After the Rain

way. Tug-of-war.

The kid came away wincing with red Indian burns on her arm.

The dark-haired one was coiled to hit back but Ace was up and moving, amazingly light on his feet for a man with a bellyful of hot hangover gravel. Going in, he noticed that the old guy at the bar had put down his beer bottle and stood, hands loose at his sides, watching in a certain way.

“Hey, take it outside,” Gordy yelled.

“Mom. C’mon, let’s go,” yelled the kid, grabbing at her mother’s arm.

“Not now, okay? Just, not now,” the redhead said. Then, in an eruption of nerves, she shoved her daughter away. “Look. Mom needs a time-out. Okay?”

“That’s it, hands off the kid,” Ace said.

The guy at the bar was bouncing slowly from foot to foot, watching them carefully with those flat dead lifer’s eyes. Ace signaled him, firm but not belligerent. Back off. I got this.

Gordy rolled his eyes. “Ace, you’re making a big mistake here. Walk away, man.”

Ace ignored Gordy, threw open his arms, swept the women forward, and marched them through the door. They banged down the porch steps and into the parking lot.

“What’d I tell ya,” the guy said as he and Gordy hurried out the door. To watch. “A cat fight.”

“I don’t know. I’m sure not buying this. Uh-uh,” Gordy said.

Cats?

Ace was thinking: More like cougars, jock cougars, padded with muscle. It took all his strength to move them and then a full minute to untangle them and get them separated. Enough time for several cars to pull onto the shoulder of Highway 5 to rubberneck the goings-on. Ace sensed more than saw the drivers hunching to their cell phones. As he held the women at arm’s length he was panting and sweating with the exertion, and his hangover had started banging like a drum.

But he felt good, younger, in step with fortune.

“Okay,” he said, “it’s like this. Red, you sit on the porch. And you…”

“Jane,” the dark-haired one snarled.

“Jane-you go stand by your car. We’re going to calm down for a minute. Then we’re going to talk, one at a time.”

“Where do I go?” the little girl said, rubbing a fist over her tears.

“You stay right here with me,” Ace said as he gently lowered a protective hand on her shoulder.

It took another muscular minute to manhandle them into their separate corners. Just about the time he got them quieted down, Ace saw the black-and-white Crown Vic with the Cavalier County five-pointed gold star come up fast and turn into his parking lot.

Chapter Five

County Deputy Lyle Vinson had graduated in the same class with Gordy and Ace’s brother Dale. With his bulk augmented by a Kevlar vest, Lyle looked like the product of a union between a fire-plug and a sumo wrestler as he eased from the car.

He hitched up his service belt and took a thoughtful sip from a twenty-ounce plastic bottle of Diet Coke, set the Coke on the roof of the car, and hitched his belt again. Studied moves. Letting some seriousness sink into this situation. Then he eyed the two angry women. Then the crying little girl. Finally he settled his gaze on Ace.

“Couple people called dispatch about a ruckus in your parking lot,” Lyle said. “Little early in the day for a drunk bar fight, ain’t it, Ace? Seeing’s how they ain’t been a fight at the Missile Park for going on ten years.”

“Nobody’s drinking-yet,” Jane said.

“Nobody’s drinking, period,” Ace said. “The redhead came to use the bathroom and the other one and her got into an argument, so I helped them outside and separated them and…”

Lyle held up his hand, “Let’s see some ID, folks. License and registration.” The two women went to their purses, then the glove compartment of the car, and produced their driver’s licenses and the title to the Volvo.

Lyle raised an eyebrow. “You just bought this car yesterday in St. Paul?”

“Yes, officer,” the redhead said.

Lyle took the licenses back to his squad. While Lyle ran his checks, Ace played uneasy referee and cautious explorer. He discovered that when he looked at the redhead, the resolution on things sharpened up and the day acquired this pleasing velocity. He listened to the suddenly playful wind. Felt it ruffle through her hair.

He tried to read the driven energy centered in her hollow cheeks, those hungry eyes.

Definitely strung out.

He could understand strung out. And when he dared to listen with his heart he heard a rushing, as if they were both leaning into the same white-water rapid that was about to sweep them away.

Ace blinked and caught himself as Lyle returned, handed back the licenses. “No wants, no warrants,” he said, then he knelt next to the little girl. “Hi there, what’s your name?”

“My name is Karson Pryce Broker.”

“That’s a lot of name,” Lyle said.

She nodded. “My dad calls me Kit.”

“And where is your dad?”

“At home, in Devil’s Rock, Minnesota.” Her lower lip trembled. “They had a fight, so we went on a trip with Auntie Jane.” Then she lost it and her whole face transformed into a red tear gusher.

“Oh boy,” Lyle said. Then he patted the girl on the shoulder, stood up, and looked at the redhead. “How’d she get those marks on her arm?”

“I was trying to move her out of the way so she wouldn’t get caught in between,” the redhead said.

Lyle eyed Ace. Ace nodded and said, “Wasn’t intentional.”

“Maybe I grabbed her a little too hard.”

“Just a little,” Lyle said, judiciously, with a whiff of copper menace.

The redhead heaved her shoulders and said, “Look. I’m sorry this happened. My husband and I had this ugly fight back home. So my friend and I thought we’d take a road trip. We were on our way to see the Peace Gardens.” She shot a cross look at Jane. “Looks like we didn’t make it.”

“We were doing fine until you got thirsty,” Jane again.

“Oh, right, as long as you thought you were getting what you wanted…”

The two women surged at each other and the anger creased their faces like war paint. Lyle stepped between them.

“See what I mean?” Ace said.

“Okay, okay,” Lyle said holding the women apart with his out-spread arms. “This is how it is. I want you two in separate corners and then you got thirty seconds to convince me this kid isn’t in jeopardy and I don’t need to call Social Services and stick her in protective custody.”

“Custody? Hey, wait a minute.” The redhead grimaced.

“No, you wait a minute. I bring in Child Protection and they contact Minnesota where you live for a background check. You understand?”

The kid sobbed, “I want my daddy.”

“I told you we shouldn’t have brought her. We should have left her with her dad,” the redhead said.

Jane toed the trap rock, said nothing, looked away.

Lyle laced his fingers together, placed them on his chest, and cocked his head. Reasonable. “Perhaps we could call her dad and arrange something. Maybe he could come and get her,” he said. “Then you two could continue to work out your problems, hopefully down the road in the next county.”

The tension eased a notch as the women looked at each other. Clearly there was room here to negotiate. Then the redhead said to her daughter, “Kit, honey, why don’t you go inside and play the pinball machine so Mom and Auntie Jane can talk alone with the policeman.” Her charged eyes drifted up to Ace’s.

Ace shifted from foot to foot, absorbing the redhead’s creeping voltage. “Sure, uh, c’mon, honey, let’s go inside. Let the grown-ups talk.” He held out his hand.