A Man for All Seasons (28 page)

“Would you? Well, you certainly can!” She grabbed a cell phone from her pocket and dialed a number. “Hello, this is Mary Ryan at 123 Cherry Boulevard. I've got a vandal here. He's destroying my property! I've made a citizen's arrest. I want you to send a squad car to pick him up, right now!”

“Send one for her, too, she's growing marijuana in her front yard!” he yelled at the phone.

She closed it and gave him a shocked stare. “I am not!”

“You've got it in your hand!” he argued.

“This?” She held up the mangled vegetation. “This
is one of my prize tomato plants I grew from seed!” She gave him a hot glare. “And if you can't tell the difference between a tomato plant and a marijuana plant, you should leave drug detection to the experts!”

He pulled himself up to his full height. “I belong to the FBI,” he reiterated.

“Oh, lucky them,” she drawled. “Wait until they see tomorrow's headlines!”

“The police officer told you to pull those plants up yesterday,” he continued, hating to lose ground.

“He did, and I have,” she almost shouted. “I pulled up poppies. Poppies, Mr. hotshot FBI agent, not marijuana!”

His lips compressed. She sounded as if she was certain that was the truth. He glanced at her garden. Flowers had been pulled up and piled at the end of a row. She said he'd pulled up a tomato plant. It couldn't be true.

“You just wait until I get you into court,” she continued, cradling her broken plant. “My poor tomato plant. I'll have your badge for this!”

“You and whose army? And just what do you do for a living, if one might ask?” he shot back.

“I'm a deputy district attorney in the county next door,” she said with pure pleasure.

His face went very still. “You're kidding.”

“You'll wish I were,” she returned. “I came up here from Ashton where I was with legal aid, to take up my new job. I expected it to be a step up. Boy, was I wrong! I think I've moved to Stupidville.”

“I am not stupid!”

“Tomato assassin!” she accused.

“It doesn't look like a damned tomato plant!” he yelled back.

They didn't notice that neighbors were pouring out their doors into their front yards. They didn't notice the police car pulling up in the driveway, either.

It would have to be Jack, Curt's old friend, who answered the call.

“Not again,” Jack groaned as he joined the antagonists.

“He pulled up one of my tomato plants!” Mary raged, pointing at him. “He thought it was a marijuana plant! How did he ever get a badge? He must have stolen it!”

“It looks like a marijuana plant!” Curt defended himself.

“I want him arrested, for trespassing and vandalism,” Mary demanded.

Jack moved closer and lowered his voice, mindful
of the neighbors. “Can the two of you imagine how Judge Wills would react if this case went to his circuit court?” he asked them. “Miss Ryan, you don't want your first term of office to end in public disgrace, now, do you?”

She hesitated.

“And Curt, you don't really want to have to explain to a judge why you were pulling up a neighbor's tomato plants? Frankly, Judge Wills would rather have a tomato sandwich than a steak. I can't imagine how he'd react to a tomato plant killer. He grows prize tomatoes himself.”

Curt grimaced.

“So, suppose we just mark the whole episode down as a learning experience,” Jack suggested gently, “and go back to our respective houses and—” he cleared his throat “—have a nice, calming shower.”

They were both extremely dirty. Mary's white bathrobe was mostly brown. Curt's white T-shirt was filthy, not to mention splatters of mud on his jeans. His feet were covered in it. So were Mary's.

Curt glared at her through narrowed eyes. She glared back at him.

“We can settle the whole matter right here,” the officer persisted. “I'm sure Special Agent Russell would
be more than glad to replace the, uh, damaged plant. Right, Curt?” he added with a deliberate stare.

Curt cleared his throat. “Certainly.”

“I raised them from seed,” she said haughtily.

“I'll grow you a replacement from seed and sit on it myself until it hatches,” Curt volunteered.

The glare got worse.

“The gardening center out on Highway 23 has bedding plants,” Jack said quickly. “All sorts, from hybrids to those yummy Rutgers tomatoes that my wife and I always plant.”

“I won't be cheap about it, either,” Curt assured her. “You can have
two
Rutgers tomato plants. In fact,” he added, with a formal bow, “I will plant them for you myself.”

“Six feet deep and in somebody else's yard, no doubt,” she said with dripping sarcasm.

“You could sit in the dirt with it, since you're so attached to the things,” Curt shot back.

“I'll tell you where you can sit…!” she exclaimed.

Jack held out both hands. “Lady and gentleman,” he said. “If this escalates any further, I will have no option but to arrest both of you for a domestic disturbance. That will require me to take you both into custody in your present conditions. A reporter comes by my
office first thing every morning to check the arrest record,” he added with almost visible glee. “What a photo opportunity he would have. Wouldn't he?”

They looked at each other and then at themselves. Mary Ryan bit her lower lip hard.

“Two Rutgers tomato plants. Today,” she added firmly.

“Two,” Curt replied reluctantly.

“Then I'll settle for that and withdraw my request that you arrest him,” she told Jack.

“And I'll withdraw my request that you arrest her for assault with a deadly weapon.”

“Assault?” she burst out. “With what deadly weapon?”

“Biological agent,” he returned, indicating the mangled tomato plant in her hands.

“It's a tomato plant!” she almost screamed.

Curt drew himself up to his full height. “And how can I be assured of that?” he demanded. “God knows what sort of things are crawling around inside that thing. We all know that genetically altered plants are popping up everywhere today! There could be biological weapons concealed in its stem!”

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. “Quit while you're ahead,” he advised urgently.

Mary Ryan was fuming quietly.

Curt shrugged. “Okay.”

Mary didn't say another word. She carried her tomato plant into the house and slammed the door.

Curt went back across the street, past his staring, shocked mother, and straight into his own house.

Jack got back into his police car and closed the door quietly. And he'd expected a dull routine morning on the job. He had a feeling dull was not a word he would be using often while Curt Russell was on vacation.

 

After delivering two tomato plants to Mary's yard, and planting them himself, Curt showered and dressed and came back out into the living room, in clean jeans, a clean shirt, a sports coat and nicely polished black shoes. But he didn't get past his mother.

“All right, let's have it,” Matilda said at once. “What happened?”

He groaned inwardly, but there was no way out except through her. He'd never make it.

“I pulled up a tomato plant and she attacked me.”

She eyed him warily. “Why did you pull up a tomato plant?”

“I thought it was marijuana.”

“A tomato plant?” she asked.

“Well, how should I be able to tell the difference without a photo to compare to it?” he defended himself uncomfortably. “Anyway, Jack was with me yesterday and he told her to pull up the illegal plants and she said she would. Neither of them mentioned that they were talking about opium poppies.”

She grinned, because he sounded absolutely disgusted. “Opium poppies? Imagine that! Well, they are very pretty,” she added. “But they're illegal, just the same.” She gave him a long look. “Tomato plants aren't.”

“Oh, rub it in!” he groaned.

“Okay, I'll stop. What else happened?”

“I had to go and buy her two Rutgers tomato plants,” he muttered. “I just planted them. This way she drops the vandalism charge and I drop the assault charges.”

“She assaulted you?” she exclaimed.

He straightened indignantly. “She assaulted me with the tomato plant,” he replied.

She turned away, apparently about to choke. “I have a, uh, committee meeting later. Can you get lunch out?”

“Sure. You okay?”

“Yes. Just a cough.” She made coughing noises.
They didn't really sound convincing. “A bad cough!” She sounded as if she were choking instead of coughing.

“Well, I'll be in later. I have to check in with the district FBI office anyway.”

“I'll see you for supper, then.”

“Sure. Have a good day.”

“You, too, son.” She spared him a glance and looked quickly away before he could see how amused she really was.

He left, climbing into his sedate gray sedan with panache and without glancing across the street, just in case the garden commando opposite happened to be watching. He started the car and whizzed backward down the driveway, whipping out into the street.

There was a screeching of tires and a loudly blown horn behind him. He looked out the rearview window. There she sat, Mary Ryan, in her pea-green little VW glaring at him for all she was worth, where he'd stopped about an inch shy of her front bumper.

He waved at her in the rearview mirror and smiled brightly. She blew her horn again.

He took off slowly, not burning rubber because he belonged to the justice department. He made sure he did the speed limit right out onto the main highway.

She passed him like a shot when they reached the divided four-lane that led to the large city about twenty miles down the road. It was the seat of the three-county district court and apparently where Ms. Ryan worked. It was also headquarters for the district office of the FBI. Curt had a terrible feeling that both offices were going to be under the same roof.

 

And, sure enough, they were. He had to go through a metal detector, a nitrate scanner, and put the contents of his pockets in a tray before he got into the courthouse at all.

He had to check his sidearm. This required him to display his FBI badge. As he was doing it, the Tomato Plant Empress in a trendy gray suit with a short skirt and high heels passed him by with a haughty smile. The security guard grinned at her and let her right through. Curt bristled from head to toe as he watched her sail right by.

He finished with the search-and-seizure guy and wandered on down the hall to the local FBI office. The secretary had him sit down and wait because the special agent in charge was taking a long-distance phone call.

He didn't have to wait long, though. Barely two
minutes later, the woman smiled and told him he could go in.

The special agent in charge gave him a grin that made him feel as if his feet were melting. He didn't even have to ask if news of the tomato raid had reached here.

T
he special agent in charge, a pleasant-looking bald man with a little light blond hair named Hardy Vicks, offered him a seat. After his vacation, Curt would be reporting to Hardy. The agent in charge outlined a case they were working on in the county where Curt's mother lived.

“It's a real pain,” Hardy told him irritably. “This guy—” he tossed a photo across the desk to Curt “—Abe Hunt, is a government witness for a big media circus trial in Atlanta. They prosecuted the owner of a strip joint and he turned out to be a funnel for illegal drugs. Worse, he's got ties to organized crime bosses in Miami.”

“Why is that a problem?” Curt asked as he stared at the photo of a hefty man with curly black hair, dark eyes, and a broad face.

“We can't find him,” Vicks said drolly. “He's hiding out, because he doesn't believe we can protect him from retribution. He is afraid of a hit man named Daniels. The hit man is one of the best in operation. Anyway, Hunt knows everything about the operation, and we're willing to give him immunity and a new identity if he'll just finger the bosses. He was in protective custody in Doraville in a safe house. The agents with him were watching that new game show on television, and while they were shouting out answers, the guy walked out the door and vanished.”

Curt grimaced. “Poor guys.”

“Oh, they'll get over it,” Vicks said. “We've got them on surveillance watching counterfeiters eat hamburgers at fast-food joints.”

“Why is that a punishment?”

Vicks grinned. “They're both on diets.”

“Ouch!”

“Anyway, you're officially on vacation, but if you could keep an eye out for Abe Hunt, we'd appreciate it,” Vicks told him. “We know he's got two cousins up in your neck of the woods. In fact, one of them lives
just two doors down from your mother.” He grinned again.

“A deputy district attorney lives just across the street from her,” he pointed out with a cold glare. “Why don't you ask her to watch for your escaped witness?”

“We already have,” came the laconic reply. “She said she'd be delighted and then she asked if you were armed.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Excuse me?”

Vicks was trying very hard not to laugh. “She wanted to know if we let you have more than one bullet.”

Curt's mouth made a thin line. “She's a real pain,” he stated.

Vicks's eyebrows lifted. “Gee, you're the only man in twenty miles who could say that. She likes the rest of us.” He indicated a small baggie full of cookies on his desk. “She baked those and brought some in for us and the D.A. as well. She sure can cook!”

Curt thought he was going to choke. “Is there anything else?” he asked.

Vicks shrugged. “Not while you're off duty. Enjoy your vacation.” The older man shot him a wicked glance as he headed for the door. “By the way, the DEA says if you ever lose this job, don't ask them to
hire you.” He was biting back laughter. “They don't want an agent who can't tell a tomato plant from a…hey, where are you going?”

Curt was already down the hall, and he left the office door open on purpose, gripping the photo so tightly in his hand that he almost crushed it.

“Russell!”

He stopped just past the metal detector and turned. A deputy sheriff was holding out his pistol in its holster. “You going to give this to me?” the deputy drawled. “That's real neighborly. I didn't get you anything.”

Curt took the holster and the pistol and snapped it on his belt next to his badge. He didn't answer the deputy, but his eyes did.

He stalked out of the courthouse with invisible flames coming off his hair. This had been a real bust of a day.

 

It didn't get better when he got back to his mother's house. There was a big, rawboned red-coated hound dog sitting in the middle of the driveway. He blew the horn and kept blowing it, but the dog wouldn't budge.

His mother came running out the door, with her
finger to her lips. She motioned for Curt to let his window down.

“Don't do that!” she groaned. “The man next door works nights. He's trying to sleep.”

“I can't park the car,” Curt told her. “The dog's in the way!”

“I don't have a dog.”

Curt pointed to the big animal, which was now lying down in the driveway.

“Now, where did he come from?” she asked dimly.

“Why don't you go and ask him?”

She glared at him and went to coax the dog off the driveway. It still wouldn't budge. She gave Curt a “just a minute” sign with her fingers and ran inside. She came back out with a cube of meat. The dog sniffed and licked and then followed right along with her while Curt got the car under the carport and parked it, turning off the engine.

The dog was now sitting on the porch, looking as if it belonged there.

“You can't have a hound dog in the city,” Curt told her with a glare at the dog.

“Oh, he isn't a hound dog, dear, he's a bloodhound. Don't you see how long his ears are? Now how do you suppose he got here?”

“Hitchhiked, maybe?”

She gave her son another hard look. “There's a government witness loose in this county somewhere, hiding out,” she told Curt, keeping her voice down. “His cousin lives in the white house right down there.”

“How do you know that?” he exclaimed. “I've only just been told by the special agent in charge of the local FBI branch. The man I'll be reporting to.”

She put her hands on her hips and gave him a long-suffering look. “I worked for newspapers. I'm an experienced journalist. We know everything.”

“You're retired.”

She shrugged. “I saw his wife in the grocery store this morning. She told me she can't stand the guy, but her husband thinks his cousin is the berries because he knows everybody in the rackets, and he's best friends with one or two sports stars.” She studied her tall son. “I hate sports.”

“Me, too. She had no idea where Abe Hunt might be?”

She shook her head. “But she said she'd tell me if she heard anything. They are leaving town for a vacation somewhere. She didn't give me any details.”

He looked at the dog. “Maybe we should call somebody. Have you got a dog pound?”

“Sure, it's right out back…of course there's a dog pound! But it's being renovated right now, and there's no place for strays. Besides, he's got a collar.” She reached down to look at it. The dog wagged its tail and hassled while she looked for an inscription. “Maybe he belongs to the prison. The correctional institute,” she corrected herself. “I wonder how he got here? I'll just go phone and see if they know anything about him. Don't let him leave,” she instructed her son as she went inside.

Curt hitched up his trousers and sat down on the steps, pulling his jacket away from his belt. “See this?” he asked the dog, indicating his pistol. “You try to leave, I'll shoot you.”

The dog licked Curt's cheek.

Minutes later, his mother was back with a worried look. “They aren't missing a bloodhound,” she said worriedly. “In fact, they don't know of anybody who is. I phoned the sheriff's office, but they don't have any reports of missing animals. Nobody seems to have any idea where it came from.”

“It probably belongs to a neighbor,” Curt told her.

“Do you think so?” she asked absently.

Curt glanced across the street and scowled. “It's probably Marijuana Mary's,” he said gruffly.

“Mary? Oh, no, it's not hers. She doesn't have a dog, although she certainly has a place to keep one,” she added, nodding toward the old barn on the lower end of her property.

Curt stared at it thoughtfully. “Maybe our fugitive is hiding in there. Maybe it's his bloodhound. He had it come over to throw us off the track.”

She chuckled. “Great thinking. Well, I'll phone the radio station and ask them to put it on the local bulletin board. Whoever owns it can come get it.”

“And meanwhile?” he asked uncomfortably.

“It can live here, dear,” she said easily. “Come on, boy!”

She opened the door to let the dog in.

“You can't have a dog in the house!” he exclaimed. “Not a filthy, flea-and-tick-infested bag of bones like that! What if it decides to get on the sofa?”

She studied him curiously. “We never had pets when you were a boy because your father was allergic to fur,” she recalled. “What a shame.”

“I'm too old for a dog,” he pointed out.

“Oh, I don't know about that,” she said, turning to follow the dog into the kitchen. “Every boy should have one.”

“Then I'll go to a pet shop and get a German shepherd!” he called after her.

“Too big, dear. He'd never fit in this small house.”

“And you think that big red horse will?”

“He's not a horse.”

The kitchen door closed. He sighed and went to his room to change back into his leisure clothing. He took the photograph of the fugitive out of the inside pocket of his jacket and put it on the bureau.

 

The dog, christened “Big Red,” had been thoroughly washed and groomed by suppertime. His presence was announced on the radio, but nobody came rushing over to claim him.

That evening, he parked himself on the sofa beside Curt, despite the man's heated objections, and lay down to watch the evening news as if he were really interested in hearing incessantly about the latest political scandal.

“I'm going to leave the country,” Curt announced disgustedly. “That way, maybe I won't have to hear this congressman's name five hundred times a day.”

“It won't save you. They have our news everywhere now.”

“Humor me.” He glanced down at the dog, who
had his big paws crossed, his muzzle lying on them as he watched television. “This is interesting to you, huh? Don't have dog scandals, I guess?”

The big dog raised its sad brown eyes to his. It wagged its tail and went back to watching television.

“He's very intelligent,” his mother remarked.

“How did you arrive at that conclusion?” Curt asked.

“He's not bounding around the house trying to tear up stuff, and he isn't barking.”

About that time, the local newscaster came back on and there was an interview with the man in the photograph Curt had been given, Abe Hunt. The dog perked up its ears and barked, once, loudly.

“Hush!” Curt muttered, leaning forward to hear better.

The sound bite was brief and uninformative. The missing government witness had only said that he knew nothing and refused to testify. The newscaster added the information that the witness had since disappeared and foul play was suspected.

“He's probably lying at the bottom of Lake Lanier,” Curt muttered.

“If he is, dear, he won't come up again,” his mother offered nonchalantly, working on a piece of embroi
dery while she spoke. “The water's so cold that even spring heating won't send him to the surface.”

“You always come up with these fascinating little tidbits about dead bodies,” Curt remarked. “How do you know so much?”

“I used to date a coroner.”

He shook his head and went back to watching the news.

The dog suddenly lifted its muzzle and howled.

“Stop that!” Curt muttered. “What's the matter with you?”

The dog looked up at him and wagged its tail.

“He's probably hungry,” Curt's mother said, putting down her handiwork. “I'll feed him some leftover macaroni. Come on, Big Red.”

The dog answered easily to his new name. He leaped down from the sofa with fumbling grace and trotted off after his new master.

Curt gave him a long glare. This was getting to be one miserable vacation. First Marijuana Mary, now the Hound from Hell had moved in with his mother.

 

After they went to bed, the bloodhound padded softly into the living room, sat in front of the picture
window, and let out a howl that would have awakened people in the cemetery.

The doorbell ringing insistently dragged Curt out of bed, in silk pajama bottoms and no T-shirt. His mother could be heard snoring peacefully right through the closed door as he passed her room.

He shouted at the howling dog before he opened the wooden door. There was Marijuana Mary in an oversize navy blue T-shirt. She was wearing bedroom slippers, pink fuzzy ones, and her blond hair was standing out all over her head. She looked half-asleep and furious.

“Could you please put some tape around the mouth of the Hound of the Baskervilles so that those of us who have
jobs
could get some
sleep?
” she asked with venom.

“I have a job,” he pointed out.

“You're on vacation,” she returned. She had her hands on her rounded hips, and the posture brought Curt's appreciative eyes to the firm thrust of her breasts against the fabric. She cleared her throat and unobtrusively crossed her arms over her bosom.

He lifted an eyebrow and searched her eyes for longer than he meant to, his eyelids narrowing as he registered her sudden flush.

“Why do you have a dog all of a sudden, anyway?” she asked jerkily.

“My mother fed him and now he won't leave. Besides, he's interested in the evening news.”

“So?”

“It's Mom's favorite show. She's given him a name. She never gives up things she names,” he added with a grin. “She's had me for thirty-four years.”

“She should get a medal.”

“Look here, why are you prowling around the neighborhood in a nightgown at midnight?” he demanded.

“It isn't a nightgown!”

She glared at him, but her eyes fell helplessly to his broad, hair-roughened chest, and she couldn't seem to stop staring at him.

“Don't leer at me,” he said outrageously. “Sexual harassment of men is a misdemeanor. I could arrest you.”