a previous sheriff had contributed to the wall decor, he sat down and began a cursory look at the material awaiting his attention. But he couldn’t concentrate on the paperwork and, instead, ended up assuming his favorite thinking position: his body stretched back in the chair, arms folded behind his head, boots crossed comfortably at the ankles and resting on the desk blotter.

Normally he liked to use these quiet moments to sort things out–-evidence in a case, personnel problems, community relations and, of course, the latest problem at the jail. Today, though, his thoughts were purely personal. Drew Winslow, his former supervisor from Dallas, would be calling again soon, expecting an answer. An answer Tate didn’t have.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been considering it. For the past week he’d thought of little else. Being asked to join a prestigious task force formed by one of the state’s largest and most respected law-enforcement agencies wasn’t something that happened every day. It was an honor, as well as a major career opportunity. A recognition of the skills he’d honed during his four years of service with the Dallas Police Department, his six years as a sheriff’s deputy and the past year and a

half running the county office. The invitation was a dream come true. Only it wasn’t as simple as that. There were certain realities to be reckoned with.

The first was his mother, if he accepted the position, it would mean moving away again and leaving her on her own. Most likely he’d be working out of Austin or possibly even Dallas again. There was no way he could commute. And even though she seemed to have her diabetes under control—which made it doubtful she’d experience another health crisis like she had years before, bringing him back home—as her only child and last remaining close relative, didn’t he have a responsibility to her to stay?

Then there were the citizens of Briggs County. The dust had barely settled since his election as sheriff, and sheriffs grew old on the job here. He’d known that when he’d let Jack persuade him to throw his hat into the ring as his replacement.

Which brought him to Jack. How would he see the situation? Jack, the old friend who’d done so much to help both Tare and his mother in the years since Dan Connelly’s death.

Tate’s expression tightened as he thought of his father. Integrity and duty had been his watchwords. Not in a fanatical sense, but in the simple way he lived his life. What would he have done if presented with this same choice?

When Tate swung his feet to the floor, he still had no answer for Drew Winslow.

Then another thought pushed past all the others. It, too, was

personal—highly personal. Because it involved Jodie Parker. Still as arrogant, still as spoiled, and now, irrefutably, back home.

Tare grabbed the messageltslip his mother had mentioned, reached for the phone and punched in the number. Work was what he needed. Something to keep his mind off everything else, particularly Jodie Parker.

“Bill Preston, please,” he directed when the ringing telephone was answered. “This is Sheriff Connelly. I’m returnin’ his call.”

A moment later he was speaking to his counterpart in Clayborne County, Colorado.

As EXPD, the return of Jodie’s hair to its natural color was noticed as soon as she and her father presented themselves at the family dinner that evening.

“Showing good sense at last!” Mae declared, the light of victory in her eyes.

“Oh, Jodie!” Harriet cried. “That dark color looked so nice on you!”

“Not that this isn’t better,” Shannon added quickly. Jodie laughed off all the comments. “I got tired of it,” she dismissed. “Now that I’m back home, I want to be me again.”

“That’s always best,” Mae agreed.

“I wouldn’t want to get lost in the crowd.” Jodie fixed her gaze on her great-aunt. When Mac’s lips thinned, she knew she’d made her point. It was imperative she not let her aunt think she’d won any ground.

Included at dinner that evening were the Hugheses, who lived in Little Springs Division, the closest of the nine divisions or territories, on the ranch. Dub Hughes, retired now, had been foreman at the ranch for most of

his sixty-odd years, and he was there with his wife, Delores, as well as the current ranch foreman, his son Morgan Hughes, his son’s wife, Christine, and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Erin. The Parkers and the Hugheses had always been close. Rafe and Morgan had grown up together like brothers, learning to work cattle, learning to run the ranch. The icing on the cake had come when Morgan married Christine, who’d proved to be a Parker herself, much to her surprise. Their union was a perfect blending of the two families, bringing them even closer together.