sour, beery vomit.
“You can’t do this,” he groaned at her in feeble protest. “I’ll file charges against you. I’ll sue you.”
“I can’t wait,” Des responded, putting her hat back on her head. “I’m just dying to tell my side to the newspapers. People will really want to entrust their life’s savings to a man who peeps through windows at little girls.”
“What… do you… want?” he gasped, breathing in and out through his mouth.
“I want you to leave the Beddoes alone. If I hear about you bothering them again, if you so much as blink at Phoebe, I swear I will break both of your legs.”
“You can’t threaten me this way. It’s against the law.”
“Understand something, Mr. Welmers. I am the law. This is my town. And you will live by my rules. Am I making myself clear?”
He nodded, ducking his head in defeat.
“Good answer.”
She left him there on the garage floor in his own vomit and went back over to the Beddoes’ to tell Felicity that Jay Welmers would not be bothering her anymore.
Then Des got back in her cruiser and headed out, taking no pleasure in what she’d just done. But it needed doing, so she’d done it. That was the job. It was not a pretty job. It was not a pretty world. She knew this. Nonetheless, she felt quite certain that she would never share the details of this particular incident with Mitch. He would not believe she was capable of such behavior. She adored that about him. And she wanted him to keep on believing it.
It was a lovely fantasy.
Ricky was waiting for her at the stone pillars that marked the entrance to Somerset Ridge, his basketball tucked under one arm. She pulled over and lowered her passenger side window. “Hey, Ricky, you got game?”
He had something on his mind, was what he had. He got in next to her and sat there squirming in anxious silence for a moment before he said, “Remember I told you how they were planning some serious antics?”
“Ronnie and his boys? Sure, I do.”
“It’s gonna happen real soon.”
“Any idea where?”
Ricky knew where. And when he told her she was shaken-it was probably her single worst nightmare.
But she did not let her face show this. She merely nodded and said, “That’s not antics. That’s prime-time trouble.”
“I know that. I-I’m scared.”
“Don’t be. You did the right thing, telling me. Everything will be okay, little man. You’ve got my word on that. Where are you headed now?”
“Home.”
“Want a ride?”
“Naw, I can walk.” He started to get out.
“Oh, hey, I’d take it slow with your dad for a while, if I were you.”
Ricky frowned at her. “Why?”
Des smiled and said, “He just ate something that didn’t agree with him.”
CHAPTER 11
Bella Tillis’s mud-splattered Jeep Wrangler, with its personalized CATS22 license plate, was parked outside his carriage house when Mitch got home, his head spinning and his limbs aching from exhaustion. Des’s trooper mobile was there, too, snugged up next to an unmarked police cruiser.
Des was in his kitchen hard at work on her fragrant concoction of black-eyed peas, ham hocks and rice. A cornbread was cooling on the windowsill, and a mountain of freshly washed collard greens was draining in the sink. Des had on a black turtleneck and jeans. She looked exceedingly uptight and, when she laid eyes on Mitch, way pissed. Not only was he a half hour late but he was filthy and stank of oxyacetylene.
“I’m incredibly sorry,” he apologized. “I just couldn’t leave the old guy. He was all alone and his work is all he has.” Mitch ran a grimy hand through his hair, still seeing copper rectangles before his eyes. “I’ll hop right in the shower.”
“Please do,” she said tautly. “And hurry.”
Before he could get there, little round Bella appeared in the kitchen doorway, blocking his path. “Hello, tattela!”
“Hi, Aunt Bella,” he responded warmly, kissing her on the cheek.
“I didn’t realize that you and Mr. Berger were related,” a booming baritone voice spoke up from behind her.
“We’re not, Buck,” Bella explained. “We just feel like we ought to be.”
Mitch was not prepared for just how huge Buck Mitry was. The deputy superintendent of the Connecticut State Police-the man whom Des and everyone in law enforcement called the Deacon-was at least six feet four, powerfully built and ramrod-straight. His hand, when Mitch shook it, was as big as a family-sized pizza. Mitch’s own hand disappeared in it. The Deacon wore a somber dark gray suit and he had not gotten comfortable-he still had his jacket and tie on.
“I’m really sorry I’m late, sir,” Mitch said, swallowing. Sir? Where did that come from? Mitch knew perfectly well where-Des’s father instantly made him feel like a pimply, horny sixteen-year-old with a condom in his wallet and not a thing on his mind but how to get his precious daughter naked. “You must think I’m the rudest person in the world.”
The Deacon towered there in the doorway, his gaze steely and intimidating. Clint Eastwood had nothing on this man. “It’s perfectly understandable, Mr. Berger,” he responded. “I’ve spent my entire career never being in charge of my own schedule. Take your shower. Take your time. We’ll be here.”
“Thanks for being so understanding,” Mitch said, smiling at him. “I’ll be right out.”
He hopped in a steaming hot shower, his mind still reeling from everything that Hangtown had told him. What had the old man meant by “the past”? Had he been referring to Crazy Daisy? Was her death connected with Moose’s? How? Should he be telling Des about this? Should he save it for his story? Or should he not even put it in his story at all? Because if Hangtown was, in fact, an accessory to a thirty-year-old murder, he could go to jail. And Mitch’s story would be sending him there. Did he really want to do that? What was his responsibility here? What was right?
Dazed and confused, Mitch changed into clean khakis and a blue oxford-cloth button-down shirt. His guests were busy watching the local Connecticut news on television. Mitch rejoined them just in time to see Soave holding forth for the cameras on his good strong case against Jim Bolan: “We have credible physical evidence that places him at the scene,” the muscle-bound little lieutenant crowed. “This is an individual who has vast experience with long-range firearms, a revenge motive and no convincing way to account for his whereabouts at the time of the shooting.”
Bella shook a blunt finger at the TV and blustered, “That little man has bupkes. If he really had anything on this Bolan, he would have charged him. I want you to know that the public sees right through this type of thing, Buck.”
“Yes, ma’am,” growled the Deacon, who seemed displeased by Soave’s performance.
Mitch went foraging in the refrigerator for a beer. Couldn’t find any.
“Did you leave it out in the truck?” Des asked him.
Mitch frowned at her. “I thought you were going to get the beer.”
“No, no. I asked you to.”
The Deacon was looming in the kitchen doorway now, watching them intently.
“Whatever,” Mitch said easily, even though he was positive she’d said she would take care of it. “I’ll go get some right now.”
“Not on my account,” the Deacon said. “I’m not a big drinker.”
