Half Past Dead (12 page)

Her mind was on the past. She'd been the fat ugly duckling for so long that she couldn't conceive of anyone like Justin Radner giving her a second glance. She knew prison had changed her, but somehow the inner voice of the ugly duckling kept whispering to her.

You're repulsive.

Worthless.

Those days were over, she reminded herself. Now she realized how much of her personality she'd repressed over the years.
You've been given a second chance at life. Go for it!
She was a different person now.

She hugged him hard and pushed her body against his. Justin's hands slid down her back and cupped her bottom. He pressed her flush against him with a rock-hard erection. Oh, my God! She'd turned on Justin Radner! Could she handle this? You bet. She was a new woman.

Maybe Justin was one of those men who was duty bound to lay as many woman as possible in this lifetime. Tori always said a man's brain was behind his fly. Did it matter to her what Justin's reasons were? No. This undercover operation could get her killed or she could be sent back to prison. She was going to live in the moment.

She kept envisioning the same slow penetration of her body as the French kiss. He was huge, and sex might hurt, but she didn't care. Too much of her life had been wasted already.

She slipped her hands under his shirt and stroked his back. The corded muscles flexed beneath her fingertips. A low groaning sound came from his throat. She couldn't help being proud of herself. She was getting to him. Pretty amazing.

The creaking of the stairs and Redd's growl registered in her sex-starved brain, and she broke the kiss.

“Are you expecting anyone?” Justin asked.

“No.”

“'Ellooo.”

“It's Maria. I recognize her voice.” Kat went to the door. “Is everything okay?”

Maria was now at the top of the steps, carrying a glass dish. “I brung you dis. Enchiladas.”

“Oh, thank you.” Kat didn't need the calories, but she couldn't bear to hurt the young woman's feelings. She made so little money washing hair that Kat didn't want her spending money making food for her.

Maria spotted Justin, and her eyes widened with fright. “Maria, come in. Justin is leaving.”

“I am?”

“I'll see you tomorrow.”

Justin walked stiffly out the door, Redd at his heels. Kat couldn't decide if she was sad or relieved. Things might be happening a little too fast with Justin anyway. In her rush to rejoin the living, she could be making a mistake she would regret. He was a cop who could ruin her if he chose. She needed someone to talk to—a friend. She would try to catch Lola Rae tomorrow morning.

“Maria, let's put the enchiladas in the refrigerator.”

The woman's dark eyes gazed at Kat with fright. Kat motioned toward the fridge that dated back to the fifties. “Refrigerator,” she repeated, knowing the woman wanted to learn English.

Kat opened the door and moved aside the nonfat yogurt to make room for enough enchiladas to feed her for a week. “Thank you.”

Maria regarded her with solemn eyes. She couldn't be more than thirty, but Maria had a guarded way about her that indicated she'd seen a lot of the world and it had not been kind to her.

She pointed to the door. “He no tell Tony a me?”

“Tony doesn't know anything about you. The sheriff doesn't care if you're here illegally.” She repeated the message in her best Spanish to make sure Maria knew she was safe.

But, truth to tell, Kat didn't know if Maria was safe. Or if she was.

D
AVID
N
OYES DID NOT
have to look for a dog. One found him early the next morning as he walked out of the Shop 'N Go, a bag of groceries under his arm. He spotted two young children with a box of squirming puppies just outside the market.

“Wanna puppy, mister?” asked the little girl.

“They're mostly Blue Heeler,” added the boy.

David had no idea what a Blue Heeler looked like, but these pups appeared to be the local version of Heinz 57—coon dogs and inbred hounds. Still, they were cute, and he was in the mood for a dog. Loneliness tugged at him more and more these days.

“How much?”

The little girl giggled, but her brother kept a straight face, saying, “Free to a good home, mister.”

David put down his bag of groceries and inspected the litter. There were eight of them, but a tan one with a white spot on his rump caught David's eye. He picked it up and saw it was a male. The little guy licked his chin as he gazed at David with eyes like melted chocolate. Pick me, the pup silently implored him.

“He's the smartest one in the litter,” the girl assured David. “He'll make a mighty fine hunting dog, he will.”

David wasn't buying the intelligence bit. Clearly, the two had been sent by their parents to get rid of the pups. By the looks of it, they hadn't had any takers.

David cradled the pup in his arms and asked, “How big is he going to get?”

The brother and sister exchanged a glance. David bet the family had the mother, but they had no idea what dog fathered the litter.

“'Bout this big.” The little boy raised his hand to his waist.

Not too large, David thought. The pup would grow up to be the size of a cocker spaniel. A good size, David decided. The dog would fit nicely in the seat of his T-Bird. He wouldn't be too big to have around the office.

“I'll take him, but you'll need to hold him for me while I go back in the store and get some puppy chow.” He handed the pup back to the kids. “What kind of food does he eat?”

The two exchanged a troubled glance. Again, the brother answered. “We jist weaned him on cornmeal mush.”

David nodded, thinking the bitch probably ate mush, too. His experience in Twin Falls had shown him that most folks let their dogs run and didn't give them the special treatment city dogs received. But David needed his dog to be clean and well behaved if he intended to have him at his side most of the time.

He put out his hand. “I'll take him now.” He didn't add that he was going straight to the vet to have the pup checked and find out what the little guy should be eating.

 

B
Y THE TIME
David got to the office it was nearly ten. He'd left the pup—hastily named Max at check-in—to be wormed.

Coming through the
Trib'
s door, he saw Kat typing away furiously at her desk. She looked up with a suggestion of a smile on her lips. She shot out of her seat and headed toward him.

“Guess what?” she said, her voice low. “We're close to identifying the dead woman.”

We?
Justin and Kat. Quite a team. “Good work. Come into my office and tell me all about it.”

He sat at his desk and listened to the story of Justin tracking down Tony Mendoza, and Kat's visit to Pequita's roommates.

“At first, Justin wanted us to sit on the article until he receives the DNA results, but I convinced him to let us publish it, making clear it needs to be verified. Someone may come forward with helpful information.”

David couldn't hold back a proud grin. “You're going to be a first-rate reporter.”

Kat returned his smile. “You haven't seen my article yet. I'm almost finished with it. I need you to read it and give me your input.”

She bounced out of his office. Kat needed him. He liked that. Max needed him, too. He wanted to be more…connected. Life had to be about something besides work. He wanted the warm pleasure of being close to someone. He hadn't known he missed the feeling until the car accident that had so severely injured his back. Months of rehab followed. He'd suffered through it all alone.

What about Kat? She'd been deserted by her family and faced prison all by herself. He couldn't fathom what her time there must have been like. If she were truly innocent as she claimed, this was a major travesty. He was going to help her reclaim her life.

Helping an ex-con and adopting a puppy—never mind that the dog had peed on the leather seat of his meticulously restored T-Bird—were giving him an immense sense of satisfaction. He thought about his past for a moment. He'd been a brilliant reporter—two Pulitzers proved it—but when had he ever made a difference in a person's life?

Mentoring Kat had been a wise choice. She was catching on more quickly than he could possibly have imagined.

He forced himself to pull up the “dummy” on his computer and check the copy editor's layout for tomorrow's edition. As usual, Connie had done a terrific job. The news holes were medium sized, so the article didn't have to be too long. David knew the statistics. People rarely finished long pieces. Medium spaces were perfect for local events like car washes to raise money for the football team. They didn't require much writing, and left room for a photograph.

Trouble was, the
Trib
couldn't afford to send a photographer to every podunk event. They were forced to accept photos from participants. The quality was often poor—the
Globe
would have been shocked—but David had discovered people loved seeing their pictures in print even if the photos weren't great. He always gave the locals a photo credit.

He checked the UPI and AP readout to see if there were any national stories he could rewrite to make them meaningful in ten inches or—hopefully—less. He anticipated that Kat's article on the identity of the murdered woman would run above the fold.

Half an hour later, Kat rushed in with a printout of her story. He quickly read it through. It was good but…“I have some suggestions.”

Kat eagerly looked at him. He appreciated her willingness to accept criticism. She was determined to become a reporter. Already she seemed to have conquered what some reporters never mastered—the ability to get people to talk. Now, she needed to learn how to write articles with punch.

“I like what you've written. It's the angle that might need to be tweaked. One thing we learn to deal with is the ‘who cares' factor. Some articles rivet a community. Any kind of child endangerment, from kids left in autos in the heat of the summer to abductions and molestation, is red-hot. Why? Readers fear it will happen to their children. They'll read every word in such an article.”

“I suppose there's also a perverse sense of relief when you read about what you escaped.”

Was she ever perceptive, he thought. “Exactly. If there's a fear that it could happen to you or yours, paper sales skyrocket.”

Kat looked at him intently for a moment. “The brutal murder of an illegal alien won't interest them.”

“Not much, I'm afraid. They'll breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn't a local and won't even bother to read the follow-up article when the DNA comes back.”

“What happens to illegals isn't a threat to them.”

He noted a dejected note in her voice. “I saw it too often when I was a reporter in Boston. Deaths in Roxbury were of little interest in the wealthy suburbs. It just reaffirmed why they had fled the inner city. In the ghetto, violence was a way of life.”

Kat nodded, her expression grim. Prison hadn't hardened her as much as he'd expected.

“Do you have any suggestions?” she asked.

He thought a moment. “Spin it. Use the meth angle. Do you know how common consumption of the drug is?”

“Justin says it's the number one drug in rural America.”

David harrumphed. “In America, period. Housewives take it to get through the day, to diet, to cope with the kids. It gives you a cheap high that lasts for days. Its use is rampant in this town.”

“I get it. Show how meth is invading Twin Oaks and ruining our way of life. Pequita got caught up in a major drug operation.”

“You might hint at a possible mob connection. We don't want to slip into yellow journalism, but refer to ‘unsubstantiated sources' at that point.”

“Justin says there were suspiciously few arrests for possession.”

David nodded slowly. “I think Sheriff Parker let them off if their parents were wealthy or part of his good-ol'-boy group. A check of the records will probably show most arrests were in the north side.”

“I'll look into it.” She grabbed her draft off the desk and rushed out of his office.

He returned to the UPI and AP pickups he was rewriting. Most of it was dumbing down stories that had little to do with life in Twin Falls. He put them in anyway. A few people would read them.

Travis called with the filler articles about the PTA meeting, the proposed addition to the library that was rarely used, and, of course, the weekend's sporting events. David hated rewrites. All reporters disliked writing articles phoned in from the field, but it had to be done.

Sports was the most read section of the paper, according to a survey the last editor had conducted. David didn't doubt it. Sports
ruled
in the South. Right now, Twin Oaks was holding a noodling tournament. Catching catfish with your bare hands was so big in the area that David had paid a local wedding photographer to go down to the river. He was looking forward to writing the copy on the noodling. Last year, his article had been picked up by UPI. It was a rare day that a small-town paper could make any money from a syndicated article, but he was sure it would get picked up again. Noodling was off-beat enough to attract attention.

He quickly rewrote the articles that had been phoned in, then sent them to the copy editor. Connie would come up with the heads and place the stories in the news holes. No doubt, she would come in to see if he approved of her work. Connie always found some excuse to talk to him. He suspected she was angling to have her title changed to managing editor.

By now, David was basically finished for the day. He could have run the numbers on the paper's finances, but he was too restless to bother. Instead, he called the vet to see how Max was doing. The pup would be released tomorrow morning. David studied the list of things he would need and decided to make a stop at Wal-Mart after work.

A soft knock on his doorjamb made him look up from his list. Kat stood there, papers in hand, an uncertain expression on her face. He motioned for her to come in.

“What's wrong?” he asked, taking the papers from her.

“I hope this article is better,” she replied.

He quickly read what she'd rewritten, then gave her an encouraging smile. “Like I said, you're going to make a first-rate reporter.”

 

A
FTER THE MORNING BRIEFING
at the station—expect more drunk and disorderly arrests at the noodling championship—Justin studied the articles David had given him about Kat's trial. He agreed with David. It sounded like a railroad job.

Are you sure?
he asked himself.
Or is that what you want to think because you're hot for her?
He still couldn't believe she'd told him to leave after acting like a sex kitten.

He'd had to shift to relieve his erection and walked out of her place with a stick of dynamite in his pants. He was going to have blue balls for a week. The hell of it was he didn't know what to think about his physical reaction to Kat. Since his first sexual encounter at fourteen, he'd always controlled the situation.

But this was different. Why? He couldn't decide—and he couldn't stop thinking about her. Last night he'd dreamed he was making love to Kat on the banks of the Big Muddy, a ridiculous notion. Mosquitoes would have eaten them alive, but he woke up with a killer hard-on.

He needed to go over to the bank and get a feel for the others involved in Kat's case. Working hard should take his mind off sex. He left Redd shut in his office and was heading out the door when he decided to ask Nora what she remembered about the case.

“You did a great job downstairs,” he told her. He'd already complimented her in front of the deputies at the briefing, but it never hurt to encourage a good employee.

She beamed at him. “Thank you. I just wish I'd found the missing file.”

Justin nodded. “Do you remember much about the case?”

“Yes, indeedy!” Her voice rose several notches, registering her indignation.

“I thought you would,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “Were you on dispatch that day?”

“Yes. Cloris Howard called and wanted to speak to Sheriff Parker. I asked what it was about. You know, the sheriff didn't like to be disturbed after lunch.” She paused and measured him for a moment as if deciding whether to tell him more. “The sheriff needed a nip of bourbon, if you know what I mean.”

“I do.” He'd heard rumors about the late sheriff's drinking.

“Well, after lunch, he'd take a little snooze. I usually radioed a deputy in the field with any problem. Yes, indeedy, if you woke Sheriff Parker, he was like a rabid dog. But Cloris demanded I put him on. He bellowed at me, but when I said Cloris Howard wanted to speak to him, he immediately took the call.”

“Have any idea what was said?”

Again, Nora studied him and hesitated before saying, “I listened in.” She shook a bony finger at him. “Now mind you, I don't usually do that, but I had a hunch. That woman's been carrying on with Judge Kincaid for years. I thought she was doing his dirty work for him.”

Justin hadn't heard a thing about this. “Really? How did you know?”

“It's a well-kept secret because of the judge's political ambitions, but my sister used to be the judge's secretary until she died of cancer.”