Lacy's End (16 page)

Allen shrugged. “She’ll be okay. I don’t think it was a deep puncture. It shouldn’t take too much to repair it.”

A surgeon, still dressed in a surgical gown, came through double doors that read NO ADMITTANCE. He began to strip off his gown and mask, wadding them up into a ball as he came to a halt before them.

He acknowledged Lacy and Angela but addressed Dr. Petoro. “All done,” he said. “She’ll be good as new in no time.”

“Assuming she doesn’t keep walking into walls,” Allen said, looking at Lacy chidingly. Lacy blushed and looked away. Allen extended his hand. “Thanks, Phillip.”

Dr. O’Brien grasped his hand, shaking it firmly. “My pleasure, Allen.” He turned and walked back in through the doors from which he had just come.

“Can we see her now?” Lacy asked.

Allen shook his head. “She’ll be asleep for a while.” He looked at Angela. “Why don’t you girls go and get us some coffee or something.”

“Okay,” she said, “but when I get back, I’ll get started on the restraining order.”

Allen shook his head.

“Okay, thank you.”

She smiled and led Lacy away.

Allen watched them leave. Then he turned toward the door Dr. O’Brien had come through earlier and found his way to Brenda. She lay sleeping in the recovery room. A nurse stood beside her, checking her vitals. “Hey, Dr. Petoro,” she greeted.

He smiled in response.

He let the nurse finish, and when she walked away, he picked up Brenda’s hand, cradling it tenderly in his own. She flinched at the touch, and he wanted to cry from the sadness of it.

As he watched her sleep, her face covered with bruises, a strange emotion filled him. He wondered just when he had begun to fall in love with Brenda Waldrip.

Sheriff Waldrip staggered into his office, slamming doors and upending chairs he encountered along the way. His deputies couldn’t understand what he was saying, but it sounded something like his wife was a witch who drove her car into a ditch.

Charlie Renton, his second-in-command, shook his head in disgust. He was fed up with the sheriff’s behavior, and he was just about getting ready to do something about it. He reached for the phone. It was high time someone contacted a higher authority.

“Charlie!” the sheriff shouted. “Get your lazy ass in here.”

Charlie shook his head, rolled his eyes, pushed himself up out of his chair, and began to walk to the Sheriff’s office. “Come and get me in five,” he said to John Thornton as he walked past him.

John snickered, waved him off and returned to reading his magazine.

Charlie knocked on the door and entered without waiting for an answer. The sheriff was rummaging through some papers, desperately looking for something.

“What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

He looked up at him. Charlie cringed from the snarl on his face. “I can’t find that damned restraining order.”

“How does that affect me, Sir?”

“I want you to help me find it.”

“What for, Sir?” The sheriff snapped his head up. “I mean, you know what it says, so why is it so important to have it in your hand?”

“Because I’m going to cram it down her throat.”

“Who, Sir?”

“That idiot social worker.”

Charlie sighed. He had been working for Sheriff Waldrip for five years now—five very long years. He had seen him in every kind of mood possible. If anyone were to ask him—which they never did—the sheriff was long overdue for getting his ass kicked out of office. In fact, Charlie had no doubt that if people weren’t so afraid of him, Peter Waldrip would not be anywhere near the coveted chair. Those who feared him backed him so heavily that they intimidated everyone else.

“I don’t think that would be advisable, Sir,” Charlie said, biting the inside of his mouth to keep from laughing. If the mighty sheriff could see himself right now, rummaging through stacks of ignored paperwork, and overturning vases, fishing trophies, and all sorts of his precious mementos, even he would have to laugh.

Peter shook his head. “I want it because I can’t remember the name of the damned judge who signed it.”

“Does it matter?”

“What the hell kind of question is that? Of course, it matters. I need to know who’s against me in this town. I would have laid odds there wasn’t a single judge who didn’t owe me a favor.”

There was a knock on the door. Both men turned and stared, unable to believe anyone would dare interrupt. A small man, whom Charlie recognized as a process server, waved to them through the glass. Charlie stepped to the door, opened it. “Yes?”

“I’ve got something for the sheriff,” he said.

Charlie held out his hand.

“Sorry, Charlie, I have to give it to him directly.” He stepped into the room, gave the sheriff the paper, and walked out.

Peter looked down at it. “What the hell is this?” He opened it, and his mouth dropped open. His face turned red, his chest nearly exploding from the increased air his lungs took in. The sheriff looked like an inflated balloon and Charlie considered running as fast as he could.

“What is it?” Charlie asked.

Peter let out the air in his lungs and dropped into his chair. “It seems they’re ganging up on me.”

“What is it?” Charlie repeated. When the sheriff only sat there shaking his head, Charlie walked to his side and held out his hand. The sheriff placed the document in it.

Charlie skimmed the notice, grinned, and said, “Well at least now you know the name of the judge.”

“Another restraining order? What does that woman think she’s doing?”

Charlie returned the document, shrugging. Inwardly he was cheering her on. He wasn’t about to make his real feelings known, though. He had to live and work in this town and take orders from this man sitting before him. “Maybe she has a hero complex. I’ll bet it all blows over in a couple of days.”

“Damn right it will. Just wait until the first adolescent tirade rears its ugly head. Then we’ll see how much she likes butting in her nose where it doesn't belong.”

Charlie pointed at the document he had just handed back. “Sheriff, that restraining order is for your wife, not Lacy.”

Peter looked down at it again, his eyes bulging as he read. “What the hell did she go and do that for!” He stood, grabbed his hat, his keys, and began moving toward the door.

Charlie stepped between him and the door. “Hold on there, Sheriff. You need to cool off a bit before you go rushing out to confront her.” He put his hand on the sheriff’s chest, restraining him.

Peter batted it away. “I’m just fine, Charlie.” He stepped around him.

Charlie rushed after him. “Why don’t I ride along with you?”

“There’s no need for that,” Peter said, but he didn’t stop Charlie as he followed Peter out of the station and got into the passenger’s seat.

Peter tapped the steering wheel as they drove down the highway, whistling some tune as if the previous fifteen minutes had never taken place. Charlie stared in amazement. Peter looked over at him. “It’s a mistake, you know.”

Charlie shook his head. “What’s a mistake?”

Peter chuckled. “The restraining order. That silly woman from social services is putting ideas into Brenda’s head. She and that doctor friend of hers. Brenda was just fine until those two came along. I’ll get it straightened out.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then, “He probably wants to bang her. I’ve seen the way he looks at her.” His face turned red, and his eyes narrowed. Then with a sudden change in demeanor to a calm and matter-of-fact tone, he said, “I’ll kill him before I let that happen.”

Charlie didn’t know how to answer, so he just sat there, grateful when the sheriff’s house came into view.

As they entered the driveway, Peter spotted a strange car parked there. He stopped at the edge of the pavement, squinting to see the plates. He looked at Charlie. “That car look familiar to you?”

Charlie shook his head. “Never seen it before.”

Peter pulled up behind it, parked his car, and slowly exited. He slowly walked around it, cautiously examining the interior through the windows. Charlie got out and stood to the side, arms crossed in front of him.

“Keys are still in it,” Peter said.

Charlie shrugged his shoulders. “Brenda must have a visitor.”

At this suggestion, anger crept into Peter’s face. He shook his head. “She wouldn’t dare.”

Charlie thought the comment odd and just stared at Peter.

When Peter finished his examination, he stood back, eyeing the car for a few minutes, as if the mystery might reveal itself that way. Charlie figured that if they stood there all day, eventually the owner would show himself and solve the mystery. He wasn’t about to wait. “Why don’t we go on in and ask Brenda.”

Peter nodded, walking toward the front door as he did. He inserted his key in the lock, opened the door, and called, “Brenda. Honey, do you have a visitor?”

There was no reply. Peter began to walk around the house. Charlie, growing cautious, unhooked his holster flap and touched the butt of his gun.

Peter began to walk down the hallway toward the bedroom, calling again, “Brenda? Are you here?”

Charlie took his gun out of its holster, drew it close, standing at the ready. They entered the bedroom, and the first thing Charlie saw was the blood. He tapped Peter on the shoulder and pointed at his gun holster. Peter waved him off. “Nobody’s home.”

Charlie walked to the bathroom, saw blood on the toilet seat, and called for Peter.

Peter entered the bathroom, puzzled at the sight of blood. “This doesn’t make sense.”

Charlie stared at Peter, registered the correlation between the restraining order, the blood, the strange car with the keys in it, and Brenda’s absence. His eyes grew suspicious. “What happened here?”

“I haven’t a clue,” Peter said. “She was perfectly fine when I left for work.”

Charlie remembered the foul mood the sheriff was in when he walked into work and knew nothing had been okay.

“I’m going to take a guess here,” he said, “that things weren’t as okay as you thought. It looks as if Brenda called a friend for help and is now probably at the hospital.”

Peter gave the statement thoughtful consideration, and then slowly nodded his head. “I suppose that could be the scenario.” He walked to a bedside phone, picked up the receiver and dialed the hospital. After a few seconds, someone picked up the line, and he asked if Brenda Waldrip was a patient.

“She is,” he said, turning to nod at Charlie. “Well, thanks so much, I’ll be right there.”

He hung up the phone. “Well, Charlie, it looks as if you were right. She’s there all right. Let’s go.”

Charlie put a hand out to stop him. “You can’t go there, Sir.”

Peter knocked his hand away. “The hell I can’t. My wife is in the hospital. I have every right to be there.”

“There’s a restraining order against you.”

“I told you—that was a mistake.”

Charlie looked around the room, surveying the various bloodstains, the overturned lamp, the bedclothes laying on the floor, the wall with a hole precisely the right height for Brenda’s head. He gave a slight nod in Peter’s direction, wanting desperately to grab his superior by the throat and smash his head just above the offending hole. He gritted his teeth and said, “I’m thinking not so much a mistake.”

Peter raised his hand as if he might backhand Charlie. Too late, he realized what he had done and pulled it back down. Instead, he walked over and poked him in the chest. “You can’t talk to me that way. I’m your superior.”

Charlie removed the finger from his chest, propelling it down to Peter’s side. “Right now all I see is a cowardly man who likes to beat on defenseless women.” He took out his radio, pressed the call button, and waited for an answer.

“Hey, Charlie,” the dispatcher answered. “What can I do for ya, sugar?”

“Hi, Carol. Can you send a crime scene technician out to Sheriff Waldrip’s house? It seems we got ourselves a bit of an issue out here.”

Peter grabbed the radio from Charlie. “Don’t listen to him, Carol. This boy here is talking nonsense. In fact, he’s acting so crazy today that I’m going to have to relieve him of duty.”

Charlie grabbed back the radio. “Don’t listen to the sheriff, Carol. There’s a whole lot of blood out here that we need to look at.” He looked Peter in the eye as he said, “I’m placing Sheriff Waldrip under arrest for impeding an investigation, and I just might add assault with intent to kill.”

“You two boys stop messin’ with my head,” she said. “Now, do you want the tech or not?”

“Yes,” Charlie said and signed off.

He stared defiantly at the sheriff. “Do I need to arrest you?”

Peter waved his hands at him. “Oh what the hell—it’s not as if you’re going to find anything. There’s nothing to find.”

He stalked off. Charlie didn’t stop him. A moment later he heard the car door slam and the engine turn over. Charlie knew he’d been left behind, but he didn’t care. He also knew Peter was headed for the hospital, but he cared little about that, too. It was likely Brenda was under some kind of protection. Hell, probably her new boyfriend was standing watch at her bedside, a pistol standing at the ready. He grinned when he pictured this.

Charlie surveyed the room. It wasn’t exactly a grisly crime scene, but it made him shiver nonetheless. He was getting tired of watching the sheriff push people around. This wasn’t some backwoods hick-town, after all. There were laws here meant to protect people, and Charlie had signed on to uphold those laws—with or without the sheriff’s cooperation. Perhaps he should say despite the sheriff’s interference.

Hector Avila walked in carrying his kit. “Charlie.”

“Hector.”

“What’s up with this?” He waved his free hand around the room.

“My guess is the sheriff got a little heavy handed with his better half.”

“Why?”

Charlie chuckled, moved his head back and forth several times. “Tsk…tsk, Hector. And to think I had you pegged as one of the smart ones.”

Hector opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it. Charlie said, “Come on, man. You aren’t seriously on the head-in-the-sand plan with everyone else, are you?”

Hector looked away. “We protect our own. You know that. It’s our oath.”

Charlie jabbed him in the chest with his finger. “Bullshit.” He lunged toward Hector, causing him to backup. “I took an oath to protect the innocent.” He clenched his teeth and stood towering over him. “I thought we went to the same academy.”

Hector nodded, swallowed hard. “You’re right. I guess I lost track somewhere.”

Charlie backed down. “Now, I got to ask, are you going to process this house properly, or do I have to do it myself?”

Hector shook his head. “No. I got it. You can count on me.”

“Swear to it,” Charlie said, his color slowly returning to normal.