High in Trial (4 page)

“Afternoon, Sheriff,” she said and didn’t even bother to correct herself this time.
“We were just talking about you.”

“My ears were burning.”

Roe was a round, balding man with an easy disposition and a quick smile. He’d lost
a little weight since the doctor and his wife had forced him into a heart-healthy
diet, but the most striking change in his appearance over the past year was the simple
absence of a uniform. These days he spent most of his time trying to coordinate a
volunteer cold-case squad for the neighboring mountain communities, and his uniform
was typically jeans and a sweater. Even Buck sometimes had to blink before he recognized
his former boss without his khakis.

Roe came into the office, and before Rosie could settle down for a
nice
chat
with her former boss,
Buck reminded her, “You want to see about that file?”

She looked puzzled for a moment and then remembered. “Right on it.”

Roe said, “So how’s everything in the law-and-order game?”

“Understaffed, overworked, underpaid.” Buck picked up the stack of mail and handed
it to him.

“Sounds about right.” Roe took the mail and glanced through it without interest. “Finding
plenty of spare time for all that paperwork, are you?”

“Not by half.” Buck got up and crossed to the coffee maker on a small table next to
the door—perhaps the only perk of the job. He poured a cup and offered it to Roe,
who shook his head.

“Guess that’s why you haven’t gotten around to filing the election forms yet,” Roe
observed.

Buck ignored that and took the coffee cup back to his desk. “Say, Roe, what do you
know about a felon named…” He took up the letter from the pardons and parole board
and glanced at it. “Berman?”

“Not a thing that I can recall.”

Buck handed Roe the letter and watched the other man’s face change as he read it.
It wasn’t a dramatic change—just a flicker of recognition, a passing shade of concern,
and then, perhaps the most telling sign of all, a deliberate smoothing of his features
into neutral. His only comment was, “Huh.”

“Did you send him up?” Buck pressed.

“Never met the man.”

“It’s not like they were releasing him back into our neck of the woods. Says there
his last known residence was Georgia.”

“So it does.” He glanced again at the letter and couldn’t quite hide the small frown
that creased his brow as he read the date. “Looks like he got out almost three weeks
ago. When did this get here, anyhow?”

“Just today. I guess they get backed up on paperwork up at the parole board, too.”
He looked at his former boss intensely. “What’s going on, Roe?”

“Nothing,” Roe said, folding the letter. “Probably nothing.” Then he looked at Buck.
“Listen, if you don’t mind a piece of advice…”

Buck managed to keep a straight face. Since he’d taken over the job, he had gotten
more advice from Roe on how to do it than he’d counted on, asked for, or needed.

“You need to hire yourself another deputy,” Roe said.

“I’ve been thinking about it.”

“You’ve been down two since you took over the job. You’ve got the budget.”

“Yeah, I know.” Buck frowned thoughtfully as he sipped his coffee. “Mind if I ask
you something?” Without waiting for a reply, he went on. “What do you think about
bringing Wyn back?”

Roe’s silence was about what he had expected and the only answer he needed.

Wyn had been Buck’s partner back when Buck was still a deputy and Roe was in charge.
They’d ridden together for three years before they realized their feelings for each
other went beyond professional, and even though Buck had been separated from Raine
at the time, it was their involvement that led to the final divorce. When he took
over as sheriff, Wyn voluntarily left the force, and town, for a security job an hour
away. Since then they’d been driving back and forth to see each other on weekends
and after shift, and Buck was
more than
ready to make some changes.

He said, “She’s thinking about moving back to town.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s she going to be living?”

“With me.”

Roe’s expression remained detached. “Reckon you all will be getting married, then.”

Buck couldn’t prevent a small flash of alarm, even though he half-suspected the comment
was just Roe’s way of needling him. He said carefully, “I can’t say we’ve gone that
far in our thinking.”

“Well, maybe you ought to. She’s a good woman. A good woman deserves somebody who’ll
put a little thought into the matter before asking her to turn her life upside down.”

Buck knew he was treading on uncertain ground. He had, after all, married and divorced
Roe’s only niece, not once, but twice, and he imagined there had been more than one
heated conversation behind closed doors about that. So he said, “Mostly right now
I’m just wondering what the rest of the boys would think if she came back to work
here.”

Roe nodded, his expression carefully concealed. “She was a good deputy. Well-liked
on the force.”

“Yeah, she was.”

“I reckon they’d just be glad to have their days off back.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“But it’s a small town, Buck. Something like this… well, it’s not going to win you
the election.”

Buck blew out a breath. “Right.”

“I’d think about it if I was you.”

“Right.”

“Meantime…” Roe tilted his head meaningfully toward the desk. “Get busy and file those
forms.”

“Yeah. Right.”

It wasn’t until after he was gone that Buck realized Roe had taken the letter from
the parole board with him.

And why shouldn’t he? After all, the letter had been addressed to him.

Sheriff Bleckley.

*
   
*  
*

Putting on an agility trial is hard work and the sponsoring club never has enough
volunteers so I like to help out whenever I can. But that’s not the only reason I’m
among the first to lend a hand when it comes time to set up the ring for a new course.
For one thing, volunteering to help guarantees acceptance into most trials, and in
a trial as popular as this one, that’s a huge advantage. In addition, it not only
offers a sneak preview of the course to come; it also gives me extra time to familiarize
myself with the ring and plan my strategy in my head. I could definitely use every
advantage I could get, but that was
only part of the
reason I was anxious to help out this time. Neil and Flame were still on the floor,
and being the naturally curious person that I am, I hoped to get the inside scoop
on their last run
before they got away.

He was in an intense conversation with a young woman with
her
dark ponytail threaded through the back of her baseball cap
like mine
and gorgeous legs
that were
prominently displayed in white shorts and high-tech running shoes. Reticence has
never been one of my problems, so I put a big smile on my face and approached confidently,
and by the time I realized they were in the midst of a furious argument, it was too
late to alter my course.

I heard the girl say shortly, “Do you think I’m blind? I saw what you did and you’re
not going to get away with it. And if you think I’m going to stand by and let you
ruin Flame’s career—”

“You’ve got bigger problems than Flame’s career if you think I’m stupid enough to
believe that’s all you’re worried about,” he returned tightly. “I don’t play by your
rules anymore, sweetheart, just in case you haven’t figured that out yet.”

“We’ve got a contract, big boy,” she retorted in a tone thick with anger, “and you
know I’ve got the chops to enforce it. If you screw with me I’ll have everything you
own, including your reputation.”

“Look at me. I’m trembling,” he returned. Red spots of anger started to appear on
his neck. “I ran her, didn’t I? I gave it my best and fullest effort, to quote your
precious contract, and if you have any doubts you just ask any one of the spectators
that were cheering in the stands. It was an accident, and nothing you can do will
prove otherwise.” His smile was cold. “These things happen. It’s all part of the game.”

She said lowly, “You fool. You have no idea what you’ve done.”

To which he replied, “I know exactly what I’ve done, and now you know what I’m capable
of, you selfish—” Then he noticed me and stopped abruptly, looking both annoyed and
embarrassed. There was nothing I could do but pretend I had heard nothing.

“Great run,” I congratulated him brightly. “That silent handling is unbelievable.
What a shame about the finish. What happened?”

The girl spun and stalked away, and the eyes that followed her had enough venom in
them to choke a snake. With an effort, he dragged his attention back to me. “Refusal,”
he said briefly.

I forced a laugh. “Yeah, I saw. She was going straight for the finish line, though.
I could’ve sworn she was going to make it. She’s such an incredible dog.”

The fastest way to any dog lover’s heart is to compliment his dog, so it didn’t surprise
me to see Neil’s expression soften. “Yes, she is,” he agreed, glancing down fondly
at the little dog at his side. She sat at his side with her eyes fixed upon him with
the same rapt attention she had displayed at the start line. “She probably got spooked
when I fell.”

“But she took half the course after that. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever
seen. It wasn’t until she was almost at the finish line that she turned back. I wonder
what happened.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know and she’s not talking. Anyway, there’s always tomorrow.”

“That’s the good thing about a three-day,” I agreed. “I hope your leg is better.”

He winced, as though being reminded of the injury brought back pain he’d forgotten,
and he reached down to rub his knee. “Yeah, I twisted my knee a little. I’ll ice it.
It’ll be okay.”

“If not,” I suggested with a grin, “you could just stand at the start line and tell
her what to do.”

It took him a moment to respond, and then it was with an absent smile that told me
I’d overstayed my welcome. His eyes were watching someone over my shoulder, and I
didn’t have to look beyond the cold anger in them to guess who it was. He said, “I
guess. Excuse me, will you?”

He dropped his hand to his side with a gesture that was so quick and so small even
I had trouble seeing it, and Flame fell into a perfect heel as he strode away, following
the girl with the ponytail.

I ran to join the other volunteers in the ring, got my instructions and my course
map, and paired with Ginny to set up the jumps. She was a cute girl in her late twenties
with short blond hair and a personality as chatty as her mother’s. I introduced myself
and congratulated her on a clean run.

“Gunny’s just starting out in agility,” she admitted, “but he
is
good, isn’t he? Of course, he’ll never be another Flame, but then I’m no Neil Kellog.
Have you ever taken one of his workshops? He’s brilliant. He has his dogs trained
to these hand signals he learned in the army. I’ve never seen anything like it. Every
obstacle has a number and he holds up that number of fingers to send them over. Of
course he uses voice commands, too, for some of the dogs, and in an emergency, like
he did just now. Is number three a wing jump or a broad jump?”

For a moment I thought she was still talking about hand signals, but then I glanced
at the course map and replied, “Wing.”

We dragged the two supports into place and moved on. “I couldn’t believe she refused
the finish line,” Ginny went on. “And then to back-jump? I’ll bet Neil was mad. He
always plays to win, and usually does, too. Win, that is. But to not even qualify?”
She gave a small shake of her head. “Crazy. On the other hand…” She brightened. “That
opens up the field for somebody else to win high in trial.” Like I said, she was as
chatty as her mother.

“He seemed to be taking it pretty well, though,” I observed, dragging the opening
of the tunnel to face the A-frame. “It was the woman who was mad. Who is she, anyway?
”

Ginny set the number cone beside the tunnel. “That’s his girlfriend, Marcie. Ex-girlfriend,
I should say. They’re both in our agility club. And she should be mad. Neil’s running
both Flame and Bryte this weekend, but Flame’s her dog, and she was counting on that
MACH.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. “I’ve never seen anyone but Neil run her.”

“They co-own Flame and most of the other dogs,” said Ginny. “She’s the breeder. He’s
the trainer. I think she’s always resented it a little that Neil got all the glory,
and of course, now that they’re not together anymore, it’ll be a mess trying to assign
custody of the dogs.”

To anyone but a dog person, that might sound strange. But in the case of competition
dogs, even more than conformation show dogs, this was serious business.

“She said something about a contract.”