In The Bleak Midwinter: A Special Agent Constance Mandalay Novel (6 page)

“Uh-huh. I start the academy in KC with the
next class. Just a few months from now. And I should have a job
waiting for me when I graduate.”

“Oh my gosh, Skip! That’s fantastic!
Congratulations! Does Sheriff Morton know?”

A gruff voice came from across the room
behind her. “Do I know what?”

Clovis swiveled her chair and glanced over
her shoulder at the sheriff, who was several feet away and in the
process of emptying the dregs from a drip coffeemaker carafe into
his stained ceramic cup. She twisted quickly back around and shot a
wide-eyed gaze toward Deputy Carmichael as she mouthed, “I’m
sorry.”

“KC, Boss,” Skip announced, shaking his head
and grinning. Then he addressed Clovis directly. “Don’t worry, he’s
known ever since I got the call. He was the first one I told. After
all, it was him that got me accepted in the first place.”

“Bullshit,” the sheriff huffed, ambling over
to the side of the desk. He took a sip of the coffee, screwed up
his face, then swallowed with an even deeper grimace while shaking
his head. “Christ… How old is this sludge?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s leftover from this
morning,” Clovis replied.

“No wonder,” he sighed. Without hesitation he
leaned toward the poinsettia on the corner of her desk and dumped
the remaining contents of the cup into it.

“You know you’ve killed two of those already
this month by doing that,” Clovis announced.

“Better them than me,” he replied then held
the now empty mug with his middle fingers hooked through the handle
as he nodded toward Skip. “You got your own damn self into the
academy. I just made a couple of calls to warn ‘em that you’d
probably be a pain in the ass to them just like you are to me. But
since you got in anyway, it looks like they didn’t much care what I
thought, now did they?”

Skip chuckled. “Whatever you say, Boss.”

The sheriff shot him a quick and wholly
uncharacteristic grin. Since Archie Morton wore an almost perpetual
poker face to go along with his dry wit, any visible show of
emotion in his expression was more than enough to give his staff
pause.

“Needed doin’. You’re just wastin’ your
talent here, son,” Morton offered. “That much was obvious as soon
as you got your head on straight and started using your powers for
something other than winning bar bets.”

“Powers,” Skip repeated with an embarrassed
chuckle. “You make it sound like something from a comic book.”

“Whatever you want to call it,” Morton
continued. “You and that scary accurate instinct of yours would
better serve a police force that has actual crimes to solve, and we
both know this isn’t it. Hulis is where old cops go to relax when
they’re too tired to chase the bad guys anymore. Hell, that’s why I
came back.”

Skip waited a beat for another dry wisecrack
to be tacked onto the end of the statement. Just as Sheriff
Morton’s expression remained virtually constant, praise was not
something he offered on a regular basis either, especially not
without something diametrically opposed thrown in to temper it.
Given that he’d now given him two compliments in a row, surely
there was a dig coming in their wake.

However, when several seconds had passed with
no further comment, the deputy raised an eyebrow and said, “Uh…
Thanks, Boss.”

“Yeah, well don’t let it go to your head. You
might be ‘The Amazing’ Skip here in Hulis, but when you get to KC
there’ll be some sonofabitch who’s even more special than you are,
trust me.”

The sheriff looked around and then let out a
snort. “Now, shouldn’t you be workin’ or somethin’?” He offered the
words as a statement more than as a question. “You ain’t off to the
big city yet, you know.”

“I’m in early. I’m not scheduled for duty
until five.”

“Yeah, so what? You’re here aren’t you?”

“True.”

“Well then don’t just stand around looking
for more compliments. You just got your quota for the year and then
some. Make yourself busy. Put on a fresh pot of coffee or
something…”

Now that sounded more like what he had been
expecting. Skip started to offer a quick, “right on it, boss,” but
before he could speak the aforementioned instinct kicked in. In
truth, it was really just a keen awareness of his surroundings
combined with a good memory, but instinct was as good a word as
any. The semantics weren’t all that important.

Skip cocked his head and announced, “Phone’s
about to ring.”

A half-heartbeat later, the first pushbutton
along the bottom of Clovis’s telephone began to flash, and then the
loud mechanical ringer itself jangled for attention.

Even though she’d been warned, or perhaps
because of that very fact, Clovis physically jumped in her seat at
the first ping of the sound. She then shuddered as she started
reaching toward the device. “Darn it, Skip! You know it creeps me
out when you do that. Now I’m all jittery.”

He shrugged to punctuate the fact that he
considered the feat to be wholly unremarkable. Jerking a thumb
toward a nearby door he explained, “The junction box over here in
the closet clicks twice just a couple of seconds before the phone
rings. It always has.”

“Like I said,” Sheriff Morton offered. “Scary
accurate.”

“And creepy,” Clovis announced again,
snatching up the phone and then stabbing the winking button with
her index finger just before the fourth ring had finished. Placing
the handset against her ear she said, “Sheriff’s office, how can I
help you?”

With her other hand she snapped the small
ring box closed then held it out toward Skip, who took it from her
with a quick flash of a smile. Then she switched the handset to her
other ear and picked up a pen from the desk as she talked. “Sure,
Hazel. What can we do for you this afternoon?”

Sheriff Morton nodded at the velvet-covered
box in Carmichael’s hand and waved him toward the front reception
counter. Once they were a few steps away from Clovis’s desk, he
asked in a quiet tone, “So… You and Mack Higgins’ daughter finally
taking the plunge?”

“That’s the plan,” Skip replied. “Guess I’ll
find out for sure come Christmas Day when I ask her. She could
still say no.”

“That she could,” the sheriff grunted, then
inspected the inside of his empty coffee mug for a moment before
adding, “Seems like just yesterday that you and Ron Connelly got
all drunked up over at Happy’s Tavern and went to fighting over
her.”

“It’s been a few years, actually, boss,” Skip
replied.

Morton ignored him and continued. “Right out
in the middle of the street, if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah, boss,” Skip conceded. “Never going to
let me forget that, are you?”

“Nope,” Morton replied.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. So… You tell her about the
academy yet?”

Skip shook his head and held up the jewelry
box, giving it a small shake. “I figured I’d tell her once this
part was out of the way.”

“Take my advice, son. Tell her about it
before you ask her to marry you. You owe her that. No matter how
much you two might be in love right now, she has to be able to make
an informed decision.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s a big damn difference between
bein’ a city cop’s wife and a small town deputy’s wife.”

“You mean the risk.”

“For one,” Morton agreed with a nod. “But
even more so, the stress. It can be hell on a relationship, son.
Especially if you plan on starting a family.”

“Yeah… Guess you’re right.”

“Ain’t no guessin’ to it. Been there, got the
divorce papers and the alimony payments to prove it,” he told him.
After a short pause he snorted out a half chuckle. “Probably
doesn’t matter either way though. If she’s smart, and with that
fancy degree Mack paid for she oughta be, then she’ll run the
opposite direction the minute you ask her.”

Skip grinned, taking the tension-breaking
gibe in the good nature he knew it was intended. “Yeah, boss,
th…”

“That was Hazel Parish down at Norris’s
Market,” Clovis interrupted as she hung up the phone. “She says
Elizabeth Callahan is down there pitching a holy fit. Apparently
one of her girls went missing while she was shopping.”

“Well hell, if she’s at Norris’s the kid
probably just wandered over to Bremerton’s Five-and-Dime to look at
the toys,” Sheriff Morton huffed. “Hazel should know that. So
should Elizabeth. They have a look for her over there?”

Clovis was nodding even as he spoke. “Seems
that’s actually where the girl was when she went missing,” she
explained. “Ruth Babbs was the last one to see her and her sister
when they came in.”

“Both of ‘em missing?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. Just the older of
the two.”

“Could be she’s just hiding from her sister,”
Skip offered. “I did that a few times myself when I was a kid.
Younger siblings can be pretty annoying.”

Clovis shrugged. “They’re going through the
store for the second time right now and trying to calm Elizabeth
down while they’re at it. That’s why Hazel from Norris’s made the
call instead of anyone from Bremerton’s. It sounds like things are
a little out of control over there.”

“Yeah, sounds that way,” Sheriff Morton
agreed. “Better get someone on over there. Where’s Carl?”

She reached out and wrapped her hand around
the stem of the dispatch radio’s base microphone and pulled it
closer. Keying it up she said, “Carl, this is Clovis, over…”

A burst of static popped from the speakers
and seconds later a voice followed, “This is Carl, over.”

“What’s your twenty?”

“East end of town next to Butts’ Feed store.
What’s up? Over.”

Clovis looked up at the sheriff.

Morton shook his head, gesturing toward
Deputy Carmichael as he turned and headed back toward his office.
“Tell him to stay put and send Sherlock on over instead. He needs
somethin’ to do anyway. And do me a favor… Put on a fresh pot of
coffee when you get a chance…”

OFFICIALLY
, sunset was still around
twenty minutes away. However, for all intents and purposes it had
arrived well ahead of schedule. The overburdened clouds that were
assembled in close formation overhead stretched from horizon to
horizon, blotting out anything even remotely resembling sunlight.
What Skip had imagined just fifteen minutes ago as a cosmic dimmer
switch was now turned to the fully off position. Mother Nature had
all but canceled dusk and was sending night in to take the stage
early.

The dusk to dawn light over the parking lot
had already flickered to life and was now casting a harsh,
blue-white swath downward to highlight the hoary patterns of salt
and cinder on the asphalt. Carmichael pushed the back door shut and
headed for his patrol car at a slight jog. The odds were that the
missing child would turn up well before he ever arrived at
Bremerton’s, making the whole trip moot. But, by the same token
Missus Babbs and the staff down there didn’t generally call unless
they’d already looked high and low. Of course, none of that really
mattered. Just because this was more than likely a nuisance call,
that wasn’t a reason to be lackadaisical about response time.

Even though he wasn’t officially supposed to
be on duty just yet, he didn’t mind taking this one. He was never
really the type to avoid work, whether it was above and beyond his
regular schedule or not. By his way of thinking, it would all even
out at some point. It seemed like it always did if you were just
patient and gave it long enough to do so.

Besides, right now he could really use the
distraction. The looming marriage proposal was starting to weigh
heavily on him. It wasn’t as if Kathy and he hadn’t talked about it
several times before, but this go around it wasn’t going to be just
talk.

This time it would be for real.

It probably wouldn’t be bothering him so much
if it weren’t for the fact that while she went away to college he
had stayed here and worked. Now, she had a Masters Degree and he…
Well, he was just a sheriff’s deputy in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it
Midwestern town. Sure, he was finally on his way to the police
academy in Kansas City and a job on the force there afterward, that
much was true; but even then he’d just be a cop, and she’d have
those fancy letters behind her name.

He knew damn well she could find someone
better, and that’s what worried him; because whether she loved him
or not, like Sheriff Morton had said, she just might be smart and
say no. He knew the comment had been offered as a joke, but he’d
already been fighting with that very thought himself, ever since
he’d picked up the ring.

Yeah. A mindless distraction would definitely
help right about now.

C
HAPTER
5