Chapter 18
Lucy’s beloved stray dogs were sprawled on the porch when Cutter got home, blocking his path to the door.
The red cur lay on its back, gaunt and ribby, golden copper under the glow of the amber porch bulb.
The yellow dog raised a bullish head at the sound of Cutter’s footfalls, then fell back against the porch with an oh-it’s-just-you sigh.
Cutter slipped out of his boots and carried them inside.
He’d left them on the porch before his wife started feeding the strays.
He didn’t mind shaking out the occasional scorpion or wolf spider, but he’d be damned if he was going to give these curs a couple of two-hundred-dollar Tony Lama chew toys.
With no workable leads for the evening, he’d sent Johnson on his way and stopped by Randy and Shaun Erickson’s place to replace the shoes on one of their geldings.
It was relatively easy work, as far as shoeing went.
The horse was well-behaved, and their Great Pyrenees dogs kept him company while he worked without getting in his way.
He finished in forty-five minutes, putting him home by seven thirty.
Later than he wanted to be, earlier than Lucy expected.
He bumped open the door with his hip, surprised to smell the odor of butter and Cajun spices.
“Woman of the house!” he said, like the old days, before the cancer took root. He couldn’t remember the last time Lucy felt well enough to cook a fancy meal—and this one smelled awfully fancy.
Lucy peeked around the corner from the kitchen.
His breath caught in his throat when he saw she’d put on eye makeup and lipstick to match her bright red blouse.
He didn’t care about such things, but she did, and the fact that she’d taken the time made him hopeful she was having a better than average day.
“The hospital called,” she said. “Your armored car guard passed away about an hour ago.”
Cutter stopped cold, bracing at the news. “Did they give any details?”
“Sounds like he had some internal bleeding they missed. They got him into surgery and opened him back up, but it was too late. He died on the operating table.”
“Good to hear.”
Lucy frowned. “What?”
“I don’t mean it’s good that he died,” Cutter said. “I mean it’s good that there wasn’t any more foul play.”
Cutter left his boots and war bag by the front door, hung his hat on the peg, and stepped across the living room to give his wife a kiss. It was a small house, and he didn’t have far to go.
“True enough,” Lucy said. “Were you shoeing horses or hunting bad guys?”
“Shoeing horses,” he said.
She kissed him back, then scrunched up her nose. “I gathered that.”
“I’ll grab a quick shower,” Cutter said.
She didn’t mention it, but Cutter knew the chemotherapy drugs turned her normal sense of smell into a superpower.
He lingered at the kitchen door, watching her putter back and forth from the stove to the chipped Formica counter. She deserved a new kitchen. Lucy deserved a lot of things she would never get.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “I can finish up in here after my shower if you need to take a load off.”
She threw a cup towel over her shoulder and smiled. “I’m having a good day,” she said.
Good to Lucy meant not quite as bad as the others.
“I’ll hurry,” he said.
Gone were the days when Wayne Cutter could spend idle time letting the hot water bash away his aches and pains.
He showered quickly, taking care to scrub the smell of horse feet off his hands.
He resolved to shave in the morning, and then threw on an old T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. Both fit much looser than they used to.
“What can I do to help?” he asked before he even made it down the hall.
He came around the corner to find the overhead lights turned off and the table lit by two tall white candles Cutter didn’t even know they had.
Lucy reached up when she saw him and ran a hand through his hair, still damp from the shower. The glint in her eye should have made him happy. Instead, it filled him with sorrow. How many more times would he get to see those eyes?
“Seriously,” he said. “What can I do?”
“You can sit your butt down and eat dinner with your sweetheart,” Lucy said. She rested both hands on the back of her chair, breathing hard. She wasn’t coughing. That was a good sign.
She held out her hand like she always did when he sat down across their little table.
“You want to say the blessing?”
He prayed, but only because she asked him to. The words surely went no further than her ears. If God was in the business of hearing prayers, He surely would have done something to fix this mess Lucy was in.
Cutter said, “Amen,” and pushed the rebellious thoughts out of his mind before his wife caught sight of them in his eyes.
“Shrimp and grits,” he whispered, clearing his throat to hide the catch. “You know this is my favorite.”
“One of them anyway,” Lucy said. “Bodie sure used to like them.”
Cutter speared one of the spicy Gulf Coast prawns with his fork and swam it through the velvety cheese grits. “Amazing. This took some work …”
Lucy toyed with her food. “I enjoyed making it. Tell me about your day.”
Cutter gave her the minute by minute—including the way Sue Bryant had gotten pissed at him over his questioning her husband.
“You were just doing your job,” Lucy said. “Still, I’m trying to imagine the way I’d feel if someone accused you.”
“No kidding.” He reached out and touched the tip of her nose. “Mama Bear.”
“You make a good point,” she said. “Why would they take the time to break into the Bryants’? These men murdered two guards in the course of an armed robbery. Foster makes three. They’re looking at the death penalty for sure.”
“Yes, they are,” Cutter mused.
“Then why in the world would they stick around and risk getting caught?”
“I think they’re looking for the diamonds,” Cutter said.
“I do, too,” Lucy said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. But if they don’t have them, where are they?”
“I’m wondering if they were ever even on the truck. Could be this whole thing is an insurance scam.”
“An insurance scam that got out of hand,” Lucy mused.
“Maybe from our point of view,” Cutter said.
“Killing the guards could well have been the plan all along.” He took a drink of iced tea, then held the sweating glass to his forehead to cool himself off.
“I’m keeping an open mind, though. Don’t want the Johnson boy to get so focused he misses something important.
” He took another bite of shrimp. “The kid shows promise, but he still manages to make an ass out of himself several times a day.”
“And you didn’t when you were his age?” Lucy glanced up from her bowl. “Maybe he makes an ass out of himself because you expect him to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you really think Bud Langford assigned LJ to you as punishment?”
“I suppose not,” Cutter said.
“To get his sister off his back?”
“No.”
“To get LJ out of his hair?”
“Maybe.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Really? You’re going with that as your working theory?”
He shrugged, sheepish now.
“No.”
“He’s inexperienced,” she said.
“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
She pushed her bowl toward him. “I hate to say it, dear heart, but my mouth hurts too much for this. You finish it. I bought peach ice cream if you want to dish us up some and meet me in the living room. I have to sit my bones on something softer …”
“LJ knows he’s green,” Lucy said ten minutes later, when Cutter brought in two bowls of Parker County peach ice cream and sat beside her on the couch.
“You have to admit that’s a tough pill to swallow after he’s just come off six months of the academy and five months of field training.
Now the sheriff’s saying he needs even more time with a senior deputy—the dreaded remedial loop. ”
She took a spoonful of ice cream and held it in her mouth, eyes fluttering as it soothed the sores that inevitably formed as a side effect of her chemo.
“I’m not a training deputy,” Cutter said.
“He said you told him the horseshoe nail story.”
Cutter shrugged, sheepish. “I did.”
“You are a teacher, D Wayne Cutter.” Lucy wagged her ice cream spoon at him. “Pretty sure you were born that way. Think about it. The sheriff entrusted you with his nephew. Why you? Why not Morton, or Garza or frankly any other deputy at the SO?”
“No idea.”
“Well, it’s clear to me,” Lucy said. “And likely clear to everyone else but you. Sooner or later, you’ll stop calling him kid. You’ll treat him like a man, and he’ll start acting like one.”
Cutter ate another bite of ice cream and then sighed. “Treat him like he’s competent, then he’ll become competent.”
Lucy grinned. “As much as any man ever does.”
“You’re so wise,” he said, meaning it.
She leaned back against the couch cushion and closed her eyes, ice cream bowl cradled in her lap. Cutter thought she might be drifting off to sleep, but she suddenly turned her head to face him and held up her spoon.
“Maybe Foster shot the driver!”
“W … what?” Cutter stammered, taken aback at the sudden change of subject. He should have been used to it by now. Lucy was a master at veering suddenly into uncharted territory.
“Just hear me out.” She sat up straight, ticking off thoughts in the air with her spoon. “Watts stopped the truck without being forced. It stands to reason that he was working with the bad guys. Maybe they didn’t mean to shoot him. You said Foster was new on the job.”
“Right. A couple of months.”
“Think about it,” Lucy said. “A shotgun would be awfully unwieldy inside the cab of a truck, especially for a new guard under the sudden stress of a robbery. Seems like it would have been easy for him to panic and accidentally shoot the driver.”
“Then where did the diamonds go?”
Lucy looked up at the ceiling. “No idea,” she said. “But my husband is a kick-ass investigator. I’m absolutely positive he’ll figure it out.”
“Ha,” Cutter said. “Treat me like I’m a kick-ass investigator and I’ll start acting like one. … I say again, you are wise.”
She put her ice cream bowl on the coffee table and snuggled in against him. “I am pretty wise,” she said. “Wayne, I’m serious about what I said before. Bodie needs your help with those grandsons.”
He rubbed a hand down her arm, softly, so as not to hurt her. She seemed so incredibly breakable, like a look could bruise her.
“It costs money to move,” he whispered. “Money that we just do not have.”
“Wayne, I need you to listen to me. …” She met his eye, batting what was left of her lashes—the chemo had taken those, too. “Please don’t be mad.”
“Never.”
“I made a couple of phone calls to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement … the FDLE. Turns out, their Marine Patrol has several job openings. The captain I talked to sounded extremely interested in meeting with you. I told him the situation and listed off your credentials—Army Special Forces, sheriff’s deputy, investigator.
He said, and I quote, Day-um! According to him, someone with your experience who’s already certified in Texas wouldn’t have to go to a long academy.
Just a short lateral class to catch you up on Florida law. ”
Cutter opened and closed his hand, showing the skinned and swollen knuckles. “Luce, I am forty-six years old.”
“They pay well enough, you could stop horseshoeing,” she said. “There’s no age limit as long as you can pass the physical. You’ll ace that. Florida Marine Patrol would be lucky to get someone like you on the payroll. And you’d enjoy the work. They issue you a boat! You know how you love to fish!”
Cutter’s throat convulsed, making it near impossible to speak.
“Luce, I wish you’d …”
“Our boys need you, Wayne.”
“Why are you so fixated on this right now? We should focus on—”
She put a finger to his lips to shush him.
“You know those heuristic rules you had in Special Forces?”
He sighed, smiling softly. “I know the rules.” He’d probably not heard the word heuristic spoken ten times in his life, and eight of those times had been from Lucy’s lips.
“Don’t go anywhere for the first time became one of my favorites,” she said. “I didn’t understand it early on. But it means something like always learn as much as you can about a place before you go there.’ Right?”
“You could say that.” Cutter had no idea where this was headed.
Lucy took his hand in hers, running her thumb slowly, tenderly, back and forth across the scars on his knuckles. “That’s all I’m doing, lover,” she said. “Helping you with your research. Someday, and it won’t be long, you’re going to go places without me—and I’d hate for it to be the first time. …”