High Country Cop
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Cynthia Thomason
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HarlequinChapter One
CHIEF OF POLICE Carter Cahill was working the ten-to-six shift in Holly River, North Carolina, on this Friday. Since he had some extra time in the morning, he’d driven the patrol car out to Hidden Creek Road and stopped in to do some chores for his widowed mother. Carter or his younger brother, Jace, stopped by the family home at least once a week to help Cora with her to-do list.
Satisfied that the leaky pipe under the kitchen sink was fixed, Carter headed back to town, the place he’d called home his entire life. When his cell phone rang, and he recognized the number of the police station, he initiated the car speaker. “This is Carter. What is it, Betsy?” he asked his dispatcher.
“Just got a call from a witness who said he could shed some light on last night’s break-in at the hardware store, Carter.”
“What did he say?”
“That he saw Dale Jefferson’s old Jeep in the alley behind the store at the approximate time of the robbery.”
Carter wasn’t surprised. Whenever a crime was committed in Holly River, Dale’s name was usually suggested as the perpetrator, or at least as someone who could provide information. In all fairness, if Dale was guilty of even 20 percent of the crimes he’d been accused of, Carter didn’t know when he’d have time to eat or sleep. Dale was adept at not getting caught. He’d served only a handful of short stints in the county lockup though he’d been accused of everything from public intoxication to stealing grapes from the supermarket.
“Who is the witness?” Carter asked Betsy.
“Mitch Calloway.”
“Great, another call from Mitch. Maybe someday he’ll get over the fact that Dale stole a few chickens from his coop and quit associating the guy with every minor crime in Holly River.”
Betsy chuckled. “It’s no secret that Mitch, and most everybody else in town, would like to see Dale locked up for good, but you’re going to investigate anyway, aren’t you?”
“Of course. Since I’m so close to the station, I’ll stop on my way and see who’s on duty today. I doubt I’ll have any trouble at the Jefferson place, but it never hurts to know who my backup is.”
He drove the last few blocks of downtown Holly River, an area that was familiar and comforting to Carter. The town consisted of quaint streets, a few mom-and-pop restaurants and shops, churches and a small college. There was one traffic light in the middle of everything, which was conveniently located between the police station and his brother’s mountain adventure business, High Mountain Rafting. Carter noticed Jace’s SUV in the parking lot of High Mountain and figured Jace was preparing for the day’s first white-water trip. In view was Sawtooth Mountain, the highest peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Once he determined that Sam McCall, the department’s newest rookie and Carter’s friend, was his backup, Carter left the station and headed out in the direction of Laurel Hollow Road, where the Jefferson clan had lived for decades. The fifteen-minute drive to Liggett Mountain would take Carter from the charming ambiance of sleepy Holly River to the run-down shabbiness of the cabins outside town. This was the part of the county the tourists never saw and the part where few residents ever managed to escape their poverty.
He smiled when he remembered Betsy’s warning when he’d left. “You take care, Carter,” she’d said. She was almost like a favorite aunt and never failed to issue similar warnings to all of Holly River’s eight officers.
Soon the terraced, manicured lawns of Holly River’s more prosperous residents gave way to the scrub and unkempt forested areas of the folks who couldn’t afford gardeners, HOA bills or even ride-on lawnmowers. Some of the lawns, if a guy could even call them that, hadn’t been tended in years and had been taken over by rocks and dry, sandy soil.
An old tire with a weary-looking mailbox post sprouting from its center marked the Jefferson cabin, the one Dale’s parents had left to their oldest son—the one where the younger brother, Lawton, lived now after getting out of prison. Lawton hadn’t been as lucky as his older brother. He’d been caught red-handed spray painting the mayor’s BMW. That might not have landed him in the state penitentiary, but the twenty pounds of freshly manufactured methamphetamine next to the illegal firearm in the trunk of his old Buick did—for eight years.
As he pulled up the gravel drive to the house, Carter couldn’t help noticing how worn out this place was. He didn’t know why the battered chimney, looking like a mouth of missing teeth, was still standing. And surely the dozen patches on the shingle roof didn’t keep the rain out. Carter figured there wasn’t much extra cash for repairs. Dale’s part-time jobs barely kept the electricity on and oil heat burning in the winter.
Carter climbed the three steps leading to the narrow porch, careful to avoid the holes in the rotting wood. He knocked on the front door and waited.
After a minute, Dale answered, wearing flannel pants and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He scowled at Carter. “What is it this time, Carter? What’re the folks in town accusing me of now?”
As usual Dale appeared unkempt and soiled. His dark hair hung in limp strands to his shoulders. His face was gaunt. But strangely he didn’t look particularly tired, like he wasn’t out at one o’clock in the morning when the robbery supposedly took place. Dale grabbed the loose hair around his shoulders, pulled it all back to his nape and let it fall again. A tall man, he seemed thinner, more wiry than he had in recent years. His eyes were lined in the corners. His cheeks seemed high and hollow. If Dale was practicing a life of thievery again, Carter wondered why he didn’t target the supermarket in town. At least his thievery would benefit his health.
“Where were you last night, Dale?” Carter asked. “About one in the morning.”
“Just leaving the Muddy Duck,” he said. “Came home right after.”
“Can anyone verify that?”
“Sure. Sheila was there all night. She’ll tell you she and I were the only ones in the bar that late.”
Carter nodded. Great. Dale’s on-again, off-again girlfriend who tended bar at the Duck would vouch for Dale anytime.
“We have a witness who says your vehicle was parked behind the hardware store on County Road 17.”
“That’s right,” Dale said. “I didn’t know there was a law against parking on a county road.”
“There’s not,” Carter said. “But the hardware store is more than a block from the tavern, so why did you park there?”
“I had a good reason. There’s a particular lady I didn’t want to see the Jeep in the area.” He grinned in a conspiratorial man-bonding way that meant nothing to Carter. “You know how it is, Carter. We can’t let all our lady friends know what we’re up to, now, can we?”
“Did you see any unusual activity along the road when you left?” Carter asked. “Maybe anyone sneaking around the hardware store?”
“Nope. The whole area was as quiet as a church.”
Carter took his phone from his pocket and reread an email he’d received that morning from the officer on duty. It contained a list of items gone missing from the store. Only twenty bucks had been left in the cash register by the owner. The full amount had been stolen, but the store owner, Carl Harker, was moaning as if he’d lost a fortune. One item caught Carter’s eye. He looked up at Dale. “You planning to start a garden anytime soon, Dale?”
“That’s an odd question, Carter. You know most of my food comes from the Baptist Food Bank. Why would I grow my own?”
“Just curious,” Carter said. Hoping Dale would slip up and mention some of the stolen property, Carter wasn’t about to tell Dale that a dozen irrigation hoses were taken, along with several pole-type sprinklers. He evaded by saying, “Seems like whoever took this stuff is planning to cultivate a crop in a major way.”
“Wouldn’t be me, Carter. I got enough work on my hands with my chickens and them goats out back.”
“Mind if I have a look around your place just the same?”
“You have a warrant, Carter?”
He didn’t, and by the time he requested one from the county judge, if Dale was the proud owner of a new sprinkling system, the evidence would be nowhere to be found. “I’ll come back with a warrant if I need one, but for now I’ll just keep my eyes open for any new crops going in,” he said.
Dale leaned against his door frame. “You know how it is...folks around here are always cultivating one thing or another, always waiting for a bumper crop.” He gave Carter another grin. “Is there anything else?”
“I think I’ll have a word with Lawton. Is he here?”
Dale jutted his thumb toward the back of the house. “He just got some company. The two of them are in the backyard discussing something, but I don’t suppose it will bother them if you interrupt. Besides, you know the person who showed up this morning out of the blue.”
Carter carefully maneuvered the steps to the ground. “I’ll just go around back, then. And, Dale...”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not forgetting that you were within a block of the robbery last night. So if you remember anything, even the smallest detail that might help us out, you give me a call.”
“You know I would, Carter...”
When hell freezes over... Carter thought.
Anything else Dale might have said was muffled by the closing of the door.
Now, who could be visiting Lawton? Carter wondered as he walked around the cabin. He’d been released from prison just two weeks ago, and Carter hadn’t heard that he’d made any friends or renewed acquaintances in town. In fact, Lawton hadn’t even been seen in town, except for a visit to the grocery store. Maybe his parole officer was here. Or someone from one of the church groups. Or maybe...
He stopped dead at the corner of the rear exterior wall of the cabin. Lawton sat on a rickety old bench beside a young woman—a woman whose posture and size and shape were so familiar to Carter that the breath was trapped in his lungs.
It couldn’t be Miranda. She didn’t have a reason to come back to Holly River. Her daddy was dead. Her mother had moved to a condo in Hickory. True, she’d been raised a Jefferson. Her family had lived for a few generations in these hills just like her cousins Dale and Lawton and their parents had. But Miranda hadn’t been able to wait to get away and make a life for herself. No matter whom she hurt in the process.
Her family had lived for years here on Liggett Mountain in a cabin slightly better than her cousins’. Still the more fortunate Jeffersons had struggled on one income brought in by Miranda’s father, Warren. Carter couldn’t take his eyes off the woman on the bench. Finally he released the breath he’d been holding. No, it wasn’t Miranda Jefferson, or Miranda Larson now. His Miranda...funny how that phrase popped back into his mind after so many years...had light brown hair. This woman’s shoulder-length waves had streaks of blond. He blinked hard. A successful woman could afford to change her hair color, couldn’t she?
Rooted to the ground, Carter continued to stare at the back of the woman’s head. Surely he would know if he was anywhere near Miranda, even today after fourteen years. Back then, when they’d graduated from high school, the electricity had seemed to buzz around them. Their connection had been that strong, that heated.
“Are you a real policeman?”
The question came from Carter’s left. He hadn’t even been aware that another person was in the yard, an obvious mistake for a cop who was investigating a crime. He should have known. His head snapped to the left where he saw a little girl sitting on a tree stump, an electronic device of some kind in her hands. She had large round eyes, like Donny Larson’s, and sandy-colored curly hair like Donny’s. She was a miniature, feminine version of the man Carter once called his best friend.
“Ah, yeah, I’m real,” he said.
“Is someone in trouble?” the child asked.
“No, nothing like that.” Carter now knew without turning back to stare at the woman that Miranda Jefferson was sitting next to Lawton. Where else would this little girl look-alike of Donny Larson have come from?
But he did turn back and found Miranda’s gaze locked on his, her fathomless blue eyes just like always—slightly wary, questioning everything but now with a mother’s natural protectiveness.
“Carter...” The word fell from her lips without thought, seemingly without effort.
He moved toward her, his legs wooden, his heart pounding. Get a grip, Cahill, he said to himself. It’s not like you didn’t know this could happen. It’s not like you haven’t dreamed about it. Miranda still has kin in this area.
“Miranda...how? When did you get back? What are you doing here?” Stupid questions, but maybe the fact that he was a cop would make him look less stunned, more in control.
If anything, she was more beautiful than when she was a teenager. This new, mature woman, a few pounds heavier than the thin, athletic cheerleader who’d made the sun come up every morning for Carter, had filled out, toned up as if she worked out. Gone was the long hair she always wore in a ponytail, replaced with a modern shoulder-length cut and color that framed her face in a loose, casual style that didn’t look salon-made, but probably was.
Miranda stood. He quickly appraised her white blouse, dark-colored slacks and sensible black pumps. No, this woman was not the mountain girl he fell in love with years ago. This woman was sophisticated, confident and, he’d heard, really good at her job. Her bottom lip quivered slightly. Well, maybe not so confident after all.
“Who is this, Mommy?”
The little girl had walked over and now stood next to her mother.
“This is an old friend of mine,” Miranda said. “Carter Cahill. Carter, this is my daughter, Emily.”
“Hi, Emily,” Carter said to the child, whose glitter-covered sneakers twinkled in the sunlight. She looked to be about nine or ten, perfect timing for her to be Donny Larson’s.
“Did you come to see cousin Lawton?” Emily asked. “He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s out of jail now.”
“I know that, and I don’t think he did anything wrong. I’m just here to ask a few questions.”
Lawton came around the bench and stood next to Miranda. In jeans and a T-shirt, he showed the effects of incarceration. Pale skin, slightly sunken eyes, a general demeanor of insecurity. His hair, the same brown as his brother’s, had been cut recently. Carter heard the prison system did that for soon-to-be ex-cons.
“What kind of questions?” Lawton asked.
Carter explained about the robbery and the fact that Dale’s Jeep had been in the vicinity.
“Then you should talk to Dale,” Miranda said defensively.
“I did, but I’ve got to cover all the bases.”
Miranda straightened her back. “You can’t think that Lawton, released just two weeks ago, would commit a crime? He learned his lesson, Carter. And he doesn’t even have a driver’s license, so why would he be driving Dale’s vehicle?”
“I hope that’s true,” Carter said. “But Carl Harker is missing some inventory and a bit of cash. Somebody took those things.” He turned to look at Lawton. “Just to satisfy my curiosity, where were you at one o’clock this morning?”
“In bed, sleeping.” Lawton frowned. “Unfortunately I don’t have a witness, so you’ll have to take my word for it.” He glanced at his cousin as if expecting her to vouch for him.
“I see things haven’t changed a bit around here,” Miranda said. “A crime is committed and the cops immediately run out here to question the Jefferson boys.”
“I told you,” Carter said. “Dale’s Jeep...”
“I heard you. Dale’s Jeep. Not Lawton’s. Law doesn’t even own a vehicle.”
“Mommy, why are you mad?”
Miranda took a deep breath, looked down at her daughter. “I’m not mad, honey. You know we came here to help cousin Lawton.” She switched a stern gaze to Carter. “And it looks like he needs our help already on our first day in town.”
“I haven’t accused anyone, Miranda,” Carter said.
“It’s just a matter of time, like always,” she responded.
Carter flinched. She wasn’t being fair.
“Lawton paid his debt to this town,” she said. “Now he’s trying to make a clean start, and I’m here to see that he gets all the support he needs.” She reached in her purse and drew out a business card. “I’m not here just as his cousin.” Handing the card to Carter, she said, “I’m an official representative of the North Carolina social services department. We help ex-convicts start over, providing them with housing if necessary, assisting in finding a job, offering moral support.”
“That’s fine,” Carter said. “I hope Lawton is completely rehabilitated.” Turning to Lawton, Carter added, “I wish you the best, Lawton.” He stuck out his hand. After a moment Lawton shook it and mumbled a halfhearted thank-you.
“How long are you staying?” Carter asked Miranda.
“As long as I need to before getting Emily back to Durham in time for school in the fall. I’m on paid leave.”
“I’m sure Lawton appreciates your help.” There being nothing left to say and certainly no evidence upon which to accuse either Jefferson man, Carter turned to leave.
He was almost to his patrol car when Miranda caught up to him. “Carter, wait.”
He stopped, crossed his arms over his chest. When he turned back to Miranda, she looked more like the girl he’d known. Young and hopeful, and ready to stand up for anyone who needed it. He steeled himself to accept more criticism from her. “You don’t have to caution me about Lawton, Miranda. I realize I was the one who arrested him eight years ago, but that doesn’t mean I’m out to get him now.”
She nodded. “I know that. I’m sorry if I seemed defensive back there, but Lawton’s having a hard time.”
Carter sighed with relief. At least Miranda wasn’t going to continue her attack on his motives for coming out here.
“The people in this town don’t want him here, and they’ve made that perfectly clear,” she added. “But he has no place else to go. This is his home...” She paused and stared forlornly at the run-down cabin. “...such as it is.”
“He’ll be fine,” Carter said. “As long as he stays out of trouble. But it might be a good idea if he kept a low profile for a while. People in this town don’t easily forget.”
“I know that’s true,” she said, giving him a look that was suddenly sad and somehow personal at the same time. “You’ve got to understand, Carter, I can’t forget what Law and I were to each other growing up. Sometimes I felt he was the only friend I had...until high school anyway. And I know he felt the same about me. He’s my cousin, but back then he was more like a brother to me.” The sadness left her eyes, replaced by the same determination he’d seen in the backyard. “I’m going to do all I can for him. I owe him, Carter.”
“That’s fine, Miranda,” Carter said. “You help him all you can, but take one word of advice. Keep your distance from Dale.”
“I’m not afraid of Dale,” she said. “He’s family. I know he’s crossed the line a few times, but he’s also had some bad luck.”
Carter didn’t want to argue, although he didn’t blame Dale’s choices on bad luck. Dale’s life now was a result of bad decisions, greed and resentment. He touched the brim of his hat. “Whatever you say. I suppose we might run into each other while you’re here. Small town, you know.”
“Yeah, we probably will.” She looked down at the gravel under her shoes, then raised her gaze to meet his and said, “I heard about your wife, the miscarriages she had, Carter. I’m so sorry. I wanted to reach out to you, but, you understand...”
“Sure. She left me five years ago. I like to think of it as history.” He attempted a smile but knew he failed at the effort. “I’ve got to go, Miranda. There’s somebody around here who has a shed full of items that should go back to the hardware store outside of town, and I’ve got to find him.” He got into the car, but before rolling up the window, he said, “Nice seeing you again.” He left the Jefferson property without even glancing in his rearview mirror. Seeing Miranda again had been like a knife slicing into his gut. He’d do well to think about the day ahead of him, not the years in his past.
