Hannah Grace (5 page)

"True," Mr, Fisher said with a thoughtful nod. "Can you describe his looks?"

"His looks?" Frustrated that the man might now skip town before she even had a chance to file a complaint against him, she shrugged impatiently. "I don't know. It's hard to describe him. Big. Yes, big and-tall. That's about all I can say. But the little boy-oh, he couldn't have been more than seven or eight, with bruises running up and down his arm and smattered on his forehead. Not only that, but I saw a mess of scratches on his hand,"

"Oh, dear," Maggie murmured.

"I'm going to see that new sheriff."

"But are you positive he's even there yet?" Maggie asked. "I thought he wasn't to start work till next week."

Mr. Fisher shrugged, indicating he hadn't a clue.

"Oh, he's there all right. I heard he showed up first thing this morning."

"Really?" Maggie looked slightly interested. "Who told you that?"

"I don't..." She paused to think for a moment. "He did!"

"He, who?" Mr. Fisher asked. "The fellow making all the racket?"

The pair wore equal looks of confusion, which Hannah had no way of easing, for her own head reeled with uncertainties.

She moved to the door. "I'm sorry that I don't have more time to explain. Maggie, will you please mind the store for me?" she asked. "I shouldn't be long."

"But what about this huge mess of glass? We can't have customers coming in here until we clean it up. You have to stay."

Hannah's eyes traced a path to the pile of shattered glass, which had, no doubt, scattered several feet in every direction. Annoyance rushed like water through her veins.

She sucked in a monstrous breath of air and let it out slowly. "Oh, all right. I'll clean it up. But then you'll have to watch the store till I get back,"

"Oh, fine,"

"Fine, indeed,"

Gabe sipped on a cup of coffee that was set kindly on his desk by Kitty Oakes, the one accounts clerk in the City Hall building who appeared to be offering him the most assistance.

"Here. Drink," she said. "And try to relax. He's sleeping now." Standing on the other side of his desk, she cast him a sympathetic eye.

"Thanks. Go ahead and unlock the cell, but keep your eye out for the rascal. He'll likely try to run again as soon as he wakes up. The boy's easily spooked. As far as I can tell, he doesn't want anyone coming too close." An overwhelming sense of responsibility gripped him from the inside. "I need to get to the bottom of this thing, figure out who he is."

Kitty winced. "I wouldn't unlock that cell just yet. He'll shoot out of here like a cannonball, I'm afraid, and he's just too little to be out on his own."

Gabe considered her words, too tired to think. He'd thought he had the kid all settled down until he'd taken him to that store for some supplies-and then she stepped in. It vexed him anew to remember it.

"Whatever you say. I can't keep him locked up forever, though." They'd had no choice but to put him in a cell like a caged bird until he quit kicking, biting, and flailing. "How old do you think he is?"

Kitty shrugged. "Seven, perhaps."

Gabe nodded. "I thought he was closer to nine."

Her brow crinkled. She folded her hands and put them to her plump waistline. "If he is, he's underweight and sickly. You should probably take him to see Dr. Van Huff. He might need to check him over real good. There has to be some reason he won't talk. Maybe he's got no tongue."

Gabe shot her a look that could only portray his disdain for her remark.

"Well, a lack of a tongue would surely keep one from talking," she insisted.

"He's got a tongue."

"How do you know?"

"He stuck it out at me last night in the hotel room,"

"Oh."

He groaned and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger at the first feelings of a headache. This was too much. He'd accepted the job as sheriff, not guardian to some homeless brat.

Lord, forgive me for this attitude, he prayed silently. Tell me what to do.

"I need to get him some clothes and boots, and he needs a bath. Who's that woman who works at Kane's Whatnot?" What he'd meant as mere thoughts came out of his mouth.

"Depends on which one you're referring to. There are three of them."

Three? He couldn't imagine three of that particular woman.

He must have thrown her a questioning look. "Jacob Kane has three daughters. They all take turns working the store, but I'd say Hannah's there most often. Was Mr. Kane in the store?"

"I didn't see any man about, just a tall, slender girl with red, wild curls on her head and a-"

"Oh, that's Hannah Grace, all right. She's such a sweet thing. So pretty, too. 'Course, all those girls are lovely. I imagine Mr. Kane was over at his office. Besides running the store, he runs a little insurance business with Leo Perkins. You might have seen the placard across the road from the Whatnot-Kane and Perkins."

"No," Gabe responded absently. He was still digesting the part about Hannah being sweet and pretty. Are we talking about the same woman? Oh, she was pretty, for sure, but sweet? Maybe if you poured a pint of maple syrup down her throat.

"Well, I'll let you know if that tyke wakes up." Kitty started to turn, then paused. "I'm going out for some lunch soon, if you don't mind. I shouldn't be gone long. Is there anything I can get for you, Sheriff?"

"No, I'll be fine, thanks. I'm just wading through some paperwork SheriffTate-uh, God rest his soul-left behind," He took another deep swig of the black brew in his mug and settled back in the leather chair with the squeaky roller, surveying the office that had belonged to Watson Tate just two weeks ago.

Kitty's round, weathered face took on a faraway look. "Truth be told, that man should've retired long ago. If he had, he'd probably be out fishin' right now. He had a weak ticker, and word has it he had a couple other heart spells before this last one took him. He just wasn't one to give up or give in," She shook her head and walked to the door, then quickly turned and buoyed up her shoulders. `At least we got a young, spry one this time," She grinned, and Gabe thought he detected a dimple amidst the creases of her cheeks. "You should outlast us all,"

"Well, we'll see about that. You have yourself a nice lunch now, Mrs. Oakes,"

"Oh, merciful heavens! Call me Kitty, please."

He nodded. "Fine, but only if you call me Gabe,"

Her hand spread over her ample chest. "Oh, well, I guess I could do that," Pushing a lock of silver hair off her forehead, she held the door. "It'll seem odd, though. I never called Sheriff Tate by his first name.'Course, he was my elder. You're more like ...well, you could be my son, I s'pose."

"Never. You don't look a day over thirty."

Now, Kitty clamped a hand over her blushing face. "Oh, my soul and body! I can tell already you're just going to be the berries,"

She was still giggling to herself when she closed the door behind her.

Gabe folded his hands in his lap and leaned back, crossing his legs and propping his feet up on the marred desktop. Staring at the ceiling, he watched a spider weave its web in the corner above the door, A jagged breath blew past his mouth, Fine way to start my first day on the new job, he thought, bringing a rapscallion along with me to the office because I don't know a single soul in town on which to pawn him. Who would want to take care of a mute child who refuses to stay put, anyway?

"Lord," he muttered into the quiet office, "I need a big batch of wisdom,"

Hannah lifted her skirts, and, with quiet determination, climbed each step leading to the double doors of the entrance to City Hall. She reviewed the morning's events in her mind so that she might give the new sheriff an accurate account. When questioned, she would say the stranger was tall and dangerous.. .no-in fairness, she couldn't say "dangerous." The sheriff would call it-what? Supposition? Stick to the facts, he'd say. I want details.

Details. In her head, she began to imagine again. The man stood tall and broad shouldered, with a commanding presence. His blond hair tapered at the neck, a nice style, you might say, the sort that ...facts. He had a square-set jaw and fine nose, and, well, symmetrical face. And those blue eyes of his, why, one might call them shimmery and iridescent.

The sheriff would be leaning forward now, pencil in hand, perhaps even tapping one end of it on his imposing desk, impatient for the particulars.

She would finally concede that she had no way to adequately describe his physical features, but if he would kindly produce one of those books that featured all the criminals' faces, she would most certainly spot him straightaway.

The solid door swung open when she used all her strength.

"Kitty?" she called. `Are you about?" On the desk at the front of the office stood piles of papers, thick volumes of information, a Mason jar containing pens and pencils, a wilted flower in a vase gone dry, and a couple of ashtrays. At present, Kitty's little desk in the middle of the room, also piled nearly to the ceiling with paperwork, appeared unoccupied. Several plaques framed in dark cherry wood hung from the walls, as did a large painting of President George Washington. A United States flag graced one corner, its six-foot pole jutting out from the wall so that it hung at a nice angle.

She knew that the sheriff's office was down the hall, first door on the right, but to get there, she needed someone on the other side of the counter to unlock the gate and let her through. She couldn't imagine why the sheriff's office, or the other rooms down the hall, for that matter, had to be so inaccessible to the public.

From one of the back rooms emerged Nathanial Brayton, Sandy Shores' community treasurer. In his fifties and of medium height, he wore a perpetual smile. Round-faced and bulbous-nosed, he also sported a bushy gray moustache. Hannah remembered standing beside her father as he talked with Mr. Brayton in the churchyard after the Sunday service when she was a child, feigning interest in their conversation while staring intently at Mr. Brayton's bobbing moustache.

"Wull, hello there, Miss Hannah. Kitty's out t' lunch, I'm sorry to say. What can I do for you?" With hooked thumbs, he held his brown suspenders-an accessory that didn't seem to serve its purpose, if one compared where the waist of his pants was supposed to fall and where it actually wound up: below his protruding belly.

"Oh," She stretched to her full five feet and seven inches and stepped forward. Why did she suddenly feel like shrinking? She'd hoped to find Kitty at the counter. Kitty would have bolstered her reasons for coming.

Beads of sweat pooled on her neck and trickled down her back. She removed her hat, a foolish thing to wear on a day pushing ninety degrees, and laid it on the counter. Its absence left her russet-colored curls to fall in complete disarray. "I've come to pay the new sheriff a visit,"

Something happened to Mr. Brayton's perpetual smile. "Um, now might not be the best time, miss,"

"But I insist on seeing him,"

"He's had a bad morning."

`Already? It's his first day on the job."

"That it is-but, well, let's say better first days have gone down in history."

Hannah lifted her chin ever so subtly, her stubborn persistence mounting.

"That may be, but I've an important crime to report."

This got his interest. His eyebrows twitched and flickered. `A crime, miss? What sort of crime are we talking about? Was the Whatnot robbed?"

She shook her head. "I think it would be best if I dispensed with matters of the crime in the sheriff's private quarters, Mr. Brayton."

His chin dropped and he prepared to argue, but he clamped his mouth shut at the first sounds of a door creaking open.

Both heads turned to face the source. One mouth remained closed; the other gaped in disbelief.