One More Knight

A chuckle reassured him somewhat, and so did the dry humor in the voice when it replied, “Nothing-I’ve just about been ma’amed to death lately, is all.”

At least, he thought, whatever her problem was, the lady appeared to have some fight left in her. He ventured, “Well, ma’am, if you want to give me a name, I’d be glad to call you that instead.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, as if it was classified information he’d asked her for. Then she replied with an almost inaudible sigh, “It’s Charly. Charly Phelps. Mirabella’s friend-from California?”

The light dawned. “Oh, yeah-the maid of honor, right? You’re comin’ in next week?” Then another light dawned, and he thought maybe he had the whole thing figured out “Oh, Lord, it is next week, isn’t it? Don’t tell me. We haven’t got that wrong, have we? Where in the hell are you?” If she was sitting in Atlanta at the airport waiting for somebody to pick her up, it would explain a lot.

There was a pause before the answer came, in a curiously hollow tone. “I’m in Mourning Spring, Alabama.”

“Alabama! Well, what in the hell are you doin’ in Alabama?” And why did she say it like some sort of doomsday curse? “You lost?”

This time there wasn’t anything equivocal about the sound she made. It was definitely a snort. “You could say that. Listen, when you hear from Mirabella, just give her a message for me, okay? Tell her-”

“Wait, let me get something to write this down on.”

“Never mind. I don’t even know the number. Look, will you just tell her I’m in jail?”

“Jail? Wait, did you say jail? What-hold on, don’t… hang…up…” But he was talking to himself.

He thumbed the phone’s disconnect button and put it down, then ran a hand over his hair, which was still trying to grow out of its military cut. “Oh, man,” he muttered. “Oh, Lord.”

Mirabella was going to love this. Just when she and Jimmy Joe had finally managed to get away for some R an’ R, too. Troy hadn’t been around long enough to get to know his about-to-be sister-in-law all that well, but it seemed to him she might’ve had about all the stress and strain she could handle lately, even for somebody as capable and efficient as she liked to think she was. First having the baby the way she had, then quitting her job in L.A. and moving all the way to Georgia, lock, stock and barrel. And now planning this wedding and trying to remodel the house to make a nursery for Amy Jo on top of it. Suffice to say, he was not looking forward to breaking the news to her that her maid of honor had gotten herself thrown in the pokey somewhere in Alabama.

However, if there was one thing Troy did know well, it was how to take control of a situation in crisis. And it didn’t take much for him to conclude that this was probably one he was better equipped to handle right now than either Mirabella or his brother.

Far better, he reasoned as he shaved and showered and packed his overnight bag with the efficiency born of long years of practice, if he just hopped on over to Alabama and took care of matters himself. That way he wouldn’t have to bother the happy couple with it, mess up their weekend in Atlanta and all. Shoot, the way he saw it, as his brother’s best man, it was no more than his duty.

And it would be a whole lot easier facing Mirabella with the news after the fact, when everything had already been straightened out.

So where in the hell was Mourning Spring?

He decided what he needed was a road atlas, which he was sure his brother would have in his truck, the big blue Kenworth tractor-trailer rig that was parked on its gravel turnaround out beside the house. Jimmy Joe kept it locked up tight when he wasn’t driving, mainly to keep young J.J. from playing in it, but that was no problem, either. Living where they did, in a small community where everybody knew everybody else, and Jimmy Joe being a trusting soul by nature, Troy figured he’d keep the keys in the handiest and most obvious place. And that’s where he found them-in the top drawer of the oak rolltop desk in his brother’s tiny, cluttered office, just off the kitchen.

He got the atlas out of the truck and took it into the kitchen where the light was good, where, with the help of a magnifying glass, he located Mourning Spring way up in the northeast comer of Alabama, near Tennessee. After that, all he had to do was put in a call to his mama’s house to let her know he was going to be gone for a while and to leave a message for Mirabella and Jimmy Joe, and then one last check of the house and his wallet and he was out the door.

Except that he’d forgotten about Bubba, who naturally had gotten wind that something was up, dogs having a natural sixth sense about things like that. All the way down the steps and across the front lawn, the pup did his best to get on all four sides of Troy at once, weaving himself around and between his legs and whumping him with his tail and slobbering all over him in his eagerness to be included in whatever that something might be. So when Troy opened up the back door of his brand-new Jeep Grand Cherokee and said, “Let’s go,” he almost got his legs knocked out from under him. Bubba shoved right through him and clambered up on the back seat, big tongue lolling and dripping, happy as a pig in petunias.

Troy was grinning himself as he backed the Jeep around and drove down the driveway and turned onto the main road. It felt good to be heading out on a warm summer night. It had been a long time since he’d had a mission-a place to go and somebody needing him. Okay, as missions went it wasn’t much, fetching a maid of honor out of a small-town Alabama jail, but it did beat the hell out of installing light fixtures and intercoms. If there was anything the past few weeks had taught him, it was that he wasn’t cut out to be a handyman.

Not that he had a clue what he was cut out for. To tell the truth, he’d never thought much about it. His life had been focused on training and conditioning, keeping himself in a constant state of readiness as a member of the most elite and effective strike force in the world. On missions the focus became the job, and survival-his own and that of the other members of the team-in that order. He’d learned not to think too far beyond that, nor to form emotional ties or acquire too many responsibilities.

Now he was learning that he was highly trained for a lot of things, most of which had very little application in a peaceful world. And that having few responsibilities and emotional ties was a sure-fire recipe for loneliness.

To drown out that thought, he tuned the radio to a golden-oldies station out of Atlanta and opened the windows and let the car fill with the soft June night and the sweet smell of honeysuckle. He rolled down the back windows, too, so Bubba could stick his nose out and feel the wind tearing past his ears, which he thought might be a dog’s idea of heaven. Troy understood that. He felt a little bit the same way himself.

He picked up an hour at the Alabama state line, so it was only about eleven o’clock local time-2300 hours by the way he was used to reckoning-when he rolled past the Mourning Spring city-limits sign. Though by the time he’d driven another two miles without coming to anything resembling a city, he thought the sign was maybe a little bit optimistic.

Then, just when he was beginning to wonder if he’d missed it somehow, he drove past a sign that said Mourning Springs Motel. It was attached to one of those places that always seemed to him to belong to the same era as convertibles and drive-in movies, a row of dismal little one-story units painted a sickly green with doors that opened directly onto an asphalt parking lot. He was glad to see, though, that the Vacancy sign was lit up.

Even more encouraging, B.B.’s Barn, which occupied a cinder-block building across the street, appeared to be doing a booming business on this Friday night, and one of the two gas stations on the next corner was still open. He didn’t stop to ask directions to the jail; like most men, Troy liked to do his own reconnaissance.

Which didn’t prove to be too difficult. The main road into the town, which was empty of both cars and people, led him right to the town’s hub, a brick-paved traffic circle built around a nice little park and lit up with modern street lamps to a bleached and ghostly emptiness. He drove once around the square, past a stately brick courthouse and old-fashioned stores that had once housed banks and hardware and department and drugstores, and a five-and-dime or two. Now the signs in the windows mostly peddled antiques and real estate and insurance and flowers. There were a couple of restaurants, one of the basic-diner variety, the other a pizza place-both closed and dark even on a Friday night. Mourning Spring was definitely a town that rolled up its sidewalks soon after the sun went down.

On his second time around the square, alerted by a sign that said Police and an arrow pointing the way, Troy turned down one of the streets. A block farther on, slowing for the flashing yellow caution light over the street in front of the Mourning Spring Fire Department, he discovered that the police department evidently occupied the same building, with an entrance in the rear.

He parked in the brightly lit and almost empty parking lot, ran Bubba’s window down far enough for him to get his nose out and told him to stay. Bubba’s reply was a whine, followed by a heart-rending howl that followed Troy all the way to the door marked Mourning Spring Police Dept., Ring Bell For Admittance.