Judging Judas (Tarnished Saints Series Book 3) (3 page)

“
I’m the sheriff of Sweet Water,” he told her. Then he spied the plastic case from her relaxation and meditation CD lying on the center console and he also perused the tie-dyed sundress she wore. He reached out and yanked at the hanging crystal on the mirror, snapping the ribbon in the process, and dangling it in front of her face. “And it looks like you’re some kind of Swami Rama or a new age hippie. Don’t you know having garbage like this hanging from your mirror is what causes accidents?”

“Silver,
you never used to be this angry and uptight,” she commented. She reached out and grabbed her crystal from him. “And this happens to be my favorite dress as it has all the colors of the chakra in it. It’s very balancing.” Then she attempted to dig into his personal life to find out information. “You are acting very rude. I don’t know how your wife puts up with it.”

She glanc
ed out of the corner of her eye to see his expression. How he answered would tell her how to approach him with her next issue.

“No one calls me Silver – not out of the bedroom, Laney,” he told her. “And I don’t have a damned wife.” He turned his head and looked out the side window again. “Are you . . . married?” he asked softly, almost as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“No,” she answered, “not anymore.”

His head snapped around and his eyes met with hers for a brief instant before she looked away.
“Divorced?”

“
Widowed. My husband died from a drug overdose,” she told him, knowing this was going to bring up some questions that she wasn’t sure she was ready to answer.

“Really.
Sorry to hear that. But if someone is heavy into drugs, then that is the risk they take. I hope you don’t do drugs.” He looked at her sternly and she felt like she was back in high school being cross-examined by the principal.

“No, not any more,” she said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

The silence between them was deafening, and she hoped more than anything that he couldn’t hear the loud beating of her anxious heart. She was trying to decide how to approach the real reason she was here when his deputy’s voice was heard over the radio again.

“I’ve
cornered the suspect near Cross and Elm,” said the man. “I’m getting out of the car now with my gun drawn.”

“No!” she shouted, stepping on the gas so fast t
hat Judas’s head smacked back against the seat.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked. “I thought yo
u said this thing didn’t go any faster?”

“Tell him to put away his gun. There’s no need for it.”

“We’re dealing with a criminal here, Laney. He could be armed and dangerous, we don’t take chances.”

As she approached, s
he saw the squad car as well as a regular car with magnetic police lights flashing atop it. She came to an abrupt stop behind the latter one just as the deputy was getting out. She opened her door and had one foot on the pavement when Judas stopped her.

“Get back in the car
,” he warned her, pulling his gun and holding it with two hands, going up the window of the stolen squad. “All right, get out of the car with your hands above your head,” he called out in a loud voice.

“Leave her alone!” L
aney shouted, getting out of the car anyway and running up behind him. But she couldn’t get close because the deputy held her back.

“Her?” she heard Judas ask
, keeping his gun pointed and his eyes focused on the squad. The door slowly opened, and two feet clad in neon green sneakers slid to the ground. Laney’s daughter, J.D. got out of the car and put her hands in the air.

“Don’t shoot!” L
aney cried out. “Judas, don’t hurt her – she’s my daughter.”

Chapter 3

“Your daughter?” Judas r
epeated, thinking he’d heard Laney wrong, until the thief stepped out of the car and he realized it was not a hardened criminal, but a young girl no older than sixteen or seventeen.

Her hair was long and
dyed a combination of jet black and bright pink on one side, and her head was shaved on the other. She had a nose ring, a lip ring and an assortment of piercings in her ears as well ear gauges. She wore way too much makeup, her thin eyebrows looked painted on, and her black lip gloss shined in the sun.

W
ith her hands in the air and her fingers slightly bent he could see not only her black nail polish but also an array of colorful tattoos with a trail of black bats running down the side of her neck. She wore a spaghetti-strap black sun-top that hung down loose like a large handkerchief. And as Judas’s eyes moved downward he almost gasped when he saw her large, pregnant stomach jutting out just above her tight little blue jean shorts as she raised her hands high in the air.

“J.D
. are you alright, sweetie?” Laney broke away from his deputy and ran toward the girl, and Judas reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her in the process. Laney looked up to him, surprised, and then down to his hand on her arm. “What are you doing?” she asked. “And put away the gun already, will you? You can see she isn’t armed and it’s obvious at eight months pregnant she isn’t going to outrun you.”

“Laney, step away from the girl,” he warned her, lowering his gun, but not p
utting it back in the holster.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she
asked in a tone that told him she thought he was the biggest jerk to walk the earth.

“Damned serious,” he ground out. “This girl not only stole my car but also a woman’s purse.”

“That was only her emotions and hormones getting the best of her. She didn’t mean to do it, did you sweetheart?” She looked back toward her daughter.

“I didn’t mean to get caught, if that’s what you mean,” said the girl, snapping her gum loudly. Judas raised his gun at the sound.

“For God’s sake, Judas, put that gun away before you kill her,” screamed Laney.

Judas knew he got
no respect from his brothers where his job was concerned, but to hear her talking to him this way made him feel no different than Jesus not being accepted in his own home town. He was only doing his job, he reminded himself. But when he saw the fear and even a tear in Laney’s eye, he lowered his gun and put it away.

He looked up and nodded to the girl.
“Turn around and put your hands on the roof of the car.” The girl just rolled her eyes and snapped her gum again.

“Mom, call off the watchdog, will ya?” she said, not at all winning any points with Judas.

“Do it! Or I’ll pull the gun again,” he warned her.

“Fine!” the girl said and turned around slowly and put her hands on the roof of the car. Judas walked up to her and used his foot to kick apart her feet, then patted her down from behind, looking for weapons.

“Don’t touch me,” the girl complained, but Judas wouldn’t deal with this kind of behavior anymore. He ripped the handcuffs from his belt, pulled the girl’s hands behind her and cuffed her, reciting her rites as he did so.

“Mom, do something
,” the girl cried out, and Judas opened the door to the squad and all but threw her into the back seat.

“You can’t arrest
my daughter,” said Laney, grabbing on to his arm.

Judas looked back only
turning his head slightly and spoke in a low voice. “Unless you want to be cuffed and thrown into the squad next, I’d suggest you take your hand off my arm and let me do my job.”

“Shall I take this one
in as well, sheriff?” asked the deputy, his hands going for the cuffs at his waist.

Judas slammed the door and turned to look directly
into Laney’s eyes. Suddenly he felt like he was a teenager again, and they were reliving their past. He saw the same kind of hurt in her eyes that he’d seen the day he’d panicked and walked out on her on their wedding day. He’d struggled with his decision for years afterwards, and still wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing. He felt a knot in his gut and knew he couldn’t do this to her right now. Not after what they’d been through.

“No.
Follow Ms. McDermott back to the station, and contact Mrs. Durnsby as well and tell her we found the thief who stole her purse.” He reached into the front seat of the car and took out the stolen purse, rifling through it to see that there was still money as well as credit cards inside. “Tell her it looks like everything’s here, but we’ll need her to make a positive ID of both the contents of the purse and the suspect too, even tho I have all the proof I need. I’m sure she’ll want to press charges.”

“Sure thing, sher
iff,” said the man, heading back to his car that was nothing more than an old Volvo with removable police lights on top since the town was small and poor and only had one squad car.

Judas started getting into his car, but L
aney was still standing there. “Go on,” he said. “Meet us back at the station.”

“Silver, we really need to talk.”

“I told you, don’t call me that in public.” He hoped to hell his deputy hadn’t heard her. He’d tried to keep his middle name a secret and he didn’t want it all over town in tomorrow’s gossip.

“There’s something you need to know about J.D.”

“If you mean she’s out of control and has probably never had a day of disciplining in her life, I can already see that.”

“We raised her the best we could,” she protested.

“Laney, I’ve seen this plenty of times in my line of work. And it’s usually the parents to blame for not handling situations properly. I’m willing to bet her father was someone who cared more about himself than he did his own daughter and she turned out this way because she was rebelling and trying to get his attention.”

“You have no idea how right you are,” she said, turning and going back to her car.

Something about her agreeing to his statement instead of fighting him just didn’t sit right with him for some reason. And as he glanced in the camera on his mirror that showed the pregnant teenager in the back seat glaring at him and snapping her gum, he almost felt sorry for her father and wondered if this is what caused him to take drugs in the first place.

* * *

As soon as they got back to the police station, Judas dragged the girl inside, releasing her from the cuffs and had her sit upon a chair next to the desk.

He slid behind the computer, starting to fill out the information himself since the only two on duty today were him and his deputy
, Watt Morgeau, and the man had yet to return. He had another deputy, Bryce Thorton, but he as well as their record clerk, Carol were both on vacation. He glanced at his wristwatch, realizing he needed to leave to pick up his brother Pete at the airport and was already late.

“Name,” he said in a low voice, typing as he waited for the girl’s answer.

“J.D. McDermott,” she said, snapping her gum once again. Judas clenched his jaw, having had enough of this unruly teenager. He took his toe and pushed the garbage can toward her, and nodded.

“What?” she said.

“Toss the gum,” he ordered. With a sigh and another roll of her big green eyes that reminded him of her mother, she leaned over and spit it into the trashcan.

“
So why do you have your mother’s maiden name?” he asked.

“I dunno. It’s what she named me. I guess she just didn’t like her married name and wanted to keep hers, what
’s it matter?”

“Odd, she chose to keep her maiden name and give it to you as well,” he mumbled, continuing to type.
“So what’s your full name?” he asked.

“I told you. J.D. McDermott.”

“What’s the J.D. stand for?”

“Judith Delaney
,” she answered, “but I never use it cuz I hate that name.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the name Judith,” he told her.
“And Delaney is your mother’s name. I rather like it.”

“
That’s not the part I hate. I hate the Judith part because she named me that after my father.”

Judas wasn’t really paying much attention to her rambling.
“Your mother told me your father died.”

“That’s not who I’m talking about.”

The girl was being a pain again, and making no sense at all. “Date of birth,” he said, not really listening to her jibberjabber.

“Don’t you
already have all that shit from just running my name?” she asked.

He looked up and gave her his fiercest stare. “Watch the language, and just answer the questions.”

“Don’t I get a phone call or a lawyer or something?”

“Date of birth,” he asked again, his patience running low. “And enough with
the attitude. I’m going to have a little talk with your mother if she ever gets here. But with the way she drives, it may be a while.”

“
I’m seventeen, so you don’t need to treat me like a child. Besides, she doesn’t give a shit what I do or what I say. She’s too busy meditating and acting like a damned freak.”

“Cut the crap!” he told her. “Have a little respect for your mother.
And if you want to talk about freaks, try taking a look in the mirror.”