grease and fat. She always ate healthy. Low fat, high fiber for her, exercise for her, aerobics for her, vitamins for her, she wasn’t going to get the big C, no sirree. Well she did, so this morning she was going to have a bacon and egg burger, maybe two, grease, fat, cholesterol and all.
She sat back in the seat and ran her hands over the leather steering wheel cover. Thank God she was still fairly fit, but soon she would start to lose her strength and she wouldn’t be able to hide it from Rick any longer.
“ Are you thinking?” J.P. broke her train of thought.
“ Yes, I was thinking, remembering actually.”
“ About what?”
“ I was remembering the time I gave Rick this old steering wheel cover.”
“ Why?”
“ Because sometimes it’s the little things that are the most important.”
“ And it’s important that you gave that to Rick?”
“ No, it’s important that he kept it.”
“ I don’t understand?”
“ It’s a symbol, it means he loves me. He says he only keeps it for luck, but I know better. Every time we get a new car-or in the case of this Jeep, an older one-he takes this old leather cover off the old one and puts it on the new one. This cover is important to him.”
“ Why?”
“ Because I gave it to him and he loves me.”
“ Oh.” Then a few seconds later he asked, “Did he keep everything you gave him?”
“ Every lickin’ stickin’ thing.”
“ He must love you a lot.”
“ He loves me very much. So much that it’s sad.”
“ How could that be sad?”
“ It’s sad because if something happens to me, Rick will be all alone, and I think he loves me too much to be alone.”
“ That’s a lot of love,” J.P. said.
“ Yeah, Rick and I couldn’t have any children, so we only have each other.”
“ That’s Susan Spencer’s car. She goes out on the boat. You can park behind it,” J.P. said, changing the subject.
Ann parked behind a yellow Ford Courier and smiled when she read the bumper sticker on its tailgate. Fishermen do it deeper. She knew Susan, she owned the Tampico Diner, but Ann hadn’t known she was into deep sea fishing. She shut off the ignition, leaving the car in gear, and put on the parking brake. “Short drive,” she said.
“ We could’ve walked.”
“ We could have, but I felt like driving.”
“ Just a few blocks?”
“ I don’t get to drive the Jeep very much. Rick likes to have all the fun.”
“ Really?”
“ He thinks he’s a rally driver. He turns into a little kid when he gets behind the wheel of anything that has four wheel drive.” Judy opened her door and J.P. jumped out of the back. They were both too preoccupied with their own thoughts to notice the aging brown Ford Granada that pulled up and parked behind them. “Come on,” J.P. said, “we don’t have much time.”
“ I’m coming.” Ann followed J.P. across the parking lot. By the time she reached the pier, he was halfway toward the end and the waiting fishing boat. He looked so small compared to the big men fishing along the wooden pier, who all seemed to know him. This was a part of his life she knew little about.
J.P. turned when he reached the ramp and waved. “Hurry, Ann,” he hollered. Ann quickened her pace. She was almost to the ramp when she slipped on the wet wood and started to fall. Strong hands saved her from an embarrassing spill.
“ Thank you,” Ann said, looking up to see her savior.
“ Don’t mention it.” The man had a rugged outdoor tan and he had a Bowie knife in a scabbard strapped to his right leg.
“ You’re Captain Wolfe.”
“ At your service.”
“ Has anyone ever told you that you’re a brown-eyed handsome man?”
“ Not for a lot of years, but I’m glad to hear a pretty lady talk about these old bones in that light.”
“ You’re not so old and I’m not so pretty.” She smiled, becoming lost in his eyes.
“ I’m sixty-seven. Where I come from that’s old and you’re very pretty. On that I won’t be argued with.”
“ Okay, you’re old and I’m pretty. I’m also Ann, a friend of J.P.’s.”
“ You’re Rick’s wife?”
“ That’s me.”
“ Annie, tell him about the murders,” J.P. chimed in, interrupting.
“ Murders?” the captain questioned.
“ I’ll tell you all about it over one of those famous bacon and egg burgers I’ve heard so much about.”
“ I’ll show you to the galley,” the captain said.
Ann had never been on a sport fishing boat before and the notion that one would have a galley that resembled the inside of a roadside diner had never dawned on her. She wondered if the captain and Susan Spencer had something going. The decor in his galley wasn’t that much different than the decor in her diner.
Captain Wolfe yelled for the cook, then he apologized to Ann. “The galley is usually empty till we get out to sea, unless of course our good luck mascot comes on board.” He ruffled J.P.’s hair and the boy grinned wide. He would never need braces, Ann thought.
They watched the cook throw the extra bacon on the griddle and J.P. wiggled with anticipation when he heard the expectant sizzle the cold meat made against the hot surface.
“ God knows why, but he really loves our Seawolf breakfast burgers.” The captain smiled before shifting the subject, “Now, you were talking about murder?” As suddenly as it was there, the smile was gone.
“ Two of ’em,” J.P. said.
“ Let the lady tell it,” the captain softly said.
And Ann told him. She told him how Rick ran down the bum that had tried to kill J.P.’s mother, then she told him about the other one that had attacked Rick in the bait shop.
“ In your honest opinion, could your husband have done anything else than act the way he did?” the captain asked, when she finished with the story.
“ Not and have left Judy alive.”
“ How about after, in the store?”
“ I don’t think so. He wasn’t trying to kill the man. He was defending himself.”
“ Do you think he could have defended himself without hitting the man on the head?”
“ I don’t know, maybe, but he didn’t do it on purpose. Rick would never hurt anybody on purpose.”
“ He was in Vietnam,” J.P. said. “That bum picked on the wrong guy to mess with.”
“ Your husband was in Nam? He can’t be old enough.”
“ He’s fifty-seven.”
“ He doesn’t look much older than you,” the captain said, “and you can’t be a day over thirty.”
“ Off by fifteen years, but I love you for saying it.”
“ So not only is your husband a combat veteran, he’s also apparently in pretty good shape. That explains his quick reflexes and why he killed the man that attacked him. I would have acted the same.”
“ Really?” Ann said.
“ Yeah,” J.P. said, “Captain Wolfe was in Vietnam too. You don’t mess with guys like him and Rick.”
“ It that so?” Ann said to J.P., but it was Wolfe Stewart who answered.
“ When you’ve been in combat, you learn that when somebody is trying to kill you, you try and kill him first. If you live, it’s something you never forget.”
