Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Willow and Drew were sharing a basket of french fries from the local dive bar. Willow was in uniform, and feeling guilty as hell for spying on Jeremiah. Of course, she wouldn’t be spying on him unless he went back to the Bluebonnet Inn looking for his treasure. In which case, he deserved spying on.
Right?
“Too bad about the sketch this morning.” Drew dragged a fry through a puddle of ketchup on the way to her mouth. “You uh…worked with that sketch artist before?”
“Joshua Stone, you mean?”
“Oh, was that his name? I didn’t remember.”
“You’re not s’posed to be interested in men at the moment, according to what you’ve been saying for the past—”
“Yeah, well, you’re not s’posed to be spyin’ on your boyfriend, so—”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
‘Cause you slept with him just the one time.” Sarcasm dripped like ice cream in the Sonoran.
Willow shifted her gaze left, shrugged one shoulder, and said, “So far.”
Drew burst out laughing and Willow grabbed a French fry. The pile was dwindling. Her text beeped. She looked at it and muttered, “Speak of the devil,” and showed Drew the phone.
Hot Gringo: I have a problem.
“You have him listed as Hot Gringo in your contacts?”
“His ringtone’s that gunfighter riff. You know the one I mean? Wait, I know.” She texted Jeremiah, “Call me.”
A second later, he did, and her phone played the opening guitar riff of the Gunfighter Ballad, Melody of the Old West.
Willow was grinning, but Drew gaped at her, so she stopped grinning and asked, “What?”
“You…made him a custom ringtone. On your phone. And named him Hot Gringo.”
“And?” Willow asked, awaiting a reply that made sense while the guitar continued playing on her phone.
“Well, go on, answer it, I don’t need to hear the whole dang song.”
Willow answered the call, irritated that Drew was reading so much into things. She needn’t worry, Willow was a grown-arse woman and knew what she was doing.
“Hey,” she said toward the phone. “Drew and I are sittin’ at The Waterin’ Hole. I figured it was easier to talk than text. What’s up?”
“I’m not far away. Can I show you?”
Drew widened her eyes. “You should know you’re on speaker, there mister ‘can I show you?’” she said, dropping her voice way down low when quoting him.
“I didn’t mean…I’m almost there. Meet me in the parkin’ lot?”
“I gotta get to work pretty quick anyway,” Willow said. “See you soon.” She disconnected, then put cash on the table for the fries and the sweet teas they’d drank. Grabbing one last fry, she pushed back her chair. Drew came with her.
“You didn’t have to buy,” Drew said.
“Well, for now, I’m employed and you’re not, Nancy Drew.”
She made a face and shuddered. “I’m so glad they didn’t name me Nancy.”
“Try bein’ Deputy Willow,” she replied. “Criminals shudder at the name. But only cause they’re gigglin’.”
Drew laughed, lowering her head to hide it and failing. “Back on topic, Mom pays me and Orrin to help out, and we learn the biz while we’re at it. It’s a good deal.”
Will looked at her. “I should be payin’ you, too. But if I did, it would be official, and I can’t officially hire you, because then there’s a paper trail, and it’s not like I’m really investigatin’ him anyway—”
“You don’t have to pay me,” she said. “For this, I mean. If I help with real cases, then, yeah. I’ll accept a fee. This here is…sister to sister, even though we’re only cousins.”
“We’re way more than cousins.” Willow slid a hand over Drew’s, then ruined the sappy moment by adding, “Nancy.”
They were outside in the parking lot. It was warm, but the days were marginally cooler as September edged in. Jeremiah’s copper colored Jeep had just rolled to a stop in a spot a few yards away, so they sauntered over there. And then he opened the driver’s door, and—
“Oh my Lord, a puppy!” Drew squeaked as the puppy leaped out and raced toward her. She scooped the little guy right up. His long legs kept sliding down her. He was almost too much for her to hold.
“Is that the one you saved from the river?” Willow asked.
“He saved a puppy? From the river?”
Drew was gone. Charmed by the enemy and his cute companion. Willow was going to need another ally. She faced Jeremiah again. He was standing, and he handed her a sheet of paper with Frankie’s note on it.
She read it and her eyes burned. “That’s so sad.”
“I know. But what can I do?”
“Well, for starters, you have to make sure the kid sees him every weekend, at the bare minimum.”
“But—”
“What’s his name?” Drew asked.
“Beans.”
“Oh, Beanie, Beanie, Beanie,” she sang. “What a good boy you are. Yes, you are, Beans, you’re a good, good boy!” The pup wriggled with so much joy, Willow didn’t know how Drew didn’t drop him.
“I didn’t plan to…you know, keep him,” Jeremiah said.
Drew, Willow, and Beans all looked at him in horror, then Willow showed Drew the note, so she could get the full impact, then held Jeremiah’s eyes while she read it, and crossed her arms over her chest.
He said, “Well, I mean, I don’t even have a place of my own yet, and when I do—”
“Nobody’s fixin’ to worry about a dog in the bunkhouse,” Willow replied.
“Beans wouldn’t even be the first,” Drew added, and the dog started wriggling again, so she took him back to the Jeep, and set him on the driver’s seat. She closed the door, to keep him in. A parking lot with rigs rolling in and out was no place for a fearless puppy.
He sat behind the wheel as if he were planning to drive, and she loved on him through the rolled down window.
“Are you sure that’s the same dog?” Willow asked. “He seems a lot bigger.”
“Well, it’s been almost a week.”
She tilted her head at him. “That’s not very long.”
“You have to keep him,” Drew called back from the Jeep a few yards away. “That little boy’s countin’ on you. He trusted you with him. You can’t betray that.”
“I can’t?” He looked at Willow.
She shook her head side to side and wondered why he was asking her.
But he sighed as if she had determined his fate. “Well, I guess—”
“Yay!” Drew raised both fists, then quickly resumed petting the pup through window. “Everyone can meet him at the bonfire tomorrow night.” Her phone signaled. Drew pulled it out and said, “I need to take this,” and wandered a few cars away for privacy.
Willow wondered if it was a certain art major and part-time sketch artist.
Jeremiah said, “So you’ve seen how my day went. How was yours?”
“Got all pumped up about an eyewitness who saw someone at that house that was vandalized, but it turns out she only saw the owner.”
“That’s too bad. You seem…bothered by it.”
“I called in a sketch artist. That’s department resources I spent, and it amounted to nothing. I think I might be the worst cop on the planet.”
“You’re not. You’re a good cop. I found a lead because of you today,” he said.
She raised her head and her eyebrows. “You did?”
“Yep. I was at the WTD. My old man ate there frequently according to your uncle’s notes, which you kindly got for me. And I talked to the owner, Marvella.”
She smiled and said, “Marv’s a character, isn’t she?” And he nodded, smiling. “Did she remember him?”
“She remembered him bringing Juanita Lopez with him to eat one time. She thought there was something going on between them.”
“Juanita was still a teenager,” she said. “Was she sure?”
He shrugged. “She seemed pretty sure.”
Willow frowned. “Juanita told us she barely exchanged two sentences with him.”
“Yeah, she did.”
“That’s curious.”
“I thought so, too,” he said. “Maybe we can look into her a little more deeply.”
Was he pushing again for her to do a background check? “That would be illegal,” she said softly. She stood there facing him, about two feet between them in the parking lot. A dust devil rose like a miniature twister between them. Her heart hurt.
“No,” he said quickly. “But maybe you know of some way I could. You know, legally.”
Seriously? Was she buying this? Had he really not meant what he’d obviously meant for the second time?
She started talking just to outshout the whirlwind in her mind.
It felt like that dust devil had slid right inside her head and grown into a full-blown twister.
“You could go to the county seat, run through all public records bearing her name,” she said.
“Maybe narrow it down by checking the year your father was here, maybe a year before and after. See if you find anything that links them.”
“I can do that. Yeah, I can do that.”
Her watch signaled her and she glanced down at it to see her alarm. “I gotta go, I’m on duty,” she said. “Before I do, do you know if there’s another Jeep like yours in town? That same rusty orange color?”
He frowned at her, and she could’ve sworn an invisible shield slammed down over his eyes, and a gulf opened between them. “Not that I know of. Why?”
“Ah, it’s the only other clue to the vandalism. Homeowner said he saw a copper-colored Jeep near the scene.”
His posture changed. He drew himself inward, his chin pulled back, and he even leaned away from her.
“So, I’m being accused again?”
“No! I know it wasn’t you. I was with you at the time.”
“Well, then what the hell is this?” He asked it in a voice that had gone louder.
Drew turned from the Jeep, where she’d returned to puppy-loving, her face an unspoken threat.
Willow held her palm downward to tell her to cool her jets. “What do you mean?” she asked softly. “I wasn’t accusing you of anyth—”
“But somebody was. Somebody says they saw my Jeep at the scene of a crime. A few days ago somebody said they saw me smashing the drug store window. So what’s going on?”
“You think it’s connected?” Willow asked.
“I think somebody’s messing with me.”
“It could be a coincidence,” she said.
“Or it could be I’m the only ex-con in town.” He lowered his head, shaking it slow. “I guess that priceless Brand connection only goes so far.”